My ancestor
has long slept beneath that mound of mountain,
wrapped in the forest that shields my village,
beneath a blanket of deep black golden stone.

I ask You,
What is a book, O God?
Why does a book turn a stranger into a challenger,
armed only with my ancestor’s black stone,
carried along the pulse of my earth’s veins?

What is a hand, O God?
Why does the act of holding make me fall silent
When they arrive with guards,
shooting into a flock of prey
But that prey… is me, O God.
All this, only, only…
for a patch of land to bury myself in, someday.

What is a home, O God?
Why has a home turned unkind
to one who smells of earth and roots?
Once… this was my home, but You were my foundation of life.
I was Your worshipper

them I do not know.

If You bury me beneath Your wrath,
then bury them beneath Your might.

This poem is a translation version of “Bukit Nenek Moyangku” that has been published on Kompas: https://www.kompas.id/artikel/puisi-puisi-ramita-paraswati

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is an uplifting documentary film founded on the true story of a group of courageous Liberian women, led by Leymah Gbowee, who united across religious and social lines to put an end to Liberia’s ruthless civil war. Their peaceful campaign not only helped bring about the resignation of then-President Charles Taylor, but also paved the way for the election of Africa’s first female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The film is an uplifting homage to the power of grassroots, women-led activism in the face of violence, impunity, and political apathy.

The Liberian conflict was based on deep-seated issues, economic disparities, corruption, ethnic rivalries, and the disintegration of state institutions. Years of political unrest erupted into civil war when Charles Taylor took over in 1997 after a violent struggle. The country plunged into chaos as Taylor’s regime and various rebel factions (most notably LURD) used terror to gain control over territory and resources, particularly diamonds and timber.

The violence soon escalated. Children were forced to fight as soldiers, women were raped systematically, and entire communities were displaced. Men were either forced into armed factions or killed, and women and girls were forced into sexual slavery. Children had their childhood taken away as they were forced either to fight or fend for themselves in refugee camps. Gender-based violence was being used as a weapon of war. The state had collapsed, and in the absence of the rule of law, Liberians were trapped in a constant nightmare.

The main actors in the conflict were Charles Taylor’s government, the rebels, and the civilian population that suffered. While the political elites clashed over power and wealth, it was ordinary people, and women especially, who bore the heaviest burden.

In the midst of this despair, Leymah Gbowee, a social worker and mother, was devastated by the suffering around her. A dream, in which she was forewarned of the destruction of Liberia, became a spiritual and moral awakening. It occurred to her that if no one took action, nothing would ever change. Her pain was turned into a mission: to organize a movement of women demanding peace.

She began by organizing women from her Lutheran church, calling on them to pray and to act publicly. She cast peace, nonviolence, and motherhood as the ethical foundations of their movement. The women wore white, which was a symbol of peace, and they conducted silent sit-ins and public prayers.

Understanding the need for unity, Leymah reached out to Muslim women leaders. Though the population of Liberia was divided along religious lines, women of every religion suffered alike. Christian and Muslim women united and formed the Women in Peacebuilding Network. Women used simple but powerful tools: prayers, songs, mass protests, and even a sex strike to pressure their husbands and partners into taking peace seriously.

The movement’s strategy was nonviolent yet relentless. Theirs was a strategy of moral authority, collective strength, and spiritual imperative. Their message was clear and emotionally evocative: “We want peace, no more war,” and “The future of our children is at stake.”

As the women’s movement grew, it could no longer be dismissed. The women protested daily in front of government buildings and eventually secured a meeting with Charles Taylor himself, demanding peace talks with the rebels. They shoved the parties to the negotiating table in Ghana.

Despite their key role in initiating the peace process, however, the women were not formally asked to participate in the negotiations, excluded by patriarchy and political elitism. But they would not be quiet. Resorting to a dramatic move, hundreds of women surrounded the building where peace talks were ongoing and locked the delegates inside, warning that they would not be allowed out unless an agreement was signed. This physical and moral pressure prevented the breakdown of negotiations.

