Jane Fonda: Why women are at the forefront of climate solutions |

Jane Fonda: Why women are at the forefront of climate solutions

Sep 8, 2020 / Jane Fonda

Franziska Barczyk

In October 2019, Jane Fonda launched “Fire Drill Fridays,” weekly protests centered on climate change and calling for an end to new fossil fuels, a just transition to a renewable economy, and demands that Congress pass the Green New Deal. The protests began in Washington DC, and in February 2020, Fonda joined forces with Greenpeace and other allies and the movement shifted to California and to communities across the country.

For thousands of years, a patriarchal paradigm has ruled. It’s the paradigm that has led to the climate crisis, an extractive, use-up-and-discard mentality that treats workers, those who are different, women and the natural world as commodities, at men’s disposal, for their enjoyment and their profit. Around the world, in countries such as Hungary, Brazil, India, the UK, Turkey, the Philippines, Russia and the US, we can see the apotheosis of this toxic mind-set in the nationalistic tyrants, strongmen and would-be dictators.

Under the millennial-old patriarchal rule, the feminine principle has been not destroyed but suppressed. The spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, in his book A New Earth, writes that this has “enabled the ego to gain absolute supremacy in the collective human psyche.”

He adds that it is harder for the ego to take root in the female than in the male because women are “more in touch with the inner body and the intelligence of the organism where the intuitive faculties originate,” have “greater openness and sensitivity toward other lifeforms,” and are “more attuned to the natural world.”

Men fear that becoming “we” will erase the “I,” the sense of self. For most women …  our “we” has been our superpower.

I like to believe that this is true, but I know for sure that women have been socialized to be caregivers, more attentive to others. Perhaps this has something to do with why women tend to be less susceptible to the disease of individualism, are more conscious of our physical and spiritual links to the natural world, of our interdependence, of the importance of the well-being of the community at large, not just our small personal circle.

Men fear that becoming “we” will erase the “I,” the sense of self. For most women, our “I” has always been a little porous, whereas our “we” has been our superpower.

I think some of this goes back to our hunter-gatherer past. Men went out to try to spear animals and bring back meat. Anthropologists have written that on the occasion the hunter did bring back meat, which was often not the case, he would give it to his family or use it to curry favor with tribal leaders. It was the reliable food — tubers, nuts and berries — gathered by women, young and old, that made up the family’s daily nutrients.

And if a woman’s own family didn’t need the food, she would distribute it to other tribal members. And if the younger women were pregnant or nursing, older women did the foraging. Grandmothers would also help with birthing, care for newborns, and were indispensable in advising the younger women about where the best water was, the juiciest berries, the poisonous insects. Survival meant respecting the interconnectedness between women. They truly depended on each other, and I believe that is baked into our DNA.

This is of utmost importance now because the climate crisis we face is a collective crisis that requires collective, not individual, solutions. And the challenge is that for the last 40 years the idea of the collective, the public sphere, the commons, has been deliberately eroded and individualism has risen to take its place.

But individually we are powerless to make the needed systemic change. That’s why individualism works to the advantage of the relatively few who wield power, and that’s why we need to set aside our differences, unify around our common needs, because together is how we gain power.

According to Anthony Leiserowitz, a senior research scientist at Yale who studies public perceptions of climate change, the three countries where people are the least aware of the climate crisis are the US, Canada, and the UK. Why? Because, Leiserowitz says, those are the countries where individualism has taken root the most, especially in the last thirty years, fanned by conservative news outlets.

“Women are not better people than men. We just don’t have our masculinity to prove,” says Gloria Steinem.

But even in those countries, as everywhere on the planet, it’s women’s sense of our interdependence that helps explain why we are the ones who save not just our own families but also our communities during extreme weather events and what allows women to rise in greater numbers to face this collective climate emergency.

As Gloria Steinem says, “Women are not better people than men. We just don’t have our masculinity to prove.”

These are some of the reasons that women are at the forefront of climate solutions. But in many ways, they also bear the brunt of climate change. In developing countries, it’s women who are responsible for producing 40 percent to 80 percent of food. They plant the crops, harvest them, fetch the water and chop the wood, the things that allow their families to survive. And because of climate change, when crops are failing and water is scarce, women sometimes have to walk for days and still may not find these lifesaving resources. Climate change makes their job much harder.

Women also make up 80 percent of climate refugees — people who are displaced because of extreme weather events — and they are among the last to be rescued from those crises. Studies have shown that women are 14 times more likely to die in a climate-related disaster than men.

What’s more, women carry more body fat than men do. It is in that fat that a disproportionate “body burden” of fossil-fuel-based pollutants, pesticides and chemicals is sequestered that can cause health issues such as cancers and can be spread to children in utero or through breast milk.

Here’s something that you may not know that I learned that week as I studied women and climate change for our Fire Drill Friday. Reports show that there are significant increases in rape, sexual assault and domestic violence in places experiencing climate- related disasters like floods and earthquakes or environmental destruction like mining, fracking, or drilling. When oil pipelines and fracking sites are under construction, it brings an influx of thousands of men into rural areas and on indigenous reservations where they are housed in “man camps.”

In the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, and in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota, there’s been a surge in sexual violence against Indigenous women. North Dakota has at least 125 cases of missing native women, although the numbers are likely higher because records are not officially kept. Patina Park, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, said, “We can’t be surprised that people who would rape our land are also raping our people.

We are never going to solve climate change — or a whole host of related challenges — without women in leadership positions. The more we have women leading the climate movement, the stronger our movement will be. Countries where women lead embrace international climate treaties more often than those led by men. Paul Hawken’s “Drawdown” study, which examined the top ways to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, found that educating girls and empowering women was one of the most effective climate solutions.

So, for those who identify as a woman, start by finding a community that can support (and hopefully join) you as you develop your climate activism, especially if you find yourself pigeonholed into more traditional roles.

Those who do not identify as a woman, take steps to support the women-identified people in your lives. Take on your fair share of the housework and child rearing at home and logistical and administrative work in the office, freeing women to lead. If you are part of a climate campaign or organization, make sure you’re not unconsciously limiting the participation of women. If there’s not a good gender balance, find out what you can do to make this work more welcoming for women. If you want to advance equal pay and equal rights, the American Association of University Women is a good place to start.

The vast majority of the world’s farmers are women, and women farmers have proven to be better environmental stewards of the land.

Whether women have a choice about having and raising children is critical for climate justice. Educating and empowering women lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies and more opportunities for women. The climate crisis disproportionately harms poor women and women of color, who are also the most burdened with child rearing and other forms of care work. Learn more about reproductive justice and gender justice by joining organizations like SisterSong, Forward Together, National Domestic Workers Alliance and One Billion Rising.

The vast majority of the world’s farmers are women, and women farmers have proven to be better environmental stewards of the land. We have seen this in the Chipko, or “tree hugger,” movement started by Indian women farmers in the 1970s and the green belt movement that planted thousands of trees in Kenya, founded by Wangari Maathai, the environmental activist and mother of three who won the Nobel Peace Prize for this work in 2004.

Organizations like Food First and La Via Campesina work to protect women’s rights to their land, including economic and civil rights, and safeguard them from sexual assault and violence. Educate yourself about the ongoing crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women, a disproportionate number of whom have disappeared near fossil-fuel extraction and fracking sites across North America. Raise awareness of this tragedy by supporting organizations like the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Support young women-led organizations like Greta Thunberg’s School Strike for Climate, Future Coalition and Fridays for Future. Funnel resources into grassroots, women-led groups that focus on climate and gender equity and offer to get involved. Some of my favorites are Women’s Earth Alliance, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, African Women Unite Against Destructive Resource Extraction (WoMin), and Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO).

Winona LaDuke’s Hemp & Heritage Farm is another Indigenous-women-led organization to support. This longtime environmental activist, who joined Fire Drill Fridays in DC, is resisting fossil fuel pipelines and also growing hemp for renewable energy. Check out her innovative work.

Elect more women to public office and other leadership positions, and make sure women are at the table when climate crisis solutions and environmental justice are being discussed, such as the Green New Deal. (There’s even a Feminist Agenda for a Green Deal, developed by women leaders around the world.) Be sure the women you’re electing are committed to climate, social and environmental justice. The British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is one of the worst for the environment and women’s, workers’ and immigrants’ rights. Do your homework, and make sure women leaders know you’re counting on them to do right by their gender, as well as the whole planet.

You can also encourage women to vote. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has documented that women are more concerned about climate and more supportive of government action than men. So let’s get women to the polls and vote for climate leaders. And let’s work to make sure there are climate-committed women running for election up and down every ticket around the world. Groups like EMILY’s List have helped make this happen when it comes to reproductive choice; organizations like the Women’s March are focusing on climate and reproductive justice in 2020. Join in solidarity with your sisters around the globe.

Excerpted from the new book What Can I Do?: My Path from Climate Despair to Action by Jane Fonda. Reprinted with permission from Penguin Press, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. © 2020 Jane Fonda.

