Below you can find a brief description of what happened during the second WFTL in Nairobi, 2007,  but you can find much more, including photos, if you follow the link to the WFTL website.

General description of the event

Spirituality for another possible World
The 2nd World Forum on Liberation and Theology took place in Nairobi on January 16 to 19, 2007. The first one had been held in Porto Alegre in January of 2005, and its results are published in the book, Teologia para outro mundo possível, ed. by Luiz Carlos Susin, São Paulo: Edições Paulinas, 2006, 485 pp. The 2nd Forum’s theme was “Spirituality for another possible world.” It had 300 participants, most of them from Africa, particularly from Nairobi, followed by Europe, America, Asia and Oceania. Besides the reflections and contents, the mere encounter and exchange of searches and accomplishments on a planetary scale justify the event by themselves. In a time of crisis of paradigms and meta-accounts, experience is erected as a privileged place for rethinking reason and the reasons of existence, the world and faith. The meetings were held at the Carmelite Center, in the surroundings of the capital of Kenya, which is full of contrasts. Just as the first one, the second WFTL took place in the week before the World Social Forum, which reached its seventh edition. All of them were successful.

According to what was to be expected, the African continent provided the Forum’s highlight, not only because most participants and speakers were Africans, but mainly because of its cultural and religious richness and its gigantic socio-economic challenges that are crudely expressed in its challenging reality. Besides the vitality and courage of its people, the misery of a forgotten Africa is an aggressively patent
wound, although it is mitigated by the hope and joy, the friendliness and serenity of the African people. On the one hand, although the incipient public transportation and the expensive private transportation forces Kenyans to walk 10 kilometers daily, on the other hand their solitary and silent walking allows them to process an enviable inner aesthetics, expressed in a determined spirit and in their tall and thin bodies with precise and sculptural traits. Another world, that is necessary and also possible, depends very much on the contribution made by Africa, which is the bearer of the largest reserves of resistance and hope on the planet.

The visit to Kibera and Korogocho  “One enters Kibera with a feeling of pity and leaves with a feeling of admiration” The Forum on Theology and Liberation in Nairobi was opened by an analysis of the global socio-economic reality made by the Belgian sociologist and adviser to the 2nd Vatican Council, François Houtart. In spite of the dramatic character of the prevailing situation, to hear about this sitting on comfortable chairs in a room is very different from seeing with your own eyes the crude reality of those 80% of excluded people to whom Houtart repeatedly referred to. The Nairobi Forum exposed its participants to the shock of this reality. Nairobi has almost 3 million inhabitants. Fifty percent of them live in only 5% of the territory in the slums of Kibera and Korogocho. It is said that 700 thousand people live in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. As orphans of society, they have to make use of their creativity in a situation of informality that is expressed in a countless number of points of sale of food, of hairdressers who increase people’s self-esteem or of carpenters and locksmiths who build a bench, a bed or a chair. After the shock comes the pleasant surprise. Kibera is not only that. Africa is not only a continent that exhibits misery and suffering. In Kibera 24 different nations live together, with their own languages and cultures. Some of them are refugees from neighboring countries. And they keep on coming, from Sudan and Somalia, because there all of them are welcomed and there is a place for everyone. Everything is perplexing, without logic, in a chaos that is creative rather than chaotic. One enters Kibera with a feeling of pity and leaves with a feeling of admiration, for these people activate
one’s feelings of mercy. How can one know from where they draw their joy, their ability to welcome people, their vitality and strength to struggle, their courage and hope against all hope? Here one finds the poor challenging faith, the theologian, theology itself. These are the excluded ones, constituting an ethical call, demanding responsibility, not only the responsibility of other people, but also of each one of us.

Chronicle of the event
Tuesday, January 16

The Forum began with the socio-economic, structural and contextual analysis of global neo-liberalism made by François Houtart. In a brilliant and pedagogical manner, Houtart showed, using graphs, the growing gap between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and the dramatic result concentrated on the majority of the population in the South. Houtart highlighted the agribusiness as the biggest mode of capitalist accumulation and usury practiced today, the privatization of public services and the control of biodiversity. At a second moment, the urgency of a spirituality centered on the protection of life was discussed, as well as on God’s preference for the poor. The theological response to this dramatic situation was developed by three theologians: Tiniyko Malukele, from Africa, who highlighted the contribution of religions, Rohan Silva, from Asia, who stressed the necessary complicity of the

Relatório do II FMTL – Nairobi 2007 11

churches with social movements, and Jon Sobrino, a Spanish-American who reemphasized the centrality of the victims in the experience of faith of the Christian congregations.

Wednesday, January 17

The Forum’s second morning was devoted to the reflection on the social, cultural and
religious reality of Africa. A dialogue between the Ugandan theologian, John Lukwata
and the Kenyan theologian, Philomena Mwaura tried to unveil some non-edifying
aspects of the present socio-religious process in Africa and, on the other hand, to
show the possibilities of overcoming it on the basis of a solid encounter between
Christianity and the autochthonous religions. In the afternoon the participants had the
opportunity to experience a remarkable immersion in the most miserable areas of
Nairobi (see above, “The visit to Kibera and Korogocho”). Four groups of participants
visited the following places: slums of Kibera and Korogocho, orphanage of Cheryl’s
Children Rescue Center, development project of St. Joseph the Worker and Dandora
Dump Site.

Thursday, January 18
The third day was devoted to the workshops and communications offered by
delegations and individual participants. Twenty four workshops took place,
representing the biggest challenges posed to spirituality today. Particularly urgent are
the challenges that come from socio-economic contexts most affected by
globalization, including topics such as housing problems, the struggle against
HIV/AIDS, prostitution and women trafficking, violation of human rights, democracy
and peace. There were also activities related to the theologies of religious pluralism,
the new African theology, the networks for encounters between Christian and Muslim
women, feminist theology, theology from a perspective of gender, the overcoming of
the theology of the empire and forms of fundamentalism.

Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu and Eunice Santana de Vélez, theologian from Costa Rica,
in the closing session of the 2nd WFTL. Frida Kahlo and feminist theology in latin-america: do we need a Diego Rivera? Reprendre la religion à la droite fondamentaliste Formation for justice Forgiveness

Friday, January 19
Two panels took place on the last day: in the morning a panel on “Spirituality for
another possible world through inter-religious dialogue in a perspective of liberation”
and in the afternoon a panel on “Spirituality, diversity and respect.”

Closing
Finally, the closing session paid a homage to the masters, François Houtart and Jon Sobrino for having
put their talent at the service of social transformation and the construction of an image of God that reveals God’s most luminous face from the victims of history. After greetings by Sergio Torres, who is a member of the WFTL’s Organizing Committee, the Forum was concluded by a brilliant and emotional speech by the Anglican archbishop, Desmond Tutu.