Religious leaders and peacebuilding

It is very important to weave the experiences and lessons of religious leaders' participation in building peace in Southern Philippines. There are many and varied experiences of peacebuilding that involve religious leaders of all faiths. This has become more important, because both violent and peaceful people continue to use religious images and passages from the Scriptures or Holy Books to “justify” their acts and actuations that either promote conflicts and violence or build peace. The peoples of Mindanao are witnesses to these two strands. They have seen both the violence and bloodshed in war and rehabilitation and reconstruction in peacebuilding. War, piracy, and kidnappings have always marred, from the very beginning, the encounters between Islam and Christianity in Southern Philippines. It is often said that the Southern Philippines has really not known peace. What we, sometimes, experience are fleeting truces that allow peoples to build anew their homes and livelihoods until war erupts again and send them back to evacuation centers. It is said that Christianity and Islam are, indeed, physically adjacent. Yet, for all their nearness, the relations between these two faiths and their respective followers are largely shrouded in mutual suspicion and darkness. There are exceptions on either side to rise above the general ignorance and suspicion. But these are few. When faiths and religious traditions confront each other, it is for the most part, with "fixed sentinels." In the Southern Philippines, Christianity and Islam have always been presented as two competing faiths for the same geographical area. Wittingly or unwittingly, the recent spate of lawlessness like kidnappings, terrorism, and plain and simple banditry is read along the understood "separateness" between Christianity and Islam. All these are familiar enough and part of our present problem. Often, they exercise tyranny over our spirits. They have produced a culture and a habit of suspicion and confrontation that make inter-religious collaboration and dialogue, truly, a very difficult task. It requires a commitment and determination to steadily school ourselves to resist and reject our habit of preferring suspicion to trust; our instinct to prefer the familiar confrontation to a new relationship of partnership in the world that is in difficult transition. In the past as well as today, there is an ever-growing awareness of common territory and affinity between Islam and Christianity. The Qur'an in Chapter 5 verse 82 unequivocally encourages Muslims to cooperate with Christians. “Thou wilt surely find the nearest of them in love to the believers are the ones who say, 'We are Christians'; that because some of them are priests and monks, and they wax not proud” (S.5:82). The Second Vatican Council document, Nostra Aetate, clearly articulates the common territory and affinity between Christianity and Islam. “Over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have arisen between Christians and Muslims. The Sacred Council now pleads with all to forget the past, and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding; for the benefit of all men, let them together preserve and promote peace, liberty, social justice and moral values.” (NA3). Muslim-Christian Partnership There are a few religious leaders in the Southern Philippines who have understood the importance of Muslim and Christian understanding to attain a lasting peace and sustainable development. There are difficulties, frustrations and pains, yet, they are transcended as they continue to learn how to live as neighbors. These attempts now constitute the examples of religious leaders' participation in building peace in Southern Philippines. I will outline four traditions of Muslim-Christian leaders' involvements in peace building. The first tradition was the continuing attempts to bridge the education and development gap in the Southern Philippines due to long years of government neglect. In the then empire province of Cotabato and the Archipelago of Sulu, OMI's began the Notre Dame School System that brought quality education to the Moro peoples long before the establishment of the Mindanao State University. The Notre Dame School system has generated so much social capital that educated Moro people and the leadership both in the rebel front and in local government easily point to their experiences in the Notre Dame campuses all over the Southern Philippines as examples of harmony and unity between Muslims and Christians. This was also true in the island province of Basilan with the Claret Schools under the Claretians. The second Tradition was the struggle for justice and human rights, particularly during the dark years of Martial Law. Arbitrary arrests and detentions, Military “zoning” (military encirclements of a community where all males were lined up in the public square and houses were searched and ransacked usually at nights), cases of “salvagings” (killed or liquidated and later the bodies were dumped into the river) and disappearances led to the formation of the first Christian-Muslim Leaders Association of the Philippines. Prominent personalities in this struggle were Bishop Antonino Nepomuceno, OMI, Episcopal Bishop Constacio Manguramas, and Sheik Omar Bajunaid. This group conducted capacity building for dialogue and monitoring human rights violations for priests, Imams and Pastors. They were able to forge Muslim-Christian solidarity that witnessed to the common tradition of trust, friendship, and hospitality amid the legacies of suspicion, anger, and hatred. The third tradition is the path personified by Bishops Bienvenido Tudtud (Lanao del Sur) and Benjamin de Jesus, OMI (Sulu). Both Bishops were gentle, jovial and friends to all, but most especially to the poor and the vulnerable sectors of Philippine society. Their passionate commitment to the poor and dialogue of life led them to venture in a humble and non-threatening friendship with the Muslims in the Vicariate of Sulu and the Prelature of Marawi. They wanted to be the humble and compassionate servants of the peoples of Sulu and Lanao del Sur. This path is now enshrined in the universally accepted dialogue of life that translates into everyday life the desired friendship that should characterize the relationships between and among neighbors. It is a path that continues, in daily living, to break down the walls (both visible and invisible) that separate Muslims and Christians. The fourth tradition is the pioneering peace education and advocacy began by the OMI run Notre Dame University (NDU). It is the first institution of higher learning that has integrated peace education in its curriculum where both Muslim and Christian students are required to take peace studies. The University's peace advocacy has led to mediation and conflict resolution efforts of the citizens (Muslims and Christians) in Southern Philippines. The first experiences of civilian peacebuilding began at NDU following the signing of the cessation of hostility between the GRP and the MILF in 1997. These traditions show concrete Muslim-Christian collaboration on the ground that indicates the heart of dialogue and peace building. Like politics, peace building is local. They are rooted in “being” with the people, especially the poor and the vulnerable sectors of society. It is a “rootedness” that is shaped and fashioned by a shared living, sympathy and solidarity. This becomes the well-spring of active participation in all human endeavors, economic, political and cultural, always in favor of the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. Oftentimes, this kind of witnessing is clearer and more eloquent than any signing of agreement. Muslim-Christian collaboration is not something abstract. It is a human activity which involves our total life experience. It takes place in the individual as well as communal lives as peoples of differing faiths live out their faiths and conviction according to the living traditions. No doubt, the partnership, and collaboration depend upon a bridging leadership that enhances mutual trust and understanding. It demands respect for the identity as well as the integrity of the other. It rests on the conviction that God who is all merciful and compassionate desires to draw all peoples and the whole creation into a relationship of love and peace.