Past Issues

UMMA Update, October 3, 2001

1. Edited Excerpts From Two Letters by Howard Heiner, UMMA Chair
2. Some Reflections on the 9/11 Event by Donald Reasoner
3. An Open Letter to the President...by 180 Pilgrim Place Residents
4. The Challenge of Terror: A Traveling Essay by John Paul Lederach
5. New Communications Task Force, Richard Schwenk, Chair
6. UMMA Membership Made Easy by Gilbert Bascom, Coordinator

Edited Excerpts From Two Letters by Howard Heiner, UMMA Chair

September 11, 2001
Again and again as missionaries of Jesus Christ we are called back to the role of peacemakers. And the path to peace is found in the struggle for justice at a global level.

So we again need to pray that the Holy Spirit will fill us with the love and compassion to speak out in the hard days ahead. We need to provide a word of hope and peaceful action to those who want revenge. We need to walk the talk towards the Kingdom of God for all people, not a privileged few. Shalom is the wholeness we experience when We live in harmony with others and nature.

September 19, 2001
It has been a week since the disaster hit in our country. Our nation has been forced to face a new reality.

World-wide, all people struggle to be secure. It is a human trait that drives us each day to provide for our families. For the global majority, it is a struggle for the basics--food, shelter, health, employment and perhaps a brighter future for their children. Our wants here in the U.S. are more complex and costly.

I am sure you have all been flooded with emails about the September 11th tragedy. I appreciate those of you who have shared your feelings as well as the many other messages that I have had the opportunity to read. The expressions of many who choose to follow the path of sorrow, compassion and grace has been helpful for me in order to find hope in a hopeless situation.

In my meditations I keep returning to the very important role we missionaries have in bringing a global perspective into our nationalistic culture. The war drums are beating! In one day Congress appropriates $40 billion and gives the President too many rights to takes us down a road of conflict without end.

So we as the UMMA leadership need to ask ourselves how we are going to respond to recent crisis events. I would like us to prayerfully look at what we have been striving for and see what goals we want to continue to affirm and whether or not others should have a lower priority or simply need to be dropped.

To initiate the discussion I would like to present some points that come to mind, and then outline some possible action.

1. I have stated that the basic concern UMMA has raised through the years is the lack of participation in the development of the present GBGM structure and the collaboration of its activities by autonomous Methodist Churches, ecumenical partners or the missionary community. The control of the Board's program by a small number of people in the Cabinet has led to massive personnel, programmatic and financial problems. During the past five years the missionary community has attempted to name and address the root causes of these problems.
2. UMMA's attempts to bring this situation to the attention of the Board directors has caused the Cabinet to become concerned about our activities. Since June, we have had little dialogue with the Mission Personnel Unit staff. In addition Safiyah Fosua has been appointed to a church in the greater New Jersey Conference. A Deaconess, Beverly Reddick, has accepted the MIR position and will start work On October 15th.
3. The Board's Personnel Committee Meeting was scheduled from September 9-11 just outside NYC. Because of the tragedy, they spent a few more days together. The Committee has decided not to recommend an interim General Secretary at the Fall Board Meeting but will urge that the date for naming the new General Secretary be moved up from April 2003 to October 2002. If this action is passed by the GBGM directors, it will create an interesting dynamic situation. The final approval for an extension of time for Dr. Nugent is placed by the Discipline with the General Council on Ministries (GCOM). Their leadership has advised GBGM directors that they will not approve an extension.
4. Where do we go from here?
• More than ever the mission outreach of the Board can not be dictated by a small group of people. We need a team effort--directors, staff, partnership churches/organizations and missionaries--in order to present a global view of reconciliation and compromise. One email this week stated:
  

  "...All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn't something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of God? Isn't God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of America."

  One wonders how we are going to ask nations and ethnic groups to coordinate and cooperate when we cannot do it within our own mission board and denomination. The church needs to present a voice of moderation and justice.

