Mark 5: 21-43 21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ 24 So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ 29Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ 31And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’ 35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ 40 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum,’ which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and t old them to give her somehing to eat.
Introduction
Writing the introduction to a book that engages the complex processes of globalization is no easy task, especially when responses to globalization(s) are as diverse and plural as the ones in this volume. Welcome to the other face of globalization: globalization from below. I have never liked the term “anti-globalization,” which has been used too often to define the global movements presently involved in resistance to neoliberalism, because these movements are both global and also a product of globalization(s). It is for this reason that activists have adopted the term “alter-globalization” as a self-described sound-bite term. The rallying call of the World Social Forum – “another world is possible” – reminds us that the key to global activism lies in alternatives, not only resistance. And while multiple oppressions and injustices may force resistance to the front of our agendas, utopian alternatives nourish our struggles and sustain our engagements. “Another world is possible!” I cannot think of a more theologically-inflected rallying call, one that may remind us of early Christian communities, attempting to create another way of living, indeed another way of hoping, under the brutal reality of Roman occupation. To yearn for another way, for an alternative, is to speak as Jesus spoke when he proclaimed the presence of the Reign of God in the midst of the Reign of Caesar. To think theologically is to be future-oriented and utopian. This is central to both the political theologies of Europe and the liberation theologies of the ‘Third World.’ But more importantly, it is central to the teachings and praxis of the prophet from Galilee, who was crucified precisely because his presence revealed that another world was not only possible, but actualized in his close relationship with the poor and marginalized. Contrary to theologies that posit Jesus’ cross as a sacrificial shedding of blood cosmically enacted to achieve an abstract mediation between God and humanity, the cross is never abstract to people in some parts of the world, especially in the ‘Third World.’ The cross is a historical reality that accompanies the many forms of globalization that have been actualized in 2
history. The cross also lies behind colonizing discourses of empire, those forms of imperial power that see their own projects as civilizing, indeed as bringing “freedom” and “democracy.” The cross is a tool of execution devised to send a message to those who attempt to actualize alternatives in the world. The articles in this book remind us that many crosses continue to be erected around the world in our present times. The title of this collection draws from the biblical passage in Mark 5: 2143, in which Jesus is called to the house of a synagogue leader to heal a dying girl-child, but is interrupted by the courageous touch of a hemorrhaging woman. In focusing on this passage, the authors in this book also reveal the multifaceted ways people resist the crosses of empire at the local level, and following Jon Sobrino, work to bring the crucified down from their crosses. In the life-giving touch of Jesus on the (near) dead girl-child and the selfempowering healing of the hemorrhaging woman, many have uncovered life-giving alternatives woven together daily at the local level, in movements, communities, churches, and homes. The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) is a globalized movement - and it has been for over a hundred years. And while we must never gloss over its early roots in the spread of 19th century European colonial missions, we must also acknowledge that out of this history the voice of prophetic youth have emerged to critique imperialism and other forms of systemic oppression. In the work of its local movements, the WSCF stands out as an example of the power of alter-globalization. This volume seeks to engage with some of the issues that affect the different contexts in which the WSCF is engaged. The articles in this book cover a wide range of areas, contexts, perspectives, challenges, and insights. While all of the articles focus on the importance of solidarity and compassion within the processes of globalization, some articles challenge each other and take up divergent positions. Some articles describe the impacts of globalization(s) in their particular context, while others attempt to examine alternatives and options that have emerged within these processes. For instance, the reality of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, the Dalit experience in India, and the conditions imposed on forced migrants in North America, all expose the very real impacts of globalization(s), especially on the most vulnerable and the dispossessed. 3
Some articles are written in Spanish and in French, but most are in English. Some articles were written by students, some by academics and activists. Some articles are focused on movements, others on histories; some are more theoretical, while others attempt to read grassroots realities. Some articles have a heavy focus on the Marken text, while others do not. It is interesting to note that some of the articles were written in Spanish by European theologians who work in close proximity with the issues and struggles that affect Latin America. This reminds us that hybrid processes are also at work within the present context of globalization and that these processes can also be a form of resistance. Globalization is never one thing. The articles collected here give evidence to the often paradoxical, sometimes contradictory, processes at work at the local level. The WSCF has attempted to incarnate itself in these messy contexts in order to promote life in all its fullness. The WSCF strives to live out, through its local movements and global vision, Jesus’ proclamation of God’s Reign in history, namely, that that another world is indeed possible! I hope that this book will offer you a taste of this liberating praxis.
M. D-B.
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Part 1 Globalization(s): Local/Global Impacts, Options and Readings
Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life in the HIV/AIDS & Globalization Era* MUSA DUBE Botswana
“Globalization…cannot target gender equality as an objective because it is solely concerned with competition and profit maximization.” (Fall 2000: 86) “Gender inequalities are a major driving force behind the AIDS epidemic.” (UNAIDS & UNDP 2001: 21)
Introduction: Hypocrites or Champions of the Struggle for Justice?
Last year October, I was giving a paper at the Department of Theology in the University of Oslo, on globalization. The paper was exploring my perspective on globalization as it appears in my various published works. It also explored the impact of globalization on gender. Well, I cooed and roared through my paper and announced to the silent house that in my work globalization stands in the family of imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism. I held that globalization as a profit oriented trade system, which brings economic and cultural insecurity, could hardly benefit women. Rather, it intensified gender oppression. When, I finished, a visiting British feminist was invited to respond to my paper before they opened for general discussion. Well, my British feminist sister dismissed my perspectives on globalization with a rhetorical question that she put to me. She said, “Would you have liked to be stuck in a village? Look now, you are here in Norway and we are all communicating in English language. These things would not be possible if it were not for globalization.” My British feminist sister was telling me, I ought to be grateful that I have been civilized, taught English and sent flying around the world. Instead of being so critical of globalization and placing it in the family of imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, I ought to be thankful that I have been redeemed and saved from my African village, where I was seemingly “stuck” and brought the global village! I was humbled. * Presented to the Women’s Commission Meeting of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), Johannesburg, Feb. 12-13, 2002.
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Globalization, as a colleague and friend of mine kept on telling me before I presented the paper, is a contentious issue that is highly praised by its proponents and cursed by those who abhor it. Those who support it can look at us in the face and say, well don’t be so critical. Don’t you enjoy the services of a computer, e-mail, internet – where time and space are no more? Isn’t it that when you wake up, you can get in touch with your friends across the 6/7 continents of the world just like that? You can send and receive papers fast and easily. You can listen to the BBC, CNN and go to church with the most lustrous televangelists of the world, anytime anywhere. If you wish to call anyone now, you need not be connected to a land line telephone, you can use your mobile/cell phone wherever you are. These outlines are given. Globalization, they tell us, is the creation of “a single, global market” (Lind 1995: 36). It is “the compression of the world” (Robertson 2000: 53). It is the compression of time and space, the collapse of national boundaries and governments,” characterized by policies of privatization and trade liberalization. Hence we are told that we are now living in the so-called “global village.” All of us who are here apparently enjoy the above tabulated services and many more. If so, why be critical of globalization, my British feminist sister rightfully asks? Are we hypocrites or true soldiers of justice? The question she raises is a crucial one; namely, what kind of critical stance should we adopt towards a system that we participate in? Should we and can we be critical of a system that we also occupy, use and benefit from, or if we do, are we nothing but hypocrites? At the same time, the question that my British feminist sister posed to me was more like the criticism that we get from defenders of patriarchy who say to us, “why are you so critical of patriarchy? Were you not raised in a family with a father and a mother? Don’t you appreciate your father? Are you not married, and don’t you enjoy the warmth of your husband in the night? Don’t tell us that you do not like flowers that he brings for you? Or, if you are so critical, why continue working in departments and churches that are patriarchal? Don’t these institutions serve you? They give you a paying job.” In other words, if we marry and live in patriarchal families, if we worship and enjoy fellowship in male led churches, if we work in patriarchal institutions and if we live and grow in male led countries etc, we should be grateful, instead 9
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of being critical of a system that we benefit from. The argument is old and outdated. It represents the stance of gatekeepers. It has been used by defenders of all forms of oppressions such as patriarchy, racism and colonialism. I would like to think that feminists and all gender empowerment activists, in particular, who have learnt what it means to fight a system that they have to live in and with, should be in a better position to be critical of globalization. In other words, just because when we wake up, the internet allows us to get in touch with people across continents, just because we can fly around the world and speak in English, just because we can listen to CNN, the BBC and go to church with so many North American and Australian televangelists, does not mean that we should blindly begin to sing praise songs of globalization – ignoring its values, the prize paid to achieve globalization and its impact on the majority of people. And so I responded to my British feminist sister saying, “As long as the injustice of globalization remains apparent to me, as long as its injustice overshadows its benefits, I will continue to be critical of it, even if the whole choir can choose to sing a different song.” I pointed out to her how much has been lost and the type of injustice that has been committed to bring the world to speak and communicate in English, for example. I pointed out, that even as I sit in a first world academic hall, having been flown there, that should not be read to mean that we enjoy equality in the world. Globalization or the so-called global village should not be read as a just system, where we are all close, caring and friendly neighbors. Rather, we have entered a time when profit takes precedence over people and life as a whole, leading to cultural, political and economic insecurity and more violence. As Christopher Lind underlines, in the globalization era “instead of asking what is the most economically efficient means of establishing a just society, we are now asking how much social injustice are we prepared to tolerate” (1995: 40). I am grateful, however, that in the WSCF globalization is understood for what it is, and a commitment to resist its injustice is evident in your documents and your resolutions. I am thus not afraid that in this room, I will be told to count my blessings, and thank the god of globalization for its grace. In fact, I commend your movement for taking the bull by its horns, for, honestly, sometimes I feel that when I resist globalization I do 10
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not know where to direct my efforts for effective impact. Consequently, I sometimes feel like, its better for me to direct my efforts to other issues where I can make a difference. Part of this feeling has to do with the fact that globalization is often presented as a huge faceless force, or a wind that blows where it wills, whose origins are not easily pinpointed and whose driver, (if there is any!) is not seated in one particular country. For example, Max L. Stackhouse, holds that “globalization… owes its allegiance to no particular society, local ethos or political order, even if it is advanced by Western influences” (2000: 19). This image mystifies globalization and oftenencourages a spirit of compliance or helplessness. It is this helplessness, this facelessness of globalization that we must not succumb to. It is important, therefore, to remember, as Christopher Lind underlines, that globalization is a human creation. It does not arise from natural law. We are free human beings with the power to influence our destiny. We have knowledge of the difference between what is good and evil, which means we must take responsibility for our choices. How we evaluate it morally becomes of crucial importance. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Do we rejoice at its appearance or do we dread its advance (1995: 42)? Lind continues to say, “if we surrender our self-determination at its door step, then it becomes an instrument of death. If it enhances our ability to create a more just society, then it becomes and instrument of life.” The point, however, is that “it is already clear that it is a powerful vortex that may drive thousands of new economic turbines – but it may also suck millions of unsuspecting victims into a dark hole” (1995: 42). In other words, we must not give up on resisting globalization as long as our judgment indicates that it is more of a force of death than a force of life.
But, before I turn to the text, it would be fitting to briefly outline how globalization and HIV/AIDS, which affect both genders, affect women in particular. Let us start with the question of how does globalization affect women in particular, then we will turn to HIV/AIDS and its effects on women. Globalization: A Force of Life or Death for Women?
It is generally agreed that globalization is an international trade system that does not seek equality and which is not driven by establishing justice in the world. Rather it is a system that is driven by a search for markets and the maximization of profit and creates conditions of cultural and economic insecurity. Further, if feminist and gender studies indicate that in times of socio-economic instability, where men are losing control over their political, cultural and economic spheres, the tendency is more intensified control and oppression of women, would globalization, which creates such conditions, empower women and the girl-child? Can we expect that such a system would empower or seek to empower women and the girl-child? I think you will agree with me that it only follows that women and the girl-child would be further distanced from empowerment. Accordingly, feminist and gender research (and your own documents) on the impact of globalization on women indicates the following: ■
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Globalization, HIV/AIDS Women and the Girl-Child
In talking of life and death forces, this indeed brings me to the subject of my Bible study; namely what is the biblical rationale for empowering the girl-child and women against the forces of death, which are unleashed by both globalization and HIV/AIDS? What is the biblical mandate that allows women and the girl-child to choose life; to insist on life even as globalization and HIV/AIDS makes them walk in the valley of death? I would wish us to explore such a stance using the story of Mark 5: 23-43, which features a bleeding woman and dying young girl of twelve years. 11
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that as Trans-National Companies seek cheap labor to maximize profit, there is feminization of the labor force at low income levels; that it increases gender inequities, for the ability to purchase assets in the process of privatization is biased against poor households, to which most women belong; that as public services become increasingly privatized and with more demand for cheap labor, in the area of education, there is an increasing bias against female education, especially for the girl-child. Similarly, as it distances women from quality health care as such health services become increasingly privatized and since women are increasingly in low paying jobs, or in domestic roles they cannot afford health services; as privatization often leads to retrenchment, it reduces employment of women in high and stable incomes, thus re-instating once more 12
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women’s domestic roles rather than public influence; that it increases the vulnerability of women: that is, as it creates poverty in many families, it leads to an increased marketing of females as house girls and prostitutes. It also leads to survival strategies that crowd out child-care and child welfare; that it leads women to rely on less efficient reproduction technologies in response to low household incomes; that it increases mobility and weakens family: as jobs move from one country to another and as companies resist offering any job security to their workers, men are the most likely to move away in search of jobs, while women are left behind in the home; that it weakens women’s political empowerment by weakening their economic power, for they are increasingly being removed from the public sphere, made to occupy low paying jobs, their education and high skilled job training opportunities are also being reduced; that land use reforms have not improved female farmers empowerment or their land rights, because most women are vulnerable to the exploitative middlemen as they lack skills of negotiation and as social norms continue to hamper women from acquiring land rights; that it creates cultural and religious insecurity as local communities feel invaded by foreign powers and values. This often leads to a desperate enforcement of cultural views, which, more often than not, marginalizes women as patriarchal values are closely guarded.
HIV/AIDS, WOMEN AND THE GIRL-CHILD Global HIV/AIDS Scenario
Turning to HIV/AIDS, research and documentation indicate that within the last two decades, 1980-2000, HIV/AIDS has moved from being a new unknown disease to a global epidemic. The total number of people infected with HIV in the world is estimated to be in the range of 34.3 million. The region of the Sub-Saharan Africa claims 24 million followed by South & South-East Asia with 5.6 million; Latin America with 1.3 million; North America with 900,000; East and Pacific 53,000; Western Europe 520,000; Eastern and Central Asia 420,000; Caribbean 360,000; North Africa & Middle East 200,000; and Australia and New Zealand 15,000. The world has already lost 18.8 million to HIV/AIDS, yet the annual rate of infection was estimated at 5.4 by the beginning of 2000 (UNAIDS 2000: 6-8). These statistical figures highlight that HIV/AIDS is concentrated among the poverty stricken regions of the world. Many factors, which are intrinsically linked to poverty, contribute to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the poorest regions. Some of which are: ■
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In short, in globalization “the gap between men and women has simply widened as the global economic system becomes more unequal,” for in effort to compete for the dwindling resources available in the economy, the ruling elite has aggressively crowded-out women and less opportune men (For all the above points see Garba & Garba 2000: 24-27, 38).
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lack of information, hence many cannot make informed decisions; lack of education, hindering many to access available information; insufficient food and eating leaves many vulnerable to disease; insufficient medical facilities, drugs and health workers; political instability, diverts funds to war and cripples social facilities; cultural gender roles, marginalizes women and the girl-child, from economic power, education and the freedom to make informed decisions; presence of socially marginalized groups, alienates them from information, education and health facilities; mobility that separates families increases extramarital sexual activities; fear, stigma and denial of HIV/AIDS hinders effective prevention and care.
Clearly, a number of social conditions, encouraged by globalization, such as poverty, lack of education, entrenchment of gender inequalities and cultural views of inequality, decreased access to health services, mobility, sex workers, girl-trafficking, unemployment, make globalization a fertile ground for the spread of HIV/AIDS. Globalization also decreases quality care 13
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for the infected since health services are privatized and profit oriented. For example, anti-retrovirals remain unaffordable and unavailable to millions of people who need them. At the same time, HIV/AIDS also feeds the conditions that are created by globalization. This is primarily because the impact of HIV/AIDS goes beyond the health of individuals. As the infected get sick, manage opportunistic infections, miss work or lose work, their relatives increasingly stay away from work to care for them. This affects family, the work place and the immediate community. It hurts the financial output/productivity in the household, business, education, agriculture and stresses the health sector. According to the Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, June 2000, the “AIDS epidemic is a true development crisis that threatens the social and economic fabric, and the political stability of whole nations” (107). This impact of HIV/AIDS works within the given gender roles and it also has a serious impact on the situation of women and the girl-child. Let us, therefore, briefly outline how HIV/AIDS affect women and the girl-child.
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Women and the Girl-Child in HIV/AIDS
Research and documentation of information indicate that women and the girl-child’s HIV/AIDS infection rate is much higher than the rate of infection in men in Southern Africa and elsewhere (UNAIDS & UNDP 2001: 4, 23-24). According the UNAIDS & UNDP fact sheet, “in some of the worst affected countries, adolescent girls are infected at a rate five-to-six times higher than are boys” (2001: 16). Although “older men are responsible for a large share of these infections” (16), it is primarily because the ABC (Abstain, Be faithful and Condomize) formula of HIV/AIDS prevention is ideal, but ineffective for most women and the girl-child due to their culturally ascribed gender roles. The latter make them one of the powerless members of the society and highly vulnerably to HIV/AIDS infection and its social impact. Because of these cultural gender roles, the girl-child and women’s: ■
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economic powerlessness hinders them from making independent decisions, for they are mostly dependent on their husbands or partners or male guardians;
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high illiteracy rates hinders them from making informed decisions or holding sufficiently paying jobs, for they are amongst the least educated; subordinate positions in the home and relationships hinders them from insisting on safe sex with their partners or husbands or even to say no to sex; subjugation to violence in the home and public space hinders them from saying no to sex or insisting on the use of condoms; condoms are still largely rare and expensive, hence leaving condom use to the willingness of men and making women chances of safe sex slimmer; existence in cultural societies that allow the unfaithfulness of husbands/ partners renders the “be faithful” slogan ineffective for many women; roles of care-giving makes them bear the burden of HBC, which increasingly decreases their food production and income generating activities, as they have to leave or decrease their income producing activities. This locks women in further poverty; care-giving roles leaves the burden of orphan care on them; existence in patriarchal societies leads them to be dispossessed by relatives in widowhood and accused of witchcraft (killing their husbands). This leaves widows with very slim choices of survival, hence sex work becomes an option; care-giving role, coupled by poverty, exposes some of them to further infection, especially the poor and least educated women who have no access to information and protective materials; biological make-up of receiving and retaining sperms for about four days after sexual activity, coupled by lack of power to insist on the use of condoms and the threat of violence, doubles women’s infection rate; role of being a child bearer, and being culturally expected to bear children, depletes their immunity further and shortens their survival once infected; the school going girl-child also carries the burden of care should one of her parents or family members fall ill. This affects her school performance and sometimes leads to school drop-out as family funds are increasingly depleted by the management of opportunistic infections and as work hours of bread winner are cut down.
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The orphan girl-child faces many challenges (Botswana Government 1998; UNICEF 1998 & UNAIDS & UNDP 2001: 27-28): ■
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she is the one to take care of the remaining siblings, a role that reduces her school performance and increases her possibility of being dropped-out of school altogether; if the remaining funds are insufficient, she is the first to be dropped-out of school or she is likely to be married away to an older man in order to raise funds for other siblings or to get rid of taking care of her; she faces high possibility of sexual abuse by relatives and high possibility of being drafted in sex work, hence a high possibility of HIV/AIDS infection; she is also an easy candidate for child labor in the domestic front; if she gets infected, her chances of quality care are very slim.
In sum, the forces of HIV/AIDS and globalization work through gender and other social factors of disempowerment. They also recreate and maintain gender inequalities, thereby opposing the hard won struggles for gender empowerment of the past forty years. Both globalization and HIV/AIDS are massive international issues of justice, which require the attention of all of us who are committed to building a just world. In fact, due to the allencompassing impact of HIV/AIDS, the approach to prevention and care has now moved from a medical approach to a multi-sectoral approach – one that seeks to involve all departments and members of the society (UNAIDS & UNDP 2001: 10). The multi-sectoral approach seeks for a wide range of actors, government, civil society, private sector, NGOs and Community Based Organizations, (CBOs) to act together in a synergy in HIV/AIDS prevention and care. In other words, just as the WSCF has paid much attention to globalization, it ought to do the same with HIV/AIDS. It ought to mainstream HIV/AIDS in all its current programmatic priorites of leadership development, higher education, women’s empowerment, men-women partnership, ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, education for peace, justice and reconciliation as well as in Bible study, theology and spirituality. Since HIV/AIDS and globalization disadvantages women and the girl-child, in particular, it should be you, the women of WSCF, who must push the 17
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movement to mainstream these issues in all your programmes as well as to encourage the setting up new programmatic priorities that focus on HIV/ AIDS. Since this meeting seeks to review the work, life and mission of the ecumenical student movement and to prepare for the next general meeting it is an excellent moment for you to put the issue of HIV/AIDS in the agenda of the movement. On that note, let me start the process of mainstreaming HIV/AIDS and globalization in your Bible study and theology, by asking the question: what is the biblical rationale for WSCF women to resist the forces of death ushered by globalization and HIV/AIDS? How can WSCF women actively call the girl-child and women to life in the HIV/AIDS and globalization era? My basic submission is that in the HIV/AIDS and globalization era, we need to propound a theology of gender empowerment which counteracts death and proclaims life for women and the girl-child. I will base my exploration on the story of Mark 5: 21-43. Talitha Cum: Calling the Girl-Child & Women To Life in the HIV/AIDS & Globalization Era
In this story a man called Jairus, who was the leader of the synagogues, came to Jesus, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Come lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.” Jesus agreed to come along with Jairus and a big crowd was following him. The story tells us that there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. This woman had “endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather she grew worse.” But when she heard about Jesus, she said to herself, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” She pushed through the crowds, she stretched her hand and touched the clothes of Jesus. And boom! hertwelve year bleeding stopped! Jesus also stopped and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples were surprised by his question and said to him, “You see the crowd pressing on you, how can you say, ”Who touched me?” But Jesus, who knew that someone touched him, for he felt power going out of him, continued the search. He was looking around and asking, “Who touched my clothes?” The woman “came in fear and trembling, fell down before him and told 18
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him the whole truth.” She told Jesus about her search for healing, her experiences with the various physicians and how she came to lose all her money without getting healed. It was a twelve year long story. And as Jesus listened, time passed. And just when Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace,” messengers from Jarius’ house came with an announcement. The little girl is dead, do not bother the teacher anymore, they said. In response, Jesus said to Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.” And they continued their journey to the house of Jairus. Upon arrival, they found crowds mourning and Jesus said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.” The people laughed. But Jesus took the parents of the child and his three disciples, Peter, James and John to the place where the child was. He took her hand and said to her, “Talitha Cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up.” And immediately she got up and began to walk about. Reading the Story with the Story of HIV/AIDS
When we read this story together with the story of HIV/AIDS, we are struck by many similarities. We are struck by patients who have been sick for a long time – patients who have spent all they had searching for healing, but instead of getting better, they got worse. We are struck by the presence of physicians, who have attended patients, received their money but could not heal them. We are struck by sick and dying young people. We are struck by desperate parents, who are trying to find healing for their children. We are struck by those who are weeping aloud for their dead children. We are struck by women who are sitting at home, silently watching over their sick children and waiting for help to come until their children die. The story sounds too familiar. But perhaps what is important is the difference that Jesus brings. Touching Jesus brings healing. Touching Jesus even in the middle of big crowds makes him to stop and want to meet and to listen to the person who touched him. Touching Jesus brings one into a new family, where one is welcomed as a daughter, rather than being stigmatized for uncleanness. The difference that Jesus brings to a situation of desperation has to do with the fact that he brings hope in hopelessness. That is, while the bleeding woman had searched for twelve years without any healing, she is suddenly healed and restored 19
to the community as a daughter. Hope is restored as Jesus says to a fearful parent, “Do not fear, only believe.” Indeed, hope is restored when Jesus makes those who mourn laugh. Jesus, therefore, makes a big difference by defying death – he calls a dead little girl to life and she rises and starts walking about! The challenge here is: how can we as Christians stand in the story of HIV/AIDS and globalization, which is happening in our countries, our communities, our churches and in our families and pronounce hope and life in the midst of despair and death? While I have no particular formula to give you, what I definitely know is that this is a fitting duty for all of us who call ourselves after the name of Christ. That is, it is a central part of our ministry, life and work as ecumenical students, to bring hope, healing and life to a world that is overshadowed by death. Reading the Story with the Story of Gender Constructions
Let us now turn and read this story together with the story of gender construction. In this story, there are men and women. Let us look at these and how they are gendered. To start with men, we meet Jairus who is a synagogue leader. Jesus, on the other hand, is a celebrated teacher, healer and prophet, who is followed by big crowds and whose power defies any disease, including death. Then there were disciples and three of these are identified as Peter, James and John. They traveled with Jesus and learnt from him. Most probably there were many other men amongst the crowds, servants and mourners but they are not named. Turning to women, we have three women: the bleeding woman, the sick and dying daughter of Jairus and the mother of the latter. Most probably, there were some more women amongst the crowds and mourners. But an assessment from a gender perspective highlights gendered identities and apparent unequal power distribution in the story. To take Jairus and the bleeding woman, we note that the woman had no name and no profession. She is identified through her illness. Jairus, however, is named and holds a public position of being the synagogue leader. Both these two needed the help of Jesus desperately. But their methods of approaching Jesus highlights their gendered identities. Jairus comes straight to Jesus and falls in front of him, saying, “Come, lay your hands on my daughter so that she may be made well and live.” The bleeding woman, on the other hand, comes from 20
Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life
behind Jesus. She does not speak and ask him. Instead, she decides that if she secretly touches the clothes of Jesus, she will be healed. Clearly, the woman lacks words, rather in a typical gendered manner she speaks in action. It is only after Jesus had searched for her, that she comes forward and makes a confession, telling the whole truth! In fact, her behind the scenes approach highlights other gender stories of her life. Scholars have underlined that her condition of bleeding made her unclean (Tolbert 1992: 268; Dewey 1994: 481). She had no right to be walking in public and getting to talk to teachers for she would defile them (Lev. 15:19-33). Consequently, she decided to come from behind and to silently get healed, so she could disappear unnoticed. In short, her illness was not only physical, but one that also gave her social stigma. Her illness would have meant that she was not allowed in certain places and she could not marry. And given the patriarchal structures of her day, this meant that she had no means of social support outside the security of marriage. This woman was therefore physically ill, but above all, she was also socially ill. Turning to the other two women, the sick girl, has no name of her own. She is identified through her father and her illness. We note also that she does not speak at all. Similarly, her mother is identified through her motherhood role, but she holds no public profession nor does she possess a name of her own. Like the other two women, she does not speak. When compared with her husband, he had a name, a profession and he went out of the home to speak openly to Jesus. She remained in the home nursing the sick child and she never speaks. Women-Men Partnership: Reading The Story for Gender Empowerment
In sum, gender disparities are evident in this story. Women are largely nameless, without profession, without verbal communication and the ones who need to be helped. Despite these gender disparities, the vital question is what are the models of gender empowerment offered by the story? Does the story offer us any model of women and men in partnership? I would like to highlight three models from the story. First, we are confronted by a model of abuse of power, embodied by the physicians. They are powerful people with the knowledge of healing. But when the bleeding woman comes to them, they do not heal her. Instead, they 21
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worsen her situation by adding poverty to her illness. This is a good example of the exploitation of the poor by the powerful. Second, we encounter a model of using one’s power to empower others. This model is embodied by Jairus and Jesus. Jairus, a synagogue leader, could have sent his servants to go and call Jesus, but rather he chose to go there in person. Upon arrival, we note that he puts away whatever social status he may hold. He falls down and begs Jesus repeatedly saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” Jairus invites Jesus to use his power, to empower a powerless little girl. He invites Jesus to move the situation of this little girl from the point of death to life. Jesus, for all his fame and his power, with so many crowds pushing against him, he could have very well asked Jairus to bring the sick child to him. He could have chosen to say a word and declare the child to be healed from a distance. Instead, he chose to walk with Jairus in his desperation. When the child is declared dead, Jesus walks with Jairus and gives him hope saying, “Do not fear, only believe.” When they arrive in his house people are mourning and weeping, and Jesus, once again, assures them that “The child is not dead, but sleeping.” In all these stages, Jesus refuses to succumb to the shadow of death, by insisting on life and hope. And finally he stands by the side of the dead girl. As a Jewish man, he knows very well that a dead body would defile him (Dewey 1995: 481). But he fights for the life of this little girl. He takes her hand and calls her back to life saying, “Talitha Cum, or little girl, get up.” She hears the voice of Jesus speaking life against the invasion of cultural and physical death. The little girl rises and begins to walk around. Both Jairus and Jesus are powerful men, but they used their power to empower the powerless. I believe that this model highlights that the powerful, and the men in WSCF, do have a role in building gender empowerment and fighting against the forces of death that globalization and HIV/AIDS unleashes against the girl-child of today. All of you women, seated here, are also powerful. The third model offered by the story is that of the oppressed becoming agents of their own empowerment. This approach is best captured by the bleeding woman’s search for healing. She is a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years and she has spent all her money in search for healing. Nonetheless, she does not give up, even when she knows she has no money 22
Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life
anymore to pay the healers. The bleeding woman does not give up, even when she knows that she is religiously unclean and should stay away from teachers. When she hears of Jesus, another healer, and when she sees the number of people following him, she resolves that, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” This is hope. She thus pushes against the religious beliefs that hinders her from touching Jesus. She pushes against the crowds that also hinder her from reaching Jesus. She touches the clothes of Jesus and she gets healed! While in the past, she has asked many physicians to heal her, now she reaches out for her own healing without asking Jesus. It is quite possible that many of the physicians that she visited did not want to touch her or allow her to sit in any of their chairs, given her condition of uncleanness (Lev. 15: 19-33). By reaching out and touching Jesus, she becomes an agent of her own empowerment. Yet even where the oppressed take control of their lives, it demands the willingness of the powerful to relinquish power. The powerful must be willing to feel power going out of them and accept it. They must share power with the powerless. It is not an easy thing. And hence the response of Jesus to a woman who sought to empower herself is important for all of us who are in positions of power. How do we respond when the powerless take power from us, without our permission? Jesus stopped and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” Despite the fact that his disciples thought it was a ridiculous question, he did not give up on searching the person who had taken power from him. It was only after meeting her and listening to her whole story, that Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (v. 34). By calling her “daughter,” Jesus welcomes her into the family of faith, given that she had been socially, economically and physically isolated due to her health (Perkins 1995: 588).
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to break the cultural and physical barriers to get her own healing? Even as we speak right now, there are many bleeding women, who have no more money to pay doctors, but who desperately need healing. Are we sensitive enough to hear them when they stretch their hands to touch our clothes even in the middle of our fame? Even as we speak, there are many young girls who are at the point of death due to the HIV/AIDS and globalization. Are we willing to walk with their desperate parents towards their houses and beds of suffering and death? Are we willing to speak words of hope against death and hopelessness? Are we willing to lay our hands on them and pronounce life in the face of death? You are a student movement that is involved with many lives of young girls, who are living under the shadow of death in this era of globalization and HIV/AIDS. Are you willing to enter their houses, to take their hands and to say to them, “Talitha Cum,” little girl, get up! Rise from the shackles of death to life! You the women in the ExCo of the WSCF are like the physicians, Jesus and Jairus, you are powerful people in this movement. I hope that during these two weeks of your meeting you will use your power as ExCo members to ensure that “calling the girl-child and women back into life in the age of globalization and HIV/AIDS,” is mainstreamed into the programmatic priorities of your movement as well as to ensure that new programme priorities are put in place to focus on these areas. My last word to you, the girls in this room, is, of course, “Talitha Cum!”
Conclusion: Who Are You in the Story?
I would like to close this Bible study by inviting all of you who are seated here to take your place in this story. My question to you is who are you in the story: Are you the powerful physicians who used their power to exploit and worsen the position of the powerless? Are you the powerful Jesus and Jairus, who are nonetheless willing to use their power to empower the powerless? Or, are you the bleeding woman, who is socially stigmatized, but who is willing 23
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Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life BIBLIOGRAPHY - ADUPA, LARRY R., Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in the Ministry of Agriculture: Situation Analysis. Gaborone: Ministry of Agriculture, 1999. - BOTSWANA CHRISTIAN COUNCIL, Africa Praying: Orphans Need Love (A Video). Gaborone: BCC, 2000. - BOTSWANA GOVERNMENT, The Rapid Assessment On The Situation of Orphans In Botswana. Gaborone: Ministry of Health, 1998. __________, The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the Health Sector in Botswana. Gaborone: Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 2000. __________, Management and Co-ordination Arrangements HIV/AIDS: Prevention and Control. Gaborone: Ministry of Local Government, 2000. - BOTSWANA GOVERNMENT/UNDP, National Gender Progrmme Framework. Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, 1998. - BUCKENHAM, KAREN, ed., Violence Against Women: A Resource Manual For the Church in South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: PACSA, 1999. - CARINO, FELICIANO, V., “The WSCF and the Ecumenical Movement in the Emerging Context of Economic Globalisation,” in WSCF Journal, December 1995: 11-16. - CHILISA, BAGELE, The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the University of Botswana: Developing a Comprehensive Strategic Response. Gaborone: University of Botswana, Jan. 2001. - DE SANTA ANA, JULIO, ed., Sustainability and Globalization. Geneva: WCC Publications, 1998. - DEWEY, JOANNA, “The Gospel of Mark,” in Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, ed. Searching the Scriptures: Volume 2. New York: Crossroads, 1994: 470-509. - DJEUTANE, GEORGINE K., “Globalization and Economic Justice,” WSCF. - DINGAKE, OAGILE K., AIDS and Human Rights in Botswana. Gaborone: Morula Press, 2000. - DUBE, M. W., “Praying the Lord’s Prayer in the Global Economic Era (Matt 6: 9-13),” in Gerald West & Musa W. Dube, eds. The Bible In Africa. Leiden: A.J. Brill, 2000. __________, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. St Louis: Chalice Press, 2000. __________, “Preaching to the Converted: Unsettling the Christain Church,” in Ministerial Formation 93 2001: 38-50. __________, Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible. Geneva: WCC , 2001. __________, “Are We in the Global Village or in God’s Garden.” Forthcoming in Ministerial Formation 96 (January 2002). __________, “Looking Back: Postcolonialism, Globalization, God and Gender,” A paper presented in Oslo University, Department of Theology, 18, October, Oslo, Norway. - DUBE, M. W., & T.S. MALULEKE, “HIV/AIDS as the New Site of Struggle: Theological Biblical and Religious Perspectives,” Missionalia 29/2, 2001: 119-124. - FALL, YASSINE, ed., Africa: Gender, Globalization and Resistance. New York: AAWord, 2000. - GARBA, A., & KASSEY P. GARBA, “Trade Liberalization, Gender Equality and Adjustment Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Fall, Yassine, ed., Africa: Gender, Globalization and Resistance. New York: AAWord, 2000: 7-40. - JOHANNSON, CATHARINE, “Women & Partnership in the World Student Christian Federation,” WSCF-SCM Canada. 25
MUSA DUBE - LIND, CHRISTOPHER, Something is Wrong Somewhere: Globalization, Community and the Moral Economy of Farm Crisis. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1995. - MEJIA, XIMENA M., “Globalization and Women in Latin America and the Caribbean,” WSCF-ExCo, August 1999. - NJOROGE, N., & M. W. DUBE, eds., Talitha Cum: Theologies of African Women. Natal: Cluster Publications 2001. - NORWEGIAN CHURCH AID, NCA and AIDS: What? How? Why? and What Next? Lessons Learned and Best Practices, 1998. - PERKINS, PHEME, “The Gospel of Mark,” in Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation: Volume VIII. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995: 509-733. - PHEKO, MOHAU, “Privatization, Trade Liberalization and Women’s Socio-Economic Rights: Exploring Policy Alternatives,” in Fall, Yassine ed., Africa: Gender, Globalization and Resistance. New York: AAWord, 2000: 89-102. - RAKOCZY, SUSAN, ed., Silent No Longer: The Church Responds to Sexual Violence. Natal: Joint Publication of Lumko Institution, PACSA ETL., 2000. - SADC, SADC HIV/AIDS Strategic Framework and Programme of Action 2000-2004. Pretoria: Health Sector Coordinating Unit, 2000. - SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT, Living Openly: HIV Positive South Africans Tell Their Stories. Pretoria: Ministry of Health, 2000. - STACKHOUSE, MAX L., & PETER PARIS, eds., God & Globalisation Vol. 1: Religion and the Powers of Common Life. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2000. - TOLBERT, MARY ANN, “Mark,” in Carol Newsom and Sharon Ringe, eds., The Women’s Bible Commentary. London: SPCK, 1992: 263-274. - UNAIDS, Summary Booklet of Best Practices, Geneva: UNAIDS, 1999. _______, Report On Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, Geneva: UNAIDS, 2000. _______, Men and AIDS: A Gendered Approach. Geneva: UNAIDS, 2000b. - UNAIDS/UNDP, HIV/AIDS Human Development South Africa. Amabuku Publications, 1998. _______, “Fact Sheet: Global Crisis Global Action.” New York, UNGASS 25-27, June 2001. - UNDP, Socio-Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS in Botswana: Review and Evaluation of HIV/AIDS Related Data For An Expanded National Response to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Botswana. Gaborone: Ministry of Finance/UNDP, 2000. _______, Socio-Economic Impact oh HIV/AIDS in Botswana: Macro Impacts of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Botswana. Gaborone: UNDP/Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, 2000. _______, Human Development Report, Windhoek: UNDP, 1999. - UNICEF, Stimulating Orphan Programming in Botswana: Developing a Supportive Environment For Exploration. September 6, 1998. - WCC, A Guide to HIV/AIDS Pastoral Counseling. Geneva: WCC, 1990. _______, Facing AIDS: The Challenge, The Churches’ Response. Geneva: WCC, 1999. _______, Facing AIDS: Education in the Context of Vulnerability HIV/AIDS. Geneva: WCC, 1999. - WELBORN, ALICE, Stepping Stones: A Training Package on HIV/AIDS, Communication and Relationship Skills. London: ACTIONAID, 1998. - WSCF, “A Community of Memory and Hope: Celebrating God’s Faithfulness,” Journal, December 1995. _______, Regional Women’s Report: History Visions Prgrammes. Hong Kong: WSCF, 1987. _______, WSCF Executive Meeting: Vision, Programmes and Directions 1996-1999. 26
What are we to DO? Examining the Moral Challenges of Solidarity for the First World REBECCA TODD PETERS U.S.A.
In May 1993, hundreds of low-wage factory workers were trapped inside a burning toy factory on the outskirts of Bangkok in what has been called “the worst industrial fire in the history of capitalism.”1 Survivors told of main doors that were locked and windows that had been blocked to prevent pilfering. The stuffing and animal fibers used to make the toys littered the factory. While Thai law requires that the fire-escape stairways of such a large factory be sixteen to thirty-three feet wide, this factory’s were a mere four and a half feet wide and cheap construction allowed steel girders and stairways to crumple easily in the heat. Official reports listed the dead at 188 and the injured at 469. Previously, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire of 1911 in New York City had ranked as the worst industrial fire in history, but the Triangle fire became legendary, ushering in a new era of regulatory protection for American workers. Not only was the Bangkok fire barely noticed by those outside of Thailand, similar tragedies are commonplace in the Two-Thirds World. Rather than the moral indignation that followed the Triangle fire, the Bangkok fire primarily elicited moral indifference from the world’s global elite. The era of globalization has made tragedy ubiquitous. Every day the media brings us more news of death, destruction, and devastation. It becomes simply too much to process. The repetitiveness of disaster has inured us to the tragedy of each individual incident and the question of our own culpability is rarely, if ever, raised. If we are going to truly examine the meaning of solidarity in a globalized world, it is imperative for First World Christians to grapple with the realities of privilege, wealth, and power. 1
Information regarding the Kader fire is from William Greider’s report of the incident found in William Greider, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1997), pp. 339-346. 28
Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life
While the term “globalization” represents a variety of theoretical perspectives, ideas, and moral frameworks, this essay will focus on the increasing chasm between wealth and poverty in our world that has resulted from processes of economic globalization.2 It is important to recognize that striving for solidarity under conditions of injustice and material inequality requires different responses from different constituencies. This essay will examine the moral challenges that globalization pose to First World Christians who desire to live in solidarity with our sisters and brothers around the world. New eyes to see – privilege, wealth, and power
Very few people think of themselves as privileged, wealthy, or powerful. And, with the notable exceptions of British royalty, or children from dynastic families (Kennedys, Rockefellers, etc), even fewer young adults consider themselves privileged, wealthy, or powerful. The majority of people in the United States classify themselves as “middle-class,” even many of those who fall in the upper 20% income bracket (>US$94,150).3 For the 1.2 billion people in the world who live on less than one U.S. dollar a day, that fact is quite remarkable. What becomes obvious is that wealth has both absolute and relative qualities to it. People in the U.S. often think about wealth in absolute terms. Popular perceptions of what it means to be wealthy in the United States relate to those people who can afford to buy or do whatever they want, whenever they want; money is simply not a factor in their decision-making processes. The “middle-class” perceive themselves as people who do have to think about money. They have to plan for their retirement, save to buy a new car, or a new house, or to go on vacation – they have to make budgets and stick to them in order to cover their expenses. However, from the vantage point of the majority of people in the Two-Thirds World or even from the perspective of people in poverty within the First World, wealth is relative. New cars, new houses, and vacations are not even on their 2
3
For a more detailed treatment of the topic of defining and understanding globalization and its moral frameworks, see Rebecca Todd Peters, In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization (New York: Continuum, 2004). United for a Fair Economy, “The Growing Divide: Inequality and the Roots of Economic Insecurity,” (Boston: United for a Fair Economy, 2004). Data taken from the U.S. Census Bureau. March 2001 Census, Current Population Survey, Tables F-1 and F-3. Income range in 2001 dollars.
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radar screens. The wants and needs of people who live on the margins of society are much more basic – healthy food to eat; a clean, safe place to live; and opportunities for jobs that pay a living wage. Perspective makes all the difference in the world when we begin to examine the material reality of the world in which we live. One of the tricky things about privilege is that it is often invisible to the people who possess it. A privilege is a right or an advantage that some people have that is not available to everyone. The benefits of privilege are often so deeply woven into our experience of reality, that we do not recognize the unequal distribution of these factors in our society. Most Anglo people in the United States expect that if they are well dressed and behave politely that they will be generally respected in public, they will be waited on in restaurants and stores, and that law enforcement exists to protect them. It is not that there is anything wrong with these expectations, in fact, all people ought to be able to expect this kind of treatment as recognition of their basic humanity. But, in societies that are plagued by prejudices of race, class, and gender, these “rights” have become “privileges” afforded to people with the “right” skin color, or education, or gender, or checkbook balance. Prejudice against people who do not conform to a society’s norms is often imperceptible to the people in the majority culture, but it shapes the lives of minority people, their families, and their communities in unique ways. Muslim women who wear head scarves often experience a lack of public respect for their choice. Many African-Americans have related their experiences of being ignored in restaurants and stores, or worse, even followed to make sure they are not stealing. And the recent scandals of racial profiling by police departments in the United States demonstrate that the expectation that law enforcement is there to protect law-abiding citizens is not universal. Privileges shape our worldviews in invisible ways and they often function as expectations that we have for how the world works. For example, when I wake up in the morning I am able to make choices about what I want to eat for breakfast. Do I want coffee, tea, or milk? Do I want a bagel, or a scone, or a bowl of cereal? Do I want to eat at home or go out to a restaurant or café for breakfast? But, this is not the way the world “works” for everyone. In fact, the choice that I exercise in relation to such a simple thing as choosing what to eat in the morning is one of the privileges of wealth, of 30
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Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life
having a reasonable income. The problem is not that I have this privilege; in a just world everyone would be able to have a decent, healthy breakfast. The problem is that so many people in this world not only do not have choices about what they want to have for breakfast – many will have no breakfast. In a world of radical economic disparity where the wealthy of the world can choose between a variety of luxury items while millions go without food – my privilege is wrought with moral ambiguity. If we ever hope to approximate anything close to living in solidarity with our neighbors, we must confront the issues of privilege and inequality head on. This is enormously difficult in the North American context because our rhetoric about difference is often structured to create situations of us vs. them – Canada vs. United States; black vs. white; women vs. men; gay/ lesbian/bisexual/transgender vs. straight; poor vs. rich; blue collar vs. white collar. Pitting the marginalized against the marginalizer often has the effect of shutting down debate, of laying blame, and of evoking guilt, hostility, and anger. This sort of strategy does not move us toward the repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, or transformation that will build solidarity. The purpose of naming inequality and injustice is not to elicit guilt on the part of those either perpetrating or benefiting from it; the point is for the injustice to cease, for repentance and forgiveness to take place where appropriate, and for reconciliation and transformation to ensue. In order for this to happen, it is necessary for us to demystify the differences that alienate us from one another. We must be able to see our social reality with new eyes, with the eyes of other people who do not inhabit our social location and who see our reality from a very different vantage point. Our privilege will only become visible to us when we recognize it as an advantage that other people do not have. Only after we have opened our eyes to seeing the social relations in our world from new and different perspectives can we begin to inquire into our own moral accountability in a system of economic globalization that benefits the few at the expense of the many. With this task in mind, it is necessary to recast the debate in ways that invite engagement and participation in the dialogue. This does not mean that the conversation will be easy or that guilt, hostility, and anger will disappear completely, nor should they, as these emotions are often not only appropriate responses to a given situation, but responses that we can use to 31
mobilize us toward transformation.4 What it does mean is that North Americans (and other First World Christians) are invited to participate in critical ethical reflection on the state of inequality and injustice in our world with an eye toward identifying strategies that will allow us to be in solidarity with our neighbors. This critical reflection requires two important steps – awareness of the problems of injustice inherent in economic globalization and theological reflection on the concept of solidarity. Recognizing neoliberal globalization as unjust
Neoliberal economic theories began to be promoted in the 1980’s under the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the United States and Britain, respectively. This approach was also known as “supply-side” economics, “trickledown” economics, and the Washington Consensus. The policy hallmarks are privatization, deregulation, and free trade.5 This model gained even more prominence in the 1990’s with the opening up of the former Soviet trading bloc and the increasing embrace of markets, trade, and capitalism by China. Growth and trade are the watchwords of this dominant model of globalization. Growth is the primary indicator of economic well-being and growth can best be achieved through developing commodities for external trade. This model is one of the leading factors in the international debt crisis as countries have been forced to adopt neoliberal economic policies (also described as structural adjustment) as requirements for continued financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. This endorsement of the IMF and World Bank is often necessary to leverage direct foreign investment from the private sector. Economic productivity as measured through trade has been touted as the panacea to poverty and a host of other social problems that exist in many developing countries. Unfortunately, the consequences of neoliberal economic policies have wrought havoc on the people and social systems of the Two-Thirds World. Let us look briefly at the problems of poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation as some of the most severe examples of injustice that mark this unsustainable form of economics. 4
5
For an essay that explores the important ethical role of anger see Beverly Harrison, “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love,” Making the Connections (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983). For a more detailed description of neoliberalism and these three policies, see Rebecca Todd Peters, In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization (New York: Continuum, 2004), especially, ch. 3. 32
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Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life
Since Robert McNamara’s tenure as the President of the World Bank starting in 1968, the eradication of poverty has been the primary goal of the work of the World Bank. McNamara’s first five-year plan projected lending 11.6 billion, more money than had been lent in the first twenty years of the Bank’s existence.6 McNamara believed that more money, dispersed more broadly would ease the burden of poverty more quickly. Unfortunately, McNamara's strategies failed to actually reach the people in poverty to whom he had felt so obligated to help. In fact, as it turned out, the lending strategies of the WB during the McNamara years did two things that did damage to the poor. First, by lending mainly to the landowners and business people of TwoThird's World countries, the lending strategies increased the gap between the rich and the poor; and second, by pumping so many billion dollars into already debt-burdened countries, the McNamara years set the stage for the structural adjustment programs of the1980's that were to have devastating effects on the poor and marginalized. These structural adjustment programs required countries to adopt neoliberal economic policies that promoted growth and trade, often at the expense of necessary social programs that were addressing basic human needs. Neoliberal economic policies, represented by structural adjustment programs, contributed to the increasing poverty of heavily indebted countries that has only worsened in recent years. A 1999 report from the United Nations Human Development Programme documented that “more than 80 countries still have per capita incomes lower than they were a decade or more ago.”7 In addition to the fact that poverty remains a serious problem in virtually every country in the world today, the neoliberal economic model of globalization generated a “free trade” movement in the 1990’s that has benefited corporations and many of the world’s wealthy elite. While capitalism has always promoted the values of wealth creation and profit, these desires have taken an interesting turn in the last fifteen years. As businesspeople and corporations have continued to search for ways to raise their bottom line, new forms of cost-saving measures have come in the form of “down-sizing” in the
1980’s and “out-sourcing” in the 1990’s. What this means is that many corporations eliminated middle-management positions in the 1980’s in an attempt to streamline their operations and cut costs. The neoliberal deregulation efforts of the business community in the 1990’s, combined with technological advancements that made travel and communication easier, led to an increasing move toward moving low-skill jobs to countries where labor costs were cheaper and environmental regulations more lax. The mode of increasing “efficiency,” or raising profits, known as “out-sourcing,” has taken a new turn in the 2000’s as higher skilled telecommunications and dataprocessing work is being out-sourced to English-speaking countries (most notably India). These shifts in production and corporate strategy have greatly benefited corporations and their shareholders with a phenomenal decade on Wall Street in the 1990’s. To a certain extent consumers have also benefited from lower prices and wider consumer choice and availability. But, what is often not recognized in the First World is the extent to which economic inequality has increased at an astounding rate over the last two decades.8 The 1999 United Nations Human Development Report documents that “inequality has been rising in many countries since the early 1980s.”9 While the logic that undergirds neoliberal economics is that a rising tide lifts all boats and that eventually as corporations increase wealth there will be more jobs and everyone will benefit, the data simply does not demonstrate that that has been the case. In an obscene example of the extremes of inequality in our world, “the assets of the top three billionaires are more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people [emphasis added].”10 As bad as this is, as First World citizens, we cannot abdicate our culpability in the engines of globalization that continue to perpetuate poverty and inequality in our world. The UNDP has also shown that the wealth creation of the last fifteen years has disproportionately benefited those of us living in the First World.
