Let’s reconcile in Africa

BY ANTHONY GATHAMBIRI IMC

In African tradition there is a story, a parable, told of two cats. It goes like this. Once upon a time, in a small village in Africa, there lived two cats. One was black and the other one was white.

A policeman stands guard inside a Presbyterian church that was attacked by rioting youths in Mombasa, Kenya, last August. (Photo: Thomas Mukoya, Reuters/CNS)

One day, they were hungry and so they went out to hunt for prey. On the way to the bush, they came upon a piece of cake, lying on the road. Driven by hunger, they quickly cut it into two pieces.

But one piece was slightly bigger than the other piece. As they stole away together, the hungry cat said that he should eat the bigger piece and the one with less hunger eat the small piece. The other cat disagreed and the quarrel went on.

As they were quarrelling, a monkey on the tree was watching all this. Immediately, he came down from the tree and positioned himself next to the cats so that he could hear what the quarrel was all about. When the cats saw the monkey, they approached him and asked him to decide who should eat the bigger piece.

The cunning monkey said: “Don’t worry, my good friends; I will sort out your problem quickly.” He assured the cats that he would make both pieces equal.

The clever monkey started eating from the bigger cake in order to make it the same size with the smaller one. But as he took a bite from one cake, the other piece would become bigger. So he would then take a bite from the other piece. This continued until the both pieces were small.

Seeing this, the two cats pleaded: “Sir, we are satisfied now.” The shrewd monkey replied: “Oh, this is my fee for sorting out the problem.” With that he grabbed the remaining cake, jumped into his tree and left the poor cats hungry.

This story refers to Africa, where news about war reaches our ears virtually every week. Elections are not always a good thing to talk about in Africa—often they are followed by violence and even war.

It is not long ago that Kenya’s election in December 2007 was followed by terrible bloodshed. Right now, Kenya has thousands of internally displaced persons within its borders. Observers warn that this year’s elections could be followed by yet more violence.

Peace in Africa is urgently needed, lest we breed more refugees. My father, who fought the British colonisers of Kenya as a Mau Mau member, would tell me that war is the worst thing of all.

Africa has behaved like the two cats during conflicts. We always call on the Western countries to settle our own disputes. Is it so hard to find solutions from within Africa or are we incompetent in settling disputes, even our own disputes?

When will Africa cease to be the children of the West, reporting quarrelsome siblings to mom and dad for arbitration?

Whenever conflicts arise, we can be sure that there is somebody who will take advantage of the situation. This could be our political leaders, Western countries or, increasingly, China. They come to exploit our resources under the guise of helping us.

The future of Africa is in our own hands. And a good future is not possible if we don’t work for peace.

Nelson Mandela once said: “I dream of an Africa which is at peace with itself.” This objective is attainable if we, as Africans, persuade ourselves that each one of us has to contribute to the peace mission in Africa. Our peace mission starts in our hearts, then spreads to our families and to the wider community of our country and our continent.

In his apostolic exhortation Africae munus, which brings together the fruits of the Second Synod of Bishops for Africa, Pope Benedict said that there is a need to have one day or even a week of reconciliation during Lent. What a brilliant idea!

It is important to celebrate reconciliation because we Africans are still nursing the injuries of wars, and these will take a long time to heal.

Some of these hurts can’t be easily healed, and we only need to know how to live with them. For example, when a child saw his mum or his dad killed, just because they belonged to a certain party, will this not sting that child forever?

People could use such a day of reconciliation to tell of their bitter experiences of war, conflicts and oppression.

This could be a one step towards building an Africa where people are joined in peace and are reconciled with one another.