Muslims and Christians living together

With the recent IED blast inside the Asturias Chapel in Jolo during Christmas day Mass wounding about 11 including the celebrant, talks begin again to circulate that exacerbate Christians and Muslims living together in Southern Philippines. No doubt, we live in dangerous yet interesting times. The so-called “War against Terror” continues to haunt us and there is an ever-increasing paranoia over everything that appears as “threats” to our security and safety. This emerging attitude is dangerous, because it makes us look at each other with fear and suspicion. In many places, religions and ethnicities fuel wars and conflicts. Issues pertaining to them continue to kill and divide humanity, often, along simplistic categories of “good guys” and “bad guys”. The sad state of our divisions and fears poses a danger or a temptation to reduce Muslims-Christians relations to antagonism and a “clash of civilization”. Yet, the truth of the matter is that there are many and varied experiences of good neighborhood and peaceful living between Muslims and Christians involving not only religious leaders but also the faithful of both traditions. It is interesting to note that both violent and peaceful people 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 in Southern Philippines are witnesses to and participants in these two strands. They have seen both the bloodshed in war and reconstruction in peace building. War and peace have become like the proverbial opposite energies of “ying” and “yang” that have always characterized, 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 livelihood until war erupts again and send them back to evacuation centers. It is a tragic cycle of war and peace in Mindanao. Peoples of Mindanao – both Muslims and Christians - live in a continuing “evacuation”. I will borrow Shakespeare’s words to describe the relations between Muslims and Christians in Mindanao. " . . . Creeping murmur and the pouring dark Fill the wide vessel of the universe: From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night The hum of either army stilly sounds That the fixed sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch. . . Each battle sees the other's umber'd face." (William Shakespeare, King Henry V, Act iv) So Shakespeare's chorus described the eve of Agincourt. The words might well have been written also of Mindanao, more particularly of Muslim-Christian relations. When faiths and religious traditions confront each other, it is, for the most part, with "fixed sentinels" and even with the "whispers of each other's watch". In the Philippines, particularly in the South, 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, bombings and plain and simple banditry is read along the understood "separateness" between Christianity and Islam. This tragic and sad reality is further exacerbated by the contemporary surge of the so-called fundamentalist movements both in Islam and Christianity. The likes of the Abu Sayyaf (Father of the Sword) and the kidnap for ransom Pentagon Group/s are often associated with fanaticism send jitters to the people in the area. 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 friendly and hospitable environment for Muslims and Christian to live together, truly, a very difficult task. There is the urgent need to re-configure the existing biases. And this would require 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. 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 few exceptions on either side to rise above the general ignorance and suspicion. But these are rare. When faiths and religious traditions confront each other; it is for the most part, with "fixed sentinels." It is in the context of that “fixed sentinels” in Mindanao realities that I share with you the two basic passages that need to light our path that is, often, shrouded by shadows. 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. “The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God’s plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own. Although not acknowledging him as God, they venerate Jesus as a prophet, his Virgin Mother they also honor, and even times devoutly invoke. Further, they await the day of judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer alms-deeds and fasting.” “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). More than ever, we need to reflect on these two passages as we begin the New Year, 2011 so that together we can build a community of believers – Christians and Muslims – not simply living side by side but as true partners and stakeholders for the peace and security of the land.