Monthly Archives: May 2018

SUNDAY REFLECTION IN OUANAMINTHE

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SUNDAY

Dawn comes at six prompt intimated by a chorus of cockerels, dogs  and motorcycles revving.  Breakfast is in the open bar downstairs a pleasant courtyard with the covering of leaves and a gentle wind flowing through. Eggs scrambled with tomatoes and chili, delicious bananas, stiff bread and good coffee. This is the time when we chat share and bond as a team, read the bible and pray together and …..wait. (Sometimes we wait for hours,  on Friday it was for seven) We wait for our escort, Pastor Rolex Poisson. He feels responsible for us and anxious that he does not lose his Scottish friends. This morning he is prompt and we climb into his 4×4 equipped with air con and a video screen that helps him reverse but at other times plays Christian music in Kompa style.

We turn right into the Main Street that runs from the border. Usually this a two way river of cars, motorcycles, wheel barrows, bicycles and people on foot intersecting  like ants cutting and swerving but somehow  never hitting each other. At the side of the road there are shops and stall selling biscuits, liquor, concrete blocks, metal gates, bags of rice, beans and cement. Today it is much quieter and the motorcyclists seem to be transporting well-dressed people to church clutching bibles. It is astonishing how people turn out in their smart trousers, dresses, shirts, ties and immaculate shining highly polished shoes. The contrast between the church goers and their surroundings is remarkable-especially when you see the almost non-existent washing facilities people have at home and the ever present dust which turns to mud after every thunderstorm.

IMG_3660When we arrive at the church there is a service in progress. The building is full and a couple hold a bar against the door to discourage anyone from entering at this point. We mingle with the people outside. Again this area is normally a hive of activity with stalls of all kinds and people coming and going. Today it is quieter, but at one stall a young man dressed in a blue football shirt and red cap is busy making pasta rolling it out and laying it on the table to dry in the sun. He is assisted by another young man in a bright orange top. The colours are sharp in the strong sun against the white walls of the courthouse, the rich green of the overhanging trees and a cloudless sky.

The church is full when we enter. 400 or so people on wooden benches. Some have brought their own seats, children on the front and people crowded to the side. There is a raised platform with a concrete balustrade where the elders the choir and band sit and we are ushered to a seat there. The worship is led by a strong woman swaying to the rhythms of the song. She is singing a psalm straight from the bible it does not seem to be a metric version. She leads and the band follows and there is a moment or two before the musicians can locate the key. It’s the bass player who gets it first and he hammers out the line with runs followed by the drummer and finally, after a hesitant start, the guitarist on his  “Starcaster” guitar with intricate decoration in a Kompa style. The leader does what was common years ago in the west of Scotland, she “puts out the line” by singing the line of the verse and the congregation follow. There are many verses (I could not see which psalm it was). When it ends it rises to a climax with a crescendo when the whole congregation joins in singing “Hallelujah!” which repeated several times, sores and finally softens like the waves of the sea.

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The pastor comes forward to welcome everyone, give notices, introduces his friends from across the sea, some are well  known now and he seems to making an appeal for help with building of the new church (this is a rented building) The choir sing and Pastor Reme preaches. He takes The parable of the wheat and the weeds as his theme. I can only pick up a few words. I cannot follow the sermon but somehow sense that God is speaking through him by the power of the Spirit. Soon the service is over and we find ourselves outside chatting to David his god daughter, Atheline Pierre, Toussaint  and  Therese . David is eager to read the English bible and points to verses in the psalms, Jeremiah and  Isaiah where his namesake is mentioned. There is something special in that time.

IMG_9831Later we visit a home. The others know the family but this is my first time. I have always found these visits hard. There is something that always shocks me and I never quite get used to seeing just what little people have and how the means of living and surviving are achieved with astonishing grace and resilience and yes, dignity. This visit is unlike any of the others. The home is as poor as any I have seen but within the cramped and dark concrete interior and the most basic items of furniture, there was an immediate sense of God’s presence. The father is lying on a mattress on the floor his head propped by a cushion yet dressed in a dignified manner his hands shaking involuntarily. He is severely paralyzed perhaps with Parkinson’s or motor neuron disease. We are not told, but his eyes shine with something I can only describe as a deep joy and contentment. It is a look I will never forget as he lies there his face creasing into a smile, surrounded by his family, his five children and his caring wife. We have brought some food: a bag of rice, pinto beans, pasta, stock cubes, a tin of sardines and some cooking oil. The family is touched and grateful. We pray for them, thanking God, asking for his blessing and then leave. Back into the car and the winding bumping ride through the maze of lanes, block houses, goats, rubbish waste ground and naked children, we know that we were the ones who have received the blessing.

REFLECTION

IMG_3772It has been said that the Haitian people carry a deep seated sense of abandonment.