6
8
7
Catherine Caufield, Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), p. 98. United Nations Development Programme, “Globalization with a Human Face,” Human Development Report 1999 (New York: Oxford University Press for the United Nations Development Programme), 1999, p. 2
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By the late 1990s the fifth of the world’s people living in the highest-income countries had: For an excellent assessment of the problems of inequality in our world, see Douglas A. Hicks, Inequality and Christian Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 9 UN HDR, p. 3. 10 Ibid. 34
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Talitha Cum! Calling the Girl-Child and Women to Life *86% of world GDP – the bottom fifth just 1% *82% of world export markets – the bottom fifth just 1% *68% of foreign direct investment – the bottom fifth just 1% 11
It is incumbent upon all First World people to recognize the ways in which our lifestyles and consumer habits and choices impact the lives of our neighbors and the health of the planet. Finally, the rapidly degrading quality of our environment stands as a witness to the fact that we not only refuse to care for our human neighbors, but that humanity has shown a blatant disregard for God’s creation in recent decades that threatens to destroy life as we know it. Many of the deregulation efforts in the last twenty years have been aimed at laws meant to protect the world’s waters, forests, animals, and even indigenous human communities. Representatives of business argue that these environmental concerns are “externalities” that interfere with their ability to turn a profit. In a sense they are right. Within the current economic paradigm, any business that chooses to “internalize” the costs to the environment by producing their product with less waste or by cleaning up environmental damage that they might cause risks losing market share and the competitive edge that the current neoliberal system requires. In addition to the deregulation efforts, as many corporations have moved toward outsourcing their production facilities, they have looked for locations with the most lax environmental regulations. In some instances they have even exerted pressure on local or national governments (in the U.S. and abroad) to relax, change, or exempt them from current environmental protection requirements with their offer of new jobs and economic stimulation. While we do not have time to examine the threat to democracy that corporations pose in the new neoliberal sphere of political-economy, it at least bears noting. All of these shifts have had profound implications for workers around the world. In the Two-Third’s World many workers, disproportionately young women, are exploited by poor working conditions, low wages, and tedious work that often results in long term health damage. Workers in the United States and other First World countries are losing what used to
11
35
Ibid.
be good paying, secure working class jobs which are often replaced by jobs in the service industry that do not offer salaries or benefits. And in all locations, in every part of the world, the environment is suffering as deregulation continues to compromise the health of the planet and all of God’s creation. Theological reflection on solidarity
When we speak of solidarity in a globalized world within the context of the World Student Christian Federation, we are talking about a model of being in the world that challenges the prevailing social order. The divisions of our world are evident in the nomenclature of “First World” and “Third World” that dominate political and economic discourse. These terms reflect a structured system of inequality and hierarchy that shapes the material reality of human experience. We have already detailed the ways in which the current model of economic globalization creates situations of injustice around the world. If we understand a movement toward solidarity as a witness to God’s grace working in the world, then we are challenged to move toward a new vision of society that is rooted in mutuality, justice, and transformation of the present social order. Solidarity is an expression of a new way of thinking about and modeling human relationships. In the neoliberal vision of humanity, we all exist as individual autonomous beings that act solely on behalf of our own self-interest. This vision of human nature is a fundamental cornerstone of neo-classical economic theory known as homo economicus, a theoretical economic actor around whose expected actions economic theory is built. While it may be true that a large number of people in the world do, in fact, behave in this manner, it is not self-evident that this is an ontological aspect of our human nature, or that it is even the dominant characterization of how most humans behave. In fact, if we examine who exactly it is that behaves this way, we find that it is predominantly people influenced by Western philosophical notions of the self that were advanced during the Enlightenment. Kant’s influence on Western conceptions of human nature have become deeply embedded in the neoclassical economic theory that undergirds capitalism. Serious critiques of the adequacy of this notion of human behavior have revealed a distinct male bias 36
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in this description of how individuals make decisions.12 Women often make decisions from within a relational matrix of competing obligations that involve the material care of others (cooking, cleaning, caring for children or elderly relatives, etc.). Non-western communities also often exhibit a different understanding of decision-making than the autonomous individual represented by homo economicus with a stronger emphasis being placed on how decisions will impact the community. In addition to the empirical challenges to the adequacy of this model of understanding human behavior, there are several aspects of the Christian tradition that challenge the moral adequacy of a theological anthropology that privileges autonomy over relationality. One of the fundamental aspects of a Christian understanding of what it means to be human is that God created us as social beings, as beings in relationship. In the book of Genesis, we have two separate creation stories which each contribute to our theological understanding of human nature as fundamentally relational. In the first creation story, found in the first chapter of Genesis, we see that God made all the creation, the heavens and the earth, waters and the land, night and day, birds, fish, and animals, and finally, on the sixth day, God made humankind. Of all the aspects of the creation, it is only humans that God declared would be made in God’s image. In the first chapter of Genesis, as God creates humankind, in God’s own image, they are created in relationship – male and female. From this creation narrative, Christians can see that one of our most sacred stories of origin understands that part of what it means to reflect the image of God is to exist in relationship with one another and with God. The second creation story is found but a few verses later in the second chapter of Genesis. As biblical scholar Phyllis Trible has argued, in this second story God makes a single earth creature, who is sexually undifferentiated, and places the creature in the garden of Eden.13 Then, 12
13
37
For an excellent analysis of the gender bias of economic “rationality” and the inadequacy of neoclassical economics, see Carol Robb, “Rational Man and Feminist Economists on Welfare Reform,” Welfare Policy: Feminist Critiques (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press), 1999. Phyllis Trible’s essay, “A Love Story Gone Awry,” argues that the original Hebrew poetry has been misunderstood and mistranslated within patriarchal religious traditions. Trible argues that adam, is a Hebrew word that means “earth creature” and that it is not until the second creature is created woman, ishshah, that the first creature becomes man, ish. See Trible, “A Love Story Gone Awry,” in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978).
God said, “It is not good that the earth creature should be alone,” and God made many living creatures to fill the garden, but none were suitable partners for the earth creature. And so, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the earth creature and from one being, God created two. It was at this point that the two beings were designated as male and female. In this story we can see that after making the first earth creature, God recognizes that it should not be alone and God works very hard to find a suitable partner. The important theological insight of this story is that human beings were not intended to be alone. Once again, relationality is a foundational assumption of Christian theological anthropology – there is something ontologically important to our personhood about living in community and caring for one another. These themes are represented throughout the biblical witness that testifies to our call to seek justice, to exhibit compassion for our neighbor, and to live in solidarity with one another. If our task as Christians is to seek the will of God and do it, a foundational aspect of the will of God is to care for one another, to seek to establish solidarity with our neighbors, particularly in instances when we are radically estranged from them. Unmasking neoliberal economic globalization
With the ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor and the spiraling debt crisis in most Two-Third's World countries, it is increasingly apparent that the current economic model is not working. Before we can move forward in developing new economic models, we must first unmask two faulty assumptions that support the current neoliberal economic model. First is the assumption that economics is a hard science. As economics has developed, it has relied more and more heavily on the development of sophisticated mathematical models intended to predict market expectations and behavior. As the discipline has relied more heavily on mathematics, it has been treated as a more “scientific” endeavor. Elevating economics to the level of a hard science has generated an enormous amount of authority for the projections of economists and has allowed economic theories to heavily influence the development of public policy, international development, and economic globalization. The problem with treating economics in this way is that economics is fundamentally a theoretical discipline. While many 38
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economists are well aware of the theoretical limitations of their discipline, politicians, businesspeople, and the corporate world often treat economic theory as fact. We must remember that economic theories are just that, they are theories about how people interact in a market system. Neo-classical economic theory is based on fundamental assumptions about human nature and human behavior that have been widely critiqued as unrealistic and inadequate. Nevertheless, the model of homo economicus or “economic man” as the atomistic individual who functions in the marketplace as a self-interested wealth maximizer remains the theoretical starting point for neo-classical (and neoliberal) economic theory. This understanding of human nature and human behavior is subject to a strong critique based on a theological anthropology rooted in Christian principles of justice and care for the neighbor. From the Christian ethical perspective developed in this essay, we understand that humankind was created as relational beings who are called to live in community and to care for one another. If we believe that these are fundamental aspects of what it means to be human, shouldn’t we create theoretical economic models that allow for supporting communities, caring for workers, and protecting the environment? Contemporary economic theorists have also moved a considerable distance away from their roots when economic theory was understood as a way to try to help explain and understand the world, rather than as a positivistic model for shaping economic relations. Adam Smith, often hailed as the father of economics, was a moral philosopher. His articulation of economic theory was conceived as part of a larger social world. Smith knew that economics was merely an element of human society. His economic theory was consciously located within a moral framework. One of the fatal flaws of the development of economic theory has been the separation of economics from morality. At this point in our history it seems "rational" to conclude that a scientific approach to the fundamentally social phenomenon of the economy has not only been misplaced, but it has had devastating consequences on the majority of the world’s population. As we work toward demystifying the power and authority of neo-classical and neoliberal economic models in developing contemporary economic and social policy in our world, we must demand that new economic models are 39
rooted in a moral framework that takes the social well-being of people and caring for the planet into consideration as fundamental assumptions for ordering our economic life. Because economics and markets are fundamentally human endeavors that function to help people organize our economic life and transactions, it is folly to argue that markets, businesses, and economics are solely responsible for turning a profit and are solely accountable to shareholders. The maximization of profit should never be pursued to the detriment of the communities, workers, or God’s creation. Unfortunately, given the current structure of economic globalization this folly has been reified into an acceptance of economic theory as “common knowledge” and even more common business practice. The second assumption that needs to be unmasked is the idea that one model of development is sufficient for a wide variety of cultures, climates, peoples, and nations. Wall Street, the World Bank and IMF, and multinational corporations have decided that there is a “formula” for successful development. This formula does not care whether children are fed and immunized, whether pregnant women get prenatal care, whether open sewage runs through the streets of major cities. No, the formula for successful development according to the economic heavyweights requires that countries focus their development on creating goods for export. Even when there are food shortages in their own country, farmers are encouraged to grow crops for export because they can get higher prices abroad. It is easy for people in the First World to distance ourselves from the economic institutions of globalization like the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Most people in the United States do not know what these institutions do or how they function, but ignorance does not reduce our moral culpability for the actions of our government working through these institutions. The very presence of the World Bank and IMF in Washington, D.C. speaks volumes about the influence and control that the United States has in shaping their policy directives.14 Economic globalization is driven by economic theories and activities that are promoted by U.S. 14
For more detailed information about the history and actions of the World Bank and IMF see Catherine Caufield, Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and Poverty of Nations (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996) and Bruce Rich, Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment, and the Crisis of Development (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994). 40
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economists, business people, and public officials. This system requires our complicity in the process in order to maintain course. What is Wall Street but the investments and retirement funds of American people? And we cannot simply demonize multinational corporations like Disney, Kraft, General Motors, and Microsoft since they could not exist without the consumer behavior of millions of Americans (and other consumers). Solidarity with our neighbors calls us to do justice and one of the tasks of justice is to right wrongs. As Christians, when our eyes are opened to see sin for what it is, we are called upon by God, our faith tradition, and our community to insist that the injustice cease, that the sin stop, and that that which is wrong be made right. As educated, intelligent and resourceful women and men of the First World, it is our moral responsibility to address those systemic distortions that allow fires in toy factories to kill hundreds of people. Let us be clear. We are not just talking about the corporations or individuals who are “bad” or “immoral” or the worst-offenders. What I am suggesting is that an economic ideology or way of thinking that exclusively values profits is an ideology that is morally bankrupt. As First World people who benefit from this economic model, it is imperative that we open our eyes to the ways in which our consumer dollars, our mutual funds, and our tax dollars contribute to a system of economic globalization that unjustly exploits people and economies in the Two-Thirds World. The current model of globalization, a neoliberal model of capitalism that promotes export-oriented economic development, free trade and deregulation, is a model of globalization that creates wealth at the expense of the entire earth community. This means that all that God holds sacred - human life, plant life, animal life, the earth, the atmosphere - all of God's good creation - is being destroyed by the current model of economic globalization. What are the moral challenges of solidarity?
Trying to figure out what solidarity with the Two-Third’s World looks like is a difficult topic for people who live in the First World. We undoubtedly benefit from the current model of economic globalization that dominates our world. Most middle-class Christians own some kind of stocks, mutual funds, bonds, or IRA's. While our stock portfolios may have taken a hit in the recent recession, most of us (or our parents) profited 41
from the booming bull market of the 1990’s. Many of us often check the stock reports or our quarterly statements with excited anticipation as we watch our retirement (or college) accounts grow. But, as morally responsible Christians, we must each ask ourselves whose backs are bearing the burden of our growing mutual funds? Whose eyes or fingers are being destroyed in the manufacture of the clothing in our closets and electronic equipment in our homes? And what will the world be like for our children and our children’s children? Like the Hebrew people, we do not always pay attention to God, particularly when God challenges the comfortableness of our lives. We sit in the air-conditioning of our homes, well-fed, mostly satisfied or at least entertained by our possessions and it is easy to believe that God rejoices with us in our success. After all, doesn’t God want what is best for us? It seems to me that the answer is both yes and no. Of course God rejoices in our success and wants us to be healthy and well-fed and happy, but this cannot come at the expense of the livelihood of the rest of the earth community. It cannot come at the expense of the burning of Thai workers or the blinding of Mexican maquiladora workers or the labor of Indian children. The moral challenges of solidarity in a globalized world require two levels of response from First World people: systemic and personal - neither of which is sufficient alone. The first moral challenge to First World Christians is that our lives must change. In a world where the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow dramatically, the challenge of redistribution is very personal. When one fifth of the people living in the highest income countries own 86% of the goods and the bottom fifth just 1% - the moral challenge of solidarity is radical.15 Most of the people living in the First World are part of that top fifth percent. If solidarity is really to occur, our lives will have to change. It is time to cycle back from the rampant consumerism that has overtaken us to a model of life that is simpler, slower, and more earth centered. We must own our moral responsibility as consumers in a global world. We must be aware of where our food is coming from, under what conditions our clothes 15
United Nations Development Programme, “Globalization with a Human Face,” Human Development Report 1999 (New York: Oxford University Press for the United Nations Development Programme), 1999, p. 3. 42
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are made, and how the corporations in which we have investments treat their employees. Cooking, gardening, cloth diapers, composting, supporting local farmers, walking to work, using bicycles for transportation, buying less of everything! Solidarity challenges us on a personal level to change our lives. If life is to be sustainable for the entire earth community, we all have to reorient our lives. The second moral challenge of solidarity is that our systems must change. It is clear that the current neoliberal form of economic globalization is impoverishing the majority of the world’s population. One of the most active reform campaigns in recent years has been the Jubilee 2000 movement, which organized to force the IMF and World Bank to forgive the structural adjustment loans that have been crippling the economies and social programs in dozens of countries over the past 20 years. While it is morally imperative that we forgive the debt, what good is forgiving the debt if the IMF and the World Bank continue the dependency cycle by pumping money into developing countries? Debt forgiveness is important, it must happen - but it is not a solution to the problems that globalization has wrought. Debt forgiveness is a step in a very long process of changing how the dominant economic system functions. Growth and profits cannot continue to be the driving values behind globalization. Solidarity calls us to a more just and compassionate system of organization and accountability. And other systems must change as well – public transportation, education, health care, manufacturing, criminal justice, and the prison system are just a few places to begin. For our personal lifestyle changes will be like drops in a bucket if the social structure of our society does not change as well. So where does this leave us?
There is no easy answer to this problem. A viable alternative economic model does not yet exist. The challenge of solidarity to economic globalization is to create a new economic model that incorporates values into its rationality. A new economic model that is rooted in a moral framework of compassion and the elimination of poverty. An economic model that does not focus on growth and trade as its primary indicators of success, but a model that focuses on reduction of infant mortality, starvation relief, 43
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health care delivery, countries that can feed their people, and the control of HIV/AIDS for all people, rich and poor. Our moral task is to ensure that globalization proceeds in ways that honor creation and life. This is no easy task. As people of faith we must learn to negotiate the delicate territory between pragmatism and prophetic vision. Often when my students discover the reality of environmental degradation that is occurring in our world, or when they are confronted with institutional racism, or the growing divide between wealth and poverty in our world, they are reduced to despair. They comment that, “the problem is too big!” and they wonder, “what difference can I make?” In response to arguments calling for a paradigm shift or institutional transformation, many respond, “but that will never happen – its too hard!” On one level they are right. From a pragmatic perspective it is true that a shift from neoliberal capitalism to a more just economic model of society appears to be a utopian vision, an impossibility given the politicaleconomic structures of our present day world. But, we must always strive to be open to the prophetic vision of a just society, even though a just society is practically unlikely in this world, we can still strive toward that vision. In fact, that is what God calls us to do. In John 17, Jesus talked about how his disciples should be in the world, but not of the world. He asks us to walk that same delicate balance between reality and possibility. In Mark 5, Jairus comes to Jesus and begs him to follow him and heal his daughter who is very ill and near death. As Jesus makes his way to Jairus’ home, some people come to tell Jairus that his daughter has died. Jesus overhears them and says to Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.” When Jesus reaches the young girl’s home he takes her hand and says to her, “Talitha cum” or “Little girl, get up!” And she does. In these words lie great wisdom for our time. All around us, people misperceive reality just as the people in Jairus’ home believed that the young girl was dead. Today people tell us that capitalism is the only way to structure our markets, that if the poor would only work harder they wouldn’t be poor, that the movement of productive work from the First World to the Two-Thirds World is inevitable – but I say to you, that there are too many people in our world who misperceive reality. They allow what is to blind them to the possibility of what might be, indeed from a Christian ethical 44
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perspective, what ought to be. The task before us to transform the unsustainable consumer habits that enslave First World communities is difficult. The task before us to restructure corporate accountability seems insurmountable. The task before us to develop new, sustainable, justice-oriented economic theories seems impossible. The opposition that change agents encounter is often overwhelming, potentially threatening, and fearful – for it is human nature to fear change. As we contemplate what that change might look like, we begin to wonder - What would my life be like without a television? Without meat? Without a two-story brick home in the suburbs? Without an $80,000 a year job? Without the latest CD or DVD? Without the latest fashions in my closest? Without McDonalds or Coca Cola or Wal-Mart? Indeed, perhaps the better questions to ask are what would my life be like if I worked toward decreasing my environmental impact on the world? What would my life be like if I lived sustainably? What would my life be like if I honored the Sabbath day? What would my life be like if I lived it in solidarity with the Two-Thirds World? What would my life be like if I took a job that contributed toward solving the problems of economic and environmental globalization rather than a job that contributed to them? What would my life be like if I insisted that I did not have to make a choice between my career and my family? What would the United States look like if this generation demanded all of these things? What would the world look like? God continues to call to us today through the power of Jesus’ words, “Do not fear, only believe.” In walking that thin line between pragmatism and prophecy, we must believe that a new future is possible, that we can work toward a world rooted in solidarity with our neighbor. A deep and abiding sense of solidarity that requires transformation on our part and we need not fear the naysayers who tell us it is impossible. If we believe in the possibility of a new future, then can work together to figure out how to get there, with the grace of God in our midst, anything is possible – talitha cum!
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BIBLIOGRAPHY - CAUFIELD, CATHERINE. Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996. - GREIDER, WILLIAM. One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1997. - HARRISON, BEVERLY. “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love,” in Making the Connections Boston: Beacon Press, 1983. - HICKS, DOUGLAS A. Inequality and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. - PETERS, REBECCA TODD. In Search of the Good Life: The Ethics of Globalization. New York: Continuum, 2004. - RICH, BRUCE. Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment, and the Crisis of Development. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. - ROBB, CAROL. “Rational Man and Feminist Economists on Welfare Reform,” in Welfare Policy: Feminist Critiques. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1999. - TRIBLE, PHYLLIS. “A Love Story Gone Awry,” in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978. - UNITED FOR A FAIR ECONOMY, “The Growing Divide: Inequality and the Roots of Economic Insecurity.” Boston: United for a Fair Economy, 2004. - UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME, “Globalization with a Human Face,” Human Development Report 1999. New York: Oxford University Press for the United Nations Development Programme,1999.
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Université, Renaissance Africaine et Mondialisation La mission prophétique des jeunes universitaires chrétiens africains dans nos sociétés en crise BERTRAND TIENTCHEU Cameroun
Quel rôle peut jouer l’université dans le processus de réveil des sociétés africaines en crise? Quelles ressources disposent les universitaires africains pour bâtir une société forte, pouvant s’intégrer dans un monde globalisé, soumis à la loi du marché et du profit, férocement compétitif, ne cédant aucune place aux faibles? Une Afrique nouvelle, un monde nouveau est-il possible aujourd’hui? Ces questions taraudent l’esprit des éminences grises africaines et non africaines en ce début de millénaire. Les réponses à ces questions sont diversifiées et controversées. Chacun en fonction de sa chapelle idéologique et politique y apporterait une réponse. Je vais également aborder ces questions dans mes réflexions, et y apporter des esquisses de réponses, me situant dans une perspective chrétienne. Pour ce faire des histoires bibliques extraites du livre de Marc 5: 21-43, me serviront de foyer d’inspiration. La trilogie Université, Renaissance africaine et mondialisation, me servira don de cadre conceptuel d’analyse. La mondialisation, ce phénomène complexe de l’ère post-moderne et qui se présente comme une réalité irréversible, est désormais la nouvelle grille d’analyse des faits humains. Toute action se pense et se déploie en fonction d’elle. Elle suscite des réactions controversées. Certains y voient une opportunité de bien-être pour tous et toutes, d’autres y perçoivent un nouvel impérialisme planétaire, sous la direction du néo-capitalisme mondial. La Renaissance africaine se décrit comme un processus de réveil, de renouveau spirituel, culturel, scientifique, politique et économique de l’Afrique. Nous africains, nous voulons nous renouveler, gagner en forces nouvelles et en confiance en nous-mêmes. Nous voulons sortir de cette «nasse» dont parle Kange Ewané, dans laquelle nous sommes prisonniers depuis cinq siècles et qui fait que nous semblons évoluer sur le plan social, politique, économique, 48
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«comme par une télécommande manipulée par les Européens d’abord, et les Américains ensuite .»1 Nous voulons nous guérir des traumatismes du passé causés par des années de destruction et de désintégration sous forme de colonialisme et néocolonialisme, années de désillusion qui ont emporté dans des systèmes népotiques et obscurantistes à partis uniques, nos grands rêves de libération et de prospérité, et ont «plongé nos intelligences dans une sorte de dépression psychique et d’angoisse métaphysique d’où jaillit constamment le besoin de comprendre ce qui nous arrive réellement.»2 L’université comme lieu de production, de diffusion des savoirs joue un rôle déterminant dans un tel processus. Elle doit pouvoir induire un projet de société à la hauteur des attentes, des grandes ambitions que se donnent les Africains dans la dynamique de la Renaissance, ce compte tenu du contexte mondial actuel. Nous pensons avec Jean-Jacques Servan Schreiber, qui dans son livre le Défi mondial, tire la sonnette d’alarme pendant les années 1980, face à un monde en pleine reconfiguration, que «la formation des hommes, l’entraînement des cerveaux, la capacité créatrice »3 sont les nouveaux lieux de bataille pour l’avenir. Il est donc question de forger des intelligences capables de maîtriser ce monde et de l’influencer. C’est la tâche des Universités africaines. Tel est notre véritable combat. Mon projet final au cours de ces réflexions sur les différentes problématiques évoquées, sera de déboucher sur des perspectives missionnaires dans lesquelles les jeunes universitaires chrétiens africains que nous sommes, allons devoir nous engager pour répondre efficacement aux défis qui sont les nôtres dans nos sociétés en crise, et surtout dans un monde globalisé où nous devenons davantage marginaux. Talitha Cum, Fillette je te le dis réveille-toi !
Jésus s’adresse à la fille de Jairos, chef de la synagogue. Dans l’histoire qui est contée dans Marc 5: 21-43, elle est présentée comme morte. Son père accourt vers Jésus: pour la foule, il n’y a plus rien à espérer, «ta fille 1
Kange Ewané, Fabien, Défis au Africains du IIIème Millénaire, Yaoundé, Clé, 2000. Kä Mana, “Sciences sociales et Nouvelle Humanité africaine,” http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/MotsPluriels/ MP2403.pkm.html. 3 Le Défi Mondial, Paris, Fayard, 1980, repris par Kangé Ewané, opcit.
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est morte pourquoi ennuyer encore le Maître,» clame-t-elle. Mais pour Jésus c’est le contraire, il est serein, «l’enfant n’est pas morte, elle dort», répond-il, malgré les railleries de la foule. Si nous remplaçons fillette par Afrique, nous obtiendrons «Afrique, je te le dis réveille-toi !». C’est Jésus qui parlerait ainsi à l’Afrique aujourd’hui. Afrique, Africains, le monde nous considère comme morts, au point que nous l’avons incorporé dans notre conscience et avons perdu toute confiance en nous, en notre capacité de transformer notre cadre de vie en un espace de bonheur. Beaucoup n’attendent plus grand chose de ce continent dont la disparition de la face de la terre est déjà programmée. Jésus dit le contraire. L’Afrique n’est pas morte, elle dort. Elle doit se réveiller, prendre en main son destin. Jésus ouvre un champ d’espérance, tout n’est pas fini. Ce n’est pas de l’Afro optimisme naïf et simpliste. C’est ce que Kä Mana appelle l’Afro lucidité.4 Le Christ nous invite à ne pas perdre notre lucidité malgré nos souffrances, notre apparente inanité. Cela veut dire que nous devons toujours être conscients de ce qu’il y a en nous: un potentiel de vie qui est latent et qui n’attend que d’être actualisé. Cette force de vie est le don de Dieu et nul ne peut nous l’enlever si ce n’est Dieu lui-même. Or à travers son Fils il veut que nous vivions. Les deux histoires de Marc 5: 21-43 nous situent au cœur du ministère de Jésus, celui de la guérison. Le Christ se présente ici comme une énergie de guérison, de libération et de résurrection. Il est venu au monde pour que tous aient la vie, «afin que quiconque qui croît ait la vie éternelle» (Jn 3: 15, TOB 1995). La vie éternelle n’étant pas comprise uniquement en terme de durée, mais aussi et surtout en terme de qualité de vie. Ce texte peut donc être relu à la lumière des conditions qui sont les nôtres comme Africains dans le monde. La femme qui avait des hémorragies
La condition de l’Afrique comme continent et peuple n’est pas vraiment différente de celle de cette femme. Depuis des siècles, l’Afrique et le peuple africain souffrent du dépouillement systématique de ses forces vitales.
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Chrétiens et Eglises d’Afrique : penser l’avenir, Yaoundé, Clé, 1999. 50
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L’ignoble activité de la traite négrière, une des pires abominations que l’humanité ait connue, a contribué à vider l’Afrique de ses ressources humaines. De braves filles et fils de ce continent ont été déportés pendant des centaines d’années et vendus en bêtes de somme et utilisés comme des machines dans des plantations de canne à sucre aux Amériques. La colonisation, les systèmes despotiques mis en place après les «pseudo indépendances» des années 60 ont poursuivi l’œuvre de dépouillement. Aujourd’hui dans la société globalisée, l’Afrique reste la principale pourvoyeuse de ressources pour l’humanité. Ses ressources naturelles, son pétrole, ses forêts etc. son patrimoine artistique et culturel sont en permanence bradés par les firmes transnationales. C’est un continent immensément riche mais paradoxalement pauvre. L’endettement extérieur, les calamités naturelles, les guerres fratricides, les fléaux tels le VIH/SIDA etc. l’épuisent, le dépouillent de son énergie vitale, de son humanité. Il se vide de ses forces intellectuelles. Le flux de jeunes universitaires africains vers l’occident est assez important et alarmant. Ceux-ci pour la plupart du temps servent dans de grands laboratoires à travers le monde, sans être utiles à leur propre continent. La frénésie avec laquelle les jeunes gens aujourd’hui se livrent à la course à l’Occident est inquiétante. Ils semblent ne plus avoir confiance en eux-mêmes, et en leur continent comme espace de bonheur. La foi en nos propres potentialités
Il y a quelque chose de formidable qui se produit au cours des scènes décrites dans ces paraboles, et qui va devenir la condition de réalisation du miracle. «…Ta foi t’a sauvée,» voilà ce que Jésus répond à la femme souffrante. Cette dernière remarquant la présence du Christ dans la foule, s’approche de façon anonyme de lui. Elle le touche, pas comme la «peuplade». Elle est convaincue que le Christ possède une énergie puissante de libération et de guérison et qu’au simple toucher, elle guérira. C’est ce qui se produit. Pour Jésus ce n’est pas lui comme personne physique qui l’a guérie, mais bien sa foi. Comme quoi, la clé de libération se trouve en elle-même. Pour nous Africains d’aujourd’hui, nous devons savoir que notre libération ne se trouve pas en Europe, aux Etats-Unis ou en Asie. Mais en 51
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nous, dans l’énergie de notre être, de notre intelligence. Ce ne sont pas les ajustements structurels, les marchés financiers, le commerce international qui nous guériront. Même le NEPAD qui fait l’objet de beaucoup de discussions, ne saurait nous sortir de la nasse, s’il ne trouve pas en nous, dans nos intelligences, dans nos cœurs, un terrain fertile pour sa concrétisation. Le christ situe la clé de la libération non pas à l’extérieur de l’individu, mais plutôt à l’intérieur. la libération est anthropologique, il est question de rétablir notre centre de gravité intérieur.5 Beaucoup parle du miracle asiatique qui fait école aujourd’hui. Ce miracle a été possible parce que le peuple asiatique a misé d’abord sur ses propres forces intérieures, il a su faire confiance en lui-même. Si en temps qu’Africains nous voulons opérer un miracle africain en ce 3e millénaire, nous devons nous engager sur cette voie, celle de la foi en nos propres potentialités. La renaissance africaine doit être orientée dans cette perspective. LES DYNAMIQUES DE RENAISSANCE AFRICAINE Le Mouvement de l’Egyptologie africaine
L’Egyptologie africaine comme science et mouvement de pensée, est issue des résultats des travaux du savant sénégalais Cheick Anta Diop. Ce dernier a soutenu la thèse du caractère prioritairement et essentiellement nègre de l’Egypte pharaonique, et partant de l’antériorité de la civilisation africaine à partir de l’Egypte comme foyer d’émergence, sur la civilisation humaine. De telles découvertes ne pouvaient que susciter l’engouement des intellectuels africains en quête d’identité, qui voyaient là le fondement d’une nouvelle conscience historique pour les peuples africains. L’Egyptologie africaine, dynamique plurielle, est devenue un projet politico-culturel de Renaissance africaine. Les humanités égyptiennes y jouant une fonction motrice, d’impulsion, au même titre que l’a été l’antiquité gréco-latine dans la Renaissance Européenne. Quel que soit le courant que l’on prendrait, il ressortirait une ambition fondamentale se situant à trois niveaux à savoir : «- le souci d’une connaissance de soi fertile…pour inventer l’avenir, - le souci d’une rénovation socio-culturelle et politico-économique 5
Kä Mana, opcit. 52
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de l’Afrique à partir de ses valeurs les plus sûres… - le souci de proposer un projet éthique et spirituel de vie à toute l’humanité.»6 Ceci pouvant répondre aux défis auxquels fait face le monde global. L’Egyptologie africaine a donc pour ambition politique la construction d’une nouvelle société africaine bien intégrée dans l’ordre mondial actuel. Le Mouvement de la Théologie africaine de la Reconstruction
Le Christianisme est une force historique qui a contribué à bâtir la civilisation occidentale. L’Europe s’est construite à partir de l’énergie libérée par le Christianisme à travers ses mythes fondateurs. Toute sa technologie, sa science, sa culture lui sont intimement liées. Même si aujourd’hui l’Europe s’est laïcisée dans ses institutions, elle a gardé les valeurs profondes du Christianisme. Le projet missionnaire a malheureusement présenté à l’Afrique un Christianisme falsifié, de façade. Il s’est présenté comme un christianisme de domination, procédant par discrédit des religiosités traditionnelles endogènes. Son discours a présenté «Dieu ou le contenu de la foi comme irruption d’une pure Etrangeté, et la conversion comme arrachement à la perdition qui se confond avec les modes traditionnels de vivre et d’être homme …»7 un tel christianisme a été l’allié de l’entreprise coloniale. Dans leur résistance au christianisme bourgeois et missionnaire, les Africains et les Eglises d’Afrique se sont lancés dans une reprise critique du christianisme. Il est question d’«éprouver la puissance transfigurante du Christ»8 afin qu’elle devienne le ferment d’un renouveau spirituel, culturel, politique et social du continent africain. La Théologie africaine de la Reconstruction s’inscrit dans cette perspective. Elle est le nouveau paradigme à travers lequel les Eglises d’Afrique pensent désormais leur herméneutique, leur discours et leur praxis sociale. Elle intègre et transcende les théologies de l’inculturation, de la libération et du
6 7
8
Voir Kä Mana, Le souffle pharaonique de Jésus-Christ, Yaoundé, Sherpa, 2001. Eboussi Boulaga, Christianisme sans fétiche. Révélation et domination, Paris, Présence africaine, 1981, p. 23. op.cit, p. 87.
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développement. Son ambition ultime est de «bâtir l’Afrique nouvelle en fonction de l’humain dévoilé par le Christ comme ferment anti-fatalité et puissance de transformation du monde en espace de vie à la mesure du rêve de Dieu pour sa Création.»9 Union Africaine et NEPAD
Issue de l’ancienne Organisation de l’Unité Africaine (OUA), dont on accusait l’inefficacité institutionnelle et opérationnelle, l’Union Africaine veut offrir un cadre nouveau pour l’intégration africaine, notamment politique, économique et financière. Elle se dote de nouveaux instruments de politique sécuritaire avec la création d’une force panafricaine de maintien de la paix. Il est aussi prévu une Haute Cour de Justice, un Parlement africain, une Commission. Sur le plan économique, social et financier, un marché africain, une Banque centrale africaine, un Conseil économique et social qui se présente comme l’espace réservé à la société civile. Le processus se met lentement en place à partir des sous-régions (intégration sous-régionale). En filigrane de cette dynamique se profile l’ambitieux projet des Etats-Unis d’Afrique. Le NEPAD, Nouveau Partenariat pour le Développement de l’Afrique est une initiative qui vise l’intégration effective de l’Afrique dans l’ordre économico-financier mondial, non pas comme simple pourvoyeuse de matières premières et de force de travail moins chère, mais comme force de production économique. Issu de la fusion entre le Plan Oméga du sénégalais Abdoulaye Wade et le Millenium Africa Plan (MAP) du sud-africain Thabo Mbéki, il s’inscrit désormais dans le mandat de l’Union africaine. Les valeurs qu’il défend sont bonne gouvernance, démocratie, stabilité, paix et sécurité. Ses grands champs d’intérêts sont les infrastructures, notamment les routes, les télécommunications; la crise de la dette extérieure africaine, il plaide pour une annulation de la dette extérieure actuelle de l’Afrique; l’industrialisation, le développement agricole. On le présente comme le Plan Marshal africain. Il possède un secrétariat permanent qui est fixé en Afrique du Sud. 9
Kä-Mana, l’Eglise africaine et la Théologie de la Reconstruction. Réflexion sur les nouveaux appels de la mission en Afrique, Genève, CPE, n° 4-5 Août 1994. 54
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En dépit de leur caractère encore théorique et bureaucratique, l’Union africaine et le NEPAD offrent une opportunité à l’Afrique pour prendre véritablement en main le processus de son essor. Ils méritent une attention particulière de la part de toutes ses forces vives, et une appropriation citoyenne. Les Africains se trouvent aujourd’hui à la croisée des chemins, dans un monde en pleine mutation et qui présente des défis énormes, ils ont à travers l’Union africaine et le NEPAD malgré leurs faiblesses actuelles, la possibilité de négocier leur intégration et de se lancer sur la voie de la Renaissance. La CETA et l’œcuménisme africain
Les Eglises en Afrique ont toujours joué un rôle imortant dans la lutte pour la libération des peuples africains. Elles sont une force sociale importante et jouissent d’une grande audience, d’une crédibilité dans l’imaginaire social africain. La Conférence des Eglises de Toute l’Afrique (CETA) est une communauté de 169 Eglises en Afrique et compte environ 120 millions de chrétiens dans 39 pays: elle a étè créée en 1963. C’est donc une force sociale pan-africaine à prendre en considération. L’idée de sa création est née de la rencontre des Chefs d’Eglise de 1958 à Abuja au Nigeria, autour de la vision unité de l’Eglise et Unité des Etats africains. Il était question pour ces responsables spirituels d’anticiper sur le processus de décolonisation de l’Afrique, en rompant le cordon ombilical qui les liait avec les Eglises «mères» d’Europe afin de projeter leur autonomie. Aujourd’hui, la CETA se voit comme une communauté fraternelle et agissante des Eglises d’Afrique, unies pour la vie, la vérité, la justice et la paix. Elle a adopté comme paradigme théologique la Reconstruction de l’Afrique. Le thème de sa 8e assemblée de Yaoundé était assez évocateur: «levons-nous et rebâtissons.» Elle est le porte-parole de l’œcuménisme africain qui se veut une dynamique plurielle, large et inclusive. Les efforts y sont fait pour une appropriation de l’Evangile par les Africains et l’intégration des réalités socioculturelles et religieuses endogènes. L’œcuménisme africain intègre aussi la diaspora africaine, les communautés afro-américaines, les jeunes et les femmes. La CETA sera une force sur laquelle il faudra compter en ce 3e millénaire. 55
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La Société civile africaine et le Forum Social Africain
Une autre force sur laquelle il faudra compter est la société civile africaine. Elle est constituée d’association, d’ONG, des leaders d’opinions, des forces intellectuelles, qui s’organisent dans des communautés à la base, au niveau des nations et à l’échelle continentale pour défendre les valeurs de la vie. C’est une force de renaissance, un espace de participation et d’expression citoyennes, un lieu de créativité sociale. Elle essaie de s’organiser à l’échelle africaine dans le cadre du Forum social africain, comme laboratoire pour l’invention de la nouvelle Afrique. Elle s’intègre dans la dynamique globale du Forum social mondial, qui est une réaction citoyenne à la mondialisation néo-libérale. La Mondialisation : Une équation paramétrique à plusieurs variables
La mondialisation est un signe des temps. Elle fait l’objet de beaucoup de discussions dans des milieux scientifique, intellectuel, politique, culturel, et d’affaires. Elle suscite de l’engouement pour certains et de la crainte pour d’autres. Elle est la nouvelle grille d’analyse et d’interprétation de la réalité. Elle est en même temps un concept, une réalité assez diffuse et confuse, un ensemble de normes. Ainsi on peut la percevoir sous trois angles, conceptuel, descriptif et normatif. Ces différents angles s’interfèrent et ne sont pas isolés. Comme concept, la mondialisation est issue du terme anglo-saxon globalization créé dans les universités americaines de management dans les années 80. La question centrale est de savoir comment créer un cadre unifié à l’échelle planétaire à l’intérieur duquel se développeraient librement les activités de l’économie capitaliste. Le terme mondialisation est une appropriation francophone du concept, en intégrant la dimension géo-stratégique,10 toutefois, son sens premier restant le même. Elle draîne avec elle un cortège de concepts et d’idées connexes, telles liberté, mobilité, flexibilité, ouverture, démocratie, compétitivité, productivité, etc. C’est une véritable nébuleuse conceptuelle en perpétuelle expansion. Sur le plan descriptif, la mondialisation décrit un ensemble de phénomènes complexes en pleine construction à tous les niveaux de 10
Lire Jean Luc Ferrandéry, Le point sur la mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 1996. 56
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l’activité humaine. Au niveau économique et financier on observe une expansion à une vitesse fulgurante des activités de l’économie capitaliste à l’échelle planétaire. Ignacio Ramonet la décrit comme étant la deuxième révolution capitaliste.11 La planète terre est désormais un vaste marché à organiser en logique managériale de la gestion des entreprises. Les marchés financiers s’uniformisent. On assiste à une concentration du capital financier mondialisé et de l’activité commerciale, à l’intérieur de la triade Etats-Unis, Europe et Japon. Les multinationales, ces nouvelles géantes planétaire fusionnent, concentrent leurs efforts et imposent leurs lois à tous. C’est un véritable casino sans frontières 12 producteur d’argent qui circule à quantité de plus en plus croissant. Ce développement est facilité par la grande révolution technologique des dernières décennies. Le développement des Nouvelles Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (NTIC), de l’Internet, de la téléphonie mobile, des mass médias ont progressivement raccourci le temps et l’espace et facilité les échanges. Une nouvelle économie plus virtuelle prend le pas sur l’ancienne économie. Dans cette nouvelle économie, les acteurs n’ont pas besoin de matières premières et de grandes industries de transformation. Tout se joue dans leur ingéniosité, la capacité de traitement de l’information qui est devenue la véritable matière première, et les fibres électriques des ordinateurs localisés à divers endroit du monde. Nous sommes dans l’ère de l’information, la société post-industrielle. Tout ceci bien sûr a des conséquences sur le plan culturel, social et géostratégique. Au niveau géo-stratégique, c’est l’éclatement du monde avec de grands bouleversements géo-stratégiques. La scène internationale est désormais influencée par des acteurs nouveaux, les firmes transnationales; les grands regroupements étatiques à l’instar de l’Union européenne, l’Alena (USA, Canada, Mexique); la nouvelle société civile mondiale. La configuration bipolaire du monde opposant deux blocs Est-Ouest, a cédé la place à une configuration davantage multipolaire, chaotique. Au niveau social, c’est l’avènement de la société post-moderne qui traduit une crise de la modernité, à travers la fin des certitudes politiques et l’absence de
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toutes perspectives historiques, la fin des promesses de progrès que cette modernité à brandi à l’humanité pendant longtemps, la crise des grandes institutions sociales, le retour aux individualismes, aux replis identitaires. La société globale fait aussi face aux nouvelles formes de menaces. Les «identités meurtrières», que sont le terrorisme international, les intégrismes religieux, les nouvelles formes de racisme, etc. Sur le plan normatif, la mondialisation se présente comme un ensemble de normes et de lois nouvelles qui organisent le monde, auxquelles tous devraient se conformer, au risque d’une marginalisation. Ces lois et normes sont celles des marchés financiers, nouvelle Babylone postmoderne, à savoir privatisations, libéralisation, etc. «Désormais vous êtes sous le contrôle des marchés financiers!»13 Ces paroles sont de Hans Tietmeier, alors président de la Bundesbank, lors du Forum économique de Davos en 1996 devant un parterre de Chefs d’état et de gouvernement de la planète. Elles sont assez claires et explicites. Les lois du marché et surtout financier, régulent désormais le monde. Toutes les dimensions de la vie sociale, de l’activité humaine y sont soumises. C’est la norme suprême universelle. L’OMC (Organisation Mondiale du Commerce), nouvel organe d’harmonisation du commerce international, supplante les Etats dans leur mission régalienne. Cette nouvelle normalisation du commerce mondial, obéit à la logique du Consensus de Washington,14 à savoir pouvoir créer une sorte de Global Stateless Governance, un monde privatisé où l’Etat-Nation n’existerait que de nom, sans pouvoir réel, au détriment des «nouveaux maîtres du monde.»15
13 14
11 12
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Les guerres du XXIe siècle, Paris, Galilée, 2002. Voir Pierre Vilain, Les chrétiens et la mondilisation, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 2002.
15
Voir Jean Ziegler, Les nouveaux maître du monde et ceux qui leur résistent, Paris, Fayard, 2002. C’est un ensemble d’accords informels (gentlemen agreements) conclus entre les principales firmes transnationales, la Federal Reserve, la banque de Wall Street, et les principaux organismes financiers mondiaux, au cours des années 80-90. J. Ziegler, op.cit. 58
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La Mondialisation: Un défi pour l’Afrique et les chrétiens d’Afrique Un défi économique
Le poids économique de l’Afrique reste dérisoire. Elle représente à peine 1% du commerce mondial. Nos économies sont donc non rentables et peuvent être concédées au franc symbolique. Au moment où le maître mot est compétitivité, productivité, dans un ordre économique féroce qui ne laisse aucune chance de survie aux faibles, il est urgent pour les Africains de mettre en place des mécanismes efficaces pour bâtir une économie compétitive à l’échelle continentale. Cela passe par la maîtrise des circuits économiques et financiers, des outils modernes de management et d’organisation des entreprises. Une gestion rigoureuse des ressources humaines et naturelles. Un défi politique
Il est important pour les Africains de se doter d’institutions politiques fiables, modernes et démocratiques, qui donnent possibilité d’une participation effective de toutes les composantes sociales. Un accent doit être mis sur l’intégration africaine, il faut donc soutenir et poursuivre le projet de l’Union africaine. Il est aussi important d’élaborer des mécanismes durables de prévention et de résolution des conflits et guerres qui affaiblissent le continent et constituent une entrave sérieuse à sa stabilité politico-institutionnelle. La lutte contre la corruption, la promotion de la bonne gouvernance sont aussi des axes prioritaires. Les communautés et organisations chrétiennes ont un rôle à jouer à ce niveau, à travers leur programme œcuménique contre les violences et la corruption. Un programme de la Décennie œcuménique pour vaincre la violence a été initié par le Conseil œcuménique des églises (COE), il encourage les communautés chrétiennes à un ministère de guérison, de pardon et de réconciliation ce que doit être appropriée par les Eglises africaines, les mouvements chrétiens de jeunes et étudiants à travers le continent. Dans la même lancée les expériences tels la Commission vérité et réconciliation de l’Afrique du sud doivent être multipliées pour une Afrique réconciliée et unie.
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Un défi technologique et scientifique
Ce qu’il y a d’essentiel dans la mondialisation c’est la maîtrise du temps et de l’espace, la rapidité dans les transactions, tout cela à travers les technologies nouvelles. La conquête de l’espace, les vastes recherches scientifiques dans de grands laboratoires à travers le monde pour la maîtrise du réel et de l’univers sont aussi des lieux de batailles féroces. Sur ce plan l’Afrique reste faible. Le gap technologique et scientifique du continent représente un handicap majeur dans le contexte de la mondialisation. Il est urgent d’élaborer des politiques de recherche scientifique durable afin de doter l’Afrique d’un puissant arsenal scientifique. L’accent doit être mis sur la promotion des compétences et des savoirs endogènes. Il est aussi important de promouvoir la maîtrise des nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication pour saisir les opportunités que ces outils offrent. Cela signifie aussi éviter de tomber dans ses pièges, à savoir le contrôle psychologique et mental, la diffusion des informations peu utiles pour la promotion de l’humain (les idéologies racistes, la pornographie, les intégrismes religieux, etc.). Un défi culturel
La bataille culturel est aussi fondamentale dans la mondialisation, elle favorise les rencontres interculturelles et amène des chocs culturels. Dans un tel environnement la culture mondiale semble être l’émanation d’une culture hégémonique qui tend à faire disparaître les cultures faibles. On parle de plus en plus de l’américanisation du monde. C’est une tendance à l’expansion hégémonique du mode de vie et de la culture américaine à travers les mass média, l’art, le cinéma, etc. L’Afrique est en permanence dans une dialectique qui la fait naviguer entre acculturation et inculturation, entre soumission à la culture étrangère et insoumission, entre rejet et acceptation sans pouvoir se doter d’une culture véritable. Je trouve ce rapport infructueux. Face à cela, je propose une démarche qui se veut transversale. Elle se résume dans ce que j’appelle la «transculturation transcendantale.» Cela signifie que la culture africaine, nouvelle en contexte de mondialisation se doit d’être une «transculture transcendante,» c’est-à-dire une culture qui serait issue de la rencontre, de la fusion, des synthèses fertiles entre tous les grands 60
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courants culturels du monde, et leur dépassement. Une telle culture n’est pas figée. Elle est en perpétuelle construction. Il est question pour les Africain(e)s de maîtriser leurs cultures, et aussi les cultures étrangères, d’explorer les possibilités de synthèse, et de dépassement. Je rejoins là, le concept «transcendance culturelle», de Jean-Claude Hounmenou,16 qu’il présente comme «la situation des hommes qui, appartenant originellement à une culture, se sont montrés aptes à dépasser les limites de cette culture, pour s’ouvrir à une autre culture, à d’autres cultures, qu’ils peuvent vivre sans gêne.» Il n’est pas question ici d’une «salade culturelle,» mais d’un effort de dépassement de soi, de sa culture, des cultures étrangères pour une culture toujours transcendante à définir. Cela demande imagination, créativité, lucidité, audace et courage. Un défi spirituel ou défi de la promotion humaine
La mondialisation est aussi une dynamique spirituelle, il y a un esprit qui l’anime. Animer veut dire donner la vie, mettre en mouvement. Pour comprendre et saisir le mouvement de la mondialisation tel qu’il se met en œuvre aujourd’hui, il est important de saisir l’esprit qui l’anime. Dans la tradition chrétienne, l’histoire humaine est décrite comme une confrontation entre le Mal (Diable), c’est-à-dire toutes les forces qui entrent dans le registre de l’anti-humain ou de la mort, et le Bien (Dieu), comme étant toutes les forces qui participent de l’humain ou de la vie. Le combat spirituel des chrétiens de tout temps a consisté en la lutte contre les forces de la mort, pour promouvoir la vie. Ce faisant, ils n’auront pas inventé la poudre, car le Christ l’a fait en son temps, les grands maîtres spirituels qui ont influencé l’humanité, l’ont également fait en leur temps. Globalement, la mondialisation néo-libérale actuelle, dans ses mécanismes ne promeut pas l’Homme. L’argent est érigé en bien suprême. La promotion humaine n’est pas à l’ordre du jour. L’écosystème planétaire est menacé par un économisme outrancier et la fabrication des machines à tuer. L’exclusion sociales est criarde, le nombre de pauvres augmente de
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jour en jour, dans un monde qui a assez de ressources pour nourrir tous ses habitants. Le monde est assiégé par des esprits maléfiques qui ont transformé ses institutions, ses mécanismes politiques en instruments de mort et de déshumanisation. Le défi spirituel de la mondialisation est celui-là. Transformer les institutions de ce monde afin qu’elles soient au service de l’humain. C’est donc le défi de la promotion humaine. Cela signifie développer une éthique de la responsabilité collective, de la solidarité agissante. Dieu nous a fait héritiers d’un même monde que nous devons chacun sauvegarder, nous sommes solidaires d’un même destin. C’est à ce niveau que se situe le rôle des chrétiens à travers le monde. Le capitalisme néo-libéral a réalisé la mondialisation des choses, nous devons réaliser celle des hommes,17 cela veut dire évangéliser la mondialisation. Cette mission est fondamentalement celle des chrétiens et des Eglises d’Afrique, au moment où le centre de gravité du christianisme comme dynamique spirituelle et religieuse bascule progressivement de l’Occident vers l’Afrique,18 et où les Africains sont à la tête de principales d’organisations œcuméniques mondiales comme le Conseil œcuménique des églises (COE). La Mondialisation: Un défi pour l’Université africaine Les missions de l’université africaine en contexte de mondialisation
La mission de l’université africaine sera d’armer intellectuellement les jeunes Africains, en leur donnant des instruments épistémologiques et herméneutiques leur permettant de comprendre leurs réalités et celles de ce monde, et de les transformer. J’ai déjà mentionné plus haut la nécessité d’investir dans les intelligences pour gagner la bataille de l’avenir. Les universités comme lieux de production et de diffusion des savoirs ont un rôle capital. Nos universités actuelles doivent se plier à cette exigence, les universitaires africains aussi. Sinon nous sommes perdant dans le combat. Une autre mission de l’université africaine sera d’initier les jeunes Africains à l’art de la pensée complexe qui est intégrative, globale. Elle est 17
16
“Réflexions sur les enjeux culturels de la mondialisation en Afrique,” dans Théologie du bonheur partagé…(sous la direction de Kä-Mana), Pub. Ceta-Fuace-Ceros, Yaoundé, Sherpa, 2001.
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18
Voir Pierre Vilain, Les chrétiens et la mondialisation, opcit. Lire Kwamé Bédiako, Jésus en Afrique: L’Evangile chrétien dans l’histoire et l’expérience africaines, YaoundéAccra, 2000. 62
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issue d’une conception cybernétique du monde. Ses caractéristiques sont ouverture, flexibilité, mobilité, adaptabilité, interactivité. Le monde y est perçu comme un ensemble harmonieux d’interdépendance. Le local est en liaison avec le global et vice versa. Les bouleversements que provoque la mondialisation exigent un changement de paradigme. La complexité est désormais la nouvelle grille d’analyse. Si les Africains, les universitaires africains veulent maîtriser et influencer l’ordre mondial, il doivent opérer ce changement de paradigme. Les NTIC et le concept d’université virtuelle
L’avènement des NTIC a provoqué de grands bouleversements dans la réalité. Le virtuel est une norme nouvelle. Les rapports sociaux sont influencés. Il devient possible de communiquer, d’échanger avec n’importe qui à quelque endroit que ce soit à travers le monde. Le temps et l’espace n’ont plus d’influence. A travers le système Internet, ces technologies nouvelles sont en dépit de leurs faiblesses, une chance pour l’Afrique.19 Nous avons à faire là une centrale planétaire d’informations accessibles à tous, de façon instantanée. Les universités africaines peuvent saisir cette opportunité. Le concept d’université virtuelle devrait être intégré dans nos politiques d’éducation. Internet offre aux étudiants africains la possibilité d’accéder facilement au savoir universel. Avec l’université virtuelle les étudiants africains n’auront plus besoin de se déplacer en Europe pour les études de qualité. Ici, point besoin d’un campus physique. Chacun peut rester chez lui et suivre n’importe quel cours à travers le monde, discuter et échanger avec les autres étudiants situés à divers point de la planète, grâce aux vidéo conférences, et forums électroniques. C’est une opportunité pour les autodidactes. Un projet pilote d’université virtuelle africaine (UVA), se met progressivement en place en Afrique, sous l’impulsion du camerounais Jacques Bonjawo. D’après ce dernier, elle a pour objectif de «former une nouvelle génération de scientifiques, d’ingénieurs, de techniciens, d’hommes d’affaires et de professionnels de divers horizons capables d’amorcer et de soutenir le développement économique de leurs pays respectifs,» 19
Lire à propos, Bonjawo, Jacques, Internet: Une chance pour l’Afrique, Paris, Karthala, 2002.
