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South Sudan. Mission towards Reconciliation.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

After ten years of the declaration of independence, South Sudan continue to suffer the drama of civil war. Reconciliation between various ethnic groups has become an important task for the churches in South Sudan. The commitment of Comboni Missionaries among the Nuer ethnic group.

The Comboni Missionaries were invited in 1998 by the Bishop of the Diocese of Malakal to accompany Catholics who lived scattered in the villages of the Fangak region in the South, the wetlands and marshes of the Nile. We missionaries visit people regularly in their villages. We walk on foot to distant chapels – up to four days away from the parish centre since there are no roads. The parish territory is huge, about five times the size of the Greater London area. Paths that are not used disappear within a few weeks in the constantly growing vegetation.

During half of the year, the waters of the Nile and the rains flood the region, becoming flat as a disk. There are no hills except termite hills. On our hikes, we cross waters that reach up to our necks. Tropical diseases are part of everyday life and safe drinking water is rare.
The basic food of the Nuer consists of sorghum (millet) with milk or fish. They plant and harvest with hand tools, as the ox plough has not yet been introduced in this region. Furthermore, there is no telephone/mobile phone network, no postal service, no power grid – we depend on solar power – and no local radio station; only shortwave radio works to receive BBC and Vox of America.

Training catechists
The main task of the missionaries is to train catechists in their chapels. Our parishioners have a strong, sincere faith but little Christian education. We offer the catechumenate for adults who ask to become Christians. About half of Fangak County’s population is now baptized. There are many followers of traditional religion who are attracted to being a Christian. We offer education programmes in Nuer and English since more than 95% of the population in this part of South Sudan are illiterate due to their isolation (nationally, the illiteracy rate is at 75%).

We have been operating a primary school at the parish centre since 2014. So far, around 250 grade eight students have graduated with a certificate. It is a tiny seed, but significant, considering that less than 1% of the county’s population have obtained a primary school certificate, a document as prestigious as a doctorate title in developed countries.
Due to the recent civil war, reconciliation between various ethnic groups has become an important task, not only for us, but for all the churches in South Sudan.

Work of reconciliation
The South Sudanese Catholic Bishops’ Conference has been having difficulty in reaching and gaining influence among warring parties since many bishoprics have been vacant. In addition, ethnic belonging is still a strong aspect of the identity of Catholics and of Christians in general, as is among church leaders. In this difficult tension between cultural and faith identity, the ecumenical South Sudan Council of Churches, of which the Catholic Church is a founding member, prepared a path towards national reconciliation.
In our parish, the war reached only the fringes of Fangak County, with the exception of its capital, New Fangak. Other areas have not been directly affected by battles or displacement. This has been the case, due to the isolation of the area, created by the Nile swamps, and thus lacking road connections. In our diocese, in whose territory much of the fighting and destruction took place, our parish is the only one that has not had to be closed in all these years.

In all other parishes of Malakal Diocese, the work was stopped for several years. Still, every Nuer family of our parish has lost relatives in the war. Because the enemy breathes down their necks, but is still reassuringly far away, our work of reconciliation looks different from a parish with mixed hostile groups.
Our Nuer Catholics pray at Mass in the language of the Dinka as a sign for national reconciliation. At the local level of clan conflict, traditional reconciliation goes hand in hand with Christian prayer. Our active parishioners are noticeably less violent than the average Nuer. The ecclesial life is like a shelter where a new, peaceful lifestyle is maintained. The Catholic Church is known and loved for the fact that differences of opinion are settled without violence.
In contrast to traditional festivals and gatherings, weapons and alcohol are not allowed on church grounds. Anyone interested in this ‘alternative lifestyle’ can join us. A traditional feast often runs the risk of ending in bloodshed because youth (men) injure or kill each other. Either a previous attack needs to be revenged or a new dispute is started under the influence of alcohol.
Furthermore, in our sermons and conversations, we shape the idea of inviolable human dignity because every person is an image of God. The word dignity cannot be adequately translated into Nuer. As an illustration, we explain that everyone must respect other persons deeply, even if they are women or strangers of another tribe. The stories of Jesus in the Gospels help to underline that message. In South Sudan, there is no secular society.

Therefore, international peace programmes, which always appeal to reason and emphasize human rights, have little effect on the ground because they do not understand the dynamics of people’s ethnic and religious identities, or they negate them.
As missionaries, we make the Gospel known to our listeners. A disciple of Jesus is called to imitate the Father and love the neighbour, even the enemy. It is about a change of mentality so that it is no longer the ethnicity or the clan which defines whom one can or cannot trust. The Gospel and the Bible clearly show what constitutes a just, honest person. This should be the benchmark for building a just and peaceful society.
A peaceful and conciliatory attitude is the strength of the Church and the missionaries. We live with ‘our’ people and suffer with them. Jesus Christ changed and converted people by loving concretely and making Himself the servant of all. We missionaries strive to learn language and culture, and walk their paths both literally and figuratively.
People honour this, and they are ready to open themselves to the perspective of the Gospel because we have opened ourselves to their perspective. Patience is needed. Jesus explains that the Kingdom of God grows like a tree, slowly but steadily.

Gregor Schmidt

Why cattle can’t speak.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

A long time ago it is believed that the Pokot people were very similar to cattle. They could all speak the same language face to face and loved keeping the other company. They would also share duties among themselves and whenever there was an issue to discuss, they would do this during the night hours.

Food was never a problem among them, as it simply flowed down from the mountains and came to them by the rivers. They often had celebrations and on these occasions the cattle were always the ones to lead the dancing around a big fire at night. Life was good among them, and there was peace in the land.

One day it happened that a man’s child got sick. Because they were all friends, cow came to see how the child was. He was in a very bad state, and the next day a prophet was consulted.

The prophet then told them that the only cure for the boy’s illness would be if a calf was to be slaughtered to break the curse that was on the boy. Man thus went to cow and told him what the prophet had said. Because they were such good friends and because a blood sacrifice was part of their culture, cow agreed and gave her calf to man.

The only thing that cow asked of man was that he should slaughter the calf with a sharp stone, never break any of its bones and lastly that the tongue and liver of the calf should be given back to the cow so that she could bury it. Man promised this to cow but went on his way home and disregarded everything that cow asked of him. He killed the calf with a spear instead of a stone, he broke many of its bones and finally he threw away its tongue and liver.

The following day cow arrived at man’s house to see how it all had gone and to collect the tongue and liver of its calf. When he arrived, he instantly saw all the horrible things that man had done. At this cow got very annoyed and their friendship broke down completely.

After a while man started to miss his friend dearly and at long last, he went to say to cow that he was sorry. He even took some honey with him to put on cows’ tongue for her to enjoy, but cow would have none of it. She was so angry at man that she refused to accept the honey or open her mouth, for it all reminded her about the tongue of her calf being thrown away so carelessly.

That is the reason why cattle do not eat honey like men. And because cow refused to speak or open her mouth for such a long time, all cattle lost their ability to speak. Since that day, men and cattle do not share a special friendship any more.

Folktale from Pokot people – Kenya. Elijah Deba

Governments and TNCs: Shared Responsibility for Human Rights and the Environment.

