Dr. Ernie Regehr's passion for his peace-building work was shown with tears while accepting the E.H. Johnson award for being “on the cutting edge of mission.” His emotions were evident when he recounted a conversation he had with a sudanese refugee during the north-south civil war — a time when outside aid was so non-existent that the thousands of squatters had no food, not even tea. The young man asked Regehr why no one had stepped in to help. “The desolation haunts me in a more visceral and immediate way than do the scenes of the inhuman physical hardship and deprivation that are strong and present there. The reality of utter abandonment was something that E.H. Johnson knew very well — and he refused to tolerate it.”
The lessons of “Ted” Johnson, a Presbyterian missionary to China known for his compassion for victims of violence and conflict, have imprinted themselves on Regehr's heart. The co-founder and senior policy advisor of Project Ploughshares, a Presbyterian-supported organization devoted to working for peace and justice, was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2003.
Regehr spoke about official indifference and abandonment, and “the crushing defeat of hope” that such stances create. He referred to the UN's Responsibility to Protect policy, created in 2005 as a means of violating state sovereignty in the name of protecting vulnerable people. The policy confirms that primary responsibility lies with the state, but when that fails, the international community has a responsibility to step in — with collective force “should peaceful means be inadequate” — in order to thwart genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity. “The R2P policy is an attempt to set conditions to preclude the indifference of the world to the deliberate use of the suffering of people as a war tactic.”
Regehr applied this mindset to the current conflict in Afghanistan. What has been ignored, he said, are the lessons of peace-building — namely, “to focus on building conditions in which the local population can see evidence of positive change.” That means building local security, providing humanitarian relief as well as education, health care, and communication, disarmament of combatants, and economic development.
He said Canada has a role to play in establishing such peace, and creating an environment that persuades afghans “that their government has the interests of all Afghans at heart.”
“To find hope in the midst of apparently justified despair requires action — the active pursuit of possibility, despite the odds,” said Regehr, in closing. “Or, as Ted Johnson might have put it, serving humanity in concrete action is how the church makes the Gospel of hope known in the world.”
