africanview

How to Spend My Days

by Fr. John Kevin, CSSp
Spiritan Missionary in Kenya
Spiritan Missionary News, Vol. 26, No. 2 - pg. 4

We have been here twenty years. We have passed from middle age to early old among a people we hardly know and with whom we have almost nothing in common. The doors to their culture and to their language are still no more than half-open to us. For the majority and even for those whom we regard as our friends, we are a race totally apart, whose way of life is as different from theirs as would be the lives of the ancient Egyptians from ours. It is not easy to explain why we remain. "Why don't you leave them alone? Are they not better off as they are?" are questions that were frequently asked, though more in years past than now. We stay because we feel that we have something to offer not only in practical matters but in matters too that the milieu of the questioner, perhaps, has long ago discarded as irrelevant. Had the people given us any sign that either our presence or what we had to offer were unwelcome among them we should have left long ago. If they gave any thought to us at all, and it is likely that they did not, they may well have considered us as being at worst harmless and at best people who might have something to contribute to the easing of their lives. It would be for them rather than for us to pronounce on whether our years among them have in fact been of any value and, were they asked, being the kind of people they are, they are never likely to be anything other than laudatory. The people who know us seem happy for us to stay. For the rest we remain what we were when we first arrived, an enigma.

The people among whom we live and work are known as Pokot. I spent my first seven years among them in, loosely-speaking, a state of semi-despair. That I never developed the full-blown variety I can only put down to two somewhat hazy notions that I harboured at the time. One, that things were bound to get better and two, that the position in which I found myself was the necessary prelude to that future, happier, state of affairs.

A mission among the unsuspecting Pokot
Having begun no new missions in the country for many years, aside from those sloughed off from older, long-established ones in the dioceses entrusted to us from the beginning, the Holy Ghost Fathers in Kenya, in the person of a council of responsible elders and under an able and far-sighted leader, judged the time right to rectify that long-standing state of affairs. After weighing the needs of two other unsuspecting communities and the number of missionaries available, a decision was made in favour of opening a mission among the equally unsuspecting pastoral Pokot.

The Catholic mission to these pastoral Pokot of north central Kenya became a reality in the middle of 1980. Three men were required to staff the beginnings of it. One, Gerry Foley, a man of great missionary experience, was brought from the Diocese of Mombasa. A second, Sean McGovern, almost equally experienced, was captured from the Diocese of Machakos, (for which deed, I may say, the Holy Ghost Fathers earned no plaudits from the bishop of that diocese). I was the third; I had just returned from a stint in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and was hoping for just such an appointment, with no great expectation that one might turn up. I was amazed (not to say delighted) when it did.

After the first few days the feeling of exhilaration and huge excitement generated by the prospect of living among and working with a people such as the Pokot was dissipated somewhat by the (self-imposed) urgency of having to decide what to do with myself. What on earth was I going to do? How was I going to spend my days? About what (and how) does a complete stranger communicate with a people about whom he knows absolutely nothing and not a word of their language and who, in their turn, care nothing about him? How had my two companions coped? It became clear that what my new colleagues had chosen to become involved in was an attempt to ameliorate the obvious and desperate lack of any kind of development among a people who possessed nothing and did nothing that might have given the casual stranger a clue as to which western century their way of life could most accurately be aligned; nor did we possess sufficient ready knowledge of pre-historic times to hazard a guess. So with the zeal, much good common sense and high good cheer I later came to associate with all they did, they had long since pinpointed those areas most in need of their gifts and were already in high gear.

Not necessarily doing anything
Though it may sound strange to say it, I was little tempted to join them. I had come to feel that I might best employ myself in an effort to get to know the people however superficially, learn a little of their language and something of their culture. I was going to have to do all of those things anyway, sooner or later, if I was going to be of any use among the Pokot, so why not get started as soon as possible? I came to feel too that being involved with development would somehow put me at a remove from the people and that I would far prefer to be with them (and not necessarily doing anything) than to be working for them. My own almost complete lack of development skills coupled with the expertise demonstrated by my two companions in those matters played such a major part in my decision that, were it not for a strong conviction that it was right for me to do what I was attracted to do, my decision could well be dismissed as rationalization. Perhaps this was selfish and of far less value to the people than whatever my two companions were planning and accomplishing, but it was something I felt impelled towards. I chose to be rather than to do. The Pokot, I am sure, cared little or nothing whether I did one thing or the other, they had not asked me to come and had no idea why I had.