Sunday, 1 August 2021 8:00

The role of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) in Africa continues to be of vital importance for the economic development of the continent in terms of generating wealth, developing technologies, and creating jobs for new generations.

But TNCs have a contradictory role because, on the one hand, TNCs carry out an economic transformation through different spheres of action (whether in finance, infrastructure, services, natural resources, or agriculture), on the other hand, TNCs cause one of the greatest difficulties for the integral development of peoples, causing
inequalities and injustices.

At present, the States have the exclusive jurisdiction to enforce respect for human rights and to monitor the care of the environment within their territories. There are no international mechanisms to prosecute violations and abuses of these rights or the destruction of the environment by TNCs and their subsidiaries or suppliers throughout the value chain. In addition, the business lobby develops all its capacities to nullify or reduce the punitive force of legislative initiatives, both at the national and international levels that attempt to control its power.

In the face of any initiative to control TNCs by the States, companies position themselves by asking to maintain the current legal status of international legislation through voluntary mechanisms. However, these mechanisms have proven ineffective over the last decade since the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights were approved. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have been shown to be equally ineffective, which are government recommendations directed at TNCs that operate in countries other than where these companies
have their headquarters.

In other cases of international legislative initiatives, such as in the current negotiation for a UN legally binding treaty on TNCs and human rights or the mandatory Due Diligence law of the EU on companies and human rights and the environment, TNCs companies show a false attitude of collaboration. The business strategy makes requests that create confusion in the scope of application of the new legislation with the intention of lengthening the legislative processes and weakening the content of the norms that seek to regulate the behaviour of TNCs (a toothless regulation).

Thus, the responsibility to respect human rights and the environment should correspond to both the States and the TNCs through a shared responsibility and direct obligations that prioritize the protection of human rights over the economic benefit of companies. In other words, legislation is necessary that contains clear and direct obligations for companies so that States can control the behaviour of TNCs.

The EU has publicly recognized that voluntary TNC control systems are ineffective, and yet there is no explicit will on the part of the European Commission to limit impunity for large corporations.
Respect for human rights and the environment is at the mercy of large corporations that take advantage of the democratic weakness (corruption, lack of adequate legislation or inability to implement the necessary control measures) of the developing countries in which they lead to carry out the activity. In this sense, the direct obligations of the Companies and the rendering of accounts to the States are the best guarantee of respect for the economic, labour, social, health and environmental rights of the peoples.

The shared responsibility between the States and the TNCs must encompass the entire activity process of the companies (and their subsidiaries) as well as a proactive attitude to prevent risks that may cause human rights violations, mitigate the negative impacts caused by TNCs and with the obligation to restore the damages caused both to the people and communities. In this sense, the main political parties with representation in the European parliament (except for the far right parties Identity and Democracy, and European Conservatives and Reformists Group) have spoken in their letter to the European Commission in which they demand a liability regime in place under which undertakings can be held liable for any harm arising adverse impacts on human rights, the environmental or good governance.

However, this responsibility would not be complete if it is limited to preventive means of human rights violations or environmental destruction. The responsibility of TNCs must also include the harm caused by their activity even if they have carried out the preventive actions established by law. TNCs must be held liable for damages their business may cause even if they have done everything possible to prevent it. In other words, until now, companies justify their impunity for the preventive actions they carry out: environmental impact studies, compliance with national laws or prevention of occupational hazards. Companies consider that taking certain precautions exempts them from the result caused by potential damages that they may cause indirectly.
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN) denounces this preventive limitation of civil liability and requires the EU to include civil and criminal liability for the result caused despite the precautions
carried out by the TNCs.

The responsibility of governments also requires facilitating everything necessary so that people and communities affected by human rights violations or environmental degradation can access justice. Often, victims are unprotected or helpless in the face of abuses of power without finding an answer to their complaints. It is the responsibility of TNCs to listen to victims and not litigate against them.

The EU is in the process of creating a Due Diligence law on Business and Human Rights and Environment that gives hope to a new model of civil and criminal liability for TNCs. The European Parliament has shown its desire for the proposed legislation to respond to the current injustices of impunity created by the behaviour of TNCs. Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN), together with civil society, asks the European Commission not to allow itself to be manipulated by the TNCs lobby and to be consistent with its development and economic partnership policies, giving priority to human rights and creating solidarity mechanisms. The economic and sustainable growth of Europe cannot be based, once again, on the colonialist abuse of TNCs but on respect for human dignity and justice.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

From South Sudan. Adeng’s letter.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

Advocacy is concerned with values, awareness and knowledge of problems to promote actions, policies and changes in the issues that interest people.

Advocacy does not always aim, right from the start, at concrete results. Sometimes the right or desire of a person or a group involves too many values and too many instances to offer a clear path of action.

Advocacy can then limit itself to making public a problem that escapes or that is not present in public opinion or in bodies that should be concerned of. The aim of advocacy then is that the desire a person or a group perceive as a right can enter the agenda of the public debate. This is the case of Adeng.

Dear Father
My name is Adeng. I am 37 years old and mother of ten children, eight on earth and two already in Heaven. I went to the nuns’ elementary school and, thanks to them, my parents allowed me to start high school.
I was in my second year, I had just turned seventeen when, under pressure from my brother and an uncle, my parents gave me in marriage to a man twenty years older than I. He paid 200 cows – a substantial dowry in our culture -, which my brother mostly used for his wedding.

I was not consulted at all: in our culture, women, and especially girls, have no right to express their opinion. So, I only met my husband on my wedding day and found myself living as a second wife, with the first who was ten years older than I.

I can’t complain about my husband; he rarely beats me and, at least in the early years, he took care of me and of our children, not just financially. Then, the third and fourth wives arrived and his attentions began to move elsewhere. From then, practically, I had to raise our children alone. However, I am much luckier than many of my friends, who are often beaten and humiliated.

Of course, my marriage is a long way from the Christian marriage the nuns enthusiastically used depicting for us at school and catechism: a man and a woman welcoming each other, guided by the hand of God, joining their lives and their projects and promising respect, fidelity and eternal love, forming a family open to life and to others. A vision that used to make us all dreaming, knowing that our future would be very different.

Before getting married, I was assiduous to church, I attended catechism, I confessed and, every Sunday together with my friends, I received Communion: it was a joy to share the Eucharistic table as we did with our community meals!

When I entered high school, I began lending a hand to the young people who took care of the members of Missionary Childhood, a movement well rooted in our parish. To those children, I tried to transmit the first rudiments of our faith, as far as a little girl of my age was able to assimilate.

After the wedding, I continued for four years to teach catechism to the little ones; then I had to give up for family commitments but I continued to be part of the Legion of Mary.
I have always taken all my children to Mass, even when they were very little, as is our custom. All attend catechism regularly and the three oldest have already received First Communion and Confirmation. I have not been able to receive communion since my wedding. At school and at catechism, they told me that a woman in my situation lives in sin and is excluded from Communion. Forever?

I know well that sincere repentance and the commitment not to fall back into error make it possible to wash away the guilt and obtain forgiveness. But, I am and will always be the second of my husband’s four wives. I have no power to change my condition. In my culture, women cannot choose. I didn’t choose to marry him, nor could I object. I didn’t choose to become a second wife, humiliating the first even though I was suffering for her. I did not choose to approach him to have children nor did I have the power to refuse him. I won’t be able to do it in the future either.