• Does UMMA now have an even greater theological/education role to play to help ourselves and others understand the root causes of injustice and violence? We have enough information to last for years for the UMMA UpDate on this subject as it relates to missionaries. Could the newly created Communications Task Force start to select the better articles to place on the UMMA web site so people could get the missionary perspective?
• What do you want your UMMA representative to say to directors at the Board meeting in October? We are but one voice. Individual directors are limited in how much they can initiate and they need to receive the Missionary Community's perspective.
• What are the pressing problems the Missionary Community would emphasize in the new reality we live in?

I would appreciate your suggestions.

Your colleague in mission,
Howard Heiner, Chair heiner@jeffnet.org.

Some Reflections on the 9/11 Event by Donald Reasoner

A week after the devastating attacks in New York and Washington, I still feel the rage and want those responsible for these terrible acts to be brought to justice. But the perpetrators of these terrorist acts are already dead!

I am very much concerned about the language being used in the media today. I fear that our efforts to fight this new war against terrorism may cause more harm in the long term to our own democratic system and principles than the damage inflicted by these particular attacks last Tuesday.

The language our government is using to go after "those who support the terrorists" sounds very similar to the language used by the military dictatorships in Latin America to justify their terrible violations of human rights. They too were 'fighting terrorism and those who supported them'. The results of their dirty war lead to millions refugees and exiles fleeing their countries. And for those who did not escape, countless numbers disappeared, tortured or killed.

We need to be careful of who is defining the terms in this public debate. Two decades ago, the US government arrested church workers and people involved in the sanctuary movement, accusing them among other things, "of aiding suspected terrorists", while at the same time, our government organized, funded and directed the "Contras" in their attacks against Nicaragua, where unspeakable acts of terrorism was committed against innocent civilians, women and children and even church workers. All of this was done in the name of defending our democratic freedom.

We all need to be in prayer and discernment, and do our best to help the victims recover, console those who suffered, and work for a just solution that will bring peace and not a further escalation of the spiral of violence and suffering that will end up affecting us all sooner or later.

One important step in this direction is to seek an understanding of what is motivating such individuals to sacrifice themselves and others in hate. The issue is much more than just a few crazed individuals bent on our destruction. We need to understand what is fueling this fire of hatred against the US government and take the necessary steps to change the negative ways we have related to others in our world. It is not only what happens outside our boarders, in far off places that affect us. It is also what has been done within our boarders, in our country-sides and urban centers that fuel this fire of hatred as was demonstrated so tragically in Oklahoma City.

Evil things can be done by even "good" people, when they are gripped by fear. We will need to turn to God and to each other in our communities to get through these problems. We need to work together for peace and reconciliation in our world. By reducing the level of fear and suffering being felt on both sides, we can work to correct some of the injustices that are fueling these fires.

May the true spirit of Shalom prevail.
Donald Reasoner, missionary to South America
dreasone@gbgm-umc.org.

An Open Letter to the President...by 180 Pilgrim Place Residents

We, the undersigned, members of a community of retired Christian ministers, missionaries, and lay workers in Claremont, California, call this country our ome and love it deeply. Many of us spent our lives among the differing peoples of our world and consider ourselves part of a global family. We offer our fears, concerns and hopes in light of the tragic events on September 11.

With many others, we recognize that the first concern for the United States is to mourn with those who mourn, as together we bind up the terrible wounds of many thousands in our nation. But in the midst of our grief, it is time to ask harder questions than how to bring to justice the terrorists and those who supported them. We believe that these matters must be multilaterally pursued, but we in the United States must not fail to stop and ask; Why the attack? Why the hatred?

Our various experiences, informed by our understanding of the Christian gospel, have led us to believe that revenge and retaliation may block a response to thecore questions: Why has the United States become the object of such hostility? How do we as the people and government of the United States appropriately respond to such a terrible shock?

To believe that the anger comes only from a small band of international terrorists, frustrated enough to become martyrs, misses the signs of the times. Around the world serious questions are being raised about the role of the United States in world affairs. Are we willing simply to accept the President's statement, "America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world"?

Consider the following:

• Many fear that the United States claims the right to dominate others culturally, economically, and militarily. This does not deny the often generous benevolence of the United States. But too frequently our nation seeks to shape other nations and peoples to our own economic advantage. The predominant role of the United States in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank is often seen as a cause of oppressive debt, structural adjustment, and poverty.