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et de ce fait vise à «compléter le système éducatif africain qui doit faire face à un afflux grandissant d’étudiants et un déficit de matériel et d’enseignants en introduisant de nouvelles méthodes éducatives basées sur la puissance de la technologie et les télécommunications modernes.» Les universitaires africains et les décideurs politiques devraient saisir cette nouvelle possibilité de s’insérer dans le réseau UVA. Le gap est assez grand entre l’Afrique et le monde occidental en matière d’offre d’enseignement de qualité, j’ai la conviction que l’université virtuelle pourrait aider à combler ce déficit. Certes nous allons devoir faire face aux limites de l’Internet dues au fait qu’elle risque de ne plus favoriser les contacts humains, de provoquer un cloisonnement des individus. Toutefois, une bonne maîtrise de cet outil est indispensable aujourd’hui pour les jeunes universitaires africains. Notre Mission
En ce nouveau millénaire, l’Afrique est en quête d’une nouvelle identité. Elle est résolument engagée sur la voie de la Renaissance, dans la bataille pour la construction d’une nouvelle société, plus intégrée dans l’économie mondiale. Mais pour que cette bataille ne soit pas vaine, que la Renaissance africaine et tous les instruments politiques et économiques qui l’accompagnent, tels le NEPAD, l’UA, etc ne soient pas qu’un mirage, il est urgent de s’engager dans la voie du renouvellement de l’Homme africain. La problématique de la Reconstruction de l’Afrique est celle de la Reconstruction de l’Homme africain, du renouvellement de notre être, de nos intelligences. Ce dont l’Afrique a besoin, ce sont d’abord des hommes et des femmes renouvelé(e)s, animé(e)s d’un esprit nouveau, d’une mentalité nouvelle, qui s’investiraient dans la lutte pour la transformation de ses structures sociales. Par rapport à cela le modèle christique nous inspire bien. Jésus en son temps s’est tout d’abord entouré de personnes qu’il a formées, et qui ont porté le projet de libération qu’il proposait à l’humanité. Le rayonnement planétaire du christianisme, est aussi le résultat du travail de ceux-là. La bataille des Africains aujourd’hui est celle de la formation, ou mieux du type de formation à offrir à sa jeunesse, pour la préparer à affronter les défis actuels et futurs. Il est donc important de repenser nos universités en crise et de 64
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leur donner un profil approprié à leur nouvelle mission dans le contexte mondial présent, de les ajuster aux mutations ultra-rapides de notre époque. C’est à cette tâche que je convie les jeunes universitaires chrétiens et chrétiennes de l’Afrique, et même la diaspora africaine. En ce moment où l’on assiste à une dégradation progressive de nos capacités mentales, où le culte du moindre effort est promu au détriment de l’excellence, où l’on assiste à une quasi absence de pensée, pour reprendre les termes du philosophe camerounais, en la personne de Eboussi Boulaga,20 il est urgent que nous nous mobilisions pour rectifier, pour donner la priorité à l’usage d’une intelligence lucide, d’une pensée rigoureuse enracinée dans l’énergie du Dieu créateur de l’univers et maître suprême de la pensée, dans toutes nos actions sociales. C’est une lutte que nous devons mener au quotidien, dans nos universités actuelles, dans des mouvements et groupes de réflexion, dans nos églises, et nos quartiers, etc. Penser et bâtir l’université africaine nouvelle, telle est la mission prophétique pour les jeunes universitaires que nous sommes dans nos sociétés en crise.
BERTRAND TIENTCHEU BIBLIOGRAPHIE - ANTA DIOP, CHEICK, Antériorité des civilisations nègres, Paris, Présence africaine, 1993. - BEDIAKO, KWAME, Jésus en Afrique: L’Evangile chrétien dans l’histoire et l’expérience africaine, Yaoundé-Accra, CLE-Regnum Africa, 2002. - BONJAWO, JACQUES, Internet: Une chance pour l’Afrique, Paris, Karthala, 2002. - CHESNAIS, FRANÇOIS, La mondialisation du capital, Paris, Syros, 1996. - EBOUSSI BOULAGA, FABIEN, Christianisme sans fétiche. Révélation et domination, Paris Présence africaine, 1981. - FERRANDERY, JEAN-LUC, Le point sur la mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 1996. - HUNTINGTON, SAMUEL, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, NY, Simon and Schuster, 1993. - KA-MANA, L’Afrique va-t-elle mourir ? Essai d’éthique politique, Paris, Cerf , 1991 et Karthala, 1994. - KA- MANA, Chrétiens et Eglises d’Afrique : penser l’avenir, Yaoundé-Lomé, CLE-HAHO, 1999. - KA-MANA, Le souffle pharaonique de Jésus-Christ, Yaoundé, Sherpa, 2000. - KA-MANA (sous la direction), Théologie du bonheur partagé. Une réponse de l’Eglise Africaine qu défi de la mondialisation, Pub CETA-FUACE-CEROS, Yaoundé, Sherpa, 2001. - KANGE EWANE, Défis aux africains du IIIème millénaire, Yaoundé, CLE, 2000. - RAMONET, IGNACIO, Guerres du XXIe siècle, Paris, Galilée, 2002. - TRAORE, AMINATA, L’Etau: L’Afrique dans un monde sans frontières, Actes Sud, 1999. - VILAIN, PIERRE, Les chrétiens et la mondialisation, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 2002. - ZIEGLER, JEAN, Contre l’ordre du monde. Les rebelles, Paris, Seuil, 1983 et 1985. - ZIEGLER, JEAN, Les nouveaux maîtres du monde et ceux qui leur résistent, Paris, Fayard, 2002.
REVUES ET JOURNAUX - TERROIRS, Revue Africaine des sciences sociales, GERDES PUBLICATIONS, n° 001 Mai 1992. - Bulletin du Centre Protestant d’Etude, n° 4-5 Août 1994. - Le Monde Diplomatique, N° 554, Mai 2000, N° 557, Août 2000, N° 571, oct 2001.
20
«L’honneur de penser,» dans Terroirs, Revue Africaine des sciences sociales, Gerdes Publications, mai 1992.
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The Healing of the Woman with Hemorrhage and Talitha Cum as Models for Dalit Liberation ELIZABETH JOY INDIA
Introduction
The era of globalisation has devoured communities across the world, crossing geographical and cultural boundaries and imposing its prominent effects - homogenisation and exclusion. The stark reality of the increasing levels of poverty is exhibiting the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor; unemployment; oppressions on the basis of gender, race, class, caste, region, and religion; “wars against terrorism”; violence against women, Dalits, Tribals, and aboriginals, in the name of development where people are disturbed, displaced, dispossessed, dehumanised and destroyed; sextourism; the spread of HIV/AIDS when medicines are available but unaffordable. These are the clear marks of the impact of globalisation. The over-production of goods, which is another distinct phenomena of globalisation has resulted in exhausting nature’s resources. The overproduction of unwanted materials like plastics and the abundant production of adulterated fuels, including the exorbitant amount of poisonous substances, and heat released by the use of war weapons, have increased pollution in the air and water affecting the agricultural fields, and farm lands, causing a threat to the very food that we eat, the air that we breathe, and the water that we drink. By raping mother earth, the resulting pollution is contributing to health disorders in many parts of the world and causing worsening ecological problems. This paper examines the impact of globalisation in a Dalit context which is in dire need of healing, being restored to life, and experiencing liberation (fullness of life). The healing of the woman with hemorrhage and the raising of the girl-child (Talitha Cum!) are seen as models of liberation in this context (Mark 5: 21-43). The purpose of this paper is to outline the Indian scenario in relation to the impact of globalisation in the Dalit context 68
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and provide broad indicators of change and transformation in the light of the above two miracles of Jesus which continue to challenge us. Therefore the discussions in this paper focus on the following:
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further marginalised from the daily markets and deprived of many common commodities which were within their purchasing power earlier. The following statistics will reveal the real impact of economic globalisation:2
I The Meaning and Definition of Globalisation II The Reality of Dalits within Indian Society III A Theological Response from a Dalit Perspective
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I MEANING AND DEFINITION OF GLOBALISATION
Globalisation can be defined as a phenomenon with many controversial expressions that touch all aspects of life in terms of relations between a) human beings and the world; b) human beings and themselves; c) human beings and God. From my context of India, it is experienced as the “trans-nationalisation of capital, the internalisation of labour, the homogenisation of culture, the globalisation of production, and the standardisation of tastes.”1 This targets the creation of a new “global village,” where the old borders disappear but simultaneously new dividing walls are erected leading to distinct polarisation within and in-between nations. The process of globalistion is tuned to seek-out cheap labour and production, promoting consumerism, and aiming at profit, resulting in the depletion of natural resources in the so-called developing countries. The constant move to better markets with increased profits is now making its impact felt even in the so-called developed worlds, threatening increased competition and unemployment. While it is a blessing that people in the so-called developing world (where cheap labour is available) are increasingly employed, workers are being put under a lot of pressure to maintain the expected daily output under a stringent hire and fire policy. These are comparatively high salaries within the societies of the so-called developing world, but for the Multi/Trans National Companies (MNC’S & TNC’S) it amounts to peanuts. This situation brings an imbalance in the economic life where a few sectors of people suddenly have a higher purchasing power, leaving the majorities in a rat race. Because of soaring prices, the majorities are
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The process of globalisation is making its impact to be increasingly felt not only in the so-called developing countries, but even in the so-called developed nations. The above statistics reveal the fact that globalisation has marginalised women, individuals, communities, countries, and natural resources with its dominant, hierarchical and ruthless destruction of nature and its resources, through mass production, market-profit driving forces, promoting a consumerist life-style where ultimately the consumers become the consumed. In such a context, where are the Dalits placed, especially Dalit women? A look at Dalit realities in India will make a link between the impact of globalisation and the increasing burdens on not just the cost of living, but on the cost of survival. This will lead to some reflections on our response as Christians, and especially Christian youth/students.
2 1
Rosemary Vishwanath, ed. Globalisation: Marginalisation of Dalits, Women & Tribals, (Bangalore, Solidarity, 1998), pp. 59-60.
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20% of the world’s richest people use over 86% of the world’s resources whereas a little over 1% is divided among the poorest fifth; women comprise 70% of the world’s poorest, 2/3 of the world’s illiterate, 80% of the world’s refugees are women and children. Refugees are created continuously both in the name of wars and development – where people become refugees within their own lands; women control 1% of the world’s property, 10% of the world’s income, under 7% of the world’s ministerial posts, less than 14% of the world’s management posts; women comprise 30% of the single providers in the world’s households. Single women are the providers in 80-90% of the poorest families.
For detailed information on economic issues in globalisation and its impact on women refer to Economic Globalisation: A Challenge for women, (FOKUS – Forum for Women and Development, Norway: 2002 2nd Edition), pp. 3-5. 70
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II REALITY OF DALITS WITHIN THE INDIAN SOCIETY 1. Dalits within the Indian Caste Structure
Dalits constitute nearly 25% of the Indian Population numbering about 240 million out of the 1033.4 million populations as according to the 2001 census.3 The government itself puts it between 16-19% with much reluctance after forcefully gathering a sizeable percentage under the Hindu religion. Indian society is hierarchically segregated into castes on the basis of the concept of purity and pollution. They are marked in this hierarchical order according to religious perspective on how each caste was created. The Brahmins, who are believed to have come out of the head of God Brahma, are the ruling class and they have the control over the society and the access to all knowledge, especially the spiritual knowledge and the role of priesthood and teachers. The Kshatriyas, who are believed to have come out of the shoulders of God Brahma, are the rulers and warriors. The Vysyas are believed to have come out of the thighs of God Brahma and are the merchants and traders, while Sudras, who are considered to have come out from the legs of God Brahma, are the labourers and artisans. The Dalits, who are assigned the most polluting jobs, are not even placed within the caste system and their very proximity is considered to be polluting. Their touch pollutes and therefore they are also called the untouchables, the outcastes, or the fifth caste.4 The caste system has been practised in this region for the last 3000 years. While the Tribals (the indigenous peoples of India) have been alienated from their rightful land, their livelihood, and their self identity, the Dalits have been dehumanized on account of social ostracisation through untouchability. Untouchability is expressed in the form segregation, dehumanisation, and the denial of human rights, and operates on the basis of the concept of purity and pollution, which propagates stigma and discrimination. Dalits are seen as contaminating anything that they touch, as they are polluted people due to their works in polluted circumstances, and also beacause of their mixed blood which is considered to be impure.
3 4
National Human Development Report, 2003. For details refer, Patricia Gossman, ed. Broken People: Caste Violence against India’s Untouchables (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), pp. 2-35.
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The word Dalit means crushed, split asunder, oppressed, suppressed, cut open, scattered, etc. It is both a sociological and theological term referring to people and their deprivation and dehumanisation. A.P. Nirmal who is a pioneer Dalit theologian uses this term in his theological constructions with meanings similar to what I have expressed here.5 1. The Indian Scenario
India ranks 127th in the Human Development Index of the World Development Report. According to the 2000-2001 Report, India had moved to fourth position among the world’s leading economies in terms of the purchasing power parity next to U.S.A., China, and Japan. The irony in the same report is that India has about 36% of its population below the official poverty line, which is about 360 million of its total population (1000 million). Gandhi said that India lives in her villages. Because of the impact of globalisation, the reality today is that India is dying in her villages. The share of income within India’s poorest 10% is 3.5% of the total income and consumption. That of the poorest 20% is 8.1% compared to the richest 20% which is 46.1%, while that of the richest 10% is 33.5%. While the Indian Government spends 4.1% on education, it spends 2.5% on the military when a large percentage of its population is under the poverty line struggling for basic amenities.6 72% of the Indian population is in the rural areas with just 28% in the urban areas. 2. Plight of Dalits i. Dalits as landless labourers and workers in the unorganised sectors:
93% of the total working class in India belong to unorganised labour, which does not have labour laws to protect them. The existing Human Rights laws are not enough to protect them. Dalits constitute the major bulk of landless labourers and daily wage earners in the unorganised sectors. Due to the impact of globalisation, there are mass migrations from the rural to the urban sector in search of livelihood. People are unable to continue their occupations such as labouring in the farming lands, and other skilled work, 5 6
A.P. Nirmal, “A Dialogue with Dalit Literature,” in Towards a Common Dalit Theology (Madras: UELCI), p. 66. World Development Report, 2003. 72
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which have become obsolete on account of withdrawal/cuts in subsidies. Also, modern technologies have made their traditional way of farming impossible due to adopting new unsustainable methods, or because their traditional skilled work has been swept over by ever increasing competition. a. Dalits as victims of land grabbing: Historically, Dalits have experienced alienation from their land because of rich landlord land grabs. The globalisation of agriculture and the privatisation of production have hit them hard. Out of the 5000 odd small farmers who committed suicide in different parts of the country during the last decade, more than 70% are Dalits. They were unable to repay their loans, and payed big amounts to buy seeds and fertilisers, which they never used as they preserved their own seeds year after year. Due to the impact of globalisation, they lost their lands, unable to continue farming with subsidies being cut or totally withdrawn, their own seeds having been lost, and added to that the huge cost of electricity, which forced them to abandon their occupation. The textile industries were affected and the cotton farmers especially from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu suffered. Farmers in other parts of India who went for quick cash, switched over from their agriculture of crops, like rice, in option for cash crops, rubber plantations, or prawn culture. This made their land uncultivable for rice or food grains. This situation has resulted in food insecurity, as well as also making them jobless, as they could not continue with the price crash of cash crops. Kerala was also a victim to this kind of impact. When the cotton farmers left their occupation, the textile industry suffered, and many were forced to close down on account of cheap clothes coming from outside, due in part to liberalisation. Once again, this made the cotton farmers stop their production as they no longer had access to any markets. One affected the other, and vice versa, making the life of farmers miserable and putting their families at stake. Many committed suicide and others were forced to migrate into urban areas looking out for alternate jobs. Migration makes people unskilled. Therefore, when they enter urban areas in search of jobs, the main jobs that they can find are in the unorganised sectors starting at the bottom, such as in construction work and digging. When the textile industries closed many of the workers were made jobless in the urban areas, and many weavers in the rural areas suffered due to the impact of halted cotton farming. A majority of people victimised by 73
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this situation were Dalits. b. Dalits as victims of development: Dalits have become the major victims of development plans of the government, which builds hundreds of dams. The building of dams has forcefully alienated the Dalits from their lands and put them in remote unfertile dry lands where they can neither find jobs, nor do their farming, nor send their children to schools. In the name of development, thousands of Dalits and Tribals have been displaced, rendering them totally deskilled, and alienated from their occupations and skilled works. ii. Dalits as “slum-dwellers” in the cities facing health hazards:
The movement of people from rural to urban areas in search of a better livelihood pushes them into “slums” with minimum or no basic amenities, and exposing them to hygiene problems and health hazards (apart from those they face in the workplace). This movement of people from the rural to urban areas increases the “slum” populations in the cities to 70%. The truth is that the cities do not want to give a better life to these people and at the same time they cannot survive without the services of Dalit peoples. iii. Dalit women’s role as breadwinner and child rearer:
Dalit women never have the luxury of being “housewifes.” As landless labourers, they work from early in the morning until evening in the fields of upper-caste landlords. Women’s bodies being the battlefield for all social issues, caste has no exception. But Dalit women always face the threat of rape by landlords, and their bodies are raped and dealt with brutally during any/all caste conflicts. Even when they do equal work, they are paid less, and use their income to provide at least one basic meal for the family, which is poor and unbalanced most of the time. After work in the fields, which they do while keeping their babies under the trees and bushes, they go home only after fetching fire wood and provisions. They need to go a long way to fetch water for the family when it is not available nearby, or if they do not have access to it even if the wells are full – as they are the untouchables. They must cook food, feed their children, and only then can they relax. On the other hand, men are usually free soon after work in the fields, to take a stroll, smoke, and play with friends and neighbours, or get drunk and trouble the family members. 74
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iv. Dalit women’s struggle due to lack of health care and facilities:
With less access to proper medical care, as well as ignorance and traditional pressures, women’s bodies are tortured with successive pregnancies and childbirths within the context of absolute poverty, and scarce medical facilities. Their bodies are experimented on as guinea pigs and manipulated by new family planning methods and techniques without proper information and permission. Due to starvation, dietary imbalance, and lack of food, which are the perpetual realities for Dalit women and girl-children, a majority of them are anaemic. This becomes intensified during pregnancy and childbirth, which leads to higher mortality rates among Dalit women. For every population of 5000, one auxiliary nurse/midwife (ANM) is provided. Very few home births are attended by these nurses. Institutional deliveries account for only 22% of the total deliveries – covering 55% of the urban areas and 18% of the rural ones.7 The contraceptives with greater side effects such as quinacrine, Net en, Norplant, Depo-provera, anti-fertility vaccines, and RU 4868 are indiscriminately administered to them causing menstrual disturbances, which often results in longer and frequent menstrual bleeding. This increases their anaemic condition, as well as keeps them away from social and religious functions. Moreover, they must contend with other ailments and disorders affecting their bodies with a greater risk of cancer and no access to a proper medical care. Due to the severe anaemic condition that is prevalent among Dalit women and young girls, many of them suffer from menstrual-related problems, which more often then not results in prolonged and excessive bleeding. This in turn worsens their anaemia. v. Dalit women as the victims of violence:
Dalit women bear the brunt of violence both within families and their communities, but also outside their communities, from landlords, and from the hierarchical caste structure. They are the ones to be first paraded naked, raped or murdered in any inter-caste clashes whether it
7
Dr. Vibhuti Patel, “Impact of Economic Globalisation on Women,” in VIKALP Alternatives. Volume XI. No.1, 2003 (Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, Mumbai) p. 136. 8 Ibid. p. 137. 75
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involves them or not. They are the ones who face the reality of dowry deaths, domestic violence, and the deaths due to lack of medical care and facilities. They are the ones who are perpetually malnourished and starved becoming acutely anaemic, and therefore risking their lives in childbirth; thus worsening their health further by feeding the infants when they themselves are not healthy. They are the last ones to be hired for work, they are paid less, and retrenched or fired first. In the organised and unorganised sectors they are the ones to be thrown out of their jobs, and the ones who will be easily blamed and beaten up even if they are innocent of any petty theft or crime. VII. Dalit girl-children and their agony:
Dalit girl-children are the most victimised in Indian society. These children lose their childhood at the tender age of five or even before that. They are the victims of child labour, bonded labour, and child prostitution. They are an unwanted lot considered as a liability to the family. a. Dalit girl-children in prostitution: Prostitution in many cases takes place in the name of God and under traditional religious sanction. Due to STDs and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, more and more young girls are being pushed into prostitution as the customers prefer them to the older girls/women. Some practices within the Devadasi system, which is concentrated in the Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra border belt, as well as some Mathamma practices in Tamil Nadu in the southern part of India, have dedicated young girls from a very early age into a forced and religiously sanctioned prostitution, ruining the lives of many young girl-children. They are dedicated to Gods and Goddesses in order to fulfil promises made to the deity for favours related to the health of individual or family members. Or the family gives in to declarations made during religious celebrations that the particular Deity wants a specific girl to be dedicated. These are manipulations that fulfil the lust of the uppercaste landlords who are bent on having these young girls at an age of 12-16. The young girls are later sent to urban areas to be commercial sex-workers. This situation increases their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in a country which has unofficially crossed 1% of the total population of 1033.4 million. 76
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b. Dalit girl-children devoid of educational and health facilities: Dalit girl-children are the last ones to be sent to school and the first ones to be pulled-out if they are sent at all. The girl-children are often expected to play the mother’s role of fetching water, collecting fire wood, cooking, and taking care of the younger siblings. If they go to school at all, they are often lured by the mid day meal, bringing it back home in many cases to feed their younger siblings. They are used for specific works in the fields such as weeding, transplanting, etc., and are paid very low wages or never paid. When it comes to feeding patterns or availing medical care within rural Dalit families, the girl-child will be the last one to be considered. The majority of Dalit children in the unorganised sectors work in hazardous conditions, such as fireworks factories, and small and big restaurants. Dalit girls often encounter sexual abuse in their work places. They are married off at a very young age and bear children very young, which also affects their health due to the reasons discussed above. c. Violence against Dalit girl-children: The so-called upper-caste anti-women practices like the dowry, which can result in dowry-related deaths are creeping into Dalit cultures. Like the other communities which avoid the birth of the girl-child through selective processes like amniocentesis, chorion villai biopsy, sonography, ultrasound, imaging techniques, female foeticide, and infanticide, these are also on the rise within Dalit communities. It has resulted in the overall reduction in the Indian male/female ratio. The girlchildren are wiped out either before birth or soon after birth where medical facilities are not prevalent. This problem is indeed more prevalent in the Sudra communities and upper-castes, but it is now increasing in the Dalit communities. Moreover, according to a world report, the Indian percentage of children under weight in the age group of 5 and below, during the years 1998-2000, is 46%. This definitely includes a bulk of Dalit children, especially the girls. III A THEOLOGICAL RESPONSE FROM A DALIT PERSPECTIVE
In the light of the lived realities of the Dalits in India, especially in the rural areas where the caste discriminations and violence are very severe, making women and girl-children more vulnerable to circumstances both within and outside the community, the actions of Jesus healing the woman 77
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with the haemorrhage and restoring the dead young girl to life are indeed models of liberation. This biblical story enable us to deconstruct age old androcentric theologies that exclude women and their experiences, in order to reconstruct them with women as the primary sources for doing theology. Until recently, Indian Christian theology has also been done from an upper-caste perspective, even though Dalits constituted nearly 25% of Indian society, and 70% of Indian Christians. Furthermore, Dalit theology, which is still being developed (and proclaims that it takes the entirety of human life into consideration), also needs to take into serious consideration the experiences of Dalit women for doing theology within the Indian context. The discrimination against Dalits is based on their mixed blood, which is considered polluting to anything that it comes into contact with. The notion of the polluting nature of menstrual blood has crept in to Dalit communities from the so-called upper-caste beliefs. Thus, every single Dalit irrespective of gender, or age, is considered polluting, on account of her/his birth into this lineage with impure mixed blood. Also, the majority of the women with menstrual problems from menarche to menopause are considered to be polluting within and outside the community. These problems prevent them from leading a normal life, and participating in the religious rituals and social celebrations, as they tend to imitate the uppercaste models. In such a context the story of the woman being healed from a hemorrhage is very liberating. In the light of the lived realities of the Dalit girl-children, especially from the rural areas, they are put to death by the enslaving and dehumanising practices both within and outside the communities; they live as though they are dead to the various opportunities in everyday life, which is taken for granted by children of other communities. The reality of being discarded, displaced and dispossessed makes them dead to real possibilities in life, which is the prerogative of all children born anywhere in this world. Therefore, “Talitha Cum,” meaning “little girl arise,” is very meaningful and essential to the Dalit girl-child and the entire Dalit community. For them it means: “dehumanised community, arise”!
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1. The miracle of the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage
This miracle reveals liberating insights that enable the Dalits to march forward and to experience liberation and fullness of life in a world that has marginalised them even further due to the impacts of globalisation. These realities exclude them from markets and marginalises them even more. ■
a. Similarities between the woman with the flow of blood and the Dalits: ■
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Within the 1st century context, this woman with the flow of blood has the potential of polluting every thing and every person she touches. Therefore, she is in this sense an untouchable and a Dalit. Here is one exmple of untouchability and pollution within the Indian caste system: if a Dalit touches the outside of a sealed bottle containing distilled water directly, the water inside gets polluted or becomes impure. According to the Jewish law, she is not supposed to appear in public places or gatherings to avoid polluting or making things and people impure by her touch. This is what is expected of Dalits as well; they are not allowed to enter in many the upper-caste spaces. The medical health facilities in her time and place were not sufficient to heal the hemorrhaging woman in spite of the money that she had to spend. She may have been a rich woman, but was discriminated and ostracised on account of the social and religious laws. It is similar for the Dalits in the Indian context. Even if a Dalit gets educated or becomes a rich person, Indian social and religious laws will not recognise the person as a human being. At the same time, if a Brahman is concerned, whether the person is rich or poor, even a beggar, well educated or not, the person has social status and dignity from birth to death. b. Insights from the healing of the woman with the flow of blood: Nothing prevents a person from approaching, encountering or touching Jesus. No social, religious, or political laws can keep a person away from Jesus. No gender bias can keep a person away from Jesus. No enslaving tradition can stand victoriously when one is in contact or touch with Jesus. All these crumble down. Jesus accepts people from everywhere or anywhere and clothes them with dignity and honour. Jesus reinstates the identity of a person as a human being
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created in the image of God. The church and society are called to do the same. The church exists to act on behalf of Jesus in carrying out all of what he did, so that God’s reign of peace, justice and equality will be extended. The church and the Christians cannot be a hindrance to this, but rather promoters. Jesus not only accepts, but also demands that all those around him, with him, or at his service, recognise and follow in his footsteps. Jesus’ question, “Who touched me?” is a very relevant question within the caste and gender-stratified Indian church and society. He definitely would have known who touched him and what happened. Thus, Jesus grabs this occasion for a gender awareness session. In the Indian context, this story brings together not only gender awareness, but also the realities of dehumanisation, segregation, and oppression. Jesus justifies her action, and attributes the power of healing not to him, but to her faith! The person who is supposed to have polluted Jesus with her touch, after possibly polluting all those in the crowd whom she had to push and make her way through, is being acknowledged as one who could generate power to flow out of Jesus for healing. It is not just that the woman is healed from her flow of blood, but the crowd around Jesus gets healed of the rigid patriarchal mindset that keep women as untouchables. Jesus affirmed that her touch never polluted him. Rather her faith was great enough to cause a miracle, which affirms that Dalits in India are in no way inferior to anyone because of the families into which they are born, or the menial work which they are forced to do (in fact, all the work done by Dalits is cleansing, not polluting). This challenges the church in India to embrace and include Dalit Christians in the church’s life and witness so that they are more visible in decisionmaking bodies. Jesus demands a conversion from his followers to respect all people irrespective of their colour, gender, class, caste, region, or religion, as created in the image of God.
2. The miracle of the young girl being restored to life
This miracle is hope and encouragement for Dalits to rise up from all that causes them to be crushed down. Even to this day, Jesus beckons all downtrodden people saying: life does not end here, get up, move, change the world, 80
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and experience the fullness of life! Life cannot come to an end before it is even lived-out, or lived-out meaningfully. More than simply similarities to the Dalit experience, what we get from the Marken passage is whole lot of insights that make it a prerogative for every Christian to affirm that Jesus, who raised the little girl from death in order to experience life, demands that we as his followers support Dalit struggles for life and dignity in the Indian context, especialy Dalit girl-children. Insights from this miracle where the little girl is restored to life ■
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The girl in the biblical passage died at a young age due to certain illnesses. Dalits, in Indian society, are forced to die in many oppressive conditions that do not permit them to lead a dignified life. Even if they are alive, they are dead to the world, as they cannot have the privileges that other people have. Life without freedom, liberty, and dignity, is no life at all. Therefore, Jesus’ action to raise the young girl who blossomed forth to lead a full life, applies to all oppressed communities in the world, and especially to Dalits, Tribals and women in the Indian context. Jesus’ words to the girl, “Talitha Cum” or “little girl arise” is very apt, essential and relevant to girl-children in Indian society, and particularly to Dalit children who are malnourished, discriminated, denied of opportunities for proper education, health, and employment, by an oppressive society and the family too. “Little girl arise” must be pronounced right from the stage of conception so that Dalit children are saved from the snares of death due to female foeticide, infanticide, and child mortality, as well as the snares of death in the form of bonded labour, child labour, prostitution, and child abuse, etc. The church and the society are called to work hand-in-hand to wipe out these injustices against girl-children. As followers of Jesus, we are called again and again to work to restore life with individuals and communities who are living, but have no life. Restoring life with marginalised individuals, communities, and nations, is indeed what Jesus calls us to do. In an era of globalisation, where the weak and the poor are left behind, children, youth, women and the marginalized sections of the society are further marginalised. Students are also hit hard on account of education
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being privatised, making it unreachable for many of average-class peoples, leave alone Dalits. Children are also being ignored when governments are busy with their big development plans at the cost of education and health. This miracle enables us to pause a while and think to what extent the church and society ignores children, who are the future of both. Proper planning in our programmes to include their well-being is essential, and an immediate need. CONCLUSION
The process of globalisation and its impact on Dalits is far greater than what is outlined here. This is just the tip of the iceberg. One needs also to delve deep into the grassroots and work to promote justice. It is shameful for humankind to keep part of its body under slavery and dehumanisation. The miracles of Jesus are still life-giving when we, as his followers, pledge to do what he did while he was in this world. Jesus enables us and encourages us to counter all enslaving structures that deny and deprive life to God’s people in any part of the world. The acts of healing and restoring life are very essential for transforming the Indian caste system, and the gender-stratified church and society. May the miracles of Jesus be models of liberation which take the Indian church and society forward, marching in the light of God. Death is inevitable, but one should live and die with dignity and honour. Jesus came into this world that all may have life and life in abundance.
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CHOOSE LIFE Globalisation began with the discovery By Columbus, & Ves Pucci in 15th Century. Industrial revolution of 16th Century Followed by Colonial conquests by north & west Imposing trade with economic interest Plundering resources in colonised places. The economic hegemony, and imperialism Over the rest of the world marked colonialism. The struggle for independence In countries that were colonised Focused on Self rule and decision On social and economic needs Of their own population that feeds On the existing models of production, Accumulating and stabilising their capital With profit and market as guiding principle! But alas, these poor countries in the world market Being the new entrants, faced only the threat Of losing their power and position To the great process of globalisation With profit and market driven forces From the hegemonic imperialists The option left was AID & TRADE With the same forces on a higher grade.
And the rich nations nourishing Liberalisation and Privatisation’ said government All in the name of our country’s Development! The consequences were heavy and numerous Soaring up of Petrol prices in 70’s and 80’s Lowering down of commodities’ prices in the 90’s. Trade slashed down steeply Bringing Structural Adjustment policy To face the debt crises! Poverty and unemployment deepened marginalisation, especially for Dalits, Tribals, and women. Polarising rich and poor within and between every nation! Come, young and old, men, women and children To promote health, employment and education Raise your voice and act now for a better world That all people will have security, shelter and food Let’s say NO to war, military, terrorism and Death And say Yes to LIFE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR LIFE For no part of the world can boast of security or health Until all parts of the world experience fullness of Life
While AID came with conditions Affecting people of these nations Trade came with unfair rules That has become the strong tools To keep globalisation flourishing 83
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Affirming and Transforming Relations: Refugee Women and Imperial Violence DENISE NADEAU Canada
“The treatment of refugees – at a legislative and socio-economic level – has become one of the most urgent tasks confronting anti-racist groups. Refugees are without question the most vulnerable section of society, stripped of even the most basic human rights and relegated to not even second – but third-class status.” Pragna Patel, Southall Black Sisters
In January 2003, there was an estimated 19.783 million “persons of concern” under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Persons of concern include refugees, asylum seekers (people who arrive at a country’s borders and seek refugee status), returnees and internally displaced persons (Moussa 2003: 14). The term “forced migration” most aptly describes the reality of circumstances that cause these people to leave their homes and communities. They are forced to leave because if they remain they risk persecution or death. This may include the slow or eventual death brought about by an inability to feed their families – whether because of war, civil conflict, persecution, poverty and lack of employment, environmental destruction, human rights violations or imposed development projects that displace whole populations. Forced migrants have no status or claim to rights as citizens and it is totally the prerogative of the states to which they flee to decide whether to grant asylum, refugee or immigration status, migrant worker status or to deport them. In North America, specifically Canada, from where I write, the term “refugee” carries a lot of implicit meanings. While implying protection, it seems to also signify powerlessness and subjection (Moussa 2003: 378). At another level, magnified in the recent context of global capitalism and the “war against terror,” the refugee is perceived as someone outside the nation who threatens “the national order of things” (Ong 2003: 78). Both in Europe and North America asylum seekers are demonised as bogus, as “illegal immigrants and economic migrants scrounging at capital’s gate and threatening capital’s culture” (Special Report on Xeno-Racism 2001: 1). 86
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The changing discourse is reflected in a 2002 Canadian immigration law that undermines the human rights of refugees and all those seeking asylum. Instead of treating refugee claimants as people needing Canada’s protection from persecution, the state is now treating them as a potential threat to the country’s security. In December 2003 Canada transferred immigration enforcement activities from the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration to the new Canada Border Services agency under the new Ministry of Public Safety. The term refugee is also slowly being dropped from government language, to be replaced by the neutral and ambiguous term “protected person.” This article challenges the image of refugee and asylum seeker as victim and threat. This ideological construction serves Western states that are determined to close their borders, yet it belies the reality that 175 million people will cross a border every year. People are being displaced by the multiple effects of the neo-colonialism that is at the centre of the neoliberal economic project. This movement of peoples is an act of resistance against domination and oppression, and a search for justice. It also is justified by the basic human right to move and to seek asylum. I am choosing to address the issue of women refugees in this context, as women and girls are 80% of the world’s forced migrants (Moussa 2003: 14). Women who risk their life and livelihood to flee persecution, poverty and violence, by their very presence in our countries, challenge us to rethink our relationship with migrant peoples and, in turn, to act in a way that we can be allies with them in their fight for dignity and justice. I have privileged women and girl asylum seekers, and specifically women and girls from the Majority World, for several reasons. First, I have worked with some of these women in Canada and am familiar with their issues. Second, I have also observed the specificities of their struggles and needs ignored both by male-dominated groups in their own communities and by advocates and allies outside their communities who work with them. The intersections of gender, race and class oppression that affect these women make them more vulnerable to violence, erasure and exploitation as refugee women. These are rarely named or understood. At the same time, it is important to underline the extent to which entire communities are being criminalized and racialized in the post 9/11 context and how often it is the 87
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adult males who are targeted for arrest, detention, secret trails and deportation. In acknowledging that racial profiling is directed at entire communities of men, women and children who are deemed inferior and a threat to the national order, I here highlight the conditions of refugee women, of uprooted women, in this context. I use the term “uprooted women” interchangeably with forced migrants as part of a theological rethinking of refugees. This term was adopted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to broaden the scope of naming all those who are subject to forced displacement and are compelled to leave their homelands because of the breakdown of social, economic and political conditions. “Uprooted people are those forced to leave their communities: those who flee because of persecution and war, those who are forcibly displaced because of environmental devastation and those who are compelled to seek sustenance abroad because they cannot survive at home” (WCC 1996: 10). The concept of uprootedness, like the terms displaced or forced migration, challenges the terminology of “illegal” which is now used in North America and Europe, not only to hide the causes of the movement of peoples, but also to criminalize refugees and asylum seekers. Rootedness and uprootedness are terms that address a connection to land, earth and place. My perspective is that of someone who is in a “receiving” or “host” country that accepts migrants. My starting and ending point are the same: a politics and practice of accountability in the relationship between Westerners and women migrants from the Majority World. More specifically I address how we as Christians from a European heritage can draw from our faith, from our understandings of the Sacred, from our history and our biblical tradition, to think and act in solidarity with migrant women. I do this with reference to a biblical theology of “indigenous place” (Taylor 1998) and within a spirituality based on a cosmology rooted in relationships. I apply these to the reading of the stories of the haemorrhaging woman and Jairus’ daughter and I conclude with some reflections on how Westerners can be effective allies of women refugees and asylum seekers. Reading from an Indigenous Place
As a white middle-class woman living in Canada I approach with caution the use of the Christian scriptures as a resource in a call to solidarity with 88
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uprooted women. The Bible has been, and continues to be, used to culturally reinforce the genocide, displacement and stigmatization of indigenous peoples on Turtle Island, the land that the colonizers named as North America. The missionary efforts that supported the expansion of Christian European civilization in the Americas were underlain by an explicit racism. The belief in the superiority of European civilization informed the missionary project not only in the Americas but in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. As the emerging field of post-colonial biblical scholarship demonstrates, the bible has been and is still used to justify and maintain the suppression and domination of Two Thirds World peoples and, in particular, women. Musa Dube’s work specifically has addressed just how the message of the superiority of European religion and culture was coded into biblical interpretation and was linked to biblical typologies of women as representing land – metaphors that justified entering, possessing and controlling distant lands (Dube 2000). The new American/British imperialism that is emerging today under the guise of neoliberal economic policies is underlain by the presupposition of all empires – of a superior civilization and race ruling over an inferior one. Neo-colonialism has added the words “democratic” and “legal” to the coding of superior and “undemocratic” and “illegal” to the meaning of inferior peoples. The aim is the same: to control and exploit the land and resources of distant places for the benefit of the imperial power. The Christianity of the ruling elite in Britain, the United States, and even Canada plays a significant factor in this new imperialism, reflected in the rhetoric of “clash of civilizations” used by both George W. Bush and Tony Blair.1 I therefore approach using the Bible with full awareness of its past and present use by imperial powers. I propose an approach to reading scripture which Mark Lewis Taylor calls “reading from an indigenous place” (Taylor 1998: 117). This is an anti-imperialist reading of the Bible that 1
I prefer the term “imperialism” rather than “empire.” Recently the term empire has gained currency in some North American Christian circles. While it recalls the biblical Roman Empire and often is used to refer to the United States, at the same time it frequently gets used in a deterritorialized and dehistoricized way, a vague metaphor for the “bad guys.” Imperialism, specifically Western imperialism, describes a historical process that is based on unequal power relations between geographical regions and races. If we shift our focus from the symbols or markers of oppression to the processes through which we are implicated, this can aid us in understanding our role in both domination and subjugation.
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combines recognition of the history of colonialism in this hemisphere while incorporating a fundamental element of indigenous spirituality – our relationship with the land. Taylor bases this reading strategy on two conditions: a) a multivocal/global criticism that foregrounds “one’s own voice and position,” while critically engaging in dialogue with voices of others and b) the privileging of “the voices and needs of indigenous peoples and their lands” (Taylor 1998: 124, 123). My voice is shaped by my multiple locations. I write this in Quebec, a territory that is home to eleven Native nations. I have just recently returned to this place where I grew up. I am conscious that my paternal lineage includes generations of French Catholic settlers who intermarried with and displaced Mic’maq peoples on the Gaspe coast. My maternal lineage includes women of Ontario Irish Catholic and American Methodist heritage, the latter pioneers in the Mid-West land grab that forcibly removed Native peoples to Oklahoma in the infamous Trail of Tears. My way of naming this relationship comes from lessons learned in twenty five years of on-and-offagain interactions with Natives peoples – ranging from friendships to working with missionary orders in the North, healing work in a Native family violence program and in a program for displaced Native women in an inner city. In the last five years I have been involved in supporting women asylum seekers. I first learned about the issues facing women refugees with Direct Action Against Refugee Exploitation (DAARE) – which worked with Fujianese women who, in 1999, arrived by boat on the shores of British Columbia and were immediately placed in detention. In Montreal, I have been part of a team supporting women and children who have sought sanctuary in local churches. I have also worked training staff in a Women Abuse Violence Prevention program at a South Asian Women’s Centre that works with refugees and I support and participate in anti-deportation campaigning of Solidarity Across Borders, a coalition of anti-deportation groups from several immigrant and refugee communities. All these experiences have shaped my analysis and position as an anti-racist feminist who comes from a middle-class European-Canadian background. As an anti-racist activist, I see Taylor’s call to “privilege voices and needs of indigenous peoples and their lands” as necessarily foregrounding the complexities of displacement that is past and present product of imperialism. 90
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Both the indigenous peoples in North America and indigenous and peasant populations in the Two-Thirds World have had their relationships with their lands disrupted or destroyed. People who come to North America seeking asylum come to a land where Native claims have not been recognized and where a colonial relationship still exists between the state and Native peoples. It is in effect still “stolen land.” It is important to recognize the link between the sovereignty and justice claims of Native peoples and the struggles for justice, asylum and freedom of movement of all refugees and displaced persons. Rather than ignore the fact that this is contested land, we need to foreground the ways we can revision our relationship to this land – all newcomers in the last 500 years. Reading from indigenous place allows us to acknowledge the complexities of place and land, geography and history, in how we read the Bible and do theology.
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but that in different ways we continue in others and are connected. In awakening in our bodies to the flow of energy between us and our relations, it is easier to move from a relationship of power and domination, which implies separateness and disconnection, to one of solidarity, justice and equality (Ajo 2002: 39). The task of restoring connection is based on the acknowledgment that our bodies are all part of this larger Sacred Body and that just relations between us transforms and heals the Sacred Body of which we are part. An ethic of relations requires that we not only cease viewing the other as a stranger, but also finding a way of balancing our relationships so they become equal. This includes taking historical responsibility for imbalances created by colonial policies that have contributed to the inequalities in the present. Honour and Shame: The Deserving Versus the Undeserving Refugee
A Spirituality and an Ethic of Relations
I understand our relationship with the land within a cosmology that affirms the interrelationship of all beings. This involves shifting one’s perspective of the world from one based on hierarchical relationships of power and domination – man/woman, culture/nature, white/black, humans/nature – to one where we are all interrelated and where our difference and diversity are integrally part of our interconnection. Both indigenous spiritualities and ecofeminism affirm humans as merely part of the cosmos, not superior, and in continual relationship with plants, animals and minerals. The Divine is not outside and above, but within this cosmos and yet beyond it. We exist within this Divine web of relationships as part of what Ivone Gebara, the Brazilian ecofeminist, calls the “Sacred Body of the Cosmos” (Gebara 1999: 53). The term “relations” is often used in some North American tribal religions to name this interconnectedness of all beings and the interrelateness of humans to the natural world around us. A relative is someone with whom you have a relationship; they are part of your family. A rock, bird, or tree, is a relation. The purpose of ceremony and prayer in North American indigenous traditions is to restore our place in the web of relations – to restore connections that have been broken. The ethic that follows from this relational richness of life is the recognition that my body does not literally end at the borders of my skin, 91
In Mark 5: 21-43, the healing of Jairus’s daughter and the healing of the woman with the flow of blood, has often been interpreted through the lens of a socio-cultural dynamic of honour and shame that has been seen as central to all status relationships in the world of first century Palestine (Myers 1990: 198-200). In this honour culture, gender and class status were deeply imbedded. Honour was acquired through birth, family connections and associations. Likewise shame came with natural groupings – being a woman, poor or sick – and being associated with these groupings. Sexual/body relations fell within this pollution/purity code. The function of this code was to set group boundaries – to demarcate sociosymbolic taboos which functioned to maintain internal order in the world (Myers 1990: 74). Those who were clean were the insiders; those who were unclean were the ousiders who threatened the order. However, the honour/shame dynamic functioned to cover-up the gender, race and class dynamics of power and control in colonized Palestine. I want to caution against using the honour/shame lens in a way that fixes both Jewish society and the Hebrew bible as representing a more primitive culture than that of the Christian reader/interpreter. The honour/shame, purity/pollution dynamic, reflects a system of classification based on binary opposition, a system that still permeates Western Christianity and culture and which supports imperial claims representing the superiority of Western civilization 92
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over other cultures and religions, including Judaism. The honour/shame framework functions with different terminology to support structural oppression of women, outsiders, and poor people, and it is still used to both maintain power relationships in North America as well as to justify imperial relationships of domination elsewhere in the world. In first century Palestine, the haemorrhaging woman was treated as a double outcast. In terms of the Levitical purity code, she had to be segregated from the community because of her continuous bleeding. Not only did she bear the signs of the impurity of the female body but also she was poor, as she had spent all her money on medical care that had not cured her. Both conditions stigmatized her socially; she was shunned and shamed. Because she was unclean, she was not allowed in certain places and had no means of social support. In terms of the dynamics of power and control she was a person who was isolated, marginalized and therefore vulnerable to further violence and exploitation. While we have no idea of the racial-ethnic background of the haemorrhaging woman, it is clear she experienced both gender and class discrimination. If we turn to the refugee woman in Canada we see these two factors compounded by race. At the same time the woman refugee claimant is described by the dominant society in terms of the language of the “deserving” or “undeserving,” the “good” or “bad” claimant or the “true” political refugee versus the “bogus” economic refugee. This language has complex roots in Canadian history and in the construction of the Canadian nation as a white settler colony. Like the honour/shame construction in the text, there is an opposition here that covers up the power dynamics in Canadian society. The concept of Canada as nation, similar to the United States, has been shaped by Anglo-Saxon Christian gender, race and class interests. As Aihwa Ong has illustrated so powerfully in her study of Cambodian refugees in the United States, this “racial anglo-saxonism” prescribes the value of who is a worthy citizen and who isn’t, which informs government, social work and church practices (Ong 2003: 72). Those persons who are economically self-sufficient and productive are seen as inherently white and “good,” while those who lack the appropriate work ethic or the ability to perform economically in order to become worthy, i.e. white, are seen as irresponsible 93
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and a burden, i.e. not white. In the United States, with a legacy of plantation slavery and Native genocide, this value structure has played out in the bipolar racial formation of black and white that defines all those who are on the “black scale” as not belonging to the nation (Ong 2003: 73). In Canada, the same bipolar formation exists, with the Native side of the pole playing a significant role. The Native, the Aboriginal, symbolizes the Other who is outside the nation as both ward and liability. The tradition of paternalism and coercive tutelage that has underlain care of Natives in residential schools, missions and social work practice, is now reproduced in social service agencies, settlement programs and church programs that aim to reform, cleanse and assimilate the less worthy immigrants and refugees. Some ethnic groups move in and out of the category of deserving citizen. In Canada, Jews, Irish and French Quebecers are groups now considered white and worthy citizens, though previously they were not considered “real” Canadians. People of African heritage in Canada are usually on the permanent side of the divide. South East Asians, Latinos, or people of Arab heritage, depending on the potential of individuals to become “white,” i.e. economically self-sufficient, have difficulty moving out of the undeserving category, as race and class dynamics keep them poor. In the eyes of the dominant culture the term “Canadian” seems to be reserved only for whites of English or French origin. Within Quebec, which has a separate nationalist dynamic, the term “cultural communities” is used to describe all newcomer groups, reflecting the dominant gaze of the white Quebecois. The supposed distinction between the “good” and “bad” refugee claimant is also connected to a historical distinction between political and economic refugees. The beginning of the 21st century is a totally different world than the one in which the UN Convention of 1951 first described a political refugee. Then a political refugee was defined in the context of the genocide of European Jews and the desire to liberate people from the “evils” of Communism. From the 1960’s to the 1980’s a new class of refugees emerged, those who were caught in the civil wars and ethnic or communal divisions of the nation states that were struggling to shrug off colonial rule. By the late 1980’s and 1990’s the emerging neoliberal economic order, controlled and originating in the West, enforced political and economic 94
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choices on these new nation states – policies like structural adjustment and privatization – which have further impoverished populations and contributed to civil wars. The new imperialism allows giant American, Canadian and European corporations to roam the world, exploiting land and labour and selling military hardware, leaving more and more people who are unable to feed their families and displaced from their homes or countries. As the categories of political and economic migrants are collapsing we find more and more women fleeing both political and economic repression. In the hierarchy of deserving and undeserving, women refugee claimants and asylum seekers are seen as undeserving by the very nature of their gender, race and class status. Despite, as mentioned above, 80% of the world’s refugees are women, the percentage of women claimants accepted in Canada ranged between 18% and 33% in the period between 1989 and 1993 (Moussa 2002: 402). Even when in 1993, Canada agreed to adopt Guidelines on Gender-Related Persecution, which more broadly defined “women at risk,” only 290 refugee women (who were not sponsored by their husbands) were accepted over a period of seven years (Moussa 2002: 385). While refugees should be accepted on the basis of the risks and dangers (including extreme poverty and deprivation for one’s children) in their home country, what is increasingly happening is that they are being judged by their ability to meet immigration criteria – a point system in Canada that favours the highly skilled, well-educated, English or French speaking upper class male. Refugee women and their children, in particular those who are poor, not white and from Southern countries, are considered both undeserving and undesired. These women experience both being shamed and shunned and are treated as a burden on Canadian society. The message is clear – they are of no value. They are triply “outside the nation.” Challenging the Hierarchy: The Healing of the Two Daughters
My starting point is that the hierarchy implicit in the interpretive formulation of honour/shame has no place in cosmologies of interconnection. Mary Churchill, in an article examining how the purity-pollution lens was used by anthropologists to interpret Cherokee religious traditions, calls for “an indigenous-based model of complementarity rather than 95
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opposition” to understand Native religions (Churchill 2000: 225). While we can not transpose an indigenous principle to other religions directly, I would like to suggest that it frames a way of rereading the stories of the haemorrhaging woman and the daughter of Jairus that can help us transcend the more familiar portrayal of Jesus as liberator of the oppressed (Schotroff 1991: 97-98). In doing this we can reframe our understanding of the reality of refugee women’s experiences. Let us first read the story of the healing of two “daughters” in Mark through the lens of the gendered racism that affects refugee women. This text has been identified as a “sandwich construction,” i.e. a story wrapped within a story in order that the reader relates to the two together (Myers et al. 1997: 64). As the story slowly unfolds we realize a major reversal of the social order is taking place. Jairus, unlike the woman who is bleeding or his daughter, has a name in the text. He is a synagogue leader, the patriarchal head of the family and a member of the ruling class. He has a sense of his entitlement. He approaches Jesus easily, and speaks for his daughter, who has no voice or name in the story. Jairus represents those who presume they are at the center of power. At the same time another woman with no name approaches Jesus from behind. As someone with a bleeding disorder she is considered unclean. The Levitical purity code ensures that she stays both poor and an outcast, perpetually segregated. Her condition deteriorates further as her last funds are wasted on spurious healers. This woman is the refugee claimant or asylum seeker. She has no status, no name and is invisible to dominant society. The causes of her bleeding are multiple. In her home country she has suffered from one or many forms of violence: economic exploitation, psychological abuse and sexual violence – which may include sexual assault, wife assault and psychological abuse, sexual slavery, and war rape. She may have been persecuted, arrested or been sexually tortured for political participation or for that of her family members. Her freedom and mobility may have been restricted and she has had no recourse to protection of the police or the law. While crossing borders to the country of asylum, often at great physical risk, she may once again have experienced intimidation, sexual harassment or rape. Once in the asylum country, with no rights as a citizen, she is 96
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vulnerable to sexual violation and economic exploitation, enduring further financial hardship and emotional distress. As she awaits her claim, she is asked to provide endless documentation, justification of present and past activities, go through security and medical checks, and reviews of her economic and political background. What little money she has goes to immigration lawyers or consultants, leaving her penniless. The bleeding of the refugee woman is compounded by the stress of waiting and the constant fear of deportation. If she finds work, she is ghettoized into low paying, marginal jobs, where her precarious situation is exploited, either through being paid below minimum wage or being subjected to sexual harassment. The pressures to find housing, schools, work, learn a new language and to deal with a new culture, the maze of institutions, and the need to provide emotional refuge for her family from perpetual racism, leave her little time to grieve the losses she has suffered. Losses include home and country, a network of family and friends, a community of support, cultural food and language, familiar religious institutions, and citizenship (Moussa 2002: 388). Fear of deportation or being seen as a burden to the state can lead to reluctance to go to a doctor when ill or seek help when she is a victim of violence. She will not complain about poor salaries and working conditions, racism or sexual violation or do anything which she thinks will jeopardize her status. In the story, the woman with the issue of blood breaks the rules of the Palestinian honour culture. She goes into the crowd and touches from behind the man who is a wellknown healer. In doing this she risks being abused by the crowd and by the disciples. Yet she persists with a faith that she is doing the right thing. Refugee women also reach out. They are not just victims, as they are so often portrayed. Each woman, often travelling with her children, who leaves her home country to seek asylum, risks first the journey and then the deprivations of being in the host country. The act of reaching out for asylum by the woman migrant involves considerable courage and faith, especially in this international context where they now risk detention and deportation. Unlike the 1960’s and 1970’s in North America and Europe, where there was respect for international law and the right of all migrants to claim asylum in another country, now asylum seekers have been recast 97
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as illegal immigrants and are regarded with hostility and suspicion. Migrants are associated with traffickers and are seen as breaking domestic immigration laws if, for instance, they enter the country as a stowaway. Arriving in a country without permission has been redefined as a criminal act, “even though the 1951 UN Convention of the Status of Refugees upholds the right of refugees to break domestic immigration laws in order to seek asylum” (Emergence of Xeno-Racism 2001: 4). If the woman asylum seeker comes to a country like Canada in an act of desperation and hope, the conditions she faces here require deep resilience. An example is the fate of 90 Fujianese women, who with 509 Fujianese men, survived a dangerous journey in the summer of 1999 in four old leaky ships, landing on the shores of the West Coast of Canada to seek asylum and safety. The majority were immediately put in prison. Most of the women were eventually deported; some were kept in jail for over a year and a half. After a year, suffering the effects of long-term incarceration, the women went on a week – long hunger strike to raise public awareness of their conditions. This is an excerpt from their Hunger Strike Declaration: We are the women from Fujian province who came to Canada to seek refuge. In China, we were persecuted under the one – child policy. Since the day we arrived in Canada, we have been locked up in prison. … We hope that our hunger strike will raise Canadian awareness of how it feels to lose one’s freedom… Meanwhile, we are afraid of being sent back to China as we know we will be imprisoned and subjected to torture and fines. We are caught between imprisonment imposed by the Canadian government and persecution from the Chinese government… However we would like to ask if 14 months of imprisonment is upholding human rights? All we have is our lives to risk for freedom… We want freedom!” (Direct Action 2001: 16).
