Building Jubilee Communities
Programme to Overcome Violence
Building peace with justice is a Christian calling for individuals and churches. In obedience to a Christian understanding of grace, love and redemption, churches are called to witness to peace with justice. Yet, they have not always heeded this call. Around the world and throughout history, the response of churches to situations and structures of injustice and violence has varied widely.
There is no consensus about what constitutes a Christian approach to violence or nonviolence. There is, however, a deep yearning among the churches to build lasting peace, grounded in justice. The fact that many
churches today are faced with multiple forms of violence has given a new urgency to this yearning. The very survival of life in human community, sustained within creation, may be at stake.
Heeding the longing for peace with justice, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is concentrating on the possibility of building, and rebuilding, "jubilee communities" -- communities of justice, peace and ecological sustainability -- at local, national and international levels. Together with the churches we are trying to bring a new and renewed vision, deeper analysis and more creative methods to bear on the quest for a just peace.
The focus of the Programme to Overcome Violence (POV) is building a culture of peace through practical means to overcome violence at different levels of society, encouraging the churches to play a leading role in using nonviolent means such as prevention, mediation, intervention and education appropriate to their particular contexts. The POV can be regarded as a broad framework within which the efforts of the churches and other groups can find their own place.
"Peace to the City" Global Campaign (1997-1998)
Launched by the WCC Central Com-mittee in September 1996, "Peace to the City" is a global initiative within the POV. The campaign concentrates on seven cities around the world where both destructive and constructive forces are at play. The focus of the campaign is not on violence in the cities (whose widespread incidence and complexities are well-known) but on imaginative efforts to overcome violence through cross-community work to build bridges between and to reconcile communities drawn into conflict by violence.
"Peace to the City" highlights creative models of community rebuilding. The goals are to make these models visible, recognize the value of their approaches and methodologies, stimulate sharing and networking and, above all, give others a reason to hope and attempt something similar in their own contexts. The support and solidarity of such a campaign is also intended to strengthen existing community efforts in the seven cities and to sustain work beyond the specific campaign events.
The seven cities chosen for the campaign are Rio de Janeiro, Belfast, Boston, Colombo, Durban, Kingston and Suva. Beyond these symbolic seven cities, churches and groups everywhere engaged in peace building are invited to participate in the campaign.
This two-year campaign will culminate at the WCC's Eighth Assembly in December 1998. Enabling churches and groups to connect with and learn from each other will be a goal throughout the process, creating what we hope will be an exciting ecumenical initiative beyond 1998.
WCC Unit III - POV
August 1997
Peace to the City
Join the campaign and help build a culture of peace!
Visit the Peace to the City Web Site at http://www.wcc-coe.org/pov to:
- Share your current efforts and future visions for peace
- Discuss actions and research
- Chat with experts and public figures
- Learn the latest Campaign news
- Become a "Campaign Partner" and join our Web network
Become a "Sister City". Your local church, community, or organization can directly support partners in one of the seven cities. See the Campaign Web Site or contact WCC/POV for information on local initiatives.
Bring the "Peace to the City" Campaign to your community. Discuss with local churches, religious communities, organizations, and individuals how this initiative can apply in your area. Contact local, regional or national councils of churches or religious bodies to find out what they are doing.
Share your ideas and efforts in peacemaking through the Web or send them to the WCC/POV.
Subscribe to the Programme to Overcome Violence list server (free of charge) for information about the campaign, resources, and announcements. To subscribe, send an e-mail to "majordomo@info.wcc-coe.org" with "subscribe pov-l" (without quotes) in the body of your message.
Receive the quarterly campaign newsletter by mail. Contact the WCC/POV to be added to the mailing list.
