Provocation

All through the Cannes Grand Prize winning movie "Of God and Men" (Sony Pictures, 2011), I was irritated. 

This brilliant film depicts the life of a French cloister of 8 Cistercian monks in the mountains of Algeria.  It is set in the 1990's when Muslim extremists terrorized the nation with random and brutal acts of violence.   Although fellow Muslims are the targets of such atrocities Algerian government and military officials warn the brothers that they eventually will be victims as well.   They cannot protect them.   The officials urge them to go back to France.  The town’s people ask them to stay.

The monastery had been in its mountain location for over a century.  Tibhirine, a small village, had grown around it.  The friars offer its poor people medical care, clothing and employment.   The monks interact with their neighbors, attend their festivals, speak their language and clearly admire the links between the Islamic faith and their own.   We see scenes of the men at worship, prayer and the communal work of their monastic life.  It is simple, austere and genuine. 

As the violence comes closer and closer to them, the monks hold a series of group discussions leading to their vote whether to stay or leave.    No one seeks martyrdom.  They are afraid.  They love life and each other.  Yet to leave would seem a capitulation to the insanity of the terrorists, the corruption of the government and an abandonment of their neighbors, whom they have loved and served for years.   "What would Jesus do?"   In spite of the risks they decide to stay.

The life and love of this cloistered community makes the tragedy of their situation all the more compelling.  Yet throughout the film I wanted to yell out...."But, you are French!"   The history of oppression during the French colonization of Algeria and the brutal response by the French to the 1960's liberation war that lead to Algerian independence is barely suggested in the film.

For decades African colonies were victims of gross exploitation of labor and raw materials.  The wealth of France, Belgium, Portugal, Great Britain and Germany was built on this exploitation.  French African colonies were notoriously structured by racism and violence.  The poverty, corruption and autocracy found today in the former African colonies were left in wake of colonialism.  As admirable is the sacrifice and compassion of the monks, it seemed naive to the point of arrogance.   These are French men, the remnant and reminder of the roots of colonialism. 

"Isn't their presence and pious insistence a provocation?" I asked my beloved after the credits had finished rolling.  To which she replied instantly, "Is Kitty a provocation?"

Her insight took my breath away and silenced my righteous indignation.  (Not the first time in my 37 years of marriage with this brilliant woman!)

Just a month before we had visited Nicaragua as members of an Assessment Team from our local and regional church looking for opportunities to be in solidarity for future mutual collaboration.  We encountered a number of outstanding non-profit programs supporting rural and community self-development and health care.  

Central America's history of economic, political and military dominance by the United States has been, and can be argued remains, de facto colonialism.   Nicaragua fought a war of liberation against a brutal USA sponsored military dictatorship.  It has survived a USA sponsored decade-long counter revolutionary war in the effort to overthrow Nicaragua's first democratically elected government.

One of the most engaging programs we visited in Nicaragua was Casa Materna, a transition home for poor, rural women with high risk pregnancies.  Working with a network of health educators, rural mid-wives and local government hospitals in a holistic program of material and child health, this Christian based non-profit agency has helped nearly 15,000 women give birth to healthy children in the last twenty years.

One of the founders of Casa Materna is a former Maryknoll Nun named Kitty.  She came from Michigan during the Sandinista revolution in the 1980's to be in solidarity with the Nicaraguan people while her own nation waged a guerilla war against them.  She has never left, giving her life as a medical social worker to the work of serving poor women in the mountains of Nicaragua with extraordinary humility, humor and faith.

Is this good friend, a beloved sister in the faith, a citizen of the USA...a nation that has all but colonized Central America for the last century....is Kitty "a provocation"?

Benjamin Linder, a Jewish volunteer born in California, grew up in Oregon and educated in Washington was killed by a Contra ambush in 1987 while working to install a small hydro-electric generator for a poor village in the Nicaraguan mountains.  Did he provoke his own murder?  No, of course not. 

Held up against the value of human life, political violence needs no excuse.   Neither in the end does it seek justification.  Its declared rationale is hollow at best, hypocritical in the least.  Once unleashed it generates a momentum of its own, sweeping innocents in its path, disregarding if not betraying any possible original intent for good.

Then again, maybe those who "...seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God..." (Micah 6) will always provoke the powerful or those who seek power.  That was certainly true for Jesus of Nazareth, the teacher emulated by the Cistercian monks of Algeria and Kitty of Nicaragua.