Catholic Times Report on SCCRR - Shalom Center for Conflict

The Catholic Times Sunday 1st June 2014
FEATURE 5
On a mission to strive
for just peace in Africa
“I
Fr Patrick Devine – ‘Our work is not about a quick fix; we have
put our hands to the plough for the long haul to secure enduring
peace’
PIcture: SARAH MAC DONALD
F you want peace,
you need to rise up
from the armchair,
move from the pulpit,
give a rest to wishful thinking,
and begin talking to and engaging your enemies towards a mutually beneficial solution.”
That’s the advice of Fr Patrick
Devine, recipient of the 2013 International Caring Award which
was presented to him in Washington by Colin Powell. The honour is a recognition for his efforts
to promote peace through conflict
resolution and reconciliation in
Africa’s Ilemi Triangle. The disputed territory is claimed by Sudan and Kenya, and though the
Ethiopian government has never
laid claim to it, tribes with
Ethiopia regularly carry out raids.
The spill-over of violence between the nomadic Turkana, who
migrate between northern Kenya
and South Sudan and the Topasa
in South Sudan, as well as the
Nyangatom and the Dassanech
has gone on for generations. Water sources, land for grazing and
cattle raiding are major causes
of contention. Readily available
arms such as AK47s contribute
to the tension.
In his acceptance speech for
the Caring Award, a US nongovernmental organisation whose
board of trustees includes Senator Bob Dole, Nobel peace laureate, Maya Angelou, and Rev Billy
Graham, Fr Devine explained:
“Our work is not about a quick
fix; we have put our hands to
the plough for the long haul to
secure enduring peace.”
As WB Yeats once wrote: “Peace
comes dropping slow.”
Past recipients of the International Caring honour include the
Dalai Lama, Blessed Teresa of
Kolkata, Jimmy Carter and Senator George Mitchell, who worked
hard to secure peace in Northern
Ireland. The Caring Institute
sums up its ethos as the belief
that “Behind all our endeavours –
past, present, and future – is
the central concept that one person can make a difference.”
Fr Devine joined the Society
of African Missions in 1979 and
since ordination in 1988, has
PROFILE
Sarah Mac Donald catches up with missionary Fr Patrick Devine, who
is known for promoting peace through conflict resolution and reconciliation
spent over 25 years in Kenya
and Tanzania. In 2009, he founded the Shalom Centre for Conflict
Resolution and Reconciliation
(SCCRR) which is seeking a lasting resolution the conflict in the
Ilemi Triangle.
The instability in the area has
resulted in state neglect, a lack
of adequate healthcare and
schools. Conflict resolution, he
knows, is essential for social development and reconciliation.
On a recent visit to Ireland, the
Co Roscommon-born missionary,
who acts as executive director of
the Shalom Centre, supported
by the Irish Catholic aid agency
Trócaire, said of the desire for
peace: “I have never met any
community or any parents who
didn’t want a better future for
their children.”
The centre, which is based in
the Kenyan capital, Nairobi,
chose the name Shalom because
“the root meaning is peace with
justice and harmony holistically
integrated. The root of Shalom is
the same as the root of Salam in
Islam. Those have much stronger
conceptual understandings of
peace and development than the
English word ‘peace’, which is
often just the absence of violence.””
The 53-year-old believes “Christianity became much more turned in on itself in terms of interior
peace and spiritual serenity whereas shalom is much more engaged
in the social tension of life”.
Originally from Frenchpark in
Co Roscommon, Fr Devine studied for a BA in Sociology, History
and Philosophy; a BD in Theology; a Diploma in Mission Studies
and an MA in Peace Studies and
International Relations. His MA
thesis focused on the Turkana
Dassenach conflict, its causes
and consequences, an area where
Ethiopian, Kenyan and South
Sudanese claims converge.
His began his mission in 1988
in a remote area of western Tanzania. The main focus of his work
was enabling religious and social
values take root, constructing
schools, medical institutions,
women and children development
centres, water projects and income generating initiatives.