WCC Programme to Overcome Violence
P.O. Box 2100
CH-1211 Geneva 2
+41-22-791-0361 (fax)
Salpy Eskidjian, co-ordinator (sal@wcc-coe.org) - Sara Speicher, programme assistant (ses@wcc-coe.org) - Beatrice Merahi, administrative assistant (bem@wcc-coe.org)
Peace to the City
Overcoming Political and Criminal Violence
Community Policing Forums
Peace to the City
During the Apartheid era the South African Police Force (SAP) was viewed by the disenfranchized and oppressed people of South Africa as the enemy and a tool of oppression. Violence between community members and the police resulted in many deaths. Each side viewed the other with great suspicion and hostility. In order to change attitudes on all sides, the current Ministry of Safety and Security has introduced Community Policing Forums (CPF).
Rev. Mbonambi Khuzwayo, a minister in the Uniting Reformed Church (URC) in Southern Africa, is a key figure in the development of better relationships between the police and the community of Kwamakhutha, a black township in the Durban area. His aim as the Peace Process Organizer of the Diakonia Council of Churches is to get the local churches involved in the CPF. In the Kwamakhutha area the churches are often best placed to be impartial and have considerable credibility among all political parties and with the police.
Over the years Kwamakhutha has been torn apart by violent conflict between the African National Congress (ANC), the Inkhata Freedom Party (IFP) and the Apartheid-sponsored security forces (the SAP and the South African Defence Force). Since 1995 the CPF has acted to initiate dialogue and improve relationships between the three groups. The impartial facilitation of the church has been key in this process, an example of which is the consensus reached on a local CPF constitution.
The relationship built between these three groups -- the IFP, ANC and South African Police Services (the former SAP) -- since 1995 has seen the elimination of politically-motivated violence. However, this politically-motivated violence has unfortunately been replaced by general criminal violence. In the past it was impossible to get community members to co-operate with the police lest they be labelled an informer. Now people are more willing to pass on information to the police, and the area has seen a reduction of crime.
Two important lessons have been learnt in this process. The first is that politically-motivated and/or general criminal violence may be overcome through an effective tool such as the CPF, but there will be limited long-term
results unless the underlying causes of poverty and unemploy-ment are addressed at the same time.
Secondly, groups such as the church can play a very influential role in building confidence and trust between community members and the police. The churches should be encouraged to become involved and provide training. This is one of the major goals for the Diakonia Council of Churches' (DC of C) Peace Programme which has already led two successful workshops during 1997. Currently there are a number of enthusiastic church people working with their local CPFs in six different areas.
The DC of C would welcome insights, suggestions and models of building effective community-police relation-ships from other cities, especially around the issues of racial and gender integration of the police.
Rev. Mike Vorster, DC of C
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Village in northwestern KwaZulu Natal Province Photo: Christian Hohmann
Presence of Peace Monitors Averts Violence
Durban, South Africa -- The atmosphere in KwaMashu was electric. Two conflicting political parties were mounting election campaigns in areas less than a kilometre apart. Open conflict could easily break out. Monitors from the Ecumenical Peace Pro-gramme (EPP) were present at each of these meetings.
At one rally party members had gathered and were singing. The party leader for the area waited outside for the appropriate moment to make his entrance. An EPP monitor was standing across the road observing the activities and remaining in touch by radio with his colleagues.
Four youths came up the road and began jeering at the people gathered for the rally. At first they did not notice the parked car where the political leader waited. Suddenly the bodyguard jumped out of the car gun in hand and confronted the youth. The youth were visibly shocked. A heated exchange of strong words and pointing fingers ensued. The youth began to make submissive gestures as they pleaded with the bodyguard.
They were allowed to go and ran off along the road.
During this exchange the bodyguard kept a wary eye on the peace monitor across the road and became more restrained in the use of his gun. It was quite apparent that had the EPP monitors not been present the youth may have been beaten or shot.
The EPP monitors deployed at the rally also reported that the tone of the speech was less emotive and militant than expected from this political leader.
During the debriefing after this event it was agreed that the EPP presence, without any direct intervention, averted what could have been another very violent situation.
POV List server
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Peace to the City
The Ecumenical Peacemakers Programme in Durban
The Ecumenical Peacemakers Pro-gramme (EPP) is an initiative of the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The EPP's original intent was to create a climate of peace in this volatile province before local government elections in 1996.
