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Taking exception to exceptionalism

We are hearing a lot of things about what Osama bin Laden was. Perhaps we haven't heard this: He was the man that laid bare the soul of America, revealing some aspects we'd rather not see.

This was true with his devastating attack on Sept. 11, 2001. And perhaps even more so in his own death a decade later.

In both cases, at least from my overseas vantage point, we were exposed as a people who were perhaps just as vengeful, and (worse, in our minds) just as insecure as the people elsewhere in the world whom we call uncivilized and "savage" when they behave in similar ways.

The chants and jubilation, flag waving, crude sign flashing and giddy joy that spontaneously spread across America as news of bin Laden's death was released Sunday night and into Monday at first made me uncomfortable. I felt a bit ashamed that my countrymen were cheering death.

I wanted them to have a certain type of dignity and class ... that they would display what we believe is a special American respect for life. I wanted them to show that we were not like the people who danced and cheered in Somalia when a downed pilot's body was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993. ... or like the hate-driven extremists and militants around the world who rejoice in the death of their enemies.

What people do

I was uncomfortable until I realized that my countrymen were being perfectly normal human beings. They were responding like people who have been hurt by tragedy and injustice do when they get a measure of revenge or justice against their persecutors. 

They were responding like people who have been belittled and humilated do when something gives them back a bit of their sense of dignity and honor. 

They were responding like people do everywhere in the world in similar circumstances;

Problem is, we aren't supposed to be like people everywhere.

I was uncomfortable because I had been programmed to believe, like most Americans, that we were different. Exceptional, some say. 

We are a nation founded on principles like none other, so the thinking goes. We follow the rule of law. "We are a Christian nation," so we value life and justice. (speaking of faith ...).

We believe we are more generous, more brave, more forgiving, more industrious, more peaceful, more democratic, more principle-driven, more law-abiding ...

And because of all these exceptional things, the logic continues, we became the most powerful nation on earth. God blessed America. 

Looking in the mirror

Seeing yourself as distinctly different from the rest of the world allows you to distance yourself from their pain and anger. It allows you to write off their suffering and needs as less basic and legitimate than your own.

But the logic falls apart when we are obliged to see how much we are like other nations and peoples ... when we are obliged to see how unexceptional we are. And if there is one thing that bin Laden may have done for us is to hold a mirror up to our faces. He has shown us -- if we care to pay attention -- what we really look like.

I saw it yesterday. Fists and teeth clenched, "We got that SOB," one baseball fan screamed as he left the ballpark Sunday night. Another, at Times Square in New York, waved his American flag with a wide-eyed frenzy that one might have mistaken for an anti-American protest in Palestine or Iran. 

Others just cheered and chanted "USA, USA, USA ... " as if we had just won a hockey gold medal at the Olympics. 

But this was no game. This was life and death.

Not only was it about bin Laden, but also about the 3,000 people who perished in the attack in 2001. Still more, it was about the hundreds of thousands of people who have died since that time. Soldiers, militants, civilians. Americans, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis ...

Bin Laden and others like him killed, as people do around the world, because they come from a lineage that had felt injustice and humiliation and that had come to blame America and the West. They sought vengeance and justice through blood and death. 

While few of us would argue about the justice and utility of bin Laden's death, the cycle continued Sunday night. This was not a reason for joy. There was no victory. It was another turn in the sad cycle of death that certainly did not end when his body was dumped in the ocean.

But for millions of Americans this has been a time to celebrate, a time for restored pride -- just as September 11 had been a decade earlier for some who had resented Western world domination. 

Look in the mirror.

View from a distance

Sometimes things are clearer when we take a step back. 

Since Sept. 11, 2001 I have been keenly aware that there is something different about following world events from outside the United States. I came to understand long ago that there was something I would never quite share with my countrymen who, from that side of the Atlantic, had lived through the shocking destruction of the twin towers in New York.

After September 11, when we felt threatened and weakened and humiliated, we began to act like other nations we once looked down on. We were vulnerable and afraid. 

