1 Introduction
The title is, of course, meant to bring to mind one of the most polarizing global political figures of our generation in a play on the word ‘trump.’1 In many ways Donald Trump has become the poster child for populist leaders everywhere as we see a rise in neoliberal capitalist, fascist-like politics across the globe. Discourse, often fueled by and connected to the religious and fundamentalist right and which excludes the most vulnerable in society such as migrants, people of color, women, and indigenous peoples and ignores the looming climate crisis in favor of extractive neoliberal capitalist motives. Trump’s uncritical support by individuals such as Franklin Graham and James Dobson2—American fundamentalists with widespread evangelical support—and also Brazilian president Bolsanaro’s support by Brazilian Pentecostals—is particularly worrying as we seek to discern the calling of the church in times of polarization.3 At the grassroots level we see the outworking of empire as the increasing marginalization of the most vulnerable and widening divisions between race, culture and religion.
In this article, I firstly seek to explore some of the thinking around the notion of polarization—also with regard to the manner in which media heightens fissures with regard to race, class and religion, followed with a distinctly South African perspective on our current political polarization. I then present the
2 Deep Cleavages
deeply divided societies are societies with deep ethnic, linguistic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing cleavages. Citizens of deeply divided societies are segregated along polarizing lines which reduce interaction between different groups in society… and could result in different segments of society living in parallel spheres, where people are unable to think outside their own group, which could result in alienation and distrust.4
Indeed, the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of a VUCA world often fosters fear on the most primal level and results in individuals and groups aligning themselves with ideological, political or religious positions that most closely affirm their own in order to protect themselves against ‘othered’ ways of being in the world and thus assume what could be termed a false sense of safety.
Citizens need a range of common experiences to develop a broader understanding of others, and sharing common experiences with different others may lead to social consensus. By contrast if people are not exposed to others opinions, they are less likely to be aware of others legitimate rationales and even their own rationales. In addition, if people expose themselves only to similar points of view and ignore contrasting perspectives, they are less likely to be tolerant of challenging viewpoints.10
It is this point that is picked up on later as we explore the notion of conviviality and its possible relevance to ‘trumping’ polarization.
3 The South African Scenario
Apartheid regulated and enforced the psychological segregation of South Africa’s constitutive population groups. Apart from the economic dispossession that coincided with forced removals and the enforcement of pass laws to police geographic segregation, the imposition of these laws also had a profound effect on the psyche of all south Africans, instilling a “toxic understanding” of intergroup relations.14
4 Why the Notion of Conviviality?
In terms of this discourse, why is the notion of conviviality introduced within the context of rising polarization? It is important to note that I work in the field of Theology and Development, or more commonly known as Diaconia within the European context, and within our field this notion has become a helpful heuristic tool. I, therefore, also draw extensively in this piece on the work of Tony Addy, an experienced ecumenical diaconic academic and practitioner, within the context of the Lutheran World Federation and the Eastern European educational institution, Interdiac. The term conviviality of course
Its most immediate roots lie within the context of Spanish history and the word ‘Convivencia,’ in reference to a time when Muslims, Jews and Catholics resided in relative peace on the Iberian Peninsula and the “study of Convivencia has been given impetus by the need to understand how different religious, ethnic and cultural groups come to live peaceably together.”20
Secondly, the term has most popularly been used by Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality. A Croatian-Austrian with both Jewish and Catholic parents, Illich (a priest) trained those from the “global north going to work in Latin America to work with sensitivity and not to impose their values.” His use of the word means “the autonomous and creative relationship between people, people and their environment and with technology. He considered conviviality to be freedom realized in personal independence and as such, an intrinsic ethical value.”21 In this way notions of power and culture and the way they intersect within the global system are explored.
5 Engaging Conviviality in Times of Polarization
In light of what has been discussed, I would like to suggest three possible ways in which this notion could be engaged to assist us to discern the calling of the church in times of polarization and attempt to bring it into conversation with theological reflection and praxis.