The programme is a co-operative effort between churches and non-governmental agencies in Europe and Africa to train and deploy local and international peacemakers in areas of conflict or potential conflict.
Eighteen peacemakers were brought in from Europe and one from Zimbabwe to work with local volunteers in a four-month programme of community-based monitoring and mediation. At the peacemakers' request, church leaders had three separate meetings with top representatives of the major political parties and the security services to introduce the EPP to party leadership.
As ecumenical peacemakers, the EPP teams provided more than just a passive witness. Their active monitor-
ing involved accompanying people on all sides on a per-sonal level by at-
tending gatherings, visiting victims of violence and being sympathetic listeners. A good deal of time was spent monitoring political party and trade union rallies, marches, funerals, and other large-scale events. The peacemakers in their distinctive blue jackets soon became a recognized and respected element in pre-election activities. Their presence was frequently requested by political parties, security forces, other peace groups and the local populace. There was considerable interaction with community leaders and action groups. Representatives of the security forces and the communities reported that the peacemakers, as observers from the churches, discouraged violence at these events.
Perhaps most rewarding for the peacemakers was the opportunity to work intensively with groups in conflict and to help them effectively resolve their disputes. Recognizing that the roots of conflict often extend beyond political party affiliation, the peacemakers were also involved in mediating employment disputes and farm workers' grievances as well as family conflicts.
The Programme's impact was evident in numerous instances where violence was defused at election-related events
such as a campaign rally in KwaMadlala, a stayaway protest at the Umlazi Hotels south of Durban and a voter education meeting. Often the peacemakers worked under great personal risk. On one occasion, they were shot at and a bullet was later found in their car.
from the DC of C'S Annual Report 93/94
The mandate of the EPP on election day itself was to play a facilitating role wherever possible and ensure a peaceful climate for the elections. In the field, this translated into monitoring
the situation outside voting stations and the routes voters took to reach them. In the end, however, the peacemakers spent much of their time trying to defuse tensions generated by technical problems in administration of the elections.
In general, the EPP teams enjoyed excellent co-operation with the security services on election day, due in part to regular contact with them over the weeks leading up to the elections. The overall impression was that despite numerous communication and logistical problems and a number of political disputes, the election was reasonably fair and peaceful.
After thorough evaluation it was felt that EPP should continue. Plans have been made by each of the five regions in KwaZulu - Natal. Funding is needed for the next phase of the pro-gramme.
POV List
server
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Peace to the City
Bearing Each Other's Burdens
In response to stress and trauma in KwaZulu-Natal Province caused by violence, poverty, family conflicts and societal changes, Vuleka Trust, the Diakonia Council of Churches (DC of C) and Mennonite Central Committee initiated the Caregiver Training Pro-gramme.
The purpose of the training is to prepare caregivers to provide stress and trauma counselling in the communities in which they serve. Caregivers are required to take part in two workshops. In the Introductory Workshop, caregivers reflect on their own experiences of stress and trauma to learn experimentally about healing. In the Leadership Workshop, caregivers prepare to lead workshops in their own communities. As followers of Jesus, church members seek to bear each others burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.
From September 1996 to December 1997 the Survivors Support Pro-gramme trained over 100 church leaders in both levels of stress / trauma healing. Another 170 persons have completed introductory training. The majority of workshop participants came
from the various DC of C member churches.
Through this training they have committed
themselves to forming support groups for survivors of violence in 13 black urban townships, 4 black rural townships and 4 "white" areas (some integration) in the Durban Functional Region.
Beatrice Cele's husband was killed in December 1992. "I was so traumatized that I couldn't take care of myself and my children....The relation between myself and my own children was bad because I'd just scream at them for nothing and I was always irritable."
Mrs. Cele found healing through the Caregiver Training Programme. "After the second level of training I felt I was a different person altogether."
Through the Survivors Support Programme churches have become directly involved in offering counselling, training and support to thousands of survivors of violence including AIDS victims and former soldiers.
While the focus is to provide these skills for those working with victims of apartheid and political violence, this has expanded to include victims of any form of violence.
