From Jonny, a friend I met in New Zealand, (and recently again on Facebook):

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Muslim, My Brother - Interreligious Peacebuilding in Mindanao

Now that my article written earlier this year has come out from print embargoes - that is, the magazines it has been published in have hit the stands and sold - I thought I'd post the full article on this blog:

http://jonnynz.blogspot.com/2008/09/muslim-my-brother-interreligious.html

The Muslim, My Brother - Interreligious Peacebuilding in Mindanao

The place is Wao, Lanao Del Sur, the heart of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, Philippines.

As leaders share from the stage at last April’s GK Highway of Peace event, a GK worker’s heart skips a beat when an active rebel commander approaches, declaring “I will speak next.”

Not knowing the man, the workers are apprehensive – but choose to trust the spirit of those participating in the event. And as expected, the rebel commander’s words echo across the land’s strife-torn history.

“The last time I was here in this spot, we were meeting to plan an attack,” the commander says. “But now, I see how Christian and Muslim have been able to build peace here together.”

Land of Beauty, Land of Conflict

The beautiful, fallow lands of Mindanao have been rent by bitter conflicts. As mid-20th-century government-sponsored migration schemes brought colonists from around the Philippines, a legacy of struggle between Filipinos of different faiths was created. Rival militias became instruments that devastated families and terrorized towns. Many suffered the loss of loved ones, estrangement from ancestral land, or both.

Comparatively few winners now hold large tracts of land. Many of today’s young are afflicted with a legacy of wounds which began with their parents and grandparents before them. Divorced from ancestral land they once tilled, the landless poor hold little in their hands with which they might build a better future.

The Challenge: To Build Peace Together

As Bishop of Malaybalay Msgr. Honesto Pacana shared during GK’s Highway of Peace event, in the past Muslims regarded Christians only as oppressors and land grabbers, while Christians saw Muslims as traitors. However, since 1996 Catholic bishops and Muslim ulamas have met regularly to work towards peace and collaboration in the wider Wao area. Two years ago, they and the community decided to embrace Gawad Kalinga as a peace initiative. In a peaceful counter-point to the region’s history of conflict, they elected to build houses for Muslim rebel returnees who have no homes.

Sultan Acraman Saripada – the Muslim leader of Wao – first learned of GK through Exec. Director Luis Oquinena. After seeing GK in Mindanao and Manila, he was eager to bring the same benefits to his own poor.

"The difference between GK and many other groups that have wanted to help here is that with GK everyone is equal," the Sultan says. "It doesn't matter what your religion is, whether you're poor or rich."

Gawad Kalinga’s Bayani Challenge brought volunteers from all around the Philippines (and abroad) to Lanao and Bukidnon to build for both Muslim and Christian poor. In Wao, volunteers built houses for 130 poor Muslim families. And despite lacking financial resources, Muslim and Christian volunteers achieved much through bayanihan (cooperation), building the GK Darussalam and GK Maranao villages.

For the Muslim people, the Filipino values embodied in Gawad Kalinga were appreciated. "You build the houses together, you work together," the Sultan describes. "The Muslim community embraced Gawad Kalinga through the bayanihan way of working."

This Time Around

In the past the arrival of Christians marked the start of bitter conflicts. This time things were different. Christians and Muslims built side by side, not only houses of concrete and steel, but a peace forged in friendship and cooperation.

And Sultan Saripada sees the presence of volunteers having a tremendous affect on his Muslim poor. "They're very thankful to Gawad Kalinga that - even though they're Christians - they have come here to help the Muslim community," he says. "Before, in Wao, it was Muslims and Christians fighting. Now with Christians coming in to help the Muslims, it's a way of educating the closed Muslims that there is a solution: Even though they're Christians they're still helping the Muslim community."

"That's why we selected the poor and uneducated Muslims to become GK beneficiaries, so that they will learn GK and accept GK, and learn that the intentions of Gawad Kalinga are good,” he says. “For the most uneducated Muslims, GK is a way to educate the community - not only the houses but also the education programs. GK opens the minds of the closed minded Muslims."