How to get out of this situation? By running away? What would become of the children? By divorcing? Where to find all the cows to pay the ransom? Getting my husband to marry me, and me alone, in church? If I were to succeed, what about the other three wives and their children? If my husband dies, God forbid, we would all become wives of one of his brothers called to conceive in his name other children with us.

So I have to look down when my children ask me: “Why did you not go with us to take Communion today, Mom?” I ask myself, Will I never be able to take Communion again? For the rest of my life? Even if I want it with all my heart knowing how important it is for a Christian?

Adeng

Ecuador. The Shuar. The people of the sacred waterfalls.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

The Shuar are an Amazonian indigenous people whose culture, life, and spirituality are based on water.

The Shuar people live in the foothills of the Andes, Cutucú and Condor mountain ranges in the Amazonian provinces of Morona Santiago and Zamora Chinchipe in Ecuador. This is an area characterized by abundant rivers that form wonderful waterfalls, which is why the Shuar are called ‘people of the sacred waterfalls’.
According to estimates by the Shuar, their population numbers 110,000 inhabitants, settled in approximately 668 communities.
The Shuar’s wisdom and culture are strictly connected with water. They were born in water, live in water and return to water. Water is the basis of their life and spirituality. The river to the Shuar people is God’s path through the jungle.

Nature offers the Shuar people abundance of rains from February to July and a minor quantity from August to January. This indigenous group never experienced any survival crisis in this generous land. They are a proud, optimistic, and self-confident people.
They are not worried about tomorrow, but they focus on what is urgent and necessary to live in the present.
The Shuar people live in extended families located at a reasonable distance from each other along the large rivers or along the slopes. They do not usually live in urbanized plots but in their farms, where they enjoy freedom and the gifts of nature, especially water.
Water is the main factor to take into consideration when choosing the place for their house or the centre of their community. Sometimes, they have to change place to ensure abundance of land and a better distribution of water.

Shuar man. C. C. A/ Kleverenrique

The two-door Shuar house is strategically located in a dry location within walking distance of a water source. The door which is used exclusively by women gives onto the path that leads to the source of water for family consumption. The Shuar women use water profusely for the preparation of food and the preparation of chicha-nijiamanch, Shuar’s favourite drink, which is offered to visitors or guests as a sign of welcome and friendship.
Their oval houses, built according to the warm-humid environment of the Amazon, have a high ceiling so that the rainwater runs off easily from a roof made of masterfully woven straw.
Women on their way home after collecting fruits, cassava, papachina, pelma, sweet potato, and banana, wash and peel them at a water source in the way that Nunkui taught in mythical times.

Shuar Child in El Pangui. C.C.A/ Elpangui

The daily bath for adults and children, in the afternoon or after work, is a healthy practice to have a happy rest. Children spend hours playing in the river, like in the best playground.
The Shuar people are not particularly skilled in building bridges so, in case of a swollen river or a difficult path, they look for the narrowest passage and knock down a tree, then with admirable balance they walk across it.
They are instead skilful builders of cedar canoes, their main form of transportation. The Shuar people are great navigators, including children who demonstrate great ability and familiarity with rivers. Their experience with clouds and rains allows them to predict the exact time and intensity of the approaching storm. In the case that they are surprised by a downpour they immediately protect themselves under a makeshift roof or cover themselves with wide leaves so as not to get too wet.
They do not need wells or any irrigation system, the rain is sufficient for their crops. There is no custom of boiling water, because it is enough to mix it with the fermented cassava dough to take it safely.

Shuar-kids. C. C. A/Kintianua

The Shuar people are unaware of the alarming reality of drought. Their mythology does not mention it and therefore this population does not know how to act in this kind of situation. They do not relate drought to deforestation, but simply to the absence of rains, and they have a blind confidence that rains will arrive again on the new moon. One of the causes of deforestation is the intensification of cattle ranching that requires converting a good part of arable land to grassland. When the torrential downpour falls on the top of the leafy trees, the water arrives gradually on the soil, fertilizing it. Lacking the protection of trees, the water falls to the soil directly and drags the weak layer of humus away, impoverishing the soil. Today the national and transnational extractive plans in the Ecuadorian Amazon are a direct threat to the life of the Shuar people. Extractive activities, in fact, directly affect water through the contamination of oil exploitation, mining activity, and prolonged water stagnation due to hydroelectric dams.

Juan de la Cruz Rivadeneira
Open Photo: Shuar Woman ©Jarnoverdonk/123RF.COM

The Elephant and Hare.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

There was once a herd of elephants who went to gather honey to take to their in-laws. As they were walking along, they came upon Hare who was just about to cross the river. She said to one of them: “Father, please help me get across the river.” The elephant agreed to this request and said to Hare: “You may jump on to my back.”

As Hare sat on the elephant’s back, she was quick to notice the two bags full of honey that the elephant was carrying. She started eating honey from one of the bags, and when she had eaten it all, she called out to Elephant saying: “Father, please hand me a stone to play with.” When she was given the stone, she put it in the now empty bag of honey, and started eating the honey from the second bag.

When she had eaten it all, she again requested another stone saying: “Father, please hand me another stone for the one you gave me has dropped, and I want to throw it at the birds.” Elephant handed her another stone, and then another, as she kept asking for stones on the pretext that she was throwing them at the birds, until she had filled both bags with stones.

When Hare realised that the elephants were about to arrive at their destination, she said to the elephant which was carrying her: “Father, I have now arrived, please let me down.” So, Hare went on her way.

Soon afterwards, the elephant looked at his bags, only to realise that they were full of stones! He exclaimed to the others: “Oh my goodness! The hare has finished all my honey!” They lifted up their eyes and saw Hare leaping away at a distance; they set off after her. They caught up with Hare within no time, but as the elephants were about to grab her, she disappeared into a hole. But the elephant managed to catch hold of her tail, at which time the skin from the tail got peeled off. Elephant next grabbed her by the leg.

Hare laughed at this loudly, saying: “Oh! You have held a root mistaking it for me!” Thereupon Elephant let go of Hare’s leg and instead got hold of a root. Hare shrieked from within and said: “Oh father, you have broken my leg!”

As Elephant was struggling with the root, Hare manoeuvred her way out and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Elephant had by this time managed to pull out the root only to realise that it was not Hare’s leg. Once more he lifted up his eyes and saw Hare leaping and jumping over bushes in a bid to escape. Elephant ran in pursuit of her once more.

As Hare continued running, she came across some herdsmen and said to them: “Hey you, herdsmen, do you see that elephant from yonder, you had better run away, for he is coming after you.” The herdsmen scampered and went their separate ways.
When Elephant saw the herdsmen running, he thought they were running after Hare; so, he too ran after them.

When he caught up with them, he said: “Hey you, herdsmen, have you seen a hare with a skinned tail passing along here?” The herdsmen answered: “You have passed her along the way as she was going in the opposite direction.” While Elephant had been chasing the herdsmen, Hare had gained some time to run in the opposite direction.