Since the negotiations were slow due to political egos, mistrust, and individual interests the women kept vigil outside. Their presence helped to remind the negotiators that they had a responsibility to the people. Through insistence and public visibility, the women ensured that the negotiations made tangible progress towards peace.

After the peace agreement, Liberia was faced with the enormous challenge of reconstruction. The disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) process had to be carefully managed, especially with thousands of child soldiers and traumatized combatants. Women were at the center of healing the communities, trauma counseling, reintegration activities, and safe spaces for former fighters, especially children.

The United Nations was involved in the management of the DDR process but was consistently criticized as being slow, too bureaucratic, and removed from the local context. Women’s organizations filled these gaps, using empathy, trust, and solid communal ties to accomplish what international actors could not.

To prevent the return to war, women focused on political stability and civic engagement. Women mobilized the voters, monitored the 2005 elections, and campaigned for the presidency of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Her election as Liberia’s first woman president was a historic moment, proving that women’s leadership was not only desirable, but essential for peace.

The women carried forward a message of reconciliation, justice, and a shared future. Their narrative is the heart of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, as established in UN Security Council Resolution 1325: women must be part of all peace processes not as victims, but as agents of change.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is more than a documentary, it is a testament to the courage, intelligence, and moral leadership of women in the midst of conflict. It demonstrates that peace is not simply the silence of war, but the active pursuit of justice, inclusion, and healing. Through the courage of women like Leymah Gbowee and the thousands of women who stood with her, Liberia shows the world: durable peace is possible only when women sit at the table.

Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World By Karen Armstrong. New York, Vintage, 2023. 224p.

ISBN: 9780593319437 (hardcover) 9780593319444 (e-book).

Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World by Karen Armstrong delves into a deep understanding of what it means for human beings and the natural world to be in relationship. Armstrong emphasizes religious values inherent in human beings as the moral foundation for the existence of the Earth. She employs the terms “power” and “rule” in the context of the religious duty conferred by God on human individuals to dominate nature—duty that has too often gone unheeded in the modern era.

The book is philosophical and religious in its approach, and thus it becomes extremely relevant for those seeking to facilitate spiritual thought in solving the ecological crisis. This differs from other publications, such as Laudato Si by Pope Francis (2015), inclusive conversation among Christians, or The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram (1996), being phenomenological and anthropological, but Armstrong takes a cross-cultural religious perspective. Her work is also different from Thomas Berry’s The Great Work (1999), which presents a theological vision and invites a radical transformation of human-nature relations, and from Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree (2021), which centers on the relationship between nature and spirituality through scientific inquiry.

The Crisis of Human-Nature Relations: Armstrong’s View
This book offers a critical perspective on the lost relationship between humans and nature. Armstrong claims that this disconnection is brought about by a loss of human awareness of the damage inflicted on the planet—a concern she presents as holy due to its significance to the greater human crisis. The book thus tries to offer a new window through which to look at ecological concerns.

We are present, but virtually absent (p. 8)

Armstrong pinpoints the separation of human emotions from nature, which troubles her in the initial part of the book. She laments the secular approach towards nature prevalent in Western countries (p. 11). As a contrast, she invites readers to second-guess non-Western cultural approaches—such as Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Sufism, Buddhism, and Judaism—but that perceive nature in a religious context. This is further reconfirmed in the argument against “Mythos and Logos.”

The first chapter, “Mythos and Logos,” is a thesis that presents Armstrong’s case regarding the relation between human beings and nature. It invites readers to imagine the content of religious values in perceiving their world as being part of nature, yet science views such things as nonsensical most of the time. Armstrong wants to appeal to readers with differing backgrounds—religious or secular—to retrieve the human spirit that relates to the universe. She contends that contemporary humans have a tendency to reject myth as a source of spirituality and meaning, opting for logos instead. This, in Armstrong’s view, leads to both ecological and existential crises, as respect for nature and its relationship to human existence is lost. For her, myth can invoke emotional and moral dimensions, providing human actions with valuable guidance, but logos, useful as it is in understanding the material world, lacks emotional depth (pp. 16–17).