And despite the obvious differences in faith, unexpected common ground has been found. Through the GK programs such as education and values formation the Muslim community is being strengthened.

"The Muslim community considers Gawad Kalinga as a third level for living life." Sultan Saripada describes. "Because on the first level is God, Allah, Almighty God; the second level is the religion of Islam and their people; and the third level is Gawad Kalinga. Those are the things that are helping our people live and work as a Muslims.”

Seventy Times Seven

The spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation needed for building peace is embodied by one extraordinary local family. Tomas "Tam" Carumba lost a close cousin, killed by a Maranao during a Muslim-Christian conflict between families. To stop further bloodshed, the warring factions negotiated for 'blood money' - a peace offering.

The grieving Carumba family decided against using the blood money themselves, choosing instead to build ten GK homes for poor Muslim families.

"This blood money was given, but was used to build GK houses for our Muslim brothers," Carumba relates. And despite the many years of negative Christian examples, the family found their offering taking on great significance.

"Yung mga Muslim brothers have been so deprived, most of their lands have been sold to Christians. But when they saw the sincerity of Christians, (it) encouraged them to also work for peace," Carumba affirms. "GK's presence here has made a big contribution to the peace initiative. They (Muslims) see the brotherhood here and even if you don't invite them, they call - everyone wants to join GK."

Carumba recounts how his kababayans in Wao were formerly paranoid and suspicious, with most residents going about their business fully armed. Today, "The fear is gone, the doubts are gone. The trust is here. The strength of Wao is unity - they see GK and are so proud to be part of it. The place is very peaceful because the people have been given opportunity, dignity has been restored!"

And former victims of conflict have now become friends. "You are very much welcome into the houses of our Muslim brothers," Calumba says.

No One-Way Love

In working to bring peace, GK workers have found that "loving our Muslim brothers" is no one-way flow of good deeds, where Christians go to Muslims and create peace, but a mutual reconciliation between Filipinos long-divided. Peace has not been wrought not through glossing over past conflicts, but through the more difficult renunciation of hostility, suspicion, and vengeance in favor of forgiveness and friendship.

Not merely Christians building for Muslims, but Muslim and Christian brothers and sisters building together. Not merely Christians praying for Muslims, but Muslim and Christian praying for each other.

"Guide the people who are helping to love the poor. Save my brother Muslim and Christian from any kind of harm," prays Muslim GK Darussalam Kapitbahayan President Ibrahim Balabagan. Likewise, GK leaders prayed for God's blessings on their Muslim brothers.

Standing in the heart of formerly war-torn Muslim Mindanao, full-time Muslim GK worker and erstwhile rebel commander Bailinda Eman is moved to tears. "This was the first time in all my years, that I heard a Muslim pray for a Christian," she says.

Sultan Saripada and his Muslim community are eager for Wao to be known in the future not for conflict, but for Muslims and Christians demonstrating they can live in peaceful coexistence and friendship.

“We want for people to say that, even though they're Muslim and Christian, they can work together," Saripada says, "We're praying for peace and unity in Wao. GK is a legacy for me, because it brings love and peace back to the community.”

GK Executive Director Luis Oquinena holds the same dream, saying, “It is not easy to build peace. To my brother Moslems, thank you for accepting us in Wao. We don't know all the ways to build peace, this is why we need to help each other, teach each other the way towards peace - let us be united!”

And as Christians prayed for peace, so did kapitbahayan president Ibrahim Balabagan pray to Allah, "We ask for your help that the love, cooperation and unity among Muslims and Christians may return, for our country."

For Bishop Pacana, the long process of working for peace is bearing fruit. He affirms that GK is development with a soul, "a development concerned about building up a relationship that will lead to true peace through good relationship between Muslims and Christians."

"Gawad Kalinga is showing us that there is another highway to peace and it is very hopeful. It is a dialogue of life in order to attain the common good," Bishop Pacana says. "So let us hope that we will relate to one another as the same sons and daughters of the same Allah, of the same God, who is the common Father of us all.”