KAWTHOOLEI

'Kawthoolei' is a Karen word that conveys the sense of an ideal nation- inclusive, just, devoid of evil and oppression, where all of God's creation lives in plurality but in harmony recognising the multidimensional gifts of God to creation.

All of humankind is assured there is a 'Kawthoolei'-a Promised Land awaiting them. It is God's covenant with God's people.

We live in Asia, where we are confronted by a reality that is in contradiction of this promise. Asia is a region where the forces of hate, prejudice, distrust, greed, and exploitation have condemned people in millions upon millions to despair, humiliation, isolation, separateness, uncertainty, indiscriminate bombings of civilian populations by arrogant armies, forced labour demands, limitations of freedom in movement, landmines, and deprivation of multiple kinds. Those who must suffer the consequences are the uprooted of Asia. They have invariably fled violence, racism, or discrimination based on ethnicity, caste, religion, socio-economic status and ideological affiliation.

When God's people are in distress, God is also in distress. When God's people are uprooted, God accompanies them in their desolation and search for 'Kawthoolei'. God hears the cries of the people who are exiled by the designs of human self-indulgent behaviour that is oppressive, exploitative, and geared to self-aggrandisement. God is displaced too but God incarnated hears the cries of the suffering. God dwells among them, offers them hope, gives them courage, and points to them the pathway to liberation.

Compassionate God who shares their pains and sense of exclusion accompanies the uprooted people of Asia. Their circumstances are not easy by any stretch of imagination. The experience of uprootedness is one of innumerable atrocities, human rights violations and abuses. Their lives are in a perpetual state of threat and their security is never guaranteed for the nature of hatred, prejudice and distrust, which prompted and created their plight has not altered. The hostilities have remained and the powerful have displaced those who they see as undesirable to have in their midst.

As the church in Asia, we must take cognisance of Paul's letter to the Galatians 6:9, where he says: Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. This constitutes a challenge for the church in Asia which is summoned to respond with compassion, clarity, vision and courage to the sufferings of the millions of those uprooted people whether they are refugees, migrants, internally displaced people, the victims of faulty and ill-conceived development projects, conflict, discriminatory legislation, or the wrath of nature at the continual exploitation of the earth. We must equally be mindful of the fact that the forces of globalization have also engineered development policies designed to create wealth in the name of prosperity while, in practice, it has only resulted in more poverty for more people with its obvious consequences for the displacement of people from their locations of livelihood.

Yet, the victims of these situations cry not just for help in their immediate environs. They want it to end once and for all. They ask: 'Why God? For how long more?' They want release from fear, hardship not just in some ameliorative sense; important as that is in their dire straits they now are in. They want liberation in its completeness, not just for them but for their oppressors too so that, in the final analysis, they can live together in peaceful, just, and inter-dependent co-existence with and for each other, sharing a common humanity. This is a challenge that we are bound to take note of and respond to. It is not merely a choice we have before us, but an imperative. To this urgent obligation, we commit and pledge ourselves to the newly initiated Asian Ecumenical Process on Life and Peace for Uprooted People.