Last week we posted the first of two reflections from our conference on Biafra/the Nigerian civil war. In this reflection, Mercy Oduyoye, the director of the Institute of African Women in Religion and Culture at Trinity Theological Seminary in Ghana, discusses her personal experiences with the Biafra/Nigerian civil war and the involvement of the World of Churches in the conflict. Oduyoye leaves readers with a strong statement regarding the Christian base for humanitarian aid and the ecumenical diakonia service – a Christian witness to service that in turn challenges colonial paternalism and social structures that perpetuate poverty.
by Prof. Mercy Oduyoye
I have offered to be on this panel in order to share a personal experience and call attention to the participation of the World Council of Churches-WCC in humanitarian interventions and the theories and theologies that inform its contribution.
In 1968, I married Modupe Oduyoye, a Nigerian, while working in Geneva with the WCC in its Youth Department. Because of our marriage, when I completed my three-year contract in 1970, I did not seek a renewal with the WCC but accepted another offer from the All Africa Conference of Churches-AACC, which made it possible for me to live with my husband and work from Ibadan. Modupe had just moved from being the General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement-SCM of Nigeria, to the position of Literature Secretary of the Christian Council of Nigeria. At this time, the late lawyer/politician, Bola Ige, and the late medical doctor, Akanu Ibiam, formerly sir Francis Ibiam, were well known names in the Nigerian Student Christian Movement, the World Student Christian Federation and in the WCC.
At the fourth Assembly of the WCC held at Uppsala, Sweden in 1968, I had my first taste of the Biafran/Nigerian conflict. Ibiam, an Igbo from Eastern Nigeria, and Ige, a Yoruba from Western Nigeria, had opposing views of the roots of the conflict and counseled divergent actions regarding Christian responsibility in the face of the crisis. It was a battle of giants. Little me was barraged with questions, opinions and suggestions from the young people I was working with and the women who talked with me as an African and one who was soon to move to Nigeria, a conflict zone. I did move to Nigeria in September of 1970. Living in Ibadan, Nigeria and working on the staff of the AACC, I talked a lot about the crisis with Mercy Aguta, an Igbo who was the AACC Women’s Work Secretary. Mercy had left her husband, a lawyer, and her family in the East to work on rebuilding their home, which had been destroyed during the war. Her family was scattered. When AACC opted for centralization of staff in Nairobi, neither of us renewed our contracts and I lost touch with Mercy. I have many life stories from the period but Mercy is my iconic representative of the trauma of the conflict.
On the positive side, there was Barbara Loheyde, a German who became the spouse of Emmanuel Urhobo, who was appointed to carry out the ecumenical task of Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Development (RRD) when the war came to an end. From them I learnt the challenges of the period before, during and after the war. The RRD was the face of ecumenical action under the direction of the Nigeria National Council of Churches. It is not easy to speak of ‘Christian Action,’ for we all know what happened in Rwanda where ethnicity super-ceded religious affiliation in that disaster of genocide. Dehumanization, as someone has said, is enabled by the triumph of expediency and the lust for power.
In chapter 19 of “A History of the Ecumenical Movement, Volume 3,” 1968 ed. John Briggs, Mercy Amba Oduyoye and George Tsetsis ( WCC Publications Geneva 2004) The Article on Africa contains the following statement: ”The WCC provided leadership in the Biafran humanitarian aid programme and placed the council squarely in the middle of ecumenical humanitarian aid regardless of the political tensions it raised” (p.470-471). The federal government, superior in arms, was using food and other sanctions as a weapon to starve “dissidents” into surrender. Was this a case of nationalistic zeal or simply evidence of how power in the hands of small men show as the need to dominate? Using newly developed mass media and technology, churches mobilized around the world. Churches allied to the WCC and the Vatican worked to feed millions of hungry Biafrans. I still have a T shirt from Union Theological Seminary bearing the insignia ”Air Jesus” Joint Church Aid-JCA became known ecumenically as “The Jesus Christ Airline”. JCA was made up of Scandinavian, Canadian and American churches they set up aid by flying food into Biafra in the face of Federal air force power. The official face of the Vatican aid was CARITAS, All this is not new to you gathered here. The issue that calls for deliberation is why did the churches do all this?