• In our support of Israel with massive military assistance, the United States has overlooked the concerns of the Palestinian people. We have failed to understand their suffering, aspirations, and frustrations in their struggle for a homeland. This has resounded powerfully throughout the Arab and Islamic world.


• In spite of worldwide concern to find ways to save the planet from environmental destruction, our country has rejected the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and treaties related to nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.


• Along with years of delinquency in paying its dues to the United Nations, the United States government has turned its back on the conference on racism in South Africa, as well as other international efforts to address problems of worldwide poverty, economic justice, human rights, ratification of covenants, and the international criminal court. Instead, our government has offered a space-based missile defense system which reinforces our military domination, often the trademark of American foreign policy.

We believe that justice means dealing effectively with those responsible for the atrocities of September 11. But we fear that a rush to judgment might mean violence and recrimination against more innocent people here and abroad. Justice does not mean war. Nor does it mean the kind of violence and harassment directed in recent days against Muslims and people of Arabic heritage within our own nation, a violence that we deplore. We call for reason and justice.

September 18, 2001 signed by all 180 residents of Pilgrim Place, Claremont, California

The Challenge of Terror: A Traveling Essay by John Paul Lederac Professor at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

So here I am, a week late arriving home, stuck between Colombia, Guatemala and Harrisonburg when our world changed. The images flash even in my sleep. The heart of America ripped. Though natural, the cry for revenge and the call for the unleashing of the first war of this century, prolonged or not, seems more connected to social and psychological processes of finding a way to release deep emotional anguish, a sense of powerlessness, and our collective loss than it does as a plan of action seeking to redress the injustice, promote change and prevent it from ever happening again.

I am stuck from airport to airport as I write this, the reality of a global system that has suspended even the most basic trust. My Duracell batteries and finger nail clippers were taken from me today and it gave me pause for thought. I had a lot of pauses in the last few days. Life has not been the same. I share these thoughts as an initial reaction recognizing that it is always easy to take pot-shots at our leaders from the sidelines, and to have the insights they are missing when we are not in the middle of very difficult decisions. On the other hand, having worked for nearly 20 years as a mediator and proponent of nonviolent change in situations around the globe where cycles of deep violence seem hell-bent on perpetuating themselves, and having interacted with people and movements who at the core of their identity find ways of justifying their part in the cycle, I feel responsible to try to bring ideas to the search for solutions. With this in mind I should like to pen several observations about what I have learned from my experiences and what they might suggest about the current situation. I believe this starts by naming several key challenges and then asking what is the nature of a creative response that takes these seriously in the pursuit of genuine, durable, and peaceful change.

Some Lessons about the Nature of our Challenge

1. Always seek to understand the root of the anger--The first and most important question to pose ourselves is relatively simple though not easy to answer: How do people reach this level of anger, hatred and frustration? By my experience explanations that they are brainwashed by a perverted leader who holds some kind of magical power over them is an escapist simplification and will inevitably lead us to very wrong-headed responses. Anger of this sort, what we could call generational, identity-based anger, is constructed over time through a combination of historical events, a deep sense of threat to identify, and direct experiences of sustained exclusion. This is very important to understand, because, as I will say again and again, our response to the immediate events have everything to do with whether we reinforce and provide the soil, seeds, and nutrients for future cycles of revenge and violence. Or whether it changes. We should be careful to pursue one and only one thing as the strategic guidepost of our response: Avoid doing what they expect. What they expect from us is the lashing out of the giant against the weak, the many against the few. This will reinforce their capacity to perpetrate the myth they carefully seek to sustain: That they are under threat, fighting an irrational and mad system that has never taken them seriously and wishes to destroy them and their people. What we need to destroy is their myth not their people.


2. Always seek to understand the nature of the organization--Over the years of working to promote durable peace in situations of deep, sustained violence I have discovered one consistent purpose about the nature of movements and organizations who use violence: Sustain thyself. This is done through a number of approaches, but generally it is through decentralization of power and structure, secrecy, autonomy of action through units, and refusal to pursue the conflict on the terms of the strength and capacities of the enemy.