Next, Hare came upon some women who were sewing outside the homestead and said to them: “Hey you, mothers who are sewing, do you see that elephant from yonder, you had better run away for he is coming after you.” On hearing this, the women scampered for the safety of their houses immediately. But soon the elephant caught up with them and asked: “Hey you, honourable ladies, might you have seen a hare with a skinned tail going toward this direction?” The women answered: “There she goes over there.”

Hare kept running and this time she came upon antelopes grazing and she said to them: “Hey you, antelopes, you had better run away for that elephant is coming after you.” The antelopes were startled and they ran away as fast as their legs could carry them. But soon the elephant was upon them, and he asked them: “Hey you, antelopes, have you seen a hare with a skinned tail going in this direction?” They pointed out to him the direction that Hare had followed.

Still on the run, Hare next came upon a group of other hares, to whom she said: “Hey you, hares, do you see that elephant coming from yonder? You should all skin your tails for he is after those hares with unskinned tails.” Thereupon all the hares quickly skinned their tails.

At the same moment the elephant arrived and asked them: “Hey you, hares, have you seen a hare with a skinned tail going towards this direction?” The hares replied: “Don’t you see that all our tails are skinned?” As the hares said this, they were displaying their tails confident it would please Elephant. On noticing that all the hares’ tails were skinned, Elephant realised that Hare had played a trick on him. Elephant could not find the culprit, for all the hares were alike. And there ends the story.

Folktale from Maasai people. Kenya

The Philippines. The church in the sea.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

In the Bay of Manila, north of the Philippine capital, it is already possible to see what awaits the inhabitants of the coastal regions of the world: entire areas being swallowed up by the sea.

Perhaps hardest hit is Sitio Pariahan in the province of Bulakan – once a flourishing village but now accessible only by boat.
The former inhabitants survive by living in stilt houses. Despite the dangers, especially during the typhoon season, they want to remain at home; earning their living by fishing, the sea is their only means of livelihood. Sitio Pariahan belongs to the parish of Our Lady of Salambao on the island of Binuangan. The parish priest is 45-year-old Fr Rouque Garcia. The community of Sitio Pariahan counts 4,000 members. Another eight villages, called sitios, are located around the Bay: Dapdap, Capol, Bunutan, Kinse-Torres, Sapang, Tucol, Rafael and Calixtro, all of which are accessible only by using the banka, as their small boats are called.

Father Rouque Garcia celebrating Mass at the Holy Cross Church of Sitio Pariahan.

One a month, Fr Garcia takes a banka to Sitio Pariahan to celebrate Mass. The banka initially goes towards the open sea and then turns north into the Meycauayan river, an ancient water-course flanked by dilapidated embankments. Soon, the ruins of houses start to appear. Twenty minutes later, the boat turns left into a tributary. The remains of gnarled tree trunks and individual trees protrude from the water. The guard dogs at some of the abandoned stilt houses start to bark – left behind by their owners to protect the only goods they have. Meanwhile, dark clouds are gathering in the sky above.
The name of the first typhoon of the year begins with the letter A for ‘Ambo’ and it is passing over the Pacific; still at a safe distance. The boatman accelerates and tries to get his bearings. The water is deep at this spot and full of rocks. The river then spreads into a fluvial area covering the remains of a human settlement. Suddenly, in the midst of this apocalyptic scenery, a white building surmounted by a red cross appears on the horizon: the Holy Cross Church of Sitio Pariahan.

The urban landscape of Manila, with slums and skyscrapers. Sea port and residential areas. The capital of the Philippines, view from above.

Built in 1984, the church has become the symbol of the fall of the entire region. Surprisingly, the province of Bulakan was a bulwark of the first Christian mission in the Philippines. Spanish Augustinian missionaries came here in 1572, followed by the Franciscans in 1578. Fifty years earlier, on 16 March 1521, Portuguese Ferdinando Magellan, sailing under the Spanish flag, was the first European to set foot on the Southeast Asian archipelago. The Augustinian and Franciscan monks soon succeeded in converting most of the local population to Christianity. The Philippines soon became the most Catholic country in Asia – in honour of the King of Spain. The official celebrations for the quincentenary of Christianity have been postponed until 2022 due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
“It is really something marvellous to celebrate Mass in this church”, Fr Garcia tells us. “But we need to understand that this is not just a church recently devastated by a storm or a flood where the water recedes after a month or two. This is not the case. The church has become part of the sea. Slowly but surely, the water level has risen and is now inside the whole building. Why do I still say Mass in this situation? Because I want to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ and worship in his memory. It is a matter of service, sacrifice, thanksgiving, charity and humility”.

Celebrating Mass is a challenge both for the priests and the people. There are no longer any seats or benches in the church. The priest and the people are in water up to their knees “Sometimes, when the tide is high, the water reaches the windows”, Fr Garcia tells us. It costs a lot for the people of Pariahan to travel to the main church of Obando, so the priest comes to them to say the Mass. All the people live in stilt houses not far from the church.
Today, the community of Holy Cross is celebrating its patronal feast. The village head Saturnio Espirito is present and recalls the good old days: “Usually, the brass bands would play as they marched through the streets and dancers would perform for the feast of Holy Cross. In those days, life was very good here and there were lots of trees and plants everywhere. We could walk along the streets. What has happened here is unprecedented and the people cannot believe their eyes. We never thought it could happen to us “.
Sitio Pariahan was, at one time, a coastal village. It is now permanently under water that never completely recedes, not even in the dry season. We had a school, a basketball court, a church and cement-built houses. Today, most of the buildings are in ruins. The homes of those families who have decided not to leave are now on bamboo stilts. The people live by fishing. The cause of all this? Locals say the flooding started after 2011’s Typhoon Nesat, which devastated the area and destroyed dikes that kept water out, but according to experts, the problem lies beneath the surface. It’s called land subsidence, or the sinking of land due to the over extraction of groundwater through deep wells. Most provinces outside Metro Manila rely on these wells for fresh water. Even water providers in rural towns like Bulakan take water from below ground before distributing it to homes through pipes. According to Mahar Lagmay, professor and executive director of the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute, that land naturally subsides when underground sediments compact but it is usually replaced by new material in time. But in Pariahan, the sinking is just too fast.

Fisherman on boat in the sunrise© Can Stock Photo / zariam74.

According to Lagmay’s satellite monitoring, the village and nearby areas are subsiding by up to 4 to 5 cm a year, which results in flooding. This aggravates the effects of global warming, which raises sea levels in the area by about 3 to 5 mm a year.
Of the 100 houses once to be found in Sitio Pariahan, only 40 are still standing. Most of the inhabitants moved to terra firma in the nearby cities of Taliptip, Obando and Malabon, but they, too, are flooded during the heavy rain season. Similarly, millions of residents in the northern parts of Manila are threatened by flooding and there are evacuation centres in many places. As if this were not enough, the inhabitants are now threatened by a further disaster: right where their village is located, the new international Bulakan Manila airport is to be built. It is expected to cover 2,500 hectares of the sea and to be four times larger than the present airport. In future, 100 million passengers per year will land and take off from this airport.

Residents of Taliptip stage a protest action in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to oppose the San Miguel Corporation’s airport project that would displace hundreds of fisherfolk. (Photo courtesy of Save Taliptip).

