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| Accompanying Dalits in Their Journey to Liberation | |||||||
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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 a four-day 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 260 million Dalits worldwide, 160 million of them in India. As part of the "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 and advocacy 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 the 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. "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 and commitment 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 Dennis Frado of the 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. Frado vowed to help revitalize the Dalit movement in the United States through his church network. As part of his commitment, he pledged to help facilitate meetings between Dalit communities and the US government and to possibly bring cases of violations of their human rights 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 the Rev. Roxanne Jordan of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, who related the Dalits' plight with experiences of discrimination and exclusion under 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 towards liberation is his church way of saying "thank you" to other peoples 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," he says. "So we are accompanying the Dalits not as a favour, but as a Christian duty." Find out more about the conference on the LWF website: 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. Feature stories and press releases from the conference: Call for international Christian solidarity to overcome caste-based discrimination http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1722/call-for-international-ch.html. Churches called to recognize image of God in Dalit women http://www.lutheranworld.org/News/LWI/EN/2360.EN.html. Solidarity with oppressed groups a Christian responsibility http://www.lutheranworld.org/News/LWI/EN/2361.EN.html. World's churches wrestle with the ancient system of caste-based discrimination http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1722/worlds-churches-wrestle.html. |
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