Rev. Mike Vorster & Sibusisiwe Mlambo
Diakonia Council of Churches
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Out of the Shadow of Violence
Quaker Peace Centre, Cape Town
To be present wherever acts of violence take place is the mission of the approximately 35 workers at the Quaker Peace Centre in the townships and slums surrounding Cape Town. Here Christian Hohmann shares some of his observations from his visit to the Centre last September.
Rising Crime and the Search for Truth
The drive between Cape Town Inter-national airport and the city centre is one of glaring contrasts: shameful poverty in the townships and endless slums of tin shacks alongside the highway juxtaposed with exclusive villas at the foot of Table Mountain and around the city's business district. In one area an overwhelming majority of black people, the other area mostly white. These profound social contrasts in nearly adjacent neighbourhoods between the so-called "first" and "third" worlds are the main causes of the high crime rate and the readiness to use violence in post-apartheid South Africa. The politically-motivated vio-lence of the past decades has now changed into innumerable acts of criminal violence.
Two topics predominate in current headlines. One is the daily, often fatal, violence in the townships. It is not surprising to hear young white farmers from the Free State area, where the attitudes of apartheid predominate, calling for the introduction of the death penalty in reaction to this violence. One of their representatives made the statement, "The idea that South Africa is a land of peace and harmony is totally untrue - it is a jungle of murder and death where lawlessness flourishes."1 The other event in the spotlight is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) under the direction of Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town. Many stand accused of human rights violations, murder and accessory to murder, including even Winnie M. Mandela.
Throughout all this the government has made an effort to keep alive the memory of the struggle for freedom, and to honour the engagement of those who lost their lives in this struggle--for example Steve Biko, a leading representative of the Black Consciousness Movement who died as a result of brutal torture in police custody twenty years ago. However, there is a constant underlying tension between such official honours and questions about the past which many feel have not been answered completely despite the TRC.
1 SOWETAN, 10 Sept 1997, pp 2
Peace to the City
Courageous Initiative
The Quaker Peace Centre (QPC) is lo-cated on a quiet street in Mowbray close to the University of Cape Town and readily identified from outside by its colourful logo "Peace is a group effort". More than thirty persons, Europeans and South Africans of all ethnic groups, work here in seven different programme units. These programmes are intended not only to work to check the growing violence in the townships and slums, but also to attack the roots of this violence and make it possible for the people who live there to improve their situation.
Through the Community Development Programme QPC helps people in the townships of Khayelitsha and Nganga, areas of high unemployment, to create their own subsistence gardens. In addition QPC opened a communal garden in both townships where fruit and vegetables can be grown. Some people sell their produce in the eastern part of the Cape region where they can make a higher profit than in the city itself. Others grow the produce for their own families.
This programme also includes a sewing project for women to learn how to sew and market various kinds of clothing. QPC provides the fabric and other necessary items. However, the pro-gramme involves more than just sewing skills; learning how to deal with conflict
Khayelitsha Township Photo:Clive Shirley
Nonviolence in South Africa - Gandhi's Legacy
Nonviolence in South Africa has a long history and is inseparably linked to the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
In response to his experiences of racial discrimination, Gandhi developed basic principles and methods of active nonviolent resistance to political injustice in South Africa. Already before the first World War he had also led nonviolent actions protesting against discrimination against Indians.
In 1952 one of his students, Albert D. Luthuli, became president of the African National Congress (ANC). From its beginning in 1912 the ANC strived to respond to the growing racial discrimination through nonviolence resistance. Up until the beginning of the 1960s, members of the ANC hoped, despite the increasing repression and violence of the Apartheid government, to improve the situation through nonviolent action.
