CRT Session 1 18 March 2005 Report

CENTRE FOR REFLEXIVE THEOLOGY (18.03.05)

LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Present

Peggy, David, Clarence, Susan, Gwo Yinn, Jaime, Jean Cheong, Jean Lee, Christine, Tuck-Leong

Prediscussion

We talked about spas and we were on video.
We noted the difference between liberation theology and systematic theology - liberation theology is something that has to be done and not talked about.
Liberation theology reverses the process of theologizing, it works from contexts/ situations and then moves to theory

Discussion Questions

[It is fairly difficult to objectively document this discussion because of the density of the content and the openness of the discussion to various input. So what follows are the points that seem significant for me - TL]

QUESTION

In the Malay Mail dated 4 March 2005, the following article was featured: "MULTAN: Nearly three years after the case cast an international spotlight on crimes against women in ultra-conservative Pakistan, a court yesterday threw out the death sentences of six men accused of taking part in the gang-rape of a woman after a village council ordered her to be raped. Five of the men were ordered freed and a sixth has his sentence reduced to life in prison. The rape of Mukhtar Mai in 2002, on orders from a village council that was seeking to punish her for her brother's alleged illicit sexual relations with a woman from a more prominent family, led the Government to promise sweeping changes to end centuries of so-called "honor" killings and attacks. But the High Court yesterday ruled there was insufficient evidence to uphold the convictions. Mai was in court and wept upon hearing the court's decision. "I am in pain..." she said - Associated Press"

What kind of feelings does the context give you?

Some of the thoughts shared

• Reminds me of the story of Lot sacrificing his daughter reflects some issues in the story felt like something of a distant culture.


• You may not agree with it but is it permissable in the culture?


• Do you judge another culture with your own? Or is there something universal?


• 3 issues - was the punishment fit the crime? What's so bad about sex between members of different castes? Why punish another person not related to the 'crime'?


• There should be some basic human values across all cultures


• Difficult to understand why such a punishment is meted out.


• Eye to eye was meant to limit the retribution demanded, in OT laws; and not meant to be a principle of punishment


• As a woman, one would hate being in the culture with the value system


• One cannot feel terribly good about it.

Do we align ourselves with the oppressors?

• We are used to be on the 'stronger' side, those who are in control. As an automatic response.


• When we fall into the victim mentality we give rise to the oppressors.


• 'I don't want to be at the point of being culturally arrogant'.


• One can stop being aware of the oppression and becomes part of the oppressors

How can we not be part of the oppressive system?

• Know your own values


• Be rebellious


• "or asserting one's own individuality"

[There was some sense of going no-where in terms of our direction until Peggy raised the point that it happens in her practice of counselling lesbian and gay people that she finds herself telling her clients to adopt 'heterosexual' norms of partnering and settling down. The discussion got slightly more engaged. - TL]

Points discussed

• Are we trapped by our own values adopted as resistance, or contrast to the mainstream and the normative, and thereby limiting our own choices?


• It is easy for us to forget our roles as the oppressors


• We could provide a range of choices


• But who determines the choices?


• Perhaps we can help people make up their mind.


• Awareness of ourselves being oppressors strikes us


• Is 'normalizing' people a means to empower people or to diminish their choice?


• We oppress people through imposing on them values


• Oppression happens when you have two unequal situation of power positions.


• That causes one to objectify another person


• Creating a sense of helplessness and being overpowered

[At this point, we wondered why we were discussing the life of Mai in order to derive theories and ideas; when her situation demanded action. - TL]

• Liberation theology demands us being there, to experience the reality of situation


• However we can't be physically there in Pakistan


• When we do liberation theology we have to come back to our contexts, our lives


• How do we treat each other in our contexts?


• It is easy for us to think others as oppressors but we have to sensitize ourselves to our acts of oppression

[And as we marginally thought of how we acts as agents of oppression we realize that oppression is everywhere, parts of much larger systems with power greater than the sum of our oppressive performance. And we are rendered helpless -TL]

• South Africa is a good example of Liberation theology in Action


• The oppressed opted not to act as the oppressors


• Rather chose the way of the gospel, to admit our roles in sin and then to experience forgiveness.


• We are helpless against structures of sin and oppression and can only marginally hope to do our little part


• And on our part we are called to a discipline of being aware of our oppressive powers


• From that awareness we can come to conversion - metanoia (turning about of direction)


• What about co-dependent situation, when the oppressed do not want freedom?

In the next session of CRT, we will continue to talk about systems of oppression by contextualizing them with our life experiences.

Notes:

Received from Gwo Yinn

http://windsofchange.net/archives/cat_geo_indiapakistan.php

Support for Mukhtar Mai by Robin Burk

Thousands of Pakistani women demonstrated yesterday in support of Mukhtar Mai.

Thousands of women rallied in eastern Pakistan on Monday to demand justice and protection for a woman who said she was gang-raped at the direction of a village council, after a court ordered the release of her alleged attackers. Waving signs and chanting, the demonstrators, many of them from nearby villages, joined the rally. Organizer Farzana Bari said more than 3,000 women were at the event.

Some 200 policemen observed the demonstration, which ended peacefully.

In June 2002, Mai said she was raped by four men on the orders of a village council that wanted to punish her family. Ultimately, it will be the refusal of ordinary people that will change social norms and honor-based violence against women. And it's worth keeping in mind that women aren't the only victims of tribal attitudes: Mai's brother was accused of having sex with a woman from a more prominent family, though Mai's family says the allegations were fabricated to cover up a sexual assault against the boy by several men.

Boys can suffer too.