In a recent Essential Community course, students were asked to engage contentious issues such as religion, race, gender, and war. These writings are the fruit of their hard yet unfinished work.

“I spoke with my dad yesterday about the violence that’s been going on. My parents live in Naivasha, [Kenya] which is where the latest violence has been concentrated. In fact just yesterday they witnessed as about 100 young men came to a neighbor’s house, she’s from the Luo tribe, and set it ablaze, luckily she had left a few days earlier when the violence had started. My dad said that at one point they had to call neighbors to help them put out the fire as it was threatening to spread into their compound.

As many of you know my parents run an orphanage and just recently took in 26 orphans who now live in a rental house they own, and needless to say they are very worried for the children and wanting to make sure they are well protected and have enough food. At this point dad said they have food for this week, but he was going to try and get out to find more, which made me so nervous. My parents have also taken in 3 of my mom’s sisters and their families as they were all living in unsafe places, so they have over 30 people they are trying to take care of.

I’m pretty baffled at my own people. I’ve run out of words to explain why someone would burn children and women, hear them screaming and not even moved by their cries. I can’t understand how a man can stone another man to death just because he belongs to another tribe, hear him beg for his life and be unmoved. I don’t know how to explain my people and it hurts me and breaks my heart and it angers me. If I had a chance to speak to these men, this is what I would say to them:

You’ve seen him more than a thousand times
And you know he’s just like you, tell me what has changed
And where is it you lost your soul, to see a man like he’s the devil
And it’s your place to wipe him out

But just like you, he cries when he’s sad, and laughs when he’s happy
Is it so hard to see that?
And just like you, he wants to make his woman smile, make his child feel
Like they’re somebody

You force her down to the ground; hear her scream but you never stop
What kind of soul do you have?
You walk away with a grin, like you’ve shaken the hand of God
And he gave you a big smile

How badly can your soul be detached?
You can’t even think, what if this was my sister
And now she’ll walk around like Tamar
Disgraced and undefended
God’s poor soul.

What is it that happens to the heart of a man
For him to act like that?”

All war, all conflict, seen through the eyes of those most closely involved becomes a tragic statement of suffering and loss. Why then, as individuals, nations, tribes do we agree to participate in the agony and destruction of war over and over again?

War and conflict are never simple. In Kenya, the current problem did not begin with issues surrounding the December 2007 elections, which resulted in the death of over 800 civilians and the internal displacement of more than 250,000 people in the span of four short weeks.

One has to understand that this violence, which seemingly broke out from nowhere, has been steeping in tension for the last 40+ years as Kenya’s three dominant tribes, Kikuyu, Luo and Kalenjin have interchanged political, social and economic power. Prior to Kenya’s gaining her independence, “the Kenya Emergency of 1952-59 resulted in the imprisonment, detention, and restriction of Kikuyu. In Nairobi, they were removed from ethnically mixed housing estates . . . Luo increased their hold on small business enterprises . . . [and] the proportion of Luo in Nairobi, and in the labor force, increased markedly”. However, after Kenya became independent, the system was inverted and the Kikuyu began to dominate.

“In the 1960s and 1970s, Kikuyus from the central highlands of Kenya acquired large farms, some legally, some questionably through their connections to Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu. That planted a grudge with local groups like the Kalenjin and Masai. Kenya’s president in 1991, Daniel arap Moi, exploited the hard feelings for his own agenda. Moi, a Kalenjin, was facing re-election, and he used his network of police chiefs and tribal elders to attack Kikuyus and other ethnic groups affiliated with the nascent opposition movement. The clashes claimed more than 1,000 lives, and though they had subsided by the late 1990s, they never really stopped.”

It became clear that whoever held power would ensure that their own tribal group would be the primary beneficiary of that power.

In Kenya, we are seeing played out one more episode of human civilization’s obsession with war. We see economic and political issues: issues of right/wrong, true/false, power/victimization all intertwined to provide impetus and justification to the current conflict. We see the unwillingness of the parties involved to set aside their personal agendas. We see opposing sides prioritizing their own personal beliefs over those of the other, both believing themselves as being in the right, acting according to what they think they deserve or are owed. Neither participant in a conflict sees himself as the initiator of an evil but rather as the advocate of justice. Consequently, the opposing parties determine truth and justice separately. Words spoken by one Kenyan are, “The Kikuyu are our enemy because they are on our land. It is not good to kill their women. But to kill one of their men, that is an achievement.”, and from another, “Our opponents are the ones using ethnic violence [not us]. It’s terrible”.

