Special Report
Kia Ora! An Anglican network explores
the "cost-benefit" of global engagement
by Ethan Flad

"Kia ora!" This traditional Maori greeting – meaning hello, goodbye, and thank you – welcomed each member of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN) upon arrival to its biannual meeting in late November 2001, in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. APJN, an official network of the worldwide Anglican Church, was formed in the late 1980s as an effort to share ideas and resources among international church partners concerned about human rights and social justice.

Even within the Anglican Communion, APJN’s work is little known. This is a shame, considering what it has done during its brief existence. Over the past decade, the Network played a significant role in pushing the denomination’s church leadership to address such issues as international debt and Israel/Palestine. The strong stand on debt forgiveness taken by the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 1998 – overshadowed in the media by the sexuality debates at that gathering – drew significantly on APJN’s groundwork.

Its latest meeting drew representatives from 22 of the 38 worldwide Anglican provinces, its broadest geographic representation to date. The weeklong event reflected many of the challenges of post-colonial international collaboration. (See also "A brave new world for 21st-century Christians?" by John Kater, TW 12/01.) For instance, simply bringing together the multinational membership proved to be a problem. Visa difficulties prevented a number of representatives from attending, leaving critical regions of the world like the Sudan, the Congo, Myanmar (Burma), Uganda and Nigeria absent from the discussions. The Tanzanian delegate, Kuwayawaya S. Kuwayawaya, endured an excruciating "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" real-life experience, a five-day trip that featured transnational bus rides, a plane that broke down over central Africa, completely changed flights, lost luggage, and so on. For the participants from wealthy nations, traveling a few weeks after the start of the so-called "war on terrorism" may have been annoying, but it was nothing compared to the obstacles faced by people from developing countries. These international "security restrictions," which all but prevent some people from ever entering the "first world," will doubtlessly be the norm for years to come.

Similarly, there were divergent reactions to the small number of women and young people at the table, the balance between lay, clergy and bishops (perceived to be overly clerical by some), and the red-flag topic of who set the meeting’s agenda. South African representatives Delene Mark and Siyabu Gidi, offering what could be termed an indictment of the church at large, called on the Network to become more inclusive: "We want to see or hear the prophetic voice of the church, but it is not there. It is because the church is aging. We believe the prophetic voice is there in the young people." Like many secular international organizations – the UN comes to mind – the Network faces legitimate challenges to its identity and leadership even as it has become geographically diverse and earned a sense of permanence.

In its first gathering since April 1999, a major worry was simply how to tackle a demanding workload. On the first day of the meeting, participants were presented with three priority themes – globalization, urbanization, and HIV/AIDS – and then developed a laundry list of another 15 issues for discussion. This alone would have been an immense challenge, but the daunting task increased in scope with a peek at the meeting agenda: Half of the time was scheduled off-site in "local experience" situations. To some of us coming from time-centered cultures, this was a grave concern: How could we possibly finish our business? Precious little time had been devoted to addressing globalization, for instance. That felt inappropriate, considering how that overarching theme was central to all of our work.

Ultimately, however, the hosts’ insistence to ground the meeting in engagements with the local community made sense. Rather than simply talking about globalization, the APJN was thrust into dialogue with natives who experience its effects in everyday life. The setting was laid by Jenny Te Paa, the first indigenous lay woman to serve as a seminary dean in the Anglican Communion, who noted that Auckland is the largest Polynesian city in the world. While the country has developed a tourist-friendly identity, promoting a culture of mutual respect between the Pakeha (European descendants, also called "Kiwis") and Maori communities, Te Paa noted, "The responses of our indigenous peoples to our history of colonization have varied [based on] their abilities to respond." Aotearoa, the indigenous name for the nation, is usually translated as "the land of the long white cloud," but some locals acknowledged that Maoris often refer to it instead as "the land of the wrong white crowd"! An extensive presentation in the tiny northern village of Waimamaku on their economic, social and political concerns indicated how even the smallest rural districts are affected by the challenges of globalization. One speaker, the local parish priest, summarized divisions over a proposed process of nationalizing the country’s fisheries. He argued that such a policy would encourage equitable resource distribution, particularly between impoverished Maori communities. The region’s diminishing fish stock has caught up this isolated coastal region adjoining the Tasman Sea in national economic struggles and an international debate on sustainable fishing.

