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The Monastery of Hayk.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

If we mention the monastery of Hayk (or Hayq) among the three chosen for this dossier, it is certainly not because of the importance it has nowadays, but because of the one it had in the past, especially during the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, and because of its connection and that of its founder, Iyasus Mo’a, with the monasteries of Debre Damo and Debre Libanos.

The modern city of Hayk is located on the main road which goes to the north, about 60 km north of Dessie in the administrative Zone of South Wollo. It is named after a small lake 6.7 km long by 6 km wide in a flat and fertile land. Hayk means precisely ‘lake’. On a small island, which is now linked with the main land forming a peninsula, a church of Axumite style was built in the eighth century and dedicated to St. Stephen. It was destroyed by the Muslim condotiero Ahmed Grañ in 1531 and rebuilt more than once.

The importance of Hayk begins in the thirteenth century when Iyasus Mo’a founded a monastery on the island. Iyasus Mo’a lived between 1214 and 1293. We know about his life from his Acts or Gedle Iyasus Mo’a, which were written in the fifteenth century and underwent various modifications over time. There is more than one version. All that raises serious doubts about their historical value. From the information they give we can conclude that Iyesus Mo’a was a monk in the monastery of Debre Damo where, after seven years of novitiate, he received his monastic habit from Abad Yohanni. From Debre Damo he moved to the island of Hayk, next to the church of San Esteban. There he founded his own monastery, which soon became famous and influential. From it would come out five great personalities that are known as the five ‘lights’. The most shining one was Tekle Haimanot, future founder of the Debre Libanos monastery.
According to some of the versions, the greatness of the monastery would also be linked to the prominent role that Iyasus Mo’a played in the restoration of the so called Solomonic dynasty, which occurred in 1270. It is said that the first king of this dynasty, Yekuno Amlak, was in his youth a novice in Hayk and was educated by Iyasu Mo’a.

Yekuno Amlak, an alleged descendant of the ancient kings of Axsum, of Semitic stock and language, defeated Yitbarek, the last king of the Zagwe dynasty, of which the greatest figure was King Lalibela, builder of the churches of the city that bears his name. The kings of the Zagwe dynasty were Agaw, of Hamitic stock, and considered usurpers by the Semitic people. In gratitude for the support of Iyasus Mo’a, Yekuno Amlak granted the monastery the entire island, sending away the inhabitants who were not monks.
The intervention of Iyesus Mo’a in the restoration of the Solomonic dynasty is in contrast with other sources which attribute this merit to Tekle Haimanot. It is not infrequent in the Acts or Geldes that they attribute the same episodes, virtues or miracles to several saints.

From the sixteenth century, after being destroyed by the Muslim leader Ahmed Grañ in 1532, Hayk’s monastery no longer saw moments of splendor. On the contrary, it gradually lost importance, especially in front of the monastery of Debre Libanos. Between the two there was always a latent competition. In the various controversies that took place throughout history between the ‘House of Ewostatewos’ and the ‘House of Tekle Hamanot’, the monastery of Hayk, being geographically more connected with the north, was preferably in the sphere of the first.
In the dispute that took place around the’anointing’ of the humanity of Jesus, Hayk defended the thesis called qarra (knife) against the other two schools called qebat (anointing), followed in Gojjam, and Sost Lidet (three births) or Ye-tsegga lij (Son of grace), led by Debre Libanos and followed in the monasteries of the south. This controversy lasted from the end of seventeenth century until the late nineteenth and was a bitter one, creating a deep division both in the Orthodox Church as such and specifically in monastic life. It went to the extent that in monasteries such as Waldebba, where there were monks belonging to different tendencies, they did not want to celebrate the Eucharist together. Emperor Yohannes IV settled the dispute in 1878 by forcibly imposing the thesis of qarra, which adopted the name of tewahedo (union).

Both the monastery and the church that can be visited today in St. Stephen of Hayk are of relatively recent construction and offer no particular interest. Most worthy of note in the monastery is its museum, which exhibits a series of pieces that are not easy to find elsewhere. The most notable is a manuscript of the Book of the Gospels written between 1280 and 1281, which is considered the oldest manuscript existing today in Ethiopia. There is also a large stone cross attributed to Iyasus Mo’a and another stone that is said to be an altar where the pagans used to make sacrifices before being converted to Christianity by the holy founder. The museum also exhibits a huge wooden container used to prepare the ingera (local bread) and other kitchen utensils, all coming from the thirteenth century.
Juan Gonzáles Núñez

Africa/China. Chinese Investments in African High Technology.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

Chinese high-tech companies are banking on Africa, especially on the ‘Silicon Savannah’ of Nairobi, to develop strategies aimed at satisfying emerging markets. The unknown factor is the collection and management of mega-data

Of all the roughly 200 technological hubs in the emerging African market, the Nairobi cluster stands out, so much so that it has earned the nickname of the Silicon Savannah. While Silicon Valley itself seems to be losing ground to the competition based in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, China is pouring huge amounts of capital into the African high technology sector: the dragon is diversifying its portfolio and does not seem to want to follow the same story of the trap of infrastructure debts.

This phenomenon regards not only Kenya but all of Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, having completed many Information and Communications Technology (ICT) projects, Huawei has recently announced the opening of a new data centre in South Africa, in the wake of Google and Amazon. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, a Chinese multinational conglomerate specializing in e-commerce, retail, internet and technology, has expressed interest in the African market, visiting Rwanda and putting together a deal mainly focussed on a network of e-services capable of facilitating interaction with the Chinese market. Transsion, the Chinese low-cost smart-phone giant, is instead getting ready to launch Boom Play, a new music-streaming service, in a joint venture with the Chinese internet provider Netease.
Lastly, an investment of high strategic and symbolic value has been made by CloudWalk, a Chinese start up based in Guangzhou which has signed an agreement with Zimbabwe to install new generation facial recognition software, following the massive domestic filing carried out by the Chinese government for the implementation of its controversial system of social credit.

The Nairobi case

Chinese investment in African technology is therefore taking place over a broad spectrum and extends well beyond the examples mentioned. The Nairobi Silicon Savannah provides excellent examples both of top-down classical investments of the Chinese giants and of a flourishing panorama of domestic innovation: an ideal overview for understanding how Africa, young and full of potential, interacts with the Chinese market which is already consolidated and maturing.