And so we became less democratic, less law-abiding, less concerned with human life, less Christian, if you will  ... 

As our soul was laid bare, our true core beliefs became more and more visible: power and force and the wealth it takes to get them -- not laws, justice, relationships and cooperation -- are what makes one right and safe in this world. 

Maintaining power and keeping our safety, then, was all that mattered, no matter who we had to detain illegally, torture, bomb, invade ... no matter how many innocent civilians might die ... no matter how many soldiers would be sent off to war.

We had to win. We had to get this man who had made us feel weak and who had continued to threaten us and humiliate us with his grainy videotapes from supposed mountain hideouts.

Why it matters today

Again, we are not worse than any other people. But we do have more power and thus the ability to act out our core values. And if we don't understand who we truly are, how can we begin to figure out how to navigate the confusing conflict between our interests and our values we are facing in today's quickly changing international environment?

How will we communicate the reasons we will bomb and seek to overthrow one dictator trying to crush democracy while ignoring similar actions elsewhere. Will we keep talking about how special and virtuous we are? 

Will we be surprised when we're called hypocrites when we don't seem to care what happens in Burkina Faso or Ivory Coast?

Will we be surprised when the insurgents we support today turn against us tomorrow?

Will we continue wondering why no one else sees us as altruistic supporters of democracy and freedom for their own sake?

The sooner we see ourselves more realistically, perhaps even humbly acknowledging when we have taken part in injustice instead of clinging to and extolling ourselves with the self-righteous city-on-a-hill image we like so much, the sooner we may be able to construct true relationships of trust in those parts of the world where there are so few. 

If this is to happen, we need to take the blinders off. The first step is realizing that you and the rest of the world are not so different. So by helping us see ourselves more clearly, perhaps bin Laden, of all people, may actually help us become more like the nation we aspire to be.

Disclaimer on the Christianity and vengeance

Just to be clear, I don't expect the United States government to be Christian or act Christian. I don't even expect Christians to act like Christians.

Every person of faith or ideals falls short of living up to all the standards in which they believe.  

I do, however, think it is a good idea that Christians at least understand that the basic tenants of their faith might not approve of vengeance and gloating over someone's death, even someone whom we may all agree deserved to die.

A couple of verses to consider:

Matthew 5:44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

And, in case you think that was just wimpy New Testament talk. 

* Ezekiel 33:11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. 

Then he says to his own people, "Turn, turn, turn, from your wicked ways."

* Proverbs 24:17 Do not gloat when your enemy falls; 
   when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice.

 

* disclaimer on the American concept of our special respect for life: Life must be sacrificed sometimes for the greater good or in order to achieve justice.

Hello. Anyone still following?

Avatar strikes repentance nerve

With his epic film Avatar, director James Cameron offers an important but probably undesired gift to Westerners: the ability to feel sorry.

The movie gives Western viewers an opportunity to do emotionally what the movie's main characters do physically: to experience the clash of civilizations from the point of view of the indigenous peoples being invaded. 

 In the film, earthlings take on genetically manufactured bodies of the indigenous Na'vi race found on planet Pandora. Likewise, Western moviegoers get the metaphorical opportunity to enter into the skin of the indigenous peoples around the world who have been so damaged by their encounters with Western civilization over the past 600 years.

By creating a vivid other world and plunging moviegoers into it in three dimensions, Cameron gives viewers a chance to set aside their defense mechanisms and preconceived notions about justice and history, taking them on the type of experience that I believe is a necessary part of the process of reconciling the West with the Rest.

In learning about and sharing ideas on reconciliation over the past several years, I've learned that both forgiveness and repentance are necessary if reconciliation is to take place.

Forgiveness, quickly stated, means to not require of the guilty party the payment due for an injustice that has been committed. Repentance, on the other hand, means to renounce not only the injustice that was committed but also the core thinking ("I deserve this more than you," "I am better than you") that enabled the injustice in the first place. 

Both forgiveness and repentance must first take place within the individual, but the process takes on social meaning when it moves on to an encounter between offending or offended others in the form of a pronouncement of forgiveness or an apology. It can also involve gestures to repair the wrongs that were done.