With tensions that reflect the country’s post-colonial legacy as a backdrop to the conversation, two aspects of New Zealand life still seemed to live up to the hype of its travel brochures. Both draw on the legacy of its native peoples. First, it is indeed a natural paradise, and the traditional indigenous respect for the land and sea appears to have permeated the entire society. Of course, a country with less than 4 million humans – outnumbered approximately 20 to 1 by sheep – would be hard-pressed to completely destroy its ecology. But there is an obviously different mind-set about living "with the land" – some Maoris refuse to wear shoes, even in the central cities. It is a cultural statement about their direct connection with the earth, and perhaps a political statement about opposing materialism.

Second, the region’s reputation for incredible hospitality is undeniably deserved. Kiwis and Maoris alike are touted as "friendly people," and the APJN was truly embraced by each of the communities it visited. The Network was particularly privileged to visit three different "marae" – local spiritual centers – where the history of each community was shared in depth through an elaborate ceremony of storytelling, song and food. The "hui" process is collaborative, and guests are expected to participate in the oral sharing. The directions were straightforward and powerful: "Wherever we come from in the world, we are the human symbols of our ancestors. We come representing those ancestors, not just ourselves. The respect you are accorded is not just for you, but the people who you represent. You pay homage to those people, even though some of them have been dead for 2,000 years." This multi-generational honoring theme rang true for many of the international guests. George Wauchope, a native South African who works for the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe, said it reminded him of how the pejorative Western view of "African religion" never understood the relationship between an individual, his community and ancestors. "There was a misnomer by the Christian missionaries. They said that we were worshipping our ancestors, but we were worshipping God THROUGH our ancestors."

This emphasis on contextualizing conversations and building relationships rather than on completing a preordained business agenda was the greatest success of the gathering. It would have been hard for the diverse group to have built consensus on any of the issues, and the topic of the September 11th bombings in the U.S. had created an especially sensitive climate. Bishop James Mason of Melanasia spoke in response to those who wanted to focus on that subject: "We do not have televisions, so we did not know what was happening. It did not affect us. What affected us was on June 5, 2000, when our coup happened. There are issues that are happening on the Solomon Islands that you don’t want to hear, and we don’t want to hear what was happening on 9/11."

Nevertheless, it was impossible for the assembled group to avoid that hot topic. Jane Lee from Hong Kong summarized the feelings of many people who questioned the "war on terrorism," with the following comments: "President Bush gave a speech in which he said, ‘If you are not with us, you are against us.’ In Hong Kong it is very delicate to use the word ‘terrorist.’ This is because in China they have a lot of concerns about internal dissent, which is called ‘terrorism.’ On the one hand the U.S. is talking about ‘anti-terrorism,’ which means to support their war games, but on the other hand we have to deal with this in our local context."

Bishop Gideon Ireri, the chair of the Anglican Church of Kenya’s Justice, Peace, Reconciliation & Advocacy Commission, was more circumspect. Highlighting an event that was a precursor to the September 11 attacks – the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998 – his words about the difficulties of working together reflected the strains of building relationships: "There were other bombings that took place, too. As a result, security forces in key embassies have been increased. We are all learning the costs of partnership and of friendship. We are experiencing the costs of being in love."

In a political climate where international "coalition-building" is a buzzword but nationalism seems to be on the rise, Ireri’s comments are prescient. There ARE costs to friendship. Fagamalama Matalavea, the Anglican Communion’s new Observer at the United Nations, noted how easy it is for international NGOs to be influenced into a "U.S. way of doing things." But the "cost-benefit" of global engagement – contextualized within local experience – appears to outweigh the safety of remaining insular. With the Archbishop of Canterbury having just announced his retirement, new leadership and relationships must emerge in the worldwide church. Thankfully, the APJN speaks prophetically to the church’s mission at this historic time. Kia ora! l

Ethan Flad is editor/producer of The Witness’ web site and its "A Globe of Witnesses" (AGW) project (www.thewitness.org/agw). APJN members are frequent contributors to AGW.