Watch Jane Fonda’s conversation at TEDWomen now:

[공공학-공공단상] 나를 다시 보기, 다시 개벽 < 칼럼 < 기사본문 - 더퍼블릭뉴스

[공공학-공공단상] 나를 다시 보기, 다시 개벽 < 칼럼 < 기사본문 - 더퍼블릭뉴스

[공공학-공공단상] 나를 다시 보기, 다시 개벽

기자명 이효정 경기평화교육센터 상임교육위원
입력 2019.08.14
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공간의 무한의 길을 걷는 우주를 한 불사조에 비 할진대, 우주 자체나 한 마리의 새나 한 사람의 영혼이 무엇이 다르리오. 한 생명이 굴러 나감에 거긔에는 반다시 선과 빗과 소리가 잇슬 것이다.

시인 조명희(1894~1938)의 시집 <봄 잔디밧 위에>(1924) 머리말이다. 3·1운동에도 동참했던 조명희는 1928년 소련으로 망명했으나 일본 첩자라는 누명으로 총살된다. 그는 1920년대 비중 있는 작가였음에도 소련 망명 문학인, KAPF 문학인이었다는 이유로 특별히 조명을 받지 못한 비운의 시인이다. ‘개벽학당’이 아니었다면 이 시인의 시집을 찾아볼 일도, 이 글에서 동학과 개벽의 내용을 발견하는 일도 없었을 것이다.

개벽학당에 오기까지
이화학당, 배재학당은 들어봤어도. ‘개벽학당’이라니 낯선 이들이 많을 것이다. 개벽학당 개강 파티에서 당장 이병한 교수는 ‘학교는 근대의 산물이며, 서원, 서당은 조선시대 유학을 배우는 곳이었다면 학당이 그나마 우리의 배움을 설명하는 적합한 명칭’이라는 취지의 이야기를 했다. 배움에는 나이가 없다고 하지만 40대에 접어든 나는 어쩌다 개벽학당에 오게 됐고 대부분이 20대인 친구들과 ‘개벽’에 대해 공부하게 됐을까? 이 이야기는 여러 측면에서 얘기할 수 있지만, 몇 번의 외국 여행경험으로 내가 갖게 된 고민에서 이야기해보려 한다.

나는 동남아시아, 서유럽, 일본의 각각 두 곳을 여행했다. 여행 중에 각 나라의 다른 문화, 자연환경을 살펴보고 즐기면서도 다른 한편 불편한 감정을 느꼈다.다른 경험, 다른 감정이었지만 정리해보면 피부색으로 드러나는 국가 간 경제 격차, 지구 안에서의 불평등, 그 불평등 때문에 내가 여행을 할 수 있다는 사실이 불편한 감정을 일으켰다.

100여 년 전, 동남아 국가를 식민지 삼았던 유럽인들이 여전히 그들의 나라보다 가난한 그곳에서 휴양을 즐기는 모습, 오래되고 낡아 보이지만 근대를 선도했고 그 역사를 자랑하는 유럽 도시의 모습. 그곳에서 기초 노동력을 제공하는 유색인종. 동남아시아보다는 경제적으로 앞섰고 서구의 문화를 선진화의 목표로 보고 달려왔던 한국인으로서, 지구적 불평등 사이에 낀 나는 그 어디에도 속하지 않은 것 같지만 이 복잡 미묘한 감정을 여행지에서 늘 느끼는 것이다. 정점은 일본이었다. 올해 초, 일본 여행 중 나가사키의 ‘데지마’라는 곳을 둘러보았다. 17세기 막부시대 일본인들이 네덜란드·포르투갈인들을 인공 섬에서 생활하게 하고 교역을 했던 ‘진짜’ 데지마는 사라졌지만 복원해 박물관, 관광지로 활용하고 있는 곳이었다. 그곳에서 아시아 국가 중, 가장 선도적으로 근대화를 이룬 일본인들이 자신들의 역사를 자랑스러워함을 느낄 수 있었다.

중국과 조선이 초기에 서양의 문명을 거부했을 때,일본인들이 적극적으로 받아들인 배경은 무엇이었을까? 아시아에서 근대화에 가장 먼저 성공한 이유가 궁금했다. 함께 한 여행자는 이 물음에, ‘당시 조선과 중국이 왕권 중심으로 힘의 균형을 이루었던 반면 막부시대의 일본은 더 큰 힘을 갖기 위해 경쟁했기에, 외부세력과 손을 잡는 것을 이용하지 않았을까’라는 의견을 내놓았다. “오~ 이건 『총·균·쇠』의 저자 제러드다이아몬드식 해석인데?”라며 웃었지만 이렇게 시작한 생각은 꼬리에 꼬리를 물어 엉뚱하게도 근대의 개인주의를 일본이 전혀 체현하고 있지 못하며 그래서 과거를 반성하지 못한다는 생각으로 뻗어 나갔다. 외압에 의한 조선의 근대화 과정, 포스트모던 시대에 ‘통일’ 과제를 풀지 못하고 있는 한반도, 이런 것들로 머릿속이 정리되지 않았다.

서구 중심의 문명과 제국주의로부터 시작됐다고 생각하는, 국가, 인종 간 불평등이 싫지만, 우리가 후발주자인 것 같은 열등감도 싫은, 설명할 수 없는 상태를 묻어두고 생활하던 중 개벽학당의 소식을, 정확하게는 개벽학당의 ‘한국 사상사 강의’ 소식을 접했다. 아마도 ‘개벽학당’이라는 말부터 처음에 들었다면 흔히들 가지고 있는 ‘개벽’이라는 단어의 종교적 이미지 때문에, 한국사상사 강의도 듣지 않았을지 모른다. 한국 사상사 강의에 살짝 일어난 호기심이 개벽학당 수강 신청이라는 행동으로 이어진 것은 강의를 맡아준 선생님과 함께 소개된 책 『한국 근대의 탄생』(조성환) 때문이었다. 강사에 대한 정보가 내게 없으니 얼른 검색을 해보았다. 책을 소개하는 내용들이, 정리하지 못한 나의 고민에 일격을 가한 느낌이었다. ‘내가 여전히 서구 중심의 시각에서 벗어나지 못해 내가 발 딛고 있는 곳에 대한 열등감을 가지고 있구나.’ 개벽학당 소식을 알게 된 건 우연이지만, 이 강의를 듣는 것은 내게 필연인 것 같았다.

과거-현재-미래가 대화를 나누는 개벽학당
개벽학당은, 일주일에 한 번 오전에는 한국 사상사 강의를 오후에는 주제에 맞는 책을 한 권씩 정해서 읽고 집중 세미나를 하는 형식으로 진행된다. 나는 사정상 오전 강의에만 참여했다. 한국 사상사 강의를 함께 듣는 이는 ‘한국만의 사상이 있기는 한 걸까’라는 의문으로 시작했다. 나 역시 마찬가지였다. 동학에서 한국의 자생적 근대의 흐름을 찾고 그 가치를 개벽에 둔다는 것은 ‘개벽학당’이라는 이름에서 이미 파악하고 있었지만 그 흐름을 어떻게 잡아갈지 궁금할 뿐이었다.

오전 강의가 과거의 흐름 속에서 우리 사상의 특징을 찾아내는 작업이라면 오후는 현재로부터 미래를 탐구하는 시간이었다. 『라이프 3.0』, 『휴먼 에이지』 등 다양한 책들을 섭렵하며 인공지능, 환경 문제 등에 인간사회가 어떻게 대처하며 어떤 가치를 중심으로 만들어 갈지 토론하는 시간을 가졌다. 개벽학당에서의 하루는 과거와 현재의 대화이며, 미래에 대한 모색의 시간이었다. 아쉽게도 나는 세미나는 참여할 수 없어서, 개벽학당 카페에 올라오는 ‘벽청(개벽하는 청년)’들의 크리틱을 읽으며 내용을 좇아가 보기도 했다.

‘개벽’으로 보는 한국사상사
다양한 시간들이 개벽학당을 이루고 있지만 ‘나’라는 한 사람으로부터 시작해서 내가 살고 있는 한국의 정체성을 이해하는 시간이, 내게는 가장 기초작업 같은 시간이었다. 한국 사상사 강의는 서구 중심의 시각을 벗어나 동아시아 안의 우리 사상의 개성을 이해하는 과정으로 자존감을 회복하는 시간, 다른 누구도 아닌 나의 눈으로 역사를 보는 시간이었다.

연구자가 아닌 보통의 사람들이, 사상사를 접하는 일은 흔하지 않다. 정규교육에서는 고등학교 윤리시간이 전부이다. 요즘에는 ‘윤리와 사상’이라는 이름으로 고등학교 2학년 과정에 동양, 서양, 한국의 사상사를 다루고 있다. 윤리 시간에 배운 내용을 떠올려보면 우리는 중국의 영향 아래, 조선 건국을 전후로 불교와 유교를 정치이념으로 삼았으며, 원효, 퇴계와 같이 몇몇 특징 있는 인물들이 있다는 것이다. 고등학교 시절, 나름 이 시간을 재미있어하는 학생이었다.