BUT, I DON'T FEEL SORRY 

Problems is, the descendants and heirs of those responsible for past injustice often simply do not feel sorry about what was done in the past, because they don't feel connected to it.

How can one be expected to repent and to apologize or repair injustice when one does not feel sorry?

It is only when people see and feel the harm of what was done, even in past generations, that they can begin to reject the wrong thinking they have often unknowingly inherited from their progenitors.

To make matters more complicated, the guilt and pain and resentment between the groups in question make it difficult for them to get close enough to begin to see into each other's experiences.

It is generally only those who develop intimate relationships with peoples who were negatively impacted by injustice who begin to understand the lasting impact of the past on current generations. 

These people who get close (through marriage, close friendship or living among the "others") enter into the skin of the people in question, they feel their pain and begin to grasp the implications of what was done, particularly to the victim group's souls and psyches.

Those who develop these intimate relationships are the people who feel sorry. They are the people who repent. These are the people who, in my own experience, helped me to forgive.

But few European Americans get the chance to live closely and intimately with Native American or Black American culture. Few Europeans experience intimately African cultures that were impacted so negatively by colonization there. 

Few Australians get the chance to enter into the experience of the aboriginal people there.

Few Westerners get the chance to live among Arabs, developing the relationships necessary to understand what the humiliating colonial past meant to Arabs across the Middle East and how that continues to affect the world today ... how that colonial past is deeply tied to the perception and reaction to Israel's existence today, for example.

SHORTCUTS TO INTIMACY

So it's invaluable to find ways for people to experience intimacy that normal life is unlikely to produce any time soon. We need intimacy shortcuts for people groups.

For the Reconciled seminars I have been presenting for the past few years in Burundi, France and in the United States, I've been trying to develop an interactive role-playing game based on the past 600 years of world history designed to help participants understand the impact of culture clashes on today's relations.

The idea was to get people to experience how we are tied to our ancestors and how our own sense of value is tied to theirs. We wanted to help people feel the need to be worth as much as other peoples and the frustration of having that need denied.

But Cameron touches emotions in Avatar that I never could have dreamed of reaching.

HURTING WITH THEM

When you experience the devastation of the Na'vi in Avatar, you have a chance to taste for a moment the pain that so many peoples around the world have felt.  

Few, if any, experiences before Avatar have caused my spirit to grieve for what was done in the name of my country and of my faith, in particular to the Native  Americans.  

As the film reached its climax I felt deeply saddened, humbled and sorrowful. For some reason, I thought of Mt. Rushmore and felt profound shame as I imagined the Lacota Sioux people standing by as dynamite blasts blasphemed the majestic mountain scape they had known as Six Grandfathers, carving out of this holy site the giant busts of men that, in their eyes, had overseen the ethnic cleansing and genocide of their people. 

One scene, in which the stunned Na'vi walk through the devastated center of their culture, with ash falling and floating around them, is eerily reminiscent of Ground Zero in New York, as stunned Americans tried to make sense of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. 

Cameron thus gives viewers the opportunity to connect their own recent trauma with the trauma that others have felt. "Have we caused others to feel the horror of what we felt on Sept. 11, 2001?" 

FROM THE HEAD TO THE HEART

This film experience caused my heart to follow what my head had long since understood. I had known in my head that what was done to Native Americans was horrible. But it had been too easy for me to dismiss this as one of those facts of history that every people on earth has endured. 

"Kingdoms and peoples rise and fall," I might have been tempted to think. "That's the way the world goes." And plus, as an African-American, I had felt exonerated from the need to deal with this issue. It wasn't my problem. My people had nothing to do with it.

But Avatar did not allow me to come to the film as a Black American. It pulled me into the skin of a Na'vi living on Pandora. It built a new world around me that allowed me to forget, to a large degree, the realities of my own. 

I was able to process the experience without the natural defenses and devices we use to deflect the discomfort of guilt and responsibility. 

