Engaging the moral imagination in finding ways of transcending cycles of violence in Mindanao

An overview and report on the URI Moral Imagination and Peacebuilding initiatives in SEAPac by Marites Guingona-Africa

“How do we transcend the cycles of violence that bewitch our human community while still living in them?” This was the question that moved John Paul Lederach, one of the world’s foremost experts on conflict transformation and peacebuilding, to write the book Moral Imagination: Art and Soul of Building Peace. His many years of experience in the field taught him that "transcending violence is forged by the capacity to generate, mobilize, and build the moral imagination."

Lederach promotes the importance of cultivating our spiritual and creative capacity as a critical tool for effective peacebuilding in situations of conflict. He defined moral imagination as “the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world, yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist."

In his book, Lederach shared thoughts and insights on the nature of how constructive social change works and what contributes to it. He saw that this has to do with the nature of imagination and the capacity to envision a canvas of human relationships. He qualified, however, that this imagination must emerge from and speak to the hard realities of human affairs.

In 2006, he and his colleague, Herm Weaver, were invited by Barbara Hartford of the United Religions Initiative (URI) to help develop URI’s capacity to engage the moral imagination in its global peacebuilding efforts. Pilot URI training teams of peacebuilders from India, Northern Uganda, Ethiopia, the United States, and the Philippines were formed and a two-year action-reflection training workshop program on the moral imagination was launched in December 2006 with the support of Libby Hoffman of the Catalyst Funds for Peace. The training successfully concluded in September 2008 and the members of the teams gained appreciation and capacities for developing the ability to see themselves in a web of relationships that "includes our enemies," for living in paradoxical curiosity that holds competing experiences of reality, for valuing creativity, and taking the risk of letting go of the known situation of conflict to step into the unknown of peace.

The Philippine team was composed of four members of The Peacemakers’ Circle (a vital URI Cooperation Circle based in Metro Manila), namely: Dr. Abdulhusin “Jo” Kashim, Lee Collano, Akmad Wahab and Marites Guingona-Africa. Since 2003, Collano and Africa have been actively engaged in Muslim-Christian dialogue and relationship- building in grassroots communities in the metropolis (where the Office on Muslim Affairs estimated the Muslim population to be around 1.5 million). Together with Kashim and Wahab, their efforts to awaken and engage the moral imagination among Muslims and Christians have gained good measures of success.

Muslim-Christian Peacemakers’ Associations have been formed by the grassroots leaders in the communities of Tala (Caloocan City) and Quiapo (City of Manila) where cooperative livelihood programs are currently serving as one of the motivating forces in strengthening Muslim-Christian relationships. A six-month daily feeding program for malnourished Muslim children is being launched in Maharlika village in the City of Taguig where another Muslim-Christian Peacemakers’ Association is being organized. In the Culiat grassroots community in Quezon City, Muslim youth members of the Lakas ng Kabataang Muslim (Strength of Muslim Youth) organization are helping their elders gain deeper awareness and understanding of their rights and responsibilities as Muslims and citizens of the Philippines, and they are also preparing to engage in dialogue and relationship- building with their Christian counterparts in the nearby Culiat High School.

Encouraged by the success of the moral imagination approaches to Muslim-Christian peace- and relationship- building in Metro Manila, and growing in awareness of the need for new and more lasting and sustainable ways of addressing the raging conflict in Mindanao, The Peacemakers’ Circle opened itself to the possibility of sharing with grassroots peacebuilders in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao the capacities it gained from the two-year action-reflection training program on the moral imagination that the URI made available to them. During the URI Southeast Asia-Pacific Regional Assembly that was held in Tubod, Lanao del Norte in March 2009, Peacemakers’ circle representatives had the opportunity to meet with counterparts from conflict-affected areas of Mindanao who expressed interest in and willingness to engage in partnership with them in peacebuilding.

On June 28, 2009, the first step at forging potential partnerships between Mindanao and Metro Manila peacebuilders happened. The Peacemakers’ Circle URI Moral Imagination Team, with the help of their partners in the Sowing Peace for Mindanao network, organized a meeting in Manila with twelve grassroots leaders from conflict-affected areas in Mindanao, namely: Maguindanao, Cotabato, Basilan, Lanao.