In 2002 the Canadian government passed the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act which further limited options for those claiming both immigration and refugee status. The result has been a huge increase in detentions and deportation orders, with specific communities targeted – Pakistani, Palestinian, Algerian and Colombian. As well a significant number of single black women from Africa or the Caribbean, mostly with children, have been refused refugee status. For both women and men who have been unable to gain status the options are limited – to go “underground,” seek sanctuary in a church or be deported. For women with 98
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children the underground option is practically impossible. Some choose sanctuary, as did an Ethiopian single parent and her three children who has been in sanctuary 10 months at the time of this writing. Her words reveal the determination of the refugee claimant who refuses to give up despite being unjustly denied asylum: “I don’t want my children to live in war or a horrible place. It is better to die in peace than to die in terror. To wait with hope and to wait without hope is not equal.” Despite the repeated denials of their human rights, these women are not just victims. They are “victim-survivors,” a term used by Traci West to acknowledge the myriad ways women who experience the routine oppression of gendered racism intersecting with intimate violence resist and survive – despite incredible odds against them (West 1999: 151). The different ways women asylum seekers and refugee claimants engage in the act of touching, of reaching out, is the very opposite of passivity. Despite being stigmatized, ghettoized, refugee women survive and resist in multiple ways – most of which are not seen or understood by the service workers and helpers from the dominant culture who interact with them.2 The woman refugee claimant, faced with what can be endless months or even years of waiting to see how her status will be determined, responsible for maintaining the emotional health of her family in this context, ignored and forgotten by the dominant society, exhibits both resilience and a deep faith. Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that the power had gone from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And the disciples said, “You see the crowd pressing in on you: how can you say “who touched me?” Jesus looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before Jesus, and told the whole truth. Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” In returning to the story, the first thing to note is that the woman feels healed in her body before Jesus has even become aware of her. The 2
Aihwa Ong’s study of Cambodian refugees in the United States, Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, The New America (2003), illustrates well how refugees evade, negotiate, or deflect the various ways state policies and practices try to erase, reform, or assimilate refugees.
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healing comes about through her effort and faith. At the same time, this is a story with multiple levels. It is not just about physical suffering and the reclaiming of strength and energy. In the exchange with Jesus, she finds repair for her emotional, mental and spiritual suffering. This is a story about restoring right-relationship. Jesus is someone who is aware enough in his body to notice when someone touches him. He notices, stops and turns his attention to what has happened. In doing this, he lets this moment take priority over the request of Jairus, a man with status, and stops for a woman who has been shamed, excluded, and is nameless. The disciples are not happy with this and try to deflect him. But Jesus “looks around to see.” The woman, still the initiator, comes up to him, and despite her fear of breaking the rules around purity – talking to a man in public – she tells him her story. What is important is that Jesus just listens. He does nothing else. In affirming her as daughter, he shatters the social norm of exclusion. She is now part of his family; she can be at peace because they have a relationship as people of equal worth and dignity. What is significant here is the physical movement of Jesus stopping and engaging with a poor woman when he was on the way to help a dying young woman from a socially powerful family. The poor woman becomes the priority even when her situation can be judged as less urgent situation. But is it less urgent? Some interpreters have argued that what Jesus is doing here is enacting the priority of the periphery over the center, the option for the poor (Myers et al. 1997: 64). At the same time, there is another subtle dynamic at work here. The story is marked by the extent of both the woman’s agency, her vulnerability, and the fact that Jesus just listens to what she says. Jesus is often portrayed as miracle worker and liberator, an interpretation that ignores that the key to the various healings lies in the relational dynamics between Jesus and the people who come to him. In this story he has adopted the only behaviour appropriate for an ally in this situation – to listen and learn about the realities of the life of this excluded woman and to accept her without judgment. The woman, who is courageous and determined, is also fearful and trembling. We must be careful not to create her as a counter-heroine and fail to notice her humanness. While it is true 100
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Jesus has stopped for her, perhaps this is also a story about response and presence – being able to notice and just be with the invisible and shunned. This is a story about “doing nothing” and just “being with.” In this dynamic, the role of the disciples is significant. First the disciples cannot even figure out who has touched Jesus. To them the poor and unclean all look the same; they are faceless, invisible. They try to keep Jesus from stopping; their loyalty is to Jairus, an important synagogue leader. Their behaviour reflects a lack of faith in the ability of the excluded to liberate themselves – a distrust of the masses. They are not listening; they try to take over the situation and block the way when someone else is reaching for her liberation. In listening to and supporting the woman who reaches out to him, Jesus acts responsibly with his privilege as a Hebrew male. He does give priority to her, but he will not neglect Jairus’ daughter; he has faith that things will work out there as well. If we replay this story in the context of the woman asylum seeker, it is in the contrast between the disciples’ behaviour and Jesus’ that we may find ourselves. The disciples’ way of relating to the haemorrhaging women is played out today in some of the relationships that develop between refugee claimants and their helpers – advocates, ministers, social workers, settlement workers, church sponsors, etc. Renny Golden and Michael McConnell, in writing about the American Sanctuary Movement that emerged in the 1980’s to support Central American refugees, describe the combination of paternalism, racism, and sexism that marked church-refugee relationships: Refugees, at times, have been overprotected by host congregations. Planning committess have excluded refugees from decisions that affected their personal lives. When refugees did speak up at some gatherings, Anglos listened to them politely, but their suggestions were largely ignored (Golden and McConnell 1986: 5).
Despite efforts to educate churches about racism there has been little change. A woman refugee from Swaziland fleeing gender persecution, who was deported with her two children in 2003 after being here nine years, said to me, referring not only to the local Sanctuary Committee we were working with, but also to the larger Canadian society, “they never listen to us; if they had listened to us, Rwanda would never have happened.” 101
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Not listening is the acting out of the binary opposition of the civilised versus the uncivilised, the deserving versus the undeserving, the superior versus the inferior. Underneath it is the inability to see the sacredness of the other. The “charity” which suffuses so much of North American Christian approaches to sponsorship or sanctuary of refugees is based on what Golden and McConnell call an “unbiblical, ahistorical pietism aimed at ministering to timeless refugees who are without concrete historical, political and moral claims on our lives” (Golden and McConnell 1986: 179). In fact, our geo-political reality is closely tied to the refugee claimant. We benefit from global systems of domination that cause displacement by the very fact we live in the West. Our lifestyle in North America and Europe is based on the exploitation of the resources, land and labour of the Two-Thirds World. Canadians are complicit in the new colonial relations of global capitalism by the fact that Canada is part of the G8, is a big player in the WTO and the FTAA negotiations and supports the U.S. “War Against Terror.” We are complicit in these neo-colonial relations by our very location in this land and nation taken from indigenous peoples. Therefore solidarity with refugees is not about charity or altruism; it is about recognizing our historical responsibility as part of the fact that we are inter-related and interconnected with each other. Taking responsibility for our location changes the way privileged Christians can be in solidarity with asylum seekers. A tactic like providing sanctuary can be more effective if it is part of a larger campaign to challenge not only racial profiling, but also the inequities of an immigration and refugee determination system. It becomes even more useful when the campaign can point to the causes of forced migration. For example, in Montreal, a group of South Asian and indigenous youth have developed a campaign against Alcan in solidarity with the Orissa peoples. Alcan, whose headquarters are in Montreal, is the largest aluminium corporation in the world and is investing in a bauxite mine in Orissa, India, which will displace 60,000 people, some of whom are beginning to claim asylum in Canada. This campaign makes the connections between indigenous peoples, refugees, imperialism, and the right of all to a homeland. The motivation for this type of solidarity comes not from altruism. In returning to the example of Jesus in the story, the white North American reader is challenged 102
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to reposition herself or himself as the “helper” like Jesus. Jesus chose to listen and to acknowledge the relationship between himself and the woman. In calling her “daughter” he was challenging the taboo that placed this woman outside social acceptance. She was not only to be acknowledged, she was to be treated as family. Jesus’ behaviour reminds us that we are not here to judge or to screen refugee claimants; rather we are called to accept our common humanity and interconnectedness and take responsibility for it. This means we cannot be selective about who is in our family and who is not. This in turn means that Jesus does not abandon Jairus and his daughter, even though he has first stopped to be with the haemorrhaging woman. He is available to both situations, although there is a tone of admonishment in his voice as he speaks to Jairus and his community. Unlike the woman who has faith, this crowd of wealth and means has trouble believing. Fear is a constant in their lives and they have now despaired of the little girl living. Jesus has little to do with the crowd of friends and he goes inside only with the girl’s father and mother. Here he takes a more active role than he did with thewoman with the haemorrhage, where he only listened. He takes the girl by her hand, he gives her a command and then gives follow-up instructions to the parents. Two things happen here. First, Jesus addresses the girl-child directly. She is nameless in the story, known only through her father and through her illness. But Jesus does not despair; he speaks to her directly, calling her to life and to action. She walks and eats. She has awakened in a radical way, and she has been seen and recognized. Secondly, in healing her, Jesus collapses the distinctions in Palestinian society. She is no less important than the woman with the haemorrhage, even if she comes from a background of privilege. Yet her healing involves an awakening, a coming to awareness of how numbing and constricting the life of privilege that is led unconsciously can be. She is from a class where unbelief and fear are linked. Because her story is framed around the healing of the haemorrhaging woman we are able to make the connection – waking up becomes a metaphor for belief and action in a different way of being, one that links compassion and liberation and that transcends the dynamics of preference and exclusion that maintain patriarchy and colonialism. As a privileged Western woman, I read the story of the second daughter who was healed as a call to rise up and be in solidarity with all those women who are “outside the nation,” those who are excluded and deemed 103
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unclean. The fact she is identified as a girl of 12 has many possible meanings. Her age links her to the woman who has been bleeding for 12 years. Twelve is the number of the tribes of Israel and can refer to the collective that needs to be woken up. The girl-child also represents the most vulnerable population in the world. Girl-children everywhere are more vulnerable to violence and oppression and this vulnerability increases exponentially with race, class, culture. In addition, refugee girls are extremely vulnerable because they have been uprooted and do not have a sense of place. Fundamental change for all women must begin with change for girl-children. The girl-child here signifies the possibility and hope of youth, of new movements, of young women who are daughters of feminists and strong women of every nation who are taking up the call for justice for all women in new and exciting ways. Conclusion
The story of the healings of the two daughters is about changing relationships. While much has been left unsaid in this text we have to speculate what happened next. Did Jairus tell his daughter that Jesus had stopped to heal another woman and that they thought she had died in the meantime? Did the daughter, having experienced a form of physical death, decide she wanted to find that woman who had known a living death? Maybe the daughter had learned from her suffering about the illusions of superiority and perhaps she became an ally of all those women declared impure. Did the healed woman go back and find other women who had been stigmatized and organize with them to challenge the purity code, i.e. the system of status and privilege that enforces gender, class and race power? The lessons in these stories are vast for women from the North and South, the West and the Two-Thirds World. Uprooted women have the right to self-determination and to move and live in dignity and safety. Within the structures of domination that exist today they need allies. They cannot win this fight alone. “White imperial women” is a term that has been used to describe women from the West who have failed to recognize their privilege as people living in the countries that are recolonizing the Two-Thirds world. Our option is to awaken and find our own path as women who can challenge imperialism from within. Besides listening to migrant women, we can support their self-organizing. The importance of refugee groups self-organizing cannot be over-estimated. It challenges 104
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the “individual-case” focus that both the government and media promote and instead reflects how these injustices are directed at entire groups. Asylum seekers who band together can break the isolation and facilitate strategies that work for them. They can make their own decisions without “well-meaning” helpers imposing their ways of doing things. It is from self-organized groups like the Committee for Non-Status Algerians or the Committee of Palestinian Refugees in Montreal that demands to stop deportations and regularize status for all non-status in Canada come. Church and refugee advocacy groups have been much more cautious, requesting changes in the appeal process of the new immigration law rather than addressing structural issues. Ultimately, a group of self-organized asylum seekers can be a greater threat to state control of borders and will be more effective than any group of advocates fighting “for” the rights of others.3 In the beginning of this article, I wrote of reading from an indigenous place. In speaking of accountability we cannot forget our relations with indigenous people on whose lands all of us who are newcomers live. To make the land and this history invisible is as serious as making a human being invisible. To come full circle in our listening, we must go beyond the model of the relationship of Jesus with the “two daughters” to acknowledge the relationship with the land on which patterns of exclusion and marginalization are maintained. While there are arguments now for deterritoralized models of citizenship, I would argue that this would be irresponsible to the land to which immigrants have moved (Ong 2003: 281-286). Not only must all newcomers support indigenous claims to self-determination but we must learn how to develop a respectful relationship with the land that we inhabit. That means redefining the “settlement process” so that it no longer serves to assimilate and “ethnically cleanse” newcomers but that it also teaches all to see this land as our relation and not as inert territory to be exploited (Ong 2003: xviii). The work of transforming relations involves repairing broken relationships. Jesus’ command to the 12-year old girl is to “rise up!” We do not know what she, or the woman who is no longer bleeding, do next. These are open-ended stories, leaving us with a challenge to restore relations. For those of us of European heritage in North America, standing with refugee women can be an opportunity to defy imperialism at home. We can denounce both the structural oppression of our racist, 3
In Montreal, the Committee for Non-Status Algerians was able to negotiate a stay of deportations for 1000 Algerians scheduled to be deported in 2001. Unfortunately, the ban on deportations to Algeria was lifted a year later but that victory continues to inspire self-organized refugee groups.
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patriarchal, and classist immigration laws and we can challenge the global structures of violence that created the conditions that cause refugee women and their families to leave their homes and land in the first place. We can do this in a way that privileges learning to “listen” and “be with” refugee women and asylum seekers. In doing all this we acknowledge the interconnections and the web of life that not only bring us together, but will sustain us in this struggle. BIBLIOGRAPHY - ABU-LABAN AND CHRISTINE GABRIEL. Selling Diversity: Immigration, Multiculturalism, Employment Equity and Globalization. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002. - AJO LAZARO, & CLARA LUZ. “Ethica, espiritualidad y valores – Un desafio a recrear y rehacer,” Revista ARA del Centro de Estudios de Iglesias de Cuba. No. 8. 2003: 37-40. - CHURCHILL, MARY. “Purity and Pollution: Unearthing an Oppositional Paradigm in the Study of Cherokee Religious Traditions,” in Lee Irwin, ed. Native American Spirituality. Lincoln, London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. - DIRECT ACTION AGAINST REFUGEE EXPLOITATION. Movements Across Borders: Chinese Women Migrants in Canada. Vancouver: 2001. http.//www.december18.net/paper23chinesewomencanada.htm. - DUBE, MUSA. Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press, 2000. - FEKETE, LIZ. The Emergence of Xeno-Racism: Summary of the Special Report on Xeno-Racism. London: Institute of Race Relations, July 2001. http://www.irr.org.uk/xenoracism/index.htm. - GEBARA, IVONE. Longing for Running Waters: Ecofeminism and Liberation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999. - GOLDEN, RENNY, & MICHAEL MC CONNELL. Sanctuary: The New Underground Railroad. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986. - MOUSSA, HELENE. “Uprooted People: A study of causes of forced migration,” in Making Waves: An Ecumenical Feminist Journal. Women’s Inter-church Council of Canada: Vol 3:3; Fall 2003: 14-16. - MOUSSA, HELENE. Violence Against Women: New Canadian Perspectives. Katherine M.J. McKenna and Juen Larkin, eds. Toronto: Ianna Publications, 2002: 371-402. - MOUSSA, HELENE, & PATRICK A. TARAN. A Moment To Choose: Risking to be with Uprooted People (Resource Book, Refugee and Migration Service). Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1996. - MYERS, CHED. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990. - MYERS, CHED, MARIE DENNIS, JOSEPH NANGLE, CYNTHIA MOE-LOBEDA, & STUART TAYLOR. Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997. - ONG, AIHWA. Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. - PATEL, PRAGNA. “Back to the Future: avoiding déja vu in resisting racism,” in Floya Anthias and Cathie Lloyd, eds., Rethinking Anti-racisms: From theory to practice. New York: Routledge, 2002: 128-148. - TAYLOR, MARK LEWIS. “Reading from an Indigenous Place,” in Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy. Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998: 117-136. - WEST, TRACI. Wounds of the Spirit: Black Women, Violence and Resistance Ethics. New York: New York University Press, 1999. - WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES. A Moment to Choose: Risking to be with Uprooted People (A Resource Book, Unit IV, Refugee and Migration Service). Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1996. 106
“Your Faith Has Made You Well. Go in Peace, and Be Healed of Your Trouble”: The Ecumenical Condition and Dialogue in Europe NAGYPÁL SZABOLCS Hungary
I. The Ecumenical Condition in Europe
In 2003, the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI, Pannonhalma, Hungary) conducted a survey on the present ecumenical condition in Europe. Almost two hundred ecumenical lay leaders (mostly members of the World Student Christian Federation and the International Ecumenical Fellowship) were asked about their opinions and experiences concerning the common endeavour for the unity of the Church. The methodology of the survey was based on free responses, so the essayistic evaluation seems more appropriate in this case. This process took more than a year, and concentrated on ten prominently active countries in lay ecumenism in Europe: Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. The detailed results were published in a separate booklet.1 We aim to connect the results and findings of the survey with the Charta Œcumenica,2 the guidelines for the growing cooperation among the churches in Europe, adopted by the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the Council of European (Roman Catholic) Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE). The logic and structure of the Charta Œcumenica (ChŒ) comprises three parts: our common basis (eg. faith and creed); our internal responsibilities in the Church (eg. mission, dialogue, parish life, spirituality and theology); and our external duties towards society (eg. European integration, social action, environmental protection and dialogue with other religions).. 1 2
Kolontis, Veronika, & Szabolcs Nagypál, Survey on the Ecumenical Condition in Europe. Budapest, 2004. Conference of European Churches (CEC), Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE), Charta Œcumenica. Guidelines for the Growing Cooperation among the Churches in Europe. Strasbourg, 2001. http://www. cec-kek.org/English/ChartafinE.htm. 108
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The method of our paper starts with the dialogue of ideas (eg. division, education and reception), followed by the dialogue of life in local contexts (eg. peace and grace in congregations, ministers and sacraments) and the dialogue of life in society, where healing and solidarity are lived out. It ends with a vision of dialogue, enlightenment and resurrection, based on the story of Jairus’ daughter and the woman who was healed by touching Jesus’ cloak. 1. Faith and Trouble A. Roots of Division
In the aforementioned research, the ecumenical lay leaders were asked to list the main divisive issues between and within Christian denominations nowadays. From their answers we can decipher that the bases of the divisions are of a theological, cultural, structural and methodological nature. Theologically, we have differing views on our cooperation in salvation; on the role of Mary and the saints, the sacraments and the Eucharist (particularly concerning the transubstantiation and the real presence); on the ministry and the role of laity and women; on morality and sexuality (especially homosexuality); on the interpretation of the Bible and on the role of Tradition. Simultaneously, we have different ways of liturgy and prayer. Culturally, the mutual sins of the past and the divisions have become parts of our traditions. These cultural habits are embedded in our sociocultural realm; the education we conduct is thus counterproductive, maintaining division or the illusion of division in many areas, resulting in a constant lack of visible common action. Structurally, policies are divided on ecclesiology; on the role of authority; on apostolic succession; on the role of the pope (including the issue of infallibility in the Church) and hierarchy; on the concept of daughter churches; on institutions and canon law; and last but not least, on our unequal financial possibilities, on power and politics. Many times we are merely organisations instead of being one living organism. Finally, methodological issues can cause division as well, if there is a lack of dialogical attitude (mentality and spirituality). These issues include the permanent lack of real communication, understanding and dialogue among and within the denominations; the exclusive understanding of truth and the claim to have all truth; indifference, superficiality and disinterest, 109
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conservatism and inertia, lack of faith and hope; fundamentalism or radicalism, selfishness and pride, relativism and rationalism, ignorance and the lack of knowledge; inappropriate style, lack of common goal, lack of respect and comprehension; mistrust, lack of acceptance on an equal footing, fear of losing our own identity, and lack of openness and humility. These are the fundamental differences in our faith, which people deem still to be barriers to visible unity, concerning the Church, her sacraments and ministry. Surmounting all these, we are called together to unity in faith (ChŒ: 1). B. Education and Reception
Christian education is counterproductive in many places, according to the research participants, which can result in the omission of other denominations from catechisms and Christian education. This omission is both the result of a counterproductive education, and the reason why it is counterproductive. We indeed have grave responsibilities in our work with young people: in the ecumenical formation of pastors; in spreading good experience; in raising awareness for human, social and family issues; in giving testimony and representing Gospel values; or in participating in commissions on social and educational issues. Half of the participants believe that one-sided, biased, caricatured or even exclusive opinions and statements have completely disappeared from the catechisms, and quite a number of them report advances, but there are cases where negative and biased representations are still present. Elsewhere, the denominations present the others in a positive and respectful way or in an objective and informative way, sometimes even with other denominations own words. In some places children are taught to pray for the unity of the Church. On the national level, there are a number of serious efforts for the reception, distribution and discussion of highlights from international ecumenical dialogues, especially via media and publications, books and journals that cover ecumenical developments, conferences, meetings and free ecumenical circles. Ecumenical, environmental and peace issues are all highly discussed in church circles, which in Europe might especially 110
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mean the implementation of Charta Œcumenica. Half of people say that there are serious efforts for theological understanding, education and reception among different churches and denominations in their area; others deem it insufficient, while a third group is not aware of any such efforts. In majority Roman Catholic countries, more people are of the opinion that these real efforts are still lacking, than those who feel many achievements have already been made. Most Christians are aware that the ecumenical movement is making progress, but deem the results achieved insufficient. The variety of answers shows that the ecumenical movement does not communicate clearly its vision to the people of God; neither do the whole people of God communicate together the Gospel in the public domain, the territory where we are called to proclaim the Gospel together (ChŒ: 2) and to move towards one another (ChŒ: 3). The ecumenical movement is at a crossroads.3 2. Peace and Grace in Local Contexts A. Congregations: Side by Side
Local ecumenism is the cradle where the ecumenical movement is repeatedly being reborn through the involvement of the laity. It is also the place of free ecumenical circles. Dialogue of life means that many Christians from different denominations live side by side and interact in friendships, in their neighbourhoods, at work and in their families (ChŒ: 4). Usually there are contacts between the local congregations on an occasional basis; it is rare, though, that we find regular contacts. Often there is no such cooperation at all, or if it does exist, it is not yet developed or known among the community. But especially in Western Europe, ecumenical relationships seem to be rather good and institutionalised at all levels. Examples of cooperation at the community level include churches, chapels or community rooms built for permanent common use of different denominations. These structures exist for a variety of reasons: theological (ecumenical institutes, centres and chapels, integrated local 3
See Julio de Santa Ana , “The Ecumenical Movement at the Crossroads,” Student World 2003/1. 11–23.
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parishes where the building is owned by a foundation, one denomination hosts the others in an area, or different denominations use a church together); historical (a denomination uses the former church of another denomination, or a national minority uses a church, regardless of its denomination); or practical (in hospitals or tourist areas, or due to a lack of resources). When necessary, different congregations occasionally host each other for liturgical celebrations in their own church buildings. This occurs in cases of reconstruction or alteration; Bible studies, agape meals, spiritual encounters, ecumenical services and commemorations; visits of leaders and neighbouhood-linked occasions, cultural or communitarian meetings; wedding, baptism and joint pastoral care for ecumenical families; healing services and funerals, meditations and harvest festivals; Christmas and Easter celebrations and marches of witness, including outdoor Passion plays and carol singing; joint services for the underprivileged, like the women’s, youth and children’s prayer day; war or catastrophe memorials, national celebrations, folk festival services, musical events and songs of praise, ecumenical choirs and pulpit exchanges, dancing events, concerts and theatre, social events and feasts. Many people, though, are not aware of such cases. A special example of joint prayers and liturgies is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Usually a great number of people from local congregations actually participate in the whole event, each year in January. In other places only a small proportion of people attend; and in some places, virtually nobody participates. Overall we can conclude that we rarely find churches built for common use, except under special circumstances. It occurs regularly only in hospitals, prisons, the army, at airports or other special places of tourism, where they host each other’s congregations out of necessity. Motivations for other interdenominational contacts can be liturgical, cultural or solidarity-related. B. Ministers: Consultation and Encouragement
Local congregations are ministered by pastors and priests. The barriers between ministers of different denominations have been reduced, but real cooperation is rare and sporadic. The permanent ecumenical responsibility 112
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of ministers encompasses maintenance of regular meetings and constant encouragement. A third of the respondents mentioned regular meetings between ministers of different denominations, manifested in twinned dioceses, interdenominational staff teams, ecumenical sector ministers and university chaplaincies, partnerships and covenant relationships, ecumenical groups, presentations of the denominations, ecumenical liturgies, Christmas celebrations, joint mission and evangelism, or simply luncheon clubs and friendly breakfasts. Another third was of the opinion that these meetings are occasional, while the final third reported no such cooperations at all. Occasional cooperation can take the form of consultation or substitution. In half of the cases the ministers consult each other regularly, or at least occasionally, concerning the pastoral care of ecumenically mixed areas – for example in ecumenical wedding services and baptisms, in schools, hospitals, prison and the army – and participate in each other’s ordination and other important events. In the remaining half of the cases they actually never consult each other. In general we can say that the ministers of different denominations do not substitute for each other in most places, even in case of need. But for emergency pastoral care for the elderly or sick, for preaching, for funerals or in prison chaplaincy, it might occur on a regular or exceptional basis.
permitted, available, in an interchurch family context, when the celebrant is in agreement, if officially invited, if it does not cause a scandal or irritate anyone, and if the denomination is of the same theological understanding. Orthodox and Roman Catholics participate much less frequently in the Eucharist of another denomination than Protestants do. Charta Œcumenica emphasizes that couples in interdenominational marriages especially should be supported in experiencing ecumenism in their daily lives. Ecumenical weddings and marriages indeed became easier recently in the national or local context in many parts of Europe; some people, however, are not aware of any changes. As a general rule, there is an agreement between the denominations, and some people even feel that there is no problem any more in this field. What does remain problematic is the pastoral care of the ecumenical and interchurch families, including the denomination of the children, but fortunately the atmosphere became more ecumenical in recent years. For some, there is no such thing as an ecumenical wedding, since the couple has to be registered in one of the churches. Ecumenical services have become a widespread practice. In worships and liturgies, congregations pray together for one another and for Christian unity. These are the means to move towards the goal of Eucharistic fellowship among the members of the Body of Christ (ChŒ: 5).
C. Sacraments: Peak and Foundation
3. Healing and Solidarity in Church and Society
The sacraments are the peak and foundation of congregational life. There are some general solutions for sharing the Eucharist among members of different denominations, like pastoral reasons, ecumenical weddings and marriages, confirmation services, requiem masses and funeral services, ecumenical conferences or even covenanted Eucharist. There can be occasional solutions as well, but for the majority of people such solutions are missing. In most Protestant churches, though, there is a general invitation and the Eucharist is open to all Christians. Most people participate in the Eucharist when in the church of another denomination, especially in Western Europe. On the other hand, especially in Central and Eastern Europe many people never participate on such occasions. Others take part rarely or only occasionally, when it is allowed,
The expectation of secular society towards the denominations’ ecumenical attitude is usually indifferent or open to ecumenism; only a few feel hostility around them. Movements, culture and solidarity constitute the common means and responsibilities of churches concerning society, political and economic issues on a local, national and international level. The movements and institutions make ecumenical activities visible in society, outside the church buildings. The most well-known are the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), Student Christian Movements (SCMs), Ecumenical Youth Council in Europe (EYCE), International Ecumenical Fellowship (IEF), International Young Catholic Students and International Movement of Catholic Students (JECI-MIEC), World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth (Syndesmos), Taizé community, Focolare
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movement, Groupe des Dombes, Pax Christi, Inter-Church Aid, Christian Aid, Caritas and Diakonia. Ecumenical centres and institutes, such as the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE), and the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI), are also very important. These institutions make it possible for us all to tell about the joy of being in the ecumenical movement. Ecumenism penetrates the field of culture as well: through joint appearances in the media, television and radio broadcasts; exhibitions and Christian cinema festivals, lectures, art; meetings and conferences, excursions, travels and visits; scouts, youth gatherings and movements, Bible studies and Bible Society events, Advent and Lent lectures, Alpha courses; seminars, ecumenical talks and discussion panels, homilies and sermons, pastoral projects, mission and evangelism; publications, newsletters, journals and books, ecumenical bookshops; university diplomas on ecumenism, ecumenical training for ministry in the theological faculties, and our whole way of living. Finally, society encounters the ecumenical movement in the field of solidarity (social work and political action): through communication, information sharing and joint educational programmes; joint industrial and higher educational missions; in diakonia, charity and humanitarian work, prison, army, airport and hospital chaplaincies; in service to elderly homes and schools, and telephone and railway station pastoral care in area partnerships; joint councils and village projects. Christian voices unite to raise awareness of Gospel values and take stands against injustice, while working for justice, fair trade and human rights (also in the pro-life movement), through demonstrations and joint protests (against war or torture, deportation of refugees and asylum-seekers, or shops being open on Sundays), as in Jubilee 2000 or during the times of elections, or even through participation in political parties. At the European level, solidarity means an insistence on respect for life, the value of marriage and family, the preferential option for the poor, the readiness to forgive, in all things bearing in mind compassion. Interreligious dialogue also exists on our continent: through common activities and multireligious meetings with Jews, Muslims, people of other faiths and all people of goodwill, we are to strengthen our community with 115
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Judaism (ChŒ: 10), to cultivate good and deep relations with Islam (ChŒ: 11), and to encounter other religions and world-views in a genuine way (ChŒ: 12). This is how we as the ecumenical movement can participate in the building of Europe (ChŒ: 7). II. Faith, Peace and Healing 1. Levels of Ecumenical Engagement
When people were asked to prioritise their personal levels of ecumenical engagement, the following order emerged: official or unofficial meeting among members of different churches, personal prayers for unity, participating in common worship, attending worship services of other Christians, doing diakonia or social work together with Christians from other churches, becoming a member of an ecumenical group, and discussing agreed statements or other theological publications. Some think that all seven activities listed are important, although not everyone has the opportunity or ability to carry them out; but personal prayer for unity is attainable for everyone. Above and beyond the personal level, though, the results of the survey point to several other concrete steps which can be taken by the Christian community at all levels to further our ecumenical understanding. At the educational level, it is heartening to see that some countries have their own ecumenical catechisms already; but on the other hand, there is in general a lot of uncertainty and taciturnity regarding other denominations. The education of ministers and post-ordination training does not emphasize the ecumenical attitude in a proper way. It is essential that something should happen at the international level so that young people are soundly taught, but also listened to. The Conference of European Churches and the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences should work on an ecumenical catechism for the whole of Europe, and an ecumenical school book on church history should be written, alongside a children’s book on the differences between the denominations. At the level of local congregations, some ministers do give sufficient support and encouragement to their faithful in the field of ecumenism, but others are more reserved or even completely silent on this point. It is 116
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important to make unity a more central concern through greater enthusiasm, even though sometimes it is the congregation itself which is less ecumenical. Ministers should invite people to ecumenical services and Bible studies, to cooperate in teaching and catechesis; they should propagate ecumenical events, aid projects and cultural associations; they should build community, sharing good examples, having interchange of pulpits, guest invitations in catechesis and guest speakers, including ecumenism as a frequent topic in sermons, encouraging ecumenical discussion groups, living out ecumenism in visits and personal contacts. We all should pray that the Holy Spirit enlighten our theologians and church leaders to build community and to find ways to unity. At the societal level, we should get involved and engage in joint projects, proposing initiatives ourselves, giving time and effort to each other and to our common concerns. As Christians, as lay people, as ministers, intellectuals or concerned people, we should create opportunities for many joint actions, going out into the world and speaking up, upholding the vision of where we are going. We are called to give our gifts together and share the world’s problems, being living examples ourselves. In general, people need more action and less advice. We should work for structures of peace, based on the non-violent resolution of conflicts, and adopt a quality of life informed by accountability and sustainability. This will be our common witness and Christian presence in society, safeguarding creation (ChŒ: 9) and reconciling peoples and cultures (ChŒ: 8). 2. Globalising Dialogue
We have gathered and evaluated the results of the survey on the ecumenical condition in Europe. What emerges from the opinions on the challenges for theological dialogue, congregational life and Christian presence in society is a need for a clearer understanding on how dialogue works among people, and among God and God’s community. The way of dialogue begins with emptying-out (kenosis),4 becoming good-hearted as children and leaving burdens and prejudices behind. We should evoke our benevolence to enable the hermeneutics of goodwill to 4
See Nagypál, Szabolcs, “The Ministry of Reconciliation through Kenosis,” Mozaik 2003/1. 8-10.
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work among us. Charta Œcumenica puts it plainly: “Endeavours to reach a consensus in faith must be continued at all cost. There is no alternative to dialogue” (ChŒ: 6). The process of dialogue entails listening and getting to know each other, being courageous and encouraging, forming and shaping opinions, all the while being open to opportunities and change in an atmosphere of love, tolerance, acceptance and often appreciation of differences, through communication and understanding. We are called to maintain an informed interest, being self-critical, putting away our pride, rewriting our selfdefinition and re-interpreting our identity. As a result, the conversion of heart is inevitable, which leads to the conversion of the churches.5 We should do as many things together as possible, stressing what we can share with each other. It should be natural for denominations to work together. Charta Œcumenica contains a new formulation of the well-known golden rule of ecumenism: “We commit ourselves to act together at all levels of church life, wherever conditions permit, and there are no reasons of faith or overriding expediency mitigating against this” (ChŒ: 4). The teaching and living of Gospel values in our lives is essential. We must build our unity every day and every hour, but also live out common-sense ecumenism under the signs of unity. We should pray with our whole life. In our prayers we should not give up hope, but stay positive. We must keep our faith steadfastly in full and visible unity. Unity is the work of the Holy Spirit, and is according to the will of Jesus Christ. We should love each other as Jesus Christ loved us (to inspire amazement about how much we love each other), uniting our voices in dialogue to rediscover the common essence of our faith. We all have to advance the ecumenical process in these fields, because following Jesus Christ is a process, not a state. An unselfish cooperation and coexistence leads to convivence, where we make personal contacts and even friends across denominational barriers, building community and communion.
5
See Groupe des Dombes, Pour la conversion des Eglises. Paris, 1991. 118
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3. Enlightenment and Resurrection
Finally, let us summarise our emerging vision on the unity of the Church by having a look at the actors in the story of Jairus’ daughter and the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak (Mark 5: 21-43). During this course of events, masses of people, experts, disciples, a woman and a father of faith are assembling around Jesus. Masses usually just crowd in from every side in a pushy way; or they create confusion, crying loudly and wailing, or simply making fun of others. It does not take long for them to begin making fun in this instance, soon after they were just mourning. The crowd is forced to leave the place where the miracle happens; only the main disciples remain present, along with the parents. These are the same disciples who witness the transfiguration. The disciples do not understand their Master, but at least they do not hinder the mission of Jesus. The bleeding woman had been treated by many doctors and experts and had spent all her money, but instead of getting better, she got worse all the time. She enters the crowd behind Jesus: her touch is quite different than the pushing of the crowd. The power is with Jesus, who surprises the crowd with His question: “Who touched me?” He is searching for the individual, the personality, who is really present – who indeed initiates a dialogue. The woman is healed both by the word and the touch. By his question, Jesus addresses and overcomes a taboo, turning to an unclean and untouchable person. A personal encounter with Jesus is not enough: in our dialogue, we are to confess our sins, make plain our faith, and enliven a mystery. The woman tells the whole truth, and her faith makes her well; she walks in peace, and is healed from her trouble. Sometimes we must fight for our own case, and to silently touch the edge of the garment of Jesus. At other times, it is the duty of someone else to bring our case in front of Jesus, especially if we are ill or on the verge of death. The name of Jairus is from the Hebrew words “enlightenment” and “resurrection.” We should act for each other as parents act for their only child who is about to die. The few minutes “wasted” for the bleeding woman are enough for the other woman to die. Jesus does not prioritise duties in the way we would do, but his preferential option opens the way for a greater miracle to 119
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happen. Kenosis means that we should die in order to be resurrected, to attain a kind of death, which seems a hopeless condition for humans, but for God it is only a sleep. Our responsibility as ecumenical Christians is not to recognise that our cause is dead; but to make sure and believe that the present state of division is only a sleep. Such a death can become the door to resurrection and enlightenment, as well as kenotic dialogue serves as the way to genuine unity and reconciliation. This is the method of faith, which makes us well, to go in peace, and be healed from our trouble.
BIBLIOGRAPHY - CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN CHURCHES (CEC), Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE), Charta Œcumenica. Guidelines for the Growing Cooperation among the Churches in Europe. Strasbourg, 2001. http://www.cec-kek.org/English/ChartafinE.htm. - DE SANTA ANA, JULIO , “The Ecumenical Movement at the Crossroads,” Student World 2003/1. 11–23. - GROUPE DES DOMBES, Pour la conversion des Eglises. Paris, 1991. - KOLONITS, VERONIKA, & SZABOLCS NAGYPÁL, Survey on the Ecumenical Condition in Europe. Budapest, 2004. - NAGYPÁL, SZABOLCS, “The Ministry of Reconciliation through Kenosis,” Mozaik 2003/1. 8–10. 120
Deus Loquens: La Otredad en los Espacios Públicos y Privados, Jesús y la Samaritana REGINA MUSSELMAN-PÉREZ Brasil/Mexico
Introducción
Al acercarnos al discurso con la samaritana (Jn 4: 4-26), la mayoría de los estudiosos tienden a centrarse en su vida pecaminosa y engañosa.1 Por lo tanto, no debiera sorprendernos que para el tercer domingo de cuaresma del Año a, los leccionarios romano y protestantes propongan la lectura sólo hasta el verso 26, prescindiendo especialmente de los versos 39-42, los cuales señalan el clímax en la narración de Samaria: la fe en Jesús, de un grupo condenado al ostracismo religioso (Sloyan 1988: 50-51). No obstante, desde la hermenéutica bíblica feminista han surgido trabajos que identifican a la samaritana como discípula misionera en su pueblo.2 En este ensayo me aproximaré al tema desde la teología dialógica del YO-TÚ, en donde se celebra la otredad en lugar de negarla, siguiendo el modelo del nudo dialógico de las relaciones de la Divina Trinidad. Dios desde el principio se revela como “el Dios-hacia-el-humano,” el Dios cercano y vulnerable; de igual manera, el ser humano siempre es “el humano-a-partir-de-Dios,” siendo esta doble relación no una doctrina sino un acontecimiento histórico (Brunner 1967: 115). Buber (1960: 11-16) hace la distinción entre el conocimiento de Dios (YO–ETERNO TÚ), de las personas (YO–TÚ) y el de las cosas (YO–ELLO). Para este judío vienés, a las personas se les conoce a través del trato, de una relación directa con el TÚ, la cual significa elegir y ser elegido; es un encuentro a la vez activo y pasivo. El ser humano sólo se realiza al contacto con el TÚ. Analizaré el desarrollo de la relación YO–ETERNO TÚ, entre la discípula samaritana, representante de la nueva comunidad de fe joánica, y Jesús. En todo ello el Deus loquens, el Dios parlante, será el hilo conductor. Geografía, Historicidad e Intertextualidad
La perícopa de Juan 4: 4-26 se desarrolla en Sicar, situada entre los montes Gerizim y Ebal, en Samaria, una región palestina entre Judea y 1 2
Brown (1966: 177), Lagrange (1948: 110-111) y Bernard (1929: 143-144). Schüssler Fiorenza (1983: 327-328), Collins (1976:38), Schneiders (1991: 188-189), Reinhartz (1994: 573), Scott (1992: 192), Culpepper (1983: 137), O´Day (1992: 296) y Stibbe (1993: 67). 122
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Galilea. Al considerar la historicidad del texto, los evangelios sinópticos no tienen ningún pasaje en común que mencione a Samaria. Al comparar los tres evangelios, en la perícopa de la misión de los 12, sólo Mateo hace referencia a Samaria. Sin embargo, el más interesado en Samaria es Lucas, al incluir tres perícopas sin paralelo, dos de las cuales presentan a un personaje samaritano como discípulo modelo: el samaritano misericordioso (10: 25-37) y el samaritano leproso agradecido (17: 11-19). La tercera ofrece una imagen negativa de los samaritanos (9: 5156), como malos huéspedes. En contraste, el evangelista joánico es el único de los evangelios que incluye el discurso extenso con la samaritana; por lo que se destaca sin corroboración en el resto del Nuevo Testamento. Ya en Jn 8: 48, los “judíos” etiquetan a Jesús como “samaritano que tiene un demonio,” en una actitud de exclusión. El argumento más insolente en contra de su historicidad es el escepticismo de Brown de que una samaritana fuera capaz de comprender siquiera las ideas más básicas del discurso (1966: 176), comentario muy en línea con el pensamiento judío de la época: los samaritanos eran ignorantes e inferiores, y peor aún una mujer samaritana. No obstante, el mismo Brown reconoce que el evangelista intencionalmente demuestra extenso conocimiento local de la cultura y creencias de los samaritanos: el pozo al pie del monte Gerizim, la pregunta acerca de la pureza ritual (v. 9), la defensa tenaz del pozo patriarcal (v. 12), la creencia samaritana en el monte Gerizim y en el profeta como Moisés (1966: 175). Además, el diálogo posterior con los discípulos tiene paralelos sinópticos (Mt 9: 37-38; Lc 10: 1-2) respecto al tema de la cosecha y de los trabajadores. Por otra parte, podemos distinguir dos niveles en el discurso: 1) la historia en el texto, central y referente al Jesús histórico, y 2) la historia del texto, en relación con la comunidad joánica y su interpretación del nivel medular. Todos estos factores contribuyen a la consideración de un núcleo histórico detrás de este diálogo. Varios críticos interpretan la referencia “tenía que pasar por Samaria,” como una indicación simplemente topográfica. El mismo historiador Josefo3 señalaba este camino como el más usado por los peregrinos galileos del tiempo. Sin embargo, León-Dufour (1997: 270-271) argumenta que como Jesús parte no de Jerusalén sino más bien de Enón, junto al Jordán (3: 23), el camino más corto sería por el valle del Jordán. Además, el verbo edei, “tenía que”, trae consigo un motivo de orden teológico, típicamente joánico (3: 14, 30; 9: 4; 10: 16; 12: 34; 20: 9): la 3
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exigencia geográfica es de carácter soteriológico inclusivo; Jesús intencionalmente extiende su misión hacia Samaria. Género Literario, Estructura y Análisis Composicional
El discurso con la samaritana en el pozo de Jacob presenta una secuencia de género biográfico incluido en el Libro de los Signos, parte II: “De Caná a Caná.” LeónDufour (1997: 269, 272-273) señala que la perícopa en estudio no se limita a un mero acontecimiento, ni debe interpretarse alegóricamente. Debajo del relato de apariencia biográfica es necesario rescatar el sentido profundo y simbólico, al igual que el de la boda de Caná. Brown (1966: 176-185), siguiendo a Roustand, considera que el evangelista ha tomado el material tradicional, y mediante varias técnicas dramáticas, lo ha convertido en un majestuoso escenario teológico, en dos actos: 1) El diálogo con la mujer samaritana (4: 4-26 [y 2]) El diálogo con los discípulos (4: 27-42). Incluimos el que concierne. PRIMER ACTO: EL DIÁLOGO CON LA MUJER SAMARITANA 4-6a 6b-15 7-10
11-15:
16-26
19-26
(4: 4-26)
Introducción al contexto Acto 1a: El agua viva Diálogo 1: Introducción del tema del agua viva y las pretensiones de Jesús 7: Jesús pide agua a la Samaritana; viola las normas sociales. 9: La mujer se burla de Jesús; la necesidad tiene prioridad sobre las costumbres. 10: Jesús demuestra la verdadera razón de su acción; no se debe a su necesidad ni su inferioridad, sino a su superioridad. Desafío en 2 partes: 1. Si reconociera al que le habla 2. le pediría agua viva Diálogo 2: Nivel terrenal vs. nivel eternal 11-12: La mujer malinterpreta el agua a nivel terrenal; Jesús es inferior a Jacob. 13-14: Jesús aclara, habla de agua celestial de la vida eterna. 15: Mujer intrigada, PIDE AGUA: se cumple 1ª parte del desafío. Aún no reconoce quién es Jesús. Sigue a nivel terrenal. Acto 1b: Verdadero culto al Padre 16-18 Diálogo 1: Momento decisivo, ¿aceptará la luz? 16: Jesús toma la iniciativa; hace referencia sobre su vida personal. 17: La mujer reacciona con respuesta ambigua. 18: Jesús pone al descubierto sus hechos. Diálogo 2: La mujer se vuelve a la luz 19-20: La mujer mira la luz, cambia de tema: la adoración. 21-24: Jesús explica acerca del verdadero culto. 25-26: Mujer RECONOCE QUIÉN ES JESÚS: se cumple 2ª parte del desafío. Jesús lo afirma: Egó eimí, YO SOY.
The Works of Josephus. “The Antiquities of the Jews” XX, vi.1. 419, traducido por William Whiston, 1980.
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La estructura que proponemos permite un mejor análisis desde la teología dialógica del YO–ETERNO TÚ. Es un complejo tejido de diálogo y narración, intercalado por acertijos,4 muy característico del cuarto evangelio, además de ser uno de los diálogos más largos (O´Day 1994: 564-565). Se divide en cuatro intercambios que se apoyan en marcos narrativos. Tanto Jesús como la mujer samaritana intervienen en una conversación de “TÚ-a-tú.” Thatcher clasifica los acertijos del Evangelio en cuatro categorías: dramáticos, misiológicos, salva-pellejos (o salva-pescuezos) y salvíficos (2000: 210-211). Las dos últimas se aplican a la perícopa en estudio. INTRODUCCIÓN - MARCO DE ACCIÓN:
4: 4-7A
INTERCAMBIO 1 ESPACIO PÚBLICO: EL POZO DE JACOB 1. Jesús inicia el turno. Acertijo salvífico de consumo: agua como necesidad vital. 2. Mujer samaritana: Denuncia muros de exclusión: etnia y género. 3. Jesús ofrece su carta de presentación: Él como don de Dios.
4: 7B-10
INTERCAMBIO 2 ESPACIO PÚBLICO: EL POZO DE JACOB 4: 11-15 1. La mujer samaritana inicia el turno. Tema: cuestiona sus credenciales. 2. Jesús ofrece pistas capciosas en la solución de los acertijos: cualidades del agua viva. 3. La mujer samaritana interpreta el agua viva literalmente. INTERCAMBIO 3 ESPACIO PRIVADO: VIDA PERSONAL 1. Jesús inicia el turno. Tema: vida personal de la mujer. 2. La mujer samaritana esquiva el tema con una negación. 3. Jesús la confronta.
4: 16-18
INTERCAMBIO 4 ESPACIO PRIVADO ➨ PÚBLICO: LUGAR DE ADORACIÓN 4: 19-26 1. La mujer samaritana inicia el turno.Cambio de turno: Acertijo salva-pellejos- el lugar apropiado de adoración. 2. Jesús convierte el espacio privado en público: el lugar de adoración es abierto. 3. La mujer samaritana expresa conocimiento de la venida del Mesías. 4. Jesús finalmente revela la respuesta al acertijo inicial: YO SOY.
Los intercambios oscilan entre el espacio público y el privado, y se 4
Acertijos son unidades del lenguaje concisas que intencionalmente ocultan y al mismo tiempo revelan su referente con un conjunto de signos. Este micro-género literario cautiva a un grupo marginado y heterodoxo como la comunidad joánica, pues sirve como “anti-lenguaje” para establecer los límites ideológicos entre ellos y el judaísmo ortodoxo (Thatcher 2000: 179-181).
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da un forcejeo entre la exclusión y la inclusión. En el mundo mediterráneo oriental, los espacios públicos comprendían lugares abiertos o fuera del hogar, considerados adecuados para los hombres, mientras que los espacios privados se limitaban a lugares interiores, relacionados con el círculo familiar, más propios de mujeres. No obstante, Malina y Rohrbaugh reconocen que entre la no-élite, era más probable que las mujeres interactuaran con hombres en situaciones de trabajo o comercio (1998: 104-105). INTERCAMBIO 1 ESPACIO PÚBLICO: EL POZO DE JACOB 4: 7b-10 JESÚS: – Dame de beber. (pues sus discípulos habían ido a la ciudad a comprar alimentos) SAMARITANA: – ¿Cómo usted, siendo judío, me pide a mí de beber, que soy mujer samaritana? (porque los judíos y samaritanos no se tratan entre sí) JESÚS: – Si conocieras el don de Dios, y quién es el que te dice: “Dame de beber,” tú le pedirías, y él te daría agua viva. INTERCAMBIO 2 ESPACIO PÚBLICO: EL POZO DE JACOB 4: 11-15 SAMARITANA: – Señor, no tiene con qué sacarla, y el pozo es hondo. ¿De dónde, pues, tiene el agua viva? ¿Acaso es usted mayor que nuestro padre Jacob, que nos dio este pozo, del cual bebieron él, sus hijos y sus ganados? JESÚS: – Cualquiera que beba de esta agua volverá a tener sed; pero el que beba del agua que yo le daré no tendrá sed jamás, sino que el agua que yo le daré será en él una fuente de agua que salte para vida eterna. SAMARITANA: – Señor, déme esa agua, para que no tenga yo sed ni venga aquí a sacarla. INTERCAMBIO 3 ESPACIO PRIVADO: VIDA PERSONAL 4: 16-18 JESÚS: – Ve, llama a tu marido, y ven acá. SAMARITANA: – No tengo marido. JESÚS: – Bien has dicho: “No tengo marido,” porque cinco maridos has tenido y el que ahora tienes no es tu marido. Esto has dicho con verdad. INTERCAMBIO 4 ESPACIO PRIVADO ➨ PÚBLICO: LUGAR DE ADORACIÓN 4: 19-26 SAMARITANA: – Señor, me parece que usted es profeta. Nuestros padres adoraron en este monte, pero vosotros decís que en Jerusalén es el lugar donde se debe adorar. JESÚS: – Señora5 , créeme que la hora viene cuando ni en este monte ni en Jerusalén adoraréis al Padre. Vosotros adoráis lo que no sabéis; nosotros adoramos lo que sabemos, porque la salvación viene de los judíos. Pero la hora viene, y ahora es, cuando los verdaderos adoradores adorarán al Padre en espíritu y en verdad, porque también el Padre tales adoradores busca que lo adoren. Dios es Espíritu, y los que lo adoran, en espíritu y en verdad es necesario que lo adoren. 5
Título de cortesía y respeto equivalente al de “Mujer” en la cultura judía del primer siglo de la EC. 126
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– Sé que ha de venir el Mesías, llamado el Cristo; cuando él venga nos declarará todas las cosas. – YO SOY, el que habla contigo.
El primer intercambio 6 (7-10) transcurre en un espacio público, el pozo de Jacob, a la hora sexta, la más calurosa del día, hora inusual para que las mujeres acarrearan agua.7 Jesús, judío y varón, se dirige a una mujer, a una samaritana, en un espacio público. En lugar de iniciar el intercambio con una fórmula clásica, “Dame un poco de agua,” 8 Jesús no pierde la ocasión para lanzar un acertijo salvífico de consumo, una petición muy directa, sin mitigación ni cortesía: Dós moi pein,9 “Dame de beber,” la cual se encuentra solamente en el contexto de las quejas de los hebreos en el desierto (Ex 17: 2, Nm 21: 16). El narrador presenta a Jesús vulnerable: un hombre con necesidades vitales humanas (León-Dufour 1997: 279), como el profeta Elías (1 R 17: 10-11), que pueden ser suplidas de manos de una mujer. Al colocarse en el nivel de la necesidad corporal, en una situación de dependencia, Jesús afirma la igualdad, suprime la discriminación y dignifica a la mujer (Mateos y Barreto 1992: 235). El paréntesis explicativo, la ausencia de los discípulos, sirve para justificar la petición. Sin embargo, el acertijo de consumo apunta hacia un sentido profundo, que Jesús desarrolla en mayor detalle en el verso 10. La respuesta de la samaritana toma la forma de un reproche, puesto que él ha violado dos normas sociales: los hombres no hablan con mujeres y, los judíos no comparten las mismas vasijas. Su réplica denuncia dos muros de exclusión: el género y la etnia. Como judío y varón, Jesús está excluido de su grupo. Esta vez, el paréntesis explicativo está dirigido a la comunidad joánica mayormente gentil, al señalar que los judíos no sugxrontai, es decir, no usan
6
Véase el diálogo arriba. He incorporado la diferenciación tú-usted, propia del español en relaciones asimétricas, para señalar más claramente la relación dialógica entre los interlocutores. En relaciones asimétricas, el hablante “inferior” utiliza estrategias de respeto, como los títulos (Kúrie, “Señor”) o el uso de “usted” en deferencia al hablante “superior”, hablando hacia arriba, mientras que el hablante “superior” se sirve de estrategias más directas, sin mitigación, hablando hacia abajo (Musselman 2000: 143; Scollon y Scollon 1983). 7 El pozo se convierte en espacio privado al estar rodeado de mujeres a la hora acostumbrada para sacar agua, en la frescura de la mañana o al caer la tarde (Malina y Rohbaugh 1998:98). Cf. Gn 24: 11 y I S 9: 11. 8 Según los Setenta: Gn 24: 17, 43; Jue 4: 19. 9 El uso del aoristo en imperativo, menos frecuente en el Nuevo Testamento, sirve para enfatizar una acción puntual, exacta, en este caso, la petición de agua, en lugar de una acción iterativa o durativa en presente (Blass y Debrunner 1961: 172). 127
vasijas en común con los samaritanos.10 A mediados del primer siglo (65 o 66 EC), los fariseos intensificaron las normas de pureza ritual al tratar con los samaritanos: “Las hijas de los samaritanos son menstruantes desde la cuna” (M Nid IV.1 en Olsson 1974: 154). Por lo tanto, estaba estrictamente prohibido que un judío usara una vasija perteneciente a una mujer samaritana. En el v. 10, Jesús, el platicador, desarrolla el acertijo salvífico en forma de oración condicional de tipo contrario a los hechos, en dos partes, prótasis, que incluye el condicional sí, y apódosis: 1. Si conocieras el don de Dios, y quién es el que te dice: “Dame de beber” (prótasis en presente). 2. Tú le habrías pedido, y él te hubiera dado agua viva (apódosis en pasado). La primera parte tiene implicaciones en el presente: “Si conocieras ahora” ➨ “No conoces”; contiene un paralelo sinonímico, frecuente en los Salmos. El don de Dios tiene su explicación en el kai (y) epexegético que sigue: es precisamente el hecho de que él le dirige la palabra, el logos, que él le hable, ó logon soi, a pesar de las normas prohibitivas (van den Bussche 1967: 187, en Miranda 1977: 116-117). La revelación de Jesús como “el que habla” llega a su culminación en el verso 26. En la segunda parte, la implicación está en el pasado: “Le habrías pedido” ➨ “No le pediste”; “Te hubiera dado” ➨ “No te dio” (Payne 1961: 101). En el segundo intercambio, la mujer samaritana toma la iniciativa, al cuestionar la identidad de Jesús (v. 12): “¿Quién se cree”? Encontramos la misma actitud en un texto paralelo, en 8: 48-59, donde los judíos primero llaman a Jesús samaritano y le acusan de tener demonio, en reacción a su declaración: “Ustedes son de su padre, el diablo.” En seguida le cuestionan su identidad (v. 53). La diferencia está en que la samaritana menciona a Jacob como el padre de los samaritanos, y posteriormente acepta la revelación de Jesús como el Mesías (v. 29), mientras que los judíos consideran a Abraham como su padre e intentan apedrear a Jesús (v. 59). En respuesta a la samaritana, Jesús se sirve de un simbolismo compartido por judíos y samaritanos, el agua viva. Las Escrituras tanto de los judíos como de los samaritanos consideraban el agua viva o la fuente como un medio de purificación. Un texto samaritano 10
Traducción sugerida de Daube (1950: 137-147), y seguida por Brown (1966: 170), Barrett (1955) y Olsson 1974: 154), al considerar que el dativo en la frase sea regido por el sún del verbo, e interpretar un objeto. La traducción tradicional, “no tienen trato con” contradice el v. 8: “pues sus discípulos habían ido a la ciudad a comprar alimentos,” el cual menciona un trato comercial. Este verso sirve de evidencia interna a la propuesta de Daube. 128
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identifica el agua con la Ley: (La Ley) es un pozo de agua excavado por un profeta de tal categoría como no ha surgido nunca nadie desde Adán; el agua que allí hay procede de la boca de la divinidad…¡Bebamos de las aguas que hay en los pozos! Su bocaes como el Éufrates, que mana aguas vivas para saciar la sed de todo el que beba en ellas (Memar Marqah 6,3, teólogo del siglo IV, citado en León-Dufour 1997: 285).
Jesús el hablante le ofrece pistas capciosas en la solución del acertijo: tres cualidades del agua viva: sacia eternamente, se convierte en una fuente que brota en el consumidor y, hasta la vida eterna (v. 14). La preposición hasta no designa el punto de llegada, el fin último de la fuente, sino un modo de existir nuevo, permanente e inmediato que conduce a la vida eterna. Según la actualización joánica de la escatología, no se trata de una realidad posterior a la muerte, sino que es efectiva desde que el ser humano cree en la palabra del Revelador (León-Dufour 1997: 284; Jn 3: 16). En un texto paralelo (7: 37-38), Jesús vuelve a ofrecerse como la fuente abundante que sacia la sed (Cf. Is 55: 1, 58: 11; Sal 78: 15-16, 105: 41; Ap 21: 6, 22: 17). El verso 39 nos ofrece la explicación del acertijo: hablaba del Espíritu que recibirían los que creyeran en él. De acuerdo con Brown (1966: 179) y McCool (1962: 226-233), no hay conflicto en aceptar ambas interpretaciones del agua viva: la revelación o enseñanza de Jesús y el Espíritu comunicado por Jesús, siendo que el Espíritu de verdad es el agente que interpreta y continúa la revelación o enseñanza de Jesús al ser humano (Jn 14: 26, 16: 13-15). Brown considera la posibilidad de una interpretación bautismal. Uno de los símbolos cristianos primitivos asociado con el bautismo es el ciervo que bebe de las corrientes de las aguas (Sal 42: 1). De hecho, la escena de la samaritana y Jesús en el pozo surge en el arte antiguo de las catacumbas como un símbolo del bautismo11 (Niewalda 1958: 126, en Brown 1966: 180). Sin embargo, la samaritana, como Nicodemo (3: 4) razona con un conocimiento natural, e interpreta el agua viva literalmente, para saciar su necesidad vital física. En el tercer intercambio, Jesús inicia el turno de habla penetrando el espacio privado: “Ve y llama a tu marido.” Resalta la ironía en esa petición: en el intercambio anterior, la mujer desea el agua viva para no tener que regresar al pozo; sin embargo, es precisamente lo que Jesús le pide: “Ve, llama a tu marido, y ven acá.” La mención del estatus civil de la samaritana 11
Cf. el arte de la “Catacumba de la Vía Latina,” (http://www.iconsexplained.com/iec/iec_idb3r.htm [http://www.stanthonyshrine.org/graphics/X_Samaritan_woman.gif]).
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tiene como propósito arrojar luz sobre la persona de Jesús como conocedor del corazón humano. (O´Day 1986: 66). La samaritana esquiva el tema con una negación, pero Jesús la confronta, mediante una afirmación y expansión: “Bien has dicho: ‘No tengo marido,’ porque cinco maridos, has tenido y el que ahora tienes no es tu marido. Esto has dicho con verdad.” Técnicamente, no era contrario a la ley Mosaica que una mujer se casara cinco veces. Sin embargo, los maestros judíos prohibían que una mujer se casara más de dos veces —o máximo tres. Esta mujer pudo haber tenido una serie de divorcios y ahora vivía con un hombre fuera del matrimonio (Beasley-Murray 1989: 61). O más bien, es posible que se le haya aplicado la ley del levirato (Gn 38; Dt 25: 5–10; Rt 4), del latín levir, “cuñado.” Esta ley estaba destinada a impedir que el patrimonio familiar cayera en poder de una persona ajena a la familia. De acuerdo con la ley, si dos hermanos comparten el mismo techo y uno de ellos muere sin dejar ningún hijo, la viuda no podrá casarse con ningún hombre de otra familia. El hermano de su marido deberá tomarla por esposa, y así cumplir con ella su deber de cuñado. El primer hijo que ella dé a luz llevará el nombre del hermano muerto, con el fin de que su nombre no desaparezca de Israel (Dt 25: 5-6).
Los evangelios sinópticos hacen referencia a la ley del levirato cuando los saduceos buscan ponerle una trampa a Jesús en lo tocante al tema de la resurrección de los muertos (Mt 22: 24; Mc 12: 19; Lc 20: 28). Citando a Moisés, le proponen una parábola sobre la viuda y sus siete maridos, seis de ellos sus cuñados que cumplen la ley del levirato. Según Belkin (1970: 293), los rabinos valoraban la institución debido a que protegía a la viuda y ayudaba a compensar a la familia por la pérdida sufrida. Asimismo, Niditch (1979: 149) considera que los rabinos tenían la perspectiva bíblica del matrimonio de levirato como una institución socialmente beneficial. A la mujer le estaba permitido desempeñar sólo dos papeles apropiados: el de virgen soltera en la casa de su padre, o el de esposa engendradora en la casa de su esposo o de la familia de su esposo. Mediante el levirato, la sociedad evitaba tener personas consideradas sociológicamente inadaptadas, es decir, las viudas jóvenes sin hijos. De esta forma, el levirato no sólo continuaba la línea del difunto, sino que reafirmaba el lugar de la viuda en el hogar de la familia de su esposo (Kalmin 1992, 1997). 130
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Algunos comentaristas12 han interpretado la mención de los cinco maridos como una alegoría, simbolizando los cinco dioses de las naciones que dominaron Samaria. Otros caracterizan la samaritana como prometida y novia del novio mesiánico a favor del pueblo samaritano,13 siguiendo las pautas de una escena-tipo de desposorio de la Biblia Hebrea (Gn 24: 10-61; 29: 1-10). Sin embargo, no se cumplen todos los elementos requeridos: no hay una escena de sacar agua y, sobre todo, el “novio” no se presenta en la casa de la familia para una comida, sino que son los conciudadanos de la samaritana los que llegan al pozo. Por otra parte, los versos 29 y 39 sirven de evidencia interna para interpretar la confrontación de Jesús como parte de su revelación a la samaritana: “Venid, ved a un hombre que me ha dicho todo cuanto he hecho.” El objetivo del evangelista es presentar a Jesús como conocedor de lo que está en el interior de los corazones. Como en el encuentro con Natanael (1: 47-48), para reconocer quién es Jesús, es necesario que primero Jesús conozca lo que está en el interior de cada persona (2: 25; 6: 61-64). Este punto refleja la historia de las tradiciones, en el relato de la unción de David por parte de Samuel, en las palabras de Jehová: “No mires a su parecer, ni a lo grande de su estatura, porque yo lo desecho; porque Jehová no mira lo que miran las personas, pues el ser humano mira lo que está delante de sus ojos, pero Jehová mira el corazón” (I S 16: 7). El punto central no es pureza moral sino la preparación para recibir a Jesús como el que escudriña el ser interior. El pasaje de Lc 7: 39-50 ilustra la relación entre Jesús, el revelador o profeta, y Jesús, el don de Dios, el salvador. En respuesta a la confrontación de Jesús, la samaritana inicia el cuarto intercambio mediante un acertijo salva-pellejos,14 el cual le permite desviar el tema incómodo acerca de su vida personal a otro más general: “Nuestros padres adoraron en este monte, pero vosotros decís que en Jerusalén es el lugar donde se debe adorar.” Ella presenta el acertijo como una prueba para seguir cuestionando la identidad de Jesús: “Me parece que es profeta” concretamente implica, “si usted realmente es profeta, resuélvame esta
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controversia: ¿dónde se debe adorar, en Gerizim o en Jerusalén”? Éste era un tema de debate entre judíos y samaritanos. En la pregunta de la samaritana, vuelven a surgir los muros de exclusión iniciados en el verso 9: “nuestros padres,” los samaritanos y, “vosotros decís,” los judíos. Los samaritanos creían que el Ta´eb, “el que ha de volver,” restauraría el templo en el monte Gerizim, destruyendo el de Jerusalén (Zorilla 1981: 134).15 La expectativa samaritana de un Mesías (v. 25) se basaba en su conocimiento de Dt 18: 15-22 y otras referencias en el Pentateuco (Dods 1956: 729). Jesús continúa negando la alteridad samaritana: “Vosotros (los samaritanos) no sabéis” vs. “nosotros (los judíos) sí sabemos.” La respuesta de Jesús a la controversia aparentemente favorece a los judíos. No obstante, la restauración toma un giro totalmente distinto a partir del verso 23. La traducción de León-Dufour (1997: 292, 296) capta con mayor precisión el sentido de alla, “pero”: “¡Pero, sí! Llega la hora, y es ahora.” En este caso, la conjunción “pero” pierde su connotación adversativa y adquiere un valor de refuerzo.16 La hora prometida no sólo llega, sino que ha llegado ya. Según Mateos y Barreto, el evangelista anticipa en su relato los efectos de la muerte de Jesús, de la llegada de “su hora” (Jn 2: 4, 13: 1, 17: 1). Como en el episodio de Nicodemo (3: 3-5), la escena de Samaria “es el fruto de la muerte de Jesús, de tal forma que se une el tiempo del Jesús histórico con el de la comunidad joánica, la cual lee la vida de Jesús después de su muerte y resurrección, y ve en su actividad anterior la anticipación de la realidad que ella vive” (1992: 233-234, 243). Jesús surge como purificador y restaurador del verdadero culto, el cual no se limita a un lugar ni a cierto grupo privilegiado. El Nazareno no está afónico, sino que rompe las paredes excluyentes y convierte el espacio privado en público, para que todas las personas – mujeres, hombres, esclavos y niños – y todas las naciones – judíos y gentiles – oigan su voz. La perícopa llega a su punto culminante, con la proclamación de Jesús, Egó eimi, ó lalón soi, “Soy Yo, el que habla contigo,” la respuesta final al acertijo inicial. Según Newman y Nida (1980: 124), en el evangelio de Juan, Jesús usa el 15
12
Mateos y Barreto (1992: 238-241) y León-Dufour (1997: 288-289). 13 Botha (1990: 37-47), Duke (1985: 101-103), Fehribach (1998: 81-129), Fuchs (1987: 7-13) y Staley (1985: 98-103). 14 Los acertijos salva-pellejos o salva-pescuezos generalmente ocurren en puntos de crisis en la narración, donde el o la protagonista debe postular un acertijo sin resolución, o desentrañar uno que le sea dado para evitar la pena de muerte (Crenshaw 1976: 113-114). 131
La arqueología ha confirmado la existencia del antiguo templo en Gerizim , y según Bull (1968: 11-18, en LeónDufour 1997: 291), era visible desde el pozo de Jacob. El pronombre demostrativo en “este monte” (Jn 4: 20) sirve de evidencia interna, pues implica que el referente está próximo o visible. No era necesario mencionar el nombre del monte porque estaba allí cerca. 16 De acuerdo con Hernández Alonso (1984: 227) “pero deja de desempeñar su papel de conector cuando encabeza una oración y no hay un primer elemento que coordinar; entonces pero es pleonástico y enfático.” 132
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término Egó eimi de tres maneras distintas: 1) una simple afirmación de identidad (4: 26; 6: 20; 18: 5, [2]) seguida de un predicado nominativo (6: 35, 51; 8: 12; 10: 7, 9, 11, 14; 11: 25; 14: 6; 15: 1, 5, [y 3]) de manera absoluta sin predicado (8: 24, 28, 58; 13: 19). Por otra parte, Brown dedica todo un apéndice al uso joánico de Egó eimi (1966: 533-538) y distingue tres tipos: 1) absoluto sin predicado (8: 24, 28, 58; 13: 19, 2) con predicado implícito (6: 20; 18: 5 [y 3]) con predicado nominativo (6: 35, 51; 8: 12; 10: 7, 9, 11, 14; 11: 25; 14: 6; 15: 1, 5). Al comparar las dos propuestas, el punto decisivo para el verso 26 es el siguiente: ¿Es una simple afirmación de la identidad de Jesús, o es un uso absoluto sin necesidad de predicado? El texto paralelo de Is 52: 6 inclina la balanza hacia la segunda opción: “Por tanto, mi pueblo conocerá mi nombre en aquel día, porque yo mismo que hablo, he aquí estaré presente.” Dios no es un “infante” (del latín infant, incapaz de hablar).17 Lo significativo del pasaje es el uso del verbo “hablar,” en este caso, egó eimi autós ó lalón, traducido literalmente como “yo soy yo mismo el que habla.” Desde el inicio del evangelio y del diálogo entre la samaritana y Jesús, el redactor presenta al Jesús parlante: “y la Palabra (o El Verbo) era dirigida a Dios” (Miranda 1977: 121) y “el que te dice” (4: 10). Más adelante, Jesús se revela de manera similar al ciego de nacimiento: “– ¿Crees tú en el Hijo de Dios? Respondió él y dijo: – ¿Quién es, Señor, para que crea en él? Le dijo Jesús: – Pues lo has visto; el que habla contigo, ése es” (Jn 9: 37). Jesús no sólo declara ser el cumplimiento del esperado Mesías, sino además, la encarnación y revelación del Deus loquens, el Dios que habla, el que entra en una relación dialógica con el ser humano. En esta perícopa, el YO-TÚ se da a pesar de las barreras étnicas, morales y de género: “Dioshacia-el-humano” le habla a una mujer samaritana de conducta inestable. Como resultado de esa revelación profunda, la samaritana vuelve a su pueblo y se convierte en mensajera y misionera: “Vengan a ver a un hombre que me ha dicho todo lo que he hecho. ¿No será este el Mesías?” (Jn 4: 29). Consecuentemente, “muchos de los habitantes de aquel pueblo de Samaria creyeron en Jesús por lo que les había asegurado la mujer: ‘Me ha dicho todo lo que he hecho’” (Jn 4: 39). Conclusion
Al analizar la perícopa de Jn 4: 4-26, podemos observar una continuidad 17
Webster´s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1974, s.v.
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de los relatos en los capítulos dos y tres. Así como el signo en Caná conlleva un contraste entre el agua de la purificación judía y el vino del Reino proporcionado por Jesús, de igual manera el agua del pozo de Jacob se contrapone con el agua viva que Jesús ofrece. Tanto el vino de Caná como el agua viva en Samaria simbolizan el don de Dios, es decir, la vida y la palabra revelada en Jesús. No obstante, en lugar del signo como en Caná, el medio revelatorio es la Palabra, la relación con el otro/la otra. Por otra parte, así como la purificación del templo conlleva un contraste entre el templo viejo y el nuevo templo del cuerpo de Cristo, análogamente la adoración en Jerusalén y Gerizim queda suplantada por la adoración introducida por Jesús (Beasley-Murray 1989: 58-59), “en espíritu y en verdad.” El espacio para la adoración se vuelve público, sin muros divisorios que excluyan según el género, la etnia o el estrato social. Asimismo, el protagonismo de la samaritana en un diálogo tan extenso, en contraste con otros diálogos (con Nicodemo, con el ciego) apunta hacia la reivindicación étnica y de género, donde la mujer figura como interlocutora igualitaria en las relaciones dialógicas. En conclusión, es menester considerar las siguientes preguntas, con el fin de trabajar una hermenéutica del texto para nuestra realidad: 1. ¿Qué concepto tenemos del agua? ¿Qué de la privatización del agua como líquido vital? ¿Ha dejado de ser “agua viva” al convertirse en “agua embotellada”, en un artículo de lujo? 2. ¿Cómo podemos hablar a una sociedad mutista, afónica, sin capacidad o voluntad para la comunicación? 3. ¿Qué hacer para romper el monólogo xenofóbico, misógino y discriminatorio, que excluye a los extranjeros, a las mujeres y a otros grupos marginados tales como los negros, los indígenas, los hambrientos, los empobrecidos, etc.? 4. ¿Cómo podemos conservar y a la vez enriquecer la identidad latina en un mundo globalizado? 5. ¿Quién es mi prójimo? ¿Cómo podemos ser próximos de los extranjeros? 6. ¿Son nuestras mesas y nuestros hogares inclusivos o cerrados? 7. ¿Cómo podemos establecer relaciones de YO-TÚ, donde ni el machismo ni el feminismo imperen sino la solidaridad y la justicia? “…ya no sois extranjeros ni forasteros, sino conciudadanos de los santos y miembros de la familia de Dios” (Efesios 2: 19). 134
Deus Loquens BIBLIOGRAFÍA - BARRETT, C. K. 1955. The Gospel According to St. John. London: SPCK. - BEASLEY-MURRAY, GEORGE R. 1989. John. Word Biblical Commentary. Vol. 36. Waco: Word Books. - BELKIN, S. 1970. “Levirate and Agnate Marriage in Rabbinic and Cognate Literature,” JQR 60: 275–329. - BERNARD, J. H. 1929. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner´s Sons. - BLASS, FRIEDRICH WILHELM, Y ALBERT DEBRUNNER. 1961. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. A Translation and Revision of the ninth-tenth German edition incorporating supplementary notes of A. Debrunner, by Robert W. Funk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. - BOTHA, J. E. 1990. “Reader ‘Entrapment’ as Literary Device in John 4.1-42,” Neotestamentica 24, 37-47. - BROWN, RAYMOND E. 1966. “The Gospel According to John. i-xii.” The Anchor Bible. Vol. 29. Garden City: Doubleday. - BRUNNER, EMIL. 1967. La verdad como encuentro. Barcelona: Editorial Estela. - BUBER, MARTÍN. 1960. Yo y Tú. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Galatea / Nueva Visión. - BULL, R. J. 1968. The Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 190, 11-19. - VAN DEN BUSSCHE, H. 1967. Jean. Paris: Desclée. - COLLINS, RAYMOND. 1976. “The Representative Figures of the Fourth Gospel,” Downside Review 94, 26-46, 118-132. - CRENSHAW, JAMES L. 1976. “Riddle,” en Keith Crim (ed.), The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Supplemental Volume. Nashville: Abingdon, 113-114. - CULPEPPER, R. ALAN. 1983. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel. A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. - DAUBE, D. 1950. “Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: The Meaning of suncravomai,” Journal of Biblical Literature 69, 137-147. - DODS, MARCUS. 1956. “The Gospel of St. John,” en W. Robertson Nicoll (ed.), The Expositor’s Greek Testament. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 653-872. - DUKE, PAUl. 1985. Irony in the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: John Knox. - FEHRIBACH, ADELINE. 2001. Las mujeres en la vida del Novio. Un análisis histórico-literario feminista de los personajes femeninos en el cuarto evangelio. Serie En clave de mujer…Bilbao: Desclée de Brouwer. - FUCHS, ESTHER. 1987. “Structure and Patriarchal Functions in the Biblical Betrothal Type-scene: Some Preliminary Notes,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 3, 7-13. - GUIDE TO BYZANTINE ICONS ON THE INTERNET. The Catacombs. www.IconsExplained.com. - HERNÁNDEZ ALONSO, C. 1984. Gramática funcional del español. Madrid: Gredos. - JOSEFO [1980]. The Works of Josephus. Traducido por William Whiston. Lynn, Massachusets: Hendrickson Publishers. - KALMIN, RICHARD. 1992, 1997. “Levirate Law,” en Freedman, David Noel (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, en CD-Rom. - LAGRANGE, M. J. 1948. Évangile selon Saint Jean. París: Gabalda. - LEÓN-DUFOUR, XAVIER. Lectura del Evangelio de Juan. Jn. 1-4. Vol. 1. Salamanca: Sígueme. - MALINA, BRUCE J., Y RICHARD L. ROHRBAUGH. 1998. Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. - MATEOS J., Y J. BARRETO. 1992. El evangelio de Juan. Análisis lingüístico y comentario exegético. Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad.
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REGINA MUSSELMAN-PÉREZ - MCCOOL, F. J. 1962. “Living Water in John,” en J. L. McKenzie (ed.), The Bible in Current Catholic Thought. New York: Herder & Herder, 226-233. - MEMAR MARQAH. 1953. Berlin: Macdonald, 222.233.247. - MIRANDA, JOSÉ PORFIRIO. 1977. Being and the Messiah. The Message of St. John. Maryknoll: Orbis. - MUSSELMAN SHANK, REGINA. 2000. “La cortesía en las relaciones asimétricas,” en Pedro Martín Butragueño (ed.), Estructuras en contexto. Estudios de variación lingüística. México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 139-153. - NEWMAN, BARCLAY M., Y EUGENE A. NIDA. 1980. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. New York: United Bible Societies. - NIDITCH, S. 1979. “The Wronged Woman Righted: An Analysis of Genesis 38,” HTR 72:143–149. - NIEWALDA, P. 1958. Sakramentssymbolik im Johannesevangelium. Limburg: Lahn. - O´DAY, GAIL. 1986. Revelation in the Fourth Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress. ———. 1992. “John,” en Carol Newsom y Sharon H. Ringe (eds.), The Women’s Bible Commentary. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 293-304. ———. 1994. “The Gospel of John,” en The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 9. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 491-865. - OLLSON, BIRGER. 1974. Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel. A Text-linguistic Analysis of John 2:1-11 and 4:1-42. Lund: CWK. - PAYNE, STEPHEN W. 1961. Beginning Greek. A Functional Approach. New York: Oxford University Press. - REINHARTZ, ADELE. 1994. “The Gospel of John,” en Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed.), Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary. New York: Crossroad, 561-600. - ROBERTSON, NICOLL W. 1956. The Expositor’s Greek Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. - SCHÜSSLER FIORENZA, ELIZABETH. 1983. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad. - SCHNEIDERS, SANDRA. 1991. “A Case Study: A Feminist Interpretation of John 4: 1-42,” en The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture. San Francisco: Harper, 188-189. - SCOLLON, RON, Y SUZANNE B. K. SCOLLON. 1983. “Face in Interethnic Communication,” en Jack C. Richards y Richard W. Schmidt (eds.), Language and Communication. Longman: New York, 156-190. - SCOTT, MARTIN. 1992. Sophia and the Johnannine Jesus. Sheffield: JSOT. - SLOYAN, GERARD S. 1988. John. Interpretation. A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Atlanta: John Knox Press. - STALEY, JEFFREY LLOYD. 1985. The Print’s First Kiss: A Rhetorical Investigation of the Implied Reader in the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: Scholars Press. - STIBBE, MARK. 1993. John. Sheffield: JSOT. - THATCHER, TOM. 2000. The Riddles of Jesus in John. A Study in Tradition and Folklore. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. - WEBSTER´S NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY. 1974. Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company. - ZORRILLA, C. HUGO. 1981. La fiesta de liberación de los oprimidos. San José: Seminario Bíblico Latinoamericano.
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Cambios paradigmáticos: Ninguna transformación del mundo sin la transformación de nosotras/os. ANNE STICKEL Alemania
1. Conceptos a la venta
¿Cuánto quieres? “Otro mundo es posible.” Ya no es una palabra popular, sino una palabra de moda. Que ha llegado a las manos de los comerciantes, tanto como de los políticos, que la aplican en sus campañas electorales (en este momento el “Otra España es posible”), como de los propios economistas (así se lee en la hoja de propaganda de una red multinacional de supermercados: “Con Carrefour es posible”). Se la vende en las esquinas, y caen desde los techos de los grandes edificios en las ciudades, como del mismo cielo, los diversos anuncios de propaganda. Basta con esto para darse cuenta de que es ya un slogan, del que se ha apropiado el poder. Y que su vitalidad depende de la voluntad de éste. Un ejemplo más de una palabra, que ha nacido como expresión de una necesidad. Más bien, de un mundo necesitado: de un conjunto-vital necesitado, que se ve amenazado por las estrategias de venta bajo la sumisión a las leyes de mercado, con de la imposición gratis de la muerte a nivel global. Una palabra, que no era mero formalismo, sino surgió desde realidades concretas – en el contexto de la resistencia zapatista en México, primero, y ampliándose después al nivel de los Foros Sociales Mundiales – Realidades expresadas, como si fuera bajo presión de la vida, en el marco de la necesidad de un parto, para llegar a la luz, para mostrar una realidad nueva. Como si desde una desesperanza creada, surgiera un grito, una esperanza, por un querer, un querer-vivir, una “voluntad” de vivir. Sin embargo, como “palabra,” el “otro mundo posible” es nada más que una forma, que puede ser privada de su origen y vaciada. De vez en cuando rellenada con otros materiales, los cuales puedan llegar a ser sus nuevos contenidos, que después determinan y “son” esta palabra. Actos, primero de apropiación de mundos y en seguida de aniquilación, luego de “sustitución” 140
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a lo que sigue la venta de estos productos artificiales como lo verdadero. Eso es, lo que acontece con el dicho “otro mundo es posible.” Por ello, si discutimos “otro mundo es posible,” ya no está asegurado de que hablamos de lo mismo. Bien puede ser, que discutimos problemas, que no son nuestros, porque usamos palabras, que ya no son nuestras, sino “suyas/os.” Este proceso de apropiación de palabras-conceptos, es típico para cualquier proceso desde el poder, que intenta eliminar a los poderes emergentes de emancipación. Les roba sus palabras-mundi, les da otro sentido, y así se apropia hasta de sus concepciones del mundo. Intentando crear a fuerza la unidad del pueblo, integrándola al sistema de compra-venta, para que entren otra vez en el proyecto de construcción de otra Torre de Babel. Proyecto, en el cual la libertad es la libertad del arquitecto de la Torre, y la democracia el ir-conforme con sus propuestas – y que se repite en la historia, más allá de los mitos, como bien podemos ver en el ejemplo de Irak. Así observamos, como efecto de la imposición de una “unidad forzada,” como se ven amenazadas y resquebrajadas las relaciones sociales humanas, en las cuales hasta ahora se han basado las sociedades en las que vivimos. Se construye una Torre, y para su construcción su usa el material que sobra de una construcción anterior. 2. Transformaciones paradigmáticas
Es en el marco de este proceso de construcción de supuestas unidades, que se habla mucho de necesarios “cambios de paradigmas,” “cambios epistemológicos,” “cambios conceptuales,” entre otros.1 Son intentos de “unificar,” lo que está tendiendo a fragmentarse, a quebrarse, a disolverse. Sin embargo, los llamados “cambios” se refieren a cambios de identidades no-constructores de la Torre hacia identidades, que se reúnen al proceso de realización de este proyecto. Para que sean identidades, se refiere a cambios de identidades, que no se identifican por la participación en la construcción de la Torre: que son justamente por no participar en este proyecto. Los “otros mundos” reivindicados, ya no son necesariamente otros mundos, que expresan más posibilidades de vivir, sino bien pueden 1
Véase por ejemplo Sousa Santos, Boaventura, Crítica a la Razón Indolente. Contra el desperdicio de la Experiencia, (“CRI”), Desclée, Bilbao, 203; y Mignolo, Walter D., Historias Locales/Diseños Globales. Colonialidad, Conocimientos Subalterntos y Pensamiento Fronterizo, (Historias), Ediciones Akal, Madrid, 2003.
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ser jaulas de hierro para los esclavos del poder. Eso debe tener consecuencias para nuestras propias referencias a “otros mundos.” Tenemos que prestar especial atención al surgimiento, al desde-donde y al como de ellos. Porque si afirmamos la necesidad de “otros mundos,” y si en este contexto hablamos de “cambios necesarios,” estos no pueden ser cambios tipo “sustitución,” como ya notamos antes. Tampoco se puede tratar de un cambio d tipo reivindicación de los “valores” tradicionales. Eso porque de este modo, las reivindicaciones de transformación se transformarían en simples “sermón de domingo,”2 y se mantendría el mecanismo, el modo de pensar, que sostiene al mundo conceptual y su proyecto dominante. Así que nos encontramos en una situación, en la cual ya no estamos de acuerdo con la realidad “tal como es,” y en la cual hasta podemos decir, que percibimos “otra” sociedad. Sin embargo, no sabemos si podremos realizarla, no sabemos cómo hacerla. “Porque el cómo hacerla presupone que las categorías todavía tienen valor. Pero si las categorías no valen, cómo decir qué hacer. Ese es nuestro problema más profundo.”3 Por ello, si bien el “cambio” que entendemos como necesario, no puede ser un cambio de conceptos como “objetos intercambiables,” sí debe ser un cambio tipo transformación. Con transformar entendemos la realización de un “cambio en el tiempo,” de un llegar-a-ser-distinto de conceptos. Pero no por “reforma superficial,” nada de re-formar el afuera. Sino es un “ir a las raíces,” un cambio “radical,” en y desde las raíces de los conceptos, que tiene efectos en el desarrollo de cualquier estructura “enraizada” en ellos, tanto en el crecimiento de las estructuras, como en la siguiente apariencia de las estructuras. No podemos contentarnos con pensar alternativas. Lo que se requiere es de una forma alternativa de pensar.4 Así que, cuando hablamos de una necesaria transformación, nos referimos más bien a una transformación de nuestras categorías base con las 2
Véase Hinkelammert, Franz, “El Sujeto, el Anti-Sujeto y el Retorno del Sujeto (Interculturalidad y Fundamentalismo),” (“Sujeto”), en Hinkelammert, Franz, El Asalto al Poder Mundial y la Violencia Sagrada del Imperio, DEI, San José, Costa Rica, 2003, pp. 271-294, p. 272. 3 “Teología en el Acontecer de una Vida. (Entrevista de Germán Gutiérrez),” en Duque, José/Gutierrez, Germán (eds.), Itinerarios de la Razón Crítica: Homenaje a Franz Hinkelammert en sus 70 Años, („Itinerarios“), DEI, San José, Costa Rica, pp. 17-42, véase p. 38. 4 Sousa Santos, CRI, p. 31. 142
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que miramos al mundo y con las que nos relacionarnos con el mundo mismo. Y sostenemos, que solamente con la transformación de estas bases, llegamos a poder crear las condiciones de posibilidad de transformación de la dinámica del pensar: de la racionalidad constitutiva de nuestra sociedad. Visto así, entendemos este transformar como un paso necesario de y en la tarea de dar sustentos a “otros mundos” a crear.5 3. Nueva subjetividad
Traducido al ambito más bien “científico”, surge la reivindicación de inventar una “nueva epistemología” y una “nueva psicología,” como lo expresa el sociólogo portugués Boaventura de Sousa Santos.6 Para Sousa Santos, una “nueva epistemología” tendría que ser el lugar en donde se abren nuevos horizontes de expectativas y de posibilidades; sería en el marco de ella, en donde se desarrollarían nuevas practicas de pensar, por medio de las cuales de podrían crear “otros mundos.” Pero a su vez, la “nueva psicología” se refería más bien a los seres humanos, que están detrás de estas epistemologías: a sus “portadores” y “fuentes.” La “nueva psicología,” como se la imagina Sousa Santos, constituye el presupuesto para el surgimiento de voluntades, deseosas y capaces de luchar por “otros mundos.” Pero estas “voluntades” no son sino “subjetividades.” Y estas “subjetividades” son el factor decisivo en todo este proceso. Subraya Sousa Santos, que “ninguna transformación paradigmática será posible sin la transformación paradigmática de la subjetividad.”7 La subjetividad está en la raíz de las transformaciones, tanto psicológicas como epistemológicas, que hay que realizar. Dado que su raíz es su “condición y razón de ser” y no es nada “externo.” Es la clave para cualquier hermenéutica sociocultural.8 Ahora, queremos presentar de modo breve, algunos rasgos de esta “subjetividad” a encontrar. Debe quedar claro, que esta presentación no pretende ni puede ser “recetas.” Sino más bien una “compilación” de unos
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aspectos, entre otros a descubrir, dentro de una reflexión en curso, en búsqueda de estas necesarias “nuevas subjetividades” a crear. 3.1 Rasgos constitutivos de la “nueva subjetividad necesaria”
Primero, cuando hablamos de subjetividades, hablamos de nosotras/os mismas/os. No existen “las” subjetividades, como algo afuera de nosotras/os. “Las subjetividades” somos nosotras/os mismas/os: seres humanos vivos. Hay subjetividades, en cuanto que y porque hay seres humanos, “portadores” de subjetividades. Por ello, si hablamos de “nuevas subjetividades,” hablamos de que nosotras/os, tengamos que “transformarnos.” Volveremos más abajo a este asunto; por ahora, nos quedamos en la descripción de elementos constitutivos de “nosotras/os.” Como seres humanos, somos seres vivos corporales, seres naturales y sociales, y por consiguiente necesitados material y espiritualmente.9 Como seres naturales, co-constituimos el “conjunto natural,” el metabolismo natural. Podemos entendernos como seres, que vivimos en y constituimos un “circuito natural-cultural.” Siendo así, somos seres actuantes, con capacidad de reflexión. Reflexión que siempre tiene el carácter subjetivo, en cuanto que surge del ser humano concreto, impregnado y formado por vivenciasexperiencias vitales. Retomando una afirmación de Franz Hinkelammert, y así parafraseando a Søren Kierkegaard. Podemos entender a cada una/o nosotras/os mismas/os como “ser natural, que vive en una relación consigo mismo”10: un ser natural y social, que se experimenta y hace experiencias como ser humano natural, que reflexiona estas experiencias, y así se entiende y se reconoce como ser natural dentro del conjunto natural, que se constituye junto con otros seres humanos. Hablamos de una subjetividad nosotras/os seres humanos como una subjetividad de “identidad con los otros.” Nuestra subjetividad siempre es una intersubjetividad.11
5
Ibid. Sousa Santos, CRI, p. 379. 7 Sousa Santos, CRI, p. 380. 8 En La Negación del Sujeto en los Fundamentalismos y la Raiz Subjetiva de Interculturalidad. Cuarto Encuentro de Cientistas Sociales y Teólogos, DEI, San José, Costa Rica, Diciembre 5-9 del 2002. (Síntesis elaborada por Germán Gutiérrez), (“Encuentro 2002”) en Pasos 106, 2003, DEI, San José, Costa Rica, pp. 4-72, véase p. 7. 6
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9
Véase al respecto Hinkelammert, Franz, Crítica a la Razón Utópica, Desclée, Bilbao, 2002, especialmente el capítulo VII. 10 Hinkelammert, Franz, “Origenes y Destinos,” en www.dei-cr.org/EDITORIAL/REVISTAS/PASOS/110/1.html. 11 Hinkelammert, Franz, “Los Derechos Humanos frente a la Globalidad del Mundo,” en Hinkelammert, Franz, El Retorno del Sujeto Reprimido, Faculdad Camilo Torres, Bogotá, Colombia, 2002, pp. 199-250, véase p. 244. 144
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Lo que hoy nos hace falta es aprender a “reconocer” al mundo a partir y por medio de esta subjetividad. Un reconocer tal, consistirá en un reconocer la realidad humana como una realidad de la vida. Aquí entendemos el “reconocer,” como el participar en el circuito natural, es un reconocer “corporalmente” del tipo “partidario,” un “reconocer-participativo,” y por consiguiente no es un conocer dentro del marco de la racionalidad instrumental del “homo economico,” ni se reduce a un mero reflexionar, sino consiste más bien, en un actuar-integral según el “ser-parte” de la naturaleza. Como lo formula también Walter Mignolo, cuando reivindica un “paradigma otro,” que tiene en común “el conector,” lo que comparten quienes han vivido o aprendido en el cuerpo el trauma, la inconsciente falta de respeto, la ignorancia – por quien puede hablar de derechos humanos y de convivialidad – de cómo se siente en el cuerpo el ninguneo que los valores de progreso, de bienestar, de bien-ser, han impuesto a la mayoría de habitantes del planeta, que, en este momento, tienen que “reaprender a ser.”12 El reconocer “responde” a “lo que encuentra” como realidad, por medio de acciones concretas: y lo hace de manera tal, que apoya a sus condiciones de ser. 3.2 Reconocer a la subjetividad
Así se revela, que este reconocer-participativo, de ningún modo se podría vincular con “subjetividades abstractas,” o “puntos de partida neutrales.” Porque partiendo de la visión de nosotras/os como seres humanos naturales y sociales necesitados, y viendo a nosotras/os en situaciones concretas caracterizadas por la relación de vida y muerte, queda claro, que hablar de “subjetividades” como condiciones para la creación de nuevos “modos de mirar” al mundo, y por consiguiente de paradigmas. Significa entrar en estas relaciones de vida-muerte concretas, de manera directa (por estar tocada/o) o indirecta (por compasión), y hacerlo precisamente allá, donde la vida está amenazada: al lado de las víctimas. Es como un “tomar partido por ser partido.” Así que, los puntos de arranque para mirar al mundo, no son puntos que surgen “desde la nada,” y tampoco son algo “predeterminado.” Tenemos que aprender a dejar detrás las ideas tanto de concepciones de puntos de partida de pensamientos
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“metafísicos” o de otro tipo de abstracción, como de sus sustitutos, los pensamientos meramente “sistémicos,” “procesuales” o de carácter parecido. Los “puntos de partida” de pensar las “nuevas subjetividades” no “están,” sino “surgen” siempre en el momento cuando y el lugar donde nuestros procesos de vivir están amenazados por la muerte. Tomar un punto de partida desde nuestras subjetividades de seres humanos concretos significa, comprometernos con la realidad, entendernos como su parte, percibir los lugares de amenaza, y re-formular nuestras realidades humanas – las condiciones necesarias de posibilidad de la vida humana - frente a ellas. En este sentido, ni podemos hablar de “una subjetividad” como punto de partida, sino de muchas subjetividades, puntos de partidas, en los muchos contextos distintos que vivimos. Sin embargo, todas estas se construyen por medio de las características que anteriormente hemos descritas como básicas: de entendernos como seres humanos vivientes, naturales y necesitados. Se muestra que las características de nosotras/os como seres humanos vivientes, tiene un carácter doble. Por un lado, son características descriptivas, a posteriori de nuestros procesos de vivir. Pero por el otro, son constitutivas para la posibilidad de que sigamos creando una concepción de subjetividad, que consideramos necesaria para poder enfrentar a los problemas de convivencia. En cuanto a este segundo punto, de la concepción de subjetividades, nos parece adecuado, introducir un término: el “sujeto”, como lo usa Franz Hinkelammert.13 El “sujeto,” al cual se refiere Hinkelammert, no es entendido como una concepción abstracta más del ser humano, sino como una “manera de mirar.” Un cierta manera de “tomar una perspectiva,” de “perspectivar a la realidad,” desde el punto de vista del ser humano concreto y amenazado. Podemos decir, que sería un “perspectivar como sujeto,” en el cual se expresarían las distintas “subjetividades humanas”: en cuanto que entiendan sus realidades como realidades de vida y muerte, buscando siempre posibilidades de enfrentar a amenazas de muerte, enfrentándolas por medio de inventar perspectivas y horizontes de vida. Este “perspectivar de la realidad,” según la propuesta de Hinkelammert, se orienta por dos principios fundamentales. Por un lado, por un principio que 13
12
Mignolo, Historias, p. 20.
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Como referencia bibliográfica, véase el ya citado libro de Franz Hinkelammert, Retorno del Sujeto Reprimido, una compilación de artíclos del autor alrededor de esta temática. 146
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afirma la vida, y por el otro, de manera complementaria y derivado de lo primero, por un principio, que se refiere a la muerte, enfrentándola, en cuanto que prohíbe cualquier acción que podría favorecerla. El primer principio dice: “Yo soy, porque tú eres.” Tiene mucho en común con el mandamiento del amor al prójimo, como lo interpreta Levinas. Según el, hay que entender este mandamiento como un “Ama a tu projimo, tú mismo eres él.”14 El segundo principio dice: asesinato es suicidio.15 Ambos principios tienen el carácter de ser principios derivados del vivir. Son principios más bien descriptivos de este proceso, derivados de experiencias, y formulados como “apuestas sobre la realidad:” pretenden crear un marco fundamental de la realidad, que nos permite situar nuestros pies y que tiene la función de brújula, para orientar nuestro caminar.
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podemos cambiar, transformar. Como seres humanos, somos capaces de “pasar por los límites” de nuestras propias realidades concretas. No solamente por medio de acciones humanas concretas, sino también por medio de nuestra propia capacidad de reflexión humana: el soñar, la fuerza de la imaginación, el desarrollar utopías de este mundo. Sin embargo, para reconocer a nuestras vidas, las realidades vitales de nosotras/os como seres vivientes, tanto en nuestra “fe” como en la “visión utópica” de nuestras realidades, debemos responder a las amenazas de muerte, que nos rodean. Quiere decir, que todas nuestras acciones de soñar y esbozar escenarios utópicos, deben basarse en nuestros vivires como seres humanos concretos. No referirse a entidades “trascendentales” con vitalidad (imaginada) propia, sino entender cualquier trascendentalidad como trascendentalidad que surge como dimensión de la vida concreta.
3.3 El realismo subjetivo frente a la realidad
Así que, estos principios no sirven ni pueden servir, si no están vinculados con dos tipos de relaciones, que nosotras/os establecemos frente a respectivamente por medio de ellos. Por un lado, se trata de la relación de una convicción, respectivamente un cierto tipo de fe16: una convicción de que la realidad es así, de que yo soy, porque tú eres. Y de la convicción-afirmación, de que un asesinato es un suicidio. No es necesario, que yo vea al momento en que alguien, que mata a otra/o, cae muerto al suelo en el mismo instante. Basta, que me pueda imaginar esta consecuencia, aún cuando fuera a largo plazo, porque la veo “enraizada” en la acción de asesinato. Sin la convicción de que estos principios son “verdad,” no son sino unos más en un gran almacén de verdades teóricas. Sin embargo, la verdad, a la cual nos referimos, es una verdad de la “realidad de la vida concreta.” “Tener fe” en esta verdad no sería sino expresión de realismo frente a nuestra propia realidad vital. La otra relación, a la cual nos referimos, es una relación, que también tiene que ver con un acto de fe: es la noción utópica, en la cual se basa esta afirmación de fe. Una utopía que dice, que el mundo en que vivimos, puede ser un mundo distinto, y nuestro relacionarnos como seres humanos lo
14 15 16
Hinkelammert, “Sujeto,” p. 273. Ibid. “Fe” entendido aqui como una actitud anterior a cualquier formulación religiosa.
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4. Consecuencias: Subjetividades “rebeldes”
Ahora bien. Si tomamos como “verdaderas” estas características de nuestro ser “ser humano,” y aceptamos nuestra capacidad de responder como responsabilidad humana, de enfrentar a amenazas de vida, creando escenarios de vida frente a situaciones diversas y concretas de la muerte, vemos, que surgen ciertas consecuencias en cuanto a nuestro vivir cotidiano. “Tener fe” en la vida, significa, hacer todo, para que la vida pueda desarrollarse, y, como ya deciamos, enfrentar a la muerte. Esto no consiste en negar la muerte, sino en un entrar en una relación con la muerte. Es un suspender a sus métodos, un irrumpir en sus estructuras, interomper sus modos de funcionar, un rebelarse contínuo. No se trata de eliminar ningúna estructura o ley “de por si,” sino más bien de un “detenerlas,“ un “absurdizar,” donde pretenden disfrazarse como verdaderas, con el fin de transformarlas en “instrumentos” de nosotras/os en nuestros procesos de vivir. 5. La vida cotidiana
Sin embargo, todo lo anteriormente descrito, existe bajo una condición del tipo “sine qua non,” una condición, cuya existencia determina por completo a esta necesaria “transformación de la subjetividad,” de la cual hemos hablado hasta ahora. Es un condicionamiento, que acompaña el “perspectivar,” tanto en cuanto que es un “posicionarse” en y frente a la 148
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realidad, que vivimos, como también en cuanto a nuestra “aceptación” del punto de partida de este “perspectivar” y su horizonte utópico. Esta condición consiste en el hecho, que también hemos mencionado ya al inicio, de que somos la realidad, somos el mundo, cuya transformación buscamos. Por ello, no hay transformación, si no nos metimos a nosotras/ os como seres humanos, corporales, seres “relacionantes” integrales en este mismo proceso. Además, si la subjetividad, que transforma, no sebe transformarse a si misma, fácilmente puede terminar en ser el ídolo de una nueva ortodoxia. Una “transformación de la subjetividad” siempre es una transformación de mi subjetividad. Y esta “subjetividad” no es nada fuera de mi, sino que la soy yo. En ella reside gran parte de mi identidad, mi auto-concepción, mi “seguridad,” el “yo mismo.” Una “transformación paradigmática” nos toca directamente en todas las dimensiones de nuestras concepciones y percepciones de nosotros/as mismos/as. Transformar la subjetividad significa, transformarse a sí mismo. En términos religiosos se trataria de la conversión, el radical cambio personal, la “metanoia” del evangelio. Pero no es una conversión a un “Dios externo,” sino a lo humano que somos. Por ello, la “subjetividad,” que necesitamos, no es nada que “aplicar,” o de “tomar” así sin más. No se la puede comprar. La “subjetividad” es transversal a nosotros como seres humanos vivos. La somos. Y cambiar “las” subjetividades significa cambiarnos a nosotras/os mismas/os, y a nuestro modo de mirar. Y volvemos a decir, de que para nosotros no se trata de eliminar a nosotras/os como seres humanos, a cambio de seres “roboticos,” máquinas “perfectas,” las cuales “sirven” mejor al proyecto de construcción del mundo. (Los diseños del mundo, que trabajan con estas visiones de los seres humanos, dicen más sobre la pérdida de humanidad de sus diseñadores, que sobre la necesidad de estos mundos mismos.) No se trata de sustituir una “persona humana” por otra, una máscara por otra. Se trata de aprender a transformarnos siendo seres humanos. De transformar nuestros propios modos de relacionarnos en y con el mundo que vivimos. Se revela una circularidad entre el “perspectivar como sujeto,” anteriormente mencionado, y la “subjetividad,” que lleva a cabo este perspectivar. Por ello, en vez de “cambios” de las relaciones sociales, tenemos que focalizar más en transformaciones de ellas: y quien se transforma soy yo, y 149
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a partir de y por esta transformación, cambiarán las relaciones, en las cuales me muevo. Así que puede ser que la gente me dice: tú-que-eres-tan-rara-ahora. Y despertar sensaciones de “culpabilidad,” de “auto-exclusión,” de “estar-sola, ” de “haberse metido en la película errada,” de “ser alguien de otro mundo,” o como lo dice San Pablo a sus compañeras/os en Corinto, de ser alguien de los “locos,” que si bien según su propio punto de vista siguen a la sabiduría de Dios, en los ojos del mundo cometen “locuras” (1 Cor 2: 1ss). Transformar “mi” subjetividad es el “morirse,” del cual escribe San Pablo a los Romanos (Rom 6). Sin embargo, este morirse ya no es el morirse en la “pasividad” del socialconformismo, sino el “morirse” en la “actividad” de un modo de vivir, por estar convencido de que la vida “verdadera,” que me corresponde, es distinta a aquella que vivo. Este “morirse” es posible en la medida, en la cual ya confiamos en la posibilidad de lo otro. En cuanto que queremos vivir, que vivimos confiando, creyendo en posibilidades-avenir-cuya-raíz-está-ya-en-nosotras y nosotros En cuanto que vivimos esperando, superando la desesperanza por medio de esperanza. En cuanto que vivimos apasionadamente, desarrollando inteligibilidades hasta eróticas y concretas, sintiendo “atracciones apasionadas”17 por la nueva vida a venir. Por eso, nada que ver con el suicidio. Sino más bien con un reconocimiento, de que lo que hasta ahora se ha de considerar como “vida” no la es, sino una vida en cadenas, bajo leyes de opresión, y que el “vivir que me corresponde a mi” es un vivir “libre.” Un vivir, para el cual San Pablo encuentra la expresión siguiente: “Si vivimos por el Espiritu, sigamos también al Espiritu” (Gal 5: 25). Es esta la circularidad entre lo que somos y lo que llegamos a ser, a la cual estamos llamados a responder hoy.