Nairobi is today entirely covered by 4G (Huawei is the prominent contractor for the telephone towers) and, in the past, 3G was offered at a relatively low price, permitting easy access to the internet, often with low-cost hardware brought in by the Chinese. With its pioneering approach to the internet, Nairobi has become the embryo of African technology, the epicentre of platforms to bring together technology and investors. Of these, as many as four of the largest African accelerators are based in Nairobi (88Mph, Savannah Fund, Sinopsis Group and The Growth Hub), together with two important incubators (iLab Africa and mLab). The model is Silicon Valley, with some extra attention given by the institutions: entire structures are dedicated to co-working spaces often supported by the local government, either directly or through policies that foster the establishment of new businesses and new brains.

The foresight of the Kenyan government should be noted because, by the careful use of public politics, it has been able to create a fiscal environment favourable both to investment and to the survival of micro-companies hunting for the ‘killer app’. One exemplary Kenyan product is the micro-payment service M-Pesa, the p2p platform launched by Safaricom in 2007. The success of M-Pesa is due to a design that is tailor-made for the local market, taking into account the payment and remuneration habits of many Africans, according to which the frequency reference if not the month but the single day. In practice, M-Pesa is a service that has become localised and exemplifies the typology and targeting of technologies developed in Kenya in the past fifteen years: from Africa to Africa by nature and design, with the potential to take hold also in some Asian markets with particular exigencies and characteristics.

Nairobi is, then, leading Africa into the fourth industrial revolution, destined to unhinge the current rules of manufacturing industry and to bring about historical changes in the most disparate sectors (from finance to agriculture) with the development of highly disruptive technologies such as big data, the block chain, 3D printing and artificial intelligence (AI). In the coming decades, Beijing aims to gain a position of absolute leadership in the new technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI).
It is not therefore unusual for the Chinese government to point private companies towards the African market by means of instruments of policy and financing, taking advantage of a very active and receptive emerging market that presents rural and urban trends in many ways similar to those applicable to the Chinese market. In this way, besides filling the infrastructure gap, Beijing sustains the view according to which Africa has ceased to be an aid-driven economy and is about to reach maturity in a strategic market characterised by the convergence of the interests of Chinese investors with those of local governments and local companies. With less aversion to risk-taking than their western counterparts, the Chinses are fully engaging with Silicon Savannah, aware of the greater financial risk but also of the possibility of major gains, both in terms of sales and of innovation aimed at solving specific African interests of a kind potentially similar to those of China.

The problem of Data Harvesting

There is no doubt that China has contributed much to the African information technology from infrastructure for telephonic and telematics coverage to undersea cables with hubs in Djibouti and the Kenyan port of Mombasa, from the training of African technicians in China to the export of low-cost hardware. The other side of the coin, however, is that of data harvesting which explains the distribution of hardware and software with low profit margins: African data are essential if Chinese companies are to achieve domination in future artificial intelligence (AI) markets. The monetisation of user data is already present in Facebook, Google and Amazon. Nevertheless, in the case of such Chinese companies as Tencent or Alibaba, there is even less clarity as to norms. Some may find some meagre consolation in the Facebook defeat by Cambridge Analytica; the Chinese system offers even less transparency regarding the collection and use of data.

The problem is, first of all, normative and can largely be traced to differences in the Chinese concept of ‘privacy’ and the Chinese concept of society which is based on Confucian values that allow for a greater role for authority. Again, Kenya provides a useful example since it is one of the few African countries where discussions are taking place regarding collection policies involving private individuals and institutions, especially after the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the EU. Despite this, national institutions are moving in a vast system of actors and pressures where Chinese interest is strong: from this perspective it is necessary to consider the distinction between public and private which in China is mostly formal, as is shown by the transverse presence of people enrolled in the Communist Party in all posts of real responsibility. In the ITC sector, there is an opportunity of having a level playing field, as long as this does not upset Beijing which possesses important means of political and economic leverage. Among these, we find in the case of Kenya, considerable outstanding debts for the port of Mombasa and the Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway.
Federico Zamparelli/CgP

Yasmine Hamdan. A Vagabond Spirit.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

“With her powerful voice and unique style she succeeded in bringing together the treasures of traditional music and the electronic sounds of European pop-rock”.

For some time now, Yasmine has lived in multi-ethnic Paris but she has lived and criss-crossed many cities and cultures in her life of forty three years. It started in Beirut where she was born in 1976, just when the Lebanese capital was in the grip of a terrible civil war that would drag on until 1990. In that troubled “Switzerland of the Middle East” little Yasmine grew up and developed her love for music until, together with singer/producer Zeid Hamdan (no relation), she started the Soapkills project which released its first record in 1999, an album entitled Bater.
Immediately the duo became one of the most important units in the world of the new electronic pop music in the Middle East.

With her powerful voice and unique style she succeeded in bringing together the treasures of traditional music and the electronic sounds of European pop-rock. Restless, curious and with a vagabond spirit, she went to live in different countries from Kuwait to Abu Dhabi, from Greece to Paris where she now lives; her encounter/collaboration with eclectic producer Mirwais (who produced some of Madonna’s work) added even greater stimulus to her explosive creativity.
The turning point came in 2013, thanks to a Belgian label specialising in world-music, which launched her first solo record on all the main European markets: an enchanting album entitled Ya Nass.

The product found the perfect balance between the modern and the traditional, constructed on a continual overlapping of different folk languages, sung in various Arabic languages, including Bedouin, but given substance and filled with cosmopolitan suggestions that soon transformed Yasmine Hamdan into an icon of the underground European scene.
Married to Palestinian producer Elia Suleiman, volcanic Yasmine is also an actress (her part in a film by Jim Jar-mush comes to mind) and composer of soundtracks , also for the theatre.

She never forgets her roots: «I love Arabic culture and I hate how the Arabic world is portrayed by the modern press – she declared during a recent interview at the New York Times – I sing in Arabic to emphasise this: it is both an art and a challenge».
In 2017 Hamdan completed her second solo album, Al Jamilat — which we may translate as “All Things Beautiful”. With this disc the Lebanese singer continues her musical exploration with the help of noted producers like Englishman Luke Smith and highly talented musicians like Pakistani American Shahzad Ismaily and Sonic Youth member Steve Shelley: both skilled in experimentation in the wide ocean of modern pop. The same can be said for her songs which, even though not entirely “political” are riddled with references to current social conditions, including those of the Middle East as it continues its search
for better times.

Franz Coriasco

Europe in the Election Year.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

The European Union finds itself in a contradictory situation in advance of the European Parliament elections in May.

