Note on African statement

No, this isn’t what you think it is.

Rather, I’m drawing attention to the statement from the Anglican Peace and Justice Network.

Note these lines from the recent ACNS email about the communique:

A primary recommendation noted “our firm conviction that the Anglican Communion increase its presence in the regions and countries in conflict, and to be in solidarity with the affected local Anglican provinces and jurisdictions.

“This “increased solidarity” is especially needed, the communiqué says, with the Anglican provinces in the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa.The Great Lakes region includes countries surrounding Lake Kivu, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Victoria. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda have a combined population of 107 million people.

The whole Friedman-style flat earth thing is our reality; it has an enormous effect on our worldwide communions—Anglican and otherwise. What I keep discovering, though, is that I am constantly tripping over my massive ignorance about what has and is going on in other parts of the world.

Case in point—the reference in the above statement to the African Great Lakes region. How many of us know where that is? How many of us know what has happened there over the last few decades? While most of know know about the Rwandan Genocide, how many of us know anything about the Second Congo War, aka the Great War of Africa?

One of the pieces that bothers me here is that this war officially ended in 2003. I was a functioning literate adult the whole time it was going on but had no sense that it was happening.

1 thought on “Note on African statement

  1. bls

    We’re totally insulated here. Babied, really, and fed a steady diet of self-absorbed pablum.

    What really matters is us, first and always, don’t forget.

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