Occasional thoughts (2): communalism

The same book referenced below (Foundations of African Traditional Religion and Worldview, by Ysusfu Turabi) shed light on a conversation with our students.  Today is "visiting day", when parents are encouraged to drop into the school grounds (preferably with food from home) and see their kids.  I got up early to bake cinnamon rolls, boil eggs, and brew chai so that we could attend chapel at CSB and then invite our five boys to a brunch picnic.  After discussing the recent Premier League football standings and news of everyone's family, the topic turned to a long and convoluted story about roll calls, dorm duties, jerry cans, accusations, and the discipline master.  The details are a bit obscure, but the bottom line is that the two boys who are responsible as leaders in their dorms debated quitting that role, because they are blamed from above, and scorned from below.  Sigh.  

Turabi looks at human relationships from an African standpoint on four axes:  harmony (the ultimate value is to live in harmony with the spiritual and physical world, not to obey some transcendent rules of right/wrong), spirit (meaning is found in pragmatic interpretation of spiritual matters), power (seeking survival by manipulating the dynamism of the universe for your own ends), and kinship (pursuing harmony and meaning and power are all done in the context of promoting one's own family/clan).  

So in this context, how do teenagers relate to their dorm mates?  Well, they don't want to create enemies.  This is not a question of truth, or right.  For them it is a question of survival, of staying out of trouble, of keeping harmony in relationship.  I didn't have much to say, other than go to a trusted staff member regularly, don't let things build up, lead by example, and pray.  Perhaps if these kids learn to lead in their dorm, the ripple effect in decades to come will change leadership in Bundibugyo.