I’m pleased to introduce today’s guest, Gopar Tapkida, from the Mennonite Central Committee, MCC. But while Ann Graber Hershberger, our last guest, was at HQ in the US, Gopar is MCC’s Representative in Zimbabwe, Africa. Gopar has led interfaith dialogues between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, Chad and Ethiopia.
As a quick review for our listeners, MCC is a global nonprofit organization, focused on providing relief, development and peace in over 50 countries worldwide.
From Warrior to Peace Builder
You can listen to the full conversation by clicking ‘play’ above, or on the following podcast platforms:
The following is a taste of my conversation with Gopar:
Q: Would you begin by telling us a bit about your childhood?
Gopar: My father was an African traditionalist. My mother was a Catholic. And it was during the civil war in Nigeria that I grew up. And I remember very clearly my parents telling us not to pick up anything that looked like a ball in the field because our enemies, in this case were those who are fighting on the other side. That they were flying planes and throwing bombs to kill us. And so I grew up with all that kind of fear.
Q: Would you describe for our listeners the underlying interdependency of economic development and peacebuilding? How are they related to one another?
Gopar: As the saying goes, without development there is no peace and without peace there is no development. But if you ask communities that have experienced significant impact of violence, they will tell you that they choose peace over development. In fact, in some of the communities, they would tell us, “Do not give us development. Just give us peace. Because if you give us development without peace, we will destroy the development.”
Q: Can you say a bit about how you build trust in this context, in multifaith peace work that is so sensitive and so ripe with conflict and long history of conflict? How do you build trust?
Gopar: Very, very difficult and I will say that it is risky at the beginning. We just have to take some risk. But there are two words that are very important. Sincerity and transparency.
When asked if there’s one last thing he’d like our listeners to hear, Gopar says, “Peacebuilding work is a lonely journey. But…actually, somebody is looking at you and down the line, it’s going to bring about the greatest change that you never anticipated. So never give up. Keep going on.”
About Gopar:
Gopar currently serves with his wife Monica as MCC Representatives in Zimbabwe. Before then, her served as the regional peace advisor for MCC Central and West Africa. He has also worked for several years with MCC in a variety of roles. Gopar has taught severally at the Africa Peacebuilding Institute Zambia and South Africa; Great Lakes Peacebuilding Institute in Burundi; Great Lakes Institute Uganda; Jos ECWA Theological Seminary, Nigeria; LAWNA Theological Seminary, Nigeria; Summer Peacebuilding Institute Eastern Mennonite University, USA; and a host of others. Gopar has also done training in other places including camps and workshops in Canada, interfaith dialogues between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, Chad and Ethiopia. He received a Doctorate Degree on transformative approach to interfaith peacebuilding. Masters in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation. Bachelors in Pastoral Theology, and Diploma in Public Administration. Gopar is an excellent public speaker.
Contact Gopar:
Book Mentioned in the Interview:
Nothing Bad Between Us: A Mennonite Missionary’s Daughter Finds Healing in Her Brokenness, by Marlena Fiol, which is now available for pre-order on Amazon.
About Marlena Fiol:
Marlena Fiol, PhD, is a globally recognized author, scholar and speaker. She is a spiritual seeker whose work explores the depths of who we are and what’s possible in our lives. Her significant body of publications on the topic, coupled with her own raw identity-changing experiences, makes her uniquely qualified to write about personal transformational change. She is also a certified tai chi instructor and freelance writer whose most recent work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and newsletters.
Find Marlena Fiol on Social Media:
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Podcast Transcript:
Gopar, welcome. Thank you for joining me today.
Gopar: Thank you so much. I’m happy to join you.
Marlena: You grew up in an interfaith home with an African traditional religion father and a Catholic mother and this was during the 1967 to 1970 civil war in Nigeria. Would you begin by telling us a bit about your childhood?
Gopar: Yes. Thank you so much. Just like you said, I was born into an interfaith family, I would say. My father was an African traditionalist. My mother was a Catholic. Both of them are deceased now. So that is the kind of home that I grew up in. And it was also during the civil war in Nigeria that I grew up. And I remember very clearly my parents telling us not to pick up anything that looked like a ball in the field because our enemies, in this case were those who are fighting on the other side. That they were flying planes and throwing bombs to kill us. And so I grew up with all that kind of fear. And unfortunately for me, all my uncles that went to war, none of them came back alive.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And so I became very, very angry. My plan was that I will join the military when I grew up and fight my enemies. That is basically my background.
