Peace Builders Reach Across Borders

But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. He said: "In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry…" I said, "I’ve been banished from your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple… To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me forever… When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple…" And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry Land. (Jonah 2)

"Clean water belongs to all and is necessary to life; it must not be treated as a purchasable merchandise; saleable, source of benefit as an economical goods."
(Porto Alegre Declaration, 2002)

Whosoever has experienced life knows how unpredictable it can be, depending on time’s fancies, politics and cultures, etc. From birth to death, life is a succession of ups and downs; complex situations, sometimes unexpected but never meaningless. I would even say that to each trial there corresponds a good portion of blessings.

Jonah, whose name means "dove," was without contest about to become a great prophet of true peace, for his father was Amittaï (true). In those days, the kingdom of the North (Israel) was governed by Jeroboam II. He "restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath until the sea of the plain according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spoke by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittaï, the prophet, which was of Gath-Hepher" (2 Kings 14:25).

Jonah’s efforts as a nationalistic prophet to bring peace gained little success among his people. They were turned apart and enslaved by a great religious schism, a civil war and the occupation and exploitation by foreigners. His mission was even more difficult in that the political leaders of his time only agreed with him on sovereignty and territorial security matters.

On religious grounds, Jonah didn’t fight those he considered both as adversaries yet of his people. We then understand his going to Niniveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, where he refused to preach a nationalist war message but rather a gospel of acceptance, of integration and adoption of all by the Godde of all as a prophet of peace. In other words, cultural, political, economical and religious barriers erected on both sides in the name of fear, revenge or security were to be effectively broken for a sustainable peace by those who conceived and built them, starting with the clergy.

The voyage towards Niniveh was for Jonah a true challenge, which helped him to think about the true motivations of the politics of war, even when blessed by the clergy. But Jonah preferred to ignore uncomfortable questions/answers. It’s a matter of fact that true resolutions concerning development, health, equality, and sustainable peace are not always easy to accept, even by those who are working for these to be accomplished. It is not because of a lack of knowledge of what is right but because the costs of rights are so high that many actually hesitate to risk their name, family or religious party beyond a personal limit. We are so accommodated to war and violence that peace has become our enemy. How great is the security given by the barriers of orthodoxy, fundamentalism, ecclesiastic titles, a myopic theology and fascism, and the "hetero- norm"!

We’re spending a lot of time and energies in meetings, seminars and colloquiums asking the same question: what would Jesus do in my place? Still we have not yet agreed on the right attitude. Truly, what makes some think that Jesus is even willing to be/must always be at ‘this place’ which is ‘mine’? This egoistic place is so comfortable that, not being at ‘that place’ reserved for the all-times devaluated falsely make us feel superior and consequently capable of judgement on others.

What shall we do if Jesus was ‘out there’ and not ‘here’? Why should s/he be ‘here’ and not ‘there’? True peace starts by the willingness and the pledge to ask true questions and invite true responses. But the evidence is that true questions always scandalize those who are not prepared to handle them.

However, it was in the fertile waters of his creative imagination that the Divine found a refuge for Jonah, and drew for his intention a new guidebook moving from the constructed/artificial invention (the ship) towards the natural/original creation (the fish).

If it’s true that a great number of Christians understand human sexuality as both a cultural construction and natural expression, many still have some problems in celebrating sexuality in its manifold aspects as gifts from the Divine. Sexuality beyond heterosexuality and chastity as recognized by the church is either demonized… or often politicized.

It was only after he started befriending the deep and touching the roots of his mountains (difficulties) that Jonah was able to compose to the Divine the most beautiful poem of his life. We remember his hasty statement of faith to the sailors, "I believe in God that made the Sea and the Earth" (Jonah 1:9), but in reality, he had no idea of what the aquatic life is all about. The aquatic life of the Mother-God/God-Mother in her pains in child-birthing. The pain — be it the cry of a suffering soul or the cry of abused Nature — usually finds some consolation in prayer that is a dialogue with the Divine but also with the biosphere for our survival. For the Church, its bitter zealousness could be replace by a non-selective but elastic listening process; otherwise, scandals like what is happening in the Diocese of Ebolowa-Kribi will become a frequent occurrence.

"The fight against HIV/AIDS being in fashion, the Reverend Sister Marie-Claire Bekono, responsible for the hospital, has initiated a praiseworthy project to assist people infected by HIV/AIDS. This project has been signed and approved by His Grace Jean-Baptiste Ze Ama. Last June, a European financial entity helped Sister Bekono with 12 millions Fcfa for this project […] which has never reached Sister Bekono, chairperson of the project. His Grace Ze has made himself the owner and the manager of the money. Sister Bekono is far from being discouraged. She lives now in Messa/Medong in Yaounde, after she left Ebolowa, and has promised to confront His Grace Ze in a civil court. For the ecclesiastic court always plays the ostrich politically. Here among the clergy, there is no justice for the weak" (Source: Françis Ndzana, Le Front Indépendant no 188, Octobre 2002).