On the one hand, the levels of support for the EU are higher than they have been for 25 years. 62 per cent of EU citizens have a positive view of their country’s membership of the EU; this is as high as 81 per cent in Germany. On the other hand, the departure of the UK sees a country leaving the Union for the first time. On the one hand, the 27 remaining states have shown great unity in the Brexit negotiations and unanimity in their defence of Ireland. On the other hand, the Union faces deep divisions over the question of accepting refugees and migrants.

In 2018, economic growth in the EU was 2.1 per cent, but at the same time, the inequality between rich and poor is growing. On the one hand it is evident that the challenges currently faced in the areas of climate change, immigration, energy, tax and bank regulations cannot be met by individual states in isolation. On the other hand a new nationalism is growing, and the EU is under attack from Eurosceptic populists. At least the fate of Europe is today being discussed in much broader, more engaged terms than it was only a few years ago.

The most important event for the EU in 2019 will be the elections to the European Parliament to be held from 23 to 26 May, in which 340 million citizens are entitled to vote. There is nothing to compare with the European Parliament worldwide; nowhere else is there a supranational institution that functions as a directly elected parliament. Every change to the treaty has expanded its spheres of competence. The proportion of the EU legislation passed with the full co-determination of the European Parliament is now almost 50 per cent.

On the other hand, the European Parliament is itself part of the democratic deficit of the EU. The first direct elections to the European Parliament took place almost 40 years ago, but the European elections are still run along the same lines as the national elections, and their European legitimacy remains limited, especially since the citizens only vote for national parties. These do join together in the European Parliament to form Europe-wide coalitions, but they have no direct connection with the population.

This may be an explanation for the fact that the participation in elections has fallen continuously since the first elections in 1979, when the level was 62 per cent, to 42 per cent in 2014. But as the only body directly legitimized by electors, it is and remains the most important instrument for stronger democratization of the Union. It is therefore worthwhile to fight for the European Parliament and develop concepts for improving it.

In a time when multilateralism is being called into question, Europe’s hour has come. The Union represents an example of how the major problems of the 21st century can only be overcome by supranational cooperation. A prime example of this is the combination of ecological and social issues. It is hoped that the forthcoming European elections will see a high level of participation and a strengthening of the pro-European parties. In order to achieve this, the EU needs Europeans with strong convictions, who are prepared to defend their positions against their detractors.

Martin Maier SJ

Language, the way for Advocacy too.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

I arrived among the Nuer in November 2005. It was my first mission assignment. I had expectantly waited for that moment throughout many years of training. Now I was there and my first concern was learning the language. I did not hide my trepidation: it was my first non-European language.

My confreres were very helpful and they were a continuous point of reference for me. I made friends with many Nuer youths who endeavoured to teach me their language. Every day I spent hours under the trees conversing with those lads. They loved the publications-project of the Summer Institute of Linguistics: A modern reader in the Nuer language that started in 1982 through the fifth edition in 1994.

They made me repeat sentence by sentence hundreds of times. I was also following the thirty-eight lessons of the pedagogical grammar edited in the fifties by Ms. Eleanor Vandevort, an American evangelist who resided in Nassir from1949 to1963. I was constantly referring to the Nuer – English Dictionary by Fr. John Kiggen, a missionary of St. Joseph’s Society and I treasured the 1933 Outline of a Nuer Grammar of the Comboni Missionary, Pasquale Crazzolara.

Nuer people are very proud of their language and culture. They refer to themselves as Nɛy ti naath – the People among peoples – and call their language Thok naath – the tongue of the People-, setting it apart from the other idioms they called the tongue of Dinka or the tongue of Schilluk and so on. A Nuer proverb says Thilɛ thok gua̠ndɛ – a tongue does not have owners, meaning that a language belongs to everyone who uses it. Therefore, Nuer people are very proud to hear other people speaking their language, and the language is the only necessary entry door to become part of their people. Not only that, another Nuer proverb says Thi̠i̠k we̠c ɛ ji̠kɛ – People are the door into the country. However, they do not make it easy for anyone to enter. It is exceptional to find a Nuer who provides a teaching on language for a foreigner, besides the fact that few have the expertise to present the language systematically with proper grammar, syntax and structure explanations.

I started with great enthusiasm. However, I soon realized how arduous Nuer was. I would easily confuse one monosyllabic word from another. I would not hear the different intonations of the seven basic vowels that would produce about eighteen different sounds and many diphthongs. I feared I would never manage to own that language but I persisted in my commitment and the pastoral work helped me a lot. Studying their language, I was getting closer to them and little by little, I was winning their sympathy. The language at the beginning was a barrier; suddenly, it became the means to build up relationships. I became aware how important listening was especially to the Church leaders and catechists with whom I was spending most of my time. Their way of expressing was so different from mine! They helped me to break through my European mind-set and getting closer to a Nuer mind-set.

A language is not only a number of expressions. Any language expresses also the mind-set and culture of the people using it.
Therefore, mastering a language means owning also the culture and mind-set of a people.

Learning the Nuer language, I got interested in their oral literature. It is so rich with songs, proverbs, riddles, tales and myths. It carries a wisdom that oriented the behavior of so many generations. Many times oral literature, being part of traditional society, holds to conservative values and fears transformation. Other times instead it reveals what people and society need to change. This is the point of encounter with the Gospel, which is always change-oriented. Why should a missionary engage in collecting and preserving the oral literature of a people? Could he not simply replace it with the Gospel narratives answering in a more appropriate way to the modern challenges of a given society?

Well, evangelization is not just replacing old clothes with new ones. Missionaries should be sensitive in respecting the identity of people they evangelize. The language and the oral literature are the vehicles of the culture and the identity of each ethnic group. They shape the way the people think, they fix values and orientate patterns of behavior. There are certainly parts of traditional society, which hold to conservative values and fear transformation.

Actually, continuous changes press on a society, often undermine the identity of the people and provoke a void sub-culture. The need to hold onto solid roots is great. However, change is sometime unavoidable and in some cases, it is most needed. The challenge is about making the right steps, promoting a transformation that is deeply rooted in the identity of the people.

While the Gospel is always change-oriented, it does not throw away the old for the new, it rather promotes a transformation from within the culture re-interpreting it in the new context, both at social as well at spiritual level.