Marlena: Yeah, yeah. So you’ve spent in fact your entire adult life in the service of peacebuilding. But before we talk about that, what led to your turnaround from wanting to kill your enemies to being a servant of peace?
Gopar: Yeah. That is a very good question. What happened was that after my primary school I went to a secondary school that was a Christian secondary school. I was fortunately or unfortunately for my call…most of my teachers were MCCS and that’s a teachers abroad program. So after I finished high school, they recommended me for MCC program, the international…used to call it International Visitor Exchange Program. Now it is called International Volunteer Exchange Program. So I attended that program. It was there that I discovered myself because of many youth that were coming from all part of the world and we interacted very friendly and it changed my perception of the world. And I would say the greatest change of all was when I stayed in the home of a Mennonite pastor. So they were my host parents. And that brought a complete transformation in my life. And so when I returned back to Nigeria, I went to the seminary and became a pastor. And then I later on joined and became a peacebuilder.
Marlena: Yeah. So in 1999, you came back to the United States to pursue peace studies at Eastern Mennonite University and you wanted to prepare to address issues relating to religious conflict in Nigeria. When you returned to Nigeria in 2001, riots between Muslims and Christians were tearing the country apart. Would you describe a bit for our listeners that horrific time in your country?
Gopar: Thank you so much. Before we returned to Nigeria in 2001, I was well prepared given the training I received from Eastern Mennonite University. I was well prepared for any conflict. And actually, I was very, very anxious to return back to Nigeria for that. And when we arrived in Nigeria just specifically, there was a violent conflict that happened between Christian and Muslim in Nigeria. We call it September 7, 2001. And that violent conflict was so serious. Many people were killed. And the person who printed our waiting card was actually killed at that particular conflict. And my wife, Monica, she lost three of her cousin brothers in that particular conflict. It was so tense. And given the situation, I described myself as somebody swimming in an ocean not knowing where to go, not knowing how to swim and not knowing how deep the ocean was. And then there was no one swimming alongside with me.
So it was a very difficult situation. And so many people were affected in that particular conflict. So that is the context in which I find myself in 2001 after returning from North America.
Marlena: Yeah. I really appreciate and I know our listeners do as well what you’re saying about how you started out thinking, “I’m prepared. I am ready to do this.” And then feeling like you’re in an ocean swimming by yourself. Yeah. That’s horrible.
Gopar: Yeah.
Marlena: So Mennonite faith explicitly affirms pacifism as central to Christianity. And most of MCC’s work is focused on peacebuilding. I mean, even the relief and humanitarian aid and development, they’re all done in the context of peacebuilding. Gopar, would you describe for our listeners the underlying interdependency of economic development and peacebuilding? How are they related to one another?
Gopar: Thank you so much. It is said that development and peacebuilding are interconnected. As the saying goes, without development there is no peace and without peace there is no development. But if you ask communities that have experienced significant impact of violence, they will tell you that they choose peace over development. In fact, in some of the communities, they would tell us, “Do not give us development. Just give us peace. Because if you give us development without peace, we will destroy the development.” And sure enough, they have stories of farms being destroyed. They have stories of livelihood being destroyed, homes destroyed, schools destroyed, infrastructures destroyed. But they said, “If you give us peace and if we work together, then we will be able to bring this development ourselves.” And we have stories of communities that have been able… that they were fighting, destroyed all of their developmental work that they have labored together in the past but as soon as peace…experienced in that community, then they started building even bridges together, building schools together. And so we considered…yes, economic development and peacebuilding are interconnected but, in some communities, especially those of them that have experienced violent conflict will say, “Give us peace and we will bring development ourselves.”
Marlena: Yeah. And I would say that that’s an important message for the United States at this moment in our history. So thank you for that. What some of our listeners may not know is that Mennonites differ quite widely on what pacifism actually means and what it means to renounce violence. So given that MCC doesn’t have a singular statement about what pacifism means or even how it should be achieved, how does pacifism express itself in your peace initiatives?
Gopar: Great question. You know, a number of Christians’ ethic and morality are universal. For example, when we talk about the life and the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, teachings on nonviolence, turning the other cheek when you are slapped on one cheek, the love of the enemies and the life of Jesus Christ and the practical teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ are universal. Nevertheless, the concept of pacifism is not a common practice with most Christians around the world. In Nigeria for example, this concept is quite foreign, pacifism and many of them will tell you that this would not work in Nigeria. For example, the Christians in Nigeria during some of these conflicts, they would tell you that we have been slapped on both sides of the cheeks, on the left and on the right.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And we do not have the third cheek to turn to. And so this Christian would advocate what they call self-defense. What that means is that if people come in to attack you, the perpetrators of violence come in to attack you, then you…it is okay for a Christian to take a weapon and then you defend yourself. So what we have done in this case is to look at the weaknesses of self-defense and so to look at the method these Christians are trying to promote, look at the practicality. Is it effective? So that we discourage them on that. And so we look at the weaknesses of self-defense. And there are several of them. And now let me just share a few with you. Maybe one or two with you.