And so just as the Na'vi in the film found themselves defenseless against the selfishness and ignorance of their intruders, so was my soul without a weapon to beat back the ugliness of what I was witnessing. I felt what it feels like to have everything that matters to me, the very essence of my identity and my reality, ripped up at the roots, as if it meant nothing.

I felt what it was like to realize that nothing about me and my identity mattered. It was a horrible feeling that I knew all too well. But Avatar helped me feel it for others, rather than having it be about me.

NOT SO EXAGGERATED

Some might argue the villains in the film were cartoonishly simple in their greed, ignorance and sense of superiority. Others might feel a need to defend their forefathers as being much less ignorant and cruel than those represented in the film. But it is important to note that their perception in the eyes of their victims is often very much as the movie portrays.

In our seminars we encourage people to seek to confront the ugliness and heaviness of the past rather than seeking to avoid it, rationalize it and push it off on others. We encourage people to face the discomfort, guilt and sorrow head-on.

If we don't understand the reality and impact of our past, we can't feel sorry. We won't reject and turn from the thoughts and practices that led to injustice. 

We won't work to repair the injustices of the past and to seek justice in the present. 

We will never understand why people like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are willing to blow up airplanes filled with people. We will just look at people like him and decide that they are the only problem. And so, the cycle of misunderstanding and vengeance will continue. 

Of course Avatar cannot cause us to think or act differently. But for a moment at least, this movie gives us a chance to feel something different. Perhaps, for some of us, these feelings will be the beginning of a new journey.

Barbed wires

It seems every sign of encouragement here in Burundi has a 'but' attached.

One of the things I have noticed during this trip, which has taken me to some parts of the society that I hadn't experienced before, is that there is at least a part of the society which is making enough money to begin to build some rather nice homes.

These would be nice homes even by Western standards, thanks to low constructions costs and the wonderful climate, which means you can easily have a beautiful tropical garden with your home. Multiple story homes, with huge tropical plants and trees. Luscious lawns and beautiful landscapes are commonplace in a few parts of the city.

But even in these havens, there are cold, harsh reminders of the buts. 

"The barbed wire and other sharp objects we put on the tops of the walls around our homes haven't always been there," a Burundian man explained to me. (picutred here is a new home being built with stick scaffolding and already surrounded by a wall and topped with barbed wire)

"That came with the war." 

He was speaking of the armed conflict that tore the country apart between 1993 and 2005, a continuation of years of conflict based largely on ethnic tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi, but manipulated by political leaders seeking power.

The conflict sent neighbors into rival factions, attacking one another and fleeing from one part of town to another as they began to distrust their neighbors. Neighborhoods that once had been mixed became havens for one ethic group or the other.

And a way of life changed, perhaps forever, Emmanuel told me.

Walls were not a part of Burundi culture traditionally, he said. It used to be you shared your yard with your neighbors. There was perhaps a hedge or something to mark your land. But it was open. You could see each other and talk to one another."

"But with the war, not only did we get the walls, but the walls are now the first thing you build. That is what you build even before you start building the home."

A feature of the war was a sort of ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and villages. So, one always feared that their neighbors or groups from the opposing ethnic group might come and chase them from their homes at best, or slaughter them at worst.

Thousands of people lost their homes and the courts are still sorting through property disputes from before the conflict. In a country where a man's home is his status, this is huge. 

So, the construction reflex is now defense first.

"I don't think people are even thinking anymore when they build the walls," Emmanuel said. "It's not that they are afraid about another war or that they are thinking about it. It's just what you do now.

"I don't think that will change for a long, long time," he said. 

He conceded that not too far down in everyone's psyche, however, is the knowledge that the peace they have known for three years now, the peace that is allowing them to build and enjoy life again, that that peace is a fragile one.

Those barbed wires are certainly prickly reminders of that reality.

Burundi's pure anti-socialist health-care plan

Speaking of health care, the subject came up as Olivier took me around the city yesterday.

Burundi's health care plan is perhaps one that pure capitalists would dream of. No government run program here. Everyone pulls his or her own weight.

