An African Answer to an African Problem

On the 12^th of November 2010, a new documentary, ‘An African Answer’, featuring the reconciliation work done in Kenya of Imam Ashafa and Pastor James from Nigeria was released in London.  Those not familiar with the ‘The Imam and The Pastor’, will be struck by their story.  Emerging from the 1990s in Northern Nigeria after being in the frontlines of confrontations between Christians and Muslims which saw the killings of thousands in inter-religious warfare, Imam Ashafa and Pastor James are two of the most unlikeliest of allies, forging new grounds with their   Interfaith Mediation Center, responsible for mediating peace between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria's kaduna state.

Once bitter enemies, determined to kill each other (The pastor had his hand hacked off while defending his church against Muslims and the imam had his spiritual adviser and two of his brothers killed by Christian extremists), the two men are now embarking upon an extraordinary journey of healing and forgiveness.   Through talking to each other, they questioned the cost of the violence finding passages in the Bible and the Koran which showed common approaches of working together and more importantly started teaching about it to others, despite staying faithful to their religion.

In fact it is this demonstration of the importance of staying faithful to one’s own religious principles whilst reaching out to others of a different faith, is what has been the appeal of their story over the last decade or so.  This and the fact that their solution is a home grown solution that has not had any external influences, means they talk not only with credibility but with a refreshing sense of uniqueness.  This credibility is important especially for a continent that has suffered from being told how to solve its problems rather than being provided with a space and facilitation in order to solve the problem for itself.

An African Answer is a continuation of their story and how they have now transferred those skills outside of Nigeria, to helping the people in Kenya in the aftermath of the electoral violence  in 2007.  The video is a powerful testament to the fact that people in the developing world or the global south pretty much know how to solve their own problems if they can be provided a space to do so. 

Imam Ashafa and Pastor james are hardly candidates for setting an example for their country or for peace building or unlikely to be described, as they are now, by the Archbishop of Canterbury as ‘a model for Christian Muslim relations’ yet today their story is one about the power of the   responsibility placed upon the shoulder of the individual to take the lead in becoming a true citizen of the country and of the world, where he / she  can rise above their  narrow confines of individualistic concerns to face the broader concerns of all humanity and  to redress the contradiction of society.  This is not just something that should be left to the politicians or the institutions but really no one can be ruled out having a part in contributing. Ultimately the contradiction of society will be redressed when people come together confident in their universal principles; strengthened by their common values; defenders of pluralism in their society and respectful of identities of others, which means that they will take up the challenge of joining forces in a revolution of trust and confidence against the tide of discrimination and intolerance and poverty.

Michael Henderson in his book No Enemy to Conquer, captures their story more eloquently as he attempts to highlight  some of the lessons that their story tells us such as the need to move beyond the concept of a clash between each other to reaching out and developing an alliance with ‘the other’ .  This journey of forgiveness and reconciliation means to take an individual  responsibility to create a safe space for people to talk and share ideas.  This safe space entails not only moving beyond victimhood but also being cognizant of the past (accepting and facing up to the past honestly)

The story of the Imam and the Pastor shows that strong ethical commitment in religious traditions can sharpen identity politics but more importantly can form the basis of inter and intra faith collaboration.  Thus religious pluralism can not only lead to an absence of violence mainly due to better understandings and interaction but it opens a space for discussion, dialogue and engagement.  In short, we must learn to listen closely to one another, not simply because it is polite, but because it is just possible that we might learn something important about ourselves, and build a better global village in the process.

The story of Tansen, the master musician at the court of the Mogul Emperor, Akbar, sets an example of how listening can build understanding towards working with each other. He had some fifteen musical instruments in the Emperor’s chamber, which he had tuned to one frequency. Upon playing just one instrument’s musical note, the other fourteen started to resonate, to the astonishment and delight of the audience. Ideally this story serves a metaphor for how communities can work in harmony to achieve an enlightened result. Not everyone sees it that way. Certainly not every faith community is tuned to the same frequency, indeed, not every faith community has achieved harmony within itself but an opportunity exists through the promotion of working in partnerships with/between faith communities, to harness more cross-community collaboration, in the interest of peace, tolerance, and wellbeing.

In Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, Kwame Anthony Appiah, writes eloquently of the urgent need for ‘ideas and institutions that allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become’. The roots of all global crises can be found in human denial of the eternal principle of peace and in order to fight this denial there needs to be self-critical reflection.

Thus we need to be cognizant of the ‘other’ so that  we can come together on issues of commonality, as opposed to focusing on our differences. In the analogy of Appiah, addressing the challenge of religious pluralism in the world today requires careful positioning of these differences to create a compelling mosaic. Addressing these challenges offers an antidote to sectarianism and the polarisation of different faiths in multi-cultural societies . This will never be easy, but remains vitally important for, as Appiah illustrates, it involves creating the very ‘ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become’.  This is perhaps the greatest lesson we can get from the story of the Imam and the Pastor.

This was originally published in The News Hub