The Church has a special mandate to promote both an interethnic Christian identity and a positive identification with one’s own culture. In fact, those who feel that their language and culture are under-estimated tend to see diversity as a threat, fear changes and under some circumstances might react violently. Those instead who are well rooted in their own culture are also more capable to create cross-cultural relationships. Conflict in South Sudan has often erupted from little understanding, false communication, poor esteem within communities fueling deep frustration.

For this reason, language is deeply relevant also in the advocacy process. To empower people to defend and strengthen their human and social rights, it is not enough to be able to exchange properly experiences and ideas; there is a need also of talking the language of people which their narratives, imaginaries, worldview and mind-set.
Daniel Comboni passionately cried out Africa or death in his attempt to regenerate the people of Africa.
Likewise, people committed in advocacy, grasping how identity of a given people is deeply rooted on their language and culture should build any sincere dialogue in a boldly statement: mother tongue or death!

Father Christian Carlassare,
Comboni Missionary in Moroyok
South Sudan

Belgium. The Museum of Africa, a revisited version of the continent.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

The Museum of Africa aspires to be an open space for discussion of the sad colonial past and contemporary African art. There has not been lack of criticisms.

The colonization of Congo – the current Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – and the rule of neighbouring Rwanda, which then included Burundi, is one of the darkest episodes in the history of Belgium. Although it is almost impossible to know the magnitude of the genocide, it is estimated that at least one third of the population in that area died as a result of the Belgian colonization. Millions of people perished during the military invasion, or as a result of the forced labour, forced displacements, famines, or torture they suffered. Congo was, for years, the personal heritage of the ruler with greatest responsibility for the horrors of colonialism, King Leopold II.

When Brussels hosted the Universal Exhibition of 1897, the monarch created a ‘colonial section’ that would lay the foundations of what we now know as the Museum of Africa. Such was the success of the 1897 exhibition that the King made it permanent, using funds from his interests in Congo to construct the grand neoclassical building which houses the collection today. The colonial section was hosted in the Palais des Colonies (Palace of the Colonies), a grandiose, purpose-built complex designed at Tervuren, to later become the Museum of the Belgian Congo.
The museum, once seen as Europe’s last unreconstructed museum of the colonial era, recently reopened after a five-year, staggering revamp. This was the first major refurbishment since the 50s.The Belgium African Museum houses items, mainly looted, from the African continent during the colonial era which include Congolese artefacts, the beheaded skulls of vanquished tribal chiefs, and more than 500 stuffed animals slaughtered by hunters. “The overhaul was designed to present its collection more sensitively in an effort to shake off its racist and pro-colonial image”, said Guido Gryseels, the museum’s director general, in an interview. The announcement of the refurbishment sparked debates between those who argued that the museum should remain such as it was, as a reminder of how colonial museums were conceived. Many Belgians remain ignorant of their country’s harsh rule in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the late 19th century. Others demanded its total destruction.

It was decided to look for an intermediate solution. The decision responded to a practical question: being a historic building the room for maneuver was limited and the budget did not allow to preserve the original building and build a new museum. Renovations were designed to modernise the museum from an exhibition of pro-colonial propaganda to one that is critical of Belgium’s imperialist past, which was not eliminated but explained.
“We thought it was possible to do both, maintaining the building as a space for memory and, at the same time, introducing a new narrative about Africa”, explains Guido Gryseels. The new Museum of Africa is the result of this work.

Archaeological remains, stuffed animals, musical instruments, ornaments, costumes, artefacts … the Museum of Africa is home to one of the most important and rich African ethnographic collections in Europe. But its exhibition is not without controversy. Many of those objects were stolen or obtained by force. Tombs were desecrated. The curators of the exhibition are aware of this, and that is why, statues have been given explanatory plaques highlighting the death and destruction colonialism spawned and with the help of multimedia displays and detailed captions, visitors will be encouraged to take a critical view and to see colonialism through African eyes. All items have been reordered and given new wall texts to highlight the problems of colonialism, and to allow the people of Congo and Rwanda to speak in their own words.
But for many this is not enough. Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, president of Bamko-Cran, a non profit organization that fights racism in the country, said that the government should set up an expert committee to determine as best as possible the exact origin of the items. The organization has asked Belgium’s government to return all objects in the museum which were looted in Congo. Also many others think former coloniser Belgium should return looted items and believe that the museum remains a Belgian museum, with a Belgian view on central Africa. They see it as continuing to be an exhibition of Belgian force, of its conquest of Africa and that it will continue to be such while exhibiting objects stolen during the military campaigns.
“It is not normal that 80% of the African cultural heritage is in Europe”, Gryseels conceded. “It is basically their culture, their identity, their history. We need to have a very open attitude. The question is under what conditions. How do we define what was legally acquired and what was not legally acquired?”

One of the fundamental pillars of the museum renovation has been the collaboration with the African Diaspora in Belgium. “You cannot organise an exhibition on contemporary Africa without involving the Africans themselves”, says Gryseels.The institution devotes a large space to the traditions and rituals, music and languages of the territory between Rwanda, Burundi and DRC, which were once Belgian colonies.The walls of the Colonial Palace are full of references to the ‘civilizing’ work of colonization and to those responsible for the plundering in Congo. The curators of the museum invited several African artists to offer their vision of history through their works, so that references to colonization are mixed with African contemporary art.
Congo-born, Belgium-based artist Aimé Mpane has said that he refused the invitation at first. “Being steeped in colonial history, this place seemed to me to be the last venue to exhibit a work of contemporary African art.Then, after much reflection, I understood that it was necessary to mark it with a work that would respond to the painful memories it evokes”.

Mpane’s New Breath, or the Burgeoning Congo stands in the striking main rotunda where Leopold II’s gold statue still stands. The chiseled sculpture by Mpane is a massive profile of an African man’s head on a bronze base. “My sculpture stands in the precise place that the ‘colonizers’ chose to honour King Leopold II and his entire colonization policy. My work is an obvious answer that, from now on, we will have to count on Africa”.
Mpane said he was intrigued by the opportunity to create a work to stand next to King Leopold’s sculptures and paintings that portray a Congo “stereotyped around very colonial clichés”. He hopes “that these pieces become secondary” to his own, and that this tension represents a new dialogue about the past.
The artist ultimately wants people to look toward the future and to “invite others to collaborate instead of separating into camps”. He believes the museum has made a good first step.
It has taken almost 60 years, but now Belgium has started to face its colonial past. A few months before the reopening of the Museum of Africa, a square has been inaugurated as a tribute to Patrice Lumumba, on the occasion of the 58^th anniversary of Congo’s independence from Belgium. Lumumba, leader of the revolution and prime minister of the first independent Congolese government, was assassinated in a coup d’état in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States”, according to investigations. The square leads into the Matongé neighbourhood, that is home to many Congolese migrants, the African heart of Brussels.