Those in conflict never see themselves as the ones in the wrong. Volf suggests that this is because all conflict is the result of “my” truths and sense of justice coming up against “yours”. He writes that “we are caught in a vicious cycle: competing truths and justices call forth violence, and violence enthrones the truths and justices of its perpetrators”. Volf calls this a “Spiral of Vengeance”, saying, “When one party sees itself as simply seeking justice or even settling for less than justice, the other may perceive the same action as taking revenge or perpetrating injustice . . . the inability of parties locked in conflict to agree on the moral significance of their actions.”

Individuals, nations, and tribes should have the right to maintain and the responsibility to uphold their values and identities. They should have the right to seek justice. But when these pursuits result in hatred, violence, and war, a middle ground must be found that honors the rights of the individual yet provides a place for opposing sides to move toward each other. Opposing sides will be required to enter into a form of self-denial.

“First, [they] must give up some of [their] own understanding of the other in order to listen to them describe their needs. Second, [they] must give up some of the effort directed toward [their] own success in order to act for others…third, [they] give up satisfaction of [their] own needs to provide for others. They have to postpone [their] gratification.”

First: If opposing sides are able to find a way to approach each other with authenticity, there will be the possibility of entering into a space of genuine encounter. In genuine encounter, there will be a relinquishing of oneself, and each side will approach the other with a sense of wanting to understand where the other is coming from. A middle ground will form, providing a space into which both sides may enter, bringing who they are, and acknowledging, without accepting, the biases that they perceive as defining the other. There has to be an understanding that there is a need for the other and that one cannot live alone in order to enable change. The movement into this understanding will provide a place where forgiveness happens which can then lead to reconciliation.

By no means does this forgiveness call for a forgetting of the harm that has been done. Nor does it ignore the issues of right/wrong, true/false, power/victimization which are part of all conflict. On the contrary, forgiveness must deal with the pain that has been caused; it must look that pain in the eyes. Anger and rage will be named and addressed in a way that will no longer be turned upon those with whom we are angry. Our opponents, those who have perpetrated harm, those with whom we are angry, cannot take away our hurt, calm our anger, or redeem what has happened.

“Deep within the heart of every victim, anger swells up against the perpetrator, rage inflamed by unredeemed suffering…our cool sense of justice sends the same message; the perpetrator deserves unforgiveness; it would be unjust to forgive…and so both victim and perpetrator are imprisoned in the automatism of mutual exclusion unable to forgive or repent and united in a perverse communion of mutual hate.”

So where must we take our anger? Our anger must be turned towards God, the same God who created the world and has been in control of it ever since. This God loves people, all people, and in spite of our greatest efforts to hurt, violate, and destroy, God loves, secures, and redeems. God acts out of love and service, and does so with regard to justice, and not the type of moralistic justice that we comprehend. Volf claims that, “…by placing unattended rage before God we place both our unjust enemy and our vengeful self face to face with a God who does and loves justice . . . in the light of justice and love of God, however, hate recedes and the seed is planted for the miracle of forgiveness.”

Jesus, the Son of God, was sent to this earth not only to redeem humanity for eternity, but also to spread a radical message of forgiveness while he was alive. It is this God who has repeatedly forgiven humanity, and similarly desires that we as humans forgive each other and ourselves. It is only by realizing how much we have hurt this earth, each other, and God that we can begin to understand that forgiveness is as inherent in history as is hate, pain, and violence. If we enter into this reality and begin to think what it might look like to forgive others and ourselves, then movement out of Volf’s “Spiral of Vengeance” is imminent. He claims,

“But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness…and when one knows that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”

Second: Opponents, in order to move toward each other, will need to relinquish power. Power begins at an individual level and then extends to the community at large. At a very basic level, power is the freedom to know, act and feel. Power is accentuated by the ego, which “has a natural tendency not only for self-preservation (maintaining its existence), but also for self-development (expanding its existence).” When power is used in this manner, it means that whatever group has dominance will seek to maintain their existence, most often by oppressing the minority, in an effort to expand their identity.