Marlena: Yes, please.
Gopar: Is that self-defense depends on the weaknesses of the first attacker. We said if the first attacker attacks you and you survive that attack, then you will be able to defend yourself. But who told you that you will always survive the first attack? And we have stories of homes destroyed, everybody killed and the weapon they have in the house completely destroyed. And so they know that that is a great weakness of self-defense. The second one is that it is a visionless approach. It is not strategic and it is based on negative expectation. And we say as Christian, why would you sit and just wait for a negative thing to happen so that you defend yourself. You have a lot of work to do in terms of trying to bring communities together. And we are not doing that. We’re just waiting. And it also means that we are fighting only the symptoms rather than fighting the root cause of the conflict.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: For example, the perpetrator or the people who are actually the foot soldiers in this violent conflict are young children, young adults. They are people…they are not people that are working. And so where do they get AK-47? Where do they get the weapons that they are using? It means that there are people who are feeding them. And so by you defending yourself, you are only killing these children who are just the symptoms of the conflict.
And so we try to weaken that and they will see reasons. Then we can also bring them back to the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, the nonviolent approach. So in this case we look at the ethic, the Christian ethic and we look at the practicality of what is effective.
Marlena: Yeah, yeah. So pacifism in fact expresses itself in very practical works of service. Yeah. Yeah. Rather than doctrine oriented. Yeah. Gopar, my parents were MCC missionaries in Paraguay, South America for decades which I’ve written about in my new book, “Nothing Bad Between Us: A Mennonite Missionary’s Daughter Finds Healing in Her Brokenness.” My parents provided critical medical services such as leprosy treatment and, in the process, they also attempted to convert people to their Christian beliefs, to proselytize. You’ve written that proselytizing as a part of peacebuilding, although it usually comes from a good place, a loving place, it’s often a very misunderstood activity and usually leads to a painful ending. Why is this so? And can you give us an example?
Gopar: Yeah. You know, evangelism comes from the heart of love. And every religion believes that their own is the only true religion and their own is the best. And so those who are trying to win others to their own faith come from the heart of love because they believe that that’s the best and they don’t want the other person to go to hell.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And that is why everyone is trying to win somebody. So but usually that is misunderstood and is the most misunderstood activity that comes from the heart of love. And so what I have said here in this case is that we need to develop a relationship first of all in order for us to appreciate the sincerity that comes from the heart of each one of us. But in any case, the issue of salvation is an individual decision. And so we cannot stop it. We can’t say, “No, in this case you can’t proselytize, you can’t evangelize.” We can’t do that. If somebody is admired by my way of life and he or she wants to be a Christian because of that, I allow it to happen. It may jeopardize the peacebuilding way, probably. I will look for ways around it but I will not block someone who made a decision about everything because of peacebuilding because we know that that is an individual decision and it is an issue of destiny and we may allow that to happen.
But in any case, all that we try to do is to make sure that we build a relationship so that if I tell somebody that Jesus loves, they know that it is comes from a sincere heart.
Marlena: Yeah. Your emphasis on relationship reminds me of something that you’ve written. You wrote that MCC’s years of experience in peacebuilding in Nigeria taught you that the point of entry for any peace efforts is commitment to relationships, to the people and not a focus on objectives and activities. And I have to tell you that my background is as…I used to be a consultant and professor of strategic management and it was all about objectives. And so this really struck me and I’d love for you to say a bit more about that and maybe if you could describe a peace effort that backfired because of a singular focus on objectives.
Gopar: Yeah. Yeah. Peacebuilding generally…you know, our major focus in peacebuilding is actually on transformation. Especially when we are talking about interfaith peacebuilding, the major focus is on transformation. And that transformation is…it drives out from developing a relationship. So how can we bring about a sustainable change or develop a relationship among people or communities that have witnessed significant violence among themselves? And for me usually there are three things that I look for. Number one is the content of what we present. We need to know our audience. You know, most of the time we develop materials, standardized materials and we assume that what I have here would apply to every situation around the world but that is not the case. Every situation is different. And so we need to look at the content and contextualize that content to meet the need of our target audience which is number one. The second thing that we look at is the formation of the facilitator. You are more than just a facilitator. You are a role model. They are looking up to you. Because in conflict situation, especially serious interfaith violence conflict, it means that many things have failed. Relationship has been destroyed. And so people are looking up to something. And you may be the role model. So you are more than just a facilitator. Don’t come there as an expert trainer and you train and then you move out of that community. No, you come there as their role model. People are reading you more than the course content. Your life outside of the control room of training is very important. How you respond to situations is also very important. In interfaith situation it means that you may be a believer in one of the faiths. So people from across the aisle are watching you and are watching what you say, how you behave and your body languages. So that is also very important.
