PEACE IS POSSIBLE IF WE ALL CULTIVATE IT

The people of Kenya suffered greatly in 2008, following the post election violence that broke out in late December 2007 and January 2008. Many communities were broken apart and are still in need of deep healing. Yet, there were also communities that held together and much can be learned from their response to the situation. Last April Giang and I (Sia) met with one such community in Kitale. We had worked with this group in November 2007 on strategies for peacebuilding after which they made plans of action on how they would implement their learnings in their communities.

So when violence broke out in many parts of the country, the leaders in this community called for meetings and talked to people about the importance of keeping peace. They used what they had learned in our workshop, their faith, as well as their natural skills of living together in harmony.

We visited St. Michael Small Christian Community and joined them in prayers. I was amazed as well as enriched with the way they shared the word of God. The scripture passage was from the gospel passage according to John 15:9-11, Jesus’ commandment to us to love one another, as he has loved us. The sharing on this gospel passage was very alive and connected to their daily life. They shared the joy of keeping God’s command to love one another regardless of one’s status in the community. One person said “Why burn someone else’s house when you know this person needs a place to live like you” There is a need to recognize that we all deserve to live together despite our differences. Many of them shared their reflections on the love of each other.

The catechist then invited the Christians to share with us how they were affected by the post-election violence. Some of them shared that even though there was no direct violence in their community, they were affected so much by the violence which was going on in other parts of the country. The freedom of moving from one place to another was restricted because it was not safe to travel. There was a fuel shortage because the lorries could not travel from Mombasa to Kitale due to insecurity on the roads. The price of many things went up in their local shops because there were no supplies coming in. Even the most reliable way of communication which was through cell phones became a problem because the phone cards became less available. They were unable to communicate with their relatives and friends who were in areas affected by the violence. Not being able to communicate frustrated some of them and they felt helpless in terms of how to reach their relatives and rescue them.

Others shared with us how they kept peace in their community. One way was through their faith, they prayed for peace and unity all the time. They also held meetings and talked about their value of respecting each other and their property. They reminded each other that differing in their political affiliations does not make them fight. They recognized that although they support a PNU (Party of the National Unity) or ODM (Orange Democratic Movement), they are still human, they are still Christians and they need each other in their community. They passed this message around “let us be united and not fight each other.”

The chiefs, elders and church leaders as well as the entire community cooperated to ensure peace was kept in their communities. They all held meetings in their respective places and preached peace and strategize how to continue living peacefully with one another. In the church, the catechists learned from the people what was happening in their places, asking questions like “are they all okay with their neighbors?” They went house to house to preach peace and they invited the youth in the parish to do this work also. This strategy worked well because the youth were occupied and responsible in worthy efforts. They were not idle, left to be used by others to instigate violence.

In this community, the assistant chief is one of the youth. He warned his fellow youth not to be involved in any violence even if someone gave them money. The chiefs introduced curfew in their community; nobody was allowed to be out in the streets from 7pm to 7am. No youth were allowed to leave their houses to spend the night in the nearby guest house. Severe punishment would be given to anyone found on the streets after 7pm. When the parents heard of the curfew and the consequences of not following it, they were very concern for their sons. They cooperated with the chiefs and the elders to ensure that their sons were home before 7pm. The youth listened to the chief attentively and believed them because the assistant chief was one of the youth. They said it was easy to listen to one of them and believe what he was saying.

Most of the people in this community are farmers and they were busy preparing their field for planting. People were not idle in the streets waiting to be used by some people who had money to instigate violence.

All these factors helped to keep peace in their community. They all commented on good leadership as well as cooperation of each community member to live in a peaceful community. They also kept solidarity in prayer with other communities in Kenya which were experiencing the violence.

I was so inspired and energized by listening to these Christians from St. Michael Community, sharing their strategies for keeping peace in their area. This reminded me of the four principles of peace building by Louise Diamond: Community, Witness, Cooperation and Nonviolence. Listening to their stories, I could clearly see how they applied all these four principles naturally to keeping peace in their community. I wish their lessons could be shared with the people of other parts of Kenya so that peace might prevail in all of Kenya.