Christian Peacemaker Teams' important work goes on -Jun 9, 2006

Norman Kember, the 74-year old peace activist whose kidnapping with three colleagues in Baghdad catapulted the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams from obscurity to global media exposure, joined the group’s UK supporters recently – to discuss both his experience and the future work of CPT.

Kember, a retired radiation physicist and college professor, attended the second day of a British Christian Peacemaker Teams gathering for members and supporters held at the informal Just Church and Soul Space centre in multi-religious Bradford, northern England, from 4-5 June 2006.

As the talk begins he good-humouredly remarks that “I went because of the nine incident-free delegations to Iraq since 2002” and he stresses that he continues to support the “important” work of Christian Peacemaker Teams.

CPT volunteers take part in violence reduction activities, accompany civilians in conflict zones, work with local religious groups and NGOs, and engage in human rights monitoring. They are recruited at three levels – delegations (usually a ten-day exposure visit), reservists (short-term workers) and full-time (long-term) members. Kember joined a delegation

The former hostage says that since his release in March 2006, along with Canadians Jim Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, his priority has been to spend time with his wife and family. But he acknowledges the continuing media curiosity, and adds that though this sometimes makes him uncomfortable, he is trying to balance personal needs with responding to widespread interest in Christian peace work.

Kember expresses gratitude and surprise at the degree of support for the kidnapped CPT workers throughout the Islamic world, and especially for the work of Muslim Association of Britain envoy Anas Altikriti.

Describing himself as “a very atypical Christian Peacemaker Teams person”, because he was only in Iraq three days before being taken prisoner by a militant group outside a Sunni mosque, Norman Kember confirms that he has been asked “a thousand times” about allegations of ingratitude towards the soldiers who released three of the four men.

He says the misunderstanding initially arose because his very first response to an immediate media request for a statement, one approved by a diplomat, had simply been to say that he was well and looking forward to being re-united with his family.

He explains: “I had thanked the men when they freed us…. And I had a pleasant journey back on the plane with head of the SAS unit. I had no idea that my very first words would be interpreted this way… for what I had apparently not said.”

Kember continues: “When I arrived in Britain I made a clear statement of thanks, but some people were still unhappy that I also said this did not mean I thought there was a military solution to Iraq’s problems.”

Christian Peacemaker Teams itself made a statement of thanks later on the day of the release, after they had spoken to the men and found out what had happened. But by this time the allegations of ingratitude had been widely circulated, and were stoked by an ill-informed interview the next day with the head of the British Army.

In a talk full of good humour and self-deprecation in spite of his ordeal, Norman Kember described to Christian Peacemaker Teams’ UK supporters his personal journey as a Christian peace activist – beginning with his conscientious objection to national service in 1948.

He has been influenced a great deal, he says, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s powerful book on the implications of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, ‘The Cost of Discipleship’. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian, pastor and teacher who was executed for treason by the Nazis at the end of the Second World War.

“I realised that to call yourself a Christian is setting yourself an impossibly high standard”, he explains – saying that his decision to go to Iraq was partly taken because he felt that in attending demonstrations and writing pamphlets about peace he had “taken the easy path” and needed to explore the practical vocation of peacemaking in the face of conflict.

Kember says that while in Iraq he visited a power station, saw the very meagre conditions of a radiotherapy hospital, and joined a group talking with a local Shia cleric. CPT has sought to encourage disputatious factions to talk with each other, and has also helped set up a Muslim Peacemaker Team.

He notes that since he has returned to Britain he has been introduced to two groups of Iraqis, more than he had managed to meet on the ground before he was snatched from outside a remote mosque, ironically.

Though Christian Peacemaker Teams prepared the visit well in advance, Norman Kember has publicly said that he thinks it was “a mistake” – and the events leading up to the kidnap have already played an influential role in CPT’s discussion about the future of its work in Iraq.

Kember says that UNHCR and Red Cross staff acknowledge the significance of the work of CPT, one of the only groups to operate outside the safe ‘green zone’ in Baghdad as the insurgency and sectarian violence worsened following the 2003 US-led invasion.

He comments that he has spoken to one man, imprisoned by the brutal Saddam Hussein dictatorship, who regretfully told him that life in Iraq is now more dangerous and difficult than ever.

Norman Kember showed the CPT UK group a drawing of the room the men were held in. Bizarrely it featured a ‘hostess trolley’, and appeared to have been a hospitality residence at some point, though it had become run down.

Like Jim Loney recently, he talks of the “small kindnesses” that accompanied routine deprivations and being chained up for 12 hours each day. These included a Christmas cake, toothbrushes (after weeks of not having them), a two-part video of the life of Jesus, and the film Zorro (which he found “very violent”).

Though his reading glasses were taken away from him, Kember, like his compatriots, was given a notebook – and while Loney and Sooden made detailed notes of what happened in captivity, he chose to use a ‘snakes and ladders’ drawing as a coded way of recalling the highs and lows, plus a map of France to recall positive memories from the past.

Speaking of Tom Fox, who was the one of the four CPT volunteers tragically killed – in circumstances which are still not clear – Norman Kember says he thought the kidnappers “never got [understood] him”.

This was perhaps because he was American and also ex-military. Indeed Fox was carrying his old army identity papers when he was kidnapped. That had helped him in the past, “but not now”.

Dr Kember explains that although there were moments when he considered whether he might end his life if he had the chance, he actually retained a belief that he would be freed.

In terms of personal survival, he jokes that “Baptist spirituality, with its [exuberant] songs, isn’t very appropriate for a kidnap situation”, and though the men reflected on the Bible from memory he confesses that as a form of devotion he is “not good at meditation, and [I] didn’t improve during those four months.”

But Kember says he is very moved by the enormous amount of prayer and goodwill that came from those working for his release.

He is now pleased to have been able to write private thank-you notes to the “excellent” diplomatic staff who assisted him – and also the SAS.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers) with support and membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations. Supporting violence-reduction efforts around the world is its mandate.

Article reproduced with the kind permission of Christian Peacemaker Teams