Many times during those first years I paid with a sort of mental distress for my lack of "performance". For instance, many meetings with the people were held under trees and these were generally addressed by the local chiefs and to which we, the mission personnel, were invited and went, not wishing to cause offence. The purpose of such meetings was, invariably, to pass on to the people decisions taken by government officers at higher level and to communicate admonishment and encouragement. Invariably, too, when we were present, the government servant would enumerate the virtues of the mission and what it had brought to the people and the difference it was making to their lives and then proceed to thank Father Foley and Father John (Sean) for their wonderful efforts on their behalf. What he said regarding their contribution was the simple truth; the days were not long enough for all they wanted to do for the Pokot. It was not his fault that he could not associate my name with anything tangible, for there wasn't anything tangible to associate it with; nor was it his fault that he did not have the slightest notion as to what I was doing in the area. How could he have had when I was hard put myself to describe my quite nebulous line of endeavour?

Wriggling off the hook
If I were asked and I was, many times, what it was I spent my time at, I would try in a humourous way to wriggle off the hook. If the angler were persistent, I would confess to not doing very much at all, that I spent my days visiting homes, meeting the people and talking to them as far as my extremely hesitant, practically non-existent, grasp of the language would allow. On occasion this description of how I spent my days would be met with a kind of embarrassed silence, as if my inquisitor were waiting for flippancy to give way to reason so that I might tell him what I really did. When he realized I was not pulling his leg, he would let the matter drop, though perhaps with a barely concealed shake of the head, as if to say, "Well, it takes all sorts", or "You mean to say you have come all the way out here just to do that?"

I could have had it a little easier had I decided to do something in the education line, which, if anything had been hinted to me as a means by which I might occupy myself, it was that. At least it would have been easier to explain myself. It is not the most glamorous profession in the world and to receive the reply "teacher" to the casual inquiry, "&ldots;and what do you do yourself?" is almost, if not always, an effective conversation-stopper, unless one is prepared to go the whole route and get involved in a protracted discussion of education in general and your new acquaintance's role in it (for a start). Conversation stopper or not, at least you need say no more, you have been satisfactorily pigeon-holed and filed away as holding a position in the ordinary run of things. Eccentricity of any kind is not expected of teachers; teachers can be safely invited for a drink.

Education, Evangelization, Civilization
Education was practically non-existent among the Pokot when we first arrived among them and although it has advanced a little since those days, it is not yet the route chosen (or chosen for them by their parents) by the vast majority of young Pokot. Missionaries who came before us regarded the work of "civilizing" the people as being just barely below the teaching of the Christian Message in the scale of important tasks to be accomplished for their people and of course education was the primary means of both evangelizing the people and civilizing them. They were spectacularly unsuccessful on both counts. I relented to the extent of helping in the building of the schools that the mission was involved in at the time and not only learned the intricacies of handling a tractor and trailer, but for a short time even had opinions that mattered!

While I did not regard the westernization of the people as a legitimate part of any role I might eventually play among the Pokot, I usually saw little point in adding that my ultimate hope was to be able to broach with the people the subject of Christianity and eventually to help lead them to establish a church of their own.
A Pokot Church?
Well, why not?

FOCUS ON AFRICA: The Spiritan Missionary Commitment to Africa as Exemplified in the Lives and Works of

Bishop Joseph Shanahan

and Blessed Daniel Brottier.

A Reflection by Ernest Munachi Ezeogu, C.S.Sp. as Part of the Spiritan Year Celebrations of the Province of Trans-Canada. Toronto, February 28, 2002.

