South African activist and theologian Allan A. Boesak urged a group of ecumenical church leaders this week to be more outspoken against inequities between the rich and poor, with particular remarks about reconciliation efforts toward Native Hawaiians.
"You can be a lot more bold than I think you are" in redressing the disadvantages Hawaiians have suffered since the overthrow of the monarchy, Boesak said. He also reminded them that Jesus Christ was a "radical reconciler" who confronted the powerful elite of society to obtain justice.
Boesak, former president of the World Alliance of Churches, was the keynote speaker at the 191st annual convention, or ‘aha pae‘aina, of the Hawaii Conference United Church of Christ June 6-8 in Kailua-Kona. He also spoke at public events on Maui on June 15 and in Honolulu on Tuesday at 15 Craigside, a Honolulu retirement complex.
The Rev. Charles Buck, head minister of the statewide UCC office, who invited Boesak, said he has been influenced by the eloquence of the books by the South African, who was in the thick of the apartheid fight since the 1970s with leaders such as Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.
Boesak addressed the uncompleted work of repairing racial injustice in his country, which is the subject of his most recent book, "Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quetism," co-authored with Curtiss Paul DeYoung.
Buck said Boesak might not fully understand the Hawaiian context, "but I realized his experience and his voice could be inspirational to us here in Hawaii, where we have been talking about how to seek reconciliation. Because we understand in the United Church of Christ; we’ve done the apology, we did the redress, but we’re now trying to live the reconciliation, and what does that mean."
Buck said UCC and the U.S. Congress issued an official apology for the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1993, 100 years after it happened.
Boesak said in his speech: "I will not presume to even try to describe to Hawaiians what would be the ultimate sign of reconciliation — the restoration of the monarchy or anything like that. Only the Hawaiians will know will know whether that will help … whether a monarchy today will insure them the justice and the dignity. …
"But I do know, in terms of the churches, we are called to hold up in word and deed and set by example what it means to create a reconciled community. And what I have seen here, purely in documents (from Buck), you have more than we have had in South Africa. The United Church of Christ did say we have done a great wrong to your forebears."
Boesak, the son of former slaves, said the white Dutch Reformed Church never apologized to black South Africans or asked for forgiveness for decades of abuse, that it never instituted or worked toward any systemic justice for black people when the dismantling of apartheid began in 1990.
"We never got rid of, we never dealt with, racism, so now it’s back," he said. "My wife used to say that racism and other sins of apartheid — it’s like we buried them in graves that were too shallow. So they rise up, all these ghosts, and they haunt us every single day. I see the same here. Whereas South Africa is the most unequal society in the world, in the industrial world the U.S. is the most unequal society. Ninety-nine percent to 1 percent is not a metaphor anymore; it’s really true. … It’s the poor who are paying the taxes."
Referring back to the apology and redress to Hawaiians, Boesak said people must be willing to have "difficult, honest, authentic conversations" about the pain Hawaiians have felt since the overthrow, and how subsequent generations have been on the bottom rungs of income and educational achievement, and suffered higher levels of incarceration and health problems.
Boesak said injustices are generational and systemic in that "later generations profit from the injustices of the systems that have been put into place." He has heard young South African white people say, "‘My grandparents voted for apartheid, but I didn’t, so I’m not responsible for apartheid.’ … But you have to ask, Don’t you still benefit from the system?" Before true reconciliation can take place, future generations will have to be guaranteed their rights, he said.