Last October, the Philippine Senate granted permission for the large-scale project. Large protests were made both by the people of the place and various environmentalist associations. All to no avail. It is only a matter of time until the inhabitants of the village will have to leave their homes for good. At the nearby community of Bunutan, the church bells have been sent to higher ground. The island of Binuangan and the region around Taliptip will feel the enormous impact of the huge airport. Besides the noise and environmental pollution, the reclamation for the mega-airport will further aggravate the flood situation in the Bay of Manila – and all of this is happening while the polar ice is melting at an ever-increasing rate, causing a rise in sea levels. “If it had not been for the Corona pandemic restrictions and the quarantine measures in this parish, people might well have already moved to make way for the airport”, Fr Garcia informs us. “This is why we celebrate every Mass in Pariahan as if it were to be the last”.

Hartmut Schwarzbach/Kontinente

Charles de Foucauld. The Gospel in the land of the Sahara.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

Just over a century after he died as a martyr, Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), who brought the Gospel to Islamic lands and lived among the Tuareg people in the Algerian desert, will be proclaimed a saint later this year.

Charles called himself a “missionary monk” and came to establish his hermitage in the desert in southern Algeria among the Tuaregs, a nomadic population of the Islamic faith.
After finishing military school with the rank of a Second Lieutenant cavalry officer, Charles abandoned the idea of pursuing a career in the army, which had become a bore for him. He moved away from the Christian faith in which he had grown up and led “a life without purpose,” as he would later admit.
At the age of twenty-eight, while not knowing how to direct his life, he felt the need to study the Catholic religion, driven by his cousin Marie de Bondy to whom he was bound by deep friendship and with whom he would always maintain a close correspondence relationship, considering her as his “spiritual mother.”

He resumed going to church where he would spend long hours repeating the same prayer: “My God, if you exist, allow me to know you.” He embarked on the path of conversion, helped by Abbé Henri Huvelin whom he adopted as his spiritual guide.
No longer interested in seeking proofs of God’s existence, Charles experienced God’s infinite goodness. Almost simultaneously with the rediscovery of faith, the desire for religious consecration was born in him.
Attracted by monastic life in 1890, he was welcomed into the Trappist monastery of Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur, near Akbes (Syria). Life in the monastery, however, did not seem to be enough for him. Unsatisfied with the life in the Trappe, in January 1897, he left the monastery and went to the Holy Land, “so as to follow Jesus, the poor workman of Nazareth”. For three years, he lived as a servant in the convents of the Poor Clares in Nazareth and Jerusalem.
In the meantime, the desire to bear witness to the Gospel as a priest in mission countries where he dreamed of founding many hermitages dedicated to the Sacred Heart was maturing in him.
In August 1900, Charles returned to France. Fr. Huvelin agreed that he be ordained a priest. So, he went to spend a year in a convent praying and studying. In June 1901, he became a priest and asked to be called Brother Charles of Jesus.

Mission In Africa
Soon after, he decided to carry out his mission in Africa among Muslim populations. At the end of October 1901, he arrived in Béni Abbès, a little oasis in the Algerian Sahara on the borders of Morocco.
In January 1904, Charles left Beni Abbés and went to establish his hermitage at Tamanrasset, a southern outpost of the territories occupied by France, among the Tuaregs. From the very beginning of his presence in Algeria, Brother Charles had it clear in his mind that his mission was not to convert, but rather to carry out preparatory work for evangelization, “without preaching, but rather by learning the language of the people, conversing with them, and establishing friendly relations.” He was convinced that “the word is important, but example, love, and prayer are a thousand times more important”.

At the hermitage, Charles welcomed the poor, assisted the sick with medicines that relatives and friends sent to him from France, but above all he devoted many hours a day to the study of the Tuareg language (Tamahaq). He led a hard ascetic life. To the many hours of prayer, he added more work, particularly in the linguistic field. His daily diet consisted of a mush of crushed wheat starch with a little butter, dates, and bread without yeast.
Brother Charles strongly wished to share the mission with a companion to ensure the continuity of his work. He would make three trips to France in search of some priests willing to live the hermit experience in the desert with him, but he would never see his wish fulfilled.
He also hoped for the involvement of the laity in the work of evangelization and drew up the statutes of the Union of the Brothers and Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to “awaken vocations of lay people who would accept to settle with the Tuaregs”.

Like A Seed Of Wheat
In September 1914, war broke out between France and Germany, with immediate repercussions in the colonial territories. The anti-French rebellion grew, led by the movement of the Senussi coming from Libya, who were about to penetrate the south of Algeria. Radical Islamic preachers prophesied the coming of the Mahdi who would establish his kingdom, wiping out all traces of ‘Christian paganism.’
To win the Tuareg ethnic groups over to the cause of the anti-French revolt, the Senussi movement targeted those Europeans who had the greatest influence on the local population. They planned to capture the Christian marabout and take him out of the country to put an end to his influence on the local population subjected to the French authorities.

On 1st December 1916, the rebels tricked Brother Charles into opening the door to the hermitage– which, in the meantime, he had rebuilt as a real fortress to offer people shelter in case of armed attacks. They tied his hands behind his back and forced him to kneel. His home and sanctuary of prayer were ransacked.
The approach of two Arab soldiers on camelback enlisted in the French army interrupted the thievery. The 15-year-old boy who was guarding Charles panicked. He pulled the trigger of his rifle and shot Charles in the head. Charles made no sound. He slowly crumpled to the sandy earth and died. Brother Charles’ death seemed to fulfill what he had predicted a few years earlier: “Like the wheat in the Gospel, I must rot in the land of the Sahara to prepare the future harvest. Such is my vocation”.

Efrem Tresoldi

Africa. Catechists. Unknown heroes and heroines of the faith.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

With a new Apostolic Letter Antiquum Ministerium (Ancient Ministry), Pope Francis establishes the lay ministry of catechist. In Africa catechists have been the cornerstone of the church. We present three stories of the catechists in South Sudan, where they have been important actors in the work of evangelisation.

The beginning of the Catholic Church in the rural areas of Nuerland, in Western Upper Nile, in South Sudan is unique. Hundreds of catechists worked by themselves for nearly 25 years without the presence of missionaries among them. James Duol Kai is considered the father and the founder of the Catholic Church in Nuerland. He was born in 1940 in Tiam, in Leer County. During the first Anyanya war, James Duol lived with his family in Malakal. He was working as a guard in the prison of that town. One day, some civilians, Dinka men, were put in prison and they were sentenced to death.

James Duol Kai is considered the father and the founder of the Catholic Church in Nuerland.

When James came to know of this, he helped them to escape. He was discovered and put in prison. He was transferred to the prison of Port Sudan to complete his sentence there. While in jail, he met Fr. Peter, a Catholic priest, who was the chaplain of the prison. He talked to him about God, Jesus and the Catholic faith. When his prison term was almost ended, Fr. Peter told him to go to the Comboni Missionaries in Khartoum and ask for help. He gave him a letter of recommendation. He went to Khartoum and joined the Sergi Club where Comboni Brother Sergi helped him find a job. A few months later, he joined the catechumenate. He was baptised on 16 January, 1961. He received the sacrament of confirmation on Christmas Day the same year. He married in the Church with his wife. Soon after, he went back to Adok and he became a trader. Due to the war, he was forced to go back to Khartoum again where he kept in touch with Brother Sergi.
At the end of the war, towards the end of 1972, he returned to Adok again, this time determined to teach the Catholic faith to the Nuer in his hometown. He started gathering some people in his house together with his wife and children. After a while, other Catholics who came from Khartoum joined them.