"There is no insurance here," Olivier explained. "There's no public insurance, and no private insurance.

"When you get sick, you pay what it costs. If you can't pay for medicine, then you don't get the medicine.

"If you go to the hospital, they will treat you, but if you can't pay when they have finished, you can't leave. You have people who are still in the hospital months after they are healthy," he explained, noting that the hospital for these debtors becomes like a prison until they can pay.

Don't worry, you soft liberals, there is mercy in the culture if not in the system.

"When people truly are unable to pay, someone eventually intervenes," Olivier said. "Either family or church will come up with the money eventually.

"Sometimes the president de la Republique will personally intervene on someone's behalf."

Oh no! They just ruined a perfectly good health-care plan with government meddling! If we get rid of that part perhaps we will have the perfect counter proposal to Obamacare!

Obviously, I am being sarcastic, we have already talked about some of my thoughts on the health-care issue, but I would think that America as a nation with considerably more resources than Burundi can come up with something -- if reasonable people decide to really look for solutions -- between death panels and debtors prisons.

Hank Williams and Dolly Parton?

I noticed it yesterday, and seem to recall thinking a bit about it last time I was here. But today some new Burundian friends confirmed it for me.

The background music that plays in most coffee shops and meeting places here is not traditional Burundian music, nor is it modern African music or R&B from the States, as is the case in other African nations I know of.

Here, you are more likely to hear the smooth sounds of Kenny Rogers or Hank Williams Jr. or Dolly Parton playing.

I couldn't help but point this out to Olivier, who was showing me all around the city and introducing me to people he knows through his business ventures. He and his wife Francine had taken me to a nice beachfront area of Lake Tangianika to have a bite to eat.

And again I heard the familiar sounds of  country classics.

'You know it is funny hearing this music here because practically only white people listen to it in the States," I said. Olivier said he likes the music because it is calm and soothing.

I explained that it is not so much that Blacks in the States don't like the music, but that it is probably associated with unpleasant memories for black people collectively.

Later, Delphine, his 31-year-old neighbor who lived in France for three years before moving back to Burundi with her French husband, continued the discussion with me.

"My father had all those albums when I was growing up," she said. "It's like the old classic standards to us. We all know them." Olivier and Francine nodded their heads with smiles that suggested they had checked out to memory lane.

"We don't have the same history that you guys have with this music," she said. "For us, the memories are good ones. Perhaps for you guys you can't appreciate the music because of your history."

I had never thought of it before, but perhaps she is on to something. I know that many southern and rural blacks do like country music. At least the old stuff. But still, it was the last thing I expected to find here.

'

What does health care have to do with repentance and Burundi?

By the way, the American health-care reform debate may not seem like a subject for this blog on reconciliation. And it may seem strange for me to talk about it during my trip to Burundi.

But remember, reconciliation happens when forgiveness meets repentance. And, very little is understood about repentance, I have discovered. Not here in Burundi, not in France and not in my home country of the United States.

One aspect we hope to talk more about is the desire, when one truly repents and begins to be restored, to make things right. Even more is a desire to reject core thoughts that we hold or that have been held by our group or even our predecessors once we realize that these thoughts go against truth and justice.

Well, even in something like health-care reform we can see some of the signs of thinking that disciples may want to reconsider.

If you are in Christian circles in America you may not get a chance to hear differing thoughts on this and other debates, which can give the impression that there is only one, true Christian way to think about this.

Here are some others that you can add to your sources of reflection.

Brian McClaren writes many things I have been wanting to say in his Open Letter to US Conservative Christians. You should also check out what Jim Wallis has to say on the subject. McClaren also lists several faith-based fact-checking sites.

By the way, if you’d like to do some fact-checking about the health care debate, here are some faith-based sources that I believe can be trusted to avoid uncritical and inaccurate reporting about health care. I understand they will be offering correctives to rumors and misinformation in the months ahead.

http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/
http://www.sojo.net
http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/

I, for one, would like to challenge all Christians to not forward ANY e-mail they receive that speaks of politics without first checking to see if the source is credible. People of faith (any faith) are easy marks for those who are looking to exploit the word-of-mouth machine.