1.INTRODUCTION

Many people find it hard to tell Daniel Brottier from Joseph Shanahan by their pictures. Both are big men with very large beards. Yet that is not the most important thing that these servants of God have in common. For divine Providence has given them a common Spiritan missionary vocation that led them both to the shores of Africa.

Joseph Shanahan was born in 1871 in County Tipperary, Ireland. Five years later in the diocese of Blois, northern France, Daniel Brottier was born. Shanahan was ordained a priest in 1900, one year after Brottier's ordination. Since Shanahan did his studies for the priesthood in France (1886-1897) one cannot but wonder whether they met each other. That is hard to say because Brottier was ordained a diocesan priest and only joined the Spiritans subsequently in 1902. Be that as it may, the similarities between Shanahan's and Brottier's approaches to mission are very striking. For one thing, both of them subscribed to the focus on Africa which was the hallmark of the Spiritan missionary charism. Shanahan set sail for Nigeria on the west coast of Africa in 1902, two years after his priestly ordination. Brottier followed suit, leaving for Senegal, also in West Africa in 1903, one year after joining the Spiritans.

In this refection I intend to look at the lives and works of these two great pioneer African missionaries with a view to articulating how they understood and lived out the focus on Africa component of their Spiritan missionary charism. In this way we can allow these servants of God who are on the way to being declared saints and models for the universal church to become models for us members of their own religious family as we grapple with the question of what focus on Africa can mean for us Spiritans today.

Focus on Africa has always been a centre-piece of the Spiritan missionary self-understanding. According to Libermann,

To bring the Good News to the poor, this is our general aim. Missions, however, are the main object of our focus, and in mission we have chosen the poorest and most abandoned souls. Divine Providence has carved out our work for us with the Blacks, either in Africa, or in the colonies. Up until now, these people have been without doubt the poorest and most abandoned. We would also love to work in France for the salvation of souls, but always having as principal aim the poor, without neglecting, however, those who aren't...

(Notes et Documents XIII,170 - my translation).

This every Spiritan knows as a principle. What it means in practice, however, is not always so evident. In this reflection, therefore, I am not going to dwell on the words and teachings of Shanahan and Brottier but on the example of their lives and works to see what these words meant for them in practice. Why do we need to rethink and clarify to ourselves the principle of focus on Africa? It is because the concept of Africa or Black has witnessed a tremendous transformation of meaning in our own day. Here is an illustration.

2.THE CONCEPT OF AFRICA

In March 2001, the American Ex-President Bill Clinton was honoured at the Congressional Black Caucus' annual awards dinner. There he made news by claiming that he was America's first Black president. "That's why I went to Harlem, because I think I am the first black president,'' he said, referring to plans to locate his office in the predominantly Black New York neighbourhood. Actually Clinton was only echoing the famous African-American writer, Toni Morrison. In the heat of the Monica Lewinsky affair in 1998, Toni Morrison told the New Yorker that it is the view of African-Americans that Clinton's prosecutions arose from the fact that he was "our first Black President." She went on to explain that Clinton is at least Blacker "than any actual person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of Blackness."

What are these tropes of Blackness that have made Clinton a Black man, his white skin notwithstanding? Someone has listed them as these: raised in a single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving, victim of profiling. Whatever may be the merits of Clinton's eligibility as Black or indeed as America's first Black president, the one point I want to make here is simply to show that the concept of Black is no longer tied to skin colour. Similarly, the concept of Africa has become more elastic and is no longer tied to geography.

3.THREE MODELS OF THE FOCUS ON AFRICA

There are three dimensions to being African today: native-geographical, ethno-historical, and socio-economic. Native-geographical refers simply to native Africans who make their home in African. Ethno-historical refers to people who are ethnic Africans but by design or by accident of history make their home outside continental Africa. This is the African Diaspora. Socio-economic refers to people who have no visible ethnic or historical links with Africa but who live lives of privation, powerlessness and violation characteristic of the African experience. These three modes of being African yield three models of the missionary focus on Africa: focus on continental Africa, focus on Diaspora Africa, and focus on Virtual Africa. We shall now look at the missionary lives of Shanahan and Brottier and see how their various missionary projects and engagements reflect these three focuses.

