CAMEROON
Together, Together
BAPTISM AND COMMUNITY
It may happen that the lay leader of a Catholic community gives away his daughter to become the third wife of a Muslim man. The reaction of the community is often disorientation, which leads them to take up the issue with the missionary, Fr. Bruno. In his turn the missionary speaks directly with the person responsible for the misdeed and the answer he receives is very simple and shocking: “It is because of hunger, Father”.
This and similar situations do happen in the parish of Pitoa and in other parishes in the North of Cameroon, a country in West Africa. This Catholic leader had practically sold his daughter to a Muslim for a miserable dowry. In this way he denied the values in which he believed, trampled upon his faith and dignity, and prevented his daughter from completing her preparation for baptism.
Giving support
What to do? The simplest way would have been for the missionary to give money to this man so that he could ransom his daughter back. Instead, the Christian community and the missionary choose a different solution: they discussed the issue together, and eventually decided to give help and support to the leader, who was in a very difficult situation.
The episode highlights the way missionary work is carried out in Pitoa. The community is the fulcrum on which evangelization, pastoral and social work are based. Here Catholics help each other, welcome each other, and especially support each other in growing in faith. This is essential in a region like the North of Cameroon where Catholics are a small minority in a Muslim and animist environment. Besides, it is an extremely poor region, with an unfavorable climate.
Minority choice
In this context, the community helps the few Catholics to walk together, face material and spiritual difficulties together, and bear together the humiliations and discrimination that a minority choice implies.
This land has known only fifty years of evangelization work but there are now a large number of converts. Of course, the reasons leading people to ask for baptism are not always pure and spiritual, so the community has to be vigilant and accompany the journey of the catechumens. It is the community that presents the candidate for the catechumenate and it is the community that cares for the newly baptized, so as to give them guidance and support in the new life they have acquired.
All these tasks belong not only to the priests and to the catechists but to all the members of the parish. “All the Catholics” – comments Fr. Bruno – “are called to accompany the catechumens with their Christian witness, their help, encouragement and fraternal correction.”
Long journey
It is a long journey. The catechumenate lasts at least four years, for some it may last up to ten years. Why? Because the main objective is not the acquisition of knowledge about the faith but a real change of life, of habits and unchristian cultural behavior.
Pitoa and many other similar parishes are basically communities of catechumens. This makes the role of the community and of her Christian witness of vital importance. Indeed, the catechumens have to learn from the Catholics and begin to take up tasks and services in the community. Above all they have to show concrete signs of their desire of conversion to Christ and of belonging to the Christian community.
Taking shape
This is not always easy. Failures are frequent, also because in young and small communities like Pitoa mature Catholics with a long faith experience are few. Some may even leave the Church, others give in to the temptation of polygamy, others choose politics for selfish motives. The standard, however, is not lowered because of these failures, and the parish community continues its effort for a serious life of faith and for the implementation of a life-changing catechumenate.
It is especially among young students that the future of the Christian community is taking shape. Father Bruno is optimistic: “Among them many are interested in the faith and discuss it. Gradually they mature in the choice of becoming Christians, and deepen the reasons of this choice. Their motivations have no relation with opportunism or superstition; they instead are ready to take their stand against well-rooted cultural behaviors like witchcraft or polygamy”.
EL
SALVADOR
Slave children
Elimination of child labor sees some progress
Cutting sugar cane, working in fireworks factories and in the sex trade, cultivating coffee, and garbage collecting are among the most dangerous jobs in El Salvador.
Another is harvesting mollusks in mangrove swamps, a 14-hour-a-day job that earns a worker about US$1.40 a day. From that, the laborer must deduct the cost of smoking cigars all day to reduce mosquito and other bug bites and the price of amphetamines to stay awake throughout the seemingly endless workday.
Highest risk
Up to 30,000 children earn their livelihood in these jobs in El Salvador and they are the children at highest risk among the 223,000 Salvadoran kids who work for a living. According to Minister of Labor Jorge Nieto, 67 of every 100 children in El Salvador work.
The International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor of the International Labor Organization (IPEC-ILO) set up a program in El Salvador in 1999. Since then, IPEC representative Benjamin Smith said, the program has succeeded in rescuing thousands from these tasks while increasing by about 35 percent the number of working children who go to school.
The Program has provided US$8 million to the government. The government tries to find sources of income for the parents of the kids so that the children do not have to work. US$4 million has been invested in the education project to boost the number of children who attend school. The project does both “retirement” work and prevention, so that, over the life of the program so far, Smith estimated that about 9,300 children have been retired from high-risk work and another 17,000 prevented from entering these fields.
Substantial results
A project to take children out of the sex trade has also been started and has reported “substantial” results according to the Labor Ministry. The project involves training for police, state attorneys, judges and the International Police (Interpol).
This will be supplemented by “a program of specialized attention to victims of commercial sexual exploitation and their families,” Nieto said. The program will be coordinated with the Salvadoran Institute for the Integral Development of Children and Adolescents (ISNA).
The effort to save children from dangerous work began when El Salvador signed Convention 182 of the ILO and created the national committee that works under its auspices.
But El Salvador still does not have a national plan for the progressive elimination of child labor, according to Labor Minister Nieto.
High risk
Of the high-risk work listed by the ministry, the least known, that of collecting mollusks in the mangrove swamps, is one of the most loathsome. A typical child prepares to go to work at four in the morning. One such worker, in Usulutan, El Salvador, sets off at about that time each day, usually without breakfast. Shoeless, in any weather, she reaches deep into the mud for the shells, all the while puffing a cigar to ward off mosquitoes. At some point each day, she runs out of cigars, and is usually covered with welts by day’s end. On a good day, she will collect two baskets of the shells and will earn US$1.40. There will, of course, have been no time to go to school. She will not have played with other children who, regardless of the availability of playtime, shun her because she smells.