그러나 이 시간을 통해 나에게 남은 인상은, 우리는 강국으로부터 외침뿐만 아니라 사상적 영향도 늘 받아야 했다는 것이다. 조선까지는 중국의 성리학을 따르고 현대에 와서는 미국식 자본주의와 민주주의를 따르고 있는 것처럼. 그나마 자존심을 지켜주는 것은, 민중들의 끊임없는 역사 참여였다. 외침이 있을 때마다 일어섰던 의병, 보국안민의 기치를 건 동학농민항쟁,3·1 만세운동, 4·19, 5·18, 87년 6월 항쟁 등 민초들이 만들어 온 역사였다. 2017년 촛불 항쟁까지. 여전히 제대로 변화시키지 못했기에 일어날 수밖에 없는 일이었지만 이렇게 함께하는 힘이 있다는 건 자랑스러워해도 될 일이라 생각했다.

정규 교육을 벗어나, 사상사 전체를 다루는 것은 어렵지만 간혹 철학책을 찾아보기도 한다. 공자, 노자, 니체, 스피노자, …. 누군가 해석해놓은 책을 보지만 우리나라 철학가, 사상가는 없다. 한동안 ‘핫’했던 강신주, 도올 등의 철학책도 결국은 서양 철학자, 중국 철학자들의 이야기를 통해 우리의 삶과 사회를 보는 것들이었다. 물론 고전이라는 것은 지역과 경계, 시대를 넘어 보편성을 가지고 있기에 고전이며, 그것을 통해 인간 사회와 개인의 삶을 성찰하는 것은 의미 있는 일이다. 가능하다면 부지런히 해야 할 일이다.

그런데 왜 우리 것으로 우리를 보는 성찰은 없지? 우리 것은 무엇이지? 이런 물음이 도돌이표처럼 맴돌 때가 있다. 이 물음을 자각하지 않을 때가 더 많기도 하다. 이 의문은 은폐되고 묻혀 있어, 그냥 우리는 늘 앞서 있는 누군가를 따라만 가는 존재라는 무의식에, 자존감이 바닥을 치는 상태로 있음에도 그것조차 인식하지 못하며 살아왔을지 모르기 때문이다.

한국 사상사 강의는 중국의 유·불·도에 대한 개괄적인 이해를 시작으로 했다. 중국의 것에 대한 이해가 있어야, 우리만의 개성을 찾을 수 있기 때문이다. 그들과 다른 우리의 특성을 찾는 작업에도 기준이 필요하다. 그렇다고 중국 철학을 기준으로 우리 사상사를 평가하는 것은 아니다. 이번에는 외부의 기준을 벗어나 우리의 관점으로 중국의 유·불·도가 한반도에 와서 어떻게 적용되고 영향을 미쳤는지 보는 것이다. 우리의 관점은 무엇일까? ‘개벽’의 관점이라 할 수 있다. 여기에서 ‘개벽’이 무엇인지부터 짚고 가면 이 이야기는 흥미가 줄어들 수 있다. 한국 사상사 강의 또한 그러했다. 물 흐르는 듯 가보니, 개벽과 만났다.

치열한 자기 인식의 사상가들
지금도 명실상부 동양의 고전으로, 많은 이가 원문보다는 전문가의 해석으로 읽는 『논어』에서, ‘술이부작述而不作’이라는 말로 동아시아의 특징을 읽었다. 공자가 말한 ‘술이부작述而不作’은 공자 ‘자신은 새로운 것을 창조[作]하지 않고 고대의 모범을 해설[述]했다’는 표현이라고 한다. 『논어』의 구절 중 ‘학이시습學而時習’을 이야기하며 때에 맞는 공부의 중요성을 강조하는 것은 많이 접했지만 ‘술이부작’은 처음이었다. 이에 대해 강의를 맡은 조성환 선생님은 “창조하지 않는 학습”으로 동아시아의 특징을 명명했다. 중국 성인을 롤 모델로 삼고 그들의 가르침을 따르려 하지만 그 이상을 넘지 않는 것이 마치 규범처럼 돼버렸던, 중화사상으로 점철됐던 조선의 성리학자들을 이해하게 하는 말이다.

그러나 창조[作] 없는 사회가 앞으로 나아갈 수 있을까? 현상 유지는 할 수 있으나 발전과 진보는 어렵다고 생각한다. ‘作’을 금기시하는 사회에서 창조는 어떻게 가능할까? 그것은 자기에 대한 치열한 인식을 바탕으로 나에게 맞는 무엇을 찾을 때 가능할 것이다. 그렇게 치열한 자기 인식을 했던 사람들이 우리 사상사에서 있었나?

신라의 최치원, 원효, 조선 초기 사대부, 조선의 세종, 퇴계, 다산 정약용, 동학을 만든 최제우, 최시형, 원불교의 박중빈, 한살림의 장일순까지 그들이 남긴 기록과 글들을 살피며 치열한 자기 인식이 어떻게 전개되는가, 우리 사상의 특징은 무엇인가를 읽어 내려갔다. 원불교의 박중빈과 한살림의 장일순을 제외하면 보편적으로 모두 아는 인물이지만 개벽학당에서 살펴본 이들은 좀 낯설었다. 보지 못했던 면을 보았기 때문이고 보던 대로 보지 않았기 때문이다.

9세기의 최치원을 7세기의 원효보다 먼저 살펴보았다. ‘한국 철학의 첫 페이지를 무엇, 어디에서부터 설정할 것인가?’ 질문에 답을 할 수 있는 인물은 최치원이라는 문제의식에서였다. 섬으로서 격리돼 있던 일본과 달리 지리적으로 중국과 붙어 있던 우리가 중국의 앞선 문명과 철학을 수용하는 것은 정해진 운명 같은 일이었는지 모른다. 그 가운데 자신만의 정체성을 유지하는 것이 중요한 과제였다는 강의 중 이야기는 그것이 나의 운명이라는 듯 심각하게 다가왔다.

어린 시절 당나라 유학을 하고 그곳에서 성장했음에도 최치원에게서 주체적 수용과 동인東人으로서 자신의 정체성을 분명히 하는 태도를 그가 남길 글에서 읽을 수 있다. 최치원은 중국을 ‘서국’, 신라를 ‘동국’으로, 공자, 노자, 석가를 단순한 직책으로 표현하며 중국을 대국으로 모시는 입장에서 벗어나 주체적 사고를 드러낸다. 그는 <난랑비 서문>에 “포함삼교包含三敎”라는 표현으로 신라가 중국의 유·불·도를 ‘포함’했다고 한다.유·불·도를 있는 그대로 받아들인 것이 아니라 신라의 정체성에 맞게 포용·수용했다는 의미로 ‘포함’을 해석할 수 있는 것은, 그의 ‘동인의식’ 때문이다. 최치원의 ‘동인의식’은 중국이라는 대국과 비교한 열등감의 결과가 아니라 ‘나’의 존재에 대한 물음의 결과임이 그의 글 곳곳에서 묻어난다.

다음으로 치열한 자기 인식의 사상가로, 세종을 들수 있다. 조선의 왕이었던 세종을 사상가로 보는 입장은 이제까지 없었다고 해도 무방하다. 그러나 개벽학당에서 우리는 한글 창제를 비롯해서 백성들과 함께하려 했던 그의 정신과 실천이, 사상가로서의 면모를 보여준다는 해석에 동의했다. 세종의 한글 창제, 음악과 천문학 등 다양한 분야에서의 업적, 창조성을 추동했던 힘은 중국을 기준으로 조선을 보는 것이 아니라 조선의 실정에 맞는 삶을 백성과 함께[與民] 살고자 했던 ‘주체성’이었다. 그렇기에, 중국 문자의 ‘술述’에 머물지 않고 한글이라는 ‘작作’을 할 수 있었던 것이다.

그리고 동학의 최제우. 시대를 한참 뛰어넘었다. 강의 순서는 이와 달랐지만 시대를 기준으로 하는 것이 아니라 ‘창조’를 중심으로 두고 이야기해본다. 우리 ‘사상’의 첫 ‘창조’였다. 우리의 토착적 풍토와 어울리는,사람을 하늘로 보는[人乃天] 사상. 비단 사람에 머물지 않고 우주 안의 생명에 모두 하늘이 깃들어 있다고 하는 사상이었다. 최제우의 뒤를 이어 동학을 확산시킨 최시형은 ‘천인상여天人相與’의 인간관을 정립하는데, 하늘과 사람이 서로 더불어 존재한다는 이것은 자유의지를 발현하는 독립된 자아로 인간관을 정립하는 서구의 관점과 많이 다르다. 인간과 인간의 조화, 인간과 자연의 조화 등 ‘조화’의 인간관을 지닌 ‘천인상여’ 사상은 평화와 생명의 사상으로, 시대를 뛰어넘어 한살림의 장일순에게 계승된다.

동학까지 가기 전에, 강의에서는 우리의 ‘하늘’에 대한 관점과 지향도 살펴봤다. 조선 초기 사대부 권근의 <천인심성분석지도>, 퇴계의 <천명도설후서>, 다산의 상제上帝인仁에 대한 재해석이 그 자료들이었다. 중국과 다른 조선의 하늘이었다, 동학의 하늘님이 그냥 불쑥 나온 것은 아니었다. 하늘에 대한 우리만의 철학적 사유가, 사상가들의 개성과 함께 진행돼 왔다.