5.1 Conviviality as Challenge to Boundary Making
cutting the bonds that connect, taking oneself out of the pattern of interdependence and placing oneself in a position of sovereign independence. The other then emerges either as an enemy that must be pushed away from the self and driven out of its space or as a nonentity—a superfluous being—that can be disregarded and abandoned.25
In what was termed by many as a polarizing engagement during the #Feesmustfall student protests at our university29 (and in the context of our own faculty of theology), is for me an excellent example of what seeking conviviality through dialogue could start as. In a tense, yet open, dialogue with students at our faculty around transformation a student called Jeffery Ngobeni burst out in anger: “we loved white people, but they didn’t love us back.”30 I remember the moment like it was yesterday and while many white people in the room only heard anger—I heard pain, I heard rejection, I heard socio-economic suffering…The core of his pain was at the core of human experience—our need to be loved. He wasn’t asking for the soft version of love. The kind of love offered by our Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s reconciliatory apologies, where white people were called on to apologize for the sins of Apartheid, but not challenged to address the socio-economic injustices that were its fruits. He was getting to the heart of neighborly love in South Africa. He was challenging us:
Addy notes that unlike the term koinonia, which has a possibly closed connotation as it most popularly refers to fellowship within the body of believers, the notion of conviviality asks for more porous boundaries that extends to common action with others in society in order to work for the common good.32 In a recent Masters class with ordained ministers from several denominations, it became clear that one of the reasons why they struggled to engage the issues of community, was that they centered their thinking in terms of church, rather than Kingdom. Some, despite years of theological education and ministry recognized with great dismay that they had in fact equated the Kingdom with the church. The community was seen as “out there” and the church was centered—a problematic ecclesiology which failed to recognize that the Kingdom invites all towards the restorative action of shalom and that the church is the open armed servant of the Kingdom in this response to the world.
5.2 Conviviality as Invitation to Reciprocity and Power Sharing
since the enemy is not humans, but ‘evil,’ any and all means are justified; there is no possibility for error on the side of those who represent goodness. This theological stance harbors within itself another ideological trait: it closes itself off from all self-criticism or correction. It ascribes to itself an attribute only ascribable to God: that of sinlessness.35
We are called to resist these forces of empire that often seek to marginalize the poorest and most vulnerable and claims to be all powerful “based on a false premise that it can save the world through the creation of wealth and prosperity, claiming sovereignty over life and demanding total allegiance, which amounts to idolatry. Like Moloch it demands ‘an endless flow of sacrifices from the poor and creation.’”36
The diaconal praxis of conviviality provides one such way in which we can resist at grassroots as it recognizes the interconnectedness of justice and dignity for all, based upon the understanding that Jesus was in the midst of those who were suffering from injustice and marginalization and indeed challenged the powers that be even unto death. It is also a praxis that upends the way in which power is usually practiced amongst the “least of these.”37 More often than not, in working with marginalized groups such as migrants, asylum seekers, the unemployed, vulnerable women and children and other oppressed groups, there is the tendency to respond with charitable action of the kind that “projectizes” their marginalization and poverty—leading us to once again
move away from simply well-meaning actions for other needy people towards sharing life, based on empathy, reciprocity and presence… seeking conviviality implies that openness to the ‘other’ is a condition for our faithful Christian living as persons or as congregations. The people of God are those who can work with the marginalized other without wanting to dominate.40
This action works against the second aspect of exclusion as identified by Volf: “Second, exclusion can entail erasure of separation, not recognizing the other as someone who in his or her otherness belongs to the pattern of interdependence. The other then emerges as an inferior being who must either be assimilated by being made like the self or subjugated to the self.”41
It recognizes that “we too are needy, with self-sufficiency giving away to solidarity… we are all beggars.”42 This relates to the call for interdependence within the notion of conviviality as conceptualized by Illich and also links to the African notion of Ubuntu—“I am because we are,” muntu ngumuntu ngabantu. My humanity is tied to yours and, therefore, exclusion and inequality is not an option. The oppression of Empire through assimilation and subjugation of those deemed inferior by the system cannot stand where my humanity is bound to the so called other. My wealth and prosperity and that of the earth is bound up in relation to you—and we are called to work together for the good life. Conviviality also calls for interdependent solidarity in standing against the forces of Empire to “stand where God stands” (Belhar Confession, Article 4) “namely against injustice and with the wronged; that in following Christ the church must witness against all the powerful and privileged who selfishly seek
