It is a February morning in KwaZulu-Natal (the location of the historic Zulu kingdom). We are visiting urban and rural communities south of Pietermaritzburg with Pastor Jabu. Jabu has a vision for building and enhancing the communities capacity to live together peacefully. The pictures you see represent a township of some 500,000 people. There has been significant political violence in these communities in the past and Pastor Jabu and others have a mission to work at violence reduction in the face of growing political tensions as the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party vie for support.
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| Pastor Jabu making a contact in the community |
Last year Pastor Jabu participated in the MCC funded Africa Peace Institute (API). This is a four week training program for peace practitioners from across the continent offering the basics of conflict resolution and peace building. API was established in Kitwe Zambia about ten years ago under the auspices of the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation, a pan-African educational facility. During the past ten years API has trained 264 people in the skills of community based peacebuilding.
Our conversations with Pastor Jabu became quite passionate as we explored community dynamics and how we could work with people in applying community based peace-building concepts. It was fascinating to hear Jabu explain that historically there was no such thing as an opposition party. 'Opposition' to leadership then and even now implies 'being the enemy'. In an emerging democracy this has significant implications. How to move from being the enemy to a legitimate 'alternate' expression of leadership is a challenge. It seems imperative to find ways to re-engage the community in addressing the political realities of the present in such a way that allow for new understandings of government and leadership.
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