중국보다 ‘天’을 사용하는 횟수가 많은 조선의 ‘하늘’은 왕도 두려워해야 하는 존재였다. 중국의 ‘天’과 달리 때로는 어느 순간에나 함께 하는 인격적 존재였다. 조선의 선비들은 하늘과 가까워지고자 부단히 자신을 수양하는 태도를 강조했다. 그러다 동학에서는 사람과 만물이 모두 하늘님이 되는 것이다. 대반전이다. 그래서 사람을, 생명을 모시는 태도로 존중하고 귀하게 대하는 것이 하늘님인 인간의 덕목이며 실천 과제이다.

15주의 강의마다 사상과 인물에 대한 정보, 지식을 알아가는 것만이 아니었다. 삶에 대한 태도와 새로운 인식을 얻었다. 마음이 열리고 나와 세상을 다시 보는 개벽이구나. 느지막이 생각해본다.

‘다시 개벽’ 안에 다 있네.
1894년 갑오농민항쟁으로, 동학도들은 거의 목숨을 잃거나 설 자리를 잃었을 것이다. 그러나 그들이 추구했던 가치와 정신, 그 사상이 사라지지는 않았다. 갑오년에 태어난 조명희는 어린 시절부터 자신이 태어난 해의 항쟁을, 거기에 스며들었던 사상을 어른들의 대화 속에서 듣고 생활에서 느꼈을 것이다. 그가 태어난 진천에서도 농민의 저항과 투쟁이 있었기에 더더욱.

동학의 정신이 어떻게 3·1운동으로 이어지는지 이야기하기에 나의 지식은 짧지만, 1919년 만세 운동에 참여했던 조명희에게는 자신이 세상의 빛을 본 해에 있었던 역사에 대한 뜨거운 마음도 있지 않았을까. 그리고 그의 시집 머리말에 동학의 사상이 여지없이 드러난다. 우주도, 새도, 사람도 그 영혼이 다르지 않다는 글귀는 모두가 한울님이라는 메시지로 다가온다.

구한말 즈음에 탄생한 ‘민족종교’로 규정되는 천도교, 원불교, 대종교 등은 모두 ‘개벽’을 말한다. 유학의 시대가 끝나가던 조선 말기, ‘천주’를 믿는다는 서양 세력의 횡포를 보면서 탄생한 신생 종교들이 모두 개벽을 말한다는 것은 ‘개벽’에 우리만의 의미가 있다는 이야기일 것이다. ‘개벽’은 무엇일까? ‘내가 변해서 세상을 바꾸는 것이 개벽’이며 ‘내 안의 하늘을 자각해서 다른 사람을 하늘처럼 대하는 것이 개벽’이라는 강의 내용에 밑줄을 긋는다. 혁명과 개벽이 다른 것은 외부의 변화만을 추구하는 것이 아니라 자신의 변화에서 시작해서 세계의 변화를 만들어간다는 것이다.

최제우는 ’다시 개벽‘을 말한다. 그것은 또 다시 우주의 섭리로 천지가 개벽하는 사건을 말하는 것이 아니다. 인간 사회의 개벽, 문명의 개벽이다. 그동안 불평등하고 부조리했던 인간 사회의 관계를 청산하는 것만이 아니다. 우주의 생명이 모두 한울이며 하늘님이라고 받아들이는 것이 다시 개벽이다. 그뿐만이 아니다. “바깥으로 향해 있던 관점을 나에게로 돌려놓고 ‘나’의 시점에서 세상을 다시 보는 것이 ‘다시 개벽’”이다. 강의록의 이 문장을 읽는데 마음에서 쿵 소리를 낸다. 우리가 최치원으로 시작해, 세종, 최제우, 그 밖의 개벽종교를 살펴본 이유이다.

나의 시점으로 나를 보는 것, 늘 타인을 비교 대상을 두고 달려왔던 이들에게(내 생각에 한국 문화는 이 문화가 무척 강하다. 나라와 나라의 비교, 사람과 사람의 비교) 다른 누구의 눈으로 보지 말고 자신의 눈으로 세상을 보라고. 모든 생명에 하늘이 있으니 귀하게 모시는 마음으로 서로를 대하자고. ‘다시 개벽’ 안에 평등,평화, 생명존중, 페미니즘이 다 ‘포함’돼 있다.

개벽학당에서 만난 사람
개벽학당을 여는 날, 놀라웠다. 나는 어쩌다가 이곳에 온 것 같은데 그곳에 온 20대 청년들은 스스로를 개벽하는 청년(벽청)이라 칭하며, 적극적으로 그 자리를 만들어가고 있었다. 나의 20대가 떠올랐다. 벽청들 중에는 자발적 고졸의 삶을 선택하며, 통과의례처럼 사회에서 당연한 듯 받아들여지는 대학 입학을 거부하고 자신만의 삶을 만들어가는 친구들도 있다. 물론 아무런 방황과 갈등 없이, 신념에 넘쳐 그런 선택을 한 것만은 아닌 듯했다. 그 과정에서 겪는 어려움도 있고, 고민도 있어 보였다. 그럼에도 그들 한 명, 한 명이 빛났다. 단지 청춘이어서 빛나는 것만은 아니었다. 스스로를 벽청이라 이름 짓기 전에, 이미 그들은 자신의 눈으로 세상을 보고 삶을 만들며 ‘다시 개벽’하는 중이었다.

벽청 중에는 ‘공공公共하는 청년’이라는 이름으로 활동하는 청년들도 있다. 삼포 세대, 오포 세대라는, 기성세대의 규정에 머물지 않고 자신과 자신이 속한 사회에 적극적으로 참여하는 청년들이었다. ‘렛츠 피스’라는 이름으로 한반도의 평화를 기원하는 퍼포먼스를 하는 등 그들만의 색깔로 삶의 공공성을 추구하고 있었다. 벽청들, ‘공공公共하는 청년’들 심각하게 멋지다.

개벽학당 이후 …
‘분단 사회’를 살아가는 ‘여성’인 나를 바라본다. 우리가 서구 근대화를 정신없이 따라간 시간만큼 분단과 전쟁으로 대결과 위협의 시간을 보냈다. 분단 이후, 남과 북은 얼마나 다른 길을 걸어왔나? 그 차이가 너무 크니 탈분단 상태에서 항구적 평화체제를 구축하는 것으로 만족하자는 의견도 많다. 통일은 어떤 완성된 형태가 아니라 지속적인 과정이라고 생각한다. 남과 북의 통일을 위해 북이 더 개방하고 개혁해야 한다고 진보적 북한학, 통일학자들은 말한다. 북만 변하면 될까?우리는 이대로 이 모습대로 있으면 될까? 아이들에게 혐오가 놀이가 돼 버리고 청소년의 행복지수가 OECD국가 중 가장 낮은 이 모습 이대로 가도 되는 걸까?

어느 일방에게만 변화를 요구하는 것은 불공평하다.함께 변화를 위해 노력한다면, 그 변화의 가치에 개벽이 있어도 좋겠다. 남북이 함께 서구의 근대화 물결을,자본주의, 사회주의 방식으로 좇았던 역사를 평가해보고 치열한 자기 인식에서 출발한 토착적 근대화에 대해 토론한다면 어떨까? 물론, 유물론적 세계관으로 사회주의를 받아들이고 주체사상이라는 이름으로 그들의 시스템을 유지하는 북과 토착적 근대화를 이야기하는 것이 쉽지 않을 수 있다. 그러나 ‘나’를 기준으로 사상사를 다시 평가하고 우리의 근대성을 찾아보자고 한다면 그들의 ‘주체’와도 만나는 지점이 있지 않을까. 그렇다면 ‘개벽’의 가치에서 통일 사회의 공통가치를 만들어갈 수 있을 거라 기대해 본다. 전쟁과 폭력의 시대를 끝내고 생명과 평화가 중심이 되는 시대의 중심 가치가 ‘개벽’이면 아주 괜찮을 것 같다. 그 과정에서 분단을 끝내는 일은 좀 더 나은 방향으로 가지 않을까.

전쟁과 대결의 분위기로 더욱 공고해진 남성 중심의 사회에서 ‘여성’으로서 개벽은 어떤 모습일까. ‘모심’의 철학, 모두가 모두를 하늘님과 같은 태도로 대할 수 있다면 여성을 비롯한 역사의 소수자들도 자기의 언어로 자기의 목소리를 낼 수 있을 것이다. 요즘 화제를 몰고 있는 ‘검블유’ 임수정, ‘녹두꽃’의 한예리, 역사에서 묻혀 있던 여성의 서사가 드러나는 과정을 환영하며 자기 언어를 갖는 일이 얼마나 중요한지 깨닫는다.

양반과 선비의 전유물이었던 ‘학學’을 역사상 처음으로 백성들이 할 수 있었던 ‘동학’도 민중이 자기 언어를 갖는 과정이었구나. 퇴계, 다산과 같은 훌륭한 철학가가 있었음에도 처음으로, 누구나 읽을 수 있는 한글로 쓰인 『용담유사』(최제우의 말을 최시형이 옮긴 책)는 사상의 첫 창조물이자, 역사에서 소외됐던 민중이 자기 언어를 갖는 계기였다. 그 언어에도 시대적 결핍으로 여성과 소수자의 이야기가 적을 수 있다. 멈춰 있는 것이 아니니 앞으로 만들어나가면 될 것이다.

