So I was visiting my friend Megan in Davao the past 2 weeks. Davao in located in the south of the country on the island of Mindanao. She is working with an organization called Peace Builders Community that is heading up peace talks in the conflict plagued island of Mindanao. I learned a lot about the conflict and the issues talking with the team leader Dann Pantoja. Up in Manila we don't hear much about the conflict besides that its the Muslims against the Christians. In which that is no where close to being true (like a lot of the 'religious' tagged wars around the world). Yes there is a large population of Muslims in Mindanao who trace their heritage from Malaysia. The Moro people (this is what they call themselves) did very good in keep most of colonialism out of their land and this where the religious garbage comes in. The Spanish and the American colonizations are called 'Christian', so when they come in and try to take the land from The Moro people is turns into Christian-Muslim conflict.
The root of the conflict comes from land claims (a lot like the issues in North America with the Natives). The Spanish didn't have control of Mindanao when the American beat them in the American-Spanish war but instead of looking bad in a defeat they decided to sell the Philippines to the Americans. This sale also included Mindanao in which they didn't own. Although with the small pockets influence the Spanish had in Mindanao and then what the Americans did later is the exact same as what the Europeans did in North America. They bought some of the land for essentially nothing from the Moros and the Natives because these groups had the thought pattern that 'Allah' owned the land and it could not be bought or sold. So now there are huge land disputes on who is the actual owner. This is at the core but from the land issues comes political, economical, religious, etc. issues that make the situation so much more complex. *
So what Dann and Peace Builders are doing is getting peace talks going between the different groups, there are 4 or 5 including the government. The Peace Theology that they use for the reconciliation is rooted in Anabaptist Theology. Although after they have been accepted into a community they help out with community development that appears in many forms. One of them is Coffee for Peace, in which they help out coffee farmers selling their coffee. They have one store of Coffee for Peace, in which they also sell crafts that are made in the various communities they are a part of, but they are wanting to expand and God willing in the near future they will be exporting to Canada. You can check all of this out at peacebuilderscommunity.org. Dann also has written an incredible paper on what and how he is leading his ministry and that can be found at www.peacebuilderscommunity.org/documents/PeaceBuilding&TransformationPARFramework.pdf
This is going to be my last blog entry because I come home on November 3rd. There are a few things to wrap up and some people I have to see before I make the return home but no other big events are happening before that. If I can I want to ask for your prayers as I transition from Manila to back home, that everything will go smoothly. Thank you so much for your prayers and support that I have received over the past year. May God Bless you all.
Jared
*Disclaimer: This is just a summary or a brief overview of the conflict that I remember. It goes much deeper and has a lot more going on than what I have shared. Please do not quote me in a scholarly essay.
