So the US Government just released its annual Trafficking in Human Person’s Report. (read the report, it is a good general overview of the issue). In the report certain countries are listed as being top offenders and could face sanctions from the US if they fail to take steps to change the injustices in their countries. Well that is unless President Bush feels like waiving sanctions or Condi Rice decides to leave gross offenders (India) off the list “out of concern about alienating the Indian government.” So the point is that if the country is worthless to us, we will punish them for trafficking women and children into forced prostitution and slavery. But if the country is big and potentially powerful, we will overlook such a trivial thing as injustice. (Not that sanctions are the answer to this sort of issue, but government is more of a blunt tool…). Anyway, read more about it here.
Category: Social Justice
Support the Jubilee Act
From Jubilee USA –
How do you eliminate poverty? Well, passage of the Jubilee Act is one way and “we” need your help.
This “we” is not just the Jubilee staff and members of Congress who believe that this legislation could help stop millions and millions of dollars in debt payments to the IMF and World Bank from leaving countries like Haiti, Liberia and Burundi. This “we” is the collective voice of the Global South.
For people in impoverished countries, passing debt into the next generation’s hands is as natural as passing down the legacy of a people.
For people in impoverished countries, the legacy of debt left by dictators and the reality of structural adjustment programs that privatize natural resources are all generational legacies — generational legacies that should be buried.
The Jubilee Act, which is the centerpiece of Jubilee’s 2007 Sabbath Year campaign, ensures promises made by the G8 two years ago are kept by urging U.S. Treasury, the IMF and World Bank to keep their agreement.
Last Thursday, the Jubilee Act was re-introduced in Congress by the bipartisan team of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL).
The Jubilee Act:
* Calls on the Bush Administration, the IMF and the World Bank to keep their promises on debt cancellation;
* Calls for expanded debt cancellation for impoverished countries that will use the freed resources well and require debt cancellation to meet the Millennium Development Goals;
* Calls for new standards for responsible lending and creditor transparency by calling for measures to address the problem of vulture funds as well as audits of odious and illegal debts from the past.
Cultural Commentary
A couple of fun things I came across that make a interesting points.
This was in today’s comics. I found it amusing as someone whose car is covered in bumper stickers…
Then I found this on Facebook. It reminded me of this editorial I had recently read in the Chicago Tribune.
In The ’60s, Students Conducted Sit-Ins…In 2007, We Make Facebook Groups!
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more persons nonviolently occupying an area for protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. Sit-ins were first widely employed by Mahatma Gandhi in Indian independence movement and were later expanded on by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and others during the American Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s, students used this method of protest during the student movements, such as the protests in Germany. The Young Lords in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood used it successfully a full week to win community demands for low income housing investment at the Mckormick Theological Seminary.
In a sit-in, protesters usually seat themselves and remain seated until they are evicted, usually by force, or until their requests have been met. Sit-ins have been a highly successful form of protest because they cause disruption that draws attention to the protest and by proxy the protesters’ cause. The forced removal of protesters and sometimes the answer of non-violence with violence often arouses sympathy from the public, increasing the chances of the demonstrators reaching their goal. Sit-ins usually occur indoors at businesses or government offices but they have also occurred in plazas, parks, and even streets.
A sit-in is similar to a sitdown strike. However, whereas a sit-in involves protesters, a sitdown strike involves striking workers occupying the area in which they would be working and refusing to leave so they can not be replaced with scabs. The sitdown strike was the precursor to the sit-in.
Sit-ins were an integral part of the non-violent strategy of civil disobedience that ultimately ended racial segregation in the United States (Wiki).
Today… Students’ main strategy to oppose certain decisions and change is to create a Facebook Group. How times have changed…
The personal element is gone. More people are reached through technology, but we are not forming communities that care for each other as we care for a cause. I can just click “Add Cause” to my Facebook or add a link to my blog, but I rarely gather with those who are passionate about actually doing something about those causes. That’s part of why I do my best to go to conferences and gatherings, it builds a more personal community. I can read all about debt relief and sign any number of petitions (and encourage all of you to do the same), but I think I will get a much wider perspective after I attend the JubileeUSA Grassroots Conference here in Chicago next week.