And the third thing which is important is methodology. What is the approach? It must be vision oriented rather than activities oriented. You know, we are filled with all kinds of activities especially when we want to intervene in a particular situation. We come with a list of activities that we want to carry out. And so we carry out a lot of workshop training and we make people become a professional workshop attendee where that is a single focus. So what I have realized is that it is important for a facilitator to play the role of mentorship and coaching rather than abandoning the people without a follow-up after the training because during that you develop a kind of training that people encumber each other.
I will give you some examples of what have failed. In the past, I didn’t know of these issues of content contextualization and so I just brought in what I learned from Eastern Mennonite University and tried to bombard people with that knowledge without looking at the audience and contextualizing the material. Nothing was wrong with the material I got from Eastern Mennonite University. It was fantastic and they were like the stepping stone for what I was able to do in Nigeria and with Africa and in other parts of Africa. But the place that I failed was not looking at the audience and contextualizing the material. And the second problem I noticed was that I saw myself as just a facilitator who will go in there and facilitate a training without using myself as a role model. And the area I also failed was the methodology. So those are some of the things that we need to pay critical attention. In fact, I have written this quite intensively in my dissertation.
Marlena: Yeah, yeah. You’ve…The whole notion of context is so important and you’ve written that the current crises are products of latent tensions that build up over time and particularly the tensions in Nigeria you’ve written about are the result of three things that you mentioned. Islamic consolidation of power, the legacy of British colonialism and also the history of Christian missions. I think some of our listeners might be surprised that Christian missions are partly to blame for the tensions. Would you say more about that?
Gopar: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Let me just say that the Christian missionaries…there was nothing they did deliberately to create the factors that are driving some conflicts in Nigeria to this day. What happened is that in Nigeria for example, Islam arrived in Nigeria before colonialism. And so Islam was able to capture good part of Nigeria. Northern part of Nigeria and some places in the middle belt of Nigeria. So colonialism, when they arrived, they arrived from the southern part of Nigeria and they moved gradually into the [inaudible 00:21:31] land. But what happened is that when…in the southern part of Nigeria there was no strong religious pack or no strong body to challenge colonialism. And so because of that, they were able to rule the southern part of Nigeria and the middle part of Nigeria directly. What we call direct rule. But when they get to the northern part of Nigeria, Islam has already established a caliphate. And so it was very difficult for them to penetrate and rule them directly. So they have to sign an agreement with the north so that they could rule the north indirectly. So they adopted indirect rule.
But that gave political advantage to Muslim in Nigeria. And I will just leave that there and move to Christianity where you asked your question. When Christianity arrived in Nigeria, Islam had already been there, colonialism had already been there and they came from the southern part. They arrived from the southern part of Nigeria. And so they were able to penetrate areas that were indirectly ruled by colonial masters. But coming to the north the Christianity were not allowed to get…to penetrate the northern part of Nigeria because of the treaty that was signed by the colonial masters and the Muslim. And so unfortunately for the northern part of Nigeria, Christianity came with western education. They came with medical facilities and that give those areas advantage, educational advantage over the northern part of Nigeria. And that is the disparity that was created where you look at…even to this day where you look at the Christian dominated area of Nigeria, they are more advanced educationally. But then they were taught the life of Christianity and that we would only concentrate on going to heaven and not to worry much about politics in the world. But for Muslim, they have learned the politics in Nigeria and so they are…now they are able to control the whole of Nigeria politically. Even to this day. If you read the history of Nigeria, the Islamic…from the northern part of Nigeria even without education have controlled Nigeria to this day. And this disparity are some of the things that are causing conflict in Nigeria to this moment as we talk. So that’s what I make the reference to in my writing.
Marlena: Yeah, yeah. You’ve already talked about how peacebuilding efforts in these multiethnic contexts…it’s by definition highly sensitive and you talk about the importance of relationships in those efforts. Can you say a bit about how you build trust in this context, in multifaith peace work that is so sensitive and so ripe with conflict and long history of conflict? How do you build trust?
