On April 22-24, 2015 we held a Strategic Dialogue on and public celebration of “The Spirit of Struggle”. We gathered a group of morally, politically, and socially engaged scholars, activists, and artists from leading grassroots organizations and social movements from the United States and around the world. Together we drew on our collective experience of struggle, organization, community, ritual, and God to work towards an understanding of the powerful and ever-present relationship between religions (in all their various forms) and the struggle for rights, life, and dignity.
Participants in the gathering were connected to a broad range organizations and movements: Abahlali baseMjondolo – The Shack Dwellers’ Movement (South Africa);
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – The Landless Worker’s Movement (Brazil); Musawah – The Global Movement for Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family (Malaysia, Egypt); Center for Earth Ethics; Church of Scotland: Priority Areas Project; Classlines; International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net); Faith in New York; Love Hub at Union Theological Seminary;
Put People First! Pennsylvania; Sisters in Islam; Sleeping Giant Productions; WhyHunger; North Carolina NAACP and the Forward Together Moral Movement and others. You can see a collection of images from the gathering and celebration on our Facebook page.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/DSC_0161.jpg” alt=”The Spirit of Struggle” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Willie Baptist at the strategic dialogue on rights and religions.” captionposition=”left”]
At a time when political, economic, and social systems are breaking down, inequality, injustice, conflict, and repression are on the rise, and social justice advocates are increasingly and necessarily grappling with the power of religion for good and bad, the need to look critically at the role of religion and the new forms it is taking in social movements is of great importance. This strategic dialogue recognized the severity of human suffering in these times and the need to make a critical moral assessment of not only the deplorable and inhuman conditions people are enduring but also of the systems and structures that produce and sustain such misery. We turned to those affected by these conditions to make these assessments. We look to those who fight fiercely and creatively against these conditions every day, and learn anew from their plight, fight and insight what religions truly are and what vision of human life and community they call for.
To that end, we interviewed key leaders during the week as a part of our Rights and Religions case studies project. We talked with Paulo Ueti, a Brazilian social movement activist and theologian, about the changing religious terrain in Brazil, the history of movements there, and the place that the fight over the future of religion has in the broader social struggle. Mzwakhe Mdlalose, president of South Africa’s Shackdwellers’ Movement, and Richard Pithouse, a scholar with deep ties to the movement, spoke on the extreme repression that Abahlali baseMjondolo is facing. They described the movement’s commitment to a “living politics” that grows out of the daily struggles of the poor, the violent and anti-democratic attacks against them by the ANC, and the importance of international solidarity for limiting the actions that the government is willing to take against the organized poor. Bob Zellner, a veteran of SNCC and the Southern Conference Educational Fund, currently organizing with the North Carolina NAACP and the Forward Together Moral Movement, shared stories about his history in the Civil Rights movement as a poor white Southerner, the role of religion in that, and the work he’s currently taking up to draw attention to the mass closing of rural hospitals and the rural health crisis. Lastly, we interviewed Sheherazade Jafari, who recently completed her doctoral dissertation at American University, about her research on Sisters in Islam and Musawah, organizations of Muslim women in Malaysia and around the world fighting for gender equality in Islam.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/DSC_0121.jpg” alt=”The Spirit of Struggle” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Closing exercise at the public celebration” captionposition=”left”]
On Thursday, April 23rd, we held a public event featuring these and other leaders, which drew on theater, poetry, and ritual to hold of the spirit of resilience, resistance, and renewal that sustain and propel social movements. We also launched out newest publication, “Out of the Depths”, a collection of poems gathered by Union alum Sam King.
We want to thank all the leaders who gathered in New York to begin digging deeper into questions about the role that religion has played in the past, and must play now and in the future, in movements to overturn injustice and build a new world.