   One of the most intriguing metaphors I have heard used in the last few days is that this enemy of the United States will be found in their holes, smoked out, and when they run and are visible, destroyed. This may well work for groundhogs, trench and maybe even guerilla warfare, but it is not a useful metaphor for this situation. And neither is the image that we will need to destroy the village to save it, by which the population that gives refuge to our enemies is guilty by association and therefore a legitimate target. In both instances the metaphor that guides our action misleads us because it is not connected to the reality. In more specific terms, this is not a struggle to be conceived of in geographic terms, in terms of physical spaces and places, that if located can be destroyed, thereby ridding us of the problem. Quite frankly our biggest and most visible weapon systems are mostly useless.

   We need a new metaphor, and though I generally do not like medical metaphors to describe conflict, the image of a virus comes to mind because of its ability to enter unperceived, flow with a system, and harm it from within. This is the genius of people like Osama Bin Laden. He understood the power of a free and open system, and has used it to his benefit. The enemy is not located in a territory. It has entered our system. And you do not fight this kind of enemy by shooting at it. You respond by strengthening the capacity of the system to prevent the virus and strengthen its immunity. It is an ironic fact that our greatest threat is not in Afghanistan, but in our own backyard. We surely are not going to bomb Travelocity, Hertz Rental Car, or an Airline training school in Florida. We must change metaphors and move beyond the reaction that we can duke it out with the bad guy, or we run the very serious risk of creating the environment that sustains and reproduces the virus we wish to prevent.

   
   
3. Always remember that realities are constructed--Conflict is, among other things, the process of building and sustaining very different perceptions and interpretations of reality. This means that we have at the same time multiple realities defined as such by those in conflict. In the aftermath of such horrific and unmerited violence that we have just experienced this may sound esoteric. But we must remember that this fundamental process is how we end up referring to people as fanatics, madmen, and irrational. In the process of name-calling we lose the critical capacity to understand that from within the ways they construct their views, it is not mad lunacy or fanaticism. All things fall together and make sense. When this is connected to a long string of actual experiences wherein their views of the facts are reinforced (for example, years of superpower struggle that used or excluded them, encroaching Western values of what is considered immoral by their religious interpretation, or the construction of an enemy-image who is overwhelmingly powerful and uses that power in bombing campaigns and always appears to win) then it is not a difficult process to construct a rational world view of heroic struggle against evil. Just as we do it, so do they. Listen to the words we use to justify our actions and responses. And then listen to words they use. The way to break such a process is not through a frame of reference of who will win or who is stronger. In fact the inverse is true. Whoever loses, whether tactical battles or the "war" itself, finds intrinsic in the loss the seeds that give birth to the justification for renewed battle. The way to break such a cycle of justified violence is to step outside of it. This starts with understanding that TV sound bites about madmen and evil are not good sources of policy. The most significant impact that we could make on their ability to sustain their view of us as evil is to change their perception of who we are by choosing to strategically respond in unexpected ways. This will take enormous courage and courageous leadership capable of envisioning a horizon of change.


4. Always understand the capacity for recruitment--The greatest power that terror has is the ability to regenerate itself. What we most need to understand about the nature of this conflict and the change process toward a more peaceful world is how recruitment into these activities happens. In all my experiences in deep-rooted conflict what stands out most are the ways in which political leaders wishing to end the violence believed they could achieve it by overpowering and getting rid of the perpetrator of the violence. That may have been the lesson of multiple centuries that preceded us. But it is not the lesson learned from the past 30 years. The lesson is simple. When people feel a deep sense of threat, exclusion and generational experiences of direct violence, their greatest effort is placed on survival. Time and again in these movements, there has been an extraordinary capacity for the regeneration of chosen myths and renewed struggle.

   One aspect of current U.S. leadership that coherently matches with the lessons of the past 30 years of protracted conflict settings is the statement that this will be a long struggle. What is missed is that the emphasis should be placed on removing the channels, justifications, and sources that attract and sustain recruitment into the activities. What I find extraordinary about the recent events is that none of the perpetrators was much older than 40 and many were half that age.