A chapel in Nuerland.

The congregation increased as did the catechumenate. His house was no longer suitable and, in 1974, they built their church with the cooperation of all. In 1977, his own congregation chose him to be their catechist. James taught them for about two years and was then faced with a problem: he had catechumens ready to be baptised but there was no Catholic priest to baptise them. He was not discouraged by this situation. In 1979, he decided to go to Malakal and reported to Monsignor Vincent Mojwok, the Bishop of the diocese of Malakal, the number of catechumens who were ready for baptism.
Bishop Vincent gave him the authorisation to baptise and appointed him leader of the Catholic Church in the area of Adok.
Among the newly-converted Catholics he chose the best and appointed them as catechists and sent them to teach all over Western Upper Nile. He also became an itinerant catechist.

James Duol Kai’s tomb. Every year, November 7, the Catholic community of the parish gather to commemorate the Father of their Church.

In 1979, Catechist James created a committee to coordinate the work of evangelisation, to organize the program for baptisms and to liaise with the diocese of Malakal. While he was visiting one of the community, he was killed on 7 November, 1991 near Adok in cross-fire between two rebel factions. He is buried in the compound of the Catholic Church in Liap, in Adok. Today, the Catholics of the rural areas of Western Upper Nile remember him as the founder and the father of the Catholic Church in their territory. The catechetical centre of Saint Joseph’s Parish was named after him to acknowledge the work he did for the evangelisation of the Nuer and the foundation of the Church in rural Western Nuer.

Wherever she went she worked in the Church.
Women have played important roles in the Catholic Church in Africa. They are the ones that carry on the most activities in the communities. Many of them are catechists.
Mary Nyaluak Luny is a 50 year old widow. Born in Patit, Jagei, she was married while a teenager. After she had her first three children, two boys and one girl, life became very difficult for her. Her in-laws died, and her husband was killed in the war in 1985. She was forced to emigrate with thousands of Nuer to Ethiopia in 1987. In Ethiopia she met Fr. Benjamin Madol who welcomed her and her children into the church. At the end of 1988, she joined the catechumenate. When the government of Mengistu was ousted in 1991, the Southern Sudanese who were refugees in Ethiopia were sent back to their country. Nyaluak went to Nimule where she continued her training for baptism and was baptised with the name of Mary on 24 August, 1993. After her baptism she tried to live her life as best she could according to the Gospel. She worked with the priests, the sisters and with the bishop himself.

Mary Nyaluak Luny. She is the leader of the women association called: The Women of Saint Luke.

In 1995, Mary Nyaluak went back to Leer in Upper Nile. She decided to work with the missionaries who arrived in Leer in 1996. She also became involved in Church activities, first with the Legion of Mary and later in other ministries. With the help of the parish priest, she started the Women of Luke Association on 5 November 1997. In 1998, the parish priest organized training to prepare women catechists.
She joined the training together with seven other women.
Unfortunately the war reached Leer in June 1998. Many people were killed and tens of thousands of them were displaced. The missionaries were also displaced to other areas of Upper Nile. In the middle of the turmoil produced by the war, Mary Nyaluak moved to different places to save her own life and the lives of her children. Wherever she went she worked in the Church.

In 2002, she went to Nyal and got involved in the Church’s ministry. She started to reorganize the Women of Luke Association. They were dispersed by the war but the association did not end. She was appointed catechist on 1 August, 2004. In 2005 she organised courses to train women catechists in Leer and Mayandiit, and she started the Sunday School of Religion in those two places. Today, she continues to pray every day with the Women of Luke and the Christian community and is always ready to serve in any work that is needed in the Church.

My vocation is to be a catechist
John Kuk Baluang was born in 1951, in Gany a village of Jagei in Western Upper Nile. In 1970 he went to Khartoum. There he met some friends from his home village in Jagei, who were Catholics. They tried to convince him to go to the Church but he refused. Every Sunday, they invited him to the Church but he declined. But one day he did agree to go with them, just to please them and out of curiosity. He liked the prayers, the teaching, and the people of the Church. He decided to become Catholic. At the beginning of 1974 he joined the catechumenate. He was baptised on 17 September, 1974. He was confirmed on 19 December, 1974.

In 1975 he went to Malakal. He started his basic education in that town. But he only reached primary three. He went back to Khartoum in 1978 and he completed his primary education there. At the end of primary school, he went to Bahr el Ghazal where he joined the Vocational Training Institute. In 1983 he went back home but the situation was bad in Jagei and the second civil war of Sudan started. He went to Ethiopia as a refugee. He spent the year 1984 in Addis Ababa and he settled in Gambela, a refugee camp for Southern Sudanese and home of the Ethiopian Nuer.
There he continued his education and in 1987, he was awarded the certificate of secondary education.
In 1989, he was elected catechist in Gambela. He accepted the appointment, because when he was in Bahr el Ghazal, he liked to work in the Church. In 1991 he became an itinerant missionary-catechist and taught the Catholic faith in many places. He worked hard to establish the Catholic Church in Koch.

John deeply believes in his vocation as a catechist. He says that God has been always with him and he has protected him from many dangers because he chose him to teach the Word of God to the Nuer. He remembers two events in particular. “In 1998, some militia launched a surprise attack on Koch while we were all sleeping. When the militia entered Koch they threw hand grenades in all directions. One was thrown into our house but by the grace of God it did not explode. We live today to witness to this miracle of God in our lives”.
On another occasion he narrates: “Two different Nuer factions (SPDF and SPLA) met in Koch to discuss their differences and try to make peace. Their meeting took place on 29 October, 1999. They invited me to the meeting as a Church leader to pray for the meeting and to participate in it. The end of the meeting was unfortunate. Both sides strongly disagreed and instead of making peace they started fighting. They used their guns and for a couple of minutes they shot at each other and I was in the middle! When the shooting ended, the place was filled with dead bodies. There was blood everywhere. I was really scared as there were some dead bodies on top of me. But I was alive! Twelve people were killed in the meeting place, but once more I was saved by the power of God. He protected me because I went to that meeting as a catechist, as a man of the Church. I went in the name of God. I always trust God in my life and he has never abandoned me. He has shown me in so many different ways his love and protection!”
Today John continues his work of evangelisation with great zeal, faith and generosity. He is based in Koch.

Fernando Gatkuoth Gonzalez

Togo. A Voodoo is born to us.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

Among the waci (a name that means ‘the souls of our ancestors dwell here’) of southern Togo, the birth of a child is seen as a precious gift, a sign of divine blessings. We now consider the breech delivery.

Unusual births, ones that are so difficult that they endanger the life of the mother or the child, are placed in the context of offences committed by the parents against the family and society. These are punished by the voodoo, the supernatural powers used by God to intervene indirectly in the affairs of the world. This is why the birth of twins, albinos, babies born by breech birth (born feet first), Down Syndrome babies, or babies who are deformed, is seen as the apparition of a voodoo. In many cases, it is thought that the voodoo may have assumed the appearance of the child. Such phenomena, far from being seen as commonplace, are instead brought into the sphere of the sacred. Children born in this way are called ago and recognised as voodoo.