The WCC’s self-understanding is that the church belongs to the category of Civil Society that is” one in which non-obligatory and non-governmental communities of people come together to achieve limited objectives deemed worthwhile for the (health) well-being of people at the local level” With this understanding, churches and ecumenical bodies developed specialized ministries to be responsible for development and emergency relief. The Presbyterian Church USA set up Presbyterian World service, Australian Churches through their National Council of Churches has Christian World Service; Christian Aid is UK, there is Dan Church Aid and also Norwegian Church Aid. The International Organization for development Co-operation ICCO and many more developed in the aftermath of the ‘Second World War’ mobilizing resources for the reconstruction of Europe and to respond to the needs of the millions of displaced Europeans. The basis for humanitarian aid for Biafra had already been laid, but of course the new situation called for creativity and new modes appeared to meet them just as in Uppsala WCC set up The Programme to Combat Racism- PCR to provide grants that will aid the transfer of power to ensure the dignity and human rights of South Africans. In this case PCR had to take the side of the most vulnerable and that is what the church has always done in compliance with its theological base for operations.
The Christian Base for Humanitarian Aid (424-427)
That all human beings are created in the image of God is the ground affirmation for all human relations including humanitarian aid. A second factor is the teleological orientation of Christianity which posits the unfinished character of creation and the participation of humanity in shaping the end as God intends it. We human beings are in the midst of the “ongoing movement towards the eschatological reign of God.” This belief is based on the evidence of sin which indicates that creation is an unfinished business and that God expects human participation in moving it towards the ‘telos’- the end. On this basis Christianity grounds human rights and dignity in God’s project of what humanity is to become. This means that to deprive people of God-inspired rights is to challenge God’s project. Mathew 25 is the Sunday School version of this theology- as you have done to the least of these, you have done it to God. In Christianity, justice and human rights are inseparable. Human Rights have their source in God’s justice, which is exhibited in concrete acts of deliverance as demonstrated in Exodus 3: 9b. “Humanity’s rights and dignity are grounded not only or even primarily in their created character, but in what women and men are called to become in the larger, God-inspired human enterprise. To deprive individuals of their God-given rights is not only to violate them as individuals: it is to challenge-but not defeat God’s ultimate purposes” (p.425). This is the engine that powers ecumenical diakonia-service, such as humanitarian aid in times of conflict and chaos. It is seen as Christian witness through service.
Ecumenical Diakonia
The ecumenical understanding of diakonia includes assistance for people of whatever faith who are in need and therefore challenges colonial paternalism and stimulates a concern for changing structures that perpetuates poverty (p67) see Richard Dickinson in Volume 3 chp.16. In the history of Christianity, Diakonia did not begin with Biafra, it is a central feature of the Christian identity. In our days, beginning with the founding of WCC in 1948, it has been a key factor of the ecumenical movement, so much so that some have criticized the WCC for “leaving the preaching of the word to serve tables.” The Council begs to differ. When Life and Work, Faith and Order, and International Missionary Council merged to become the WCC in 1948, diakonia was a central feature of its identity, shaped by the “social traumas of the past century.” What the Christian community did in terms of humanitarian aid during the Biafran war and specifically the setting up of a wing of the Christian council of Nigeria to participate in undertaking Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Development, is in line with Christian diakonia. I witnessed a lot of hands-on help that came from individuals as well as the Church Council. When all is said and done, we are humanitarians because we are human beings who God has brought together on this earth to make one another more human and must therefore endeavor to apply our humanness in dealing with one another.
Prof Oduyoye is a Methodist theologian and the director of the Institute of African Women in Religion and Culture at Trinity Theological Seminary in Ghana. She was once the youth education secretary for the World Council of Churches and later a Deputy General Secretary for the World Council of Churches. She has six books to her credit. She espouses the experiences of women in religion and culture and brings a feminist perspective to bear in her analysis of women’s experience of religion in Ghana and Africa.