Episcopal Youth Event Participants See the Personal Price of Advocating for Justice

Episcopal News Service. August 23, 1990 [90223]

Participants in the Episcopal Youth Event learned that advocating for justice and peace can carry a high personal price.

Four delegates from South Africa, Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Panama shared their experiences with injustice in a panel presentation on Saturday, August 11.

Ntsieng Lenong, 25, from the black township of Soweto in South Africa gave a riveting account of his arrest, detention, and torture at the hands of the South African police. Lenong was detained twice by police, he said, most recently three years ago. The worst experience was at age 20, when police detained Lenong after learning he had visited a member of his youth group who had been shot by police.

"They had me stretch my hands against the wall, facing the wall. They would hit me with fists on the kidneys really hard," recalled Lenong. One of the policemen recognized he was a Christian so his interrogators forced Lenong to pose like Christ on the cross.

"I would put my head on one side and they would say 'Christ's head was not on this side. It was on that side.' I would put it on that side and then they would say 'Christ wasn't looking at his tormentors. He was dead.' So I would close my eyes and stand outstretched against the wall."

As Lenong stood on his toes, pressed against the cell wall, the police beat him with a club. When he fell, they stood him up again and continued the beating.

Daily violence in the Holy Land

Persecution is also a part of life for Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said delegates Deemah Shehadeh and Amal Zabaneh, both 18.

Zabaneh is among the disenfranchised Palestinians living in the West Bank. Life there is not only difficult but dangerous. A walk in the evening can end with a kidnapping as it did for two girls not long ago on their way to buy ice cream, she said. Nothing has been heard from them.

Israeli settlers surrounding the West Bank frequently steal cars with West Bank license plates, Zabaneh said, so they can slip into the area unnoticed for raids on Palestinians.

"Every day you can find somebody killed, somebody arrested, somebody injured and there are a lot of people who are handicapped," Zabaneh said.

During the three years of the uprising known as the intifadeh, the Palestinian universities have been shut down, and elementary and high school hours curtailed. This has put many young people's career plans on hold, Zabaneh said.

Shehadeh, who lives in a town near the Sea of Galilee and holds Israeli citizenship, said not all Israelis support the government's action against the Palestinians. "I have Jewish friends that don't want to go into the army because they don't want to hold guns against us. They want us to be friends together, to live next to each other in both countries, Palestine and Israel."

Peace must come before the Holy Land can be holy again, Shehadeh told the audience. Churches, mosques, and synagogues do not make Jerusalem hallowed ground, she said, "because all of these are dead stones." Support and concern, she added, should be given to "the living stones which are the people suffering there."

Also on the panel was Ayana Clark of Panama, who talked about the American invasion of her country last December. While Panamanians were dissatisfied with the policies of General Noriega, she said, most did not consider it sufficient justification for the U.S. invasion.

Encounters build understanding

Hearing these first-hand accounts changed the perspectives of a number of participants.

The protective environment that most Americans live in, said Carrie Skinner of West Texas, keeps them from gaining a full understanding of the issues in other countries.

Anybody can get up and talk to you until they're blue in the face about the problems of the world," said Skinner, "but unless you've really spoken to someone who's been a victim of oppression or of an attack or whatever, or unless you've actually been there, you can't understand it."

One current event on many minds was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2. For members of the Diocese of San Joaquin it had immediate consequences. Their adviser, Dr. C. Forrest Faison, a pediatrician and naval reserve officer, was called to active duty midway through the conference.

The issue also dominated a forum where the designated topic was seeking and serving Christ in all persons. A lively debate ensued among forum participants on whether President Bush was in conflict with his Christian values by supporting a large defense budget and sending troops to Saudi Arabia.

"There's a real world out there and we have to defend ourselves," said one participant. "If we value our freedom then we have to fight for it."

Another participant disagreed: "It is reprehensible to me that our government is spending so much on weapons when there is no need to. The [Berlin] wall is down."

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