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The Power of Mary in Secessionist Warfare Catholicism and Political Crisis in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea Anna-Karina Hermkens From 1988 until the late 1990s, people on Bougainville Island were immersed in a vicious war that destroyed nearly all infrastructure and social services. Foreign reports almost unanimously analyzed the crisis as a sociopolitical conflict. However, religion, particularly Catholicism, played a major role during and after the crisis. Catholic devotions and revelations were deeply intertwined with ‘‘traditional’’ concepts and beliefs, as well as with the politics of the crisis. Furthermore, people believe that peace was achieved through prayers , especially pleas directed to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Bougainville crisis was conceptualized as a Holy War, and by examining it we can see how religion legitimizes sovereignty and violence, supports charismatic leadership, and inspires people to fight simultaneously against oppression and for peace. Bougainville is a small island group in the South Pacific, belonging to Papua New Guinea. It comprises two main islands: Buka (circa 50 km long) in the north and, separated by a small sea channel, Bougainville Island (circa 200 km long) in the south. In addition, there are many small islands and atolls. Bougainville is often referred to as one of the most beautiful island groups in the world due to its beaches of white sand, its blue waters, and the long, lush green mountain spine that runs through Bougainville Island. It was also known as one of the most developed provinces of Papua New Guinea because it contained a large copper mine. A walk through Arawa town in Central Bougainville, however, reveals the devastation that has resulted from nearly a decade of warfare. Bushes have overgrown the once prestigious air-conditioned supermarket of Arawa and the former provincial office. A rampant growth of weeds preys upon the 1 16 TH E P O W E R O F M A R Y I N S E C ES SI O N I S T WA R FA R E concrete skeletons of the once-thriving businesses along the main southern road to Kieta, giving a sinister border to the town. The ruins and weeds form a fitting backdrop for the rough looks of the young city-dwellers lounging at the edge of town, often dressed in army pants, with bandanas tied around their foreheads and biceps, and wearing T-shirts displaying photographs of Jean Claude van Damme, Bruce Lee, and other Rambo-like ‘‘heroes.’’ While many Bougainvilleans are striving to recover from the crisis and to rebuild their lives, these young men appear eager to cultivate the years of warfare. During the war, almost all roads, hospitals, schools, banks, private businesses, and government buildings on Bougainville were destroyed. Many houses and churches met with a similar fate. The conflict resulted in immense human suffering. The number of people who died in the crisis is estimated to be about fifteen thousand, which amounts to about 10 percent of the entire population.1 According to Marilyn Taleo Havini, ‘‘no one has escaped the twists and turns of fighting zones, having families trapped in opposite camps.’’2 Beyond those killed in the fighting, many people lost loved ones because of the interruption in basic services, such as medicine. To grief is added the trauma that follows in the wake of torture and rape. A generation of new Bougainvilleans has grown up in a context of combat and has not received adequate schooling.3 Some were born in the bush while their parents were fleeing the colliding forces. Others spent their childhood in one of the many ‘‘care centers’’ spread across Bougainville. It should therefore come as no surprise that many find it hard to let go of the war, both in their physical appearance and mentally, given how deeply ingrained experiences of grief and trauma have come to be in people’s lives. Faced with the negative peace and stability that characterizes Bougainville today, many people turn to religion in search of meaningful structures, peace, comfort, and aid. But in Bougainville religion—specifically Catholicism and above all a cult of Mary—is hardly a matter only of consolation and peace. It played a major role in the crisis, and it was during the decadelong war that people’s spirituality reached unprecedented heights and that Marian devotion in particular became ascendent in many parts of Bougainville. In this essay, which is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in the Koromira district in Bougainville in 2005...

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