Gopar: Very, very difficult and I will say that it is risk-taking at the beginning. We just have to take some risk. But there are two words that are very important. Sincerity and transparency. The first interfaith workshop which I facilitated was in 2002 and they brought in Christians and Muslims, many of who were victims of violent conflict from both sides. Some of them came ready to fight each other, to fight the other side. Because the perception they had was that they were being invited so that they will be converted to the other sect. And it happens that the organizers of that workshop was a Catholic development and peace Caritas which is a Christian organization. And they invited me to be the facilitator which is also a Christian organization. I mean, a Christian person.
Marlena: So let me stop you for a moment. Were you aware before you walked into that meeting, were you aware of what you would be facing?
Gopar: Not exactly but I anticipated it was going to be a difficult meeting but I didn’t know to what extent. And let me…there’s one thing I didn’t tell you. There were some who came to that meeting with weapon to fight. So there is one lady among them who said that when I stood up to make facilitation, she was ready to attack me if I would say anything contrary to her belief. So… and that lady is today one of the major strong pillars of peacebuilders in Nigeria.
But what I said is that sincerity and transparency…as a facilitator, one thing that you need to maintain is you must maintain a strong faith. You need to be trusted by both sides because people want to know who you are. Who is this person? And so let them know you, what faith you belong to. In my case, I was an ordained minister and so I introduced myself as a reverend in that setting so that they know where I’m coming from. Never compromise your faith because we are building trust. So let people know you because if you don’t tell people who you are and you try to compromise your faith, you try to be kind, to be lukewarm, they will be wondering who is this person. Can we trust this person? So it is important that you tell them who you are and what you believe. Talk about that.
This is not a social gathering. It is interfaith. And so come there with your full faith. Don’t leave your faith at home. So we encourage everybody to come with their full faith because it is an interfaith setting. So that is very, very important. The second thing is the process, logistic. Explain the process. Why you do what you do. Especially in terms of venue. Why did you choose that particular venue over the other? Because in this case, you have to choose somewhere to go to so you have to explain the reason. And in terms of sponsorship, who is sponsoring this gathering and what interest do they have. You need to also explain that. So explain the process and why. Then you have to explain the vision. What do we want to achieve? Explain what you want to achieve. So the bottom line is that you have to be sincere and you have to be transparent in all that you do because the goal is you want to build trust. But at the beginning, it’s definitely risk-taking.
Marlena: You know, Gopar, I have to tell you that so much of what you just said reminds me of what another guest in the last season of this podcast was Tom DeWolf and he’s the program manager for Coming To The Table, an organization devoted to peace and restorative justice which was started by both European and African descendants connected by history and legacy of slavery. And you talk about the need for everyone to come to this meeting, to come to the table with your full faith and it so reminds me of what Tom DeWolf said. We come with all of who we are. It’s risky, it’s uncomfortable, it’s messy and it’s how we must show up. And what you’re saying reminds me so much about Tom. He said also in the interview…and I cannot quote him exactly at this moment but he said that the legacy of slavery or the legacy of patriarchy or the legacy of religious intolerance, all of these isms, he said that they are systems of oppression and they grow in the soil of fear. How has fear shown up in the conflicts that you’ve witnessed? What does it look like?
Gopar: Well, for me, the major fear would be you don’t know what is going to happen. The fear of the unknown. You are bringing people together. What if it backfires?
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: So that major fear is there. The fear of not able to achieve the goal which you set is also there. But the participants also come with fear.
Marlena: Yes.
Gopar: You know, many of them represent their community in some way. And so they will…some of them will be seen as betrayer. They are betraying the people because they would think that we have invited them and change their behavior from being an extremist or being a radical. And so they will be seen by their community as people who are betraying them.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And so there is that major fear as well.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And so when we are doing this training, people are afraid. When we get back home, how are we going to be perceived by our own community? So the whole of it is about fear. The fear there is major.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And we try to…that is why I talked earlier about the role of a facilitator is coaching. It is also mentorship which means you accompany them. And find out what is happening with who…when back home. You know, I…yeah, that is the case.
Marlena: Yeah. And I just wanna also emphasize that we’re talking about a long, long history of these conflicts. In Nigeria, the conflicts between Muslims and Christians date back to…what? The 1940s?
Gopar: Yes, 19th century.
Marlena: Yeah. And so this…it seems to me it would raise a well-founded suspicion that it’s futile to attempt to achieve lasting peace. It’s not only fear but it’s a sense of the futility of it all. Right?
Gopar: That is very true. Very, very true.
Marlena: Yeah. Yeah.