종강 자리에서 한 학기의 소회를 나누며 벽청들은 개벽을 이제 막 알기 시작한 자신들을 아직 눈도 뜨지 못한 아이에 비유했다. 개벽은 절대적 이상으로 이미 완성된 것이 아니고 앞으로 만들어가는 것이라 생각한다. 삶 속에서 부딪치는 문제를 자신의 눈으로 보고 자기 언어로 말하는 과정에서 ‘개벽’이 다듬어지고 만들어지리라. 나는 그저 서구 중심의 시각에서 벗어나서 나를 보고 싶어서, 서구 근대화에 대한 열등감에서 벗어날 수 있을까 싶어 개벽학당에 왔는데 나름의 미래까지 개벽과 함께 그리고 있다.

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Memories from the margins? Anniversaries, Anabaptists and rethinking Reformations | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

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500 years of Anabaptism? 2025? 2027?

What if we did not focus on Luther’s story?

The years 2025 and 2027 will mark the anniversary of a different part of the Reformation.
These are the dates that the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) has picked to commemorate the origins of Anabaptism. 2025 recalls the moment at which Conrad Grebel baptized George Blaurock in Zurich ‘to ignite a brand-new Anabaptist movement which countered the movements of Luther, Zwingli and Catholicism’.Footnote 3 2027 coincides with 500 years since the appearance of the Schleitheim Articles, a statement of Anabaptism’s separation from the world, and the Martyrs’ Synod, a meeting which established a principle of mission. (It earned its name because many of its principle participants died soon after). The significance of these dates is clear, but any such immediate connection is sidestepped on the front page of the MWC’s website for the anniversary which focuses on the message of what has been titled ‘Renewal 2027’. Renewal 2027 was launched in the same year as the 500-year anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation and is presented as a chance for ecumenical discussion within and beyond the Mennonite church, with ten years of events designed to invigorate Anabaptist faith globally.Footnote 4 These events are not likely to be on most people’s radar and will not spark the same rash of publishing as Luther’s 2017. Nor are the events uncontroversial amongst Mennonites some of whom question whether these anniversaries are an appropriate or relevant celebration of Mennonite identity (Goossen, 2017b). For Mennonite communities and Mennonite scholars the question of anniversaries has stoked intense debate about the historical narratives that surround these public rituals of commemoration. (Roth, 2017, pp. 24–30; Osborne, 2017). Considering the anniversary celebrations and controversies of the lesser known part of the Reformation story, however, is also a chance for Reformation scholars to revisit some of our accounts of religious change and its legacies. What if we switched our perspective to those who were supposed to be on the edges of the story? What do the debates within the Mennonite community reveal about these memories and anniversaries more broadly? What new questions or old problems might we consider by examining remembrance from the edges of the Reformations? Memory on the margins makes us reconsider the centre.
The Mennonite church, which is coordinating the 500-year anniversary, has its roots in Anabaptism. This reforming movement of the sixteenth century rejected infant baptism along with many of the conventional structures of society, such as swearing oaths and serving in the military (Stayer, 2002; Goertz, 1996). Anabaptism is not well integrated into Reformation histories. Histories of the radical or ‘left-wing’ of the Reformation remain understudied and marginalized from the mainstream historiographical scholarship on the Reformation, and despite a spate of histories produced in the 1970s and 80s on early modern Anabaptism, Anabaptist studies have not seen the same energy since. New waves of scholarship have started to redress this problem, recognizing the fundamentally problematic label of the ‘radical Reformation’ and a group of new researchers are spearheading moves to bring Anabaptist histories into the digital age with the open access website, Anabaptist Historians.


Memories from the margins? Anniversaries, Anabaptists and rethinking Reformations | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Published: 30 July 2019
Memories from the margins? Anniversaries, Anabaptists and rethinking Reformations
Kat Hill

Palgrave Communications volume 5, Article number: 84 (2019) Cite this article

Abstract

With the recent 500-year jubilee of the Lutheran Reformation, Reformation anniversaries have become big business and the subject of much scholarly debate. This paper considers the question of anniversaries in relation to supposedly marginal religious groups in the era of the Reformation. What do they choose to commemorate? How did they fit into our accounts of religious change? And what does memory from the margins tells us? The paper argues that considering memories and anniversaries amongst these communities allows us to reassess our categories of mainstream and marginal in relation to religious change in the early modern world and beyond, and to reconsider some of our narratives about the legacies of religious change.
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Introduction


2017 was ‘Luther year’, the 500-year anniversary of the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses and the start of the Reformation. Ten years of preparation from the Lutheran Church and German authorities culminated in celebrations all over the world. From poetry slams to movies, panorama installations to conferences, heritage tours to a wave of publications, Luther 2017 sparked intense intellectual and academic analysis about the meaning of religious change in early modern Europe.Footnote1(Marshall, 2017; Roth, 2017, pp. 11–13).

Anniversaries and moments of memory activation invite us to consider what narratives are being shaped about the past and what narratives we as historians and scholars want to tell. Remembrance inevitably sparks renewed debates about origins and outcomes, and we can learn much about a movement, nation or community at times of commemorative celebration. The first big 500-year Reformation jubilee, that of Luther’s birth, initiated a battle for ownership of his memory in a fractured Germany in the dying days of the GDR (Hoffmann, 1986; Scott, 1984). From 2014–2018, visitors might have experienced the nuanced differences of nationally inflected exhibitions commemorating the anniversary of World War One in, for example, Belgium, France, England, and Germany.Footnote2 The 100-year anniversary of women’s right to vote and the suffragettes has struck chords with the contemporary #MeToo movement. The Luther anniversary was, it seemed to many, a chance to embrace a more ecumenical Luther, though there have also been concerns about the way in which commemorations renewed a hero image of the reformer (Evangelical Church in Germany, 2013; Roth, 2017).

But what if we did not focus on Luther’s story? The years 2025 and 2027 will mark the anniversary of a different part of the Reformation. These are the dates that the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) has picked to commemorate the origins of Anabaptism. 2025 recalls the moment at which Conrad Grebel baptized George Blaurock in Zurich ‘to ignite a brand-new Anabaptist movement which countered the movements of Luther, Zwingli and Catholicism’.Footnote3 2027 coincides with 500 years since the appearance of the Schleitheim Articles, a statement of Anabaptism’s separation from the world, and the Martyrs’ Synod, a meeting which established a principle of mission. (It earned its name because many of its principle participants died soon after). The significance of these dates is clear, but any such immediate connection is sidestepped on the front page of the MWC’s website for the anniversary which focuses on the message of what has been titled ‘Renewal 2027’. Renewal 2027 was launched in the same year as the 500-year anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation and is presented as a chance for ecumenical discussion within and beyond the Mennonite church, with ten years of events designed to invigorate Anabaptist faith globally.Footnote4 These events are not likely to be on most people’s radar and will not spark the same rash of publishing as Luther’s 2017. Nor are the events uncontroversial amongst Mennonites some of whom question whether these anniversaries are an appropriate or relevant celebration of Mennonite identity (Goossen, 2017b). For Mennonite communities and Mennonite scholars the question of anniversaries has stoked intense debate about the historical narratives that surround these public rituals of commemoration. (Roth, 2017, pp. 24–30; Osborne, 2017). Considering the anniversary celebrations and controversies of the lesser known part of the Reformation story, however, is also a chance for Reformation scholars to revisit some of our accounts of religious change and its legacies. What if we switched our perspective to those who were supposed to be on the edges of the story? What do the debates within the Mennonite community reveal about these memories and anniversaries more broadly? What new questions or old problems might we consider by examining remembrance from the edges of the Reformations? Memory on the margins makes us reconsider the centre.

The Mennonite church, which is coordinating the 500-year anniversary, has its roots in Anabaptism. This reforming movement of the sixteenth century rejected infant baptism along with many of the conventional structures of society, such as swearing oaths and serving in the military (Stayer, 2002; Goertz, 1996). Anabaptism is not well integrated into Reformation histories. Histories of the radical or ‘left-wing’ of the Reformation remain understudied and marginalized from the mainstream historiographical scholarship on the Reformation, and despite a spate of histories produced in the 1970s and 80s on early modern Anabaptism, Anabaptist studies have not seen the same energy since. New waves of scholarship have started to redress this problem, recognizing the fundamentally problematic label of the ‘radical Reformation’ and a group of new researchers are spearheading moves to bring Anabaptist histories into the digital age with the open access website, Anabaptist Historians.Footnote5 Scholarship in the last fifteen years has seen a handful of important monographs on Anabaptist and Mennonite histories (Driedger, 2002; Räisänen-Schröder, 2011; Monge, 2015; Hill, 2015; Goossen, 2017a). But the scholarly imbalances and the division between mainstream and radical persist, especially for the pre-modern era.