When an ago child is born, the parents are confined for nine days in the room where the birth took place and the door is closed from the outside. This period of seclusion (called phedhexo) has different purposes: to prepare the parents to come into contact with the voodoo who has been born and ‘initiate them’ into the mysterious powers of the cosmos, separating them from the ‘profane’ world and consecrating them as huno, ‘ministers’ or qualified representatives of the voodoo; and to bring the child into society and to help the parents to accept the voodoo-child. During the phedhexo, the family members spend their time preparing ‘the rite of coming out’, or vidheto, which will allow the child and its parents to leave the house.

After consulting the afa oracle, the paternal uncles go to look for a mother and father who have already had an ago child (and so have become huno or ‘ministers of worship’ of the voodoo ago) and they invite them to come and preside at the ceremony which will take place within a designated period (from three months to three years).
The ‘rite of coming out’ takes place on the ninth day of confinement. The huno mother knocks nine times on the door with her left hand, opens the door and picks up the mat, the loincloths and the money. She then asks for clean loincloths for the child and her parents and gives them to them to put on. She then takes the new-born child outside, touching the bar of the door nine times with the foot of the child. She then takes the foot of the mother, touching the lower part of the door with it and, finally, she repeats the same gesture with the father. The imposition of the name then follows. If the child is a girl she is called Agossì (feminine form of ago). If the child is a boy, the name is chosen from among Agossu (male ago). From now on, the child may not be called by any other name, and cannot become an adept of other voodoo.

Vodulili
The child may now be taken to the market for the rite of presentation of the parents (asiphephle). Only after this ceremony will the parents be free to go to the market to buy things. The people give gifts in kind or of money to the ago child. When they return, a simple meal is prepared to celebrate this happy event.
If the parents can afford it, on the day of the vidheto, the vodulili rite, or ‘installation of the voodoo’ also takes place, in the room where the ago child was born. This installation is obligatory since the voodoo now dwells in the house and wants an altar to be erected so as to receive worship and be venerated by the people.

It is from this altar – a privileged place of encounter between the human and the divine – he will be able to show his power and his generosity. In the corner of the room a hole is dug 30-40 centimetres deep into which is placed a jar containing the symbolic objects of the ago voodoo: the head of a viper dwakpata, a rifle bullet, a little gunpowder, small grains of kalikuvi pepper, pieces of bark of the vhuti tree and of the baobab and an object of gold (sikawowo), plus some special herbs (kpanuhehe and adzuca). The hole is then covered with soil and there follows the great prayer (dhephopho) of the ancestors. Afterwards, a chicken is killed and food is prepared for the common meal.

Life force
Once the meal is over, the huno father cuts the hair of the parents and child, for the first time since the birth of the ago child. In this context, the cutting of the hair represents a rite of separation of the ago child and his parents from the ‘profane’ world, to bring them into the sacred sphere of the voodoo. The ‘minister’ then gathers up the hair and will bury it afterwards in the forest, in a place where nobody can find it.

Finding the hair would bring a curse upon the family. Having finished the haircutting, the minister prepares some ‘holy’ water in a vessel in which some special herbs have been placed, and carries out the washing of the parents and the child.
The brief ceremony of the azakplikpli, or ‘reunion of the sleeping-mats’, finally permits the parents to resume normal conjugal relations.
A breech birth is never easy and often, especially in the past, it resulted in the death of the mother or the child, or both. It is understandable that the birth of an ago child is considered an extraordinary event, ‘pregnant with power’. ‘Ago has neither mother nor father’, the prayer says. That is, the voodoo himself comes to live only because he wants to do so, and it is certain that he will be able to overcome, without much help from his parents, the difficulties of life. (A.G.)
Open photo: Village/© Can Stock Photo / homocosmicos

France. The Coming Anomy.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

In April and May 2021, two groups of French officers (both retired and serving) from different branches of the armed forces wrote open letters to politicians to denounce the degrading of French
institutions and society.

In their opinion, this is due mainly to the growth of identity politics and groups that challenge French culture and history and, consequently, divide the country. Among other things, the military denounce the loss of state control in entire areas (especially urban) and forecast a situation of chaos that will lead to civil conflict. They fear that in the near future troops will be deployed to restore peace with the use of force not in a failing Third World country but in France.
Those who wrote the two letters seem to think that there is still room for manoeuvre, and a gloomy future for France can be avoided if the right policies are implemented.

The authors of the two letters have been accused by some French commentators of preparing a military coup or, at best, of unduly influencing the public debate. Maybe some sectors of the French armed forces do think that military rule will solve the country’s problems.
But the letters seem only to be genuine warnings to anyone who wants to listen. Those who wrote them know that if France enters a spiral of chaos, the soldiers led by them will be deployed in their own country to fight an internal threat. Sometimes the whistle-blower is mistaken
for the troublemaker.

Feral cities
The predictions of these generals and officers are similar to what David Kilcullen (a former Australian officer) wrote in “Out of the Mountains”, a book on the future of war published in 2013. Kilcullen, among other things, spoke of a future in which large parts of the world population will live in neighbourhoods that will escape the control of the state.

He wrote of “feral” cities, urban areas “moving backwards in time and downward in social order, regressing to the warlike chaos of the wild – not a non-city but an anti-city, a perversion of the natural way of things” (page 69). Some of the French officers were deployed in places like Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, and Mali that look like what Kilcullen described.
According to Kilcullen, “society abhors a governance vacuum. People will replicate police when the police are inadequate” (page 95). If a state retracts from some areas of its territory, other entities will take its place (criminal gangs, traditional leaders, etc.) and will rule that area with some kind of violence. It seems that what Kilcullen forecasted will take place also in France.

Anomy and anarchy
The situation described by French officers and Kilcullen can be defined as “anomy”. This idea, developed by French sociologist Emile Durkheim, can be translated as a “condition of absence of law”. Due to a series of conditions (war, political crises, pandemic, etc.) the principles and the laws that regulate the life of a community weaken to the point that they have no more sense for the people they are supposed to influence.

In the third book of his “History of the Peloponnesian War”, the Greek historian Thucydides describes this situation in the city of Corcyra during the Peloponnesian war. “With all life thrown into chaos at this time of crisis for the city, human nature triumphed over law: it had always been inclined to the criminal breaking of the laws, but now it revelled in showing itself the slave of passion, a stronger force than justice, and the enemy of anything higher. People would not have set revenge above piety or profit above adherence to the law if envy had not worked its corrupting influence on them. And though the commonly accepted laws in such areas underpin everyone’s hope of personal rescue if they meet with trouble, men think they have a prior right to set these laws aside when taking vengeance on others — and not leave them intact against a time when they themselves might be in danger and have need of one of them” (translation by Martin Hammond, Oxford World’s Classics).
Anomy is different from anarchy. Anarchy can be loosely described as “a condition where there is no ruler”. In principle, an anarchist aims to build a society with rules accepted and implemented autonomously by its members with no authority to impose them.
One can discuss on a theoretical plane if that idea is feasible but, in this case, it is important only to notice that anomy is different from anarchy. And it is much worse.

