Walk in their shoes

A South African's legacy and war and more

Francis Wilson once walked 550 miles from Grahamstown (now Makhanda) to Cape Town, South Africa, a grueling trek that was his way of drawing attention to the pain endured by migrant workers. The university professor, a son and grandson of missionaries who founded a Christian newspaper, published his first article on black laborers in South Africa’s gold mines in 1968. He went on to become a leading anti-apartheid activist, and died last week at 82. In his funeral homily on Monday in Cape Town, Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana said:

The[ir] family way of life in all generations has been about thinking ways to apply love practically in the context of human living, be it through anthropology, education, filmmaking, philanthropy, health services or economic policy inputs. For everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; but, says Francis' mother Monica, ‘Love demands hard thinking and practical application.’

Francis Wilson (handout)

Welcome to this Friday, May 6, edition of Globe Trot. Francis Wilson explored deep-level mines and compounds housing up to 90 men in a single dormitory. “You can’t write about South Africa unless you have been down a mine,” he told an interviewer last year. With that, a few deep dives on the week’s news.

Ukraine: Hundreds of civilians remain trapped at the steelworks in Mariupol, where Russia has for weeks carried out a relentless campaign against civilians. Most humanitarian corridors from the southern city have failed to materialize, and civilians await another evacuation convoy today.

Just consider that a G-8 country is using war crimes as a method of warfare.

• As prosecutors begin the work of identifying those responsible for alleged atrocities in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, vital clues indicate that among the military units present during the bloody occupation was an elite paramilitary force that reports to a former bodyguard of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• Russia’s Orthodox Church isn’t helping to mediate abuses. In a thoughtful discussion among John Spencer of the Madison Policy Forum; Jack Detsch, Foreign Policy reporter; and Knox Thames, a visiting expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace and former State Department official in the religious freedom office, Thames was asked if there is any possibility that “shared faith will be an asset in helping Ukrainians to escape?” He said it will play “a critical role in the long term, however, I am down on any hope of the Orthodox church playing a positive role in any kind of deescalation, opening of humanitarian corridors, any kind of peace process.” More here.

Burma (Myanmar):

Airstrikes by Burma’s army displaced at least 12,000 villagers in Karen State in just 3 days time between April 29 and May 1. The photos above, taken by Free Burma Rangers, show families hiding in caves while their houses burn and mortar attacks continue. “This is the heaviest fighting Burma has seen since World War II,” FBR director Dave Eubank told me. Five members of his organization have been killed in the last three months, and Eubank was wounded along with seven others. 

• When Myanmar’s military seized power a year ago, Karen groups were among the first to condemn the coup, and they have provided security and training to protesters and opposition groups.

• Last week a court sentenced the country’s elected civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to five years in prison on corruption charges. Observers say the charges against Suu Kyi, who was arrested the day of the coup, are fabricated.

United States: With the U.S. Supreme Court possibly poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, here’s a map showing abortion laws around the world.

Books: In case you missed it, I talked last week with the editor of a new collection of essays from Chinese house church pastors, Faith in the Wilderness: Words of Exhortation from the Chinese Church. I’m reading also Ali Noorani’s Crossing Borders: The Reconciliation of a Nation of Immigrants.