Not everyone agrees that Anabaptist studies are an endangered enclave (Dipple, 2009; p. 244). Anabaptism does have a rich historiography, and there are Mennonite presses and journals, notably the Mennonite Quarterly Review and Journal of Mennonite Studies, which are energetic and stimulating fora. However, the specialist focus of this publishing can also reiterate the boundaries separating scholarship. Research is often produced in confessional contexts, and though confessional history in itself is not inherently problematic, I would agree with academics who stress that there has been a return to confessionalised scholarship in Reformation studies. The 2017 anniversary sharpened this in many cases, despite its claims to ecumenism, and has reinforced a sense of separatism. Even sources may be divided. A special series exists for documents on the Anabaptist reform movement (with the tactical name change from the pejorative ‘Wiedertäufer’ to ‘Täufer’ in the late 1930s).Footnote6 So, while students of the European Reformation may have a week on radical Anabaptists in the sixteenth century, few courses touch on much beyond this or examine the longer-term traditions that evolved from non-conformist impulses.

The distorting nature of this scholarship has broader implications. It matters that Anabaptists have been on the edges of historiography since it is partly a symptom and consequence of on one of the biggest, most problematic debates in Reformation historiography: confessionalisation (Brady, 2004). Reformation scholars have for some time sought ways to write histories which go beyond the confessionalisation thesis which ties long-term narratives of religious change into accounts of state, discipline, and institutions. Confessionalization neglects alternatives to the model of institutional faith, faiths often related to national identity and larger historical narratives of the rise of nationalism, and thus it omits a fundamental and long-lasting element of confessional change (Lotz-Heumann, 2001). Moments of memory and celebration, therefore, are a chance for academics to address these questions. Anniversaries bring to the fore big debates about origins and futures, as well as the place of communities in the contemporary world, and so often implicate national and international institutions. Though there are questions about its success, a major emphasis of the Luther 2017 commemoration, for example, was to attempt to move away from national and confessionalised narratives and embrace a more ecumenical vision for Lutheranism’s future in the modern world (LWF and PCPCU, 2017).Footnote7 The run of Reformation anniversaries can stimulate conversations which re-invigorate scholarship.

Anabaptists memories


There are over 2 million Anabaptists in the world,Footnote8 and the MWC 500-year celebrations for many are a remembrance of those things that characterize the collective memory of their communities—an emphasis on the separation between church and state, a history of persecution and martyrdom, freedom of religion, liberty of conscience, and elective entry into the church. It is also seen as a chance to assess and reinvigorate Mennonite identity in the contemporary world (Roth, 2017). Clearly memory matters to Mennonites (and their close cousins the Amish and Hutterites). For numerous Mennonites, there exists a deep sense of connection to their early modern past, its martyrs and heroes.

But whilst the 2025/2027 centenary will be a celebration coordinated by the MWC, the reality is of course that cultures of memory amongst Anabaptist descendants go far beyond the official celebration and central structures. The attitudes which form the global backdrop to the planned commemorations are rooted not in national churches and state institutions, but family, communal and personal memories which have preserved the sense of the past and collective remembrance. Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites all migrated great distances from the sixteenth century onwards. This was not always the result of persecution and exile, as a traditional Anabaptist narrative might suggest, but Anabaptists undeniably traveled far. Communities moved from northern and central Europe to Russia and Ukraine, migrated to the Americas, or undertook confessional work in India, south east Asia, and Africa. As people move, memories travel with them. Indeed, for Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, memory was a critical tool for bridging the gap between communities dispersed across wide areas and separated from society in a variety of ways. Memory is central to diasporic identity (Agnew, 2005; Baronian, et al., 2007, pp. 11–12). Anabaptist memories existed in the records kept by their own churches, family possessions or personal recollections which bound the community together. Mennonites in contemporary Manitoba or Kansas, for example, have objects, documents and shared narratives which trace cross-generational diasporic histories in Europe, Russia and beyond.

We can only follow these histories and memories if we look beyond conventional institutional and geographical boundaries, since the very core of Mennonite, Hutterite and Amish identity is in the communities of dispersion which stretched across regions. Memory in these diasporic communities could not tell the same story as institutional churches. Lutheran memories had an inclusive message in 2017 which looked to a global Lutheran culture but also reasserted the dominance of Wittenberg. Calvinist memories are focused on Geneva. Anabaptist memories have been of a more disparate nature, though the MWC’s focus on 2025 and the Swiss origins of the movement has caused controversy by centring Anabaptist histories on one location determined by a central committee.

But why does it matter to think about this type of memory? Is it not just one more anniversary, one more strand of the legacy of the Reformation era? First, it reveals issues concerning contemporary Mennonite identity in relation to an early modern past and a diasporic identity. Debates arose whether the date for a Mennonite anniversary should be 2025 or 2027,Footnote9 or indeed whether 2017 should have been the date for celebration. The result is ten years of renewal announced in 2017, culminating in 2027 but with a celebration of 2025 in Switzerland along the way. Deeper unease amongst some members of the community has focused on the way in which any anniversary of this kind reinforces a monogenetic heritage which excludes the global church and diversity, and even alludes to a form of European ethnic purity (Goossen, 2017b). The monogenesis versus polygenesis debate about Anabaptist origins is long-standing but seems not to have died (Stayer et al., 1975). An official celebration which gives one line of interpretation and reinforces one normative view of Anabaptist and Mennonite heritage, rather than recognize all the alternatives and global perspectives, is problematic. It is possibly in dialogue with these concerns that Africa is a suggested location for the 18th Mennonite World Conference Assembly (Roth, 2017, p. 32).

Some counterpoint views to the 2025 and 2027 dates also argue that the Anabaptist church did not originate in the sixteenth century since it was a continuation and successor to the Apostolic church of Christ (Roth, 2017, pp. 22–23; Goossen, 2017b). This was the line taken by the two most famous Anabaptist historical works, the seventeenth-century Martyrs Mirror and the Hutterite Great Chronicle. Such a view, however, can be equally problematic and elide the constant and shifting creative power of memory formation and the way in which recollections have been reinvented across the centuries. There are, too, always political questions at stake in commemorations (Goossen, 2017b). Mennonites, not the Amish or Hutterite, are driving the 500-year anniversary, but it is presented as celebration for all Anabaptists. What does it tell us that this celebration matters most for the better integrated and politically active part of the Anabaptist legacy, and that this is intertwined with institutional and confessional narratives? Anniversaries after all always serve some purpose, and 2025 also coincides with the 100-year anniversary of the foundation of the Mennonite Central Committee, so some would argue that this has more to do with institutional and political positioning than organic commemoration (Goossen, 2017b). We should remember that the official celebrations are only one part of memory; we have to look beyond to broader memory cultures, to individuals and local communities. Memory is the aggregation of these narratives, as much as central celebrations. The intense debate amongst different Anabaptist traditions is a stark reminder of the power and importance of diasporic memory, but also the need to recover alternatives to centralized commemorations.

Scholarship should consider how memory cultures themselves are created and recreated, why and when, and in what contexts. Centenaries and anniversaries of origins, celebrated centrally, are a relatively modern phenomenon. 1925 marked the first major Mennonite anniversary when the new Mennonite World Conference convened in Basel and there do not seem to have been parallel events in 1825 or before. Earlier celebrations and associated controversies existed. In 1861 various Mennonite communities celebrated the death of Menno Simons and a call was issued in 1859 by August Heinrich Neufeld, pastor of the Ibersheim Mennonite congregation in Rhine-Hesse, for ‘every Mennonite congregation in the Old World and the New’ to plan for the date. The proposed celebrations sparked considerable controversy which revealed the fault lines in nineteenth-century Mennonite society (Roth, 2017; Urry, 2007). Thus, historians should be sensitive to the way in which memories are chosen, contested, and narrated, how they vary and shift, and how they exist at different levels. For specific communities, individuals, and families, it might be personal or local commemorations which held the most weight, and memory cultures had local inflections. Mennonites in Chortitza (Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine) erected monuments in the late nineteenth century to figures of their past, to Johann Bartsch and Jakob Höppner, the men who had negotiated the details of the settlement for Mennonite migration from Prussia at the end of the eighteenth century (Urry, 2007). Research needs to understand the way in which memory has been constructed at local, regional and familial levels, as well as focusing on global and international commemorations.

Second, I would argue that by interrogating Anabaptist memories as this anniversary approaches, we can uncover novel trajectories for the long-lasting legacies of the Reformation throughout the world and in so doing address some of the fundamental debates of the Reformation era. It opens up new perspectives on both our histories of non-conformist groups in the early modern world, and the implications for how religious change has shaped global culture. The debates over anniversaries have sharpened questions of the interaction between the Reformation legacies of Anabaptism and Lutheranism (and other traditions) and brought to the fore the continued global power of these Anabaptists networks of memory. Such trends undermine the sense of marginality and separateness that has shaped Anabaptist historiography, but also call into question broader religious narratives which still seem to rest on notions of confessionalisation. The nature of the relationship between these different religious communities and the 500-year celebrations matters, and any student of the Reformation needs to understand those labeled both marginal and mainstream.

It is only from the margin though that we can rewrite the centre. Until we question the narratives of the marginal, we will be forever locked into the modes of persecuted and persecutor. Anniversaries do not always help in this reassessment since they have in some ways reasserted confessional narratives and normative divisions. In 2010, as preparations for 2017 were getting under way, the Lutheran World Fellowship offered an official apology to Anabaptists for past persecutions. The divided memory cultures sought rapprochement but also in many ways reiterated division (Roth, 2017, 5–7). Such an event reinforces normative Mennonite self-definitions of the confession as a persecuted minority without asking how this cultural narrative evolved, or what happened when communities or individuals chose not to follow this path. Looking from the edges, we can see that Anabaptists were not always a persecuted minority, they were not marginal to histories, and they did not always search for the peaceful, quiet way (Urry, 2006).