The Wild West
It would be easy to describe anomy using the image of “The Wild West” usually used by the press and taken from the movies. But there is neither romance nor heroism in anomy. As described by Thucydides, in this condition every rule is refused, and egoism takes the central spot at all levels. Violence becomes the main tool since for an individual there is no other way to reach his or her goals (or at least he or she thinks so). Society morphs into a set of groups of people temporarily linked mainly by self-interest that perceive other groups as competitors and possible aggressors. There is no common history, shared values, or unifying goals to keep society together. Since there is no trust in other groups and in a common system of rules to solve the problems, the use of violence is only a matter of time. And there is no limit to it, such as the principle of the proportionate response to a threat.

Some could even find this situation desirable, as limitations to the pursuit of his or her goals seem to fall short. He or she may be strong enough (in terms of wealth, connections, physical strength, etc.) to impose his or her will. But sooner or later, violence will overwhelm him or her, since the number of groups and sub-groups that fight to prevail tend to grow due to rivalries. This dynamic will lead to chaos. Some individuals or groups may try to exploit the situation to replace the government. By doing this they will surely tear the social fabric apart. And, due to the complexity of reality, it is probable that they will be overwhelmed by the violence they unleashed.

Everyone is involved
The French officers have shone the spotlight on a danger that is of concern not only in developing countries but in all countries. The social fabric can be destroyed, the ties between individuals and groups can be severed and internal conflict can be unleashed. Therefore, every society should make a deep self-analysis to understand if it is taking this risk.
The degrading of society is not an unstoppable process, even if it progressively accelerates over time and, at a certain point, things could fall apart. It is also true that there are different forces that, voluntarily or not, are allowing this dynamic to progress.
But a collective effort could avoid the collapse. The question is: Are political leaders aware of this danger?
The fight against anomy is of concerns to all citizens. Since at all levels there are individuals that try to divide society, there must be other people that try to unify it.

Innocent Pond

Child soldiers. The difficulty of ‘adapting to peace’.

Thursday, 1 July 2021 8:00

There are at least eighteen countries, where children are recruited and used in armed conflicts. From regular army to rebels, from guerrilla movements to drug cartels. The phenomenon has assumed the status of a humanitarian disaster.

Dahara was 15 and had never used a weapon until he arrived in Libya, together with his eighteen-year-old cousin Hagar. They got into a pickup truck in their tiny village in Chad and from there, together with others, they made the long desert journey lasting for days and reached a training camp in the south of Libya.
Before they left, he was told they would go to work in Libya and would afterwards go to Europe if they wanted to. Instead, he was given a gun. He had to follow the orders of some Libyan militiamen. There were many mercenaries there from Chad, Nigeria and Mali.

At the Al Jazeera military base in the outskirts of Mogadishu, in Somalia, Idris is a new recruit at the age of ten. He likes drawing. His leader gives him some paper and he uses it for drawing. He has very little time left as his instructors are in a hurry to get him and the other recruits ready in a few weeks. Idris is too busy to pursue his hobby. He imagines he will be a painter when he grows up. In his free time, he meets Yusef, also ten years old. But his friend is lucky, with better clothes and better food. Yusef is a member of the bodyguard of a government official: that is why he always seems to be better off.
The child soldiers are forced to join the armed groups in different countries of the world and trained to kill. In the context of the Covid-19 global pandemic, the ‘virus’ of violence from which the child soldiers suffer in situations of armed conflict is even more lethal in that it destroys their life, their dignity and their future.

It is estimated that there are about 250,000 minors engaged in war operations, used as soldiers and forced to commit unspeakable crimes. Many of them are aged between 14 and 18 and many were recruited at the age of ten. There are at least 18 countries where, from 2016 up to now, the use of minors in armed conflicts has been documented: Afghanistan, Cameroon, Colombia, The Central African Republic, The Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Libya, The Philippines, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Despite all efforts to counteract this phenomenon, the number of recorded cases has continually increased between 2012 and 2020. In 2019 alone — UNICEF maintains — around 7,750 minors were recruited, used in their dozens by guerrillas, armed groups and regular armies. Somalia, according to UN sources, is one of the states most involved with over 1,500 child soldiers, mostly kidnapped by al-Shabaab and forced to fight. In Central Africa, where minors were used by all the main parties to the internal conflict that has gone on since 2013, the phenomenon has assumed the status of a humanitarian disaster.
In Colombia, even though a peace accord has been signed between the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia- Ejército del Pueblo (FARC), other armed groups continue to recruit children. They are used not only by guerrilla movements like the Ejército de Liberacion Nacional (ELN), but also by demobilised paramilitary groups such as Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

According to a study by Defensoria del Pueblo, a public Colombian institution, the average age of recruits is 12. The ELN guerrilla groups are composed, according to some estimates, of 40% minors while in the AUC paramilitary militias minors amount to 30%.
In Mexico, corruption, blackmail and kidnapping are the usual methods used by the drug cartels to recruit children. According to the ‘Red por los derecho de la infancia’, the narco-children number about 30,000. Not all of them are armed; most of them are informers or drug-pushers. In the agricultural areas of Sierra di Durango and Michoacán, they are used in the cultivation of drugs.
The youths often play an important part in human trafficking and the kidnapping of migrants. Some of them become ‘sicari’ (assassins).
One of the 17 aims of sustainable development established by the UN by the year 2030 requires that states adopt immediate and effective measures to guarantee the prohibition and the elimination of all forms of work by minors, including the recruiting and use of child soldiers and an end to all forms of work by minors before the end of 2025. The aim seems very remote indeed.

Recuperating child soldiers represents the most difficult part of what is required to provide a better future for the boys and girls marked by terrible experiences of violence. Following the end of various conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, tens of thousands of child soldiers were sent home. Very often the children recruited in refugee camps have no families, either because they lost them or killed some members of their communities and are therefore unable to return to their villages. UNICEF and a number of NGOs are helping the children to become part of transition structures as a first step towards ‘adapting to peace’, where they attend professional training courses that open up job possibilities.
The psychological problems are not to be underestimated: the children who have committed atrocities are marked by these experiences for their whole lives; their psychological recovery is essential for a new life.

Last February 12, the International Day against the use of child soldiers, the EU High Commissioner, Josep Borrell, and the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the UN for children and armed conflict, Virginia Gamba, issued a single communique to draw attention to this tragic but still globally widespread phenomenon. As the communique states, despite all the international efforts, children continue to pay the highest price in the conflicts of the world and to be recruited to fight – and consequently are deprived of their fundamental rights. It also indicates the importance of universalising the ratification of the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000, according to which minors may not be recruited until they are eighteen years old.
Even though 170 states have signed the Protocol, it is far from being implemented completely. Increasing awareness of the phenomenon of child soldiers is not enough: what is needed are action and concrete commitments to ensure that minors are really protected and that their rights in infancy are respected.
Social rehabilitation is a long journey, though it is not impossible. Ensuring these children the right to grow up in a protected environment, with education, access to secure schools and work experience, means ensuring their right to life itself.

Julien Kadiri

Photo Gallery – Jubilee 2025. Pilgrims of Hope

Advocacy

Baobab

Youth & Mission