Saving the children
Extracting her from this work is not as easy as plucking a mollusk from the mud. The child will have psychological problems associated with the circumstances of her life, according to Nelson Amaya, a psychologist who works with these children. Her parents will typically be resistant to the idea of letting the girl off from work that puts food on the table.
It would take Amaya several visits to a home just to get the parents on board with the idea that their daughter should be in school. Amaya said, however, that in this case he was eventually successful. The parents now feel that the girl should go to school. The program is also helping the girl’s seven siblings. Amaya says that, in this particular area, on a hacienda on the island of Espiritu Santo, 56 children will be rescued from this scenario.
Reforming code
El Salvador is not the worst country in the region for children at this kind of risk. The country is second only to Costa Rica in percentages of child workers who attend school.
Legislatively, however, because of its lack of a national plan to deal with the problem of child labor, El Salvador may be behind Nicaragua in this area. The Nicaraguan National Assembly this month partially reformed its labor code, prohibiting work for children under 14 years of age and bringing the code into line with the Code for Children and Adolescents.
The change allows those between 14 and 16 to work with parental permission or under supervision of the Labor Ministry. The purpose of the revision was to reinforce the obligations of the state, parents, employers, unions, and families to keep children from work that would harm them physically, psychologically and educationally.
The modifications to the law specifically prevent child labor in bars, nightclubs, and unhealthy or dangerous environments like mines, garbage dumps, etc.
The assembly also required the Labor Ministry to work with the National Commission for the Progressive Eradication of Child Labor to revise, define and update annually the list of dangerous occupations for young workers.
INDONESIA
Unselfish Sense
by Piero Gheddo
Mission “Possible” in world’s most Islamic country
Indonesia is the country with the highest Muslim population in the world. Around 160 out of its 210 million citizens are Muslim. While traditionally tolerant, Islam in this archipelago is tending toward fundamentalism. PIME Missionary Fr. Piero Gheddo, speaks about the enormous possibilities and challenges for the Christian mission.
I visited Indonesia a few months ago, along with Italian Xaverian missionaries working there since 1951. My general impression was this: until 40-50 years ago there weren’t anti-Western or anti- Christian sentiments among the general populace. Then Koranic preachers arrived, sent by “oil countries” (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Libya), who spread cruel ideologies about the Christian community.
They spoke about economically and technologically powerful Christians as threatening fundamental beliefs in Allah and the Islamic way of life with their “atheism” and “corrupt practices”. They said a “Jihad” (Holy War) must be waged in order to defeat such modern paganism. They spoke about wealthy “ulemas” of the Middle East who founded “madrassas” (Islamic schools) and mosques.
In general they preached not about the Koran, but about anti-Western ideology, employing the mass media, publishing houses, higher education and cultural institutions to spread their version of the “Word”.
Intolerance breaks out
In the mid-1980s the Indonesian government prohibited residency to all foreigners wishing to settle in Indonesia, as part of a special effort to drive out extremist groups upsetting the country’s social and religious order.
And yet, while the government is secular and respects all religions, there are often outbreaks of religious intolerance, especially on islands where there are large numbers of Christians (e.g. Sulawesi and Moluccas islands), with over 500 churches burnt down since 1995.
However, even in Sumatra (the most Islamized island), where Christians form 2-3% of the population, I witnessed real cases of persecution in which Christian villages were burned, permits were denied for building new chapels, churches and chapels were attacked, Christians were continuously accused of “proselytizing”; yet when a Christian converts to Islam, the press reports it as if it were a national victory…
Tolerant majority
Some analysts say that Indonesian Islam is “talebanizing”. But common opinion denies this. The two most important Islamic parties, "Muhammadiya" and "Nahdlatul Ulama", strongly condemn Islamic terrorism (in Bali I saw the frighteningly huge hole in the ground caused by the Oct. 2002 explosion in a discotheque frequented by Australian tourists). Moreover, they promote meeting and dialoging with Christians.
The most influential Islamic preacher on national television, Abdullah Gymnastiar, never criticizes neither the West nor Christians, but preaches about the return to traditional Islamic customs, the importance of family, love for one’s neighbor, tolerance and peace.
The vast majority of people, according to missionaries, are tolerant and appreciative of Christian Churches who have spearheaded many educational projects and have given assistance to the poorest of the poor.
Local dialogue
In Indonesia, discussion groups are flourishing among the followers of Mohamed and Christ, not only on a national level, but also in many local tense situations. The Bishops Conference is also involved. Xaverian missionary students of theology in Jakarta attend “Padi kasi” ("Love Rice") meetings. In Padang (Sumatra) missionaries from the
Parma congregation have started up the "Pusaka" (Intercommunity Study Center) with the help of the “St. Egidio Community” present in the country to promote such dialog.
“The problem, however, - as one missionary told me -, is that tolerance for us means ‘everyone can present their own opinion’. For them it means ‘you’re Christian and you’re wrong’; but I am tolerant and won’t kill you; however you can’t spread your faith’. If Christians increase in number, it means that you’re proselytizing and so I must intervene to put a stop to this wound in our nation’s side.”
Overcoming divisions
It must be said that, despite fundamental tensions and clashes, the Indonesian government and elite appreciate Christian Churches and are aware that Christianity has an edge over Islam. They told me that among the 300 ethnic communities living in Indonesia, there are sometimes clashes of opinion, fighting and small battles. The government acts as a “Reconciliation Committee” that goes on site to gather village and clan heads together and makes them talk to one another to reach a peaceful compromise. The government always chooses a Christian to direct such committees. I asked why and a high up official told me: “You Christians always talk about forgiveness. You have a sense of unselfishness and universality, that is, you know how to overcome ethnic divisions.”