We tend to believe what we hear automatically when it comes from someone we think is like us. Politicians, interest groups and corporations have long figured this out and some lobbying groups have come to specialize in preparing factless campaigns focused on conservative Christians. So all they need to do is get a Christian to forward their "facts" and it becomes automatically credible to the other Christians who will receive it.

Disciples need to be wise and not allow themselves, no matter what their political beliefs, to be used like this. The results can be more important than we think.

Here in Burundi, like in neighboring Rwanda, an overwhelming percentage of the population was Christian. But their faith did not lead them to repent of cultural ideas that had been handed to them through colonial rule and their own ancestors.

And when pushed to the edge, it was their beliefs in their own group superiority and need for vengeance and self-protection against the enemy that led to genocide in Rwanda and 11 years of ethnic violence in Burundi. All of this happened with churches participation at worst and silence at best.

And the result has been a young population that, while it has not turned away from the church in droves, is increasingly questioning the foundations of this faith that was not able to keep people from acting out of their worst nature.

When I watch the town-hall anger and read some of the hateful comments that I have come across on facebook and blogs (my wife was privy to some message strings on Obama and health care from some of her high school friends on Facebook recently that would make you think twice -- no, thrice -- about how far we have come on race relations in the US), I sometimes wonder what is possible in America. 

Are we so far removed from the people who took out machetes and whacked their neighbors when they felt threatened? Are we really that different? I would argue that we are not different at all. The only thing that protects us is what core beliefs we allow to govern us.

And right now, I am not sure that those core beliefs are in order.  

Back in Bujumbura

Amahoro!

After a long journey that included a canceled flight and a two-hour 'night' in a hotel in Nairobi, I have finally made it back to Bujumbura, Burundi.

Can't say much now because I am using someone's computer quickly and we have to move on, but wanted to let you know I was here and to encourage you to check in for updates during my two-week stay.

Unlike previous visits I don't have conferences or seminars planned. The goal is to meet with people to talk about the process of reconciliation in this nation traumatized by ethnic conflict and still staggering under the weight of crushing poverty.

I was encouraged to find an open person next to me on my morning flight from Nairobi today, a flight that wouldn't have taken place had an airport strike Sunday not caused my flight to be canceled.

I had a great and very candid talk with this young woman who seemed to have an excellent grasp of the principles of forgiveness. I asked her if she was a student. She smiled and told me who she was.

She is a senior advisor to the president of Burundi, in charge of protocol. I'm always amazed at the youth of the people in positions of authority and influence in this country. Anyway, who knows what will come of this latest contact.

Just one of those little winks that convinces me i'm not alone.

Since then, I was able to hook up with Claude Nikondeha, whom I have known from a distance for years since being introduced by Brian McClaren. Claude, an advocate for the poor, is behind Amahoro, an organization that seeks to develop church leaders who can break out of convention and effectively live oiut faith in ways that engage today's world.

We really click and think in many of the same ways about faith and life.

Claude introduced me to several friends, including one whose organization Help Channel is exactly the kind of homegrown effort that we are looking to learn from and walk with. I will be meeting up some more with Cassien later this week.

CHANGES

It's nice to be back here again. It is hard not to like the people here and the simple way of life. But one can feel the changes and the development that are happening here as the country slowly emerges and begins to taste the fruit of the peace it has maintained now for several years after 11 years of bloody conflict.

Not all of the changes are positive, though. One can sense the desire for the Western lifestyle that is so attractive and yet so destructive ultimately to the long-term development of countries like this.

When people are not used to hoping in their future, seeking rewards now becomes the sole driving force. Though many fiscal conservatives think that greed motivation is a good thing, it actually leads people to actions that will ultimately ruin true, healthy development in this society.

More on that later, but people like Claude are seeing the results of this short-term motivation and how it threatens the solid development efforts that people here have put in place for themselves.

More soon

Todd  

Testing

When I was in Burundi last time this worked for posting to the blog. Does it still?