Last October, Belgian voters elected their first black mayor, Pierre Kompany, who took over the municipality of Ganshoren, a Brussels borough of about 25,000 people. The newly-elected mayor arrived in the country as a refugee from the DRC in the 1970s. He is the father of one of the country’s best known footballers. His son Vincent has been captain of the Belgian national football team for years and is a national star, like football player Romelu Lukaku who is also of Congolese origins.In this context in which reconciliation begins little by little to become a reality, while the shadow of the extreme right hangs over Europe, Guido Gryseels hopes that the Belgium African Museum can become a means of unity. “We believe that the role of the museum is crucial to ensure intercultural dialogue, to open minds and enable a space for debate”, says the director.

Beatriz Ríos

Herbs & Plants. Entada abyssinica. A resourceful herbal medicine.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

It is used as medicine, source of fibre, and wood. But also in the treatment of numerous diseases and disorders.

It is a low-branching deciduous shrub with a flat, spreading crown and usually grows up to about 10 metres in height. The stem-bark is grey to reddish, the leaves alternate, bipinnate with apex, round to slightly obtuse and slightly mucronate, appressed, pubescent above and below. Or sometimes they are glabrous above, but rarely entirely so; petiole glandular. In florescence it has creamy white or fading yellowish, sweet scented flowers. The fruit is a large, flat legume and the seeds oval and flat. The pod splits between each seed and leaves the pod rim forming a wing-like structure which is important for the seeds dispersal process. The name Entada is derived from an East Indian vernacular name while its botanical Latin name Abyssinica means ‘from Abyssinia (Ethiopia)’. Entada abyssinica (Fabaceae Family) is widely distributed all over tropical Africa including Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia.

The tree is harvested from the wild for local use as medicine, a source of fibre, and wood. It is sometimes grown as an ornamental plant in homesteads. It is traditionally used for the treatment of bronchitis, coughs, diarrhoea, fever, and to alleviate arthritic pains. It has also been used in the treatment of numerous diseases and disorders. A decoction of the bark is taken for treatment of coughs, colds, syphilis, chronic bronchial engorgement, rheumatic pains, and abdominal pain. In addition, the decoction is also used in some communities for the treatment and management of peptic ulcers. The stem bark is also used to treat mouth wounds and malaria. However, sometimes the bark infusion is used as an abortifacient.
The leaves are febrifuge and tonic. They are used to make a tonic tea and for wound healing. The leaf decoction is used for treatment of fever and malaria. Babies are bathed with the leaf decoction to remove skin rashes. The decoction is also administered to expectant mothers as a treatment for morning sickness and bathing with the leaf decoction is known to relieve backache.

An infusion of crushed roots is good for treatment and management of bronchial problems. In some communities, the roots decoction/infusion is administered as an antidote against various toxic agents. The root decoction is also used as a remedy for fever. The powdered root bark can be mixed with petroleum jelly and applied as a massage for swelling. The crushed fresh roots decoction is administered to treat gonorrhoea.
The roasted pulverized seeds can be inhaled to relieve frequent sneezing and can also be used to treat cataracts and diseases of the eye. The raw fruit induces vomiting and is used as an antidote for snake venom.

Apart from its medicinal potential, Entada abyssinica’s ashes from the wood is rich in potash and is suitable for soap making. A fibre obtained from the inner bark is used for making bands and ropes. The soft wood is used for small carpentry and also provides a good source of wood fuel. Furthermore, the tree is often used around homesteads as ornamentals. It also has the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil.The phytochemical screening of Entada. abyssinica indicates the presence of alkaloid, flavonoids, saponin, terpenoids, and kolavic acid derivatives. The leaves contain rotenone and tannins. In fact, the presence of these bioactive phytochemicals in Entada Abyssinica may explain their reported pharmacological properties including antibacterial, anti-trypanocidal, anti-fungal, and
anti-inflammatory activities.

Richard Komakech

DR Congo. Mons. Muyengo Mulombe : “ We are the defenders of the people”.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

The role of the bishops in the recent socio-political events in the country. The Church as ‘guarantor of unity’. The future: the full evangelisation of the Christian communities. We talked with Mons. Sébastien-Joseph Muyengo Mulombe, Bishop of Uvira in South Kivu.

At the end of his second mandate, president Joseph Kabila refuses to give up power and creates a serious social crisis in the country. Civil society and members of the opposition parties turn to the Catholic Church for mediation and an end to the impasse. “We made ourselves available. We also acted as guarantors of the San Silvestro Agreement (2016) between government and opposition so elections could be held”, Mons. Sébastien-Joseph Muyengo Mulombe, Bishop of Uvira in the south of Kivu informs us.

The Agreement was not properly implemented and Kabila said it was impossible to organise the elections before the end of 2017 and they were postponed until 30 December 2018. This created much unease among Congolese, especially the Catholics who held a series of demonstrations in the streets and public prayers which were repressed with bloodshed. It was absolutely necessary that Kablia should not run for election. In fact, he was not among the candidates. The elections were held on 30 December 2018 and were won by Félix Tshisekedi, a candidate of the coalition for change with 38,57% of the votes. In second place was Martin Fayulu (34,83%).
The Church had agreed to guarantee free and fair elections and had 40,000 observers in the field. According to what they observed, Fayulu won with 62% of the votes. Mons. Muyengo Mulombe comments: “In our opinion, the polls chose Martin Fayulu, who had been chosen by the bulk of the opposition to oppose Kabila, obtaining votes throughout the country”.However, the Church eventually accepted the results. The Bishop of Uvira says: “None of us want the country to plunge into violence again. It seemed to us that, after all, the people were happy just to see Kabila out of power… No doubt, Fayulu had a different view of things and, with him as president, things would certainly change. The DR Congo is rich in minerals. Fayulu would surely re-negotiate the trade agreements with the multi-national that exploit these enormous riches and put a stop to people from neighbouring countries invading the Congo at will and stealing what they want. Tshisekedi has guaranteed a peaceful transfer of power”.