17
Sousa Santos, CRI, 419. 150
The Gastronomical Conquest: Morsels of Christian Thought and History from the Perspective of Hunger ELISEO PÉREZ-ÁLVAREZ Mexico/Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands/U.S.A.
The Lord walks among the pucheros (potpourri).
Santa Teresa de Jesús
The history of Christian thought, as all human enterprises, is time and space bound; therefore there are as many ways of addressing it as many cultures and generations exist. Some scholars have suggested revisiting the history of Christian thought from the point of view of the history of libraries,1 of female theologians,2 of fear,3 of crime,4 of food,5 of vegetarianism,6 etc. My task is to approach the subject by dropping some crumbs related to hunger.7 This is an open invitation to the potpourri (rotten pot) where everybody contributes and everybody eats from a common-pot. This is not a melting-pot treatment of the subject where globalizing powers assimilate globalized cultures. The potpourri, or in Spanish: sancocho, cocido, puchero…, cooks new flavors out of many distinctive elements. The olla podrida, although originally a soldier’s dish in Europe at the dawn of the Middle Ages, has room for cooking it, celebrating the diversity of economic, cultural and religious milieus. The potpourri gets rid of the dichotomy between spiritual and material culture, by doing theology from the guts! The present meal then, is to open your appetite to add cuisine wisdom to the common-pot and bites of Christian thought history to a “theological cuisinature.” From gastronomical conquest follows two implications: using food as a weapon to exterminate human beings, and to conquer the Other by 1
Justo L. González, “Devolver lo recibido; la biblioteca de Jorge y Ondina,” Cuba teológica 1 ( 2001). Amy Oden, In Her Words: Women’s Writings in the History of Christian Thought, Nashville: Abingdon, 1994. 3 Jean Delumeau, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture 13th-18th Centuries, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. 4 Karlheinz Deschner, Historia criminal del cristianismo, Barcelona: Martínez Roca, 1992. 5 Maximiliano Salinas Campos, Gracias a Dios que comí; el cristianismo en Iberoamérica y el Caribe. Siglos XVXX, México, D.F.: Dabar, 2000. 6 Colin Spencer, The Heretic’s Feast: A History of Vegetarianism, Hanover, HH: University Press of New England, 1995. 7 One attempt is Hunger in History: Food Shortage, Poverty, and Deprivation, Lucile F. Newman (ed), Oxford/ Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995. However, I propose to relate the theme particularly to theology. 2
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changing their taste according to the dominant culture and thus making people dependent through their mouths and stomachs. The menu proposed includes six courses: the role hunger played in the theological discourse throughout the Bible, the Pre-Constantinian Church, Christendom, the dis/encounter of three kitchens, the Green Revolution and the “Free Trade Agreement.” I. Hunger in the Bible
Famine has existed since the beginning of history, some of it due to natural causes, and the majority, because of human hunger for power. Hunger led Esau to sell his rights as a first-born son in exchange for a plate of lentils (Genesis 25: 32). Hunger as a weapon is also apparent during the Matriarchal and Patriarchal Biblical period when Joseph traded human beings for food (Genesis 47)! Food terrorism has also been linked to sieges and blockades. The old cities protected themselves with walls but at the same time painted themselves into a corner when they were cut off from food and water. The Hebrew Bible refers quite a number of sieges such as the one of Jerusalem which lasted two years (Jeremiah 52: 4-5). Natural catastrophes do happen, but still, hunger is not a given, it is produced or used by the elite for insatiable profit. The Syrophoenician Widow’s story refers to a famine season but also informs us about the King’s preoccupation with feeding his horses and mules (I Kings 17: 2; 18: 5)! The Israelites’ ethical imperative was: “Not one of your people will be poor” (Deuteronomy 15: 4), however this commandment wasn’t obeyed in real life. In the 8th century B.C.E., farmer and prophet Amos raised his thunder against gastronomical heresies: Hear this, you who trample upon the needy, and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver 153
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and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the refuse of the wheat?” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds…”
(Amos 8: 4-7)
In the desert the Israelites learned Biblical communism from the manna experience: “those who gathered much did not have too much, and those who gathered less did not have too little. Each had gathered just what he needed” (Exodus 16: 18). Nonetheless, food exploitation was the crude reality: People will build houses and get to live in them –they will not be used by someone else. They will plant vineyards and enjoy the wineit will not be drunk by others. Like trees, my people will live long lives. They will fully enjoy the things that they have worked for. (Isaiah 65: 21-22) Prophet Micah preached against a large land-owned state: How terrible it will be for those Who lie awake and plan evil! When morning comes, as soon as They have the chance, they do the Evil they planned. When they want Fields, they seize them; when they Want houses, they take them. No Man’s family or property is safe. (Micah 2: 1-2)
Before Jesus started his ministry, he had to face the ‘bread temptation’ (Luke 4: 1-13). To begin with, the Devil questioned Jesus’ identity: “If you really are the Son of God,” meaning ‘if you really are somebody worthy of praise, you have to eat like the lords of the earth, use your power selfishly to gratify your exquisite taste, eat luxurious dishes, show us how you eat, show everybody your class.’ Dorothee Soelle was right in addressing Jesus’ rejection of radical materialism: “human beings can’t live on bread alone, but also on every word that God speaks.”8 True, Jesus’ followers, female and male, led a hand-to-mouth life without cares, but, as Soelle argues, from that doesn’t follow the glorification of hunger, or asceticism. “Human beings can’t live on bread alone” constitutes Jesus’ liberating principle. Jesus rebuked the bread-oriented crowd: “you’re looking 8
Dorothee Soelle & Louise Schottroff, Jesus of Nazareth, Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press/SPCK, 2002, p. 24. 154
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for me because you ate bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my miracles” (John 6: 26). The Jesus from the desert and from the feeding of the more than 5,000 people refused to be identified with one who uses bread as a weapon to recruit followers. Jesus not only confronted the crowd, he also cornered his 12 disciples: “And you, would you also like to leave?” (John 6: 67). Jesus denounced the insensitivity of the upper classes, whose idol is profit: “You can’t serve both, God and riches” (Luke 16: 13); immediately after saying that, the Nazarene referred the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus9 (Luke 16: 19-31), which portrays a wealthy man who banqueted every day. Jesus wasn’t impressed by that luxurious table; he did not even refer to the name of the big fish. It was not until the Middle Ages that he was baptized as Dives, or “wealthy” in Latin. The hungry beggar, on the contrary, possesses a name, he is somebody: Lazarus, namely, “God has helped.” This parable calls our attention to the corruption of bread into a napkin. Bread, or bits of bread, were destined to wipe with the three fingers of the commensals; once used, they were thrown under the table for the dogs to take care of that. Once the dogs were satisfied, their leftovers where swept into the streets and thrown away where Lazarus picked them up. Corn tortilla is more versatile, it can be used as a plate, a spoon and a napkin, and yet more, a recyclable napkin because it is not thrown away but eaten right away. The Rich Man of this Parable is the one who made Lazarus dependent on the dog’s leftovers! Food as a weapon comes clearer in the prophetic letter of James 5: 4-6: You have not paid any wages to the people who work in your fields. Listen to their complaints! The cries of those who gather in your crops have reached the ears of God, the Lord Almighty. Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent people, and they do not resist you.
In the overly-spiritualized text of I Corinthians 11: 17-34, what takes 9
William R. Herzog II, Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, p. 114.
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place is the manipulation of prestige through a hunger dictatorship. Some are feasting while others are forced to fast. Hunger is the third rider in the book of Revelation (6: 5-6). The black horse witnessed a real famine which injured Asia Minor by the end of 1st century but God took the side of the hungry folks: A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages. But do not damage the olive trees and the vineyards!
II. Pre-Constantinian Church: I-IV C.E.
The original Judeo-Christian message was aimed at the whole person and the whole of creation but eventually shifted into a fuga mundi (escape from the world). Consequently, material issues such as hunger and food were minimized and neglected. Here are some isolated examples of the secularization of food. Lex frumentarium, or the grain law, was instituted by the Roman empire in order to provide meat, wheat and oil, for free or with subsidized prices, to its citizens on a monthly basis. Gaius Gracchus started this “food stamps” program in 123 B.C.E. since hunger had been the main source of social rebellions. Mary the Hebrew,10 or Mary the Prophetess (1st century) was a representative of Alexandrian women alchemists whose aim consisted of transforming metals into silver and gold, using kitchen pots and utensils. 21st century cooks still use her technique called balneum mariae (baño María) to slowly heat food and keep it on a constant temperature, which was originated for the above cited purposes. Currently there are more sophisticated ways of making gold from the hunger industry. Through its forerunner Clement (circa 155-220 C.E.), the Christian school of Alexandria has exercised a strong influence up until today in preaching a tasteless Christianity. More faithful to Plato’s Georgias and The Republic, than to Jesus’ meals, Clement ended up privileging the “spiritual” banquet and an ascetic life. He went as far as recommending an austere diet for children in order to facilitate their spirit’s (pneuma) good circulation.11 The sense of taste was associated with the lower faculties of human beings. Cooking, slaughtering, fishing, and related jobs were despised. This way Christians didn’t feel obliged to follow Jesus’ imperative of feeding the hungry. The oldest Christian church building known to the present is the Syrian 10
Margaret Alic, El legado de Hipatia: historia de las mujeres en la ciencia desde la Antiguedad hasta fines del siglo XIX, Mexico, D.F.: Siglo XXI, 1991, p. 51. 11 Clement of Alejandria, Lo mejor de Clemente de Alejandría, Barcelona: CLIE, 2001, pp. 123-158. 156
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Dura-Europo (at least 256 C.E.). This temple has an area of 65 m2 and there’s no evidence of an altar; the most probable theory is that the common table was still in use for the distribution of bread.12 It was not until the Constantinization of Christianity that the Eucharist replaced it, as is written in the minutes of Laodicea’s Synod.13 Real food for everybody was subsumed by the mystical body of Christ. The Silk Road consisted of a network of roads whose traveling merchandise consisted of food as well. However, only the well-to-do could afford edible goodies since transportation was so expensive. For instance, wheat doubled its price every 500 km.14 III. Christendom: IV-XV C.E.
During the Middle Ages European agricultural productivity was indebted to Near and Far East technologies such as better plowing, three-field husbandry, the yoke of harnessing horses, and the water-mill. The agricultural role of the Benedictines and Cistercians was quite basic as well.15 In our bites of the history of Christian thought from the point of view of hunger, the water issue runs parallel. The 21st century will see the world water wars. In spite of the fact that without water we can’t live more than 4 to 5 days, our docetic theology disenchanted itself of the vital liquid as early as the Second Council of Arles of 452 C.E.: If in the territory of a bishop, infidels light torches or venerate trees, fountains or stones, and he neglects to abolish this usage, he must know that he is guilty of sacrilege.16
In 960 C.E. Saxon King Edgar continued in the same trend: 12
Rafael Aguirre, Del movimiento de Jesús a la iglesia cristiana; ensayo de exégesis sociológica del cristianismo primitivo, Navarra: Verbo Divino, 2001, p. 93. 13 Ibid, p. 98. 14 Eduardo Arens, Asia Menor en tiempos de Pablo, Lucas y Juan; aspectos sociales y económicos para la comprensión del Nuevo Testamento, Córdoba, España: Almendro, 1995, p. 129. 15 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1974, quoted by Ulrich Duchrow, Europe in the World System 1492-1992: Is Justice Possible? Geneva: WCC Publications, 1992, p. 6. 16 Janet Bord and Colin Bord, Sacred Waters: Holy Wells and Water Lore in Britain and Ireland, London – New York: Granada, 1985, 31. Quoted by Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit, Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002, p. 136. 157
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every priest industriously advances Christianity, and extinguishes heathenism, and forbids the worship of fountains.17
From the corruption of water and its reduction to a mere detergent to wash away industry’s poisonous substances, follows the current water wars all over the world. In this sense George Bush Jr.’s declaration is symptomatic: “For Texas Now, Water, Not Oil, is Liquid Gold.”18 Doing theology from the stomach has been denied in general; nonetheless, prophetic voices raised their thunder: St. Basil (330-79 C.E.) preached in his Homily against the rich (p. 31): “The bread you keep belongs to the hungry people. The clothes you pile in your closet belongs to the naked.” St. Ambrose (339-97 C.E.) commented about Naboth’s Vineyard: “Naboth’s story is old as a narrative, but modern as related to customs. Which powerful person doesn’t want to expel farmers from their ancestral lands? Where is the rich satisfied with what he has and who is not tempted with his neighbor’s property? Every day in the world new Ahabs are born and other Naboths die.” Food history has been intertwined with war and the church. This is also the case of cherries. According to Pliny’s history, they were taken early by Lucullus, from Kerasos, Pontus, Asia Minor to Europe. However its dissemination was slow, until the Cluny monastery and the entire French town spread it all over Europe.19 This is also the case of mystic, poet, and writer Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179 C.E.) who has been studied from several perspectives, but her fondness for beer still remains to be addressed (reminding us that mystics are not mystics at all times). Throughout the Middle Ages the Christian church blessed the dividing wall between rich and poor with the recommendation that the rich be generous with the poor. Within this static view of society bishopric seats were established in strategic agricultural centers even though during the 12th and 13th centuries bishops legitimized the right to steal in favor of hungry people, as long as robbing had the purpose of feeding themselves.20 Spanish cuisine is what it is thanks to the Muslim rich culinary tradition. During eight centuries of colonization, they shared their gastronomic culture such 17
Ibid. New York Times, April 6, 2001, front page. 19 Álvaro, Cunqueiro, La cocina cristiana de Occidente, Barcelona: Tusquets, 1999, p. 229. 20 Marcelo de Barros/José Luis Caravias, Teología de la tierra, Madrid: Paulinas, 1988, p. 306. 18
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as the stuffing of vegetables, the production of candies, and of course, the introduction of sugar cane. Some years their harvest was so abundant that Muslims were not the exception in burning cereals to keep the “right price.” It is an open secret that Muslims in Spain didn’t obey the Koran’s prohibition of alcoholic beverages. They were experts in growing vineyards and also olives. Regarding olive oil, it was all spread out through Al-Andalusia. In fact you can state that Muslim expansion in the Iberian Peninsula stopped where agrarian conditions were adverse to the growing of olives!21 The Crusades were food wars as well. Sugar, lemons, oranges, dates, peaches, Saracen wheat, among other goodies, were stolen by Europeans. Tarragon (little dragon) was another spice which traveled under these circumstances. Centuries later the French Revolution attempted to popularize it as the most valuable aromatic plant but in spite of those efforts, tarragon remained among the elite and the connoisseurs.22 Coming from a long Christian and Greek tradition which rejected bodily pleasures, being a cook was something despicable. However, some sources propose that when the papacy moved to Avignon, Pope John XXII (1244-1334 C.E.), a mustard lover, inaugurated the high white caps on his cooks.23 French prestigious culinary history, on the other hand, has led a food historian to assert that the British kitchen was consolidated during the Hundred Year War (1337-1453 C.E.) against the Gauls.24 Although Italians would never agree, in the 14th century Marco Polo took pasta edibles from China, and eventually they became national dishes of his home country. Prince Henry the Navigator in the 15th century sponsored a series of trips to find a water route to India. The Portuguese empire wanted to avoid Venice and Genoa intermediaries in the acquisition of spices and fruits such as cinnamon, ginger, mustard, pepper, mangoes, etc. However, the circumnavigation of the African continent as a route to India was not accomplished until 1499 C.E. with Vasco da Gama. It was also through Henry the Navigator’s auspice that the
Modernity, capitalism, colonialism or globalization started at the end of the 15th and at the beginning of the 16th century, with the dis-encounter of three kitchens: Africa, Americas and Europe. Later on other kitchens would join the potpourri, or the community pot. On this fourth course, I’ll invest some time on a gastronomical spirituality by telling short stories of several edibles and drinkables particularly related to my Mexican background. In the USA, the saying “the rich buy steak and the poor get cheese,” shows how food is culturally embedded. Taste conquest is in sight when a thick piece of red meat is the criterion to determine group identity, regardless of the fact that 25% of the world’s grain harvest is destined to feed cattle in the rich countries.27 Although, to be fair, with few exceptions like the Arab culture of vegetables, the vast majority associate food with meat and not with vegetables, like Proverbs 15: 17: “Better to eat vegetables with people you love than to eat the finest meat where there is hate.” Obviously, this proverb was written by a well fed hand! Actually there is an equation between eating meat and orthodoxy. There has been a link between heresy and vegetarianism because
21
25
Reyna Pastor de Togneri, Del Islam al cristianismo: en las fronteras de dos formaciones económico-sociales, Barcelona: Península, 1985, p. 69. 22 Alberto Monin, Chacinados caseros, Buenos Aires: Albatros, 1996, p. 57. 23 Álvaro, Cunqueiro, La cocina cristiana de Occidente, Barcelona: Tusquets, 1999, p. 153. 24 Ibid, p. 49. 159
bizcocho (a kind of bread) was born. The bi (= two coctus), which means boiled two times, prolonged the life expectancy of bread, and alongside, avoided the burden of transporting extra water and fuel for their preparation. Elitist bakers also created the distinction between pambazo (pan baixo, pan bajo), a lower kind of bread for the poor, and la baguette, a fancy French name for a long bread for people with taste. IV. Dis/Encounter of Three Kitchens: XVI-XX C.E.
El vino, de plátano; y si sale agrio, ¡es nuestro vino! 25
José Martí
The Pope as the vicar of God commanded the world, as if it were a tool in his hands; the pope, supported by the canonists, considered the world as his property to be disposed according to his will. 26
José Marti, Obras completas; edición popular conmemorativa de su muerte. Vol. 2, Tomo 1, La Habana, Ed. Lex, 1948, p. 110. 26 Quoted by Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Boston, MA: South End Press, 1997, p. 1. 27 Janet M. Fitchen, “Hunger, Malnutrition, and Poverty in the Contemporary United States,” in Carole Counihan & Penny van Esterik, Food and Culture: A Reader, New York and London: Routledge, 1997, p. 399. 160
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vegetarians are always on guard against taste conquest. Currently they resist the McDomination or McDonaldization and Coca-colonization of taste. Needless to say, Jesus was culinarily bound. In the Upper Room he chose to share food and drinks from his culture. In the same way Japanese Christians celebrate the Eucharist with sushi. Unfortunately, the fusion between Christianity and Western culture resulting in food hegemony over other cultures. Bartolomé Ledesma (1525-1604) taught at the University of Mexico that the Eucharist must be celebrated with bread and wine from Europe and not from the Indians.28 A 17th century catechism promotes the taste conquest: Q. What is the Eucharist? A. It is the consecrated species of bread and wine which contain the true body and blood of Jesus Christ. Q. Of what kind are those species made? A. Of true bread made out of wheat flour and water, and of true wine made out of grapes.”29
Martin Luther was also oblivious regarding Gastronomical Otherness, or the legitimacy of other food and drinks in celebrating communion. In his Tischreden he is asked about an alternative drink: One shouldn’t use anything other than wine. If a person can’t tolerate wine, omit the sacrament altogether in order that no innovation may be made or introduced.30
Francisco de Jerez, notary and secretary of Francisco Pizarro, the invader of Peru, wrote in his official history that Spaniards “feed each other with the beastly food of those who have never heard about bread and wine... and in spite of that, they have conquered all that is known by the entire world.”31 The bestial character of the Indians, according to European writers originated not only because of their illiteracy but also because of their inferior food. The Spanish granted the honorific title of gente de razón, “reasonable persons,” to those who knew how to eat properly, read: European style!32 A Mexican author 28
Maximiliano Salinas Campos, Gracias a Dios que comí; el cristianismo en Iberoamérica y el Caribe s.XVI-XX, (México, D.F.: Dabar, 2000), p. 144. 29 Manuel Gutiérrez de Arce, Apéndice a El Sínodo Diocesano de Santiago de León de Caracas 1687, (Academia Nacional de Historia, 1975, v. 125), p. 58. 30 Theodore G. Tapper (ed.), Luther´s Works 54: Table Talk, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967, p. 438. 31 Jerez, Verdadera relación de la conquista del Perú, pp. 59-60. 32 Jeffrey M. Pilcher, ¡Vivan los tamales! México, D.F.: Ciesas, CONACULTA, Ediciones de la Reina Roja, 2001, p.142. 161
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elaborated a whole treatise on culinary predestination; according to that, rice and corn cultures were pre-ordained to be subservient to wheat cultures.33 Martin Luther blamed the demons for his chronic constipation. He wasn’t aware that it was due to his diet poor in vegetables. He didn’t realize that his slow metabolism, which was the worst sickness in the Middle Ages, was also a consequence of his excessive consumption of bread.34 As the economy became more monetary based, farmers were more dependent on the owners of capital, resulting in a series of agricultural revolts. Thomas Munzer the champion of the peasant wars, is a valuable contribution of the Protestant Reform in terms of land justice. However, they were bloodily devastated in the Peasant War of 1525. “Spice Islands” or Muluccas (Maluku) articulated food with war as well. The Indonesian group of islands was invaded by Muslims, by Portugal (1512) by French during several inroads, and by Dutch (XIX century). The empires’ agenda was to make business with the secret tree of nutmeg, musk (Persian), muscum (Latin), nuez moscada (Spanish), among other spices. Coffee was a controversial drink. Since the Arabs introduced it probably from Africa to Europe, after a while Pope Clement VIII (1536-1605) solved the ethical-theological problem of whether or not to drink a Mohammedan drink. This Pope drank it right away arguing that such a delicious drink shouldn’t be exclusively in the hands of the infidels! Eventually coffee was planted in French Guyana and Martinique. Christopher Columbus intended to arrive in India through an alternative water route. His task was to obtain spices without the mediation of the Turks who dominated the Mediterranean Sea and the city of Constantinople. The Genoan navigator only had one requirement for his crew: their capacity to eat very little.35 The Aztecs terrorized conquered towns with a tribute, which was paid with a significant amount of food, such as the 20,000 tons of amaranth. Besides that they literally used food as a weapon when they burned chili peppers, and with the help of heavy smoke they defeated their opponents. Hot peppers were also tools for torture and punishment among Incas, Mayans and Aztecs. 33
Quoted by Jeffrey M. Pilcher, ¡Vivan los tamales! México, D.F.: Ciesas, CONACULTA, Ediciones de la Reina Roja, 2001, p. 119. 34 Sonia Corcuera Mancera, Entre gula y templanza: un aspecto de la historia mexicana, Mexico City: FCE, 1999, p. 53. 35 Maria Leonor de Macedo Soares Leal, A historia da gastronomia, Rio de Janeiro: Senac, 2002, p. 37. 162
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Mexican ancestors themselves later on suffered food and water terrorism under the Spanish siege of Tenochtitlan for several months, until August 13, 1521, when Cortes took over. According to Mayan time, Sunday mass was a direct attack upon their agricultural cycle. The Incas’ conquest began through their stomachs by shifting their agricultural economy into a gold-oriented economy. Southern countries and entire continents have been impoverished during the last five centuries by shifting small farms, subsistence agriculture for a one crop agriculture: sugar cane, cotton, coffee, rubber, banana, etc. In other words, changing subsistence agriculture for exporting agriculture. In Brazil cassava had to be cultivated clandestinely in far reaching places, since the best lands were exclusively for sugar cane plantations. The Spanish defeated the Aztecs through their stomachs. During the harvest feasts they used to make images of their main deity Huitzilopochtli out of huautli or amaranth, and eat it. The Spanish established the capital punishment for planting, selling or eating this staple grain. By satanizing amaranth, the miracle grain which is superior to the rest of cereals, Indians lost a source of strength. As time went by, the Indians would recuperate this tradition through the Pan de muerto (bread of the dead), which in spite of the sign of the cross and their wheat ingredients, could very well signify their own old worship to Huitzilopochtli. The racist European stomach didn’t tolerate eating the savages’ food, therefore they solved the problem by “transubstantiating” what was considered “wild” edibles, changing their original names through re-baptism: Brazilian cajú for nuez de la India, Indian nuts. Brazilian corn for Portuguese ear. Camotli (Náhuatl) batata, sweet potato. It is well known how Napoleon’s wife, Empress Josephine, cultivated them in her nursing home as she used to see it in her native Martinique. Ananá (Taíno), Piña (Spain), abacaxí (Portugal), pineapple. Columbus became acquainted with it in Guadeloupe. It was discredited for a while as a source of cholera, but eventually nobody resisted Puerto Rican “Piña Colada.” Ahuacátl (Náhuatl: testicles tree), Palta (Quechua) = avocado pear or alligator pear (England). Fresa: strawberry. Their home was Southern Chile: fraises du Chili. In 1712 the marine official Freize, went back to England, took some with him and taught 163
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them to eat them with cream. Linnaeus ate them to treat his gout disease. Xa-nat (Totonac), Tlilxochitl (Náhuatl, black flower) = vanilla. Edmond Albius36 was a slave who in the mid 19th century won his freedom by teaching the tropical planters that, in the absence of “meliponas” bugs, vanilla flowers had to be pollinated by hand and one a time. Vanilla, originated in Papantla, México; however, this Veracruz town was dethroned by the planting of bananas and oranges, and by the greediness of Mexican Secretary of Agriculture and its premature harvesting.37 Maguey (Antillianism), from Mayahuel, the Goddess of 400 breasts represented food and fertility. The juice of this cactus fed children with its sacred liquid aguamiel before fermentation and pulque as an alcoholic beverage to make adults merry. This sacred drink became a source for escaping reality after the invasion of Europeans. Ají (Taíno or Quechua) or chili (Náhuatl), Turkey pepper, pepperoni, pimento. Paprika is the Hungarian name for chile and it is a basic ingredient of its national dish called goulash, which literally means “soldiers’ food.” In the same Hungary is well respected because of its pâté or foie gras made of goose liver. According to tradition pâté traveled to the Gauls inside the Roman soldier’s shields!38 Some recipes of mayonnaise include paprika reminds us of the controversial origin of this sauce. France is of the idea that French cooks of Duke Richelieu created it while fighting against British troops in 1756. Other versions credited mayonnaise to the indulgences of Toulouse; others linked it with the mules of the Pope at Avignon; and still others trace its origin to a siege of a French castle during the religion wars of the 16th and 17th centuries.39 USA’s Tabasco hot sauce is also chained to military history when Edmund Mellhenny took the plant from the Mexican state on his return to Louisiana in 1868. After the USA invasion, Mexico lost more than half of its territory. Ayotl (Náhuatl), Zucco of Syria and then zucchini (Italians), Berengen of India. The English language keeps the Massachusetts Algonquian Indian name askootasquash. Ayacotl (Náhuatl), Purutu (Quechua poroto), haricot (France). Spaniards 36
Juana Barría, El otro oro de América; los alimentos y la cocina del Nuevo Mundo, Buenos Aires: Albatros, 1992, p. 360. Manuel Mejido, México amargo, México D. F.: Siglo XXI, 1973, p. 49. 38 Tina Alarcón, Escritores en cubiertos, México, D.F.: Aguilar, 2003, pp. 140-141. 39 Álvaro Cunqueiro, “La mesa del rey en Francia,” in La cocina cristiana de Occidente, Barcelona: Los 5 Sentidos, 1999. 37
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found a similitude with the Roman fava, so they rebaptized it as fesoles and from there, come the Spanish frijoles. The British found a similarity with the insect called bean weevi and from there, originates the name beans. Xitomatl, (Náhuatl, belly bottom), pomodoro (Golden Apples, Italy). Europeans at first feared that tomatoes were poisonous, and their leaves smelled too strong for their taste, so it was confined for decoration. For many years it was eaten only by the poor. In the 20th century, the USA made juice out of tomato and also mixed it up with spirits to continue the European-created need for alcoholic beverages. Huexolotl (Náhuatl), Jesuits (France), pavo (Spain thought it was related with Asian “pavo real” peacock), turkey (England). Mahís (Taíno, maíz), Centéotl (Náhuatl), Corn Goddess is the divinity who fights hunger. Also known as Indian wheat, grain of Turkey (Italy). Momochtli (Náhuatl), Pop-Corn, Flowered Wheat. Even though this grain saved Europe’s animal population from hunger, it was not until 1906 that Seventh Day Adventist Will Keith Kellogg made corn attractive for North American consumption in the form of flakes. American Indians developed the techniques to preserve corn, peppers, meat and potatoes by drying and grinding them. Corn powder or pinolli (Náhuatl), then facilitated people and armies to move around in big distances. Papa (Quechua), Kartoffeln (Germany), pommes de terre (France), patata (Spain). The English word potato comes from the Spanish patata, which originally was the Taino Indian’s batata, referring to sweet potato. Pirate Sir Francis Drake took it to England in the 16th century, but it was considered food for poor people until the hunger crisis of the next centuries. In 1667, the Old Believers even broke with the Russian Orthodox Church for food dogmas. The followers of Patriarch Nikon considered vegetables not mentioned in the Bible such as the potato an abomination or a “botanical form of incest,”40 a “Devil’s Plant,” a source of leprosy. Russians eventually ended up creating Vodka out of potatoes! According to Denis Diderot, the potato was a cause of excessive flatulence. This dishonorable vegetable saved the European population from several severe famines. Pirate Sir Walter Raleigh planted this it in his property of Myrtle Grove, saving his country fellows from hunger once the millet soup 40
Quoted by Sidney W. Mintz, Tasting Food, p. 76.
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(sopa boba) from the monasteries was extinguished. Tlalcacahualt (Náhuatl, soil cacao) maní (Taíno), peanut. It had to be by the initiative of canonical Francisco Torres de Ulloa that Spain began cultivating this cereal during the 18th century. USA soldiers disseminated it after the Secession War in 1865 since before that time it was confined to Virginia plantations. Peanut butter has become a symbol of USA identity in spite of the fact that originally peanut was a cheap edible for their slaves.41 Cacahuatl (náhuatl) cocoa (USA), chocolate. When Hernán Cortés in 1523 requested that the Aztecs take him where they hid their treasures, the Indians showed him a mountain of cacao seeds! In some places it was used as currency up until the 19th. Since liquids don’t break fasting (Liquidum non frangit jejunum), after almost a century of disputes, Pope Pío V (150472) declared that as long as it is prepared with water one can drink it while fasting. In the 18th century, when Holland took over the monopoly of this seed from Spain, the Dutch also exchanged New Amsterdam (New York) for Surinam with England, and began a cacao plantation. The British cultivated this plant in Curacao a century before. Sugar soon was added to chocolate since Europeans’ prone to sweetness had a co-relation to the Caribbean sugar plantations,42 and the homogenization of taste through sweetness began. In World War II, chocolate bars became the USA G.I. icon of power and might. The racist European kitchen omits the contribution of the black continent.43 European tendency to whiteness combated African-Brazilian dendé palm oil which tainted all with a golden color. Thanks to dendé oil slaves got their vitamins to keep on living.44 Culinary sexism, classism and racism can be observed throughout the history of bread. Poor people were not allowed to eat white or wheat bread but rye, corn, millet, only colored bread. Moros y cristianos, or white rice with black beans still reminds us of the discriminatory dishes. On the other hand, bread in Europe eventually became a symbol of status also in the sense that only poor people eat it three times a day, as silverware and in order to get 41
Juana Barría, El otro oro de América; los alimentos y la cocina del Nuevo Mundo, Buenos Aires: Albatros, 1992, p. 51. 42 Sidney W. Mintz, Dulzura y poder; el lugar del azúcar en la historia moderna, México, D.F.: Siglo XXI, 1996. 43 Even an excellent food critic fails to honor Africa’s Kitchen: Paco Ignacio Taibo I, Encuentro de dos fogones; tránsito de sabores e invento de gozos Vol. I y II, México, D.F.: Promoción e Imagen, 1992. 44 Josué de Castro, La alimentación en los trópicos, México, D.F.: FCE, 1946, p. 129. 166
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satisfied with the little something they put in it. Well-fed people’s diet, such as the rich and the religious orders, usually included lots of meat, some vegetables, and less soup. Bread and war also go hand and glove. In 1638, during the second siege of Vienna by the Turks, bakers heard in the middle of the night how the Turks were excavating a tunnel. The bakers made everybody alert and Vienna frustrated the surprise attack. As a reward to the bakers, they were allowed to create a new type of bread: an Arab half moon, in order to remember that the holy Cross defeated the Arab half moon, the name of that bread was Croix Sainte or cross saint, better know as Croissant. The pre-Columbian Mexican national dish, “mole” (spicy green, red or black sauce) was de-indianized by crediting it to the late invention of a nun from Puebla city. As we have seen, the category of gente de razón (reasonable people) was created in order to point to people who eat European style,45 who eat “civilized food,” or to distinguish folks who have embraced the holy European culinary trinity: wheat bread, wine and olive oil. More recently, Episcopal Pastor, Thomas Robert Malthus, in his Essay on Population Principle (1798), explained hunger and epidemics as “nature’s wisdom” in order to maintain the equilibrium of world population. He blamed the poor for being responsible for their misery due to their “irrational propensity to proliferate.” For him hunger is a natural disaster about which we can’t do anything at all. This social Darwinism contrasts with the one of Josué de Castro (1908-73), a passionate Brazilian anthropologist, physician, geographer, diplomat, writer and sociologist who fought hunger his entire life. For him, hunger: “is not a natural phenomenon, on the contrary, it is an artificial product of wrong economic systems: it is a human product and therefore, it can be eradicated through the creative capacity of human beings.” Still clearer, his research led him to conclude that overpopulation is the result of hunger. Human beings and animals that don’t have enough access to proteins are very prolific.46 Malthus also hid the zoological answer to hunger, particularly European immigration to other continents. He didn’t live to see how during the second half of 19th century, 52 million Europeans immigrated to Southern countries as food-refugees.
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The French Enlightenment cooked a war against condiments, particularly to the detriment of chili. French cooking supremacists encouraged their civilizing gastronomic mission in Mexico. It is well known how Remontel’s Tacubaya Cake House (1832) was assaulted by General Santa Ana’s soldiers and how Remontel’s complaints submitted a huge amount of damages which ended up in the perfect excuse for the French invasion through Veracruz (1838) called: “The War of the Cakes.” In 1910 a series of banquets were offered in commemoration of the first centenary of the Mexican revolution. Those fancy meals were in charge of chef Sylvain Daumont.47 The “cuisine française” won the food battle at least at the elite level. During those years people like Fernando Pimentel y Fagoaga were of the opinion that even non-Mexican cows were more civilized!48 In the same year, on the occasion of the commemoration of the first centenary of Chilean independence, the government offered a dinner at downtown Saint Lucia Park, the orchestra played classical music to accompany the French cuisine. Napoleon Bonaparte linked food to his war strategies. In order to have a strong army he sponsored new technology to preserve meals for a longer period of time. From that followed the bottling which eventually evolved into the canning industry.49 In 1795 the French emperor offered 12,000 franks in gold and Appert was the recipient of such a reward. At the dawn of the 19th century Henry Rose invented the barbed wire and Joseph Glidden patented it. Its original task was double: to protect plants from animals and to protect some animals from others. From the very outset some Christians considered this technology the “Devil’s Rope” and “the work of the devil,” but soon it became the global agricultural fashion. Still more, barbed wire became the war technology to keep ostracized civilian and military population in countless concentration camps, as well as during the two world wars.50 The Nazis orchestrated a policy of “organized hunger.” German nutritional discrimination divided Europe into four categories: well-fed, under-fed, hungry and starving. Some people were only provided with 500 to 1000 calories daily since, according to Robert Ley, the one responsible for Reich labor: 47
Salvador Novo, Cocina mexicana; historia gastronómica de la ciudad de México, México, D.F.: Porrúa, 2002, p. 141. Gustavo Esteva, “El vaivén de ilusiones y realidades,” en Sin maíz no hay país, México, D.F.: Conaculta/MNCP, 2003, p. 186. 49 María Leonor de Macedo Soares Leal, A historia da gastronomía, Rio de Janeiro: Senac, 2002, p. 50. 50 John Perry, Food for Thought: Catholic Insights into the Modified Food Debate, Ontario: Novalis, 2002, p. 21. 48
45 46
Jeffrey M. Pilcher, ¡Vivan los tamales! México, D.F.: Ciesas, CONACULTA, Ediciones de la Reina Roja, 2001, p.142. Josué de Castro, The Geography of Hunger, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1952, pp. 70-71.
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“a lower race needs less room, less clothing, less food.”51 “DDT” and other pesticides were the result of destroying human beings and harvest during the Second World War as well.52 Official statistics currently report 220,000 yearly human deaths and 3 million people suffering strong intoxications due to the use of insecticides. Inuits were conquered through their stomachs, too. Their food habits were shifted by the USA importing white wheat flour and white sugar.53 Native Americans got a mortal punch with the killing of buffalos and the destruction of Wild Rice, which is neither wild, nor rice! Between the two world wars, Puerto Rico was forced to “predestine” 240,000 acres to sugar cane plantation; 190,000 to coffee; and more than 50,000 to tobacco. The rest, 160,000 was designated to corn, beans, sweet potato and cassava, all together.54 Mexico, during the “foot-and-mouth disease” epidemic (1946-51), witnessed the killing of half a million of each species: pig, sheep, cows, and goats.55 This campaign took place during the USA’s enterprise of farm colonization: 1945-59. After World War II the northern country invested 35 million dollars, 2,000 men and 1,500 machines56 in order to “exterminate the plague.” To wash their image, both governments distributed 22,000 mules. That insulted Mexican peasants who knew mules are useless on uneven fields. Canons of taste include drinks. The emergence of Coca-Cola was linked with Christian temperance movement. Asa Griffs Candler, a convinced Methodist, bought the formula created by John Styth Pemberton in Atlanta in 1886. The name was created from the Andean coca leaves and the kola African nut. Candler proposed this alternative drink, naming it “Holy Water of the South” although its dark color hid alcohol very well, just in case! While a Southern soft drink (and covertly spirited), it was not until the Second World War that Coke became the national and global drink. The right to drink Coca-Cola was added as one their rights to fight for freedom.57 Currently availability of Coca-Cola and scarcity of water has forced maquiladoras of Mexico’s workers and their children to drink
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this product as it is offered in 195 countries with a religious zeal: All of us in the Coca-Cola family wake up each morning knowing that every single one of the world’s 5.6 billion people will get thirsty that day. If we make it impossible for these 5.6 billion people to escape Coca-Cola, then we assure our future success for many years to come. Doing anything else is not an option.58
Water treaties, such as the one of the Rio Bravo, signed between Mexico and USA in 1906 by Joaquín D. Casasús and Elihu Root, shows who is in control by granting USA 95% of the river.59 V. The Green Revolution: 1950’s to the Present
If you’re looking for the best way to make people dependent, it seems to me that food dependence is excellent. H. Humphrey, Vice-president of the USA With the vast technology applied to agriculture in the 1950’s emerged the “Green Revolution” built on the same colonialist enterprise but on a bigger scale: the globalization of one kind of food to the detriment of the diversity and sustainability of local staple edibles. In 1910, 45% of Americans lived in the countryside. In 1935 there were 6.8 million active farm people in the country; currently there are approximately 1.9 million. With the post-war, through the “Green Revolution” a shift from agriculture to agribusiness took place. Big corporations and banks took over small properties transforming fields into factories. Earl Butz, USA Secretary of Agriculture, told farmers repeatedly: “get big or get out.”60 To mention just one example, in 1920, 925,000 African-Americans operated farms; by 1980 less than 40,000 remained.61 Before the Second World War the majority of the food consumed by cities was obtained within a 50 mile radius; the new food era with its vacuum packing, heavy advertising, long distance transportation, made cities dependent.62 The terror consequences of agri-power, or of the “food diplomacy”
51
Josué de Castro, The Geography of Hunger, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1952, p. 250. “La agricultura de Guerra,” Brecha, 13 agosto, 2002. 53 Richard Watson, La dieta del filósofo; adelgace y, de paso, descubra el sentido de la vida, Barcelona: Urano, 1999, p. 35. 54 Josué de Castro, The Geography of Hunger, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1952, p. 123. 55 José Rogelio Álvarez (ed). Enciclopedia de México, México, SEP, 1987, p. 3156. 56 Paul Friggens, “Fracasa la lucha contra la aftosa en México,” en Selecciones de Readers Digest, julio 1948, pp. 39-41. 57 Sidney W. Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past, Boston: Beacon Press, 1996, pp. 26-28. 52
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Quoted by Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit, Cambridge, MA, South End Press, 2002, p. 99. 59 Manueal Mejido, México amargo, México D. F.: Siglo XXI, 1973, p. 9. 60 Jack A. Nelson, Hunger for Justice: the Politics of Food and Faith, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1980, p. 137. 61 Ibid, p. 146. 62 Ibid, p. 139. 170
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were lucidly grasped by Wendell Berry: The concept of food-as-weapon is not surprisingly the doctrine of a Department of Agriculture that is being used as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation. This militarizing of food is the greatest threat so far raised against the farmland and the farm communities of this country. If present attitudes continue, we may expect government policies that still encourage the destruction, by overuse, of farmland. This, of course, has already begun. To answer the official call for more production – evidently to be used to bait or bribe foreign countries – farmers are plowing their waterways and permanent pastures; lands that ought to remain in grass are being planted in row crops. Contour plowing, crop rotation, and other conservation measures seem to have gone out of favor of fashion in official circles and are practiced less and less on the farm. This exclusive emphasis on production will accelerate the mechanization and chemicalization of farming, increase the price of land, increase overhead and operating cost, and thereby further diminish the farm population. Thus the tendency, if not the intention, of Mr. Butz’s confusion of farming and war, is to complete the deliverance of American agriculture into the hands of corporations.63
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dependence for the donors. In 1975 Earl Butz, USA Secretary of Agriculture, pointed out: “Food is a weapon. It is now one of the principal tools in our negotiating kit.”66 John Block, USA Secretary of Agriculture 1981-85, was of the conviction that “the effort of some developing countries to become self-sufficient in terms of food production should be a memory of old times. Those countries must save money by importing food from the United States.”67 Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz was committed to land reform no matter what. In 1954, the United Fruit Company boycotted the presidential project with a coup d’etat. In the 1970’s pediatrician and Chilean president Salvador Allende, was committed to provide half a litter of milk to each child of his country. Nestle, the second food corporation in the world boycotted the project.68 VI. The “Free Trade Agreement”: 1994 to the Present
In the United States, the fortunate ‘Lazarus’ is given food stamps as a means to create dependency. Government assistance food programs also are instrumental in controling of their recipients: What to eat, how often they give, who they choose, with what kind of qualifications, where they distribute the edibles.64 The Food Stamp Program, among other food giveaway organizations is subordinated to the policies of the producers, processors and distributors of food. In many cases they follow the wealthy Dives’ principle: “feeding the poor our leftovers,” sometimes on a “first-come-firstserve” basis, which includes not only the hungry but the well-fed as well. Fitchen rightly synthesizes the foodstuffs given: They represent the overproduction that threatens to bring down the price received by the producer/processor, the “surplus” purchased by the federal government to keep it off the market. The real objectives of the commodity distribution program, it appears, are to reduce the supply reaching the market, to dispose of governmentowned surplus commodities in a way that obviates long-term storage costs, and to reduce embarrassment over surplus in the face of reportedly growing hunger.65
Since “food is power,” international food aid leads also to a convenient
Agriculture is important to our nation, to feed our people. Can you imagine a country incapable of producing enough food to feed its population? It would be a nation exposed to international pressures. It would be a vulnerable nation. That’s why when we talk about American agriculture, actually we’re talking about national security. George Bush Jr., July 27, 2001, Washington.
The “Bull of Donation” of Pope Alexander VI, issued on April 17, 1492 was the culmination of a series of bulls where the Dominus Orbi or the universal lordship of the papacy granted Spain and Portugal all the lands “discovered and to be discovered, one hundred leagues to the West and South of the Azores towards India.” As time went by new forms of expropriation were articulated especially through the patents war. In this way even the most spiritual, i.e., the ideas were turned into merchandize by being considered “intellectual property,” as the British Monopoly Statues (1623) and the System of Industrial Patents (1883) illustrates it. From 1781 to 1999, in the USA
63
Quoted inIbid, pp. 151-152. Janet M. Fitchen, “Hunger, Malnutrition, and Poverty in the Contemporary United States,” in Carole Counihan & Penny van Esterik, Food and Culture, A Reader, New York and London: Routledge, 1997, p.399. 65 Ibid, p. 398. 64
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66
New York Times, 17 March, 1975. Luis Hernández Navarro, “La guerra de los alimentos,” La Jornada. 68 Jean Ziegler, El hambre en el mundo explicada a mi hijo, Barcelona: Muchnik, 2000, p. 67. 67
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only, there were 6 million patents and there were 3 more million waiting to be patented. It is expected that by 2005 there is going to be one billion dollars of income through the IPR (intellectual property rights).69 The patent business has extended its monopolization to the patenting of animals, microbes, living organisms, human cells, plants and popular knowledge of ancient indigenous cultures. The new millennium has already started with the “green gold” or the genetically manipulated seeds. Transgenic seeds produce bigger plants, more resistant to barren lands, to insects. The final products last longer in the fridge, and resist more rottenness. Nonetheless, instead of fighting hunger of two thirds of the world population, the profit seeking mentality has in mind to control seeds and harvest of the 1.5 billion farmers of the world. Through the terminator or suicide seeds, besides the patents of plants and animals, the big agribusiness corporations are more serious in continuing to use food as a mortal weapon. Little wonder two American experts in world hunger conclude: “the most important step Americans can take to end hunger is to remove U.S. support – financial, diplomatic, and military – from regimes determined to resist the changes necessary to end hunger.”70 In 2004 the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) between Mexico, USA and Canada has reached its first decade. This is an open declaration of war against farmers. Mexican Carlos Hank Gonzalez, in his task to emulate big agribusiness of northern countries declared in 1991: “It is my duty as Secretary of Agriculture to expel from their farms 10,000 peasants.” When a journalist asked him what were the plans for those evacuated farmers the politician said: “That’s not my area of work.”71 He just wanted for Mexico to “modernize” following the example of only 2% of USA farmers who produce enough food for their country and for export, too. Mexico, with the temporary exception of beans, powdered milk, sugar
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and corn, in 2003 eliminated international barriers to trade with more than 40 plants and animal products from the USA. This asymmetric relationship is already jeopardizing Mexican food sovereignty. USA and Canada subsidize farmers whereas 70% of the 25 million Mexican farmers live in poverty, and more than 20% in misery. In the USA and Canada there are 384 tractors per 1000 peasants, while in Mexico there are only 20 tractors per 1000 peasants. Since the 1970’s, Mexico, the land of corn, imports it from USA, and by 2008 the 2000 mile-border will be open to tax-free corn from the USA. Still more, since the year 2000 transgenic corn, not approved for human consumption, has been found in the corn tortillas of “Taco Bell” made in Mexico.72 After ten years of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), it is clear that food terrorism is what it means. Mexico buys staple food and sells cheap labor and raw materials. It is no accident that the new political party in power PAN (Party of National Action) was originated to oppose President Lázaro Cárdenas’ land reform in support of the poor landless farmers and peasants. Within this chain of events we have to place the Neo-Zapatista movement protest since January 1, 1994 with Sub-Comandante Marcos. This philosopher and land activist inserts his fight with agrarian revolutionary Maximiliano Zapata and his heir, Methodist pastor and martyr Rubén Jaramillo.73 Land and life were articulated by two peasants from Chiapas: “The free trade agreement is a death certificate for the Indian peoples of Mexico,” and “Don’t test us, because Zapatistas could appear all over the country.”74 Soybean totalitarianism is at hand. Argentina, is a country that has the capacity to feed 300 million people, produce 70 million tons of grain and 90 million tons of agricultural products. It is the fourth world producer of grains and a well respected producer of fine meat. Nevertheless, 55% of its population lives in a poverty level and 25% in misery. In addition, this country is shifting its production to soybeans, being already the third world
69
Jorge Riechmann. Qué son los alimentos transgénicos; ¿Cómo va a influir en la economía mundial? ¿Cuáles son los riesgos para la salud humana? ¿Para qué se producen?, Barcelona: Integral, 2002, p. 56. 70 Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins, “Beyond the Myths of Hunger: What Can We Do?,” in Food and Culture: A Reader, New York/ London: Routledge, 1997, p. 403. 71 Gustavo Esteva, “El vaivén de ilusiones y realidades,” en Sin maíz no hay país, México, D.F.: Conaculta/MNCP, 2003, p. 204. 173
72
Jorge Riechmann, ¿Qué son los alimentos transgénicos?; ¿cómo van a influir en la economía mundial?, Barcelona: Integral, 2002, p. 49. 73 Carlos Fuentes, Tiempo mexicano, Mexico, D.F.: Joaquín Mortiz, 1978, p. 109. 74 Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Boston, MA: South End Press, 1997, p. 114. 174
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producer after USA and Brazil, which will make it more dependent. India is under the tyranny of soybeans as well, by shifting their taste, distracting their fields from polycultures to industrial monocultures. World Bank propaganda of replacing “food-first” for “exporting-first” has to do with their war against self-sufficiency or the growing of food locally. The imperial media of free trade argues that “the earnings from exports of farmed shrimp, flowers, and meat will finance imports of food.”75 Soybeans are at war against India’s mustard which is useful for therapeutic massages, for muscular and joint problems, as a repellent, as oil, as a pest control and environment purifier and it is the very symbol of Spring. A Bitter-Sweet Dessert
Only one thing matters on earth: the revolution which will provide food for the entire world. Simone Weil76 I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about as freely as possible, but I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.
