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Manila Gathering Examines Role of Communication in Community Building, Justice

Episcopal News Service. November 22, 1989 [89244]

Margaret Larom, World Mission Information and Education Officer

Nearly 500 communicators from 80 countries gathered in Manila on October 14 through 19 to focus on the theme, "Communication for Community." At least 18 Anglicans and Episcopalians were there, from nine countries, including three representing the Episcopal Church in the United States.

The event was the first World Communication Congress (WACC), sponsored by the World Association for Christian Communication, an ecumenical organization dedicated to encouraging communication that is participatory and liberating, that creates community, that supports and develops cultures, and that is prophetic.

Speakers from many parts of the globe, engaged in mass-media or grass-roots efforts, challenged the participants to take a second look at the awesome power of communication to develop individuals, communities, and nations -- or destroy them.

The delegates heard from President Corazon Aquino, Cardinal Jaime Sin, and Father James Reuter, SJ, about the pivotal role communication played in the people's revolution in the Philippines in February 1986.

Describing the people's bloodless escape from the oppression of the Marcos regime, Aquino referred to xerography ("the surreptitious photocopying of the truth by those concerned that the truth should out") and radio ("the broadcasters played a key role in mobilizing the people, getting them to stay at their posts, spontaneously organizing them to follow strategies, and keeping their faith alive in the midst of danger"). But, she emphasized, "The revolution also had its seeds in small-group meetings where people exchanged information and where they later discovered other small meetings that sought the information they had. It was a pooling of truths."

President Aquino affirmed the congress theme, "Communication for Community," and added, "Real communication is a two-way process.... True communication necessitates freedom of expression. Where there is suppression, where responses are muzzled by fear, only a monologue by the oppressor can be realized....

"Communication liberates. Add to this the tenet that only truth can stand all tests. The truth liberates when it is communicated....

"Communication develops cultures.... As Thomas Mann said, 'Speech is civilization.... It is silence that isolates."'

The participants heard from many speakers about, a different sort of oppression, in First and Third World alike -- that imposed by the media giants. George Gerbner of the University of Pennsylvania described how television has "commodified" culture, presenting life in salable packages and suppressing ideas that don't fit into the commercial formula. Pauline Webb, former head of the religious broadcasting division of the BBC World Service, expressed concern about how access to transmitters is increasingly controlled by multinational companies, "leaving us all at the mercy of communication cartels that have business, not community, on their minds."

The seven different regions of WACC all had a chance to present locally produced videos or other communication events that highlighted particular issues or challenges in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and the Pacific.

The Rev. David Perry, executive for the Education for Mission and Ministry Unit at the Episcopal Church Center, said that he was "astounded by the variety, depth, and trans-cultural nature" of most of the presentations, including the keynote speeches in plenary sessions.

One person who had "very important things to say," Perry said, was Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro, executive secretary for Women in Church and Society of the Lutheran World Federation, kept her audience spellbound, weaving stories from her childhood in Kenya and testimonies from women in Latin America through passages from Jeremiah and other Old Testament prophets.

For Perry, all the words addressed to "communicators" he applied to "educators." One must heed the call to be a participant, to help make things happen, and not be a passive observer, he said.

Perry was impressed with WACC's willingness to deal with "substantive issues," and saw the congress as part of a continuum that was given impetus at the WCC Assembly in Vancouver and that undoubtedly will be built upon at the JPIC Convocation in Seoul, Korea, and the next WCC Assembly in Canberra, Australia.

For Margaret Larom, world mission information and education officer at the Episcopal Church Center, the messages of the congress were confirmed in visits to an Igorot community in the rice fields of Luzon and to a mission school in the forested mountains of Mindanao.

"Lessons I once had learned, as editor of a daily newspaper in the suburbs of New York and again, though differently, editing a monthly church newspaper in post-Amin Uganda, came back to me. We become immune to the violence, profanity, and pornography, to the commercialism and crassness, of so much of what we call communication here.

"But all of us must be engaged in communication for transformation. We have been taught to be 'objective,' but all too often we use that as an excuse to disengage and stand on the sidelines. We can't afford to be impartial. We can't give up the rules of good journalism, but we must give voice to the poor and others who have no voice," Larom said.

Larom's words were echoed by Nikolina Nilolov, the communications officer who represented Province IX in Manila. "Christian communicators have a responsibility to spread the church's mission through mass communication, giving witness of God's transforming power in all aspects of human life," she said.

An adult literacy program in the Diocese of the Southern Philippines has facilitators in 38 locations teaching people how to read, write, count, weigh, and measure. The implications of this program for the future of these people, and the wisdom and courage of the church in engaging in this work, are immeasurable. "You can't help but see that the ability to communicate is a justice issue," said Larom, "and interfering with it or denying anyone the skills to communicate or access to the means of communication is a fundamental violation of human rights."