One important element during these years is the fact that the people have come to view the Catholic Church, to which 40% of the 83 million Congolese belong, as being always close to them in their struggles.
“The people still see each of our Bishops as a defensor civitatis (defender of the people), and the people know that we defend the whole of the country and that we never tire in promoting reconciliation.
The strength of us Bishops lies in our unity, even if there are some who let themselves be distracted and, perhaps … compensated”.

Speaking of his diocese of Uvira with its 1.5 million inhabitants, of whom 30% are Catholics, he says : “I am the fifth Bishop of the diocese and at the moment we have about fifty secular and ten religious priests. There is a good number of Sisters. The diocese is divided into 18 parishes and has 32 missionary centres. I am sorry to say I have not yet managed to visit all parts of the diocese. There are still all too many militia groups that create insecurity in the territory. However, I am fortunate to have excellent pastoral agents who are my right hand and to whom I shall be eternally grateful”.
Speaking of priorities, he says: “First of all the defence of life. In 2017, with all the war crimes and the plundering of our natural resources, together with the five other bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Kivu, I signed the message, ‘Our Cry for the Absolute Respect for Human Life’, taking the part of the people. We provided proof and exact figures regarding the victims. Here in Kivu the violence still goes on. Together with all the pastoral agents, I am carrying out a plan of evangelisation according to the tradition outlined by my predecessors. At the same time, I never tire of fighting against the evils which, in my view, prevent people from living a truly Christian life.

Three of these are: fetishism, which generates fear, causes divisions in families and communities and prevents real sharing; the abuse of alcohol, an endemic plague that destroys the population; lastly, that terrible weapon of war which is the abuse of women. For years, the violation of women has been the ‘prize’ claimed by all militiamen and soldiers. We are destroying ourselves. We bishops must be the first to raise our voices against this calamity. I was very struck by the honesty of Pope Francis in condemning the fifteen evils of the Roman Curia and by the twelve criteria given for the reform of pastoral work with Christocentrism, sobriety and synodality as a method. In my opinion, these criteria apply also to the Congolese Christian communities and our dioceses. Here, too, we have people who think they are eternal, who seek only to accumulate riches; there is still too much hatred, suspicion and fear of others, that deep-rooted evil which is love of self. Our communities are growing in numbers but are not very strong in the faith. We still have much work to do because we have been baptised but not evangelised”. (E.B.)

Our Planet. What we can do.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

Human society, of which we are all a part, is facing an environmental catastrophe unprecedented in history. The planet is in dire condition and ecosystems that keep all species of plant, animal and insects in harmonious co-existence ensuring the survival of all are moving quickly toward collapse.

This is due to the non-stop man-made industrialization driven by coal-fired power plants, billions of vehicles, destruction of the forests, clearing of the land and chemical farming to feed millions of cows. All these contribute to global warming, climate change and environmental degradation. This in turn is increasing the rate of extinction of the many species of insects that help to pollinate the fruits and plants we rely on for food. We are exterminating ourselves.

The insects are food for hundreds of birds, reptiles and mammals. If the insects, grubs and worms disappear, so do the birds and many more beautiful creatures and eventually plant life itself will deteriorate beyond recovery. The entire ecosystem relies on insects to keep it going and we are entering another age of mass extinction this time, the fastest in the history of the planet- and its man-made.

The world’s insects are threatened with rapid extinction and this will introduce a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems,” says an important scientific report which is the first scientific review of the threat to hundreds of thousands of species of insects and the crops that rely on them. The study found that more that 40 percent of the world’s insects are in serious decline and a third of them are endangered. The entire mass of the world’s insects is falling at a rate of 2.5 percent per year which means they could be all gone within a century. This is a shocking discovery. That would be hundreds of millions of years of exquisite evolution wiped out in a hundred years.

The magnificent hovering four-winged dragonfly would be no more flirting over our streams and ponds. Insects are heading for total extinction eight times faster than that of the reptiles and mammals and birds. They too are in grave danger of extinction. The Black West African Rhino is gone forever, never to roam the African plains again.

Soon you will be lucky to see bats and birds. The bird song in the morning is rare indeed and there are fewer swallows and swifts flying around. They depend on insects to live. In a period of 35 years as much as 98 percent of ground insects in Puerto Rico have already vanished. Wildlife is disappearing too. In England, the butterfly population has fallen by 58 percent on farmland in a nine-year period. We may have heard of the massive decline in the honeybee population. There were 6 million honeybee colonies in the United States in 1947 but by 2017, more than half were wiped out.

The modern methods of commercial farming are largely responsible although climate change is also a contributing factor. The cutting of forests, destroying hedgerows, leaving open flat fields sprayed with ever more toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers are responsible.

The chemicals are blown by the wind across the lands even into protected forest areas as the German people discovered. There was a massive loss of insects in the protected forests.
As many as 75 percent loss of the insect population was recorded that shocked researchers and sparked government research into the dangers of pesticides in the environment.

The worst of all kind of insect killers are neonicotinoids and fipronil. They are at the roots of the problem. “When you consider 80 percent of biomass of insects has disappeared in 25-30 years, it is a big concern,” the scientist said. The industrial scale of sprayed poisons is the problem. These deadly chemicals enter the food chain and humans ingest them and they accumulate in the fatty tissue. One day they reach critical mass and trigger cancer tumours and other diseases.

This form of farming is driven by corporate farming and the market demand to provide cheap food for an over consuming and exploding population. The massive consumption of beef, pigs and chicken produced on an industrial scale is causing the ever-present climate change. The rising temperatures are killing the insects that can’t adapt. The methane gas produced by the billions of farm animals and the melting of the Siberian permafrost is mixing with CO2 and forming a blanket around the globe cooking us at one time and freezing us at another. There is an ever increasing rising of annual temperatures around the world that is harming crops, contributing to the melting ice cap, raising the level of oceans and inundating estuaries and coastal areas. Islands in the South Pacific are disappearing.

The only answer is to change our lifestyles and use our power as consumers, shoppers, and customers to demand organic food that is pesticide- and chemical-free and buy it only. The farmers will adapt and supply to meet demand. Then we can go one better and demand plastic-free seafood. The oceans are filling up with micro-plastic that is being swallowed by the fish in every ocean and sea.
Humans are consuming the fish with the micro-plastic pellets and its harmful effects are still unknown. We can also eat less meat and more organic vegetables and fruit.