1.Focus on Continental Africa

This is the primary and most obvious field of the Spiritan missionary commitment to Africa. This is the vision which motivated countless European missionaries who saw work among Africans in their native land as an essential part of what it meant to be Spiritan. Both Shanahan and Brottier saw continental Africa as their primary mission field. Within two years of ordination Shanahan had set sail for Nigeria. Brottier was in Senegal already one year after joining the Spiritans. Once in Africa, both Shanahan and Brottier took seriously Libermann's injunction to his missionaries to leave Europe behind and become African with the Africans. Both of them had a holistic view of salvation as a liberation of the human spirit, mind and body. Their zeal to give the gospel to the people was only matched by their zeal to give them integral development and education.

The focus on Africa remained with Shanahan and Brottier even when they were no longer on African soil. Brottier was recalled to France in 1911 on account of ill health. Yet even while in France he was focused on Africa. He threw himself into the task of raising fund to build a cathedral in Dakar. The cathedral was finished and consecrated in 1936. The same year Shanahan, now a Bishop, retired and went back to Ireland. In his retirement he kept on working for and promoting the African mission in Nigeria. Many later Irish Spiritans owe their missionary zeal to meeting Shanahan either visiting Ireland or in retirement and how he spoke with such passion and inspiration about the African mission. For Shanahan as well as for Brottier, the primary meaning of the Spiritan principle of focus on Africa was to work in Africa and, failing that, to work for Africa.

2.Focus on Diaspora Africa

According to Libermann's letter, "Divine Providence has carved out our work for us with the Blacks, either in Africa, or in the colonies." By the colonies he meant the African diaspora such as Haiti and Reunion or any country where there is a substantial Black population. We do not have much record on how either Shanahan or Brottier viewed mission to Black populations outside Africa. There were certainly sizeable populations of Blacks in Paris in Brottier's day. Did he ever consider working among them? The same question could be asked about Shanahan in Ireland. Though it is easy to imagine them being available for mission among African immigrants, I am not aware of any documentary evidence to that effect. This could as well be the blind spot in their focus on Africa.

3.Focus on Virtual Africa

Brottier made several attempts to go back to Africa which he saw as the primary milieu for the actualisation of his missionary vocation. Once he came to terms with the likelihood that he might never again see the shores of Africa, his eyes opened and he saw African in his own backyard. If it was his patriotism and love for adventure that led him to be a World War II army chaplain, it was his essential Spiritan love for the poor and the most abandoned that led him to be the director of the Orphan Apprentices of Auteuil. The needs of the orphans of Auteuil, like those of his mission in Africa, demanded all the spiritual, educational and developmental resources at his disposal. It could be said that once he got going with the Orphan Apprentices of Auteuil he did not miss Africa any more because he knew he had found Africa in Paris. His mission in Auteuil was virtually a mission to Africa. Shanahan spent all his missionary energies in the real Africa and so for him the question of mission to virtual Africa did not arise.

4.THE CHALLENGE OF SHANAHAN AND BROTTIER

In brief we can say that for Shanahan and Brottier the focus on Africa meant, (1) working in Africa or for Africa when physical presence in Africa was not possible; (2) working with and for people in situations akin to the African situation, e.g. orphans; and (3) working with Africans outside the African homeland was not a priority.

Would Shanahan and Brottier still view the missionary focus on Africa in the same way if they were alive today? This is a question for community discernment. It seems to me, however, that they would have paid more attention to African immigrants. The observation that in most cities in the developed world today the two segments of Diaspora Africa and Virtual Africa have, in fact, become one. It is often African immigrants and people of visible African descent who are at the bottom of the social ladder. They are poorer and more abandoned today than French orphans in Paris. That is why I suggest that Brottier and Shanahan would have paid more attention to them today. This remains a challenge for us Spiritans today as we strive for greater faithful to our common charism.