This hope ended with the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. 69 people were killed and hundreds injured when police opened fire on a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville near Johannesburg against the hated pass law. This massacre horrified the international community, and the ANC felt compelled to give up their previously in-violable principle of nonviolent resistance. After that the black South African people felt that the only answer to the violence of the Apartheid state was to respond with an "emancipating, revolutionary violence of the Black oppressed". 1
Christian Hohmann
Trans: TRM
situations and how to communicate effectively and solve the problems of daily life in a fair manner are also a part of the programme. The problems are varied in their scope: violent disagree-ments between neighbours; unjust police responses to a situation (for ex-ample, arresting someone who cannot afford their electricity bill); domestic violence, particularly sexual abuse and rape. QPC is concerned with such problems and tries to intervene in a practical manner, for instance, making certain that inhabitants have electricity and running water.
Leigh Sax, acting director of the QPC, explained that if convincing solutions are not found to these numerous, often violent situations, then these conflicts will be pushed underground. People must be able to release bottled up feelings of rage and hatred, other-wise they start to drink or sexually
1 R. Weáler, Südafrikas Christen vor Gewalt (South African Christians in the Face of Violence), pp 12
Peace to the City
abuse children and women. Thus one of QPC's priorities is to provide training for community mediators by forming groups in the townships where people are taught to respond creatively to conflict and prevent new outbreaks of violence.
An example of the success of these efforts can been seen in the reduction of violence between taxi drivers in the townships. Before the election in 1994 there was a system of "vigilante justice" among the competing taxi drivers; drivers made their own laws, and shootings for the most profitable routes was a normal occurrence. Now through the help of local mediators the taxi drivers have organized routes and groups, and the violence has decreased substantially.
Work with children and youth is also a part of QPC's violence prevention activities. A part of this work is the Peace Education Programme in local schools. The aim of this programme is to help both students and teachers in a society in the process of transformation and reconciliation to rediscover rela-tional skills and values and actions guided by democratic principles. QPC holds workshops for teachers to learn to deal with conflicts and disagree-ments in a constructive and nonviolent manner. Such workshops include in-struction on building trust in student-teacher relationships, classroom management and participatory learning methodology. QPC has appreciated assistance in this programme from experienced guest trainers such as John and Diana Lampen, Quakers from Stourbridge, England, who, along with QPC staff, led workshops in 1996.
There is a great need to address such issues in the schools. One root of current problems is the former inequality in education opportunities for whites and non-whites. The majority of black South Africans received inferior schooling, and some youth attended classes only sporadically in protest against the racist educational policies of the apartheid government.
In the context of its Youth Programme, QPC organizes activities during the school holidays for children and young people between the ages of 5 and 17. Participants discuss topics such as sexuality and democracy. QPC also directs youth camps for mixed racial groups, though inviting white children and youth to such camps is still problematic. During one of these work-camps a theatre group "Rainbow Youth Group" was formed. The group wrote and presented a play about abuse of women and gangs.
The "Reconciliation and Recon-struction" Programme is another of QPC's involvements. This programme deals with the problematic return of South Africans from exile. Upon their return many of those who were in exile often hear such sentiments from their families as "We suffered in South Africa
Quaker Peace Centre
under Apartheid while you were safe and living the good life somewhere else". QPC works with these families, helping them to understand the shocks and adjustments of returning to a changed South Africa.
Outlook for the Future
QPC has been active for approximately ten years now. Sax himself has worked in the townships for seven years and has never been attacked. However he believes that neither the problem of violence nor the general situation in the country will change fundamentally in the next few years. In the next elections in 1999 the people in the townships will try to occupy political positions without truly being prepared
for such a task, though many have very good inten-tions.
Sax sees many challenges for the future: "White people are afraid of what will happen in the future in South Africa. They don't really know what the new South Africa will mean for them. Generally speaking, the people of South Africa are very reli-gious; for most the Christian faith is the
foundation of their life. Still, many whites are fearful of making the first step of reconciliation towards the Black African, or so called 'Coloured', Movement. Changing their accus-tomed attitudes and behaviour is difficult for them."
Certainly a long road lies ahead. South Africans need people who will work to overcome the social divide in the country, prevent violence and create spaces for reconciliation. As I left QPC my attention was drawn once again to the logo "Peace is a group effort".
Christian Hohmann
Trans: TRM