Is he my brother?

Is he my brother? 28-minute video, Editor: Allison Kenny, Director and Producer: Alan Channer MRA Productions.

Is he my brother? is a remarkable story of forgiveness and reconciliation. Set against the lush background of Kenya, it tells the story of Stanley Kinga, a black Kenyan, and Alan Knight, a white settler, who were on opposing sides during the pre-1962 independence struggle.

Such was the hatred between the races that the secret liberation movement Mau Mau aimed to get rid of the Europeans by any means necessary, while the white colonialists' resolve to repress Mau Mau was equally ferocious. Knight recalls that at one stage the colonialists were hanging 100 black men a week, and that it was a capital crime for a black man to be found with even one round of ammunition.

Now in the twilight period of their lives, Kinga and Knight have chosen to draw a cross on their past antagonism and plant the seed for a more united and hatred-free future for the young generations.

In the film, both Kinga and Knight poignantly recount significant changes in their personal lives. In Knight's case, a catalyst for these changes was MRA, then known as the Oxford Group, of which his father, a chaplain and `a well-educated classical scholar', was a member. Alan was impressed by the radical transformation in his father. At 18, the Oxford Group provided Alan with the opportunity to measure his life against the four moral standards of absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. This was a turning point. In 1953 Knight was appointed commandant of a prison camp for Mau Mau leaders. As a man of character, the authorities hoped that he would be able to persuade the Mau Mau to renounce violence. But after six months he had failed in this goal because he was seen as `the white oppressor'.

Only when he turned to God for inspiration was he able to find the strength to admit to the `arrogance, superior attitude and selfishness' which he had as a white man, and to ask for forgiveness from the prisoners under his command in an act ofpublic contrition.

The themes of honesty and forgiveness are most powerfully brought home through a confession made by Kinga to a white Kenyan woman, Agnes Hofmeyer, in 1960 for having a hand in burying her father alive during the Mau Mau revolt. The theme of unselfishness in Stanley Kinga's life is conveyed through his work as a government land agent in the post-independence era. He allocated land to thousands of people but `I never gave myself even a piece of it'. `We need people who are incorruptible,' he says. `People must put the country before themselves.'

Is he my brother? should have a place in anybody's video collection.

The video is available from MRA Productions, 12 Palace Street, London SW1E 5JF. Price [pounds sterling] 15 inc VAT + [pounds sterling] 1.50 p&p in UK; + [pounds sterling] 2 p&p in the EU. For overseas orders, please enquire.