wfn.org | LWI 2009-030 FEATURE: Ecumenical Solidarity on a Journey to Liberation

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FEATURE: Ecumenical Solidarity on a Journey to Liberation
Delegates at Dalit Conference Affirm Commitment to Global
Advocacy

BANGKOK, Thailand/GENEVA, 15 April 2009 (LWI) - When Elske van
Gorkum took up her first job in a Dalit community in India, her
hosts could hardly believe what they heard when she said there
were no castes in her native Netherlands. "For them, a society
without castes is unthinkable,” van Gorkum says, “but coming
from an egalitarian society, I also had difficulty at first
understanding 'untouchability'." 

Van Gorkum, a development worker with the Interchurch
Organization for Development Cooperation, a Dutch aid
organization, shared her experience at an international
ecumenical conference on justice for Dalits held in Bangkok,
Thailand, in late March. 

Organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF), the conference, which gathered
95 leaders and representatives of churches and organizations
worldwide, was hosted by the Christian Conference of Asia. 

The conference sought to generate solidarity and support within
churches and ecumenical organizations worldwide by bringing into
focus the plight of Dalits, who have suffered from caste-based
discrimination for 3,500 years. There are some 260 million Dalits
worldwide, 200 million of them in India. 

As part of the International Dalit Solidarity Network, van
Gorkum lobbies her government and the European Union to put
caste-based discrimination at the center of the political,
economic and development relations with the countries where these
human right violations occur. 

"Learning about the suffering and atrocities Dalits have endured
gives me dedication and commitment to stand beside them in
solidarity," says van Gorkum, who has been working with Dalits
since 2005.

>Accompaniment 

Generating such commitment to stand beside the Dalits in their
struggles is the essence of global ecumenical solidarity and one
of the strategic goals of the Bangkok conference. 

"It is up to us all to determine the outcome of this conference,
but we should be guided by the principle of solidarity and
accompaniment rather than mere compassion and charity for the
Dalits," stresses Rev. Dr Deenabandhu Manchala, who heads the WCC
Just and Inclusive Communities Programme and is a Dalit himself.

Prof. Maake Masango of the University of Pretoria in South
Africa agrees, saying, "Advocacy does not mean taking over the
lives of people for whom we are advocating. It is instead helping
empower them. So we have to join and journey with them in
solidarity." 

>Awakening 

Many of the delegates to the Bangkok conference admitted they
knew little about the story of the Dalits. The conference thus
awakened them to do their part in helping spread the narratives
they heard as living stories. 

"Our churches are hardly aware of the situation of the Dalits,
and they tend to dismiss the caste system as part of the freedom
of religion," says Mr Dennis Frado of the Lutheran Office for
World Community at the United Nations in New York. "After
listening to the stories of the Dalits in this conference, we
have to tell these to our people, especially the issues related
to human rights."

Conference participants learnt about discrimination and
atrocities such as those that occurred in the Indian state of
Orissa in 2008, where a Catholic nun was gang-raped, nearly 50
people were killed, 15,000 people displaced, and property of
Dalit and tribal Christians was destroyed or damaged during a
wave of violence unleashed by Hindu fundamentalists. 

Affirming his commitment to helping revitalize the Dalit
movement in the United States through his church network, Frado
said he would help facilitate meetings between Dalit communities
and the US government, and seek to bring cases of human rights'
violations to the UN. 

>Children of Global Solidarity

Other participants who had experienced discrimination and abuse
themselves, could easily empathize with the Dalits.

"We leave this conference with a sense of urgency to become a
voice for the voiceless Dalits," said Rev. Roxanne Jordan of the
United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, who related the
Dalits' plight with experiences of discrimination and exclusion
under the apartheid white minority rule in her country. 

For Bishop Dr Zephania Kameeta of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in the Republic of Namibia, accompanying the Dalits and
other victims of oppression in their journey toward liberation is
his church's way of saying "thank you" to other people of the
world who helped his country's liberation struggle. 

"We, too, are children of global ecumenical solidarity. Without
the many peoples who accompanied us in our journey towards
freedom, we might have been obliterated," says Kameeta, who is
LWF vice president for the African region. "So we are
accompanying the Dalits not as a favor, but as a Christian duty,"
he adds. (769 words)

*Freelance journalist Maurice Malanes from the Philippines wrote
this feature article. He is a correspondent for the Geneva-based
Ecumenical News International (ENI), and also writes for the
Manila-based Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the Bangkok-based
Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN).

More information about the Bangkok Dalit conference is available
on the LWF Web site at:
http://www.lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/OIahr/OIAHR-Dalit_Justice.html

Learn more about WCC work in solidarity with Dalits:
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3249 

*        *          *

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