Leonard Chrysostomos Epafras
United Evangelical Mission (UEM) organized the Asian chapter of the fourth round of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Conference (JCM) in Manila on February 5-12, 2024. The initiative commenced 51 years ago in Germany as the immediate response to the post-Holocaust and post-World War II circumstances. Twenty scholars, religious leaders, and activists of refugee services, including Christians, Muslims, and Jews from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Palestine, convened and discussed the meaning of home and displacement. The conference was organized with the local committee from the United Churches of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP). Dr. Leonard Chrysostomos Epafras from the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), Universitas Gadjah Mada Graduate School, was one of the steering committee members and resource persons.
The conference theme is “Understanding and Standing Up for the Displaced.” The keyword “displaced” unleashed the complex history of human attachment/detachment to space, interspace movement, migration, interpersonal/intergroup interaction, frontier experience, and the longing for homecoming. Since the advent of human civilization, our humanity has been shaped by voluntary or involuntary movements from one place to another, basically a “displacement” experience. Such movements outgrew many pull and push factors, such as scarcity of resources, environmental degradation, war, famine, socio-political and economic situations, and many others.
While people’s spatial movements were primarily organic and evolving, some resulted from involuntary conditions, producing refugees and forming new socio-cultural realities. Not long ago was the presence of Vietnamese boat people appeared in the Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesian waters. The latest were Rohingya in Aceh and Palestinian refugees. To them, the participants sensed the ultimate condition of the “displaced” with all the consequences: loss of citizenship, discrimination, resource dependency, insecurity, and many other ills of the people without protection.
To respond to the above considerations, the conference commenced with a keynote address by UCCP and UEM, laying down the principal positions of the two organizations and why both are active in dealing with the issues of displacement. A session followed it up on the perception of other religions, which included sharing prejudices, and each of the representations responded genuinely regardless of whether the prejudices were negative. Activities include mindful walking, lectures, discussions, and synagogue and mosque exposure. Mindful walking each morning in the neighborhood allowed the participants to grind the questions of “What is the meaning of home?” and “What does it mean to come home?” into the deep of the urban lives manifested among the ordinary people in the street, the urban poor and people experienced homelessness. Discussions were touched upon challenging issues such as Rohingya in Aceh, Gazan Palestinians, land conversion and developmental aggression in many areas in the Philippines, climate change’s impact on displacement, and the displacement of Dayaks and the locals surrounding the establishment of the new capital, the Nusantara Capital City (IKN, Ibukota Nusantara). Unfortunately, the Palestinian refugees were unable to complete the entire session. The program concluded with a follow-up plan and commitment.
