"Feast with your enemies" - Dekha Ibrahim Abdi

By Dilip -
What do I do differently as a result of knowing this great woman? I utterly believe in the power of one local person to transform a violent situation. I know that humiliation is the driver of most incidents of violence, and that respect is the best antidote to humiliation, and I try to apply that.  Dekha said “feast with your enemies”. So I do my best to prepare and offer food to those with whom I find myself in disagreement...
Photograph of Dekha Ibrahim
She was born in 1964 in Wajir, near the border with Somalia, and received a good education thanks to her father’s support. At her secondary school pupils were divided along religious and ethnic lines, but Dekha and her friends created a space between these opposing camps by sticking together. This childhood experience informed her philosophy of inter-religious co-operation as essential to achieving durable peace. "The participation in a peace process is not about the mathematics of numbers and percentages in relation to who is in majority or minority. It is about plurality, diversity, participation and ownership of all affected by the conflict."

In Wajir a conflict between clans over water and livestock claimed 1500 lives in the early 1990s. Dekha, then head teacher of a school in Wajir, started a grassroots peace initiative with women from other clans. Despite opposition from traditional leaders, they began to organise mediation between the warring factions. Dekha’s method was first to listen carefully, without interrupting, to all involved in the conflict.  She knew that humiliation is one of the main drivers of violence, and she knew that the best antidote to humiliation is….respect. The process was a personal interaction with each individual or group, in order to “see the pain in each situation”.  Then, when everyone felt their point of view was understood, she would work together with all parties to “restore relations between victim and offender”. Although Dekha may not have known it at the time, this is exactly the method that Mandela used in South Africa and later to prevent the Rwandan conflict spreading to Burundi.  She explains this process in a short Youtube.

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