Gandhi
The well known French female philosophers Simone Weil (1909-43) and Simone de Beauvoir met at the Sorbonne. Sartre’s “significant other” was intrigued by the weary clothes and sharp mind of her namesake. Furthermore, Beauvoir was drawn to Weil when she heard that the Christian, Marxist and Mystic started crying when she heard the news of a big famine in China. Beauvoir just felt overwhelmed with the philosopher, whose heart pumped for the entire creation, so an encounter was propitiated. Weil immediately stopped her colleague: “Only one thing matters on earth: the revolution which will provide food for the entire world.” Beauvoir strongly disagreed: “the main problem is not to find happiness for human beings; but to find the sense of being.” “It is clear that you have never ever been hungry,” concluded Simone Weil.77
In this dinner, I have been providing my commensals with some morsels of the history of Christian thought from the angle of hunger. My aim has been to draw the attention of the church at large, to consider hunger as a theological dogma. A holistic soteriology involves soul and body and the entire creation. From that follows the right to eat, the right to have access to food, as the most basic human right. Consequently, we have to address the eradication of hunger as a matter of Status Confessionis.78 At the rise of the third millennium globalizers still hold to the concept of earth as something inert, as a Terra Nullius, (land of nobody), read: land of the five agro-business corporations which monopolize the grain of the globalized world. We have seen how the capitalization and militarization of agriculture has led us to the homogenization of agricultural systems and thus to the gastronomical conquest. The Other, s/he who eats differently runs the risk of being swallowed by the McDomination and Coca-Colonization of taste. In our task of democratizing food we need to recuperate the prophetic vocation of Christianity. Prophets and prophetesses throughout Judeo-Christian tradition have subscribed to Hebrew Scriptures imperative: “Not one of your people will be poor” (Deuteronomy 15: 4). The epistemological, ecclesiological, and soteriological place to meet Jesus Christ in disguise is, not surprisingly, in the hungry people (Matthew 25: 31-46). Here we are then, sitting at the table nearby the Potpourri, the symbol of diversity in the midst of the assimilating melting-pot of agro-industries; the symbol of self-sufficiency and self-determination, in front of food terrorism of the modern Josephs who trade with human beings. Potpourri is an open invitation to fight gastronomical conquest. To celebrate diversity, to re-create life through free access to food for everybody; to do theology from the guts through a theological cuisinature. Bon Appetite!
75
Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest: the Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, Cambridge MA: South End Press, 2000, p. 15. Simone de Beauvoir, Memorias de una joven formal, Barcelona: EDHASA, 1987, p. 242. 77 Ibid. 76
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Craig L. Nessan, Give Us Today A Lutheran Proposal for Ending World Hunger, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. 176
Religión en la globalización: ¿Integración o resistencia? STURLA J. STÅLSETT Noruega
Introducción: La nueva importancia de la religión
La religión ha vuelto con fuerza a la vida pública. Según el sociólogo francés Gilles Kepel, el reciente resurgimiento global de las grandes religiones abrahamitas representa ‘La revanche de Dieu’ – la ‘revancha’ o ‘venganza’ de Dios (Kepel 1994, [1991]). Aunque esto pueda sonar exagerado, el punto principal es obvio: Los rumores sobre ‘la muerte de Dios’ no tenían fundamento. La tesis de la secularización – que la modernización necesariamente llevaría a una privatización y marginación de la religión de la vida pública – simplemente se ha mostrado errónea. Por consiguiente, la globalización no puede ser entendida sin un análisis profundo del fenómeno religioso. ¿Qué papel juega(n) la(s) religión(es) en los procesos de la globalización? ¿Acelera u obstaculiza la religión estos procesos de transformación global? ¿Es la religión una fuerza de resistencia o integración en la globalización? En este artículo trataré de dar algunas respuestas – aunque sean preliminares – a estas preguntas. Veremos que el asunto es complejo. Obviamente, la respuesta depende de qué significado se da al término ‘globalización.’ ¿Qué es 'globalización'?
La ‘globalización’ es un término poco preciso y muy controvertido (Orozco 1997); (Hoogvelt 2001, [1997]); (Hinkelammert 1999); (Held and Anthony McGrew 2000); (Held and McGrew 2000); (Marchand and Runyan 2000). Puede expresar una interpretación ‘armónica’ e idealizada de la unificación del globo como consecuencia de la revolución digital. Así es, por ejemplo, cuando con este termino se refiere al ‘hecho’ de que el mundo ya es ‘un sólo lugar’ (R. Robertson). Es la idea de la famosa ‘aldea global.’ Aunque es posible que este término, ‘globalización,’ fuese lanzado con la intención de dar una cara positiva y humana a los procesos de transformación global, la realidad es que hoy más bien tiene una fuerte connotación crítica. 178
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Apunta tanto a la unificación como la división y fragmentación del mundo. En palabras breves, globalización es un proceso que crea desigualdad y exclusión – pobreza y cautividad para muchos, y libertad y riqueza sin límites para algunos. Vale la pena subrayar tres aspectos distintos pero conectados de estos procesos: 1. El aspecto más importante es el aspecto económico. Globalización significa un casi omnipotente capitalismo global, el imperio del neoliberalismo. Implica una economización de todas las esferas de la vida humana, y una intensa ‘mesianización’ del mercado. En esta economía predomina la especulativa, la ‘economía de casino,’ el tal llamado turbo-capitalismo. La inestabilidad de los mercados financieros, en particular los mercados de divisas, representan según p.ej. Martin & Schumann una amenaza contra la seguridad del mundo comparable con la amenaza nuclear (Martin 1997). Es importante recordar que estos cambios económicos son resultados de decisiones políticas intencionales, en particular representadas y realizadas por instituciones internacionales como el Banco Mundial y el Fondo Monetario Internacional. El resultado de esta globalización económica es que las diferencias entre los ricos y los pobres en el mundo se están incrementando. Hay una fuerte polarización social. En otras palabras, vemos que la globalización tiene un costo humano muy elevado, tiene innumerables víctimas. 2. En cuanto a lo político vemos en primer lugar que ‘globalización’ implica una economización de la política. Hoy en día, son los economistas los que gobiernan a los políticos, y no al revés. En palabras de E. Galeano, vivimos una poderocracia globalizada: “...el mundo de hoy otorga el poder de decisión a los poquitos, muy poquitos, que lo han comprado.”1 Esto lleva a la conocida – sobre todo en América latina – desconfianza generalizada del público hacia los políticos. Existe un gran desencanto, una resignación casi total ante la política tradicional. Por el otro lado es necesario también hacer referencia al hecho de que durante el siglo pasado sí hubo avances políticos importantes hacia lo que podría llamarse un ‘sector público mundial.’ Me refiero al desarrollo de los derechos humanos y los convenios relacionados con esto que se han logrado a nivel internacional, y la consiguiente institucionalización de estos derechos. Es bueno reconocer estas estructuras globales en principio más democráticas, para poder apoyarlas y promoverlas aún más. Mas que todo se trata del papel de las Naciones Unidas. Otra tendencia positiva que es parte del aspecto político de la globalización, 1
Citado en “Carta a las iglesias,” No 459, 2000, pág. 10.
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aunque en contraposición a ella (y es exactamente esa paradoja que particularmente nos interesa en este artículo), es el resurgimiento de los movimientos sociales, la sociedad civil al nivel global. Estos movimientos y grupos hacen alianzas muy amplias y reclaman su papel de actores, de agentes, de sujetos en el proceso mundial. No aceptan ser más excluidos o sobrantes. Reclaman su derecho a participar. Es aquí donde por ejemplo el clamor de los grupos indígenas en Chiapas a través de su rebelión zapatista ha tenido una gran repercusión a nivel internacional: Su conocido eslogan ‘queremos un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos,’ o ‘donde quepan todas y todos,’ ha sido reconocido por muchos en otras latitudes como una demanda legítima e importante en el mundo globalizado. Los grandes encuentros del Foro Social Mundial en Porto Alegre y Bombay bajo el lema ‘otro mundo es posible’ han mostrado la fuerza y la amplitud de estas alianzas. 3. En su aspecto cultural, la globalización parece envolver dos procesos contradictorios al mismo tiempo. Por un lado, la tremenda aceleración de los medios de transporte y comunicación hace más visible y presente la pluriformidad de las culturas humanas del globo. Hay una tendencia clara hacia más pluralismo, hacia una mezcla de las culturas, hacia el ‘mestizamiento’ y la ‘hibridación.’ Al mismo tiempo no cabe ninguna duda de que el aspecto comercial de la globalización implica una creciente hegemonía cultural por parte del mundo occidental, en particular, de los EE.UU. Es lo que se ha llamado la ‘Coca-colonización de McMundo.’ Esta tendencia va hacia homogeneización: el mundo en la imagen del Occidente. A su vez, esta neo-colonización desencadena mecanismos de defensa y resistencia por parte de las culturas amenazadas. Esta reacción los lleva a fortalecer su particularidad, su identidad, su idiosincrasia nacional y étnica. Es aquí donde se ve más claramente el papel renovado y reforzado de la religión. La religión en la globalización: ‘Relativización’ y ‘revitalización’
En su importante libro Religion and Globalization de 1994, el sociólogo canadiense de la religión, Peter Beyer analiza este fenómeno aparentemente contradictorio (Beyer 1994). Hay, según él, un proceso simultáneo de ‘relativización’ y ‘revitalización’ de la religión bajo la globalización. Las nuevas experiencias de pluralidad religiosa que son resutado de la nueva proximidad de religiones que antes tenían poco contacto, llevan a la conciencia de que ‘mi’ religión sólo es una religión entre muchas. Aunque yo mantenga que mi religión sea la religión verdadera, este reclamo ha dejado de ser evidente, ya que mi religión no es la única religión 180
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viva en el contexto. Así, mí religión se ‘relativiza.’ Pero eso a menudo significa que ‘mi religión’ adquiere una nueva importancia para mí, y para mi grupo. Frente a todas estas ‘otras’ religiones, estos ‘otros’ grupos, pueblos, seres humanos, ¿quiénes somos nosotros? ¿Quién soy yo? Así la tradición religiosa se revitaliza, toma nueva fuerza y relevancia. La religión forma parte esencial de la identidad cuestionada bajo la presión de la globalización. Esta revitalización de la religión que es resultado de la globalización puede funcionar tanto a favor de como en contra del mismo proceso de globalización. Puede ser ‘pro-sistémica’ o ‘anti-sistémica,’ dice Beyer. Puede facilitar la integración en los procesos globalizadores, o hacer resistencia frente a ellos. Pero este fenómeno es más complejo: tanto la integración (p.ej. misiónconquista o reconciliación-ecumenismo) como la resistencia (fundamentalismo violento o teología de liberación abierta al diálogo inter-religioso) pueden tener formas muy distintas. Y, según Beyer, la religión también puede tener las dos funciones – integración y resistencia – al mismo tiempo: Le religión puede trabajar en contra de ciertas deficiencias o consecuencias negativas de la globalización, para promover una ‘globalización’ alternativa, fundada en otros valores globales o universales. Que la religión occidental – el cristianismo católico y protestante – ha jugado y sigue jugando un papel importante en los procesos de globalización como ‘occidentalización’ de todo el globo es claro y conocido. El famoso filósofo francés Jaques Derrida habla de ‘globalatinización,’ refiriéndose precisamente a ese aspecto de la religión ‘latina’ o sea ‘de Roma’ en el proceso actual. Esto sería un ejemplo claro de la religión como fuerza globalizadora, o como fuerza de integración. Pero el papel de la religión en la época de la globalización también es crítico y antagónico, como ha subrayado por ejemplo el historiador norteamericano Samuel P. Huntington en su conocido libro The Clash of Civilizations (Huntington 1997). La occidentalización del mundo provoca una reacción étnica, cultural, y religiosa por parte de las otras culturas. Después de la caída del muro de Berlín, estamos según Huntington ante un choque de siete o ocho ‘civilizaciones.’ Estas civilizaciones tienen como su fundamento último una tradición religiosa particular. El choque de civilizaciones implica entonces guerras de religiones. En otras palabras, la resistencia religiosa a la globalización como homo181
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geneización y occidentalización a menudo se vuelve fundamentalista. Esto es el punto principal de Huntington. Después del 11 de septiembre 2001 quizá se podría hablar de un ‘choque de fundamentalismos,’ como hace el autor palestino Tariq Ali, pensando en el hecho de que tanto bin Laden como Bush luchan en el nombre de su dios. Los dos hacen uso de un lenguaje religioso que es antagónico y dualista: se trata de una lucha de vida y muerte entre los ‘buenos’ y los ‘malos.’ Las graves consecuencias de un ‘choque de fundamentalismos’ como lo que hoy se vive son bien conocidas. Aunque desde contextos y perspectivas muy diferentes, los proyectos políticos del presidente George W. Bush y el líder de Al Qaeda tienen en común un antagonismo absoluto, siguiendo una lógica excluyente. Los dos quieren hacer que su particularidad sea absoluta y omnipresente. Bush, desde su posición poderosa en el sistema; bin Laden desde su rechazo total del sistema occidental globalizado. Urge oponerse a esa lógica excluyente, totalitaria y violenta. Es legítimo y necesario que la religión sea una fuerza de resistencia contra la globalización neoliberal. Pero es problemático cuando la respuesta religiosa y teológica a un proyecto totalitario y excluyente (globalización), se muestra como otro proyecto excluyente y cerrado (fundamentalismo). En cambio, lo que se necesita más que todo bajo la globalización, es una fe religiosa que expresa la apertura fundamental al otro: el excluido, la victima, aún el ‘enemigo.’ Esto también apunta a la necesidad de diálogo inter-religioso e inter- (o trans-cultural) (Küng 1997). Sólo así se puede hacer una resistencia eficiente a largo plazo. Veremos esto en el caso de América Latina, primero a través de una aproximación histórica a la conquista, y después analizando brevemente el caso de la teología de la liberación. La conquista de América latina como primera experiencia de ‘globalización’: Cuatro observaciones.
Si bien se puede decir que el proceso de desarrollo mundial que hoy se llama globalización (o mundialización) tiene sus raíces en el mal llamado ‘descubrimiento’ – ‘encubrimiento,’ diría Enrique Dussel (Dussel 1992) – de América Latina en el siglo XV, vemos que desde el primer momento, hay una relación íntima entre ese proceso y la religión. Además vemos 182
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claramente que la religión juega un papel ambiguo en este proceso – un papel ambiguo que tiene su analogía en América latina hoy. 1. Con la conquista se abre por primera vez en la historia humana la posibilidad de hacer un mapa global. Por primera vez es posible tener una visión global del mundo en que vivimos. Esa posibilidad va mano a mano con la posibilidad de conquistar esa totalidad, ganar dominio sobre ella, y llegar a ser un poder o imperio universal. Como es bien conocido, esta perspectiva es fundamental para el proyecto de la conquista del ‘nuevo mundo’ en los siglos XV y XVI. Para los pueblos originarios de estas tierras, los pueblos indígenas, este proceso era fatal. Significaba una catástrofe demográfica que se acercaba al exterminio total. Podemos entonces hacer una primera observación: Que no sólo hoy, sino desde su primer momento, la globalización ha tenido un costo humano muy elevado. La ‘Globalización’ requiere víctimas innumerables. 2. De los mal llamados ‘indios’ tal vez se podría decir que el descubrimiento/conquista significaba su ‘integración’ o inclusión en el mundo global. El mismo nombre ‘indio,’ y la historia dominante (narrada desde la perspectiva de los ganadores) de ese proceso como ‘encuentro’ – y no como enfrentamiento – de ‘dos mundos,’ apuntan a una interpretación de este tipo. Sin embargo, el casi exterminio de estos pueblos muestra claramente que en ese mismo proceso de su ‘inclusión’ en la historia del mundo ‘civilizado’ los pueblos originarios fueron de hecho excluidos de esa nueva sociedad global. Podemos entonces hacer la segunda observación, ligada a la primera, pero precisándola: Como hoy en día, la Conquista comoprimera experiencia de ‘globalización’ mostraba que la globalización lleva a la exclusión real de multitudes de seres humanos. Las víctimas reales de la globalización son ‘los excluidos.’ 3. La conquista de América latina se llevó a cabo motivada por un tremendo afán de riqueza, sobre todo de oro, nuevas tierras y acceso a nuevas rutas para el negocio (Gutiérrez 1989); (Gutiérrez 1993). Pero los conquistadores también tenían motivos religiosos. Es bien conocido como Cristóbal Colón se interpretaba a si mismo como un mensajero de Dios, un servidor del Papa y de la Iglesia tanto como servidor del Rey de España (McKennie Goodpasture 1989). Él mismo puso énfasis en el significado etimológico de su nombre Cristóbal – ‘aquél que lleva a Cristo.’ Y la iglesia, por supuesto, tenía gran interés en convertir a las 183
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gentes ‘descubiertas,’ para ‘salvar sus almas’ y así ganarse el dominio religioso sobre ese nuevo mundo. Esto se interpretaba en términos teológicos como una respuesta fiel al mandamiento de Cristo de evangelizar a todas las naciones hasta los fines de la tierra. La tercera observación entonces, es doble: Primero, que la religión en general puede ser una fuerza muy significativa de motivar y empujar un proceso de conquista-globalización. Segundo, que la fe cristiana en particular tiene una perspectiva o visión global, entendida como misión. El cristianismo se dirige hacia la totalidad de la existencia humana, hacia lo universal. 4. Pocas fueron las voces que se levantaron en contra de esa exclusión fatal de los pueblos indígenas en aquel entonces. Pero si las hubo. E, interesantemente, estos pocos que se oponían abiertamente al proceso violento de conquista era gente religiosa, personas de la Iglesia. El más conocido entre ellos fue el fraile Bartolomé de Las Casas. A través de su propia experiencia en el nuevo mundo, primero como encomendero, después como padre dominico y últimamente como obispo, iba madurando una postura y una práctica muy críticas hacia la actitud de sus propios compatriotas frente a los pueblos del nuevo mundo. Su defensa incansable de los derechos de los indios se hizo notar a tal grado que afectó directamente a la política del Rey de España, y fray Bartolomé de Las Casas fue oficialmente nombrado Defensor de los Indios. No obstante su impresionante oposición al proyecto dominante y excluyente de colonización, Las Casas no llegó a cambiar en definitivo el proceso histórico de marginación de estos pueblos. Sin embargo, como una voz profética apelando a la conciencia humana de sus compatriotas en aquel entonces, apunta a un papel de lo religioso en procesos de globalización que es contrario a aquél que enfocamos en la tercera observación. Y esa sería nuestra cuarta observacion: Frente a un proceso de globalización que lleva a la explotación y al dominio, la religión en general, y el cristianismo en particular, pueden ser un recurso fundamental de oposición, de crítica, de resistencia y superación. Este es precisamente el papel del profeta, que denuncia las injusticias y la violencia y reclama el derecho de los pobres y oprimidos. ¿Cómo es que Las Casas llega a esta postura contracorriente y liberadora en favor de los indios? Menciono dos puntos importantes 184
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que profundizan nuestra cuarta observación. Primero: Las Casas logra ponerse en el lugar del excluido, para leer la historia ‘desde el reverso’, como dice Gustavo Gutiérrez, Las Casas argumenta ‘como si fuese indio’ [si Indus esset] – expresión que el mismo Las Casas utiliza en su conocida obra Apología.2 Es decir, para tener una visión critica y real del proceso de globalización es necesario ponerse a su exterior, o ‘a su reverso’, en la posición de las víctimas de esa misma. Segundo, un punto sumamente importante: La crítica Las Casas a la conquista no es una crítica a la visión global o universal como tal. No es una posición sectaria o parroquial, en el sentido cerrado. Al contrario, Las Casas argumenta en contra de la exclusión de los pueblos indios, basándose en – precisamente – otra visión global del ser humano y sus derechos. Para Las Casas es fundamental reconocer que los indios también son seres humanos, creados a la imagen del Creador, y por lo tanto, con plenos derechos de ser respetados y tratados como tales. Su proyecto fundamental es un proyecto de una globalización más humana, y así, más cristiana. Su perspectiva es incluyente: Incluye hasta al desconocido, al otro – el ‘indio.’ El caso de la teología de la liberación: resistencia no-excluyente a la globalización
El papel profético jugado por Bartolomé de Las Casas en el siglo XV es reconocido como el primer paso hacia una teología – es decir, una reflexión sistemática sobre la fe cristiana – que casi cinco siglos más tarde se llamaría teología de liberación. Esta corriente teológica que tomaba forma en América Latina en los años 60 y 70, y llegaba a tener un impacto regional y mundial que es bastante excepcional. La primera y permanente intuición de la teología de la liberación es la conocida ‘opción por los pobres.’ Implica por lo tanto, como Las Casas, ponerse al lado del pobre (‘como si fuese indio,’ recordamos) para en un primer momento afirmar en palabra y practica, que Dios quiere sobre todo al débil y al oprimido, y en un segundo momento reflexionar críticamente sobre lo qué esa practica en favor de la liberación del pobre y oprimido implica para la fe. Es significante que, el 2
Apología, pág. 229, citado en (Gutiérrez 1993, 87).
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‘padre de la teología de la liberación’ Gustavo Gutiérrez, ha hecho un gran trabajo sobre – precisamente – Bartolomé de Las Casas (Gutiérrez 1992). Recordamos la cuarta observación: frente a un proceso de globalización que lleva a la explotación y al dominio, la religión en general y el cristianismo en particular pueden ser un recurso fundamental de oposición, de crítica, resistencia y superación. Ese papel profético es el papel que en las últimas décadas ha sido jugado más que todo por los que se inspiran en la teología de la liberación. Estos puntos son importantes, entonces, cuando vemos la globalización actual desde la perspectiva de la teología de la liberación: 1. La polarización y exclusión social a que lleva sobre todo ese proceso, son criticadas fuertemente. La opción por los pobres, llevado por misericordia hacia ellos y el reclamo de la justicia que se les debe, es hoy un fundamento para oponerse a un modelo económico ‘sin corazón’ (Mo Sung 1992), cf. (Assmann 1991); (Assmann 1993); (Hinkelammert 1998); (Gutiérrez 1998), o sea, que no tome en cuenta el derecho fundamental de todos seres humanos de poder vivir una vida plena y digna. 2. La adoración del poder adquisitivo, del dinero, es en la perspectiva de la teología de la liberación condenada como idolatría. En los evangelios queda muy claro de que no se puede tener dos dioses, o se cree en el dios Dinero, el Mamón, que además, requiere sacrificios humanos, o se cree en el Dios de la vida, que ama al pobre y actúa para su salvación integral - o sea de cuerpo y espíritu, en la historia, y mas allá de esa historia. 3. En su visión de liberar al pobre de su miseria para poder crear una nueva comunidad o sociedad donde no haya exclusión ninguna, la teología propone une globalización alternativa, más humana, y por lo tanto más cristiana. El reino de Dios, es para la teología de la liberación el fin último de toda la fe cristiana (Ellacuría 1984); (Sobrino 1991). Ese reino no se encuentra únicamente más allá de la historia, sino que se concretiza y se construye, paso a paso, en la historia humana. Ese reino es parcial: es el reino de los pobres. Pero precisamente por ser el reino de los que han sido excluidos por los poderes de este mundo, puede ser un reino donde ya no haya exclusión, o sea un reino para todas y todos. En este sentido, la teología latinoamericana de liberación representa una respuesta adecuada y eficaz a la globalización. Porque responde a la exclusión con una lógica de inclusión. Va desde la opción por los pobres a un mundo donde quepan todos y todas (Stålsett 2003). Como ha dicho Pablo Richard, 186
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hoy en día la frase ‘todos y todas’ es sumamente revolucionaria. Pero ahí esta también un dilema. La teología de la liberación no responde al intento del sistema dominante de hacer de su particularidad algo global (occidentalización, economización, la ‘inevitabilidad’ del neoliberalismo), con otro intento de globalizar su particularidad. Los valores que se promuevan – justicia, igualdad, paz – son valores universales. No hace falta ser ‘creyente’ o ‘teólogo de la liberación,’ ni latinoamericano, para aceptar y afirmar estos valores. De ahí quizás, una dificultad principal de esa teología hoy en día: su perspectiva sigue siendo muy válida y relevante, pero esa perspectiva no necesariamente tiene que llevar su nombre. Más importante que ‘teología de la liberación,’ es la liberación de los pobres, dice Gustavo Gutiérrez (Gutiérrez 1991). Cuando se dice que la teología de la liberación ya ha muerto, ya no tiene validez, creo que es una afirmación incorrecta. Es que esa teología, fiel a su principio fundamental de aprender a aprender (Segundo 1976) se muestra en la práctica, y en el cambio continuo de métodos y perspectivas. Porque estos cambios son necesarios para que esa teología pueda mantenerse fiel a su opción primordial: la opción por los pobres, que son los excluidos del proceso llamado globalización.
BIBLIOGRAFÍA - ASSMANN, HUGO. 1993. Economía y teología. In Conceptos fundamentales del cristianismo, edited by C. F. Samanes and J.-J. Tamayo-Acosta. Madrid: Editorial Trotta. ———, ed. 1991. Sobre ídolos y sacrificios. René Girard con teólogos de la liberación. San José: Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones. - BEYER, PETER. 1994. Religion and Globalization. London - Thousand Oaks - New Dehli: SAGE Publications. - DUSSEL, ENRIQUE. 1992. 1492: El encubrimiento del otro. Hacia el orígen del mito de la modernidad. Madrid. - ELLACURÍA, IGNACIO. 1984. Conversión de la Iglesia al reino de Dios. Para anunciarlo y realizarlo en la 187
STURLA J. STÅLSETT historia. San Salvador: UCA Editores. - GUTIÉRREZ, GERMÁN. 1998. Ética y economía en Adam Smith y Friedrich Hayek. San José: DEI. - GUTIÉRREZ, GUSTAVO. 1989. Dios o el oro en las Indias. Lima. ———. 1991. A Theology of Liberation. History, Politics, and Salvation. Revised Edition with a New Introduction. Transl. and edited by Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson. Fourth printing ed. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. ———. 1992. En busca de los pobres de Jesucristo. El pensamiento de Bartolomé de Las Casas. Lima: Instituto Bartolomé de Las Casas CEP. ———. 1993. Las Casas: In Search Of The Poor Of Jesus Christ. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. - HELD, DAVID, & DAVID GOLDBLATT, JONATHAN PERRATON, ANTHONY MCGREW. 2000. Global Transformations. Politics, Economics and Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. - HELD, DAVID, & ANTHONY MCGREW, eds. 2000. The Global Transformations Reader. An Introduction to the Globalization Debate. Cambridge: Polity Press. - HINKELAMMERT, FRANZ J. 1998. El Grito del Sujeto: Del teatro-mundo del evangelio de Juan al perro-mundo de la globalización. 3rd ed. San José: Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones. ———, ed. 1999. El Huracán de la Globalización. San José: Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones (DEI). - HOOGVELT, ANKIE. 2001, [1997]. Globalization and the Postcolonial World. The New Political Economy of Development. Second Edition: Substantially Revised and Updated ed. Hampshire: Palgrave. - HUNTINGTON, SAMUEL P. 1997. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. First published by Simon & Schuster 1996 ed. New Delhi: Viking. - KEPEL, GILLES. 1994, [1991]. The Revenge of God. The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World. Translated by A. Braley. Cambridge/Oxford: Polity Press. - KÜNG, HANS. 1997. A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics. Translated by J. Bowden. London: SCM Press. - MARCHAND, MARIANNE H., & ANNE SISSON RUNYAN. 2000. “Feminist sightings of global restructuring: conceptualizations and reconceptualizations,” in Gender and Global Restructuring. Sightings, Sites and Resistances, edited by M. H. Marchand and A. S. Runyan. London and New York: Routledge. - MARTIN, HANS-PETER, & HARALD SCHUMANN. 1997. Globaliseringsfælden. Angrebet på demokrati og velstand. Translated by P. L. Sørensen. København: Borgen. - MCKENNIE GOODPASTURE, H., ed. 1989. Cross and Sword: An Eyewitness History of Christianity in Latin America. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. - MO SUNG, JUNG. 1992. Deus numa economia sem coracão. Pobreza e neoliberalismo: un desafio à evangelizacão. São Paulo: Edicoes Paulinas. - OROZCO, JOSÉ LUIS. 1997. “Globalización,” in Breviario Político de la Globalización, edited by J. L. Orozco and C. Dávila. México: Fontamara. - SEGUNDO, JUAN LUIS. 1976. Liberation of Theology. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. - SOBRINO, JON. 1991. “Centralidad del reino de Dios en la teología de la liberación.” Vol. 1. San Salvador. - STÅLSETT, STURLA J. 2003. The crucified and the Crucified. A Study in the Liberation Christology of Jon Sobrino. Vol. 127, Studies in the Intercultural History of Christianity. Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang.
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Vodou Hybridity and “Voodoo Economics”: Crossroads Theology at the Intersection of the Local and Global MARIO DEGIGLIO-BELLEMARE Canada
“Those who are on the margins have no option but to occupy in-between spaces as a survival strategy. From this interstitial space any claims to cultural purity, stability, or autonomy are less important than the hybridized conditions of perpetual intercultural exchange, juxtaposition, interrogation, and transgression.” R. S. Sugirtharajah “... given the globalized context, a contextual theology will have to be able to utilize paradox and contradiction in an effective way, inasmuch as globalization is shot through with paradox (global-local relations) and contradiction (promising one thing, delivering another).” Peter Schreiter Dorothee Sölle (1929-2003) - Presente!
This paper will examine the importance of hybridity as local strategy that negotiates, in often complex ways, contemporary neoliberal globalization(s) in the Americas. I will argue that hybridity is a form of resistance to past and present forms of neocolonial1 power, but also that it is a strategy of creating life out of the often turbulent and hostile forces of globalization.2 Certain attempts by progressive theologians to describe the harsh realities produced by neoliberalism on the South - and on the more vulnerable sectors of society in the North – show a tendency to silence those most affected by these economic 1
2
For Edward Said, “‘imperialism’ means the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distinct territory: ‘colonialism,’ which is almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implantation of settlements on a distant territory” (1993: 8). Globalization is a contested term; it encapsulates many definitions and directions. It is not one thing, but multiple and often contradictory processes. While I reject purely economistic definitions of the term, I also reject definitions that only posit culture as determinative. For a good review of the debates on globalization, see Malcolm Waters (2001). 190
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policies unless they are perceived as actively resisting them. Unlike the “heroic struggles” that attracted much attention in Latin America in the 1980s for example, the less visible hybrid strategies of those most affected by neoliberal globalization are often forgotten. As Serge Gruzinski argues, an understanding of hybridity “runs against intellectual habits which favor monolithic ensembles over ‘in-between’ spaces... The simplicity of dualistic and Manichaean approaches is appealing, they soothe our conscience even as they satisfy our thirst for purity, innocence, and archaism” (2002: 22). I propose to weave together liberationist and postcolonial hermeneutics in order to highlight the hybrid history of the Americas, and to highlight the importance of hybridity for the creation of contextual theologies in light of the realities of globalization and empire.3 I want to name the theology developed here a crossroads theology. Inspired by the Vodou notion of kafou,4 a Creole5 word similar to the French carrefour, which represents the meeting place between the divine and human realm, a place of crossing and intersection, crossroads theology finds its voice in-between local and global realities. The crossroads are the reality of many peoples in the Americas, including my own. As the son of a southern Italian migrant mother and a Québecois father, I have had to live in a hybrid world, constantly crossing between southern Italian and French-Canadian cultures, all the while attempting to create space for myself in the homogenizing and dominant Protestant AngloSaxon reality of North America. The theology developed here is inspired by, and
3
Notwithstanding the polemical and totalizing discussions surrounding the publication of Empire (2000), by Hardt and Negri, I tend to agree with them that “[i]mperialism was really an extension of the sovereignty of the European nationstates beyond their own boundaries” (xii). Any notion of imperialism today must contend with the declining sovereignty of the nation-state under globalizations. Thus, they use the term empire as a “decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule” that “manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks of command” (xii-xiii). Whether or not one agrees with their definitions of empire - and the post-9/11 context tends to contradict some of their claims - the attempt to delineate the present system of empire from nineteenth century imperialism is an important consideration. 4 This Creole word is sometimes spelt kalfou. Maya Deren defines the Vodou crossroads as such: “All ceremonies begin with the salute to the guardian of the cross/roads, the loa principle of crossing, of communication with the divine world. Yet the figure of the cross/roads can be seen from the perspective of either world it straddles (1970: 37). 5 Edouard Glissant has developed the notion of “créolisation” as a particular expression of hybridity in the Caribbean. In a interview, Glissant writes this: “la créolisation [est le] processus par lequel des éléments hétérogènes de culture et d’existence sont mis en contact sans que l’on puisse prévoir la synthèse.” For Glissant, creolisation has a quality of the unexpected to it. See Glissant (1999). 191
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in dialogue with, postcolonial hermeneutics, liberation theologies, and the ‘new voices’ in theology, especially Latino/a theologies6 in the U.S., which have developed the notions of mestizaje and border (frontera) realities as important categories for their particular contexts. Hybridity, as it will be defined here, is not a new strategy of survival for the peoples of the Americas; it is a central process of many years of struggle under colonial rule. As a result, hybridity can never be understood outside of the history of asymmetrical power relations and colonial oppression. Postcolonialism is a critical theory of emancipation; it does not indicate that we are in a historical moment that has progressed beyond colonialism. Postcolonialism is a style of enquiry that challenges dominant forms of knowledge; it encompasses a “variety of concerns, oppositional stances, and even contradictory positions” (Sugirtharajah 2002: 11). The Americas are still deeply entrenched in colonial relations.7 I will utilize the terms “Vodou hybridity” as a way to speak about how colonial rule has been subverted and/or resisted in the Americas. Hybrid practices continue to be prominant under the contemporary form of neocolonial rule: namely, the form of economic globalization called neoliberalism, and otherwise known as “voodoo economics” by the elites of Wall Street. This crossroads theology is also inspired by the Gospel passage in Mark 5: 21-43, where a marginalized hemorrhaging woman empowers herself to heal, and where Jesus brings a young girl back to life by taking her hand and saying the words “talitha cum,” or “little girl get up!” (v. 41). In this passage, we discern Jesus and the hemorrhaging woman crossing rigid boundaries, boundaries set by gender constraints, purity codes, and imperial rule. The rigid boundaries crossed by Jesus, which were intensified as a markers of national identity under Roman occupation, are the kinds of boundaries and borders crossed by marginalized peoples everyday in the Americas, especially as they attempt to negotiate a life for themselves under hostile conditions. In a “legionary economy,”8 such as Roman6
See Aquino, “Theological Method in U.S. Latino/a Theology” (1999), for a good overview of Latino/a methodologies. Sugirtharajah writes this: “… several critics contend and recognize that, when it is used with a hyphen, ‘post-colonial,’ the term is seen as indicating the historical period aftermath of colonialism, and without the hyphen, ‘postcolonial,’ as signifying a reactive resistance discourse…” (2002: 13). For a good critique of the ‘post-colonial’ historical moment from an indigenous perspective, see Jace Weaver, “”From I-Hermeneutics to We-Hermeneutics: Native Americans and the Post-Colonial” (1998). 8 Warren Carter defines the “legionary economy” as such: “The threat of the military muscle of the legions ensured that most people complied with the payment of tribute and taxes” (2001: 10). 7
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occupied Palestine, the healing of the hemorrhaging woman and the raising of the young girl are not only about the transgression of Levitical purity codes.9 Following Richard Horsley, the “original hearers of the Gospel would have known tacitly and implicitly… that both the individual and the social hemorrhaging and near death were effects of the people’s subjugation to imperial forces” (2001: 109). The boundary crossing exemplified by Jesus in the Markan passage, his noncompliance with respect to an ‘impure’ hemorrhaging woman who courageously reaches out to him and the ‘impure’ (near) dead body of the child who he touches, is a site of hybridity. It is hybrid because they are actions that disrupt dominant forms of exclusion and furtively subvert rigid dichotomies. Hybridity is what James C. Scott has called a “weapon of the weak,” within the arsenal of sometimes hidden resistance strategies among the most vulnerable of our world (Scott 1985). Moreover, the boundary crossing in the action of the hemorrhaging woman, who reaches out from the crowds and impetuously touches Jesus’ cloak without his permission, is act of hybridization par-excellence. Why? Firtly, because it is the woman’s initiative mixed with Jesus’ empowering letting go that creates healing; it is not the dichotomous action of one person with power healing a powerless victim. Secondly, because her actions evidence the often hidden ways the most marginalized create space for themselves in order to promote life. While her self-healing may not eradicate the systems that promote exclusion, it is nonetheless a life-giving survival strategy that is common for vulnerable peoples. Similarly, while Jesus’ commensal practices of radical inclusivity and healing do not eradicate disease or systems that promote marginalization, they are nonetheless ‘signs’ of hybrid resistance that emerge out of the conditions of exclusion. These actions constitute hybridity in the Markan text because the woman and Jesus are able to produce spaces for themselves that interrupt the rigid boundaries that separate, segregate, and classify 9
Many critics who discuss this passage tend to highlight Jesus’ transgression of Jewish purity laws. This kind of analysis can verge on anti-Judaism and lead to a form of colonial representation of local cultures. Jewish purity laws were not everywhere the same thing in history. The history of imperial and colonial subjugation has demonstrated how such laws can rigidify under occupation because they serve as markers of national identity. Because the Roman empire understood its role in universal terms, religious leaders sought to safeguard their own national cultures and religions by rigidifying boundaries. This is usually an elite reaction to the imperial threat. The actions of the hemorrhaging woman constitute a hybrid moment in-between these realities. Warren Carter writes that “religious matters are not separate from social and political issues in the imperial world. No conflict is ‘just’ or ‘simply’ a religious one” (2001: 35). See Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (1988), for an excellent political-religious reading of this passage that tends, however, to leave out the role of imperial rule on local traditions.
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people into such categories as subjugator/subjugated, pure/impure, colonizer/colonized, and active/passive. Hybridity, from the Latin hybrida, meaning the offspring of two different animals or plants, or something of heterogeneous composition, is employed here in order to reclaim the often dismissed and devalued strategic syncretisms of marginalized peoples. But I am employing the term more broadly than its original biological definition, and its association with haphazard mixing. I am using it along the lines delineated in the postcolonial theory of Homi Bhabha: as a “third space.” For Bhabha, the “third space” interrupts the usual dualistic constructions of colonialism: Christianity/‘voodoo,’ European/savage, white/black, man/woman, faith/magic, life/death, civilization/primitive, us/them, rational/irrational, light/ dark, pure/impure, etc. For him, this “third space” is linked to the notion of hybridity; it is the location of imperfect subaltern mimicry.10 It is a space that is often in-between the dualistic categories imposed within the discourses of colonialism. The “third space” is a space that both justifies hegemony (using the master’s tools), and at the same time preempts colonial authority (to disrupt11 the master’s house). Some critics have labeled this (quite appropriately!) “the logic of inappropriate appropriation” (Gandhi 1998: 150). While I will not focus on Bhabha’s notion of “third space”12 in this paper, I raise it here in order to situate the term within the framework of postcolonial theory. And while much has been written on hybridity within postcolonial theory, it is still perceived as a dangerous term in theology. The term has 10
I borrow the term subaltern from the work of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. In his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci uses the term subaltern classes (le classe subalterne) interchangeably with the terms subordinate and instrumental classes. The subaltern classes belong to civil society, the sphere of hegemonic consent. They are the classes that form the base and thus instrumentalized to uphold state power. “Imperfect subaltern mimicry” thus denotes a strategy of mimicry by the subaltern classes, which utilizes dominant forms as a tool of resistance. A good example of this strategy can be found in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, where the fictional Caliban says to his colonial mistress: “you taught me language, and my profit on’t is, I know how to curse.” This is a strategy that protests “out of” rather than “against” the impositions of colonialism. 11 This is a play on the famous essay by Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Sister Outsider (1984: 110-114). More often than not, the master’s tools are the only tools available to the marginalized. A good example of this strategy is the way the slave master’s Bible was used as a subversive tool of resistance by African-American slaves. See James Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues (1972), and Diana L. Hayes, And Still We Rise (1996). 12 On the “third space,” see Homi K. Bhabha, “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Difference” (1995). On hybridity, see Bhabha, The Location of Culture (1994): “[Hybridity] unsettles the mimetic or narcissistic demands of colonial power but reimplicates its identifications in strategies of subversion that turn the gaze of the discriminated back upon the eye of power… the effect of colonial power is seen to be the production of hybridization rather than the noisy command of colonialist authority or the silent repression of native traditions…” (112). 194
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only begun to be explored by theologians.13 While not as starkly pejorative as syncretism, hybridity also has derogatory resonances within the Christian tradition; it is often understood as an affront to a ‘pure’ doctrine or gospel, or as an attack on the dignity of ‘authentic’ ancient cultures; it is also perceived as relativizing the boundaries of orthodoxy, and feared for assimilating differences. Following R.S Sugirtharajah, I understand hybrid processes to be “not about the dissolution of differences, but about the renegotiating the structure of power built on differences” (2002: 191). Moreover, much of the fear around relativism and its potential dangers usually stems out of the ideological interests of hegemonic groups.14 Within colonial missions, rigid and fixed theological borders were (are!) vital for securing and legitimizing Western Christian identity in the world. Hybridized identities are strategies of contestation in the face of these stark borders set up to sanction and sacralize the interests of dominant groups. However, as Leela Gandhi argues, “if the language of hybridity is to retain any seriously political meaning, it must first concede that for some oppressed peoples, in some circumstances, the fight is simply not over. Hybridity is not the only enlightened response to oppression” (Gandhi 1998: 136). In other words, in some places resistance may take on more Manichean contours, and certain oppressions may result in strategically different forms of struggle. The biblical witness imparts different models of resistance to Christians: the more hybrid out of approach, as with the hemorrhaging woman, and the more oppositional against approach, as described in John’s Revelation, or in Jesus’ confrontation with the Temple elite in Jerusalem, which resulted in his execution on the Roman cross. This paper will consider the value of hybrid practices among marginalized peoples, practices that often transgress, interrupt, and reformulate the dichotomies of colonial rule. In particular, I focus on Vodou and its history of resistance in order to rework the neocolonial term “voodoo economics.” I will argue that hybridity is a strategy of survival for the discounted, the dismissed, and the disposable peoples of the Americas who often live in liminal borderlands, at the crossroads, and in-between the local and global realities of colonial (and neocolonial) rule.
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The Context: “Voodoo Economics” and Vodou peoples
During the 1980 Republican primaries in the United States, presidential candidate George Bush (Sr.) attempted to embarrass front-runner Ronald Reagan’s proposal to cut taxes as a means of increasing revenue by labeling his ideas “voodoo economics.” The economic ideas of the new U.S. President became the mainstay of the so-called Reagan-Thatcher agenda, based on the classical liberal economic philosophy of efficient ‘free-market’ activity unhampered by the regulation of the nation-state. The sharp return of classical liberal economic philosophy to the agenda of the Reagan administration, and promoted by economists such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, did not happen overnight. It made its first appearance in Chile under the U.S.-supported military dictatorship of General Pinochet. Chile was a neoliberal laboratory in the 1970s, where U.S. advisers installed and experimented with an “unrestricted free market economy” (Hobsbawm 1994: 409). Notwithstanding his pejorative remarks, George Bush (Sr.) also embraced this philosophy in his role as Vice-President, and later President of the U.S. As a result, the term “voodoo economics” took on a life of its own in the vocabulary of neoliberal global capitalism. Today, the neoliberal lexicon regularly employs the term “voodoo economics,” and has expanded itself to include terms such as “witch doctors of Wall Street,” “zombie businesses,” and other terms that highlight the occluded workings of the capitalist elite.15 George Bush (Sr.)’s cynical attempt to ridicule the ideas of Ronald Reagan during the opening chapter of what is now understood as the global hegemonic ‘triumph’ of neoliberalism,16 by invoking Vodou, the religious system of Haïti, is theologically significant for several reasons. Firstly, it highlights the very real connection between the global spread of this economic philosophy and its local impacts on those peoples closely associated with Vodou practices in the Americas, especially the marginalized and dispossessed. Secondly, it reveals the very real interventions that hegemonic global neoliberal capitalism relies on to survive. In other words, like the “voodoo” it ridicules, neoliberalism is also 15
13
See R.S. Sugirtharajah (2002). 14 See Aquino, “Theological Method in U.S. Latino/a Theology” (1999), especially her section on the “intercultural” as an important category for addressing the fears of relativism. 195
16
For examples of the vocabulary borrowed from Vodou religious practices, see James Brooke, “Japan Hesitates to Put an End to its ‘Zombie’ Businesses,” New York Times (October 29, 2002), and Robert H. Parks, The Witch Doctor of Wall Street: A Noted Financial Expert Guides You Through Today's Voodoo Economics (1996). See Groupe de théologie contextuelle québecoise, “Le néo-libéralisme triomphant” (1996). 196
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an attempt to control and intervene in the world, and not, as many neoliberal High Priests argue, a retreat from intervention and regulation. Thirdly, the ‘voodoo’ in George Bush (Sr.)’s neocolonial discourse speaks to the continued proliferation of those supposed ‘enchantments,’ ‘superstitions,’ and ‘irrationalities’ that the liberal and radical prophets of modernity had predicted would disappear in their secularization theories. Quite to the contrary, within the present context of neoliberal globalization, we have seen the irruption of trans-localized religious renewal in many shapes and sizes. These “signs of the times” are of particular interest to theologians focused on the concrete and daily universe of religious peoples, especially those living in the liminal areas at the boundaries of local/global encounters. And fourthly, for the enslaved people of Haïti, Vodou has historically been a strategy of resistance and survival, and constitutes a central counternarrative (the 1791 slave revolts) to the emergence of an oppressive system (1492), in its triangular structure of domination between Europe (production), indigenous America (labor-free resources), and Africa (slave trade). In this sense, “voodoo,”17 a racist term used by colonizing outsiders, is here reworked as a broader category of counterhistory, not only in terms of political, racial, and economic oppression, but also in the ecclesiological and theological underpinnings of Christendom. Thus, Vodou is understood here as a broader site of hybrid resistance in the context of global/local encounters in the Americas. And it is at the crossroads of local/global boundaries, at its borders, that a relevant contextual theology may be forged. Since the events of 9/11/2001, the U.S. has taken on a more aggressive and unilateral military role in global geopolitics. Over a year after U.S. and British military incursions into Iraq, we are seeing more instability than “freedom,” and more injustice than “democracy” on a global level. The “war on terror” has generated very a visible “theatrics of terror” (Taylor 2001) in places such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine. However, recent low-intensity U.S. incursions in places like Haïti, which lead to the “kidnapping” of Bertrand Aristide, and the attempts to destabilize the Chavez government in Venezuela, are reminders that the less overt workings of empire in the Americas are alive and well.18 Yet we continue to be reminded by theologies of liberation, and 17 18
The term ‘voodoo’ is “a deterioration of the Dahomean term vodu or vodun, meaning “deity” or “spirit” (Desmangles 1992: 2). See Paul Farmer, “Who Removed Aristide?” (2004): http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID= 55&ItemID=5318.
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other theologies of emancipatory praxis, that an undeclared war against the poor has been raging with a particular ferocity in the Americas since the beginning of the 1970s, since the initial steps taken by the U.S. government to implement “voodoo economics” in places like Chile (9/11/1973). The prophetic witness of black journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal, from death row in the U.S., also reminds us that this is a program based on fear and terror: “Fear creates a cowed labor force which, when faced with givebacks, won’t even whimper. High poverty signals capitalism triumphant” (1997: 117). Indeed, these have been spectral times, where whole cities in the North have become ghost towns and local production phantasmal, and where peoples in the South are compelled to comply with the workings of an “invisible hand” - only to find out, as did Argentina for example, the very real depths of plundering that resulted from this compulsion. Abu-Jamal’s writings from Pennsylvania’s death row, in what Mark Lewis Taylor has appropriately called “lockdown America,” serves as a reminder to the conscience of North Americans, that we continue to live in a gated world sustained by a political terror that seeks to lock away those deemed disposable and unmanageable in our societies. If, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the global asymmetries have repositioned themselves from Western capitalist/Soviet communist to North/South, this gated set up is not only in evidence between regions of the world, but also within them. The widening gap between the rich and poor, which has become a statistical cliché in recent years, does only run across the map of global center/periphery dynamics, but it is also mapped locally. This is not to insist that the local is but a simple reflection of global realities. Rather, in this specific moment of what some fashionably call “space/time compression,” we must attempt to engage not only with the manifold and complex ways the global is being localized, but also how the local is being globalized. This theology is an attempt at understanding the relationship between “voodoo economics” and Vodou peoples. In other words, how does the local religious worldview of a marginalized people, forged on the periphery of an exploitative world-system, relate to the so-called ‘triumph’ of global neoliberal capitalism? This crossroads theology is concerned with permeable boundaries, with “leaky borders,” as the Bush (Jr.) administration has consistently accused Canada for its ostensibly lax border surveillance in light of the events of 9/11. In times when the colonial dispossession of Palestinian peoples is “finally resolved” 198
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through the construction of walls that separate the Israelis from the occupied territories, when “security parameters” are being erected all around North America, and when the EU model of open borders veils the reality of “fortress Europe,” an engaged Christian contextual theology must position itself in the liminal, often hybrid, areas that transgress the realities of the gated region, the gated nation, and the gated community. Any Christian theology that takes seriously G*d’s preferential option for the poor and excluded must stand at the borderlands of local/global encounters, where the ghostly disappearance of capital from certain regions - in a global system Fidel Castro has aptly called “casino capitalism” – has created a migrant class of people seeking new possibilities and renewed lives. These are indeed paradoxical times, times when the repeated mantra of “free trade” and “open borders” is met by gated nationhood, times of instant wealth for the few and steady impoverishment for the majorities, times of space-time compression in the face of capital distantiation from its base of production, times when modernist rationalities are haunted by trans-localized religious practices, and most importantly, these are times of deep hybridities in the face of homogenizing forces. The inauguration of “voodoo economics” in the 1970s and 1980s, has a special relationship with Vodou peoples, because they have had to bear the burden of the system’s spectral workings. With the inauguration of “voodoo economics,” Vodou peoples also witnessed the appearance of a mysterious document from Santa Fe; ghostly armies in Nicaragua fighting contra the Sandinistas; strange meetings with Vodou theologians (such as Leonardo Boff) in the dark halls of the Roman curia; the frightening assassination of bishops, priests, theologians, and lay catechists; the proliferation of death squads; the terrifying loss of life in places like El Salvador and Guatemala; and a host of other frightening occurrences. In fact, “voodoo economics” conjured away a whole decade for Southern peoples: a “lost decade” for millions of Vodou peoples. “Voodoo economics” has made it difficult for peoples in the South to now distinguish between “nightmares and hopes” (Cormie 1999: 118). A frightening situation indeed! With the inauguration of “voodoo economics” we also saw a radical shift take place within the arena of global capital: suddenly, more capital was flowing North than moving South – and this in debt servicing alone (George 1992: xv). Southern debts (those odious loans given to corrupt dictators) among the poorest countries in Latin America skyrocketed, bringing Mexico, for example, close to the threshold of bankruptcy. 199
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The case of odious debt reveals quite clearly the ability of “voodoo economics” to conjure wealth. Since Vodou peoples possess wealth primarily in natural resources, a jump in export production to pay the increasing interest on these debts was the only way to make payments. Moreover, interest rate hikes – a new monetarist economic policy implemented by the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. – in these early days of “voodoo economics” soared by “as much as 20 percent” (Duchrow 1995: 76). According to Ulrich Duchrow, “the policy of interest rates was again reinforced by the greatest stock-piling of armaments ever seen in peace time” (ibid.). And let us not forget the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in the South, prescribed by the World Bank/International Monetary Fund, which saw the uncanny disappearance of public enterprises and social programs. The outflow from South to North, however, was unfortunately paid back to the South, in the form of ghostly armies, undeclared wars against countries who dared to opt for an alternative economic option, and in the plundering of their eco-systems. “Voodoo economics” for Vodou peoples. Since these early days of “voodoo economics” neoliberal capitalism has intensified in all regions of the world. In the early 1990s, the so-called “Asian Tigers,” the poster children of neoliberal ideology, were not spared the sudden retreat of investment from their countries. In a flash, near economic collapse was on the horizon, but the steady hand of WB/IMF loans and prescriptions weathered the storm. These poster children were countries, Ramón Grosfoguel reminds us, who received disproportionately large sums of U.S. foreign aid and favorable conditions for economic growth, such as flexible terms to pay their debts, special tariff agreements that made commodities produced in these areas accessible to the metropolitan markets, and/or technological transfers. Most of these showcases’ success lasted for several years, subsequently failing. However, they were crucial to produce an ideological hegemony over Third World peoples in favor of pro-U.S. developmentalist programs (Grosfoguel: 371).