5.3 Conviviality as Life Together
As I wrote this article, our Muslim community was celebrating Eid and I reflected on the notion of hospitality through what we in the Cape call the ‘Boeka table.’ This is a long table often set on the streets of communities and where everyone in the community is invited to break the fast with the Muslim community during the month of Ramadan. An act, which in one community riddled by gangsterism and poverty, was said to bring a cease fire of warring gangs.46 Conviviality as “the sociable pleasure of people coming together and enjoying conversation and discussion in a relaxed manner, not under any constraints sharing a meal. Conviviality, therefore, relates to friendly dealings and also to relationships unconstrained by organizations or technology.”47 In sharing meals and life together, there is also an element of the potential for live giving fun—of sharing cultures through the adventure of food and drink. A foretaste of the feast table set for all. I was particularly encouraged by a young Dutch Reformed Church (DRC)48 Minister in the central city and a minister of the oldest DRC church in South Africa—still for many a symbol of the way
The notion of hospitality is closely tied to that of conviviality, but Addy notes that while “a hospitable attitude may be a precursor to conviviality … it still implies that the one offering hospitality defines the terms of the relationship. If one is a guest one is expected to leave and if one stays and becomes a member of the community, hospitality in its original meaning ends!”51 Addy is, here, possibly referring to the kinds of hospitality that “keep people needy strangers while fostering an illusion of relationship and connection. It both disempowers and domesticates guests while it reinforces the hosts power, control and sense of generosity.”52 Conviviality as life together invites the kind of hospitality that recognises these power dimensions: “if we are hospitable, we can welcome the stranger and maybe learn something, it may change us or not. If we work for conviviality, we do not reckon with the ‘other’ leaving and therefore we have to live together.”53
An initiative in my home city of Cape Town, one of the initiatives that stands out as a local congregation’s engagement in crossing boundaries of power, race and class in a convivial manner has been the St Peters Community Supper. St Peters is an Episcopal Church situated near the inner city, which hosts what they call a community supper each week, which brings together church members and street people from the surrounding areas for a meal of equals. Each week between 80–120 people come together to eat a meal.54 A recent PhD by an Anglican priest on the supper argues that during colonial
In the Eucharist we express gratitude for the food and drink we have to share—and implicitly for the work of those who produced it. But we share equally, which is a powerful symbol contrary to the usual pattern of sharing resources in everyday life. It is not surprising that the Eucharist is the central act of the Christian liturgy, because it makes visible our conviviality with each other and with God in Christ. We recognize that God is present in the world and active with all people and we are invited through the Eucharist to share the liturgy after the liturgy in which we re-enact the symbolism concretely in compassion for the other.59
6 Conclusion
The title of this paper considers the question of whether conviviality can indeed ‘trump’ polarization. The answer to this question is not simple or unnuanced, more especially in light of some of the ‘deep cleavages’ identified in society, but it is hoped that an interpretation of conviviality which challenges exclusion, invites reciprocity and power sharing and seeks the notion of ‘life together’ could go some way towards engaging these divisions. Perhaps because I am a Pentecostal, I would like to end this article by arguing that living in conviviality requires the creativity and empowerment of the Spirit. To live ‘con-vivier’ is not easy—it requires courage to acknowledge our own perspectives as limited, to engage power and to seek the shalom of our world. The challenges of an increasingly VUCA world, in which we see the rise of populism, fear of the ‘other,’ growing climate change due to extractive capitalism and pressing marginalization of the most vulnerable in our society as markers of a polarizing global world perhaps calls to mind the chaos at creation. We as the church will need the power and creativity of the Spirit to hover over us as we seek the fullness of God’s shalom in polarizing times.
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This article was originally presented as a keynote lecture at the International Reformed Theological Institute held at Vrije Universiteit and Protestant Theological University, 4–7 July 2019.
John Fea, “How Evangelical Leaders Surrounded Clinton During Last Presidential Impeachment Process,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/09/27/how-evangelical-leaders-surrounded-clinton-during-last-presidential-impeachment-process/ (accessed March 8, 2020).
Amy Smith and Ryan Lloyd, “Top Pentecostal Leaders Supported the Far Right in Brazil’s Presidential Campaign,” https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2018/10/8/17950304/pentecostals-bolsonaro-brazil (accessed May 4, 2020).
Leo De Klerk, Political Polarisation in post-Apartheid South Africa: A Case Study on Institutional Design, Race and Politics in South Africa from 1994–2016 (Master Thesis: University of Utrecht, 2016), 12.
Shanto Iyengar, Gaurev Sood and Yphtach Lelkes, “Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization,” Public Opinion Quarterly 76:3 (2012), 405–431.
