Reconciliation is possible – Rev’d Marvia Lawes

The 15th International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival was held from Wednesday, June 21 to Sunday, June 25, under the theme ‘RECONCILIATION: Justice, Healing, Unity’. The main activities took place inside the Asafu Yard at Charles Town in Portland. The event was in essence a celebration of the victory of the Windwards Maroons over the British.

Despite the signing of the treaty, the enslavement of Africans continued on British-owned plantations for another 100 years, and the Church, members of which were holders of enslaved Africans, had a major role to play in the institution of slavery, which has engendered generational trauma.

It was within this context that Reverend Marvia Lawes, public theologian and pastor of the Sligoville circuit of Baptist churches, was invited to speak during the afternoon session of Quao Day on Friday, June 23. In the morning session by the Spanish River, coordinator of the activities, Carol ‘Fofie’ Miller stoutly broached the issue, challenging Reverend Lawes, who was in attendance, about certain aspects of the gospel.

In opening her ‘response’ inside the Asafu Yard, Reverend Lawes said, “The gauntlet was thrown down to say … to say there are a number of atrocities that have been committed over the years, centuries by the Church. Your teachings, in some ways, are still oppressive, how do you reconcile that?”

But this question is also a bone of contention within the Christian Church itself, which has a multiplicity of denominations.

“We are not on the same page, we are not singing the same song”, Reverend Lawes declare.

From a spiritual perspective, there are certain things that will never be resolved. “But does it mean we can’t live in harmony, we can’t live together? I don’t believe so,” she said, in answering herself. From a Christian perspective then, reconciliation is about “who we are, and how we understand ourselves as Christian in the world”. She said it involves restoring harmony and fellowship back into the scheme of things to get to the point of unity, which is “inherent in the word, reconciliation”.

Thus, she is of the view that there cannot be any reconciliation without understanding that justice is important. Justice for all is the basis from which healing will take place. “And when healing takes places, or is in the process of taking place, then we can enjoy true unity,” she argued.

Rev Lawes then went on to discuss three things – discrimination, disempowerment and dispossession – that have contributed to the injustice, pain and disunity, “the breakdown of relationships in the space”.

She said that discrimination has its roots on the plantations where Europeans, including Christians, believed they were better than the people they had enslaved. This bias created tension between them and “the others”, and this notion of “better than” is still rife in institutions, such as the Church and its racist missionary movement, and the negative attitudes towards African religious practices, and must be addressed.

Disempowerment is a direct result of discrimination, she argued. Because African religious practices were “vilified” and “demonised” they became illegal by way of the Obeah Act of 1898, which is “one that continue to challenge so many persons even today”. “There are many individuals who cannot freely express their African religiosity how they wish to do so, because it has been made illegal. The Act, which was originally called the Obeah and Myal Act, she stated, also targeted the Baptist Church, which had elements of myalism.

“So, disempowerment separates and distances from anything that is a source of power that can encourage persons to resistance, that can foster a spirituality of resistance. You need to distance the people from that, and how you do so, you make it illegal for them to practise those expressions of faith, and anything that is going to seek to overthrow the establishment,” Reverend Lawes said, before going on to say that dispossession is taking away from a people that which they are grounded in, their spirituality, the source of their power, etc, thus distancing them from that which will bring them wealth.

Having identified the root causes of the issues, Reverend Lawes passionately delved into three ways in which reconciliation might be achieved. One is openness to truth, receiving and speaking it, preparing to confront it, and speaking truth to power. And importantly, she said, much work has already been done towards attaining reconciliation, and people need to recognise such.

Dialogue, including the admission of the wrongs that have been done historically, and the engagement of the conversation surrounding reparation, which the Church has already started to do, is also a major factor, she also said. Then, we must develop, grow, foster, and promote courage “to take concrete actions on the things we have discovered, uncovered or seen as insights that will help us to go forward”.

“Reconciliation is possible … I believe that we have to confront though, some of those issues that continue to drive a wedge between us – discrimination, disempowerment, dispossession,” Reverend Lawes said.