“Without Vision the People Perish”
‘When we arise in the morning, we go to the bathroom where we reach for a sponge which is provided by a Pacific islander. We reach for the soap which is created for us by a European. Then at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world.’
Martin Luther King Jr.
Interdependence and interconnection between states and societies are basic facts in our modern world.
To be insular in outlook is to be poverty-stricken. Other cultures have so much to offer us that enriches our own. If our symphony orchestras or pop concerts had to confine themselves to home-produced music, they would feel very restricted. We can enjoy the excitement of jungle drum rhythms and plaintive Indian pipes. We have much to learn from the sense of family and generous hospitality to strangers that is prevalent in other cultures. Thanks be for Indian curries, Chinese takeaways, Italian pastas, Spanish tortillas!
It is trade that links us up with places all over the world. Trade is as simple as exchanging one thing for another: money for food in the supermarket, wages for labour on the shop floor. It is as complex as the futures market, the metal exchange, UNCTAD and GATT. The principles are the same and you do not need experts to understand it. No matter how small our purse, spending gives us power. As consumers, we have the power to say ‘yes’ to trade that protects the environment, pays third world producers fairly and advertises ethically. We also have the power to say ‘no’ to dangerous products and to our own unnecessary ‘wants’. We can say ‘no’ to the unfair trading policies of multinationals. At present, thousands of people are boycotting Nestlé products in order to bring an end to their contravention of the WHO/UNICEF International Code of Marketing Breastmilk Substitutes. And remember Tony Campolo’s Gulf & Western escapade? He challenged his students to buy shares in the company in order to exercise their right to address the board of directors. This they did, using the opportunity to draw attention to the company’s policy in the Dominican Republic which, they claimed, amounted to economic exploitation and environmental pollution. Subsequently, Gulf & Western have implemented far-reaching social, medical and educational programmes in the area and released sugar plantation land for production of food for home consumption. We can be creators as well as consumers if we activate our power to make our world what we want it to be.
There have always been good people who have worked for justice and peace for all, but too often this has been from motives that smack of paternalism, charity from a position of strength. This will not do today. Our very survival is bound up with the ‘health’ of our planet. We must work for justice, peace and the integrity of all creation for our own sake. As Lila Watson, Australian Aboriginal, puts it:
If you come to help me you are wasting your time, but if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.
Of course, Christians are in the forefront of this campaign, and yet so many divisions in our world have been perpetuated by the Church. One has only to think of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa sanctioning decade after decade of Apartheid, and the South American missionary activities portrayed in the film The Mission. But the whole tenor of the teaching of Jesus was aimed at breaking down barriers of all descriptions, so that Paul could say in Galatians 3:28:
There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
In case we think that the above excesses are a thing of the past, we have only to hear what is being done in the Dominican Republic this year. A lighthouse has been built to celebrate the 500 years since Christians arrived in Latin America. It produces light in the shape of a cross. The cost has been enormous. Not only has it cost $250 million — one third of the national budget, but the whole area around it has had to be ‘cleared up’ which meant displacing 25,000 families, with still more facing eviction. When the tower is lit, the electricity in the nearby town of Santo Domingo is switched off for hours at a time. All this is happening in a country where many people are deprived of even the most basic housing and health facilities. As members of the Church, there is much for which we must atone.
However, when thinking about One World we are not just concerned about the Third World. It is easy enough to feel sympathy with the Sri Lankan tea-picker; she is comfortably remote. But what about the Muslim neighbour or the member of a different Christian society? Reconciliation must begin at home! We all have so much to learn from each other. And after all, we all need liberating from a world which can diminish us spiritually and materially. One World involves recognising the unity of our planet and the interdependence of its people: it involves facing up to our responsibilities.
As followers of Jesus, we have to take seriously His aims for the world as he knew it. In Luke 4:18–19 he says:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord’s favour.
How does the Christian Church translate this into action appropriate to the end of the Twentieth Century? What is the Church doing today to work for this manifesto of Jesus?