Yonghuan Kim, “Does Disagreement Mitigate Polarisation? How Selective Exposure and Disagreements Affect Political Polarisation,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 92:4 (2015), 915–937, 917.
Ken Wykstra, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege (Illinois: Intervarsity, 2017), 143.
Wykstra, The Myth of Equality, 143.
Kim, “Does Disagreement Mitigate Polarisation,” 916.
Kim, “Does Disagreement Mitigate Polarisation,” 917.
Nico Gouws, “SA Most Unequal Country in World: Poverty Shows Apartheid’s Enduring Legacy,” https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-04-04-poverty-shows-how-apartheid-legacy-endures-in-south-africa (accessed May, 3 2019); Tiaan Meiring, Catherine Kannemeyer and Elanri Potgieter, The Gap between Rich and Poor: South African Society’s Biggest Divide Depends on Where You Think You Fit In (SALDRU: Working Paper Series Number 220, 2018), 5.
Nechama Brodie, “Are White Afrikaners Really Being Killed Like Flies?” https://africacheck.org/reports/are-white-afrikaners-really-being-killed-like-flies/ (accessed May 2, 2019).
Azzarah Karrim, “Mngxitama’s Comments Inciting People to Take Up Arms and Start Killing People Says Afriforums Roets,” https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mngxitamas-comments-inciting-people-to-take-up-arms-and-start-killing-people-says-afriforums-roets-20191113 (accessed May 2, 2019).
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Jakobus Schoeman, “South African Religious Demography: The 2013 General Household Survey,” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 73 (2017), a3837, https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v73i2.3837.
African Christian Democratic Party.
Digital Editors, “South African Election Results,” https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/2019-south-africa-election-results-national-provincial-all-votes/ (accessed June 1, 2019). Cf. Sheldon Morais, “What the Numbers Tell Us About the General Elections,” https://www.news24.com/elections/news/2019-vs-2014-what-the-numbers-tell-us-about-the-general-elections-20190512 (accessed June 1, 2019).
National Action Plan, 38–44.
Tony Addy and Ulla Sirto, “Conviviality as a Vision and Approah for a Diaconal Society,” In International Handbook on Ecumencial Diakonia, eds. Godwin Ampony, Martin Buscher, Beate Hoffmann, Felicite Ngnintedem, Dennis Solon and Dietrich Werner (Oxford: Regnum, 2021), 401.
Addy and Siirto, “Conviviality as a Vision and Approach for a Diaconal Society,” 401. Some scholars have labelled this a somewhat mythical notion in terms of the realities of Spain at the time and claim that the way in which this is often cited is romanticized. It can nevertheless still be used as a way into discussing inter-religious engagement (cf. Aomar Boum, “The Performance of Convivencia: Communities of Tolerance and the Reification of Toleration,” Religion Compass 6:3 (2012), 174–184, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2012.00342.x).
Tony Addy, Seeking Conviviality… The Art and Practice of Living Together: A New Core Concept for Diaconia (Český Těšín: Interdiac, 2017), 7, 8. Cf. Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (London: Marion Boyars, 2009), ch. 2, https://www.panarchy.org/illich/conviviality.html. According Illich: “A convivial society would be the result of social arrangements that guarantee for each member the most ample and free access to the tools of the community and limit this freedom only in favour of another member’s equal freedom. At present people tend to relinquish the task of envisaging the future to a professional élite. They transfer power to politicians who promise to build up the machinery to deliver this future. They accept a growing range of power levels in society when inequality is needed to maintain high outputs. Political institutions themselves become draft mechanisms to press people into complicity with output goals. What is right comes to be subordinated to what is good for institutions. Justice is debased to mean the equal distribution of institutional wares” (https://www.panarchy.org/illich/conviviality.html).
Addy, Seeking Conviviality, 4.
Addy, Seeking Conviviality, 4.
Addy and Siirto, “Conviviality as a Vision and Approach for Diaconal Work in Society,” 401.
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 67.
Tony Addy, “Seeking Conviviality—A New Core Concept for the Diaconal Church,” in The Diaconal Church, eds. Stephanie Dietrich, Kari Karsrud Korslien, Kjell Nordstokke and Knud Jørgensen (Oxford: Regnum Books, 2019), 5.
Addy, “Seeking Conviviality,” 5.