There is more we can do. Support and vote for political candidates committed to an environmentally-clean world. Unless we take seriously this ongoing deadly decline in the insect species, our entire ecosystem will be damaged forever. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. With the bees and butterflies gone, we will be left with the flies and cockroaches. That will be a miserable and dangerous world.
Fr. Shay Cullen

Senegal. The Great House of African Art.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

The Museum of African Civilisation was founded in Dakar: it contains African art from its origins to the present day. The dream of Léopold Sédar Senghor.

Over four-fifths of the artistic patrimony of the continent, the experts say, is to be found in Western museums, art galleries and private collections. It is the result of a veritable plundering on a vast scale, carried out during the colonial era by the European occupiers, with the complicity of the prejudice that Africans were unable to take care of the masterpieces that survive up to the present day. In some cases, political instability and war would say those who hold this view are right. If we consider, for example, the damage inflicted by the Jihadists in 2013 on the precious manuscripts of the Timbuktu library in Mali.

Fortunately, the wind of change is blowing in Africa. In 2017, in Cape Town, the Zeitz Mocaa museum of contemporary African art was opened, art that has already become the object of study of artists and researchers. What was needed was some sort of Louvre or British Museum, or an institution created for the ambitious purpose of preserving African art in its totality, from the dawn of civilisation to the present day. The authorities in Senegal sought to fill this lacuna and, last December, they opened the Museum of Black Civilisations (MCN), the result of an ambitious pan-African project. It is the realisation of the dream of the President of Senegal, Léopold Sédar Senghor – also the father, together with the Martinique citizen Aimé Césaire, of the concept of Negritude – to build a museum to house the artistic expressions of the black people of the world.
Senghor launched the idea in 1966, on the occasion of the first festival of Black Art and it took fifty-two years to realise it.

Situated in the area of the port, close to the terminus of the ferries going to Gorée, the island that bears the memory of the Atlantic slave trade, the new infrastructure is conspicuous for its rounded shape that evokes the dwellings of the Casamance, a region in the south of Senegal. In the entrance hall, an enormous baobab-shaped sculpture by the Haitian Eduard Duval-Carrié, welcomes visitors. The museum space comprises a total of 14,000 square metres, on four floors, including an auditorium with 150 seats; it has room for up to 18,000 pieces and is, at present, the largest museum in Africa.
The exposition is a voyage in time and space, leading from the cranium of Toumai, a hominid of about seven million years ago, discovered in Chad, to the present, with works by contemporary artists like the Mali Abdoulaye Konaté and passing through centuries of history, including also the African diaspora in the Americas. Ritual masks, sculptures and statues, not only from Senegal but also from various other African countries, tell of the effort to construct a narrative that is both unified and daring. Its purpose is the displaying of the black continent, by finally giving voice to its inhabitants and its heroes like El Hajj Omar Tall, the Senegalese Islamic fighter, whose sword was one of the most admired objects during the inauguration of the museum, being, as it was a symbol of anti-colonial resistance.

The building itself was a gift from the government of China which paid the costs of over 30 million Euro, executing the project through the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, and overseeing the works lasting seven years. Anyone visiting the MCN should not be surprised, therefore, to find the descriptions of the museum objects in French and Chinese. For the Asian giant, the cost of the museum was very little when compared with the 110 billion Euro it spent in Africa in the last decade, which promises an increasingly influential Chinese role in the administration of the resources and economies of many African countries.The Museum of Black Art is not only a proud celebration of the creativity of African man in the history of the world; this monumental structure also represents a long-awaited opportunity to demand the restoration of the African artistic patrimony dispersed throughout the world. The purpose is to silence those who defended the conservation of African art in the West due to the lack of a suitable structure in Africa. “It is a false problem, – declared Ibrahima Thioub rector of the Sheikh Anta-Diop University of Dakar – the answer to the problem has already been given by the Africans who produced these works and conserved them for centuries in perfect condition without museums”.
The first person to make a move was the French president Emmanuel Macron who, in 2017 declared in a speech given in Ouagadougou his desire to start a programme of temporary or permanent restitution of African works of art in France to their original countries. To do this, he appointed two experts, Frenchman Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese Felwine Sarr, to draft a report, published last November, on the question. “We cannot enjoy works of art that we like in a museum while ignoring their hidden history of violent acquisition”, Savoy stated in an interview on French television.

The opinion of Sarr and Savoy is that objects taken away in a military context before 1899 (the date of the first Ajax convention on conflict law), those taken by scientific expeditions or handed over by colonial administrators and those illegally purchased after 1960, should be restored. Works legally purchased are to be excluded, with the free and documented consent of both parties, as well as those bought by museums while observing international law. French museums have around 90,000 African works of art and what will actually be done is a matter for speculation. Macron has declared his wish to hand over 26 objects to Benin where they will be placed in four new museums. Besides Senegal, other countries may also reclaim objects of art taken illegally. This applies not only to France: the African patrimony is preserved also in Berlin, Vienna, London and in Belgium. In the meantime, the MCN is willing to house eventual works restored to African countries without adequate museums to receive them.

Maria Tatsos

Spider’s Web.

Monday, 1 April 2019 8:00

The animals were lonely. They stood in the forest talking to one another, wondering how they could each get a wife to keep them company and to cook their food for them.

When Hare joined the group, he was soon able to tell them what to do. “I have heard that there are plenty of wives up in the sky, beyond the clouds, he said. “But how shall we get there?” they asked. “I will spin a strong web and fasten it on to a cloud -, said Spider -, and then you will be able to climb up it, and find wives.”
So Spider began to spin, and very soon he was lost to sight high above them all with only the ladder of silver thread to show them the way he had gone. Presently Hare declared that all was ready and, leading the way, he began to climb up into the sky followed by all the other animals.

How the silken thread trembled as the elephant, the buffalo, the lion, and the monkey climbed higher and higher, while Hare turned back from time to time, urging them onwards. At last they reached the country above the clouds and began to bargain for wives with the people there, Hare had been quite right when he said there were plenty of wives to be had, and soon most of the animals had chosen a wife and paid the agreed dowry.

Not so Hare. He chose his wife and made some excuse to her mother so that he did not pay the price immediately. Then he crept round the back of his future mother-in-law’s hut, to see what he could find to eat. There was a large pile of beniseed, and Hare made a most satisfying meal of it while everyone else was busy talking about their new wives. Even Hare was surprised a little later, to see how small the beniseed heap had become, and felt somewhat apprehensive as to what the owner would say when she found out.
Of course, he soon thought of a way to get himself out of trouble, and taking a handful of beniseed he ambled across to where the animals were still busy talking and rubbed some seeds on to Spider, pretending to brush off some dust.