Gopar: Very, very true.
Marlena: So hearing another’s experience in the form of stories can be very transformative. And again, Tom DeWolf whom you remind me so much of talked about the importance of stories. Are stories important in your work and why are they a powerful tool for change and for connection?
Gopar: Well, you see, the story of transformation is very encouraging to people because stories are coming from real life of real people. We do have people who may not be very articulate in writing but they can tell stories about what happened to them. And so those kinds of stories will be very transformative. Let me give you one story.
Marlena: Please.
Gopar: I think…Amina Ahmed she has allowed me to tell the story anywhere. Amina Ahmed, she’s a Muslim to this day. She was affected by the conflict that I shared earlier on that happened in Jos in 2001. Her uncle was killed, her brother was killed and their home was destroyed. Amina became very, very angry. Very, very annoyed and she joined an Islamic fundamentalist group to fight Christianity in Nigeria. That was her major goal. And then she came to this…our training and I still recall one of the women were asking about sharing your hope and fears, what do you want to learn and what are some of your fears in this case. And she stood up and said, “I hope that nobody’s going to attempt to convert me to Christianity in this place. And I want to tell you that these Christians have killed and destroyed my family and I hope that nobody is going to attempt to change me to Christianity.”
Anyways, we continued on. Those who knew Amina, they know how sincere she was sharing that story from her heart. But we continued. On the third day of the training, Amina stood up and said, “I would like to forgive all the Christians that participated in killing my uncle, destroying our home, destroying our shop, killing my brother. I will go back home and I will start peacebuilding way.” We thought Amina was just joking. You know, we…all of us were transforming just sitting but not to the extent of Amina. She went back home and sure enough, she started doing peacebuilding work among the fundamentalist Muslim. But instead for them to believe her, they blackmailed her and said that she was a sellout and that we, Christians have given her money. And so she was a teacher in one of the Islamic schools. They terminated her appointment and so she lost her job. She came to my office and said, “Gopar, you know what? They have terminated my job but that will give me more time now to do peace work. Please take me anywhere that you…anywhere you are going for peacebuilding way.”
And so we have sent Amina for training at African Peacebuilding Institute in Zambia. We’ve sent her to Eastern Mennonite University. As we speak today, she is a major peacebuilding practitioner in Jos, a northern part of Nigeria. And she has brought in so many Muslim women and they have created an organization together that are doing peacebuilding work among other things that they are doing. So the story of Amina is so powerful. It’s been told in many places. So you can give training without a story and it will sound like a very, very dry in substance. But when you tell a story of a real life of someone like Amina and many others then it brings the reality, it brings the flavor in what we are doing.
Marlena: Yes. What an inspirational story. That’s wonderful. Gopar, how have globalized religious sentiments like the so-called war on terrorism impacted the peacebuilding efforts in ethnoreligious communities like the ones that you’ve worked in?
Gopar: Yeah. You see, identity conflict generally is what I call is highly, highly contagious. For example, let me use religion as an example. If you take Muslims, Muslim would believe that their brothers and sisters are Muslims in other countries or far away and not the Christian who may be their neighbor very close by. And the same with Christians. So the religions seem to be a major connector. You can call someone that you don’t know who is very far away as your brother or as your sister just for the simple fact that the person belongs to your faith.
And so this war, this so-called war on terrorism has validated hatred against particular religion. And so for example, Muslims will…they will describe this as a hatred against their own religion. And so you find Muslims fighting Christians in Nigeria because America attack Afghanistan and they don’t know anyone in Afghanistan. But then they will attack their own neighbor, Christian in Nigeria because they believe that America is our brother that is a Christian nation and is fighting their own brothers and sisters in Afghanistan. So it validates hatred against a particular religion.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: It also validates the actions of terrorist organization. The terrorists will say, “You see what is happening to us?” And so they will intensify their own actions of terrorism. So it validates that. It also validates terrorist organization…the sympathy that they gain from other people. I call religious conflict as a contagious social disease. And so violent religious conflict somewhere will have the capacity to cause another religious conflict in another location because it is so contagious.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And so that is what I meant by this war. Terrorism has impacted peacebuilding in the…
Marlena: Yeah. And you’ve said it so well. That was a very important point you just made about the contagion. The blind hatred that it creates, yeah. So I wanna talk just a little bit before our time is up, a little bit more about MCC. One of the aspects today that I value highly is that although MCC never hides its identity and its roots as Christian, its commitment is to serve anyone in need, no matter what their faith. Have you experienced pushback from Christians to this broad view of service?