   This is the reality we face: Recruitment happens on a sustained basis. It will not stop with the use of military force, in fact, open warfare will create the soils in which it is fed and grows. Military action to destroy terror, particularly as it affects significant and already vulnerable civilian populations will be like hitting a fully mature dandelion with a golf club. We will participate in making sure the myth of why we are evil is sustained and we will assure yet another generation of recruits.

   
   
5. Recognize complexity, but always understand the power of simplicity. Finally, we must understand the principle of simplicity. I talk a lot with my students about the need to look carefully at complexity, which is equally true (and which in the earlier points I start to explore). However, the key in our current situation that we have failed to fully comprehend is simplicity. From the standpoint of the perpetrators, the effectiveness of their actions was in finding simple ways to use the system to undo it. I believe our greatest task is to find equally creative and simple tools on the other side.

Suggestions

In keeping with the last point, let me try to be simple. I believe three things are possible to do and will have a much greater impact on these challenges than seeking accountability through revenge.

1. Energetically pursue a sustainable peace process to the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. Do it now. The United States has much it can do to support and make this process work. It can bring the weight of persuasion, the weight of nudging people on all sides to move toward mutual recognition and stopping the recent and devastating pattern of violent escalation, and the weight of including and balancing the process to address historic fears and basic needs of those involved. If we would bring the same energy to building an international coalition for peace in this conflict that we have pursued in building international coalitions for war, particularly in the Middle East, if we lent significant financial, moral, and balanced support to all sides that we gave to the Irish conflict in earlier years, I believe the moment is right and the stage is set to take a new and qualitative step forward.

   Sound like an odd diversion to our current situation of terror? I believe the opposite is true. This type of action is precisely the kind of thing needed to create whole new views of who we are and what we stand for as a nation. Rather than fighting terror with force, we enter their system and take away one of their most coveted elements: The soils of generational conflict perceived as injustice used to perpetrate hatred and recruitment. I believe that monumental times like these create conditions for monumental change. This approach would solidify our relationships with a broad array of Middle Easterners and Central Asians, allies and enemies alike, and would be a blow to the rank and file of terror. The biggest blow we can serve terror is to make it irrelevant. The worst thing we could do is to feed it unintentionally by making it and its leaders the center stage of what we do. Let's choose democracy and reconciliation over revenge and destruction. Let's to do exactly what they do not expect, and show them it can work.

   
   
2. Invest financially in development, education, and a broad social agenda in the countries surrounding Afghanistan rather than attempting to destroy the Taliban in a search for Bin Laden. The single greatest pressure that could ever be put on Bin Laden is to remove the source of his justifications and alliances. Countries like Pakistan, Tajikistan, and yes, Iran and Syria should be put on the radar of the West and the United States with a question of strategic importance: How can we help you meet the fundamental needs of your people? The strategic approach to changing the nature of how terror of the kind we have witnessed this week reproduces itself lies in the quality of relationships we develop with whole regions, peoples, and world views. If we strengthen the web of those relationships, we weaken and eventually eliminate the soil where terror is born. A vigorous investment, taking advantage of the current opening given the horror of this week shared by even those who we traditionally claimed as state enemies, is immediately available, possible and pregnant with historic possibilities. Let's do the unexpected. Let's create a new set of strategic alliances never before thought possible.


3. Pursue a quiet diplomatic but dynamic and vital support of the Arab League to begin an internal exploration of how to address the root causes of discontent in numerous regions. This should be coupled with energetic ecumenical engagement, not just of key symbolic leaders, but of a practical and direct exploration of how to create a web of ethics for a new millennium that builds from the heart and soul of all traditions but that creates a capacity for each to engage the roots of violence that are found within their own traditions. Our challenge, as I see it, is not that of convincing others that our way of life, our religion, or our structure of governance is better or closer to Truth and human dignity. It is to be honest about the sources of violence in our own house and invite others to do the same. Our global challenge is how to generate and sustain genuine engagement that encourages people from within their traditions to seek that which assures the preciousness and respect for life that every religion sees as an inherent right and gift from the Divine, and how to build organized political and social life that is responsive to fundamental human needs. Such a web cannot be created except through genuine and sustained dialogue and the building of authentic relationships, at religious and political spheres of interaction, and at all levels of society. Why not do the unexpected and show that life-giving ethics are rooted in the core of all peoples by engaging a strategy of genuine dialogue and relationship? Such a web of ethics, political and religious, will have an impact on the roots of terror far greater in the generation of our children's children than any amount of military action can possibly muster. The current situation poses an unprecedented opportunity for this to happen, more so than we have seen at any time before in our global community.

