Suddenly, I faced an unexpected
set of communications challenges. I spent my first couple of months
in Johannesburg trying to diagnose the network’s multiple
afflictions, to restore email contact with the outside world and,
finally, to upgrade key components of the system. For the moment,
the crisis seems to have passed, though I am constantly aware
of how fragile the whole system remains. I still spend more time
than I anticipated administering the network and helping colleagues
to address technical problems that arise.
It was difficult to leave Cape Town and even harder to get settled
in Johannesburg. I spent my first two months living a nomadic
existence, leaving all of my household goods stored in a friend's
garage. Some of my mail still has not caught up with me!
If the high plains of the gold reef on which Johannesburg is
situated lack some of the topographical majesty of the Western
Cape, the city’s energy and diversity offer some compensation.
Johannesburg is South Africa’s financial and industrial
heartland. Its status as the nation’s richest province (on
a per capita basis) nevertheless continues to mask the huge economic
disparities that remain the legacies of apartheid.
The metropolitan area sprawls, and the narrow band of countryside
that separates it from Pretoria, some 35 miles to the north, is
rapidly becoming urbanized. As in many U.S. cities, a car is viewed
as a necessity, though startling gas prices, congested roads,
and Johannesburgers’ creative approach to traffic laws have
prompted me to hold out as long as possible.
Whereas Cape Town is sometimes accused of pretending to be a
“European” city, Johannesburg is proudly African.
The city boasts a rich blend of people and cultures. Walking the
downtown streets or even the corridors of Khotso House, the building
that houses the SACC offices, one can hear most of South Africa’s
eleven official languages, not to mention others from further
afield.
Being situated in the Council’s national office also affords
me a better overview of the range of activities in which SACC
structures and members are involved. In recent months, the Council
has been involved in the annual campaign to halt violence against
women and children, as well as helping churches to explore ways
of responding appropriately to the December Constitutional Court
ruling that South Africa’s existing Marriage Act is inconsistent
with the Constitution's prohibition against discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation.
The Council is also active throughout the region and the world,
particularly around efforts to build peace and respect for human
rights. In the last half of 2005, Church leaders traveled to Zimbabwe
to minister to thousands of families displaced by “Operation
Murambatsvina,” the Zimbabwean government’s ill-conceived
slum-clearance programme. Following the visit, churches gathered
and sent several truckloads of relief supplies to homeless people
in Zimbabwe. They also stepped up efforts to assist the many Zimbabwean
refugees in the Johannesburg area who have poured across the border
in the hope of finding jobs, food, and security.
In December, the SACC led an interfaith delegation of religious
leaders to Rwanda to take part in celebrations to commemorate
South Africa's Day of Reconciliation. The leaders held a series
of talks with their counterparts in Rwanda to explore ways in
which faith communities could contribute to Rwanda’s emerging
truth and reconciliation process designed to address past ethnic
violence. They also met with representatives of Rwanda’s
community court system to learn more about their efforts to implement
an approach to criminal justice that is based on restorative justice.
The Council continues to send people of various faiths to take
part in the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment
Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). Established in 2002,
EAPPI volunteers monitor and report human rights violations of
human rights, offer protection through non-violent presence, engage
in public policy advocacy, and stand in solidarity with all those
struggling against injustice in Palestine and Israel.
You can read more about recent activities of the SACC, as well
as stories from some of the ecumenical accompaniers, on the Council's
Web site. You will never guess who maintains the site.
Grace and peace to you throughout 2006,
Doug
The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 339
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