We Are The Voice of the Grass
Interfaith Peace Activism in Northern Uganda
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23483193 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David A Hoekema (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Pages | 312 |
| Publication date | 2019-03-28 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | BOOK |
| Venue | We Are The Voice of the Grass (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/oso/9780190923150.001.0001 |
| OpenAlex | W4237315848 |
| ISBN | 9780190923150 |
| Open Library | OL27757064M |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
From the 1980s until the late 2000s the northern region of Uganda in East Africa endured a reign of terror imposed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and its founder Joseph Kony. The LRA movement’s brutal tactics—abducting boys for training as soldiers, kidnapping girls as officers’ sexual partners, raping and maiming and killing innocent villagers—captured the world’s attention through Western visitors’ social media campaigns. Far less visible was the creation of a new organization to combat its destructive effects by leaders of the Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim communities in the Acholi region. Overcoming centuries of mistrust, they came together to relieve the suffering the LRA inflicted, to bring government and rebels to the negotiating table, and to assist in post-conflict recovery. This study describes the courageous work of the Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative and its contributions to resolving one of the most horrific conflicts in recent history and helping families and communities recover from a quarter century of civil war. Drawing on published accounts of East African history, journalistic reports of the conflict and its aftermath, and extensive personal interviews in Uganda with organization leaders and LRA survivors, the author sets the background for Kony’s rebellion and draws lessons from the work of ARLPI that shed new light on how religion relates to politics, how conflict can be resolved, and how a community can reclaim its future through locally initiated initiatives against overwhelming obstacles.
Criminology · Government (linguistics) · Insurgency · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Reign · Resistance (ecology) · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · African history and culture analysis · Gender Studies · Law · Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria · Religion, Society, and Development · Conflict management · Interdenominational cooperation · Peace · politics and government · Uganda
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |