We concluded our 3-part dialogue series with a look at the G20 theme of “Solidarity”.
Cecil Plaatjies and Horst Kleinschmidt together with Babalwa Ngcongolo and Laurie Gaum lead an engaged audience in a fascinating set of reflections. Compared to the other 2 – Equality and Sustainability – solidarity required a little more from us.
Cecil gave a brief introduction from his Buddhist perspective. He spoke of the connectedness of things, not only spiritually but in fundamentally material terms. All we consume and experience has been as a result of the work of others. But we are disconnected from them, and have no relationship, no solid connection.
He introduced 2 terms, “Itai Doshin“, Japanese for “many in bodies, one in mind”. This means having a common goal. Also, “dependent origination”, that nothing exists in itself. This is a rationale for working together. Compassion (feeling with) is for him not just a sentiment, but a concrete realisation of common suffering. When you suffer, I suffer. We acknowledge these things in a world that is radically disconnected and the goal of our spirituality is reconnecting to this reality.
Horst started on a comparatively more political note. Growing up in Namibia, in fact in a Nazi sympathising home, he made a choice to seek solidarity with the oppressed. This led down a path that involved student activism, danger, arrest and incarceration by the Apartheid State, and exile to Europe in the 1970’s.
From there he headed up the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (IDAF) connecting people via mail to suffering families in South Africa. He worked deeply with the South African Council of Churches and specifically Beyers Naudé, the Afrikaner cleric who opposed Apartheid on principle and based on a deep faith, calling out his people for their complicity with the crime of apartheid.
For Horst, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer stands supreme as an expression of solidarity with the suffering of others saying
“I will entertain the same risk that Jews do.”
For this stand, Bonhoeffer gave his life, being executed by his countrymen only a few weeks before the end of World War 11 in 1945.
Solidarity, for Horst, is not charity. It is not just giving to, but standing with.
One of the key strategies following both Naudé and Bonhoeffer, is to create dissent in the “perpetrator class”, to express radical solidarity outside the bounds of this class, in concrete human relationships with the “denied”. This creates uncertainty in oppressive structures and cultures whose privilege is at the expanse of another’s suffering.
The challenges before us both South African and global, include finding ways for South African Society to press in to the problems of poverty. And critically too, how to stand with those suffering under Israeli and American demagoguery. Horst wants to create a new platform of direct communication with Palestinians (and including Israelis fighting against genocidal Zionism) in order to witness and empathise in a small way with the torments of those societies.
Both Cecil’s and Horst’s perspectives created a deep contemplation and even perhaps, disquiet. The audience, despite participating in small groups of 3, seemed lost for words, but in a good way. It was up to Babalwa to help us through the impasse that had been created.
She spoke clearly without obfuscation, and helped us find a common position that reconciled our own fears, exhaustions and perplexities. It was as if a threshold had needed to be crossed regarding the challenges of the theme; to find a way to stand with one another, with truth, and with resolve against the gathering forces of division, coercion and domination.
Congratulations to all in the CTII, Turquoise Harmony Institute, and all guests for hosting “3 Dialogues”, a timely program of grassroots integrity.