In the Voodou story,  God created the world but was so disgusted with his creatures behaviour that he abandoned it to the demons, good and bad, who are now in control. Typically western commentators and travellers, in their arrogance and ignorance see this simply as a colourful and harmless expression of ancient cultural tradition. As Kim Wall and Caterina Clerici  “Voodou is the soul of Haitian people.” The Guardian (2015)  “ The religion was born with institutional slavery. Ripped from homelands and heritage, thousands of those who would become Haitians were shipped across the Atlantic to an island, where the indigenous population had already been wiped out, for backbreaking labour in cane plantations. They were treated as cattle. As animals to be bought and sold; worth nothing more than a cow. Often less Voodou is the response to that. Voodou says ‘no, I’m not a cow. Cows cannot dance, cows do not sing. Cows cannot become God. Not only am I a human being – I’m considerably more human than you. Watch me create divinity in this world you have given me that is so ugly and so hard. Watch me become God in front of your eyes.’ or Mark Husdon reporting on Leah Gordon in the Telegraph (2012)  “Voodoo is a set of ceremonies that bring down spirits. The spirits indicate they’re present by possessing the celebrants. An animal is sacrificed to feed the spirits, and there’s a lot of dancing and drumming that goes with that. I can’t see anything intrinsically threatening in that. And it’s a lot more entertaining than any church service I’ve been to.”

It is an all too common view which betrays a gross arrogance looking down, as it were, from the high intellectual ground and seeing religions as either dangerous or just quant. In this narrative, it was the Christian missionaries who created all the problems in Haiti. They ought, apparently,  to have left the people to their own beliefs and not interfered.  It is the worst sort of patronizing racism with more than a hint of colonialism in the lust not for the natural resources of materials and labour but  for the colour and distraction needed for a jaded over consumerist  lifestyle;  leaving these pitiful people to their poverty and despair because they seem colourful to us.  Mercifully, the Haitian Christians see it all so differently. The Church resists voodoo in all its manifestations and denounces it unequivocally.  The pastor has to deal with incidents of demon possession almost every day (we witnessed one such) and he doesn’t pussy foot about the issue.  This is a real battle and great care is given to warn the people to have nothing to do with these sinister and evil practices.

IMG_3767The sense of abandonment is played out too through the people’s history. Robbed of their homes, transported across the sea, condemned as slaves and when winning their freedom forced to pay for it, They were massacred by their neighbours, ruled over by corrupt leaders  and suffered a series of natural disastrous culminating in the cataclysmic earthquake of 2010. The world rallied to help in so many ways and, in just so many ways, left a situation much worse that when they had come. This is most graphically illustrated by the appalling cholera epidemic that followed the earthquake and devastated the islands population. Cholera was unknown on the island before and brought by UN soldiers who contaminated the water supply in an act of gross negligence, which they then tried to cover up. This story is told through Jonathan Katz’ vivid first-hand account  of the disaster “The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster”

The most recent scandal involving Oxfam was just another example of the continuing cycle of despair adding to the overwhelming sense of hopeless abandonment.  Maybe I imagined it, but thought I could detect that sense of resignation in the faces of the people.

It is against this bleak backcloth that what Mission International is doing here is so encouraging and so relevant. The first contact was made with the church in Ounaminthe in 2009 and a team went out from Scotland in the following year.  Every year, and sometimes twice a year, teams have come to visit bringing gifts, words of encouragement, greetings and the promise to pray. This steady and unassuming commitment is beginning to break through the understandable cloud of suspicion, with the knowledge that the God who we serve has not abandoned his people and neither has his church.

Haiti mother and childMaybe it was fancy, but I thought I saw that in the smiles.

Crawford Mackenzie

 

TARGET AFRICA

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target africaTARGET AFRICA  ideological neo-colonialism in the twenty first century  Obianuju Ekeocha

I am in Haiti with Mission International trying to help our partners in the local church in Ouanaminthe set up a new school for this community. And in the long waiting times reading again this astounding book.

As a trustee and, for the moment, chairman of Mission International, which also works with partners in more than  40 different countries, the Oxfam scandal  left me with a sick feeling in my stomach. It was especially disturbing as this was happening in Haiti where we, at this moment, are in the process of helping with a new school.    I couldn’t, however, take any comfort in the thought  “but .. Of course, we are not like them…”  Somehow we are part of the whole and in the minds of the public and prospective donors tainted with the scandal. It is understandable that people who give freely and generously to a cause are disgusted and quite turned off when they learn that their money has been used to buy prostitutes and abuse the people it was meant to help.

For a long time now there has been serious questions over whether aid does actually work, that it was a means where rich countries could keep poor countries in poverty, and given with less than altruist motives.  These discussions have been around for a long time, but what Obianuju Ekeocha brings to the debate in “Target Africa” is a devastating critique  on how western nations  have adopted a new and sinister  colonisation, tying aid to western post Christian ideologies. With breath-taking arrogance and hypocrisy they are  imposing a destructive agenda that African leaders, seduced by the offer of money, are complicit in accepting.

Obianuju Ekeocha is a specialist biomedical scientists with particular expertise in pathogens, a Nigerian and founder of “Culture of Life Africa” an organisation dedicated to defending the sanctity and dignity of human life through research, information and education. She is a courageous woman and in this book with intelligence, compassion and unflinching dedication makes the point crystal clear. She is willing to take on and challenge governments, UN organisations and powerful philanthropists in the cause of defending the most vulnerable.

