Jamaica meeting marks new turning point for Peace for Life

Held in Jamaica last May, the constituent meeting of Peace for Life’s Continuation Committee (CC) marked an important watershed in the life of PfL, infusing it with renewed energy and steering the movement in a more organised and focused direction.

The meeting, which took place on May 16-17 immediately prior to the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC), also approved a new set of By-laws and addressed a number of organisational issues that have long eluded resolution.

Carmencita Karagdag speaking at the workshop on “Overcoming
the Violence of Global Imperial Capitalism” at the IEPC in Jamaica,
21 May 2011, co-organised with Kairos Europa and Oikotree.

A number of CC members assembled in Kingston, Jamaica to lead some reasoning workshops in the IEPC which was convened by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to culminate its Decade to Overcome Violence. Some of these workshops were directly organised by PfL on the theme of “World without Empire” and others, in cooperation with PfL partners Kairos Europa, South Korea’s Advanced Institute for the Integral Study of Life, Oikotree and WCC’s programme on Poverty, Wealth and Ecology.

Current context

The meeting opened with a scan of the global environment led by renowned political analyst Ninan Koshy who, in his rigorous examination of the current state of the Empire, argued that there is no fundamental break in foreign policy between the Bush and Obama regimes and that “the strategic goals and imperatives of the US imperium remain the same as do principal theatres and means of operation”. He gave particular attention to NATO’s military intervention in Libya which he sees in the context of geopolitical and economic battle for Africa, “the largest basket of natural resources on earth”.

Continuation Committee members at the Jamaica meeting (from left): Eunice Santana, Ninan Koshy, Kim Yong-bock, Kathryn Poethig, Irfan Engineer, Soritua Nababan, Liberato Bautista, Lee Hong-jung, Pamela Brubaker, Omega Bula, Luciano Kovacks, Nancy Cardoso, Alexander Harang (guest), Susan Koshy (guest), John Jones, and Victoria Rue (guest). In the foreground with back to the camera is Carmencita Karagdag. Not in photo: Farid Esack, Carlos Ocampo, Mark Harrison and Rex Reyes. (Photo © Kim Mun-kee)

In a similar vein, Eunice Santana’s Report of the Moderator underscored the challenges being posed to PfL by the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa which “while weakening the US’s most formidable ally in the region, Israel, will also increase conservatism at all levels within the Empire especially in religious sectors”. She urged PfL to build on its positive experiences, honour its commitments and strengthen its organisational structure “without turning it into an armour that is heavy to carry and hold us back”.

The same challenge was echoed by PfL Coordinator Carmencita Karagdag who, in her Report of the Coordinator, presented a comprehensive account of the work of PfL since the Second People’s Forum in Bogota in March 2009. Noting that PfL continues to excite a lot of people, she stressed that “There is now a critical mass of people who have come to own and invest in PfL and its vision.”

She acknowledged that PfL has been largely event-centered, necessary for movement building in the formative stages. “But as we mature there is pressing need to develop programs with long-term sustainability and organise events with a clearer strategic mindset”, she concluded.

Christian-Muslim solidarity as key strategy

Participants in the meeting acknowledged that while PfL has been regarded as a vanguard in the anti-empire discourse in the ecumenical movement, much work has yet to be done in the area of interfaith solidarity against global hegemony. Yet with religious extremism and fundamentalism existing on both sides of the current Christian-Muslim divide in the US war on terror, the imperative for Muslims and Christians working for peace in solidarity has long been recognized by PfL.

Recalling the theme under which PfL was founded, “Sowing Seeds of Peace in the Era of Empire: Christians in Solidarity with Muslims”, the CC affirmed the need to focus on Christian-Muslim solidarity as the key strategy by which to realize its mission of bringing faith-based resistance to the struggle against global hegemony.

This thematic focus is expected to inform PfL’s priority programmes for the ensuing years: mainstreaming feminist discourse through the project on women war and empire, organising local PfL solidarity formations around the issue of justice for Palestine, and mobilising interfaith solidarity against empire through peace missions in major conflict areas, e.g., Pakistan.

Participants at the meeting were reminded that the Empire has been built at the expense not only of people but also nature, and hence the urgency of linking Empire with ecological devastation. Similarly highlighted in the animated exchanges were the linkage between the local and the global as well as inter-local convergences.

New structure

The adoption of a new set of By-laws providing for a more streamlined decision-making mechanism was a signal achievement of the Jamaica meeting. While PfL had favoured in the past a more amorphous model of formation so as not to compromise its movement character, the coordinator pointed out the growing consensus that the critical challenges facing PfL today demand a stronger organisational makeup.

The CC also agreed to adopt the organisation’s original full name, “People’s Forum on Peace for Life”, which is a better expression of its organisational nature, while maintaining the popular name Peace for Life or PfL.

The new By-laws dissolves the current Continuation Committee and in its place provides for a General Assembly that will function as the highest decision-making body and will constitute PfL’s core membership (currently comprised by all CC members).

A 12-member Working Group will continue to serve as the decision-making body in-between assemblies. There shall also be a Leadership Group composed of the moderator, the two co-moderators and the coordinator, which may be convened to make urgent decisions, subject to confirmation of the WG.

Programme Teams, with specific thematic foci or tasks, were likewise created to enable wider participation in programme planning and implementation, including finance generation.

The quadrennial People’s Forum, held in conjunction with the organisational assembly and organised in partnership with local groups and movements, maintains its function of drawing up the general mandate and direction of the movement.

The Jamaica meeting approved the proposal to convene the Third People’s Forum back-to-back with the 10th WCC General Assembly in Busan, South Korea in October 2013. The Busan assembly theme, “God of Life, Lead us to Justice and Peace,” strongly resonates with PfL’s own core advocacies.

The newly adopted By-laws rearticulated a vision of “a transformed world of peace and justice freed from global hegemony” and a mission “that will bring about a new world affirmative of the rich resources of our faiths.”