He was only just in time as the next moment a woman came stamping up to the group of animals, shouting angrily: “Who has been stealing my beniseed? It’s always the same. When you folk come up from the earth something always gets stolen. Now, who did it this time?” Of course, all the animals protested and said they were innocent, which indeed they were. Then the cunning Hare stood up and went towards his mother-in-law, putting on a kind, patient voice and saying: “There is only one way of finding out who stole your beniseed. Let us search every animal and look for signs of seeds or leaves which are bound to have clung to the fur of the thief.”

The woman agreed and together she and Hare began to search the animals, none of whom objected since they knew they had stolen nothing. Suddenly Hare gave a cry. Oh nor he exclaimed: “Not you, Spider! How could you have done such a thing?” “What are you talking about?” asked Spider, as the other animals crowded round him, and the woman seized him to have a closer look.

“Yes -, she said angrily – . You have some beniseed clinging to your body. You must be the thief! Don’t try to deny it.” The other animals were angry too, telling Spider what a stupid thing he had done to steal from Hare’s mother-in-law, and they would not listen when he swore he had done no such thing.
At last he managed to get away from them all, and calling out in disgust: “I got you up here, but you can get yourselves down again”. He began his descent to earth, rolling up his web as he went.

Now the animals were in a fix, for their ladder had gone, and it was a very long way down to earth. They shouted to Spider and begged him to come back and spin another web for them, but he would not answer and at last they lost sight of him among the far-distant trees of the earth. “Now what shall we do?” they asked one another, for they had no desire to stay in the clouds for the rest of their lives. “I’m going to jump”, said the monkey, suiting the action to the words, and with a mighty leap he dropped like a stone towards the earth.

“So am I”, exclaimed the antelope, and he gave a bound after the monkey, and was followed by a number of other animals, all encouraged by Hare. “That’s right! That’s splendid!”, he kept saying, as animal after animal jumped from the clouds.
But he did not tell them that they were jumping to their deaths, and as each one hit the ground he was killed outright.

All except Hare, of course. He stood back and waited beside the elephant, telling that large and cumbersome creature to wait until last in case he fell on one of his smaller brothers. Eventually, when all the animals had gone, Hare told the elephant it was
safe for him to jump too.

“I’ll come with you”, said Hare, leaping on to the elephant’s head and clinging tightly as they sped through the air. The poor elephant landed with such a crash that he was killed at once, but his huge body saved Hare from striking the ground and he was not injured at all. So the cunning animal ran off into the bush to look for Spider and to try to make friends with him again, simply because he hoped for Spider’s help at some other time.
But since that day nobody has ever been able to climb up into the sky, and those who have heard this story have no wish to try.
Folktale from Zambia

The Today Moment Of Don Sturzo.

Friday, 1 March 2019 8:00

“I have nothing, I own nothing, I do not want anything, I have fought all my life for a complete but responsible political liberty. To the loss of economic freedom, towards which we are moving ahead in Italy, it will follow an actual loss of political freedom, even if the elective forms of an apparent Parliament will remain.
This Parliament day by day will follow its abdication in the face of bureaucracy, the trade unions and the economic entities, which will form the structure of the new state more or less Bolshevist. May God dispel my prophecy” (Don Luigi Sturzo, October 4, 1951)

Why after 100 years the moment of this a Christian, a priest, a secular politician for Italy should be alive today and tomorrow? We refer to Don Luigi Sturzo. This, his moment is not casual, but expresses the growing need for strong references, for teachers in an age of great loss, of great “noises”, of great and justified and unjustified fears, of the
absence of thought.

Studying the great characters makes us discover sometimes true masters, not only of the past, but for the present and for the future. Don Luigi Sturzo was and still is a teacher of political ethics for anyone who wants to “serve politics and not use politics” as he used to say. Sturzo was a philosopher, sociologist, profound economist, public administrator, in short, one of the most important politicians of the Italian twentieth century. Nevertheless Sturzo remained always and above all a priest – intense, total priest dedicated to Jesus Christ and to the rigorous fidelity to the Church, even when this made him suffer.

Luigi Sturzo (26 November 1871 – 8 August 1959) was, actually, an Italian Roman Catholic priest. He was known in his lifetime as a “clerical socialist” and is considered one of the fathers of the Christian democratic platform. From 1919 on promoted the Partito Popolare Italiano. He was forced into exile in 1924 with the rise of Italian fascism. In exile in London (and later New York) he published over 400 articles critical of fascism and later of the post-war Christian Democrats.

In 1951, he founded the Luigi Sturzo Institute and in his Sicilian town, Caltagirone, he organized the Catholics in wide-ranging cultural and political projects: rural and banking cooperatives, schools, newspapers. He wanted his fellow citizens to understand that the city was not private property of the notables, but to be a common good, an actor of development, the pillar of civil life. From his initiatives he emerged as a national leader. Even today, after 100 years from the Appello ai Liberi e Forti (A call to the Free and Strong – January 18, 1919) his teaching is carried out in many local areas throughout Italy.

Sturzo’s inspiration for his social and political commitment was the encyclical Rerum Novarum, which dated back to 1891. The Rerum Novarum explains with great clarity that first of all comes the person, the freedom of the person, the dignity of the person, and that to preserve this there are intermediate societies, which do not derive from the State, because they are the primordial cells of society: the family, the Municipality, and from there society gradually rises with the principle of subsidiarity towards the “state organism”. For him, the City was not just an administrative organ; but a political cell, a community to which the municipal services are at the service; this community, the Municipality, does not derive from the state, but has its original strength, its autonomy, its sphere of freedom and energy that must be liberated.

In Caltagirone he was “pro Sindaco” (because as a priest he could not be a mayor), that in fact means pro-Mayor from 1905 to 1920, and offered his extraordinary commitment to the service of his city. Sturzo felt the need to build a network of contacts and thought, because he was also a great realist and knew that by staying alone you are defeated, you do not go anywhere. Therefore he built a network of “complicity” with other young priests of his age, and not only with them, going further out of the Catholic circles he had contacts with the socialists.

Looking at don Sturzo we can understand what pope Paul VI, stated: Politics are, or should be, the greatest form of Christian love, and of course, we can add, the greatest form of authentic advocacy.

John Paul Pezzi, mccj
VIVAT International NGO,
with consultative special status at UN

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