A Season in the Congo

I did a double-take when I walked into the Young Vic auditorium last Tuesday. Girls in brightly-coloured Congolese wraps were laughing loud, with large, languid sweeps of their hands. Police in dark blue uniforms strutted around, guns under their arms, forcing our eyes downwards. Young men sat in the shadows, staring listlessly, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Jaunty, upbeat music stirred the irrepressible urge to dance, rhythmically, effortlessly, joyfully. It was Congo, 1960, the eve of Independence. I wished I’d worn my dazzling Golden Jubilee of Independence outfit with its slogans “Vive la RDC! Pour la paix, pour l’unité, pour le développement” splashed across it. It would have been a first : blending in in a Congolese dress in the UK.

We’d come to see “A Season in the Congo”, a 1966 play by Aimé Césaire, retold in a new English version by Joe Wright. It tells the brutal story of the brief rise and tragic fall of the first Congolese Prime Minister after Independence, Patrice Lumumba, an inspiring, idealistic and popular figure who was dramatically removed from power and assassinated just months after Independence. The circumstances surrounding his death are debated, but related to the secession struggle in the province of Katanga. Many claim that Western powers played a part in his demise. The UN was portrayed as weak, high minded but unwilling to take action to back the democratically elected government. What is indisputable is that fifty years on Congolese still mourn Lumumba as their greatest hero, the only truly democratically leader, the only one who was prepared to put the Congolese people before his own interests.

The play was a pulsating, colourful, creative explosion that captured the chaotic, vibrant, optimistic beauty of Congo and the crushed hopes of its people. The voice of traditional wisdom was represented by an elderly man, a traditional healer, perhaps, who commented on events in the cadences and proverbs of his mother tongue (Kikongo? Chiluba? I wasn’t sure, but it was certainly a Bantu language). There were moments when I couldn’t breathe for sadness, mesmerised by the intensity of Lumumba’s rhetoric of hope, transported back to Congo, feeling the heat, aware of the gathering storm clouds, knowing the march of history. Massacres in Katanga were brilliantly and appallingly portrayed by a writhing, slow motion dance to deafening, distorted drum beats and blood red lighting.

The play ended with a poignant echo of the Last Supper as Lumumba was passed by comrades, colleagues, countrymen, friends, down a long table before being shot dead in front of them, while those at the table washed their hands. Traditional wisdom was then shot, too, and died with him. With Lumumba lying crumpled on the floor, time suspended in silence, to me the play seemed to shout the message “Hope for Congo died with Lumumba”.

But that’s where I want to take issue with the play. Yes, the parallels between Independence Congo and current day DRC are depressingly obvious. It’s tempting to ask what has changed in 50 years. The ineffectiveness of UN intervention, interference from foreign powers, lust for Congo’s resources, corruption within the Congolese government, ethnic violence, an army that does not ensure the security of the country and the suffering of ordinary Congolese people, continue to bitter Congolese realities. And yet there is hope in Congo, and for Congo. I see it every day in the resilience and resourcefulness of its people, in their faith, in their laughter, in their compassion, in their ability to celebrate the good, in the millions who persevere with life despite the failure of almost every institution in the country.

 There is hope for Congo. It lies in the country’s people, in their vast, awakening potential. It lies in the God who created the Congolese and their country, the God of truth, justice and reconciliation, who brings good news to the poor and liberation to the oppressed.

more on Lumumba's assassination

review of the play 

working in a war zone

Genocide has a long tail. Ever since Rwandan refugees fleeing the genocide poured over the border into the Congolese city of Goma in 1994, the town has known little peace.  Goma, and the surrounding Kivu region, regularly finds itself in the international news. Images of rebels advancing on the town, displaced people fleeing with their few possessions on their heads, thousands crammed into refugee camps have become commonplace on our TV screens. In villages surrounding Goma, despite a UN peace keeping force, atrocities continue to be carried out against a vulnerable and exhausted population. A confusing array of different armed groups abound, all of whom prey on local people.

The homeland of the Tembo people is right at the heart of this troubled region. Bible translation work began in their language around fifteen years ago. Because of the insecurity, since 1999 the translation team has worked in a displaced situation in Goma city rather than in the centre of their language community. Their home area has seen more than its fair share of insecurity.  The troubles reached a new peak in May 2012 when 32 villagers were burned to death in their houses by rebels.