A Call for the Unexpected

Let me conclude with simple ideas. To face the reality of well organized, decentralized, self-perpetuating sources of terror, we need to think differently about the challenges. If indeed this is a new war it will not be won with a traditional military plan. The key does not lie in finding and destroying territories, camps, and certainly not the civilian populations that supposedly house them. Paradoxically that will only feed the phenomenon and assure that it lives into a new generation. The key is to think about how a small virus in a system affects the whole and how to improve the immunity of the system. We should take extreme care not to provide the movements we deplore with gratuitous fuel for self-regeneration. Let us not fulfill their prophecy by providing them with martyrs and justifications. The power of their action is the simplicity with which they pursue the fight with global power. They have understood the power of the powerless. They have understood that melding and meshing with the enemy creates a base from within. They have not faced down the enemy with a bigger stick. They did the more powerful thing: They changed the game. They entered our lives, our homes and turned our own tools into our demise.

We will not win this struggle for justice, peace and human dignity with the traditional weapons of war. We need to change the game again.

Let us take up the practical challenges of this reality perhaps best described in the Cure of Troy an epic poem by Seamus Heaney no foreigner to grip of the cycles of terror who wrote:

"So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells."

Biography of Dr. Lederach

Dr. John Paul Lederach (jpbus@aol.com) is Professor of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University, and a Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University's Conflict Transformation Program. He spends a portion of his year in the classroom but dedicates much of his time to supporting peace initiatives as a practitioner of conciliation, mediation and international peacebuilding. He has worked extensively as a conciliator in situations of violent conflict around our globe including Northern Ireland (with numerous visits inside the Maize prison), Somalia, Colombia, the Basque Country, Tajikistan, and Mindanao in the Philippines to mention a few. In many of these places he works with groups espousing violence to further their goals attempting to find ways to move the conflict toward peaceful resolution. He has published more than a dozen books.

This article is currently featured on Mediate.com . You may also direct your comments regarding Dr. Lederach's essay on this site.

New Communications Task Force, Richard Schwenk, Chair

"The Communication Task Force shall be headed by a Chair assisted by an editorial committee chosen by the Task Force's Chair which shall include the Steering Committee Chair and the Coordinator. The Task Force shall be responsible for publishing the UMMA UPDATE, both email and regular mail editions, and developing other literature which can be used to recruit members and promote UMMA's purpose. The Task Force shall also be responsible for the oversight of UMMA's web site."

Gilbert Bascom prepared this and had it added to our UMMA-Global website along with other updates.

Please send your suggestions or reactions about UMMA UpDate or the ideas presented to the Editor at ricschwenk@earthlink.net.

UMMA Membership Made Easy

Membership is open to active, inactive or retired missionaries of the GBGM or its predecessors. Current dues for the financial year (January 1 - December 31) are $25 for full membership or $15 for an Affiliate membership without voting privileges.

Make checks payable to UMMA and send with the completed application blank to:

Gilbert Bascom, Coordinator
6229-B N. Park Way
Tacoma WA 98407-2204

If you are joining for the first time, you are paid-up from now until the end of the year 2002. This is a special for those who join after the July UMMA Gathering. By the way, my tax consultant told me I could deduct these as, "Professional Membership Dues."

Gil Bascom may also be contacted as follows:
Tel: 1.253.879.8484
Fax: 1.253.752.4484
Email: gbascom1467@earthlink.net

Join UMMA now so your mission concerns can be articulated and attended to!

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