“When we arrived, there were
31 outstations in the parish we
were assigned to and no English
was spoken at all. There was no
rain from the middle of May to
the middle of November. I remember the extreme poverty –
there was a great need for development.”
The first thing he and his fellow missionaries did was to learn
Kiswahili. Then they oriented
themselves towards listening to
the needs identified by the people
of the parish. Working with young
people, he saw that HIV/AIDS was
a major issue and he became the
co-ordinator of an AIDS education-prevention programme in
liaison with the Tanzanian government and Swedish Caritas.
I
n 1990, he was asked to go
to a place “further out”. He
remembers “packing his bags
and hopping into a Suzuki and
ending up in Bugisi mission in
the diocese of Shinyanga”. The
first project he was involved in
in Bugisi was the rehabilitation
of an old clinic. The people had
no medical care and the nearest
available facility was two to three
hours away over rough terrain.
A secondary school followed with
the arrival of the Salesians and
then the OLA Sisters came in
and provided a women’s and children’s educational centre.
The parish catered for 70,000
people and when he first arrived,
there were thirty adult baptisms
but within a few years, that had
risen to between 400-600 adults.
The main reason for this, he believes, is that the “people themselves became missionaries to
their own people”.
During this time he was also
a member of many strategic planning synods and councils for the
local Church and the SMA worldwide. He was elected deputy SMA
superior for Tanzania and Kenya
and SMA superior twice.
In 2003, Fr Devine was also
elected vice chairman of Religious
Superiors Conference of Kenya
(RSCK), which comprises of 64
religious congregations with a
membership of over 4,000 missionary and development personnel committed to evangelisation, social, educational, medical,
human development in East,
Central and Equatorial Africa.
With a ready smile, the goodnatured missionary seems unfazed by such responsibilities.
This was a man who struggled
with his decision to join religious
life, leaving behind a girlfriend
and barely clinging to his faith
for the first year with his order.
He feels the Church has a lot
to learn in terms of developing a
good theoretical basis for conflict
management so as to give people
the necessary analytical skills
and peace-building techniques
to deal with their situation.
“What is often overlooked is a
really solid appreciation of history. All conflicts have a memory
and if you don’t understand the
memory and the historical discourse – you can be causing more
conflict than solving,” he warns.
“You can be involved in bringing
about negative peace which is
the absence of violence instead
of bringing people to a positive
peace where all sides are mutu-
ally interested in the well-being,
harmony and development of
each other.”
The approach adopted by the
Shalom Centre is to pick out the
influential opinion shapers in
each ethnic community such as
the elders, chiefs, religious leaders, women’s leaders, youth leaders and warriors and to train them
in peace building techniques and
equip them with the analytical
skills to identify and resolve
what is causing the conflict.
They have also worked on promoting inter-ethnic schools which
bring students and their parents
together. “Education is the key,”
Fr Devine believes.
There are very few social
amenities in this semi-arid desert
landscape; practically no roads
or electricity. The plight of schoolchildren forced to read in the
firelight when darkness fell
prompted the missionary to get
a solar power project up and
running. The children can now
return to their school from 79pm in the evening and do their
homework. They can also come
in from 5-6.30am in the morning.
The solar power also enabled the
school to serve as a community
centre for those working all day
to come and gather and socialise
in the evenings.
H
owever, the proliferation
of small arms is an ongoing worry. There are
about 1.6 AK47s per family.
“That’s only because the institutions of the state are so weak.
People carry these guns not out
of a sense of aggressiveness but
for protection.” Many years’ work
lies ahead. While great progress
has been made, Fr Devine and
his team at Shalom will only
rest when “peace, social justice
and reconciliation prevails
throughout Africa”. He told the
award ceremony in Washington
last year: “Our mission is to
work for a society free of physical
violence and unjust social structures in Africa. As Martin Luther
King Jr said: ‘Peace is not merely
a distant goal we seek, but a
means by which we arrive at
that goal’.”
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