Baobab - tree of life

(I hope I'm allowed this, as only the image to the right of my triptych is from today.)

Yesterday evening (in my favourite place in the whole wide world) I spotted the top of this tree then, in the distance, its trunk, then a crane lifting the top through the air. I didn't have time to stay and watch the tree become whole so I went back today and spoke to the artists who were still putting it together. It's made of fabrics from all over the world and will be at London South Bank's Festival of the World for four months.

Baobabs are amazing: the bark is fire resistant and used for cloth and rope; the leaves are used for condiments and medicines; the fruit is rich in vitamin C; the trunk can store hundreds of litres of water, to be tapped in dry periods; and mature trees are often hollow, providing living space for animals.

They are a great symbol for world harmony since baobabs are, in African tradition, the place for palavers where conflicts are resolved. Unlike Western, individualistic conflict resolution, which uses the adversarial legal system to prove one person right and the other wrong, the traditional African view is that people who do something wrong both offend the community/family in which the wrong has taken place and shame their own community/family. Justice involves finding a way to continue living together, and dispute resolution can be a long process. The communities of both sides first establish the facts from victims, perpetrators and witnesses, then the perpetrators - if considered to have done wrong - are encouraged to acknowledge responsibility and demonstrate remorse. Perpetrators are then encouraged to ask for forgiveness while victims are encouraged to show mercy. Elders decide on appropriate compensation or reparations then the parties - including family members and friends - are encouraged to commit themselves to reconciliation and co-existence.

This process was the basis for the truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa after the official end of apartheid.

And please forgive me if you know all this already but I've just been reading an inspiring book about African transitional justice.

PS I'm adding some important text from Kendall's comment (below) with which I completely agree - especially her last sentence, which almost made me not write about 'Africa' at all:
In some African cultures, only men are eligible to confer in community meetings. This is slowly breaking down in many parts of Africa, and certainly women were central to the TRC hearings. But there are still places in Africa where tradition excludes women from the decision-making and community-healing process. Africa is an enormous continent with over 3000 distinct and separate cultures, and it is difficult to say anything about Africa as a whole.