It is a shocking read.  She clearly sets out from a historical perspectives as well as her own personal experience of growing up in Africa and shows that while the old colonial order was ushered to a close with the Atlantic Charter in 1941, a new form of colonialism has subtly taken its place which, she believes, will bring an even more disastrous blight on the continent.

It is refreshing to hear her speak so movingly and lovingly of her Africa ” endowed with treasures” telling  a different story from the jaundiced one told by the western media. Taking just one example, on the emancipation of women: the perceived narrative is that African women are oppressed and enslaved by the chains of patriarchy. But  in her own country there have been seven female presidents, and twelve female vice presidents. She points out that Rwanda has the highest proportion of female parliamentarians in the world. (64 % when the UK has only 29%).

She describes the beauty of the land the wealth of its resources and the treasure of its people.

” What I have just described is the real but unrecognisable Africa. It is unrecognisable because the western media rarely shows any good news out of Africa. Instead they show every parameter of failure: low life expectancy, much poverty, poor healthcare quality, high maternal and infant mortality, low food security, little government transparency and so on.  ……….. Yet such images make us vulnerable to the wiles of those who seek to colonise us and to the many African leaders who will readily let them do so in exchange for funds from the west……….In many ways it seems as if African nations have gone into a mental condition of “protected dependency” and have thereby put themselves at risk of becoming once again protectorate states of western stake holders. This is the path to the past and the path to perdition.”

The case she posits is scrupulously researched, detailed and hard to refute. She examines the issues of Population control, the hyper sexualisation of the youth, radical feminism, abortion rights, the normalisation of homosexuality and the curse of aid addiction. All of which bear the same marks of Western Nations using aid to impose a morality alien to African  culture. It’s as if the west  don’t see what they are doing

“They undermine African life to reduce African fertility, yet they (the donors themselves) became prosperous and powerful when their laws and policies encouraged the formation of stable traditional families: Their economic booms coincided with population growth.”

She castigated the supremacist  attitude of the west taking the high moral ground;  defending the poor of the world while destroying their culture and beliefs. She instances Sweden’s reaction to the reinstatement of the US “Mexico City Policy” in 2017. They wanted it withdrawn and “ Yet” she asks ” by what means do they defend the poor?  By helping them to kill their children.”

She doesn’t pull her punishes and it is so refreshing to hear this level of honesty and straight talking in a subject so often clouded in nuances and  double speak. She doesn’t mince her words and calls a spade a spade. If you are shy of controversy and squeamish about the bare truth, you should avoid reading this book or any more of this review, for that matter.

On Population control: “The insistence on reducing the population of Africa, no matter what the cost to Africans themselves, is racism, imperialism, and colonialism disguised as philanthropy”

On the hyper sexualisation of youth: “In spite of the failure rate of condom programs for teenagers, the UNFPA continues to promote its multimillion dollar campaign across Africa known as CONDOMIZE !”

On the legalisation of prostitution: “Given the unspeakable abuse that women and girls endure in the sex industry, given the level of drug abuse to keep them silent and compliant, it is disconcerting that anyone would try and legitimise prostitution in the name of public health.”

On radical feminism: “..Instead of authentic feminism, a selfish and radical strain of feminism has risen in the west and has gained an international platform and a pace of prominence in this century.”

On the push for abortion rights, over which reserves her strongest words: “At the core of my people’s value system is the profound recognition that human life is precious, paramount, and supreme. For us, abortion, which is the deliberate killing of little ones in the womb, is a direct attack on innocent human life. It is a serious injustice, which no one should have the right to commit……I agree with pro-abortion activists that illegal abortion is a real problem in Africa, but I completely disagree with their proffered solution – to legalise abortion on demand….If the solution to all of Africa’s illegal practices was legalise them, then we are a doomed continent.”

On the normalisation of Homosexuality: “To convince Africans that marriage and sex are even possible between two women or two men, would require destroying their language and their culture. Such an undertaking is exactly what homosexual activists are attempting in Africa.”  And this activism is sponsored by western governments. “In 2011 President Obama threatened to cut off foreign aid to Nigeria because its senate passed a law unfavourable towards homosexuality

On Aid addiction where she recognises that the wound is in many ways self-inflicted:       ” Africans cannot take charge of their own future until aid, as we know it, is brought to an end, and the African leaders unleash the economic potential of their people……..For Africa to have a promising future, it needs to push back on this flawed paradigm and on the western influence that is spreading it.”

With President Obama she pleads: ” No child (in any part of the world) deserves to be raised in a motherless or fatherless home, because it is almost always a vicious vortex of emotional trauma and turmoil. Africans know and understand this and as such will stand in defiance of your new design of marriage and family. For us to comply with the draconian demands of your “Modern” design will entail completely demolishing our society, which is already inflicted with so many problems.

With Melinda Gates:“I see this $4.6 billion dollars buying us misery. I see it buying us unfaithful husbands. I see it buying us disease and untimely death. I see it buying us a retirement without the tender loving care of our children.”

For anyone who is at all interested in Africa, and in the future for health, peace and prosperity, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Crawford Mackenzie