It was a turning point not only in the moral imagination endeavors of URI in Southeast Asia-Pacific, but also in the endeavors of The Peacemakers’ Circle URI CC. For the first time since its eight years of engagement in the field, it reached out beyond the environs of Metro Manila to engage in consultation with representatives of organizations and institutions based in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao to explore the possibility of engaging in a long-term and sustainable action-reflection collaborative work with them. The aim was to train a team of grassroots leaders from conflict-affected areas (who will meet once in every 3-4 months within a span of two years) in an action-reflection program that will build their capacities to promote moral imagination approaches to healing memories of violence and war (among themselves and members of their respective communities) , grassroots interfaith dialogue and relationship- building, and community development and peacebuilding in their respective conflict areas in Mindanao, southern Philippines.

The consultation was held at the University Hotel in the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. Those who were present from the Peacemakers’ Circle were Dr. Abdulhusin “Jo” and Mardia Kashim, Imam Major Ebra Moxsir (President of the Imam Council of the Philippines and incoming trustee of the Peacemakers’ Circle), Shakuntala Vaswani, Orlan de Guzman, Alan Berguia and Marites Africa. From the Sowing Peace for Mindanao network in Metro Manila, among those present were Karen Tanada (Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute), Angelina and Jing Herrera, Helen Trautvetter (Binhi ng Kapayapaan); Dr. Ed Domingo and Dante Rivero (De La Salle University); and Faye Laquio (Mindanao Solidarity Network).

From Mindanao, present were Rev. Fr. Chito Soganub of the Prelature of Marawi, Jamael Datudacula and Sowaib Campong of the Mindanao Dynamic Culture of Peace (MIDCOP, Marawi), Bernardo Roa (Ut Unum Simus, Iligan), Bhenzar Yusuph (United Youth of the Philippines, Basilan Chapter), Ray Danilo Lacson (Notre Dame University, Cotabato), Jo Genna Jover (Kutawato Council for Justice and Peace), Noraida Akad (United Youth for Peace and Development) , Abulkair Alibasa (Liguasan Youth Association for Sustainable Development) , Nasser Casanova and Nimfa Manon-og (OMI Integrated Rehabilitation Development) .

Links with representatives from Cotabato, Maguindanao and Basilan were established during the interfaith conference organized by the Australian Embassy’s Strengthening Grassroots Interfaith Dialogue and Understanding (SGIDU) Program in Davao last May, and from recommendations given by the Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus (courtesy of Atty. Mary Ann Arnado), Binhi ng Kapayapaan and Balay Rehabilitation organizations.

Professor Rudy Rodil, renowned Philippine historian and member of the dissolved Peace Panel of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (that worked on the controversial Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain), gave a comprehensive and enlightening history of the Mindanao conflict; and Dr. Jo Kashim provided a brief view of ways forward that he gained from a meeting he helped organize for Dr. John Paul Lederach with leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) last October 2008.

That fateful one-day consultation meeting of Mindanao and Metro Manila peacebuilders last June 28 yielded a wealth of new ideas that held much promise of partnership in peacebuilding. There was the promise of collaborative work not only in designing, facilitating and developing a long-term and sustainable process of building individual and communal capacities for healing memories of conflict and violence, intra- and inter-faith dialogue, and grassroots community-building; there was also the promise of many opportunities (throughout the two-year pilot training program) for engaging the leaders and representatives of various sectors of society in Metro Manila—e.g. government, military, media, business, academe, religious, and other sectors--in dialogue with the Mindanao participants to hear their stories, respond personally and proactively to them, and grow in capacity to engage in partnership with the people of Mindanao in peace- and nation-building.

With the help and support of individuals, organizations and/or institutions who believe in this effort to engage the moral imagination in finding new and long-term and sustainable ways of transcending the cycles of violence in Mindanao and helping empower its people, we look forward to the future with enthusiasm and hope.