Everyone is crying out for peace
None is crying out for justice.
With these lyrics from Peter Tosh’s 1977 reggae song “Equal Rights” ringing over the audience, Prof. Verene Shepherd took the stage to reflect on the CWM Assembly sub-theme “Transforming Power.”
Shepherd is the Professor Emerita of History and Gender Studies at The University of the West Indies, Jamaica. She is also the current Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
“Transforming Power” vital pursuing equality, Shepherd said, “because unfortunately Babylon does not want peace or justice.”
Transformative education is practiced pedagogically in ways that help students become sustainable, diverse, conscientious global citizens with the ability to problem-solve complex issues for a more equitable and viable world.
Shepherd explained how the practice has been put in place at The University of the West Indies. “It started as one campus but has now expanded to five campuses across the region,” she said, describing how transformative education has resulted in the psychological rehabilitation of people still traumatized by a 400-year history of slavery and brutality.
“Yes, colonialism has disfigured us, and we need to use all means at our disposal to first rehabilitate ourselves,” said Shepherd.
Transformative education employs “power for” not “power over”—meaning power is grounded in human rights.
Though transformative education, “The University of the West Indies, like many other universities, has managed to demonstrate the importance of a social justice agenda,” said Shepherd.
“The younger generation of scholars have carried on the tradition of research, introducing new topics but always with the goal of keeping a more liberated self in mind,” she said.
Reparation a quest for justice
The University of the West Indies is also focused on reparation, as is a significant portion of CWM’s Onesimus Project, which seeks to address the roots of racialised inequalities and injustices within the CWM family of church and the wider world.
Shepherd cautioned CWM delegates and partners to not imprison themselves in the walls of academia. “Go out to schools, interview the communities, publish books, integrate more with other communities, and link with social advocates,” she urged.
As Shepherd concluded, she asked the audience to join in singing a second reggae song, the 1976 Bob Marley song “War,” which is based on a quote from former Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie.
That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; that until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.
Shepherd urged the CWM delegates and guests to be of good courage in trying to transform power.
“Despite your collective work and successes, the world indeed seems topsy turvy,” she acknowledged. “But we are here in South Africa. We are in a country that shows what courage can do because South Africans stood up to apartheid and challenged injustice and hate.”