Cf. Emmanuel Levinas, Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, eds. Adriaan Peperzak, Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi (Indiana: Bloomington, 1996), 52–54.
These protests took place at institutions of higher learning across South Africa between 2015–2017 and were a call for greater access to higher education, decolonized curricula and transformation.
The student provided permission for me to use his name and recount this story—my version of the retelling was also discussed with him. It is important to note that he not only gave permission, he asked that I use his name.
See also Robert Vosloo, “Traumatic Memory, Representation and Forgiveness: Some Remarks in Conversation with Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull,” In die Skriflig 46 (2015), 1–7, 3.
Addy, “Seeking Conviviality,” 1.
Alan Boesak, “Theological Reflections of Empire,” in Globalisation: The Political of Empire, Justice and the Life of Faith, eds. Alan Boesak and Len Hansen (Stellenbosch: Sun Media, 2009), 60.
Micheal Gerson, “Franklin Graham Has Played His Ultimate Trump Card,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/franklin-graham-has-played-his-ultimate-trump-card/2019/06/03/22a50b18-862b-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a5e427af6892 (accessed May 2, 2019).
Boesak, Theological Reflections, 60.
Boesak, Theological Reflections, 60. See also Accra Document (paragraph 10).
Addy, Seeking Conviviality, 20.
Nadine Bowers Du Toit, “The Elephant in the Room: The Need to Re-Discover the Intersection between Poverty, Powerlessness and Power in ‘Theology and Development’ Praxis,” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 72 (2016), 1–9 a3459, http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v72i4.3459.
Addy, “Seeking Conviviality—A New Core Concept for the Diaconal Church,” 19.
Addy, “Seeking Conviviality—A New Core Concept for the Diaconal Church,” 19.
Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 67.
Erik Herrmann, “Compassion, Mercy, and Diakonia,” Concordia Journal 37 (2001), 270–2, 272.
Confession of Belhar, 1986, https://kerkargief.co.za/doks/bely/CF_Belhar.pdf.
Simangaliso Khumalo, “Ubuntu as an Asset for the Church in the Context of Migration and Interculturality,” in Pluralisation and Social Change: Dynamics of Lived Religion in South Africa and in Germany, eds. Lars Charbonnier, Johan Cilliers, Mattias Moder, Cas Wepener and Birgit Weyel (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 157–172, 161.
Tony Addy, “Populism, Sustainability and Economics,” paper presented at CEC Peace Conference, Paris September 2019.
Dan Meyer, “Gangs Down Weapons as Thousands Gather to Break Fast in Manenberg,” https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-05-27-gangs-down-weapons-as-thousands-gather-to-break-fast-in-manenberg/ (accessed May 23, 2019).
Addy, Seeking Conviviality, 4.
This denomination is renowned for its support of the Apartheid state during that era.
The Sri Lankan attacks on Christian churches were perpetrated by an extremist Muslim group, while the New Zealand attacks were on a mosque, initiated by a white supremacist.
This has been documented on the minister’s own Facebook page and in the South African Afrikaans press.
Addy, Seeking Conviviality, 19.
Catherine Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 120.
Addy, “Seeking Conviviality—A New Core Concept for the Diaconal Church,” 6.
Benjamin Aldous, Towards an Assessment of Fresh Expressions of Church in ACSA (The Anglican Church of Southern Africa) through an Ethnographic Study of the Community Supper at St Peters Church in Mowbray, Cape Town (PhD in Practical Theology, University of Stellenbosch, 2018), 102.
Aldous, Fresh Expressions of Church, 161.
Aldous, Fresh Expressions of Church, 162.
Aldous, Fresh Expressions of Church, 162.
Aldous, Fresh Expressions of Church, 165.
Addy, Seeking Conviviality, 20.
This was famously quoted by Martin Luther King jnr. with reference to America during the civil rights era. Cf. Eddie van der Borght, “Sunday Morning—The Most Segregated Hour: On Racial Reconciliation as Unfinished Business for Theology in South Africa and Beyond. Inaugural Lecture Delivered upon Accepting the Position of VU University Amsterdam Desmond Tutu Chair Holder in the Areas of Youth, Sports and Reconciliation, at the Faculty of Theology of VU University Amsterdam on 7 October 2009,” https://research.vu.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/2632701/Oratie+Borght.pdf (accessed March 8, 2020).