As much as I love blogging and online communities, being able to build relationships and share common passions is vital (and yes I’ve formed some great relationships from people I first met online). This whole issues reminded me on some of the lyrics from Jesus Christ Superstar where Judas (from the afterlife) asks Jesus “why’d you choose such a backward time And such a strange land? If you’d come today You could have reached the whole nation Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.” Reaching the whole nation in one fell swoop wasn’t the point. The point was to build relationships with a group of committed followers who then could spread the message of hope of the Kingdom of God. Sure preaching and feeding 5000+ caused a stir and an emotional high for some, but it was less effective than the day to day wandering around with the disciples. That’s what we need more of these days imho.
Just some thoughts. And yes, I am completely aware of the irony of using the medium of a blog to say these things. But sometimes when the kid is already in bed and all the local coffee shops close at 4 PM, this is the only available community. (which brings up the issue of the potential for those with very restricted lives – stay-at-home-moms – to actually get involved in anything, but enough rambling for now…)
Feed the Hungry
Today is Hunger Awareness Day and America’s Second Harvest is teaming up with ConAgra Foods to mark it. The tandem is making it easy as a simple mouse click for you to provide four bags of groceries to those who are in need.
For each click, ConAgra Foods will donate $1 to America’s Second Harvest equivalent to 4 bags of groceries – up to 60,000 bags. It’s never been easier for you to help your neighbors in need! (and yes I know there are environmental and human rights issues with ConAgra, but as I’ve mentioned in other recent posts, I’m going to support justice wherever I can).
Click here –
35.1 million Americans do not know where their next meal is going to come from. One in every five children are born into poverty. Almost half of the low-income families that utilized a food pantry in 2001 were working families with kids.
So click the button to do your part! And then consider doing something more.
(HT – Faithfully Liberal)
Ethical Consumption
I have spent a very large amount of time this past week surfing the web for sites on ethical consumption. I’m writing a separate piece about the why behind all that, but it has been an interesting adventure. And I’ve found a lot of really cool sites.
What is ethical consumption you might ask. It starts with me the consumer admitting that while I want to avoid rampant materialism, I am not going to be one of those people who move off the grid and have a zero impact year or something (as my last post explored, for most of us ethical living can’t be an all or nothing approach). I will need to buy stuff from time to time. So given that, I want to do so ethically. That means I ask the hard questions – where has this come from? what is its past, present, and future effect on the environment? is it harmful to my physical or psychological health? and were the people who made it treated humanely and paid a fair wage at all stages of the process? It is a lot of stuff to weigh as one makes a purchasing decision and it is a lot harder than the culture of convenience we are used to.
There are many people who think that ethical consumption is not only hard, but that it is impossible economically. That to buy with one’s values contradicts the laws of economics. That’s why the t-shirt displayed above made me laugh as I stumbled across it this past week. My thoughts – One – do the “laws of economics” really matter in light of environmental chaos and injustice? Are people really so callous to favor economic theory above creation care and human rights? (don’t answer that…) and Two – in the law of supply and demand it is the consumer who creates the demand. We demand that we want ethical options (environmentally sustainable, healthy, and fairly traded) and the supply will increase. But it takes us actually doing it, being ethical consumers not just blogging idealists, for that to happen.
One of the cool sites that I discovered this past week that helps make it happen is the New American Dream. They are a great resource site for living ethically. The new dream is to live consciously (feel more alive and aligned with your values), buy wisely (use your power as a consumer to create change) and make a difference (let your actions speak for themselves – then speak up anyways). I’m going to have fun exploring their site and using their resources.
Ways to shop ethically are out there, sometimes it just takes a lot of time and effort to find them. I’m toying with the idea of trying to start a blog or something where people can pool resources about stuff like this. A place to review products, share shopping links, give environmental research updates and other fun stuff. What do you think? Worthwhile? Doable? Wanna help?
God, Missional Living, and Social Justice
At our church retreat this past weekend, we explored our conceptions of God. During one small group discussion the topic wandered to how our view of God affects our affinity for personal piety and missional living. Jen mentioned that in a recent class on Spiritual Formation her classmates had shared what activities shape their spiritual lives. In ranking a list of spiritual practices, social justice consistently appeared at the bottom of nearly everyone’s lists. She had recently been reading Gary Haugen (IJM) who claims that God is a God of justice and that if we serve this God we will work for justice. Her question to the group was if God really is a God of justice then why is working for justice such a low priority for Christians? Who is getting it wrong?