The five members of the translation team are fiercely committed to seeing the New Testament completed in their language. Genesis, Luke and Acts have all been published in the language, and around 85% of the New Testament has already been drafted. In the midst of relentless hardships, the team has amazing resilience. They need it. Goma may provide a greater measure of security than their home villages, but the cost of living in the city is sky high. In a town where prices are pushed up by the presence of aid organisations who can afford to pay over the odds for rent and food, the translators struggle to make ends meet. And whenever there is a fresh rebel advance in the surrounding region, the town is flooded by a new wave of refugees and the translation team can find themselves housing displaced relatives in their already crowded homes.

The ongoing conflict takes its toll in other ways, too. Bible translation involves much more than translators sitting in a room, translating from the Greek. It’s a complex community process involving many players: church leaders, a language committee who helps to guide the work and mobilise the community, revisers, who give feedback about the naturalness and clarity of the translation and speakers of the languages of all ages and backgrounds with whom the translation drafts are tested to see how they are understood. Carrying out these activities in a war zone with a displaced and often traumatised population poses huge challenges. Often the team cannot easily access people at the centre of the language community. But whenever there is an opportunity, despite the risks, members of the team try to travel to their home area to encourage people with God’s word in Tembo, and encourage them to be involved in the Bible translation process.

Recently I received an email from the translation team. They had spent a terrifying night listening to the sound of bombing on the outskirts of Goma. In the morning they had gathered at the translation office, not knowing what the day held. But when they opened up their email, they found a message encouraging them to read Psalm 46. They based their morning prayers on the psalm, and drew comfort from God’s Word for the day ahead by reading the passage in as many different Bible translations in different languages as they could find:

“God is our refuge and strength,

always ready to help in times of trouble....

The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us;

the God of Israel is our fortress...

He causes war to end throughout the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear...

 God’s Spirit speaking through his Word lifted their hearts and gave them fresh strength for a tough day’s work in a precarious situation. It’s because of their own experience of the unfailing power of God’s Word to bring hope that these translators are single-minded, no matter what the circumstances. It’s their vision and prayer that all the Tembo people will soon hear God’s Word in the language of their heart, and know the reality that God is their refuge and strength in times of trouble. 
more about the situation in Goma

Richmond safari park

 

The sky is intense blue. The sun is warm on my back. I spin along on my bike, gulping freedom in draughts. The rutted dirt track snakes away from me, grasses high and dry on either side. A fellow cyclist passes, smiling, the Médecin Sans Frontières logo, so familiar in Bunia, bold across his T-shirt. In the corner of my eye, an antelope emerges from the undergrowth...

My stoney skid brings me up short. Where have I been? Where am I now? For a moment, my worlds have merged and Richmond Park is African savannah. Too often the worlds are sharply separate, no danger of merger. But strong sun and rutted roads evoke a myriad African associations. My mind conjures up a whole context, half a life, to fit them. For a moment, I am back on a kinder continent. Then my vision adjusts and the deer comes into focus. I breathe deep and remember: sometimes the sun blesses England, too, and Richmond Park had my heart before Africa ever stole it.

visit to Feltham Young Offenders'

You may have seen the negative news story a couple of weeks ago about Feltham Young Offenders Institute after a report came out that said it is an “unacceptably violent place”. The story was fresh in my mind as I visited Feltham myself last week. It’s a couple of miles down the road from me, and a good friend of mine volunteers there at the chaplaincy. For several years they have been running a restorative justice course called “Sycamore Tree”, which is based on the story of Zak and Jesus in the Bible (Luke 19). Some inmates have the option of doing the course. Their families plus members of the local community are invited to the last session, so I went along. Families and the community are recognised as key to supporting young people who return to their communities after ‘doing time’ in prison.  The basic idea of the course is that justice should not be only offender-focused, as our retributive system is, but also consider the victim and the harm caused by the crime, and how to make amends.  Among the issues discussed are taking responsibility for wrong actions, restoration, and reconciliation. 

