Lessons: Drew Summer Institute on Religion and Conflict Transformation

For two weeks I have been part of a summer programme hosted at Drew University: Drew Institute on Religion and Conflict Transformation which is part of the work done by Drew University’s Center on Religion, Culture and Conflict (CRCC).  The aim of the programme is to bring together young leaders who work as peace-builders and activists in the three faiths: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. I have met people from Israel, Palestine, Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt and Pakistan. Since joining the Centre for Being and Belonging which was established by two friends, I have become more and more interested in work which aims to bring together people from often opposing positions into a room and imagine a better world. This is what the institute has been about for me.

Listening (Picture: Allan Magubane)

Within a few days of the Institute, I heard about the news of Trump's administration keeping children away from their parents . America has also been abuzz about decisions related to the Muslim Ban and the decisions Trump has to make about the Supreme Court. It seemed quite ironic to me that we would be meeting as a diverse group to discuss complex geopolitical issues which have implications for our respective countries and the USA. I like to imagine that the Institute is part of the work that is subverting Trump's bigoted policies of keeping people out and allowing hatred and xenophobia to continue.

Visiting New York City (Picture: Allan Magubane)

The beauty of the programme has been how it seeks to challenge us about deeply held beliefs about ourselves and each other; especially across national and religious identities. Having Muslims, Jews and Christians in a room discovering more about each other has left me reflecting a lot on my own beliefs about my faith and my country. Some of the participants have never met people from a different faith, others have met people from faiths which they perceive as the enemy. This has given people the opportunity to see each other beyond the caricatures which they have come to believe as fact about the other. In fact, a Facebook post by a new friend and participant in the programme, Dalia Younis, captures more of the growth of being in community these past two weeks.

Listening to the different narratives about religious conflict in other countries and the horrendous ways in which religion has been used to justify hatred has helped me reflect on the conflicts in my own country. While there aren't overt religious conflicts, I have come to appreciate the importance of religious freedom in the way I experience it in South Africa. The fact that I grew up watching Reflections of Faith on SABC and listening to an imam, a rabbi, a priest, an African traditionalist healer and a Hindu teacher throughout my childhood means that I had a unique experience of being exposed to other faiths from a young age. I've had the opportunity to teach Muslim children while I was a teacher in Cape Town which led me to buying a copy of the Qu'ran so I could understand their faith better. This is not the experience in other countries where people of other faiths are viewed with suspicion and sometimes hatred.

The crux of the stories and conflicts I've been exposed to has helped me think more deeply about being and belonging. Being: our sense of self, our identities and the spiritual expressions we choose in relation to where and how we express our belonging. These are inextricably linked to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, Boko Haram in Nigeria and extremists in Egypt and Indonesia. We are all fighting for who we think we are (or should be) and how we build communities. The hard work at the Institute has sometimes been simply about being in a room with people who are on seemingly opposing sides but also believe in spiritual traditions which have a thread about a loving God and peace in the world.

There's also been a spiritual aspect to the Institute which is difficult to explain in words because spirituality often exceeds the language we have to describe what is happening. When I arrived here I wondered what it meant to gather a group of people who come with religious and spiritual practices where prayer is the core of what we do. It took time to build the trust that was required to be able to experience prayer together and when it happened something shifted metaphysically. At some point my friend Allan asked the question "Why don't we pray?" when discussions were very intense. It seems like an obvious question to ask a group of people who profess to pray to the same God but the geopolitical (and theological) conflict makes the work of praying together difficult or virtually impossible. But God showed up because God is in the business of showing up when we ask. We have prayed together, we have prayed individually. The bottom line is, we prayed. It is not insignificant that in coming to a summer programme about religion and conflict prayer and spirituality were at the core of what this experience for me and the friends I have met here.

Jumma (Picture: Jonathan Golden)

A few weeks before the Institute I had begun thinking deeply about prayer as spiritual protest and the meditations about prayer as a practice which is at the core of how things shift and change in our lives. These meditations have allowed me to receive more from the Institute. While religion might be central to many of the world's conflicts, spirituality is perhaps at the core of how we will navigate the current and future conflicts. 

With Hagit from Israel: One of the many new friends who have been a gift (Picture: Allan Magubane)

(More pictures of the experience on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/overthinkingteacher/?hl=en)