Gopar: Yes. Some Christians, especially the evangelical…I belong to the evangelical, by the way, in Nigeria. I was baptized in an evangelical and I was ordained from an evangelical background. And so coming from that background, the evangelical would see any relationship with anyone who doesn’t belong to the Christian faith as an opportunity to convert that person to Christianity. And so they would be disappointed by the idea that we are doing service and not emphasizing the idea of evangelism. And so…and I have witnessed that push especially from evangelical. And sometimes from some Mennonite too because there are some evangelical Mennonite churches as well. And so there is that push as well.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: But I have come to appreciate the fact that we have been called to serve as Christians and the service in which we give is part of the evangelism work. And that was the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, you know, serving everyone irrespective of your faith, irrespective of who you are to provide services to humanity.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: So for me, I don’t have any internal conflict in terms of what we are doing in MCC.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: But yes, I have come across that push.
Marlena: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand also that currently MCC favors grassroots participation over high powered interventions. Sort of the powerful people swooping in doing some interventions and leaving. Would you give our listeners examples of these two approaches and what the major tradeoffs are between a more grassroots effort and more high-powered intervention?
Gopar: The high-powered intervention. I will come back to that but just to say that you work with the high-powered political leaders, could be religious leaders but these are people that are big opinion leaders in the society. The grassroots are what we call the masses in the society. It is very true that MCC favors the grassroot approach and we call that the bottom up approach.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: And the approach that begins with the top, the big leaders at the top. We call that one the top down approach. But we have favored more of the bottom up approach. Some people have said that it is easier to work with these people and that is the driving force. But for me, I look at it different. Yes, it is easier but there is more to the reason why I believe that the bottom up approach is more effective. You know, in every serious violent conflict the most affected population are the grassroots. So the higher you go up the ladder of the society, the fewer are the people affected by the conflict. And the lower you go, the more are the people affected. And therefore, it makes more sense for those who are more affected to be the architecture of their peacebuilding roadmap…so working with these people is working with the people who are the direct stakeholders of the conflict.
Marlena: Yeah.
Gopar: But more than that, the grassroots are always seen as the troublemakers because they have been affected by the conflict.
Marlena: Yeah. Yeah.
Gopar: And so they want to fight back, to fight for justice, right. But they possess two important characteristics that are needed for transformation. And these are anger and sincerity. One thing you can’t take away from the victims is the sincerity of their anger. It is this sincerity that aids that transformation. You know, when you bring them together and you help them to see reason, they will sincerely be transformed because in many cases, they have been deceived by the power that be. Their identity has been manipulated by the power that be.
And so the…and when they are fighting at the grassroots, they truly believe what they are fighting for. For example, those who are fighting for their faith, they believe a 100% that they are fighting for their faith because they have been told that their faith is at stake. And so when you bring them together, it is that sincerity that you need irrespective of the anger. That anger that you need because that is the driving force that moves forward, that will move the peacebuilding forward. But if you bring the high power, they are often too political and, in some cases, they are fake because they are the manipulators of that conflict. They are not sincere. And sometimes it’s a waste of time and waste of resources. And above all, it is even more expensive to work with these people and you are not even sure if you are going to achieve your goal.
So for me, that is a thing, that’s the reason that I see.
Marlena: Yeah, yeah. I just cannot help but relate what you’re saying to the events in the United States as we are having this conversation and to orient the listeners. We are speaking middle of June in 2020 and your statement about the need to validate the sincerity of their anger is so powerful for our country, for our world at this moment. Yeah. Yeah.
I also wanna touch on MCC, the shift of MCC toward supporting partner led programs rather than doing it all by itself, by itself as an organization. I read…as I was preparing for this conversation, I read somewhere that a local partner described her relationship with MCC this way. And I’m quoting, “If I am the torch, then MCC is the battery. And that this is MCC’s preferred approach to highlight and empower local people in a way that has them be visible and MCC in the background.” And I just wanna say that this has not always been the case. And so I’m wondering whether you could talk to us a bit about the growing pains that you may have witnessed over time as MCC has evolved toward more of a partnership model.
Gopar: MCC is a great organization. MCC is people oriented. It is a listening organization which means we learn rather than coming to tell people what to do. But we listen and learn. It’s a collaborative effort working with partners and communities. MCC is accompanying partners rather than dictating their agenda that needs to be done by partners. Partnership modules also build the capacity of partners for sustainability because MCC can come to your community and MCC can leave any time. But when we talk of sustainability, it means we build the capacity of the local stakeholders so that if and when MCC leaves, then there is an organization or there are people who would be able to carry that vision. And so there are so many advantages to the partnership modules that MCC is doing. But for me personally, I have no growing pain in this shift. However, you know, there are certain pains associated with any change because over the years, MCC was used to doing this more directly, what we call the secondment, sending people from North America to come and work in an organization and implement those projects.