Physically, Feltham is not a welcoming place. Why would it be? But everyone we met gave us a warm welcome, from the staff at the various checks to the young men taking the course. Warm was certainly the word as fifty or so of us were ushered into the windowless prison chapel on one of the hottest days of the year. What I wasn’t expecting was the warmth of enthusiasm shown by the young men. And I wasn’t prepared for how moved I would be by their stories.

Most of the course participants had written something explaining what they had learnt from the course, which they read out to us. I was impressed by their brutal honesty. It can’t be easy to talk about your life, emotions, remorse and intentions for the future in front of thirty or so strangers. But eleven out of thirteen of them chose to do so.

One boy from Essex explained how his life had taken a nose dive when he was fourteen. He came home one day to find his brother dead. After this it was an easy slide into gang culture and crime. But the course had helped him to think about the direction of his life, about the hurt caused to his victims, about taking responsibility for his actions. I spoke to him afterwards, as we wolfed down my friend’s first class cake baked specially for the occasion. He told me that his Mum had wanted to come for the presentation but instead had gone to the funeral of a friend of his who had just been shot dead. Under 21, he’s lost several other friends in the past, too.  Sycamore Tree had made him think about his life, and why he was still here. It was a wake up call for him. 

Another young man had had the chance to meet his victims. He explained that this was a decisive and liberating moment for him. They asked him plenty of questions, but told him they forgave him and challenged him to think carefully about consequences before jumping into a course of action.

A key element of the course is always the session when someone who has been the victim of a crime comes in to describe his or her experience and feelings. A few years ago I went in and described my experience of the armed robbery my housemate and I had experienced in Nairobi. This time a father, Dylan*, had shared with the participants how his son had been murdered, but he had chosen to forgive the offenders almost immediately  in order to break the cycle of violence and revenge: if he hadn’t forgiven and urged his family to follow his example, there would have been other killings in revenge. Listening to the course participants relay back what Dylan had shared with them, it was obvious that his example had had a profound effect on them. It had helped them understand that the victim of a crime is a flesh and blood person with feelings, fears, anger, grief, vulnerability, a life that can be blighted. But it had also shown them that forgiveness is always possible and that it liberates people from a cycle of destruction. It gave them hope that their victims might also forgive them. And it challenged them about the possibility that they might need to forgive others who had ohurt them. Several participants wrote letters of thanks to Dylan for sharing his story with them. Their respect, admiration even, was obvious. He was a role model seared in their memory, holding out hope.

The young men expressed their hope and determination to put into practice what they’d learnt in their lives, both in prison and beyond prison. There was honesty, of course, about how tough this would be. The statistics are stark: two thirds of those who are in Feltham will end up offending again within two years. More encouragingly, those who participate in a restorative justice course are only half as likely to offend again. But out of a prison population of 700, only thirteen had taken part this time. Finding funding for the course is a challenge; this time it had come through donations to the Prison Fellowship. 

The encounter of Zak and Jesus is a powerful story of hope: every moment is a chance for any one of us to make a fresh start, to take responsibility for what we’ve done wrong, to be restored and reconciled, and make amends. I went into Feltham with a negative news story reverberating in my mind; I left with lots of food for thought and prayer, and a heartful of hope for restoration.

*not his real name

more about sycamore (you need to scroll down to "Salvation Has Come to this House Today") 

St. Swithin's Day, 2013

Anne Hathaway's cottage, Straford-upon-Avon

I've resurfaced on a different continent, persuaded out to play by the sun...

I am soaking up the summer heat, savouring every cloudless day. I’d forgotten the delights of summer: soft whispers of a breeze on a balmy evening, cherries, languid lounging on lawns, lying on my back, hypnotised by a pale ocean of blue, barbecues on the common, Test Match special trivialities and trifle, Pimms and Wimbledon, grown up children spinning like sycamore keys, handstands and outdoor concerts.

Priorities melt in the warmth. We just want to sit, and gaze and savour. The amiable sun coaxes us out of our hidey holes, away from our goals, out of insulated isolation, briefly we’re a gregarious nation. We are children, given to the present. Perhaps climate really does shape national character?

I wish for as many days over 25 degrees as we’ve had days under 5 this year.