There were of course more nuances to her question and I am reporting my perception of it as well, but it led to some good discussion. How we conceive of God – which attributes we deem most important, and which ones we ignore – has a huge affect on how we live. If we don’t think that God cares about the poor (or if such a thought never crosses our radar) then why should we as Christians think that caring for the poor is a spiritual act? If we see God as most concerned with our personal relationship with him, as opposed to God being most concerned about the oppressed that is going to affect how we live. If it is all about our relationship with God, then acts of personal piety (reading our bible, praying, holy living) become most important. But if God’s heart for the oppressed is focused on more then acts of justice (serving the poor, working for social change, lobbying to stop human rights violations) receive more attention. In the evangelical world that I am used to, the personal piety side has received the most attention often to the exclusion of justice issues. In fact, I’ve listened to sermons where the pastor said that God does not care about the poor and we should not be working to help them. But I’ve also heard that there are churches that focus so exclusively on justice issues that personal piety is ignored.
It would be easy to say that all that is needed is balance – equal doses of personal piety and justice – but I’m not convinced that is really the best approach. Neither approach should be ignored, but I continue to see more and more danger in the “it’s all about me” approach to faith. God spoke into cultures and communities, the message of hope is for the world. If we think that we are the most important thing to God, it is a lot harder to get beyond our individualism and help others. But if we focus on God’s compassion for the world, we will grow personally through the discipline of helping others. The personal piety has a place, but is something that I believe should be a natural result of our service to God and others and not the central focus of our faith.
The difficulty occurs in how to convey that message. Changing how we talk about God is a huge step. We also need to examine what cultural assumptions we bring to our interpretations of biblical texts. We can open people’s eyes to themes of justice and God’s compassion for the oppressed through the biblical narrative. Instead of seeing Ruth as the perfect example of the submissive and committed Christian wife (which has its own issues), we can see the sabbath practices that care for the poor being displayed.
But it has to be more than a matter of perspective. We need to stop living on the extremes. I know this approach will anger some, but I think we need to stop presenting everything as an all or nothing. Too often when faith groups talk about seeking justice they land on the “sell everything and give it to the poor” stance. We present the Shane Claibornes and Mother Teresas as our examples. And the choice becomes to either care and utterly and drastically change one’s lifestyle, or to do nothing at all. The choice is so extreme that most people give up without doing anything. So while I know that there is needed discussion as to whether one can really live the American Dream and truly be seeking justice, why would doing nothing be preferable to helping people do what they can where they can? Baby steps right? So instead of telling people how evil American Idol is and telling us that we are messed up for caring more about it than the number of troops who die in Iraq (all of which may be true), I’m going to support efforts like “Idol Gives Back” that helps raise awareness and gets people doing something.
And I know this post has rambled all over the place, but I think that changing the perception of the evangelical church from a “me” centered faith to a “God/other” centered faith is a necessary step. Its a huge step that means changing our perception of who God is and changing the way we live. Missional living should be the goal, but it needs to be presented in ways that are comprehensible and doable for the average church-goer.
Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of War
A recent study being released states that military veterans are more than twice as likely to be in prison for sex crimes than are people without military experience. While veterans are less likely to be incarcerated in the first place, about a quarter of those sentences are for sex crimes against women are children. The article then claims that researchers are at a lose to understand why.
As soon as I read about these findings, I was reminded of the conversation of an Afgani woman I overhead where she discussed the American military’s behavior in Afghanistan (read my blog post about it here). Another incident of cruel and senseless violence inflicted on a child.
And they really wonder why this is an issue?
When you take a group of people, mostly men, and teach them through intense indoctrination to objectify the Other of course stuff like this will happen. It takes seeing the Iraqis or Afganis as “the enemy” and not as real people in order to be able to kill them. If the soldiers didn’t objectify others and instead saw that they were mothers, fathers, lovers, teachers, grandparents, and someone’s child their ability to kill them would be compromised. They must be taught not to care, not to see the human face, and not to see life from the perspective of that other person. Alfie Kohn actually addresses this issue in his book Unconditional Parenting –
People who can – and do – think about how others experience the world are more likely to reach out and help those people – or, at a minimum, are less likely to harm them. Kafka once described war as a “monstrous failure of imagination”. In order to kill, one must cease to see individual human beings and instead reduce them to abstractions such as “the enemy”. One must fail to realize that each person underneath our bombs is the center of his universe just as you are the center of yours: He gets the flu, worries about his aged mother, likes sweets, falls in love – even though he lives half a world away and speaks a different language. To see things from his point of view is to recognize all the particulars that make him human, and ultimately it is to understand that his life is no less valuable than yours. Even in popular entertainments, we’re not shown the bad guys at home with their children. One can cheer the death only of a caricature, not of a three-dimensional person.
