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The Way Ahead
Mwandikaji K. Mwanafunzi
Peace, Brother Kenyan
Now it will come about that
In the last days
The mountain of the House of the L ord
Will be established as the chief of the mountains
And will be raised above the hills
And all the nations will stream to it.
And many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the L ord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
That He may teach us concerning His ways
And that we may walk in his paths.
For the Law will go forth from Zion
And the word of the L ord from Jerusalem.
And He will judge between the nations,
And will render decisions for many peoples;
And they will hammer their swords into
plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not life up sword against nation,
And never again will they learn war.
− Isaiah 2:2-4 (NASB)
The recent ethnic cleansing in Kenya , in which 350,000 people have been displaced and 1,000 have been killed, painfully reminds us of the need for peace and reconciliation among African peoples.
During colonialism, the British seized huge land tracts for farming in Kenya ’s Rift Valley, the traditional home of the Kalenjin and Masai peoples. After independence in 1963, when much of that land was redistributed to Africans, President Jomo Kenyatta flooded the Rift Valley with Kikuyu, his tribe, rather than returning the land to the Masai and Kalenjin.
Much of the current Kenyan violence involves Kalenjin driving Kikuyu out of the Rift Valley. Thus, December’s stolen election was the spark, not the sole cause, of Kenya ’s recent conflagration. Decades of Kikuyu post colonial dominance at Kalenjin and Luo expense was the kindling. Sins of fathers are visited upon sons through generations, often as reprisal.
African tribal warfare is centuries old. Outsiders exploited it to facilitate the international slave trade and, later, colonialism. Since independence, African in-fighting has repeatedly provided excuses for Europe to send troops back onto the continent, thereby compromising African sovereignty and exposing Africa to potential re-colonization.
Isaiah’s “mountain of the house of the L ord” is called the temple mount today. The Jerusalem temple always had a section for non-Jews, consistent with God’s intent to reveal himself to the world’s people through the people of God.
Many Gentiles did stream to Jerusalem seeking God, recognizing that the God worshipped in the Zion temple was the God of the universe. Some scholars call them “God-seekers”. The Cushite treasury minister whom Philip the deacon/evangelist found reading the Book of Isaiah as he returned from Jerusalem to Africa , was a God-seeker.
Thus, Africa has been exposed to the Prince of Peace since the early Christian era. The Law went forth from Zion to Africa , without European help, at least 1,400 years before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and 1,800 years before Europeans colonized Africa . Christianity is not the white man’s religion. The millenniums long presence of Christianity in Ethiopia is evidence that Christ, not Europe , should be our way to the Father.
The Word is also the path to peace: in Kenya , in Somalia , in Jamaica with its typical election-time violence, in Philadelphia with its high crime rate, wherever black folks are killing each other.
We must rely on God to achieve black peace. It is clear, after centuries of tribal warfare, that we cannot rely solely on ourselves. We need God to judge between the traditional African nations (“tribes”) and render just decisions for the protagonists.
For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
– James 3:16-18 (NASB)
We need to be doers of that word. Let’s make peace. Blessed are the peacemakers. We need to peaceably sow seed to feed ourselves. Brothers, we need those plowshares. Let’s use those machetes for clearing farmland.
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