Thus, Armstrong argues that resolving this crisis requires more than rational understanding; it requires reintegration and restoration of myth into human life (p. 19). This integration, she believes, can give one a sound ethical basis for understanding nature not merely as a resource to be used, but as a sacred entity that must be respected and protected. Here, she emphasizes the need for an integration of reason and values which promote a close, spiritual relationship with nature.

In the next chapters, Armstrong offers several ethical principles for living with the natural world. Firstly, she highlights the necessity of reclaiming a sacred relationship with nature (p. 20). She argues that the ancient had a profound reverence for nature as sacred, as attested by various religious rituals—for example, those in Confucianism and Daoism (pp. 20–21). She calls on readers to assign more significance to life by embracing nature as an intrinsic part of spiritual life and to preserve the environment through significant rituals. This process is anticipated to create a moral sense for the more respectful use of nature.

“In the same manner, we can habituate ourselves to what the Chinese referred to as ‘quiet sitting’ and become able to recognize the shared life that pervades all things and connects them with each other in harmonious coalescence.” (p. 31)

Armstrong further points out that human beings are social creatures by nature and depend on other entities—necessarily including nature. In Chapter 6, she refers to the word “Kenosis,” or self-emptying, as a way of releasing human ego and pride (p. 48). She stresses that humans are in the web of life, not rulers of it. She also demands spiritual practices such as contemplation and meditation in order to make people realize the interrelatedness of life with nature. This is highly relevant today due to humanity’s dependency on ecological sustainability. For example, global warming—that is caused by environmental exploitation—demonstrates the actual consequences of human hubris. While the world begins to demonstrate signs of collapse, humans suffer the most: extreme weather, pollution, crop failures, and so on. Therefore, Armstrong appeals to individuals to act with full awareness of the environmental cost of their actions.

“Every day, the time we get up and the time we lie down, for a few minutes let us consider three things: how little we know; how frequently we are in default in kindness to other creatures; and how small are our longings and desires, which so often begin and end in us.” (p. 53)

The third moral virtue Armstrong discusses is gratitude towards nature (Chapter 7). Gratitude, in her view, is the best way to pay tribute to nature as the giver of life. This gratitude should be shown through the protection of ecosystems and not overusing them. Armstrong is concerned with the ethical responsibility of humans to preserve nature—not just for its present survival, but to pass it on to the future generations too.

Fourth, Armstrong refers directly to Hindu and Jain philosophy’s idea of Ahimsa (Chapter 9) based on non-violence—possibly even to the natural world (p. 71). She places Ahimsa within the Golden Rule introduced in Chapter 8 where we are taught not to cause harm to other living beings either directly or indirectly. This maxim leads us to take care of each being, even nature, just as we want to be taken care of (p. 63). Today, this holds more validity with the global green movements of tree planting, organic produce, and international agreements like the Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocol, which also aim at reducing carbon levels. These are manifestations of respect for nature in the sense of natural focus and minimal chemical intervention. Armstrong urges readers to look to their own awareness and ethics and not to continue with a reckless disregard for man or nature.

NOTE:

This review is an English translation of the original Indonesian version written by Ramita Paraswati and published in Jurnal MAARIF: Arus Pemikiran Islam dan Sosial, Volume 19, Number 1 — December 2024. DOI: 10.47651/mrf.v19i2.266.
The original article was published by the MAARIF Institute, and the author can be contacted at ramitaparaswati2@gmail.com.

Original Book Review Title:
Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World
by Karen Armstrong. New York: Vintage, 2023. 224 pages.
ISBN: 9780593319437 (hardcover), 9780593319444 (e-book).