And looking from the centre, we have neglected the importance of supposedly marginal groups in our long histories of the Reformation. Anabaptist descendants are a visible presence across much of America. Nearly every north American, it seems, has a Mennonite, Hutterite or Amish story. They have seen the buggies, been to the farms, or visited the churches. Yet these communities still seem a curiosity. Amish communities in Pennsylvania, for example, are a tourist attraction more than a subject of scholarly discussion. Amish, Hutterites and more conservative Mennonites of the Old Order tradition do not necessarily sit easily in our narratives of historical development and modernity. For those from outside the tradition, they seem an outdated relic of an older time, but their existence problematizes our notions of Reformation legacies.

It becomes difficult to argue, for example, that the unintended effect of the Reformation was secularization (Gregory, 2012). In a series of six essays, Gregory proposed that the Protestant Reformation questioned authority in ways which led to a multiplicity of competing claims to truth and this resulted ultimately in the privatization of faith, the power of the state over church, and secularization. But there are problems with this account. If we are to write narratives which escape the pitfalls of a return to confessionalisation but also appreciate Reformation legacies on their own terms we have to be able to understand the dynamics of the communities of Pennsylvanian Amish or Old Order Mennonites in Belize. And we also have to be able to contain accounts of Mennonites who are integrated into modern Canada, Hutterites who reject televisions and much modern media but embrace the best farming technologies, or Amish communities who live separate lives but actively engage in a form of tourism which plays on their traditionalism. Such solutions do not represent secularization necessarily but alternative models for recreating faith and adapting. For Gregory, division has shattered a more universal sense of faith but for Mennonites, for example, the broken body of the church can also be a symbol of the quest for faithfulness and of following the right path which diverts from the mainstream (Roth, 2017, p. 28). Splintering may have led to diversity, but it can also provide energy. Furthermore, a sense of secularizing decline can also be seen as a particularly western-centric narrative, and Reformation legacies must be able to appreciate the explosion of Christianity in the global south.

Mennonite memory brings into sharper focus other issues about Reformation memory and the need to look beyond the official celebrations. Focusing on Luther 2017 in a way which reinforces the norms of the mainstream and the marginal absents a major and important part of the Reformation legacies in European, Eurasian and north American history, and beyond into Africa, Japan, India, and Korea. Deeply rooted identity and multifaceted memories have shaped Anabaptist communities and cultures across the world: from Prussia militarism to Tsarist expansion, from the American west to the world wars, from south American colonies of Mennonites to the power of contemporary Protestant churches in the global South, even to questions of how Mennonites should respond to Trump. Understanding the geographical spread of Anabaptist groups and the way in which their communities evolved across the diaspora opens up other archives, resources and memory cultures. New archives, new sources and new regions all offer promising concrete areas for research on Reformation legacies.

First, scholarship can look to understudied or neglected archives and records which provide alternative histories to accounts of confessional change. Whilst Mennonite archives in north America, for example, are an important resource for scholars of Mennonite history and communities themselves, they remain little studied by Reformation historians more generally. Yet, there is a wealth of material in the church and family fonds which continues to come into these repositories. There are surprising finds in archives across Europe and beyond, such as the histories of Mennonite communities in regional Polish archives or the church books of Mennonites, Quakers and other groups that have made their way into German state archives. A comprehensive understanding of the complex archival traces would allow a much richer account of the long legacies of the Reformation.

Second, we must think about the diverse way in which memory was enacted and histories recorded. This might be by paying closer attention to the way in archives themselves and their construction shape memory. The contents, materials and organization of archives reflect power relations (Stoler, 2009) and scholars have started to write the social history of archives (Ketelaar, 2004). Unpicking these archival histories, such as the reasons why Mennonites have come to create their own archives, will in turn shed light on the history of confessional memory and memory making. Furthermore, focusing on the transmission and function of memory could lead us to think about the very different memory cultures amongst all those included amongst Anabaptists. The memory practices of Mennonites who have created extensive records differ from the Old Order Amish who eschew formal archiving but rely on family and oral histories. The implications of different practices of recalling pasts and the power relations between different memory cultures is essential to the construction of more dynamic narratives of religious cultures.

Third, we might think about the way in which memory and confessional legacies were enacted across different media. Discussions of Reformation anniversaries have tended to focus on written narratives, documents and recorded history. But memory and connections to the past exist in other ways. How did objects function as embodiments of tangible connections with a past? How did the landscape and environment tell stories of connection? Mennonites draw on memories of the great Chortitza oak which grew in Ukraine where Mennonites settled in the late eighteenth century but whose acorns have traveled across the Atlantic. Considering material and environmental sources, as well as written documents will help us understand legacies in diachronic and global perspective or the ways in which communities negotiate their interaction with the contemporary world.

Finally, scholarship can think about memory, community and identity in areas which have not been part of more conventional narratives of Reformation legacies. This means uncovering new trajectories for communities who are not part of the traditional accounts of survival, such as Mennonite who migrated down to the Black Sea from Russia and Ukraine rather than crossing the Atlantic. More broadly, it means focusing on global histories of Mennonites and Protestantism in general, particularly in the global south, exploring questions of community, race and place in a post-colonial era.

These new avenues for research will help reveal religious communities which existed beyond institutional and national structures and the problematic way in which big anniversaries reinforce grand narratives. Paying more attention to the local and the individual has the effect conversely of broadening memories across seas and generations. The contentious 2025/2027 celebration not only provokes questions about Anabaptist history but demands we find more nuanced ways of thinking about memory, the ways it is embedded in language, landscape, and people, and the traces it leaves.

Conclusions


I would like to finish with one example of this power of memory at the level of the individual and the family which also touches on the way in which it expands our global and cross-period histories of religious change. In the Mennonite archives in Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas there are boxes which contain family papers donated to the archive for safe-keeping. Papers inside have not been categorized into type and are often an eclectic mix of items preserved and curated by the family over generations. Opening these folders, I was given a snapshot into the way in which histories, church, and communities are built on individual and family memories but also the importance of placing these in the context of globally connected communities. These collections are not the usual stuff of institutional or national memory. However, precisely because they are personal and have been kept by groups and families on the move, they embody the connected communities of dispersion which are at the core of Mennonite identity. One folder has a tiny notebook, meticulously translating and transcribing the daily record kept by their forebears who traveled from Russia, Russian passports, a handwritten book of early nineteenth century remedies for colic and much spider bites. The Jacob F. and Marie Banman fond contains beautiful eighteenth century fraktur examples, modern hand-written genealogies and family record and copy books. Like their owners, these objects had migrated across land and sea, and the juxtaposition of documents which record lives lived across centuries and borders encapsulates the connections, memories and emotions that sustained Mennonite communities. These collections of memories go far beyond the 500-year anniversary and remind us of the power of the local and the glocal (the term coined to express the interplay between the global and the local) in communities bound together by remembrance (Freist, 2013, p. 208).

Whether or not Mennonites celebrate the 500-year centenary in 2025 or 2027, their debates reveal the global and diachronic power of Anabaptist memories, and these memoryscapes offer not only ways of thinking about Mennonite identity but broader memory cultures of early modernity and Reformation history. Memories of the Reformations and their global legacies must be understood in cross-confessional contexts. Scholarship can use these comparative histories of memories and legacies as a way out of the debates of marginal versus mainstream and confessionalisation to consider questions of global Protestantisms, long term legacies, and concepts of diaspora and exile. Anniversaries always offer us a chance to rethink histories. In analyzing the various Reformation anniversaries, it is not a question of ‘memory wars’—whose anniversary we should be celebrating, whose Reformation was better, or which had more positive or long-lasting effects. Rather scholars can take the opportunity of these discussions over commemorations to diversify our concepts of the Reformation and its legacies.
===
Notes

1.


For information on the variety of celebrations see the official Luther 2017 website. https://www.luther2017.de/en/2017/reformation-anniversary/.
2.


German plans to spend relatively little on centenary events compared to the UK and France were criticized. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/germany-plans-first-world-war-centenary. An example of a more subtle and low-key exhibition was that at the Neues Museum Weimar, ‘Krieg der Geister: Weimar als Symbolort deutscher Kultur vor und nach 1914’.
3.


http://mennoworld.org/2018/06/19/the-world-together/anabaptisms-500th-anniversary-is-2025-not-2027/. See also https://themennonite.org/daily-news/how-to-celebrate-500-years/.
4.


https://mwc-cmm.org/renewal2027.
5.


https://anabaptisthistorians.org/.
6.


This is the series Quellen zur Geschichte der Täufer.
7.


See for example the joint statement by the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican. https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/10/31/171031a.html. A booklet was produced to recognize this by the LWF and The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 (2013).
8.


The latest triennial census conducted by the MWC counted 2,131,000 members as of November 2018. This includes various groups such as the Mennonites, the Amish, and Hutterites.
9.