This kind of control needs to be released if opposing sides are to find genuine encounter. Volf writes, “How can truth and justice be anything but deception and oppression to those who have been brought to insight by violence?” The opposing sides will need to no longer focus on their individual power and how it benefits them. They will need to embrace their own distinctiveness without negating their need for, or the identity of, the other. This means that each will use their power to serve the other. Opposing sides may have different customs, perceive different needs, hold different views of justice and truth, but they all share a common humanity. They are part of an interdependent system, where much can be learned from the other. In an ideal world, opponents would mutually submit to one another and relinquish the power they covet. They would begin by “exchanging power with [the other] under an implicit or explicit contract for both the mutual sacrifice and mutual benefit of each other . . . the special feature of cooperation is an agreement of reciprocity that guarantees shared effort to assure fair cost and an agreement of reciprocity to assure fair benefit.”

We are all unique individuals who belong to communities with their own identities, customs, boundaries, and communal traits, often separating one group from the other. But we share a common humanity that has, does, and will continue to violate others.

Third: Those who are in opposition to each other are in a stance of isolation and exclusion. There is no movement towards each other. Each is focused on the satisfaction of his own needs. For opponents to find common ground between them and move into a peaceful embrace, they will need to acknowledge that there is a place within all of us which is designed to “long to be restored to those who have betrayed us and to those we have betrayed. It is the siren call of shalom.” They will need to enter into forgiveness.

“Forgiveness is the boundary between exclusion and embrace. It heals the wounds that the power-acts of exclusion have inflicted and breaks down the dividing walls of hostility. Yet it leaves a distance between people, an empty space of neutrality, that allows them either to go their separate ways in what is sometimes called “peace” or to fall into each other’s arms and restore broken communion.”

Forgiveness may enable peace; however, we must not view peace as the end goal. Forgiveness opens the way to reconciliation and reconciliation restores communion. Reconciliation is the key to healing the deep wounds inflicted by the violence of war. But reconciliation will not happen through enlightened reason, or by seeking religious common ground. Attempts to coerce, to shame, to move by guilt will never do more than bring conformity of action.

In seeking reconciliation, we must be confident that change can happen and believe that reconciliation can be realized. We will not focus on the past, but rather on a different future in which we can place our hope, and thereby be enabled to persevere. “Hope takes the experience of loss and powerlessness and uses it as the raw material for writing a new and unexpected story”. It enables us to release any offense, real or perceived, and initiate restoration of relationship. This is possible only to the extent that we are able to access that place within us that desires reconciliation and that remembers the God in whose image we were created. Not only do we have a choice to embrace our commonality and to forgive others, but we also have the opportunity to move into this rich relationship that is enabled by forgiveness.

It is the nature of this God to move toward us, to heal broken hearts and broken bonds. God does not require forgetting the past, but instead by acknowledging the past is able to redeem the present, and give hope for the future. It is this God who reconciled the world to God’s self and removed the enmity between God’s self and mankind.

“God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”

“God’s passion is to weave glory out of the broken shards of…any [past] experience of powerlessness or sin”. We, mankind, have a choice to make. We may seek reconciliation, make God’s passion our passion and become willing to relinquish ourselves in our encounters. In so doing, we step into the experience of genuine embrace with another, able to receive the individual diversity of others without compromising our own communal identity.

Forgiveness enables movement toward reconciliation. While there remains to be forgiveness within the nation of Kenya that will enable others to move into that empty space, the beauty of what it is to forgive and move into reconciliation awaits. Currently, the Kenyan people are living amidst violence, but hopefully a day will come when they will have a decision to make, a decision that is much bigger than themselves. This decision will be for their country, for their communities, and for their families. Will they choose to forgive? Will they embrace the common humanity that they share as Kenyans? Will they be able to walk through the pain and loss that must be revealed, raged over, and redeemed?

Written by Johny Barbosa, Austin Locklear, Fran Vazquez, and Naomi Wachira.