Bearing
Witness a Pilgrimage
An interview with Pake Hall
This summer, Pake made a bearing witness pilgrimage from
Gothenburg to the Bofors manufacturing district in Karlskoga.
He originally planned to go alone, but others became
interested and in the end it was an interfaith pilgrimage
involving around forty people. We talked to Pake about his
pilgrimage.
Q: How did the idea for this pilgrimage
come about?
Q: Was there any specific inspiration
for making a pilgrimage?
Q: How did the typical day go during
the pilgrimage?
Pake: The idea took root in my mind
in the summer of 2014, when I was
involved in online discussions about
the refugee crisis and its connection
to Swedish weapons exports. The debates were very polarised, often becoming pointless slanging matches.
And I realised how little I knew from
my own personal experience about
the things I felt so passionate about.
I felt a deep need to take the time to
immerse myself in the question of
war, its proximity and how Sweden’s
weapons exports affected me and the
world I lived in.
Pake: There is a soldier-turned-Zenmonk called Claude AnShin Thomas
whose accounts of the peace pilgrimages he has made all over the world
I find very inspiring. And I had already undertaken a pilgrimage to
Auschwitz-Birkenau organised by the
Zen Peacemakers Order, which seeks
to combine meditation with social
action. I wanted to make a pilgrimage based on their three tenets: notknowing, bearing witness to the joy
and suffering of the world and doing
action arising from not knowing and
bearing witness.
Pake: We started each day with a silent meditation circle for those joining the day’s walk (between five
and fifteen people on any given day).
Then we had a Council Circle, a
kind of sharing and listening practice about what had come up during
meditation. After that it was breakfast and packing up before we set
off. We kept silence for the first half
hour of walking. In the evenings,
we had meetings with people who
wanted to share their stories about
their experiences of war, or with the
arms industry. Then before we went
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BEAring WiTnESS -A PilgriMAgE
Right in the middle of his very professional presentation he suddenly
started telling us about a time when
a closed van approached his UN encampment from the Serbian side.
Armed troops surrounded the vehicle
and when they opened the back door, they saw that it was packed with
small children, wrapped in blankets.
Children whose parents had sent
them into the arms of unknown soldiers because the alternative was even
worse. As he was telling us this, he
broke down in tears and said: ”Even
now, when I see a small child, the
only thing I can think of is that van,
those children and the choice their
parents had to make.”
to bed, we meditated together once
more and shared our impressions of
the day.
Q: Tell us about some of the meetings
you had.
Pake: On the first morning, we went
to the port of Skandia and met with
Port Four, historically one of the
most militant workers’ unions in
Sweden, whose members handle Swedish weapons shipments that pass
through the port. We were expecting a defensive attitude as we asked
what they thought about Sweden’s
export of weapons. To our surprise,
the atmosphere relaxed after the first
five minutes and it was a very open,
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vulnerable and warm meeting. They
spoke of the fact that in today’s
world, unions are on the back foot,
fighting to retain existing rights, in
contrast to the old days when they
could afford to fight for solidarity
and improved conditions both for
themselves and for others.
There were many more meetings as
the days passed. We met the senior
officer from the Nordic peacekeeping mission in Macedonia in 1998,
who told us he had left the army and
now worked to help Swedish soldiers
who had served with the UN in war
zones. Many of them have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and
are not getting the help they need.
Many of us had strong views about
commercial involvement in refugee
matters. We visited a big refugee home run by businessman Bert Karlsson. The place was run down and
looked very depressing. We spoke
to some of the people staying there
and with the person in charge. Even
though there was much room for
improvement, we were all impressed
by how many activities were offered.
A pilgrim who had volunteered at a
center in Stockholm run by a charity told us that the accommodation
was better there, but here the refugees were being given a chance to do
things for themselves. They could
grow vegetables, get training, make
their own food and so on. In Stockholm they were not allowed to use
> The world is seldom
black and white.
the kitchen and no activities were
provided, so a lot of the residents
were just sitting around passively.
The world is seldom black and white.
One of the meetings which made the
deepest impression was with a group
of Syrian refugees in Mariestad. Some people from the local Christian
congregation were there too. The atmosphere was electric and there were
tears in people’s eyes as the refugees
spoke of the changes the war had
wrought in their lives. How suddenly there were youths selling weapons
in the streets and how loved ones
were dying around them. How reason
slowly disappeared from everyday life
and polarisation increased with the
logic of war and violence. One of the
men told of how he tried to protect
his children from the daily nightmare of dead bodies in the street.
What do you say to a four-year-old
who asks you if the man with his
face in the gravel is sleeping? They
also told how upsetting they found
the oversimplified news reporting in
the West, where war is usually portrayed as good versus evil. A Kurdish
man whose teenage cousin had been
shot by the PKK for refusing to fight
with them said: ”The Assad regime
bombs, the PKK shoots, ISIS burns.
Their victims are equally dead.”
Something that really struck me was
the absence of any talk of vengeance. They had lost their homes and
families and been forced to leave wives and children in refugee camps on
the way to Sweden, but said with one
voice: ”The only winners in war are
those who sell weapons. Everyone else loses. We just want peace.”
We had been concerned before the
meeting that they might feel as if
they were the objects of some kind
of voyeurism. But they did not feel
that way at all. They told us at the
end: ”When we came to Sweden it
was like arriving in paradise. We had
beds, food, a roof over our heads and
no need to fear the police. We were filled with the desire to give something back to this fantastic country. But we have not been allowed to.
Instead, we have to sit and wait. And
wait. We are not locked up, but here
we are in a big house in the middle
of nowhere, with no money and no
possibility to leave since we don’t
know anyone. No one wants to listen
to our stories, what we have been through. It is a kind of slow death. The
fact that you want to hear what we
have to say has given us life again. If
you ever plan another pilgrimage, let
us know so we can come too.”
And after the meeting they did start
to have contact with the local priest
and her congregation, meeting at
language cafés and that sort of thing.
From one conversation and from listening, new seeds sprang up straight
away.
Q: The pilgrimage ended a few months
ago now. Do you have any reflections
on it that you would like to share?
Pake: One could ask whether we got
what we were looking for. But that
is not the right question, since there
was no specific agenda, other than to
bear witness around war and Swedish weapons exports. Some of the
people we met on the way found this
very provoking, but now in hindsight I believe that this absence of
agenda was what enabled so much to
come out of it. If we had had some
fixed idea of what was to be gained,
it would probably have led to more
separation between us and those we
met on the way, and also between us
and the experience of walking itself.
I am very grateful that I had this
opportunity to dawdle along dusty country roads beneath the blazing sun, nursing my blisters. Grateful to have been able to take my
zazen off the cushion and out into
meetings with people I would never
have met otherwise. Grateful for the
things that came out of those meetings: volunteer work with refugees
on the island of Lesbos, language
cafés, pilgrims writing books about
the experience, renewed energy for
non-violent action, pilgrimages with
refugees in Stockholm and probably many other things that I have not
heard about.
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