The Swarthmore Lecture: Mending broken hearts

This year’s Swarthmore Lecture, Mending Broken Hearts; Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Quaker Peacebuilding in Eastern Africa, will be given by Cécile Nyiramana (Rwanda Yearly Meeting) and Esther Mombo (Highlands Yearly Meeting, Kenya).

They have been actively involved in Quaker peacebuilding work in the region for many years.

Cécile and Esther talked about their lives and witness to Ann Floyd and Harry Albright, two members of the committee appointed to oversee the Lecture.

It is only the fifth time that the Swarthmore Lecture has been given by more than one person, and the first time that the lecturers have been African. Could you tell us a little about your personal backgrounds?

Cécile: My name is Cécile Nyiramana. I am married to Emmanuel and I am the mom of two children, Justine and Cedrick. I was born in a big and Christian family of ten children. It was a very happy family, though Dad had three wives.

Esther: My name is Esther Mombo. My mother had Quaker roots and heritage and my father had roots in the Seventh Day Adventist church. This is due to the way in which the areas were divided by the denominations at the time – according to [the] spheres of influence policy [used] by missionary societies. The colonial authorities had granted different churches certain territories, so people from one area tended to be associated with a given church.

I was brought up by my grandmother Enis Mugesia. She was among the first women to join the Quaker mission from her village. She understood Quakerism well and became one of the prison preachers for women. She taught me the Christian faith and Quakerism. She helped me to see how patriarchy had pushed women out of mainstream Quakerism in the Meetings. For various reasons I did not go to Quaker schools but went to Friends Theological College to start my theological studies and later to St. Paul’s university.

How did you come to be involved with Friends?

Cécile: Suddenly, the 1994 genocide came and destroyed all the joy, hope and relationships – due to the enormous loss of life and property. I lost my friends, my relatives, and my mom. It was the worst tragedy I had ever known in my life, and I lost hope in the future.

Fortunately, in 1998 the Friends Church of Rwanda (Rwanda Yearly Meeting) came to me to invite me to do conflict resolution training and healing training. This is how I started to see the little light shining in my life.

I met different people with a different faith, who convinced me that peace, hope and trust are possible, and will come after the tragedy. I decided to become a member of this family of Friends. This how in 1999 I got involved in peacebuilding.

Esther: My grandmother took me to Sunday school and the Worship Meetings. I was involved in the young Quaker movement engaged in social justice issues, especially those that impacted on girls, like female circumcision, of which my grandmother was a key champion for girls in her village and also those in her household. I was influenced to speak in meetings by my grandmother and she affirmed my involvement even when it was going against the tide. After training at Friends Theological College, I began being engaged more in the meetings of young people and women.

What has been your involvement with peace work in Africa?

Cécile: For seventeen years I have been involved in peacebuilding in Rwanda, as well as in other parts of Africa. I got involved in peace work in Africa through the Quaker Peace Network, the Africa section of the Friends World Committee for Consultation [FWCC] and with different networks of peace partners in Rwanda, the Great Lakes region, as well as in the rest of Africa and around the world with Quakers.

In 2001 I decided to do something for peace, to share that light in me with moms who still were in darkness. I worked to bring together the widowed survivors of genocide and the prisoners’ wives to search for a common ground for the better future of our children. That’s how the nine groups of women in dialogue have been founded in different districts of Rwanda.

Esther: My involvement in peace work has been, first, as an activist in terms of issues of social justice that cut across the lives of people. This includes poverty eradication by investing in education and speaking against social ills in my context.

Secondly, it is through education. I am an educator at university level. As well as teaching students, I have been involved in creating courses for the curriculum that talk about peace and how we can all be involved in peacemaking through challenging injustice and at the same time being engaged in reconciliation processes.

How does your Quaker faith inform the peace work that you do?

Cécile: From the darkness to the shining time I learnt the following things:

1. Change must start with yourself, and Gandhi inspired me when he said: ‘Be the change that you wish to see in the world.’

2. Without personal commitment and initiative, peace will never come. But you need to work in partnership because peace is a multidimensional issue. Peace is a group effort.

3. Justice for all is key to reconciliation and lasting peace. Equal access to education, jobs, healthcare, food, shelter, leadership, opportunities and human rights protection are a prerequisite and fundamental if peace is to be sustained.

Esther: Among the first things I learnt about Quakers was that I was a child of God. Later, I understood that there is that of God in all people. Because of this, anything that denies people life – then it is to be challenged. I am, therefore, to be an advocate for those whom systems in society deny life.

As well as the facts from the Quaker ethos, the texts from scripture also inform my peace work. These include the ministry of the prophets in the Old Testament who spoke against injustice that pushed people to the margins – especially the poor, the weak, the migrants, the orphans and others. I am also challenged not to support systems that destroy life.

Above the teachings of the prophets, the words of Jesus on peace are a real challenge but an affirmation for peace work. These include the texts about peacemakers being blessed (Matthew 5:9) and ‘Peace I leave unto you… not as the world gives…’ (John 14:27). My engagement in peace is being in the service of God and humanity.

Can you give an example of one initiative that has been particularly successful?

Cécile: The Women in Dialogue initiative that I mentioned before. Most of the members of my church told me that it would be in vain. But I was committed to accompany the process of reconciliation between those two blocs which were supposed to be enemies.

Using tools that I will talk about during the Lecture, these women released their anger and sorrows, forgave each other and decided to work together to bring a message of peace and reconciliation. Some of their husbands have confessed, been forgiven, have come back to their families and are living peacefully with the survivors.

These groups are serving as a good example of reconciliation in their respective communities. In Gicumbi and Musanze districts they received an award from the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission for working successfully on reconciling relationships.

Esther: As an educator one initiative is on education for peace, in which the young and old are supported to analyse the situation of conflict and find solutions.

At my institution, after the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007-2008, I put together students from the conflict zones and we began talking about the conflicts and how we could be agents of change. The community atmosphere was different and support for one another was increased.

At the next election I saw these students working together towards a violence-free election in their areas. The peace curriculum in the Quaker schools is another initiative that teaches learners from different communities in their own contexts.

What is the most important message you would like Friends in Britain to take from this year’s Swarthmore Lecture?

Cécile: For peacebuilding to be effective and lasting there needs to be security, healing, truth, forgiveness and justice for all, which lead to reconciliation. This is true whether you are dealing with something as horrendous as the Rwandan genocide or a dispute in your own community.

Esther: The rich heritage of British Friends on peace work has contributed a great deal to the work of peace in other regions of the world, especially our own because some of the tools that we use were developed by Friends in Britain and we have contextualized them to meet our own needs.

Within a globalised context we need each other in dealing with peace, both in preparing the tools and using the tools. We hope that British Friends can use the tools as well in dealing with the different conflicts, for example, on issues of social justice surrounding the level of immigration. The causes of conflict and war are both local and international.

The analogy of treating a wound comes in mind. One can bandage a wound but it is also important to deal with the root causes of the wound. We stress dealing with the root causes of conflict and we hope that British Friends will be engaged in this as well, even in small ways.

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The Swarthmore Lecture

The Swarthmore Lecture is the responsibility of the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham. It has been given at the time of Yearly Meeting every year but one since 1908.

The purpose of the public Lecture is to explore and interpret the life, beliefs and witness of the Religious Society of Friends, both to ourselves and to the wider world.

Woodbrooke appoints a committee to oversee the Swarthmore Lecture. Ann Floyd and Harry Albright are members of the committee, and they have been working with Cécile and Esther as their Supporting Friends in preparation for this year’s Lecture.

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