Less dramatically, many of the social problems we encounter on a daily basis can be understood as a failure of perspective taking. People who litter, or block traffic by double-parking, or rip pages out of library books, seem to be locked into themselves, unable or unwilling to imagine how others will have to look at their garbage, or maneuver their cars around them, or fail to find a chapter they need.
And so while it pains me to read about it, I am not surprised that those who are taught to objectify others in order to kill them retain that mindset and apply it to other aspects of life. Combine the idea that women and children aren’t “real people” with real feeling and lives but are instead seen as objects to be used with the military insistence of might makes right and one is left with conditions ripe for abuse. As this study shows that objectification of others and violent imposition of power over them is a sad reality.
What saddens me even more is that most people will assume that the solution to this problem is just to apply more of the same – have the bigger more powerful government impose harsher punishments on offenders. There will be no questioning of the military or their need to murder (that wouldn’t be patriotic now would it?) I seriously doubt that lessons in perspective taking will ever catch on in our society, much less our military. So instead of being understood and appreciated as a person, those of us who have faced objectification must continue to live in fear.
Mother’s Day
So I preached the Mother’s Day sermon this morning (perfect way to honor moms – let them lead and don’t make them cook). Thinking back over the Mother’s Day sermons I have heard at various points in my life – at best they were pathetic attempts to tell moms that they really are contributing something worthwhile to society and at worst were excuses to tell women why God doesn’t want them to work outside the home.
Obviously I wasn’t interested in rubberstamping gender roles today. I didn’t preach on what women have to be like or should be ‘allowed’ to be like. I just told stories. Stories of women, of mothers, who worked to make this world a better place. Stories that highlighted that often it is the women who are the only ones who can be heard and make a difference in certain situations.
We set the stage with the story of Naboth’s vineyard from 1 Kings 21. As story of taking a stand against injustice.
We then noticed the striking parallels of that Biblical account with the modern day struggle of the women of the Niger Delta in their struggle against Chevron/Texaco.
But why stories of justice on Mother’s Day? For that we told the story of the origins of Mother’s Day in America which are rooted in mothers coming together to work for peace, justice, and equality. Women who see their identity as women and mothers (as human beings) as being more important than battle lines and nationality. As Julia Ward Howe wrote as she called for the first Mother’s Day for Peace –
Mother’s Day Proclamation – 1870
by Julia Ward HoweArise then…women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God –
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
To explore those themes we told a couple more stories of women who changed their world. First we looked at the Mothers of the Disappeared who stood up to the evil military regime in Argentina. Then we turned to the Congo and watched a short film about women who are making better lives for their families through literacy and community banking programs like WORTH (a global women’s empowerment program).
I like telling stories. I like claiming the strength of these women to inspire.
Happy Mother’s Day
World Fair Trade Day
Today is World Fair Trade Day. World Fair Trade Day is celebrated every second Saturday of May, and is endorsed by the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), the global association of Fair Trade Organisations, comprised of 300 organisations from 70 countries around the world. This World Fair Trade Day calls on all of us to celebrate Fair Trade Organisations, buy more Fair Trade goods through Fair Trade stores, Fair Trade catalogues and campaign groups and encourage conventional companies to sell more Fair Trade products.
The theme this year is “Kids Need Fair Trade.” Children in developing countries are exploited by the mainstream international trading system. The system pays millions of parents a pittance for what they produce. This often means that children have to work rather than go to school, do not have health care when they need it, and are trapped in a vicious circle of poverty. here.
The point is to raise awareness and start shopping with your heart. Care about people, about God’s children. Send a message with your buying power. Economics doesn’t have to be harmful and corrupt. If we demand fair and humane practices then they could end up in greater supply than the unjust stuff. But it takes us actually caring enough to do it.
Find more resources here.
Why Buy Fair Trade
Over at the Justice and Compassion blog Benjamin gave a good perspective on why buying Fairly Traded food is a good thing. He recently placed an order for Fairly Traded sugar and wrote this –
I was feeling a little guilty, because this sugar costs 4 times “normal” sugar, and we are not exactly in brilliant financial straits at this time. My friend Karl (a Mennonite, interestingly), encouraged me in this. He said that I am simply assuming the full fair price of the sugar, instead of outsourcing that full cost to someone else who is actually a lot worse off than me financially.
When we sustain our lifestyle by hurting others we are not saving anything. It is hard sometimes to see that our purchases are not just isolated events – there is a whole chains of events, people, and environments that they affect as well. Its not just about us.