‘We need peace’

‘We need peace’
By The Post
Sun 26 Dec. 2010, 04:00 CAT

“WE need peace in our country; peace in our homes and peace in our communities, in our families, in our churches, in politics and peace in our hearts. When we reconcile with others, we immediately experience peace in our hearts. It is this peace that we will bring to others in our families, homes, in our relationships, at our places of work and in our country.”

This is the Christmas message to Zambians from Bishop George Lungu, president of the Zambia Episcopal Conference. And Bishop Lungu adds: “The world today thirsts for peace. Peace can only come if there is genuine reconciliation.”

But the peace Bishop Lungu is talking about is not something that we can purchase, it is not for sale; peace has to be lived. And we can’t live our peace without commitment to humans, and our commitment to them can’t exist without their liberation, and their liberation can’t exist without the final transformation of the structures that are dehumanising them. There is only one way for us to find peace: to work for it shoulder to shoulder with our fellow human beings like beavers.

Peace is, above all, a work of justice. It presupposes and requires the establishment of a just order in which persons can fulfil themselves as human beings, where their dignity is respected, their legitimate aspirations satisfied, their access to truth recognised, their personal freedom guaranteed; an order where persons are not objects but agents of their own history. Therefore, there will be attempts against peace where unjust inequalities among individuals prevail.

Peace in our country, therefore, is not the simple absence of violence and bloodshed. Suppression, repression and oppression by those in power may give the impression of maintaining peace and order, but in truth it is nothing but the continuous and inevitable seed of tension, conflict and instability.

Peace can only be obtained by creating a new order, which carries with it a more perfect justice among our people. It is in this sense that integral human development path to more humane conditions becomes the symbol of peace. Peace is a permanent task. A community becomes a reality in time and is subject to a movement that implies constant change in structures, transformation of attitudes and conversion of hearts.

The tranquility of order is neither passivity nor conformity. It is not something that is acquired once and for all. It is the result of continuous effort and adaptation to new circumstances, to new demands and challenges of a changing history. A static and apparent peace may be obtained with the use of force; an authentic peace implies struggle, creative abilities, and permanent conquest.

Peace is not found, it is built. And as Bishop Lungu has correctly observed, the Christian is the artisan of peace. This task has a special character in our country: thus, the people of God in our country, following the example of Christ, must resist personal and collective injustice with unselfish courage and fearlessness.

Peace is the fruit of love. It is the expression of true fellowship among human beings, a union given by Christ, prince of peace, in reconciling all persons with the Father. Love is the soul of justice. Christians who work for social justice should always cultivate peace and love in their hearts. Therefore, there we will find the rejection of peace of the Lord, and a rejection of the Lord himself.

We are starting to witness increasing political violence in our country, especially in the run-up to elections and during elections. A decision on which the future of our country will depend should not be left to the impulses of emotion and passion. We would be failing in our duties if we were not to remind the conscience, caught in this dramatic dilemma, of the criteria derived from the Christian doctrine of evangelical love. No one should be surprised if we forcefully reaffirm our faith in the productiveness of peace.

This is an ideal not only for Christians but for all human beings of goodwill. Violence is neither Christian nor evangelical. Christians are peaceful and not ashamed of it. They are not simply pacifists, for they can fight but they prefer peace to tension, conflict and violence. They know that violent changes in structures or defence of structures would be fallacious, ineffectual in themselves, and not conforming to human dignity, which demands that the necessary changes take place from within – that is to say, through a fitting awakening of conscience, adequate preparation and effective participation of all, which the ignorance and often inhuman conditions of life make impossible to assure at this time. As Christians believe in the productiveness of peace in order to achieve justice, they also believe that justice is a prerequisite for peace.

Facing a situation which works so seriously against human dignity and against peace, it is not surprising that Bishop Lungu, in his Christmas message, is asking all of us as citizens of this country and as Christians to assume our responsibility in the promotion of peace in our country.

We would like to direct this message in the first place to those who have a greater share of power. We know that there are some leaders in our country who are sensitive to the needs of the people and try to remedy them. They recognise that the privileged many times join together, with all the means at their disposal to obstruct necessary changes. Therefore, we urge them not to take advantage of the pacifist position of the church in order to oppose, either actively or passively, the profound transformations that are so necessary. If they jealously retain their privileges and power and defend them through violence, they are responsible to history for provoking counter-reaction of despair. The peaceful future of our country depends, to a large extent, on their attitude.

Also responsible for injustice are those who remain passive for fear of the sacrifice and personal risk implied by any courageous and effective action. Justice, and therefore peace, conquers by means of a dynamic action of awakening and organisation of the popular sectors, which are capable of pressing pubic officials who are often impotent in their social projects without popular support. We address ourselves finally to those who, in the face of injustice and illegitimate resistance to change, put their hopes in violence. Let us not speak here of empty works which do not imply personal responsibility and which isolate persons from the fruitful non-violent actions that are immediately possible.

In the face of tension which conspire against peace, and even present the temptation of violence; in the face of the Christian concept of peace, we believe that we cannot avoid assuming very concrete responsibilities; because to create a just social order, without which peace is illusory, is an eminently Christian task. It is also up to all of us to denounce everything which, opposing justice, destroys peace. In this spirit we feel there is need to awaken in individuals and communities a living awareness of justice, infusing in them a dynamic sense of responsibility and solidarity; to defend the rights of the poor and the oppressed according to the Gospel commandments, urging our politicians to eliminate anything which might destroy social peace: injustice, inertia, venality, insensibility; to favour integration, energetically denouncing the abuses and unjust consequences of the excessive inequalities between poor and rich, weak and powerful; to request the perfecting of the administration of justice, whose deficiencies often cause serious ills; and to encourage and praise the initiatives and works of all those who in the diverse areas of action contribute to the creation of a new order which will assure peace in our midst. We should never remain indifferent in the face of the tremendous social injustices existent in our country, which keep the majority of our people in dismal poverty, which in many cases becomes inhuman and wretchedness.