Vol. 23 No. 2, June 2004

In God's Image is an Asian Christian women's effort to provide a forum for expressing our reality, our struggles, our faith reflections and aspirations for change.

Editorial

This edition of In God’s Image is dedicated to the “Voices of the Unheard.” When the Editorial Advisory Committee decided to have this for a theme of an edition, their desire was to give space to the women who have not yet been heard in IGI in particular as well as in society in general. These include the women in Asian countries that we have not heard from as well as women and other groups who have been suppressed or silenced by patriarchal mindset, cultural and religious taboos and other restrictive structures and systems in Asian societies. 

In preparation for this issue, we encouraged some AWRC members and friends from certain countries we have not heard from before to gather these stories of the unheard. We knew that this was going to be a risky and challenging request. It is risky and challenging because English is not the common language of these unheard women, whose stories will have to be translated into English. The difficulty is even greater in places where the women had to verbally tell their stories in their mother tongue because they are not used to writing down their stories even in their own languages. It is also risky and challenging because we know that we have a big responsibility in honoring the stories once they are shared with us. We certainly hope that by sharing these stories through IGI, we can have a better understanding and appreciation of the struggles of women in other parts of Asia. We also hope that by partaking of these stories we will be encouraged to work more closely with women and other groups that have been rendered voiceless in our respective communities. 

Although we could gather only a few stories from the unheard women for this edition, the desire of the Editorial Advisory Committee is to continue to seek out the unheard. Hence, we may have other editions featuring the voices of the unheard in future. 

For this edition, unheard voices include the women of Cambodia who, through their “rivers of life”, shared their stories of pain and struggle as a child, a youth, a woman, a wife, a mother, etc. We are very grateful to Dominica Lagat-Faurillo who became the mouthpiece of the Khmer women. She is now on her second year as accompanier sent by the Christian Conference of Asia to the Khmer women and the Khmer Christian Council. She informed us that many of the women who participated in the three-year AWRC Bible study workshops and Women’s Alternative Leadership for Transformation (WALT) program continue to be involved in activities for the empowerment of Khmer women.

The voice of a Dalit woman from Nepal is a first-hand account of what it means to be rendered voiceless in society simply because of caste. Anita Pariyar shared an informal talk on human rights issues at the Centre for Comparative and Public Law, Faculty of Law, at the University of Hong Kong on March 10, 2004. She gave us permission to include her self-introduction which was shared by email prior to her informal talk. After visiting our AWRC website, she expressed joy at being connected with other women’s groups in Asia. 

I got to meet Anita personally in Kathmandu on April 2, after her return from internship in Hong Kong, and while I was there for a meeting. That brief encounter has inspired me to look into this issue of caste, which is not only prevalent in Hindu communities, but also in some Christian circles. Somehow, caste is understood to be something that one is born into. One thing I found out, however, is that the whole idea of caste came with the Aryan invasion of the Indian sub-continent. It was used as a way of effecting division of labor in order for the community to function properly. I believe that by understanding more about the roots of the caste system, Asian women and men can do something to end the inhuman treatment of certain groups of people resulting from the ideology of casteism, which elevates certain castes and devalues others. 

We have included an article summarizing and excerpting from two reports on the international tribunal that finally heard and honored voices of the surviving ‘comfort women’, the victims of war crimes and sex slavery but whose voices have been unheard for a very time. 

Khin Thida Nyut, a theological student from Myanmar, shares some issues faced by women in the church and society of Myanmar. Moumita Biswas tries to provide a mouthpiece to the unnamed and unheard sisters of Esther in biblical times, finding parallel between their situation and that of Asian women today under globalization. Lung Ngan Ling shares a paper that offers a challenge to traditional theologizing, highlighting a proposal for theologizing by lesbians and gay men. Astrid Lobo Gajiwala’s piece brings a taste of children’s theologizing, something often missed or unrecognized, but which often times reflects profound theological thinking. 

Also included in this edition are some of the often unheard voices with the vision of new ways of being church. Jenny Te Paa, a Maori from Aotearoa New Zealand, shares her vision of being church. Sr. Pauline Chakkalakal shares her critique of present church structures and her vision of participatory structures in the church and formation of the laity. Han, Kuk-Yom brings the oft-unheard voice of the minjung church in Korea, which provides an alternative to traditional church models. 

We also have poems depicting some unheard voices of biblical women and some women of today – by a Catholic sister from Pakistan, Nasreen Daniel, and a male theologian from the Philippines, Salvador Martinez. In the wake of the ongoing war on terror, we have a representative voice of the least heard voices of dissent in the US through two pieces written by Pearl Hoffman. 

Obviously, the voices that are represented here are just a few of the many yet unheard, suppressed, silenced, and ignored voices. While in Nepal for a program with youth, for example, I heard the voice of a 15-year old refugee from Bhutan whose only hope was: “I just want to return to my country.” I soon learned that he is one of the more than 90,000 Bhutanese refugees who are on their tenth year or so of life in the refugee camps in Nepal. Many of these refugees were from the families that used to farm the southern hills and plains of Bhutan. In the early 1990s, when Bhutan’s nationality laws were changed, these southern Bhutanese people, alleged to be of ethnic Nepali Hindu origin, were arbitrarily stripped of their nationality and expelled from Bhutan. There are ongoing efforts to determine these refugees’ nationality status. But questions of nationality and statelessness are so complex, causing so much fear for those who were arbitrarily stripped of their nationality prior to their expulsion. Our short conversation ended with his parting request: “Could you please visit us at the camp to see what it is like?” I found myself choking as I had to say, “I am sorry but I have to go back to Kathmandu for another meeting. Maybe next time...” And now I can still see that deep-set look in his pleading eyes. Since that conversation, I have been reading a bit about Bhutan and the situation of refugees, and praying that somehow there will be a reprieve for all the refugees and the dream of my young friend will come true. I even wished that I could do a bit more than this. 

There are so many unheard voices – getting to listen to them is already one challenge. What to do with these stories is yet another challenge. We hope you would share with us your own experiences of listening to and doing something about such unheard voices in your own contexts. 

Publications Secretary

If articles listed in the table of contents interests you, and you would like to have a copy of this journal, please write to igi@awrc4ct.org.