Mantras and slogans:’ Voices of peace
By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman Online, February 22, 2006
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – Desmond Tutu, archbishop of the Province of Southern Africa, entered the World Council of Churches plenary hall yesterday to a standing ovation punctuated by the beat of native drums. Accepting the applause, Tutu declared, “You’re a splendid kaleidoscope, a foretaste, a glorious foreshadowing of what will be.”
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“It is nearly twelve years now since we became free,” said Tutu. “But that victory would have been totally impossible without the support of the international community. The WCC and its constituent members were prominent and wonderfully committed parts of that community.”
Tutu made specific reference to the “WCC’s Programme To Combat Racism,” which he credited with having legitimized as “just and noble” the “armed struggle” of his people. Although not specified by Tutu during his speech, that struggle included guerilla warfare, tribal battles, “necklacing” (placing rubber tires filled with burning gasoline around the necks of blacks who complied with the white regime), and assaults on civilians. “You were marvelous in the support you gave us,” Tutu told the WCC.
Tutu recognized that the WCC’s program was “controversial.” But he said that it was necessary because those “who opted for the armed struggle” had done so only as a last resort. These people “were not terrorists, but freedom fighters,” he said.
“Nelson Mandela was no terrorist, even if that is what a British prime minister said he was,” said Tutu. Making no mention of Mandela’s activities that led to his imprisonment, the archbishop said that when Mandela was released from prison, he did not launch a campaign of revenge and retribution, but a path of forgiveness and reconciliation. “The world’s former pariah, a repulsive caterpillar has become a gorgeous butterfly,” said Tutu, “and you had a very substantial part in that metamorphosis. Thank you.”
Terrorists and freedom fighters
In a press conference immediately following the address, I asked the archbishop to clarify his distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters. “What criteria do you use to distinguish one from the other?” I asked. “Would you call Robert Mugabe (the one-party dictator who rules Zimbabwe) a terrorist or a freedom fighter?”
“Don’t do this to me, man!” replied Tutu with a wide-mouthed grin that sparked laughter among reporters in the room. Then Tutu turned somber: “I have admired Robert Mugabe immensely. He was the brightest star in the African firmament. When he won that bush war, most people thought that he would take revenge. He amazed the world with his first address after that victory. He spoke of reconstruction and reconciliation. He asked Ian Smith [the former president, of British descent] to remain and share power. He was fantastic when he spoke to the WCC at its meeting in Harare. He spoke very well there, and I saluted him for all of his accomplishments.”
“But I have to say that something has happened to this man. Something has overcome him that is totally unacceptable. We who are Africans especially should condemn a violation of human rights, whoever is the perpetrator. If we are to maintain our credibility, we have to say that if it is wrong in Germany, it is wrong in Zimbabwe. So I am sad. I weep. Robert Mugabe was fantastic, but unfortunately, something went wrong.”
Tutu’s evaluation of Mugabe was passionate and painful. All reporters present sensed it, and one could have heard a pin drop in the room. He was speaking of a friend whose liberation struggles he and the WCC had supported. Even when Mugabe’s soldiers shot down a plane of Christian missionaries and slaughtered the survivors, Tutu and the WCC did not flinch in supporting his campaign. When Mugabe turned on his wartime ally, Joshua Nkomo, reeking genocide on much of Nkomo’s tribe in order to ensure that there would be no competition, the WCC looked the other way.
But now in the aftermath, as Mugabe confiscates private land and distributes it to his cronies, devastates a once-productive country’s economy, unleashes death squads against his political opponents, jails priests and persecutes journalists, he has become the scourge of civilized people, someone from whom Tutu and the WCC know they must distance themselves.
Ends and means
So what is the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter? When roadside bombs are detonated, nighttime necklaces are ignited, school buses carrying Israeli children are blown to bits, are these the acts of villains or heroes? By what measure do Christians assess such things?
“Don’t do this to me, man!” was Tutu’s only answer to that thorny question that Christians must face in the context of counterinsurgency warfare. One would assume from the context of Tutu’s address that he measures the morality of an act by its outcome. So in the case of Mandela, dirty deeds were hallowed by the man’s remarkably and universally admired post-war administration. But as an ethical question, does the end justify the means? Were Mugabe’s wartime atrocities evil because he so badly mismanaged the victory that they brought him? Tutu offered no clue, appearing eager to move to the next reporter’s question.
Rhetoric and reality
Yet this is a primary question for the WCC. Its assemblies are replete with words of “peace,” “nonviolence,” and “reconciliation.” Yet despite such rhetoric, WCC policies have often weighed in on the side of armed conflict and violence, almost invariably conducted by left wing and liberationist forces.
The WCC applauded Daniel Ortega’s Marxist regime in Nicaragua, ignoring evidence of Sandinista death squad activity. Cuba’s imprisonment of priests and journalists and the fact that it dispatched tens of thousands of troops to fight counterinsurgency battles in Angola and El Salvador did not stop WCC leaders from seeking photo ops with Fidel Castro and adopting resolutions opposing U.S. policy toward Cuba.
The WCC’s rhetoric proclaims nonviolence as the order of the day. But there appears to be a difference between rhetoric and reality, a failure to acknowledge on-the-ground implications that flow from high- minded ideological statements.
When the WCC said it was for “Peace and Justice in Nicaragua,” it meant that it supported a regime that was killing opposition party members in their beds at night. When the WCC declares that it is for “the reunification of North and South Korea,” it means that it affirms a moral equivalency between a repressive regime that systematically starves its own people and one that is committed to democratic principles and is open to public view. When the WCC says that it seeks peace in Palestine, it means supporting parties that are pledged to annihilate Israel.
Forward march
These are hard realities that, understandably, the WCC would prefer not to face. Better to affirm the lofty goal without looking too closely at messy and often muddled realities. So tonight, the assembly will gather in the streets to “Walk for Peace.” Flyers describing the event tell us that the walk will begin in downtown Porto Alegre at 9 p.m. It will pause at the Esquina Democratica, where the instructions call for participants to “lie down on the ground and [hear] poetic talk by Adolfo Perez Esquivel.” Then, the instructions continue, “the walk resumes with mantras and slogans.”
When the assembly arrives at the Praca da Matriz, it will be greeted by peace dancers, hear a talk by Tutu based on Micah 4:3, and light candles while the assembly choir sings. Reporters in the press room have been promised excellent photo opportunities for this “highlight of the WCC’s 9th Assembly.