Marlena: Yes.
Gopar: That was the module MCC was doing. But for MCC to move to this, the partnership module, it is very, very possible for people who were used to the secondment module to feel threatened, to feel like MCC is moving away from our core value, something that we value so much. And the major fear was on relationship. How can we build relationship if we work only through partners and we give only grants? How can we build relationships? Those were some of that fear. But MCC was addressing a challenge as well. Now it is more difficult to get volunteers from North America to come and work and stay for a number of years that the people in the past were used to doing. And so by doing the partnership and also opening the room for the secondment because MCC is still doing secondment then I think it addresses an issue, a problem. Generational challenge in which MCC was facing.
Apart from that, another challenge is this new model of partnership calls for professionalization. It means the work has to be professionalized. So some people feel threatened by the idea of professionalization, that it affects relationship now. We are talking about we need to be professional rather than build a relationship. And so that can come across as a red flag for some people.
Marlena: Yes.
Gopar: But I would also say that the way MCC has also designed their approach has also helped because I think MCC is probably one of the easiest organizations to work with, even to give…to receive money and to work with because the grant that MCC give are not rigid. MCC has offices in each country and those offices work with the partners and we also visit the projects and have relationships with the beneficiaries. And so we listen and they are flexible, there are changes. Then we can also address those changes together. And I will say that yes, yeah, there are concerns but actually MCC has worked very, very hard to address those concerns.
Marlena: Yeah. We have on this podcast during this season, we’ve been talking about the savior complex. And that’s the old model. That’s the lone ranger savior swooping in. And so your comment about the need for professionalism is right on because the lone ranger doesn’t need that but once you have a system of partnerships, it becomes essential. That’s great.
So you’ve already mentioned, Gopar, some of the mistakes that you’ve made early on and what you learned from them. Just what have you learned…if you would share, if you’re willing to share a bit, what have you learned about yourself over the course of these decades of peacebuilding service?
Gopar: You know, I mentioned to you earlier on that in one of the conflicts we lost a relative in that conflict. I am also a human being and so there is a tendency for me to be…also to be angry with the situation and to throw away the work of peacebuilding as well. But I think the forces that have brought about my transformation in the first place have been so strong. Because I desired to be in the military initially and to be transformed out of that and then now to become a peacebuilder, it helped me. When I look back, it helped me to be able to move on.
But one major thing that has really, really helped me is the people that I have mentored over the years. There are so many of them that are looking up to me and it helped me to behave myself because if I was just alone, no one is looking at me and I probably…I might likely misbehave. But there are people who are also looking up to me and that is also helping me to maintain my shape, to keep to my shape to what I believe in. And so that has been…for me, that has been a learning curve for me. How do I address my own trauma? I think it’s God obviously. I think my faith, what I believe in. There were times I felt I could be killed any time. Peacebuilding work doesn’t mean that you will be loved by everyone because there are people who are actually generating the violence. They are fueling the violence. And so by you trying to train people to refuse those violences, you become an enemy. There were times I thought I would be killed any moment. But I have received assurances from God that I am protected and I am safe. And it is the work of God. It’s not my work. It’s the work of God. And that has actually kept me going.
Marlena: Yeah. So Gopar, if there were one last thing…and you may have just said that one last thing just now but if there’s something else that you would like our listeners to hear that we haven’t covered, what would that be?
Gopar: I think we have covered a lot. I will just say that the peacebuilding work is a lonely journey. It’s a lonely business. But I will say that you are not alone. If you look around you, you will see so many people around you. It is not a popular position but it is the work that we have been called into. Looking back to the situation in Nigeria, the Christians who said, “We must use self-defense.” Many of them now actually are using nonviolence approach to peacebuilding. Seminaries that rejected me when I first wanted to teach free of charge, to teach peacebuilding free of charge, now are teaching peacebuilding in those seminaries. So it means that the work that you start no matter the challenge…actually, somebody is looking at you and down the line, it’s going to bring about the greatest change that you never anticipated. So never give up. Keep it on.
Marlena: I love that. That’s wonderful. This has been a rich and meaningful conversation. Gopar, thank you so much for your peacebuilding work and for taking the time to speak with me.
Gopar: Thank you so much as well, Marlena. It has been wonderful to be together with you through this medium.
Gopar provides a rich perspective on trust, peace building, and evangelism.