This was the first known Anabaptist confession written by Michael Sattler.


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Acknowledgements


Thanks to proofreaders in the Early Modern Work in Progress group and James Urry for references and discussions on Mennonites.

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Hill, K. Memories from the margins? Anniversaries, Anabaptists and rethinking Reformations. Palgrave Commun 5, 84 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0290-1

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Reading THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE Part 1-2

 Bessel Van Der Kolk

THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE Content table [total pages 421]

PROLOGUE: FACING TRAUMA

PART ONE: THE REDISCOVERY OF TRAUMA
1. LESSONS FROM VIETNAM VETERANS
2. REVOLUTIONS IN UNDERSTANDING MIND AND BRAIN
3. LOOKING INTO THE BRAIN: THE NEUROSCIENCE REVOLUTION

PART TWO: THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON TRAUMA
4. RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE: THE ANATOMY OF SURVIVAL
5. BODY-BRAIN CONNECTIONS
6. LOSING YOUR BODY, LOSING YOUR SELF

===
PART THREE: THE MINDS OF CHILDREN [22%, 102]
7. GETTING ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH: ATTACHMENT AND ATTUNEMENT
8. TRAPPED IN RELATIONSHIPS: THE COST OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT
9. WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
10. DEVELOPMENTAL TRAUMA: THE HIDDEN EPIDEMIC

PART FOUR: THE IMPRINT OF TRAUMA [37%, 168]
11. UNCOVERING SECRETS: THE PROBLEM OF TRAUMATIC MEMORY
12. THE UNBEARABLE HEAVINESS OF REMEMBERING

===
PART FIVE: PATHS TO RECOVERY [44%, 203]
13. HEALING FROM TRAUMA: OWNING YOUR SELF
14. LANGUAGE: MIRACLE AND TYRANNY
15. LETTING GO OF THE PAST: EMDR
16. LEARNING TO INHABIT YOUR BODY: YOGA
17. PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER: SELF-LEADERSHIP [61%, 277]

=====
18. FILLING IN THE HOLES: CREATING STRUCTURES [65,296]
19. REWIRING THE BRAIN: NEUROFEEDBACK
20. FINDING YOUR VOICE: COMMUNAL RHYTHMS AND THEATER
EPILOGUE: CHOICES TO BE MADE

APPENDIX: CONSENSUS PROPOSED CRITERIA FOR DEVELOPMENTAL TRAUMA DISORDER[79%,356]
====
RESOURCES [80%, 363]
FURTHER READING
NOTES
=====

1부 트라우마의 재발견
1장 베트남전 참전 군인들이 알게 해 준 교훈
2장 마음과 뇌의 이해, 그 혁신적 변화
3장 뇌 속을 들여다보다: 신경과학의 혁명

2부 트라우마 상태의 뇌
4장 필사적인 도주: 생존의 해부
5장 신체와 뇌의 유대
6장 몸을 잃으면 자기self를 잃는다
===
3부 아이들의 마음
7장 애착과 조율: 동일한 파장을 일으키다
8장 관계의 덫: 학대와 방임의 대가
9장 사랑과는 거리가 먼
10장 발달 과정의 트라우마: 숨겨진 유행병

4부 트라우마의 흔적
11장 비밀의 발견: 트라우마 기억의 문제점
12장 참을 수 없는 기억의 무거움

===
5부 회복으로 가는 길
13장 트라우마로부터의 회복: 트라우마의 치유
14장 언어, 기적이자 고통
15장 과거를 떠나보내는 방법: 안구 운동 민감소실 및 재처리 요법EMDR
16장 내 몸에서 살아가는 법을 배우다: 요가
17장 조각 맞추기: 나를 리드하는 기술

===
18장 틈새 메우기: 새로운 구조 만들기
19장 뇌 회로의 재연결: 뉴로피드백
20장 잃어버린 목소리 찾기: 공동체의 리듬, 연극 치료

닫는 글 | 선택 앞에서
감사의 글
부록 | 트라우마 발달 장애 진단 기준에 관한 합의안
참고 자료
더 읽을거리
주석
======

PROLOGUE: FACING TRAUMA

PART ONE: THE REDISCOVERY OF TRAUMA

1. LESSONS FROM VIETNAM VETERANS

- Almost a third of couples engage in violence at some point durin their relationship.

Trauma and loss of self

Numbing

The reorganization of perception

Stuck in trauma

Diagnosing postramautic stress

Framework of PTSD emerges

the biology of traumatic memories of VA

female depression pationts - experience of sexual abuse as children

incest statistics wrong

12 million women ictims of rape. before 15.

ten times the veerans number

A new understanding

trauma results in a fundamental reorganisation of the way mind and brain manage perceptions.

For real change to take place, the body needs to lean that the danger has passed.

===
2. REVOLUTIONS IN UNDERSTANDING MIND AND BRAIN

Trauma before dawn.

sylvia case - helping or gang rape

Making sense of suffering

---

저자의 선생, Elvin Samrad 교수가 말하기를

---

치료사의 임무는 사람들이 즐거움과 비탄을 다 포함한 삶의 현실을 인정하고, 경험하고, 견디게 도아주는 것이다.  

"우리 고통의 가장 큰 원인은 우리가 스스로에게 하는 거짓말"이다. 우리는 우리 경험의 모든 측면에 대해 스스로에게 정직해야 한다고 

그가 종종 말한다: 사람들은 그들이 아는 것과 그들이 느끼는 것을 모르면 절대 나아질 수 없다.

저명한 하버드 교수의 이런 고백을 듣고 놀랐던 기억이 있다. 그가 밤에 잠들을 때 아내의 엉덩이를 만지고 얼마나 위안을 받았지.

자신의 그런 단순한 인간의 욕구를 스스로 공개함으로서 그는 우리가 그것들이 얼마나 인간에게 기본적인지 인식하도록 도왔주었다.

존재라도 우리의 생각이나 세상적인 성취가 아무리 고상하더라도 이런 것들에 주의를 기울이지 않으면 우리의 삶은 정체된 존재가 될 것이다. 

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development of chemical - emoton approach

chemical imbalance

use of antipsychotic drugs result in reduction of people living in mental hospitals

from 500,000 in 1955, to 100,000 in 1966

Inescapable shock

Animal studies

Adicted to trauma

Soothing the brain

The triaumph of pharmacology

the drug revolution may have done as much harm as good

deflect attention from dealing with the underlying issues.

One in ten Americans now take antidepressants.

Adaptation or desease?

The brain dsease model overlooks four fundamental truths:

our abiity

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3. LOOKING INTO THE BRAIN: THE NEUROSCIENCE REVOLUTION
Speechless horror

Shifting to one side of the brain

Stuck in fight or flight

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PART TWO: THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON TRAUMA

4. RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE: THE ANATOMY OF SURVIVAL

2011 5 year old Noam Saul

During disasters young children usually take their cues from thei parents.

Taking an active role

Organised to survive

<cognitive brain> vs <animal brain> (more primitive)

psychological  related to physical

emotion

neuroplasticity

If you feel safe and loved, your brain becmes specialised in exploration, play, and coopation;

if you are frightened and unwanted, it specialises in managing feelings of fear and abandonement.

<emotional brain> vs <rational brain>

emotional brain: programmed

Nerve-chemicals-brain-body

The brain from bottom to top

Mirrorring each other: interpersonal neurobiology

Emphathy - our aility to feel into someone else.

mirror neurons - neural wifi

emphasy, imitation, development of language

trauma almost invariably involved not being see,

not being mirrored, and not being taken into account.

harmonious relationship with other human beings

relaising that other people think and fell differnetly from us is a huge developmental step for 2-3 year olds. 

Indentifying dager: the cook and the smoke detector

trauma increasses the risk of misinterpreting whether a particular situation is dangerous or safe.

Controlling the stress response: The watch tower

IN PTSD the critical balance between the amygdala (smoke detector) and the MPFC (watchtower) shifts radically, which makes it much harder to control emotions and impulases.

The rider and the horse

rational brain  and emotional brain

competent rider and unruly horse

이성적인 두뇌와 감성적인 두뇌 

유능한 기수와 제멋대로인 말

Stan and Ute's brain on trauma.

Dissociation and reliving

The smoke detector goes on overdrive

The timekeeper collapses

The thalamus shuts down

Depersonalisation: split off the self

Learning to live in the present

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5. BODY-BRAIN CONNECTIONS

A window into the nervous system

The neural love code

Polivagal theory - biology of safety and danger

interplay betweenthe visceral experiences of our body and the voices and faces of people around us.

Kowing that we are seen and heardby the important people in our lives can make us feel calm and safe.

socal relationships important to trauma.

New approaches to healing.

Safety and reciprocity

Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.

Neuroception - capacity to evaluate relative danger and safety in one's environment.

The levels of safety

1.

2.

3.

Fight or flight versus collapse

How we become human

Defend or relax?

New approaches to treatment

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6. LOSING YOUR BODY, LOSING YOUR SELF

Losing your body

How do we know we are alive?

The self sensing system

The feeling of what happens  Damasio

The self under threat

Agency: Owning your life

Alexithymia: No wonder for feelings

Depersonalisation

Befriending the body

Connecting with yourself, Connecting with others

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