Marginalization - A Challenge to Intercultural Living

My Personal Intercultural Living Experience

What I am sharing now with you is my own journey with the Missionaries of Africa during the last seven years, from the perspective of a European in the context of sub-Saharan Africa.

Religious formation in The Missionaries of Africa is demanding and enriching at the same time. During the nine years of formation one will live in at least three different countries, face three different cultures and learn three different languages. That is a real challenge.

I joined the Missionaries of Africa in 1995. My first intercultural experience started during the first cycle of studies in Madrid. We were seven in the community, all from different corners of Spain.

From the very beginning of my formation the importance of community living in our Society was made clear to me. When Cardinal Lavigerie founded our Society to proclaim the Gospel to the peoples of Africa, he wanted community life to be one of its essential characteristics. To learn the local language, to adapt oneself to the local culture and to live in international communities were all a must.

In 1997 I went to Kasama, Northern Zambia for my Spiritual Year (Novitiate). There I had my very first experience of intercultural living. We were thirteen students: three from each of the following: Asia, Europe, East Africa, West Africa, and one from South-America. It was a privilege to share that time together. From the very beginning intercultural living was a liberating experience for me. Any barriers between us came not so much from our different cultures but from our personalities.

From Kasama I moved to Kitwe, in the Zambian Copperbelt, for my two years of pastoral experience. Again it was a very fruitful time. However, community life was marked, not only by cultural differences but also by age. I lived with two confreres, one Canadian, the other Belgian, who were both 35 years older than me. Difficulties came up: we had different ways to understand recreation, different customs of our Christian faith, basically different ways to address life. We managed to survive by playing down our differences. I felt they showed a kind of unconscious indifference towards me. Nevertheless, I learnt a lot from their life experience.

I came to Nairobi for my last stage of formation two and a half years ago. Here I have again lived in an intercultural community with people from 14 different countries.

As a whole, I must say, my intercultural experience is being lived as a gift. I am grateful for the time I spent in formation and for my different companions in community. Their cultural identity has enriched me a lot. However, that is not to say that there have not been difficulties in our intercultural living.

If I have to enumerate briefly some of the hindrances intercultural living brought to my life I would highlight the following:

• The main barrier, as I said, is at the personality level. As far as personal relationships are concerned, in my experience, the character of each community member carries more weight than his cultural background;
• The plurality of languages in the community can make you feel cut off if some members speak in front of you in a language you cannot understand;
• When a particular nation/culture is predominant in the community it can bring divisions;
• In food matters: from time to time you can receive remarks about the food you eat, how much ugali you have taken, why is there food left on your plate…;
• Physical contact is understood differently. For instance, in Kenya, two males walking hand in hand is acceptable, while in my own culture this action will be seen as a sign that they are homosexuals;
• Even between Africans themselves there seems to be a real, but hidden debate going on about the different “ways of being” between West Africans and East Africans;
• I believe all of us are victims of a history of colonization. The experience of our ancestors is present in our unconscious. The consequences of the oppression of the past come out from time to time;
• Occasionally I feel as if I am put into a box just because I am a mzungu. Some people will believe, in ignorance, that I come from a world of securities where suffering doesn't exist, where I will always have a chance to find support;
• The reality of globalisation is diminishing the richness of our cultural differences. At the same time it is affecting the inculturation of our faith. If we are not attentive it may become a barrier to our intercultural living;
• Finally, globalisation is bringing a frightening development: the neglect of the poor and their exclusion from our world. That means the world of the marginalized is not allowed to challenge our intercultural living with the consequence that we lose a real source of growth.

The challenge of marginalization to our intercultural living Now let us reflect about our intercultural living and the reality of the marginalized at the doorsteps of our colleges and our formation houses.

It is good to keep in mind that the vast majority of us are ministering or will minister in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. And this reality has to shape our religious formation, and also our intercultural living.

We have at the doorsteps of our houses the reality of the slums, an inhuman world where 1,5 million Nairobians are forced to survive every single day. Let us remember that in 25 years from now we shall have around 400 million Africans living in slums. I believe that through the events of our times God speaks to us loud and clear.

What really was shocking for me was my first immersion in the multicultural and anti-cultural world of the slums. The world of the marginalized was a challenge to me. I had to learn a different vernacular, the one of the outcast whose peculiar world brings in its wake a different way of thinking, praying, celebrating, understanding life … in other words, a different culture.

The cultural dimension of the slums is very much suppressed on account of the daily struggle for survival. People don't possess the land; they have no tradition, no community support, and the youth are culturally uprooted. Cultural differences are lived as a threat and not as a gift. The slums are a world where any conflict can be understood as an ethnic one.

On the other hand, intercultural living in our community benefits from a harmonious atmosphere, an atmosphere full of securities, very much closed on itself that avoids being challenged by the suffering face of society. This experiential reality we are going through is very unreal if we take into consideration the demands society puts upon us.

After my experience of living in the slums, and listening to the people’s cry, I can say loudly that our version of intercultural living has no credibility for the vast majority of the slum-dwellers. We are not credible precisely because our intercultural gift doesn't bring us closer to them. They feel excluded.

As Aylward Shorter accurately says: “It is a source of sadness and incomprehension to poor African Christians that their Church seems to have no relevance towards their struggle for survival.”1 We live in two very different worlds.

What we need according to John Paul II in Ecclesia in Africa: is "a serious deepening of the faith."2

I believe that religious formation in today's Africa has to attend to the prophetic dimension. We are called to face the demands that prophetic intercultural communities bring about and to reshape our formation style according to those demands.

The following questions must be a constant challenge to our intercultural life:

• What demands does our intercultural life face by being immersed in the middle of marginality?
• What do the poor have to tell us about our intercultural living?
• How can we address the demands of the intercultural chaos of the slums?
• How is intercultural living challenged by a world of survival?
• How can the gift of our intercultural living be put at the disposal of the most marginalized?

I believe that the witness of an intercultural community can play a crucial role in the process of reconciliation among cultures in the slums. The intercultural dimension of our communities must show the real nature of God's Kingdom where all cultures are called to live together in harmony. Our intercultural living is expected to be sign, a witness of the Kingdom. We are challenged to live our intercultural gift in the middle of the cultural chaos of the slums.

Being challenged by them

Let us conclude this reflection with some insights that may help our intercultural living to become a real sign of the Kingdom:

• "Community life can flourish only if it exists for an aim outside itself."4 Our intercultural living will grow if we accept the challenges of the times, if we are able to believe in the evangelising power of the poor and their crucial role in the purification of our culture and our values.
• We urgently need to look at our communities from outside, from the perspective of the most marginalized. Let us remember that they are our judges.
• Working and staying immersed with the most marginalized will minimize our daily intercultural problems as we will tackle our problems from a different perspective and with greater sensitivity. The poor will set the priorities of our intercultural living.
• As Jean Vanier says: "A community becomes truly and radiantly one when all its members have a sense of urgency. There are too many people in the world who have no hope. There are too many cries which go unheard. There are too many people dying in loneliness. It is when the members of a community realise that they are not there simply for themselves or their own sanctification, but to welcome the gift of God, to hasten His Kingdom and to quench the thirst in parched hearts, that they will truly live community. A community must be a light in a world of darkness."3 Our intercultural communities must be placed in today's world of darkness, to be a light of justice, peace and mutual cultural enrichment in the middle of despair.

Finally, let us make it clear that, if during our time of formation we don't have the courage to be disturbed by the marginalized, we must not expect it to happen afterwards. Therefore, our formation programmes must accept the challenge to be open to their world. Our intercultural living must be exposed to those people who struggle to keep their cultural identity in the middle of daily survival.