Interview with Allison Tanner: Kairos Palestine Conference
From November 14-16, Kairos Palestine, a Palestinian Christian coalition movement, hosted their 16th anniversary conference in Bethlehem. In 2009, they published their first document as a call to action to the international church to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. This year’s conference marked the publication of a new document, developing and expanding on the original one, rooted in a clear analysis of the oppressive dynamics at play and a theology of justice and righteousness. Representatives of Apartheid-Free Communities were present at the conference, including Apartheid-Free National Organizer Allison Tanner. We sat down with Allison for a conversation about Kairos Palestine, her trip to the West Bank, and conversations with global Christian partners who were present in solidarity.
You recently attended Kairos Palestine’s 16th anniversary conference in Bethlehem. Can you tell us about Kairos Palestine and about this year’s conference for those who might not be familiar?
Kairos Palestine began in 2009 when the Palestinian Christian community wrote a modern-day epistle, to use language from the New Testament. That first document was a letter to the international church asking for their support and saying, essentially, if we believe in the God of freedom, the God of liberation, then we need the international church to do their part in helping bring about our freedom and liberation. The Kairos document is based on the Kairos South Africa letter and Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.
This year, Kairos Palestine published a second document, “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide.” What should Apartheid-Free Communities know about this document, and how can it contribute to their efforts?
The new document was published to reiterate the call, because the situation on the ground has changed drastically. In many ways, it pushes churches to take responsibility in this moment, and lists out the church’s specific responsibilities. For example, clearly naming the oppression of Palestinians as apartheid, settler colonialism, and genocide, in those terms. That’s one way it connects with the work of Apartheid-Free Communities.
In fact, there was a very clear affirmation of the work of Apartheid-Free churches in that gathering. At the Kairos conference, there were representatives of the international Christian community from over 23 countries, coming to receive this letter and to take it back to our communities. After the new Kairos document was presented (which was a historic event, the church universal coming together to receive this powerful and prophetic message), there was a day and a half in which the international community [Global Kairos for Justice] strategized how we would take this letter back to our different communities. That was where the work of Apartheid-Free churches was affirmed, especially on a global level: Communities taking the pledge back to their congregations is one powerful way that we can live out this new call for action on behalf of the churches.
What did you learn or discuss at the conference that could inform the way we read the second Kairos Palestine document?
Global Kairos for Justice broke into two groups. One focused on advocacy and strategizing what campaigns might look like, both within our own regional context and internationally. We talked about mobilizing the global Christian community, and using our theology of a God of justice, a God of liberation, to push churches to do more for Palestine. The other group focused on supporting theological framing around the need to take action.
I heard one especially powerful story when I happened to sit at breakfast with a South African man who had been part of the writing of the Kairos South Africa document. He argued that Kairos Palestine was a much stronger document, of a whole different caliber. One of the main theological underpinnings of Kairos Palestine is that love must be the logic through which we resist oppression and injustice. Apparently that emphasis on love (a love of enemy, a love that can transform oppressed and oppressor into equals that can sit at the same table) wasn’t articulated in the South African document. This man shared that, while writing the first Kairos Palestine document, the gathered Palestinian community got to a poignant moment where someone said “What about love? Are we going to include love in this document?” And there was a silence. And then a voice said, “Of course. We have to.” And then they developed this deep theological framing: What does love of enemy look like in this context? How can you demand your own human dignity without demonizing those who seek to take it away from you? That type of theological richness and conversation is an example of how these sacred faith teachings need to manifest through this document that demands freedom, justice, and equality for all people.
As our readers may know, in the past two years Palestinians in the West Bank have faced record levels of displacement, demolitions and attacks from Israeli settlers and military. What was it like being in the West Bank this year compared to previous years?
I spent eight days in the West Bank. The first half was visiting small villages around Bethlehem, and visiting Ramallah and Jerusalem. Of course, every visit to the West Bank, I can see the deterioration of the situation on the ground. I can see people I care about experiencing real fear, knowing that their homes, their communities, and their land are being destroyed, or will be taken from them in the near future. It’s an escalation and intensification of the horrors that have taken place for decades. Of course, folks in the West Bank say very clearly that there is nothing new about the tactics happening right now, but those tactics have been intensified and amplified. Where there were home demolitions that have taken place for decades, there are now whole villages being threatened. People who have been fighting for their homes and villages for decades can see that within the next year or two, they will not be able to live in their villages anymore. That increased intensity is hard to watch, but visible everywhere. That was heavy.
On the trip, I was able to talk with some high school students in Ramallah. They shared with me the feelings they carry in their bodies at all times: The threat of being harassed, of being imprisoned (they’ve had classmates imprisoned). How they’ll lose their phones if the Telegram app is found on them. One student’s father is a journalist, and every single day she carries the fear that he won’t come home. I felt the weight of growing up in this oppressive environment, and of that oppression intensifying just as you’re coming of age, how you wrap your mind around that and what it must feel like in your body.
But at the same time, at the Kairos gathering, there was this deep feeling of empowerment: That we know what we are called to do, that we have a deep spiritual grounding that will help us do that work, and that we have a broad Christian community that can do so much more. That it is our job to go back and empower them to do more. In that way, the week was a juxtaposition of deep discouragement alongside the empowerment to do everything we can in this moment.
What was the most meaningful moment from your trip?
While connecting with the international community, we talked about how different levels of injustice manifest in our different communities. One year, I was with folks from India and Sri Lanka overlooking Aida Refugee Camp. We were talking about the refugees and transient or homeless populations in our different contexts, and the ways in which Palestine brings us together, and helps us see how these atrocities are lived out on a global level. On this year’s trip, I talked to a man from India, and he shared his experiences in Palestine with me. He said that there was a time when the injustices we are witnessing in Palestine didn’t exist, in the not-too-distant past, and he could see on the horizon that there will be a time when this injustice will be overcome. And yet he said that for his people, he sees centuries of injustice, and he doesn’t see that changing any time soon. The weight of hearing him compare and contrast these levels of inhumanity was deeply humbling.
Is there anything else you would like to share about the trip, the West Bank, or Kairos Palestine?
On this trip, I toured the settlements surrounding Jerusalem. I had never really visited the settlements before, but this tour showed how the settlements cut Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem off from Bethlehem and Ramallah, just like they do every other network of Palestinian communities. We went to an “economic settlement” that was ‘well-developed’ and ‘desired for economic progress.’ They had a mall there, and it was so cosmopolitan, like a mall I would experience in San Francisco. A few days before, I had watched all this devastation, and the question just kept running through my mind: “How can all this suffering exist? Why does it exist?” So then when I walked into that mall, I had a lightbulb moment: This is why. This suffering exists so that settlers can go to malls, live their consumer lives, and disregard the pain all around them. The contrast of that was so jarring that it set my head spinning. We went to these settlements to see this contrast: In the midst of a genocide, these people are just living their lives as if nothing is going on. These people were oblivious of or actively ignoring the pain and suffering all around them. Now every time I go into a mall in my own context, I’m wondering how disconnected it is from the suffering of the communities all around me who have been harmed by capitalist and settler colonial practices, who have been impoverished so that others can gain capital.
Many of us have experienced that disconnect. It speaks to what it means to live in a settler society: Living a consumerist fantasy alongside the lived reality of those who are disenfranchised to create that fantasy.
It also speaks to the work that it takes to separate the two so that we can’t see those connections. But making those connections is what our work is all about.