Unable to confront whales in the Church, the population of Kribi has turned up to fight whales in the sea. In Loudji, a small town situated at 20km from Kribi, fisher-folk not informed about laws that regulate the fishing in our country have killed a balacuoptera musculus. This, according to the experts, is a protected species. They count only 500 individuals remaining in the seas.

Actually, not everyone in Kribi is ignorant, especially where the rights of native people are concerned. "On September 25th in Washington, Cameroonian communities affected by the construction of the Tchad-Cameroon oil pipeline introduced a complaint against the gas company Exxon and its partners before a panel of World Bank inspectors. The complaint has been written concomitantly by Amis de la Terre International and Centre de Developpement" (CED/ Amis de la Terre Cameroun).

The complainers reproached the company for not respecting the directives of the World Bank while constructing the pipeline. It runs through villages of the Bakola, a community of pygmies of the region, and destroys their traditional hunting fields and the surrounding forestry. The affected populations complain about: the pollution of pure water sources; the destruction of plantations and of the forest; the company’s refusal to compensate for negative impacts on their communities; the violation of labor rights by the consortium; and the increasing rate of health infections, especially HIV/AIDS, due to the affluence of workers and job seekers and prostitutes. For these populations, the funding by the World Bank of the multinationals not only benefits the companies but also increases poverty in the communities. This constitutes a lack of respect for the mission of the World Bank to reduce poverty and encourage sustainable development. (Source: Edith Abilogo, Bubinga no 60, October 2002)

The solution to save Jonah (the Dove) from suicide required a radical change of attitude towards the environment; we can be trapped by the laws of profit, and instead we must take steps toward reconciliation with Nature. Sustainable development as a form of human, social, economic or spiritual political development is forced to face up to ecological challenges; only by all-embracing a different model can we avoid the threats to life, justice and peace.

The plundering of ocean resources, the pollution of phreatic water, and the wasting of water has made clean water inaccessible for more than half of the population of the world. In fifty years, the volume of water pollution has increased 2,500 percent.

As sea-borne traffic becomes more and more intense and the world’s shipping fleet gets older and older, the consequences on the environment and on human beings are also growing worse. The Joola, a Senegalese ferry that united the Casamance and Dakar capsized last month in the sea and deposited on Gambia’s seashores more than 900 human beings. "At the base of such catastrophes (and similar ones) lays our careless attitudes, the lack of commitment and irresponsibility, sometimes naiveté, when we tolerate situations that we perfectly know to be dangerous simply because we benefit from them," declared the president Abdoulaye Wade to Fredéric Dorce, the special envoy for Jeune Afrique Economique no 345. (The italics are mine.)

The Joola has simply lengthened the list of shipwrecks — that have overthrown countless people (we still remember the Titanic with its 1500 victims) as well as created polluting oil slick s — and offers proof that discourses are not yet followed toward concrete resolutions, while the pollution grows in miles. In 1979, the Atlantic Express polluted 300 km of shores; in 1978 the Amoco Cadiz; in 1980 the Malagasy Tanio tanker wrecked; in 1989 the Exxon Vadez; in 1993 the nuclear submarine Rubis wrecked and polluted 120 km of shores; and in 1999 400km of shores were polluted by Erika. Now in 2002 the Prestige is spewing thousands of tons of fuel oil on the shores of Spain. Each year, millions of tons of fuel oil are poured into the sea, and it’s the aquatic lives and the seashores that suffer the most.

So we actually might envy Niniveh for the "product" that it was about to find alongside was neither a pollutant nor polluting. Before the fish opened his mouth, Jonah first took time to conquer his aggressiveness by confronting his depressive feelings and attitudes. Secondly, he claimed, proclaimed and personalized an old but always new reviving truth: the unfailing and the unconditional love of the Divine towards (wo)mankind. "I said: ’I’ve been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple’" (v4).

Sometimes, one look is not sufficient. It could even prevent us from true fellowship. Let’s look a second time and try once more. Let’s cry and cry again. Let’s dream and dream again. Let’s talk and talk again until all nations understand their respective responsibilities in the building of a better world of justice, peace and sustainable development — that will be the thanksgiving hymn for the wo(man)kind.

I would like to thank, while still in my birthday month, some friends who have protected and helped me to find the shore. Whenever I feel it seems too far, they made themselves pleasant beaches, lovable resting places that I always enjoy. Thank you to Cathia for your love and great patience. Bryan you’ll always be a great heart to me. Sylvie, angels bear the same smile as yours. I offer special thanks to Ethan Flad and the AGW staff who work hard to publish my writings. Thank you all; you’re very dear to me.

Sybille Ngo Nyeck is a regular contributor to A Globe of Witnesses. Her monthly column is Colors of Conscience. Sybille can be emailed at sybeck77@yahoo.fr