Interfaith peace summit: women take larger role in peacemaking in Africa

Catholic New Times, April 10, 2005 by Michael McAteer

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania -- Houleye Tall is an articulate, educated woman who studied English, French and Arabic in France. She's a devout Muslim, the mother of four children, and comes from a long line of Muslim religious leaders and teachers.

For the past 18 years, Tall has worked for the Lutheran World Federation's Department for World Service, and is now coordinator of the agency's development, education and human-rights promotion project in Mauritania. As a human-rights activist, she has travelled abroad and has mingled with some of the movers and shakers in her own country.

So, when Tall visits the small, isolated desert village of about 150 families where her husband was born, the men invite her to sit with them. It's thought to be a singular honour in a village where there is little social intermingling of the sexes.

Tall will decline the invitation and say she will stay with the women. The men say: "No Houleye, sit with us. You are different. You are not like these women: they want to go away, they want power."

No, says Tall, the women are not looking for power. They don't want to preach in mosques. What they are looking for are better living conditions for themselves and their children: the chance to send their children to school: a bigger say in decision-making: a sense of dignity. And, says Tall, the call from women for change is ringing out loud and clear across Mauritania--and across Africa.

The voice of women will be heard at next month's second Interfaith Peace Summit in Johannesburg sponsored by the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa. The first summit, also held in Johannesburg in 2002, drew 25 women delegates. Half the 200 delegates at this year's summit will be women. The summit will include a Mothers and Daughters of Africa forum.

"Unless the exploitation of women stops, there will be no future for the African continent," says Rev Ishmael Noko, the Zimbabwean-born, 62-year-old first black General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and convenor of the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa.

The summit and the forum will give women "who have a key and under-acknowledged role to play in peacemaking in all our societies," a chance to air their voices,' says Sheikh Saliou Mbacke, a 42-year-old Islamic scholar from neighbouring Senegal, who was a delegate at the first summit and is now helping coordinate the second event.

Noko's visit to this hot, parched, staunch Muslim country marked 30 years of LWF humanitarian and developmental work in one of Africa's poorest countries. The Geneva-based federation has 138 member churches in 76 countries representing some 66 million Lutherans.

The visit also provided a platform for Noko to boost awareness of the Johannesburg summit at which Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha'is and followers of African traditional religions will meet to discuss a wide range of topics.

Scourged by war and conflict, devastated by man-made and natural disasters, and suffering the consequences of political corruption and poor governance, Africa is in a crisis mode, Noko told religious leaders and politicians during his five-day visit to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in north west Africa.

"We must embrace peace for without peace there will be no stability in Africa," Noko said as he called for a broad-based coalition of religious leaders and politicians to tackle a myriad of social problems.

"Religious leaders cannot do it alone,' he said. "Nor can politicians do it alone without the support of religious leaders who have more contact with the ordinary citizens than politicians."

Pointing to 30 years of cooperation between the Christian LWF and Muslim Mauritania, Noko said religions can work together and collaborate in many areas using common values contained in their respective teachings.

Constitutionally, Islam is Mauritania's state religion and the legal system follows sharia (Islamic law). Virtually all of Mauritania's 2.5 million people are Sunni Muslim and Islam is often mentioned as being a cohesive factor in unifying the country's various ethnic groups.

Interfaith action for peace

Christians in the foreign community and the few Christians citizens are said to practice their religion openly and several Christian churches have been established in some of the larger urban areas. However, proselytizing and the distribution of religious material are prohibited. In general, relations between the dominant Muslim community and the small Christian community are said to be amicable.

Noko, who worked as a parish pastor and university lecturer in Canada while studying for his MA and PhD in theology, has long been convinced that there will never be a stable Africa unless religious leaders learn to work together for peace. The conviction was reinforced by a 1999 visit to several war-torn African nations, leading him to approach African religious leaders and to the formation of the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa.

While acknowledging that religious leaders have at times failed to promote peace and have allowed themselves and their religious traditions to be manipulated for nefarious reasons, participants in the first peace summit did commit themselves to working together for the sake of peace in Africa through a solemn declaration and a comprehensive plan of action.