For instance, Chile continues to be used as proof that neoliberalism is advantageous to those who followed the specific tenets of WB/IMF prescriptions: the neoliberal Holy Trinity of privatization, liberalization, and deregulation. They were also used to disprove dependentista (dependency) theories in favor of a re-articulated neo-developmentalist perspective for Latin America. Economic miracles and enchantments were on the rise in those times of “voodoo economics.” As Argentina has most recently shown, however, putting one’s faith in the 200
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“invisible hand” of the ‘free market’ has serious consequences. The story that Aristotle tells about King Midas (the man who wished that everything he touched turned to gold, but died instead of hunger), speaks to the alchemical potential of capital accumulation. In distinguishing between a need-oriented-economy (oikonomia) and a money-accumulation-economy (chrematistics), Aristotle suggests that faith in the workings of a ‘free market,’ for the sole purpose of accumulation, can only lead to starvation (Duchrow 1995: 21). Accumulation has its limits; they are measured by ecological footprints. For in a world of monopoly capitalism and corporate globalization, faith in the ‘free market’ is tantamount to belief in spells and magic. Yet, this magic has proven to work for a tiny elite of people who continue to amass wealth and who see themselves as the managerial vanguard of “common sense” revolutions. The neoliberal vanguard understands its role to be that of able managers of the common good of all peoples, in fact, the whole earth. For a discourse that understands itself to be rational and scientific, and based on a “common sense” ethic, blind faith and irrationalities prevails within the neoliberal ethos. The fact that in Latin America and the Caribbean alone, “180 million people live in poverty and 80 million survive in misery,” according to the Latin American Jesuits (LAJ), should give pause to even the casual observer about “common sense” claims (LAJ 1996: 1). How do local traditions negotiate and protest the harsh impacts of neoliberal globalization? I want to examine some discourses that consider how the global incursions of neoliberalism impact on local traditions. Vodou Resistance and Local Hybridities
The term Vodou refers to the very diverse and local forms of religious expression found among the heirs of African slaves in the Caribbean, especially those who were originally transported to the islands that are today the Dominican Republic, Haïti, and Cuba. Thus, Vodou is a complex set of religious beliefs and practices that are found predominantly among the peoples of Haïti, and which originated in the African-Catholic-indigenous encounter of the Americas. However, Vodou is not simply a local phenomenon in Haïti, it is a migrant reality that has transplanted itself into some major cities in North America, including New Orleans, Montréal, and New York. While the colonizing term “voodoo” derives from the discourses of global systems that have attempted to domesticate its explosive and potentially subversive character, its 201
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root word, vodun, derives from the language of the Dahomean Fon peoples of the Abomey kingdom (present-day Bénin). It refers to the divine spirit in the traditional cosmic religious perspective of African peoples. Vodou is said to have originated among sugar-plantation workers in the 17th century, and thus a product of the plantation economy. Alfred Métraux has noted that Vodou, “for all its African heritage, belongs to the modern world...” (1972: 365). The early written history of Vodou is preserved only in eighteenth century colonial records and ordinances. These records reported nocturnal gatherings (“black magic”), drums and dancing (“possessions”), and funerary practices (“zombies”) among the slaves, which were perceived as potentially dangerous to colonial governance in the region. This was the religious context at the time of the 1791 slave revolts, headed by the “black Jacobin” Toussaint Louverture and the Vodou priest Boukman, which were so crushing to France’s confidence in controlling lands in the Americas that it “ceded the largest land mass even received by the United States government, the Louisiana purchase” (Taylor 1997: 183). But as Paul Farmer also suggests, “if Saint-Domingue might be likened to barrels of gunpowder, the French Revolution of 1789 was the spark that ignited them” (2003: 95). Hence, this history of resistance exhibits a hybridity that appropriates from the global and re-creates itself at the local. I draw on Vodou history as an example of liminal spatiality in the Americas, that meeting place between the local and global, as a locality of resistant hybridity in the context of globalization. My invocation of Vodou history is an attempt to discern some of the pressing issues for doing theology, following Peter Schreiter, “between the local and global” (1997). I understand Vodou to be a central place for this encounter because it is persistently represents a local context of resistant hybridities, which has trans-local affinities in the Americas, especially in the popular religion(s) of the poor, in some ‘new’ religious movements, Afro-Latino/a syncretisms, and in the religious practices of indigenous peoples.19 Citing Michael Ventura, Mark McClain Taylor (aka Mark Lewis Taylor) argues that Vodou is the African aesthetic shattered and the desperately put back together. More than simply “put back together,” it has been recreated to serve its people under the shattering impact of slavery and poverty. Vodou is not so much Africa in the New World as it is Africa meeting the New World, absorbing it and being absorbed by it, and re-forming 19
For a good examination of these trans-local affinities, see the collection of essays edited by Susanna Rostas and André Droogers, The Popular Use of Popular Religion in Latin America (1993). 202
Vodou Hybridity and “Voodoo Economics” the ancient metaphysics according to what it now had to face. (1997: 178).
This quote suggests that the encounter at the local level, between “Africa” and the “New World” is not simply a mixture of old and new, but a hybrid counterhistory to a system that Anibal Quijano has described as a “coloniality of power” (2000). In fact, the very definitions of “Africa” and the “New World” cannot in themselves be reduced to monolithic categories; they are terms that represent complex histories, especially when they are understood as a meeting place, a crossroads, and an encounter across time and space. To name but a few traditions, “Africa,” in the context of religious encounters, can mean Yoruba, Kongo, and Fon, and “New World,” can mean pre-Tridentine Catholicism, as well as the religious systems of the Mayan, Quechuan, and Aymaran peoples. Moreover, the religious encounter did not occur only between the “New World” and the traditional African religions, but within the African religions as well. Vodou is thus not only the result of “Africa” meeting the “New World,” but “Africa” meeting itself in the mercantile slave ships of the “New World”: hence, in-between the rigid colonial classifications of old/new, African/New world, ‘pagan’/Christian, etc. Much has been written about the explosion of new forms of religion within the context of globalization(s), and many tend to portray new religious movements, and/or the appearance of ‘fundamentalism(s),’ the integrismo20 of established traditions, as a form of resistance to globalizing homogeneity.21 Peter Beyer is the most consistent in this respect, arguing that since globalization tends toward the privatization of religions in the public square, religions have an important “antisystemic” role as a resource and “aid” to social movements (1995: 20
21
There is no English term for this word, hence the use of the Spanish. It is originally from the French term intégrisme (it was used to speak of those who struggled to maintain the integrity of Catholic doctrine) and it referred to the antimodernism of late-19th - early 20th century Roman Catholicism; it is now used by French intellectuals for all religious traditions. I want to veer away from the term fundamentalism, because it tends to be associated with the Protestant tradition, and because there is a widespread tendency to characterize the new Pentecostal and evangelical movements in Latin America as such. The most popular is Benjamin Barber’s, Jihad Vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Re-Shaping the World. Barber’s book has become a ‘cas célèbre’ since 9/11 and has popularized this view. In fact, Barber has become one of the most sought-after speakers in the post-9/11 U.S., especially among the business classes, where he has gives talks at the World Economic Forum and other Holy of Holies of neoliberalism. In these talks, Barber warns about the potential for another World Trade Center-like attack unless the neoliberal elite democratize their systems – and he has been received with standing ovations! The more McWorld pushes, the more Jihad pushes back. The proof of this theory is now in the 9/11 pudding. While there is some legitimate points to be made in this regard, a simplistic action-reaction model has become widespread in popular, as well as academic discourses about globalization.
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108). For Beyer, religious movements respond to the often ambiguous and contradictory effects of globalization through “religious performance” in either “conservative” or “liberal” options, both of which, he argues, have their attendant problems (1995: 87-9).22 Hence, his insistence on Manichean “antisystemic” options is problematic. Beyer may be correct in arguing that religion may offer a coherent telos to a global system that is often perceived as chaotic and threatening. Yet there is no attention in his work to the hybrid practices that occur in-between his “conservative” and “liberal” options. And while “religious performance” is certainly an important religious response to globalization(s), religions are not simply performing in response to globalization(s); they are also performing as creators out of globalization(s). Peter Beyer understands the role of local religions as potential “antisystemic” resistance to globalizing ‘modernity.’ He argues that globalization does not “mean the inevitable, evolutionary progress toward a global spread of Western modernity,” but that it has profound effects on the West as well (1995: 90). Nevertheless, he does frame globalization as the extension of the effects of ‘modernity’ to the entire world, which results predictably enough to the widely held notion regarding the return of religion as a spectre (in this ‘postmodern’ context) haunting modernity. Regarding his “conservative” option Beyer writes, [w]hether it is the ‘Evil Empire’ or the ‘Great American Satan,’ the reappearance of the devil as that which gives definition to the transcendent signals a return to a traditional way of making religion capable of communicating publicly essential information” (1995: 91). Here the return of the colonized – particularly their ‘voodoo’ irrationalities – is feared. It frightens precisely because counter-hegemonic religion is perceived as desperately dichotomizing, chaotic, irrational, and ineffective. The focus is on a homogenizing global flow that are active, while its object is the resulting local realities such as the prevalent integrismos, which are simply re/active. ‘Postmodern’ religions, those new articulations of the ‘irrational,’ are understood as the repressed specters of ‘modernity’ returning to cause havoc on the world. These various appeals to the particular/local as ‘irrational’ forms of resistance to the so-called “metanarratives of modernity” obscure an important point: religion cannot simply be reduced to antisystemic reactions to global flows. While it is also true that the local is not a passive and inert terrain onto which global incursions impose their own local 22
Beyer defines these options in theses terms: “the first [conservative] would correspond to the reassertion of the devil and the second [liberal] to the acquiescence in his dissolution.” (1995: 86). 204
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contours, neither is the local simply an anti-‘modern’ assertiveness. Indeed, the local appropriates from modernity as much as it resists it. Catholic theologian Peter Schreiter devotes much of his important book, The New Catholicity, to syncretism and hybridization. Schreiter believes that “globalization, and the tensions between the global and the local, have become a seedbed of new varieties of hybridities...” (Schreiter: 76). But hybridities are certainly not new to the Americas, they have a history of over 500 years. Some critics from the tradition of world-systems theory define globalization as the “culmination of a process that began with the constitution of America and colonial/modern Eurocentered capitalism as a new global power” (Quijano 2000: 533). Whatever modernity may mean for many globalization theorists (or postmodernity for that matter), Quijano argues that it is the historical articulation of a “coloniality of power” within a capitalist world-system based on its own Eurocentric claims to racial superiority. One cannot consider the history of mestizaje in the Americas, in other word, the reality of cultural, religious, and biological métissage (or cross-fertilization), without rooting it in the notion of “coloniality of power” – the foundation on which, Quijano argues, the present economic global worldsystem is sustained. In this regard, Schreiter is careful to suggest that hybridity, and the celebration of diversity, cannot be used as a veil that obfuscates the history of colonizing powers - and their resulting violence – that lie at its root. One cautionary case would be the appropriation of the term mestizo to celebrate the creative diversity and mixed cultural identity of many Latin American peoples. Quijano reminds us that “[b]eginning in the eighteenth century in Hispanic America, an extensive and important social stratum of mestizos (born of Spanish men and Indian women) began to participate in the same offices and activities as nonnoble Iberians” (2000: 536). In other words, the mestizo has historically also been used to elevate itself as superior to full-blooded indigenous peoples through a racist classification system and a racist distribution of labour under colonial capitalism’s “coloniality of power.” While it is also true that mestizo peoples have also been historically disparaged within colonizing ideologies, especially through a discourse of sexual degeneracy and moral impurity, along with 20th century nationalist ‘indigenismo’ movements that appealed to notions of pre-Hispanic ‘purity,’ the preferential status of the mestizo above other racialized identities must not be glossed over. Thus, I share Taylor’s concern that when “diversity is continually 205
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celebrated, analyses of structural dynamics of disparity, of routine exploitation and suffering tend to fall out of a people’s roster of concerns” (1997: 173). In the present context of globalization(s), the irruption of diversity and its accompanying hybridities, its mingling of cultures, its border crossings and migrant realities, does indeed produce something startlingly new – and it has done so for centuries!23 Vodou is an important historical example of this process in the Americas, and it continues to be an important locus of cross-fertilization in the present context of globalization(s).24 However, mestizaje, or métissage, is never a process in which pure cultures meet and mix. This is vitally important to any theology concerned with local cultures, as well as with indigenization and contextualization. On cannot construct cultures as ‘pure,’ or essentialized, entities meeting one another in time and space. Or, in the case of some definitions of inculturation,25 a pure gospel meeting a harmonious culture. The postcolonial critique of the “noble savage” for example, stems out of an analysis of how Romantic literature envisioned “primitive” cultures as organic and life-affirming and in contrast to the death-dealing and fragmented life within industrialized Europe. Culture is always a contested site; there is no one unifying definition of the term.26 Postcolonial theory, suggests Schreiter, has developed an alternative definition of culture, one that does not foreground “ideas and objects, but principally [understands it] as a contest in relations” (Schreiter 1997: 54). He writes, “[c]ulture is something to be constructed rather than discovered, and it is constructed on the stage of struggle amid asymmetries of struggle” (ibid.). Hence, a postcolonial understanding of culture presupposes a different definition of culture than that of the unified, or “integrated,” modern Eurocentric definitions of culture that are still alive in the theologies of the Catholic church. As Schreiter writes, “papal and Vatican documents, with their positive view of culture as a shaper of humanity tend to espouse this integrated perspective” (1997: 49). Only a harmonious and self-contained 23
See Serge Gruzinski, The Mestizo Mind (2002), for a history of the process of métissage in 16th century Mexico. See Leslie G. Desmangles, The Faces of the Gods: Vodun and Roman Catholicism in Haiti (1992). 25 For a Latin American liberationist critique of this view of inculturation, see Diego Irarrázaval, Inculturation: New Dawn of the Church in Latin America (2000). 26 For an important contribution to the definition of culture form a postcolonial perspective, and with an emphasis on hybridity, see Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (1995). 24
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opened the doors for an important critique of the globalization of neoliberal capitalism, especially with respect to its insistence on the ideology of the “free market.” Liberationists argue that “free market” ideology has become an absolute in neoliberal discourses. In a recent article, Pablo Richard writes, “el sistema aparece como maravilloso, sin embargo son siempre menos los invitados al ‘banquete neoliberal’… Lo absoluto es el mercado y no la vida para todos.”28 As Jean and John Comaroff have insightfully argued, there is no “invisible hand” governing neoliberal market activity, only a “Gucci-gloved fist, that animates the political impulses, the material imperatives, and the social forms,” of what they call, “the Second Coming of Capitalism – of capitalism in its neoliberal, global, manifestation” (2001: 4). In these times of distantiation of production from capital, as well as the reification of money through speculation, the liberationist idolatry critique of market ideology is as crucial as ever – perhaps even more so because the system is more and more abstract and sacrificing even more victims. Nevertheless, liberationists will also need to expand this tension between of G*d’s locality among the victims29 who struggle against global systems of death, to include the everyday survival of Vodou peoples through the creative negotiation of hybridized identities. This emphasis of hybridity is, of course, being developed within the ‘new voices’ in theology,30 which have emerged alongside liberation theologies, and it is also being developed within liberation theologies themselves.31 The present context of globalization involves a process whereby individuals enter into very complex “relations of accommodation and cross-fertilization” (Peterson et al 2001b: 211). Strict lines of demarcation, between Catholic Ecclesial Base communities (CEBs), Pentecostal churches, and popular religious feasts for example, wherein the former struggles against the idols of death while the others promotes the idols of death, tend to fall away.32 As Peterson et al. suggest, individuals sustain
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multiple engagements: “they might participate actively in the town’s patron saint and later read the Bible in a CEB or attend a Charismatic assembly” (ibid.). Liberationists need to address these cross-fertilizations if they wish to remain faithful in their solidarity to the experiences of the people at the grassroots. For example, in an interview with a Brazilian priest Luiz Carlos Marques, Philip Berryman writes this: “He recalled an earlier experience of celebrating mass on a traditional feast of St-John with a small base community, while ignoring the crowds of people lighting the ‘fires of St. John’ and celebrating outside” (Berryman 1996: 52). However, Marques’ initial vanguardist positioning, what the he refers to as a small elite “going against the traffic,” was soon transformed to a pastoral stance that focused on a “wager on the unpredictability of the poor” (ibid.). Some priests and pastoral workers interviewed in Berryman’s study further explained how they moved from away posture of “heroic struggle” to one of “accompaniment” within the unpredictability of marginalized experiences. At the same time, “heroic struggle” was not something freely adopted by priests, pastoral workers, and the people; it was an imposed reality during a time of extreme violence and oppression. The following statement, from a Brazilian woman’s perspective (she is unnamed), is also very telling of the grassroots reality in Latin America: For somebody who has no problems in life, the best religion is the Catholic one; you become attached to the saints, go to church whenever you want, and nobody bothers you. For a person that goes through financial difficulties, the best religion is that of the Pentecostals, because they help you as brothers; the only thing is that you must not drink, smoke, dance, or whatever. Now, for somebody who suffers from head-aches, the best religion is the Spiritualists; it is demanding, you can’t miss a session, but it really heals. If God will allow me, when I’m actually healed, I’ll return to Catholicism (Rostas/Droogers: 1).
28
I cannot supply page numbers for this article, which I have as an unpublished revision of “La Iglesia en América Latina y el Caribe (1962-2002)” (2002). The title of the revised article is: “40 años de teología de la liberación en América Latina y el Caribe (1962-2002).” Translation: The system is perceived as wonderful, however, there few invited to the neoliberal banquet… The absolute is the market and not abundant life for all. 29 Jon Sobrino’s recent christology is called: Christ the Liberator: A View from the Victims, or La fe en Jesucristo: Ensayo desde las victimas (Spanish: 1999; English: 2001). 30 The work of Virgil Elizondo has had a profound impact on the development of Latino/a theology. See Elizondo, “Mestizaje as a Locus of Theological Reflection” (1995). 31 See Cristián Parker, Popular Religion and Modernization in Latin America: A Different Logic (1996). 32 Jean and John Comaroff pejoratively define Latin American Pentecostalism as churches for whom “their millions of members the Second Coming evokes not a Jesus who saves, but who pays dividends” (2000, 24). While it is provocative and perhaps resonant with some practices, such language is nonetheless simplistic. 209
While some may perceive such a statement as encapsulating the threat of relativism that prevails within subaltern classes and peoples, it is more indicative of how marginalized peoples negotiate hybridity their daily lives (lo cotidiano). How does this woman’s experience fit into the liberationist struggle against the idols of death? Does she support the idols of death or resist them? My initial response to such a question is in line with the model of “accompaniment” adopted within the more recent pastoral work, wherein unpredictability is valued and respected. Martinique-born author and poet, Edouard Glissant argues that 210
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“[l]’extraordinaire dans ‘la créolisation’ c’est que nous ne puissions pas en faire la théorie complète parce qu’elle court à l’imprévisible et au changement radical.”33 The reality “voodoo economics” in the everyday lives of Vodou peoples is not only a local resistance to global incursions, although this is a posture that must continue to be supported by all Christians who profess to follow Jesus. But it must also attempt to incorporate the liminal cross-fertilizations of local/global encounters. Firstly, there must be an attempt to respond to the reality of displacement and those liminal spaces where people are forced to cross real borders with the hope of finding new life. Where is the local among migrants? Secondly, there must also be an attempt to highlight those culturally liminal areas, where local/global hybridities are shaping new identities, be they religious, political, or other. What constitutes local culture here? In a world fragmented by asymmetrical power, resistance should not be opposed to hybridity, rather crossroads theology embraces both as mutually supportive. Vodou peoples have a remarkable history of resistance to, and creative appropriation of,34 the colonizing global forces that have enslaved them, forced them into unpaid work, and plundered their ecological systems. The liberationist critique of the idols of death, which sacrifice Vodou peoples for the accumulation of capital among the elite, was a response to “voodoo economics,” which was able to conjure up wealth through the proliferation of ghostly armies, interest hikes, arms deals, and the Holy imposition of monetarist economics. In its prophetic denunciation of mammón, liberation theology’s critique of the idols of death remains an important condemnation of neoliberal capitalism, as it abstracts itself further, and continues to ravage the lives of Vodou peoples. Yet it also tends to essentialise the local into a reified space of resistance. Such liberationist discourses resonate with those discourses discussed above which posit religion as “antisystemic” resistance to global flows. 33
I cannot offer page numbers for this online interview. See Glissant (1999). Translation: The extraordinary thing about creolisation is that one cannot make a complete theory out of it, because it is imbued with unpredictability and the possibility of radical change. See note 5 for Glissant’s definition of creolisation - a notion of hybridity that stems out of his own Caribbean context. Glissant’s point is relevant to all theoretical frameworks focused on hybrid processes, including my own. 34 Cristián Parker calls the syncretism evident in these processes, which he finds symbolically vibrant in popular religion, hemidernal, a somewhat clumsy neologism for the processes that I have described as a “third space.” For Parker, hemidernal (from hemi+modern: half or semi-modern) “coexists and profits from the modern, but resists and criticizes the modern as well” (Parker: 115). 211
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From a critical perspective, Vodou hybridity, or what I call resistant hybridities, can negotiate a space that takes seriously the rich and creative history of hybridity, as well as its ongoing dynamism in the Americas of the 21st century. It proposes a hybridity that does not obfuscate the very real violence of colonial subjugation, its terrifying somatic and spiritual impact on the peoples of the Americas that originally gave rise to the conditions for these forms of hybridity. Hybridized resistance is also able to negotiate a space that takes seriously the postcolonial view of culture as a site of contested relations, namely, a view that engages the complexity of power relations in history, rather than defining culture as a chaotic or unified matrix of local resistance to homogenizing/fragmenting global incursions. To conclude, I want to expand the notion of hybridity in the direction proposed by liberation theologian, historian, and philosopher, Enrique Dussel, through his notion of “trans-modernity.” Vodou History as “Trans-Modernity”
At the root of any encounter shaped by a context of powerful asymmetries, the safeguarding and creation of local identities can be characterized by both resistance and hybridity. Vodou history is a good example of this process, a process that has historically shown hybridity in itself to be a form of resistance, and that resistance can emerge from a process of hybridization at a local level. Vodou thrives, like other strategies among Vodou peoples, in that liminal region in between the local/global encounters that have fashioned the messy history of the Americas. To use Roland Robertson’s now famous expression, Vodou lives and breathes, indeed re-creates itself, at the “glocal” level (Robertson 1995). The Americas are the center of the process we have come to call globalization; it has been so, some have argued, for 500 years. To borrow the famous metaphor by Eduardo Galeano, the Americas have been “open veins”; a continent bled not only by the extraction of natural resources, but also, by the disposability of both those indigenous to the land and those forcibly brought over on slave ships.35 Quijano writes that the “vast genocide of the Indians in the first decades of colonization was not caused principally by the violence of the conquest... but took place because so
35
See Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (1973). Galeano’s book is focused on Latin American history, but a similar history of conquest and plunder can be made with respect to how indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from their lands and with respect to the history of slavery in North America. 212
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many American Indians were used as disposable manual labor and forced to work until death” (Quijano 2000: 538). This disposability of “racial inferiors,” which of course also included mestizos and black slaves, has not disappeared in the Americas. In what Jean and John Comaroff have called the “Second Coming of Capitalism,” namely in its neoliberal form, both global and “salvific,” we witness a system that continues to render disposable many people from so-called ‘inferior’ races. Grosfoguel argues that because 1960s and 1970s dependentista theorists privileged the economic sphere and did not pay enough attention to the “coloniality of power,” they have left colonial relations intact in the present context. His example of how the (economically) progressive Sandinistas reproduced old racial/colonial hierarchies in relations to the indigenous Misquitos of the Atlantic cost is a product of this tendency to overlook present-day colonial relations (Grosfoguel 2000: 368). Taylor also speaks of this disposability from within empire, in “lockdown America,” where the disciplining of people of color (especially African-Americans, Latino/as, and indigenous peoples) is maintained by the system of capital punishment, where people are conceived of as social junk, “debris that has been managed, cleaned up, or disposed with” (Taylor 2001: 56). Since the abolition of slavery in the U.S., the prison system has served as the principal site for the disciplining and management of disposable black bodies. For Taylor, present-day prisons form a direct line of continuity with the legacy of slavery in the Americas, as does capital punishment with the legacy of lynching (2001: 45). The Canadian government also continues to promote colonial relations with indigenous peoples, especially with respect to treaty rights and territorial sovereignty, by the imposition of a Band Council system and other mechanisms of the federal Indian Act. This colonial system divides communities at the grassroots level, and encourages disunity within, and strife with (often poor rural) neighboring communities. Colonial relations are alive and well among the peoples of the Americas. They are relations that are not only based on racial hierarchies, but on economic, gender, and racial/ethnic stratifications as well. Quijano’s concept of “coloniality of power” implies that any analysis of power relations must take seriously the fact that the world is not fully decolonized. These colonial relations are deeply seated in our societies. Grosfoguel therefore argues for a “second decolonization” process in Latin America, “different and more radical” than the first “juridicopolitical ‘independence’ from the imperial European states,” which was incomplete and 213
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driven by elites (2000: 368). The complex histories of race relations and the construction of identities within the colonial histories of the Americas must be moved to the forefront of theology, especially those theologies, like liberation theologies, which are focused on the realities of local cultures. Following Quijano’s lead with respect to the “coloniality of power,” but also disputing some of his premises with respect to the history of this system. Enrique Dussel’s work advances such an agenda. Mercantile capitalism has a long history in shifting European centers: Spain-Genova, Amsterdam, and London. Dussel argues that the “world-system” hypothesis, which has subsumed some streams of dependentista theory in Latin America, was preoccupied with unmasking the Eurocentrism of modernity’s masters of suspicion (Hegel, Marx, Weber...). They saw the development of modernity as internal to Europe, dating back to Greek civilization and moving through the Medieval Latin world, and the Renaissance and so on. This notion was central to developmentalist ideologies in the second half of the 20th century, which also posited the notion of internal development, hence national, as foundational to modernization. The “common sense” – yet another of many “common sense” discourses among the elite – of developmental ideology was that every society would eventually and gradually achieve what the North had achieved internally. All failures were thus blamed on internal factors and could ultimately be repaired by economic experts through internal adjustments and fine-tuning. Most of the time, these internal problems were understood to be economic in nature, but they were sometimes understood as cultural. For example, under-development was in some cases blamed on the predominant Catholic ethos of some countries, an ethos that required a good dose of the Calvinist spirit, so instrumental in the development of European capitalism according to Max Weber. Catholicism did not possess the same attributes accorded to the Protestant ethic described by Weber, thus Catholic societies were believed to lag behind in a kind of anti-modern feudal slumber.36 The ‘modern’ fearfulness of things, especially ritualistic things (like popular religious practices), that smell of what is perceived to be a ‘pre-modern’ medieval Catholicism in the Americas, can certainly be traced to the tendency in developmentalist discourses 36
For a more recent application of Weber’s thesis in the contemporary context of Latin American evangelical and Pentecostal growth, see David Marin, Tongues on Fire (1990). 214
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to ascribe problems on the internal/national context, which ultimately side-steps center-periphery dynamics. However, Dussel argues that this “first” critique of Eurocentrism by the “world-system” theorists also carries within it a “second” Eurocentric presupposition: namely, as it is argued in Quijano’s work and many other world-theorists, that European global hegemony is 500 years old, thus originating with the discovery of the Americas. For Dussel, this thesis continues to posit Europe at the center of history. Even if Europe is reframed as a global power that plundered and conquered its way through history, rather than developing through an internal spiritual, ethical, and political idealism, Europe remains the subject of world history. According to Dussel, other civilizations, namely Chinese, Muslim, and Hindu, were more powerful actors in world history than the Europe of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, at least up until the French Revolution (1789), which he situates as a symbolic date for the beginning of European global hegemony. Dussel argues that the beginning of European hegemony emerged with the Industrial Revolution, principally British and French. He further argues that between 1400-1800 “China was the greatest producer of commodities, and that the China Sea was an unequalled mercantile site within the world-system” (Dussel 2002: 227). While China was an important continental power in the East, its huge internal markets meant that external markets were insignificant to its economy. On the other hand, Dussel argues that Western Europe, “still recovering demographically from the depopulation of the plague, turned outward” (2002: 228). Europeans could only buy into the huge Chinese markets because of the silver plundered in the Americas, but they could not “impose their own products” (2002: 229). Dussel argues that to think non-Eurocentrically is to understand the Industrial Revolution in Europe as a “response to a ‘vacuum’ in the East Asian market, especially China and Hindustan” (2002: 230-1). Dussel also critiques ‘postmodernity’s’ elevation of alterity and otherness, because it also articulates this vision within a Eurocentric framework. The ‘post’ in postmodernity is not a “beyond” for Dussel; it does not convey an “externality” to modernity, but simply constitutes an extension of modern inevitability through the processes of globalization. While Dussel’s analysis is principally based on economic categories, he makes a very interesting claim about the potentialities and possibilities in those cultures and histories that have existed “beyond,” that have functioned externally to, yet within, the processes that have been called 215
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modernity. He writes that exteriority is a process that takes off, originates, and mobilizes itself from an “other” place (one “beyond” the “world” and modernity’s “Being,” one that maintains a certain exteriority…) than European and North American modernity. From this “exteriority,” negated and excluded by hegemonic Europe’s modern expansion, there are present-day cultures that predate European modernity, that have developed together with it, and that have survived until the present with enough human potential to give birth to a cultural plurality that will emerge after modernity and capitalism. This “beyond” (“trans-”) indicates the take-off point from modernity’s exteriority... that is, from what modernity excluded, denied, ignored as “insignificant,” “senseless,” “barbarous,” as a “nonculture,” an unknown opaque alterity, but at the same time evaluated as “savage,” uncivilized, underdeveloped, inferior...These are the diverse names given to the nonhuman, the unrecoverable, the “historyless”… (2002: 234).
Dussel’s attempt at a non-Eurocentric “world-system” paradigm, which locates Europe at the periphery for the first 300 years of its global outreach, is provocative. In so far as Dussel posits the centrality of “exteriority” as a starting point, his history is not focused on hybridity as such. However, it does open an analytic space for important processes in history that have been erased in Eurocentric discourses, such as hybrid ones. In the tradition of liberation theologies, Dussel’s history is future-oriented; it hopes for a “trans”-modernity that will be “multicultural, versatile, hybrid, postcolonial, tolerant, and democratic” (2002: 236). Dussel here does not evoke a Romanticist pre-modern ethos that simply resists modernity. For him, no group, no community, no individual is untouched by modernity; there is no pure culture that can express a completely ‘pure’ externality to modernity. Europe has in fact been hegemonic for 200 years in his “trans-modern” history and it has had very real and important impacts on local cultures. But modernity has also created its own externals: its own ‘rejects.’ In other words, modernity has been sustained by a “coloniality of power,” the underside of which contains an alterity, an otherness, a “beyond,” an “exteriority.” And it is within this “exteriority” that Dussel finds hope. This space of “exteriority” can thus be understood as both hybrid and resistant, both global and local, an in-between space conjured up by Vodou peoples in order to survive in their day-to-day lives within globalizing modernity. Global flows are not all-encompassing at the local level, bringing about the end of heterogeneity, or corrupting ‘authentic’ cultures. Nor are they only resisted 216
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by ‘pre-modern’ forces repressed by modernity (integrismo theory). Nor are they solely idols of death sacrificing victims at the periphery of world-system. Such assertions can obscure the hopeful celebratory hybridities (and syncretisms) present across cultural spaces. These hybridities continue to cross-fertilize in popular religious practices, in some Pentecostal movements, in Afro-Latino/a syncretisms, and in the daily negotiations of many religious systems in the Americas. For Dussel, global flows create their own externals, which are resistant and hybrid in relation to modernity. The local certainly trans-localizes, but it is not everywhere, nor is it everywhere the same. The local, Jean and John Comaroff argue, is never the same thing; “sometimes it is family, sometimes it is town, sometimes it is nation, sometimes a flow or a field, sometimes a continent or even the world; often it lies at a point of articulation among two or more things” (Camaroff/Comaroff 1999: 294). What may seem quite parochial or insignificant can also be an increasingly global phenomenon. To think in terms of the “glocal” character of globalization helps to unsettle the strict boundaries between the local and global, between action and reaction, in order to help us understand the liminal as a site of possibility and hope. This liminal site of possibility is what Dussel has called “trans-modern,” for it finds its starting point beyond the simplistic asymmetries of European modernity: Christian/’voodoo,’ local/global, and integrismo/modernity. The liminal is also a place of hope, hope for a renewed creation in the wake of increasing impoverishment and the threat of war. The liminal is hybrid, because it is preoccupied with meetings and encounters, with the transgression of boundaries, and with the very concrete reality of migrations. Our present political context should serve as a reminder of the plight of peoples within the global “theatrics of terror”: those sent to “death row,” within the belly of the beast, because they have no capital to lessen their punishment; those who are forced to migrate to strange countries to find work, but instead discover rising xenophobia because the separation of capital from production has created unemployment and resentment; those who flee ancestral lands and make a home in the growing urban ‘slums,’ because of an expanding exporteconomy needed to pay interest on the foreign debt. But one must also awaken to its other side, to its “other face,” the face of hope, which is celebrated in the popular religious practices, in the great religious syncretism of the “New World” experience, and in the pageantry and fiestas of Vodou peoples. An important historical moment appears on the horizon of this “other face,” this underside: the 217
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slave revolts on the Isle of Saint-Domingue, in 1791. Inspired by the French Revolution (1789), the “black Jacobin” Toussaint Louverture lead an insurrection that was initiated by a Vodou ceremony, lead by the priest Boukman, in Bois Caiman. This moment constitutes a hopeful counterhistory of resistance and hybridity within local/global relations, and at the periphery of “worldsystems.” It is important because it constitutes a moments of “trans-modernity”: with its emphasis on Vodou resistance shaped by the hybrid formations of global encounters. 1791 is a key moment for crossroads theology, which is never a retreat into the local as a kind of neo-Romanticism that understands local contexts as pure, intact, or even ‘pre-modern,’ forms of resistance to global systems. Nor is crossroads theology a simple extension of globalization theories, which optimistically define these complex processes in ways that abstract from the harsh and oppressive realities of local contexts. Crossroads theology resides close to the hemorrhaging woman, who boldly reaches out from the crowds to touch the famous Rabbi, thus slyly creating a space for herself that heals and promotes life. Crossroads theology is focused on those often hybrid strategies that liminal people conjure up in order to survive hostile conditions; it is Jesus calling a young girl back to life from the border regions of death: talitha cum! Crossroads theology is also wilderness theology, situated in-between those global empires that thrive on free labor and the slavery of ‘inferior races,’ and those local contexts where “another world is possible,” but never a certainty. Crossroads theology resides in-between Egypt and the promised land, just as Christians remain always encamped in the wilderness, in-between a first and second coming, in that fragile liminal space between promise and hope. Crossroads theology resides at the boundaries of global and local encounters, often surprised by the manna that appears there. Such unexpected manna is a life-giving survival strategy forged in the shadow of (neoliberal) empire; it is a way forward into insecurity and a gift from a G*d who resides in the liminal, often hybrid, spaces of Vodou peoples.
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Vodou Hybridity and “Voodoo Economics” BIBLIOGRAPHY: - ABU-JAMAL, MUMIA. 1997. Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience. Farmington, PA: The Plough Publishing House. - AQUINO, MARÍA PILAR. 1999. “Theological Method in U.S. Latino/a Theology,” in Espín/Diaz: 6-48. - BARBER, BENJAMIN. 2001. Jihad Vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Re-Shaping theWorld (New Introduction). New York: Ballantine Books. - ASHCROFT, BILL, GARETH GRIFFITHS, & HELEN TIFFIN. 1995. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. New York: Routledge. - BANUELAS, ARTURO J., ed. 1995. Mestizo Christianity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - BATSTONE, DAVID, et al., eds. 1997. Liberation Theologies, Postmodernity, and the Americas. New York: Routledge. - BAUM, GREGORY. ed. 1999. The Twentieth Century: A Theological Overview. Ottawa: Novalis. - BERRYMAN, PHILLIP. 1996. Religion in the Megacity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - BEYER, PETER. 1995. Religion and Globalization. London: Sage Publications. - BHABHA, HOMI. 1994. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge. __________. 1995. “Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences,” in Ashcroft et al: 206-209. - BROOKE, JAMES. 2002. “Japan Hesitates to Put an End to its ‘Zombie’ Businesses,” New York Times, October 29. - CANADIAN ECUMENICAL JUBILEE INITIATIVE, ed. 1999. Jubilee, Wealth, and the Market. Toronto: Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative (CEJI). __________, ed. 2000. Sacred Earth, Sacred Community: Jubilee, Ecology and Aboriginal Peoples. Toronto: Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative (CEJI). - CARTER, WARREN, 2001. Matthew and Empire. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. - COMAROFF, JEAN, & JOHN L. COMAROFF, eds. 2001. Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. - COMAROFF, JEAN, & JOHN L. COMAROFF. 2001. “First Thoughts on a Second Coming,” inComaroff/Comaroff: 1-57. ___________. 2000. “Occult Economics and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony,” in American Ethnologist 26/2: 279-303. - CONE, JAMES. 1972. The Spiritual and the Blues. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - CORMIE, LEE. 1999. “Genesis of a New World: Globalization from Above vs. Globalization from Below,” in Baum (1999): 118-131. - DEGIGLIO-BELLEMARE, MARIO. 2000. “New Creation in the Wilderness: The Space of Jubilee,” in CEJI: 221-239. - DEREN, MAYA. 1970. Divine Horseman: The Living Gods of Haiti. New York: Documentext, McPherson and Company. - DESMANGLES, LESLIE G. 1992. The Faces of the Gods: Vodun and Roman Catholicism in Haiti. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. - DROOGERS, ANDRÉ. 1989. “Syncretism: The Problem of Definition, the Definition of the Problem,” in Gort et al: 7-25. - DUCHROW, ULRICH. 1995. Alternatives to Global Capitalism. Utrecht: International Books with KairosEuropa. - DUSSEL, ENRIQUE. 2002. “World-System and ‘Trans’-Modernity,” in Nepantla 3/2: 221-244. - ELIZONDO, VIRGILIO P. 1995. “Mestizaje as a Locus of Theological Reflection,” in Banuelas: 7-27. - ESPÍN, ORLANDO O. 1997. The Faith of the People: Theological Reflections on Popular Catholicism. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
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MARIO DEGIGLIO-BELLEMARE - ESPÍN, ORLANDO O., & MIGUEL H. DIAZ, eds. 1999. From the Heart of Our People. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - FARMER, PAUL. 2004. “Who Removed Aristide?” (London Review of Book, April 13), or at http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=5318. -___________. 2003. The Uses of Haiti. Monroe, MA: Common Courage Press. - FEATHERSTONE, MIKE, et al., eds. 1995. Global Modernities. London: Sage Publications. - GALEANO, EDUARDO. 1973. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. New York: monthly Review Press. - GANDHI, LEELA. 1998. Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press. - GEORGE, SUSAN. 1992. The Debt Boomerang: How Third World Debt Harms Us All. Boulder: Westview Press. - GLISSANT, EDOUARD. 1981. Le discours antillais. Paris: Gallimard. ___________. 1999. “De la poétique de la relation au ‘Tout-Monde’: Interview par Avner Perez, ” http://site.ifrance.com/ATALAIA/glissant.htm. - GORT, JERALD, HENDRICK VROOM, REIN FERNHOUT, & ANTON WESSELS, eds. 1989. Dialogue and Syncretism. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. - GRAMSCI, ANTONIO. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Eds. & trans. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey NowellSmith. New York: International Publishers. - GROSFOGUEL, RAMÓN. 2000. “Development, Modernity, and Dependency Theory in Latin America,” in Nepantla 1/2: 347-74. - GROUPE DE THÉOLOGIE CONTEXULLE QUÉBECOISE. 1996. “Le néo-libéralisme triomphant,” in L’Église canadienne, 29/6: 180-189. - GRUZINSKI, SERGE. 2002. The Mestizo Mind: The Intellectual Dynamic of Colonization and Globalization. New York: Routledge. - GUTIÉRREZ, GUSTAVO. 1987. Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. ___________. 1988. A Theology of Liberation: 15th Anniversary Edition with a New Introduction by the Author. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. ___________. 1997. “Renewing the Option for the Poor.” in Batstone et al.: 69-82. - HARDT, MICHAEL, & ANTONIO NEGRI. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. - HAYES, DIANA L. 1996. And Still We Rise: An Introduction to Black Liberation Theology. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. - HINKELAMMERT, FRANZ J. 1997. “Liberation Theology in the Economic and Social Context of Latin America: Economy and Theology, or the Irrationality of the Rationalized,” in Batstone et al.: 25-53. - HOBSBAWM, ERIC. 1994. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991. London: Abacus. - HORSLEY, RICHARD A. 2003, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New world Disorder. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. - IRARRÁZAVAL, DIEGO. 2000. Inculturation: The Dawn of the Church in Latin America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - JESUIT PROVINCIAL SUPERIORS OF LATIN AMERICA ND THE CARIBBEAN. 1996. “Letter from the Latin American Provincials of the Society of Jesus: Neo-liberalism in Latin America.” http://www.sjsocial.org/ documentos/provletter. html. - JOHN PAUL II. 1991. Encyclical Letter: Redemptoris missio. http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0219/_INDEX.HTM. - LORDE, AUDRE, 1984. Sister Outsider. Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press. - MARTIN, DAVID. 1990. Tongues on Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. 220
Vodou Hybridity and “Voodoo Economics” - MARZAL, S.J., MANUEL M, et al. 1996. The Indian Face of God in Latin America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - MÉTRAUX, ALFRED. 1972. Haitian Voodoo. New York: Schocken Books. - MYERS, CHED. 1988. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - PARKER, CRISTIÁN. 1996. Popular Religion and Modernization in Latin America: A Different Logic, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - PARKS, ROBERT H. 1996. The Witch Doctor of Wall Street: A Noted Financial Expert Guides You Through Today's Voodoo Economics. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. - PETERSON, ANNA, et al., eds. 2001. Christianity, Social Change, and Globalization in the Americas. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. - PETERSON, ANNA, et al. 2001a. “Christianity and Social Change in the Shadow of Globalization,” in Peterson et al.: 1-22. ___________. 2001b. “Global and the Local,” in Peterson et al.: 210-228. - PIERIS, S.J., ALOYSIUS. 1988. An Asian Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. ___________. 1996. Fire and Water: Basic Issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - QUIJANO, ANIBAL. 2000. “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America,” in Nepantla 1/3: 533-580. - RICHARD, PABLO, 2002. “La Iglesia en América Latina y el Caribe: 1962-2002,” Pasos 103: 29-39. ___________. 2002.“40 años de teología de la liberación en América Latina y el Caribe (1962-2002),” unpublished revision of “La Iglesia en América Latina y el Caribe:1962-2002,” Pasos 103: 29-39. - ROBERTSON, ROLAND. 1995. “Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity,” in Featherstone et al.: 25-44. - ROSTAS, SUSANNA, & ANDRÉ DROOGERS, eds. 1993. The Popular Use of Popular Religion in Latin America. Amsterdam: CEDLA. - ROSTAS, SUSANNA, & ANDRÉ DROOGERS. 1993. “The Popular Use of Popular Religion in Latin America: Introduction,” in Rostas/Droogers: 1-16. - SAID, EDWARD. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. London: Chatto & Windus. - SCHREITER, ROBERT J. 1997. The New Catholicity: Theology Between Global and Local. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - SCOTT, JAMES C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press. ___________. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale, University Press. - SOBRINO, JON. 1993. Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological View. Maryknoll, NY Orbis Books. ___________. 1994. The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. ___________. 2001 Christ the Liberator: A View from the Victims. Maryknoll, NY Orbis Books. - STEWART, CHARLES, & ROSALIND SHAW, eds. 1994. Syncretism/Anti-syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis. New York: Routledge. - SUGIRTHARAJAH, R.S. 2002. Post-Colonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ___________. 1998. “Biblical Studies alter the Empire: From a Colonial to a Post-Colonial Mode of Interpretation,” in Sugirtharajah 1998: 12-22. - SUGIRTHARAJAH, R.S. ed. 1998. The Postcolonial Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Academy Press. - TAMAYO, JUAN JOSÉ, & JUAN BOSCH, eds. 2001. Panorama de la teología latinoamericana. Estella, Spain: Editorial Verbo Divino. 221
MARIO DEGIGLIO-BELLEMARE - TAYLOR, MARK LEWIS, (aka MARK McCLAIN TAYLOR). 1997. “Vodou Resistance/Vodou Hope: Forging a Postmodernism that Liberates,” in Batstone et al: 169-187. ___________. 2001. The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. - WATERS, MALCOLM. 2001. Globalization: 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge. - WEAVER, JACE, ed. 1998. Unforgotten Gods: Native American Religious Identity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - WEAVER, JACE. 1998. “From I-Hermeneutics to We-Hermeneutics: Native Americans and the Post-Colonial,” in Weaver: 1-25. - YOUNG, ROBERT J.C. 1995. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge.
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My purpose is to consider how the story of the hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5: 25-34 can provide ways for social justice activists in North America to think about a growing sense of helplessness in the face of the oppressions wrought by transnational capitalism. I want to question the apocalyptic elements of this story as congruent with dominant imperialist discourse and to think about what it might be like to read against those elements. I will critique the framework of the story as both apocalyptic and masculinist, but suggest that the woman’s faith, touch, and speech can be read as a useful corrective to that framework. I write as an activist and biblical scholar living in the United States. I write as more and more atrocities in Iraq become public. The visual images are vile and shocking reminders of what transnational capitalism looks like. They attest to the fact that war crimes are integral to imperialist globalization. I am not surprised, though I am deeply disturbed. I know torture has been taking place in Guantanamo Bay.1 I know it takes place in federal and state prisons.2 I know that in some way I am an unwilling accomplice, by the very fact of living in the U.S. But I am sickened and feel utterly helpless. Along with many others – and probably less often than others – I have written letters, I have occupied offices, I have done civil disobedience, I have marched. But it is to little effect. A million people on the streets are considered insignificant; they are dismissed as a focus group.3 Such is my context. Justice is sick; bleeding to death. The analogy is imperfect,4 but I read the hemorrhaging woman as the possibility for justice, performed in and by the U.S. With so much blood on our hands, death is certain. Only a miracle could change things now. But the closest thing on the horizon to a miracle – the possible election of someone other than George W. Bush – is only a mirage. Blood will 1
2
3
4
For an exposition and analysis of current American torture tactics in light of the connection between truth and flesh in the gospel of John, see Glancy 2004. For a description of Special Housing Units in American supermax prisons, in which prisoners are locked down twenty-three hours a day, see Weinstein 2001. Bush’s well known answer to a question about the sizeable anti-war demonstrations in England – he was clearly also referring to the huge anti-war protest in the U.S. three days prior – was: “First of all, you know, size of protest, it’s like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group” (2003). My reading begins with the problematic bias that the woman’s menstrual blood is somehow ugly and polluting. 224
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continue to spill, perhaps in greater volume, under alternate leadership. Politicians are in the pockets of corporations, and the flow of transnational capital voraciously demands the flow of blood. A miracle seems unlikely. Apocalyptic Miracles
But perhaps it is precisely the expectation of a miracle that lends popular support for the war in Iraq. Here I am thinking of the hope for the rapture. As commentators have pointed out, during the build up and implementation of both U.S. attacks on Iraq, sales of apocalyptic literature skyrocketed, the first time with bestsellers like Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (Boyer 1992, 329), and the second time with bestsellers like Timothy LaHaye’s Left Behind series (Munday 2003). In perusing contemporary apocalyptic material, it becomes clear that those who await the rapture feel increasingly embattled. According to popular texts, the rapture will come at a point when life on earth is no longer bearable. Internet sites interpreting contemporary news events as signs of the proximity of rapture attest to a group of Christians who feel increasingly threatened by the world.5 Likewise, Christian films – such as, Apocalypse: Caught in the Eye of the Storm, produced by Christian filmmakers Peter and Paul Lalonde – portray the rapture interrupting a moment of intense warfare and preventing nuclear destruction. The point of such productions is to persuade non-Christians to convert, and to encourage Christians to persist in their faith. At the same time, they seem to revel in escalated militarism. It is not insignificant that fundamentalist groups with premillennial eschatological leanings support President Bush.6 According to a premillennial reading of Revelation, Iraq is understood to be the geographical and spiritual equivalent of Babylon, which is to be destroyed before the rapture (Revelation 18). Saddam is the antichrist (Boyer 1992, 330; Munday 2003). The war in Iraq is also understood to be tied up with the restoration of Israel. According to premillennialist eschatology, Israel must be restored prior to the rapture; 5
6
For instance, the “Rapture Ready” site contains a rapture index rating current events on the level of their probable signification of the end. See http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html. (I was made aware of this site’s existence by Elizabeth Castelli and Loris Mirella). Rick Perlstein (2004) reports on the relationship between the premillennialist Apostolic Congress (affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church) and the White House.
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thus much of the Christian Right’s support and lobbying focuses on U.S. foreign policy in Israel (Boyer 2003; Munday 2003; Perlstein 2004). As Paul Boyer points out, some have argued that God’s original gift of land to Israel – to which the Jews must be restored – encompassed the Arabian Peninsula and oil-rich gulf states (1992, 195). Whichever prophecy is mapped onto Iraq, it may be in the interests of those who await the rapture to hasten its approach through support for the war. Nor is it insignificant that Bush’s own language carries many apocalyptic resonances. Indeed, in some ways, Bush positions the U.S. as the miracle working hope of the world. As I have also outlined elsewhere, the position taken by the Bush administration with respect to the rest of the world clearly falls within the tradition of covenantal, messianic chosenness by God, which is both a covenantal and apocalyptic discourse (Runions 2004a). Roughly speaking, freedom represents the covenantal relationship with God; terror is its apocalyptic nemesis. Covenant promises land and blessing for keeping the law (whatever the U.S. version of it may be) and apocalypse polices the keeping of the law by predicting catastrophic destruction at the hands of those who transgress the law. Covenant implies a divine, even messianic, calling, while apocalypse motivates a great and final struggle between the chosen one and evil. Throughout the Bush administration’s rhetoric, the covenantal relationship between God and the U.S. is proclaimed through assertions of the nation’s calling to use its military strength in the role of ensuring freedom and defeating the evil that threatens to besiege all humanity.7 It is evident that what Bush means by “freedom” is actually globalization on U.S. terms: that is, U.S. access to markets and other nations’ conformity with U.S. morals and demands (Runions 2004b).8 7
8
There are many examples of Bush’s rhetoric of the need for America to stand firm under siege. To give just one example here, before beginning the war on Iraq, Bush said the following: “Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant and it only grows worse with time… Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapon resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events. The United States would betray the purpose of its founding… the United States would resign itself to a future of fear… America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights… People everywhere prefer… self-government to the rule of terror and torture” (2002c). Two years later, in face of the prolonged American occupation of Iraq and torture of prisoners, the ironies of these statements speak rather loudly. See Bush’s “Compassionate Conservatism” speech, in which he states that nations receiving monetary aid are expected to “end corruption, to open their markets, to respect human rights, and to adhere to the rule of law” (2002a, emphasis mine). The monetary aid that will bring freedom from poverty is only given in exchange for conformity to American demands, including the demand to buy American products, and the demand to follow an American standard of law. 226
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As in its military policy, in globalization, the Bush administration advocates unilateralism. Despite the obviousness of the goal, it is veiled in language of sacred mission. The messianic chosenness of the U.S. has become so aggrandized in this administration’s rhetoric that in his speech on the first anniversary of 9/11 Bush was able to make the same claim about the U.S. that the writer of John’s gospel makes about Christ: “America is the hope of all mankind… That hope lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it” (Bush 2002b).9 Paradoxically, the U.S. is positioned as both the persecuted and the savior. One might think that those who oppose globalization (in its transnational capitalist form) would not be likely to use the same kind of apocalyptic language. Yet, in my experience, anti-globalization activists exhibit a tendency to use language that is homologous to mainstream apocalyptic language, in their hope for a miraculous triumph over evil imperialism (through direct action, of course). Many activists express a sense of embattlement, and convey their feelings about the happenings in the world in apocalyptic terms of good and evil. For instance, in activist literature, globalization is often apocalyptically termed “the beast” and the U.S. or Wall Street “the belly of the beast.”10 However, the hope for some kind of decisive intervention in the face of great evil merely mirrors the logic that supports, motivates, and generates a militarized exportation of American values and products, with its high exchange rate in human life. New metaphors are needed, along with new ways of thinking about the (righteous) self and the (unrighteous) other. I will return to this point presently.
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The sense of embattlement, the end-times eschatology, and the conviction to persist in faith are consistent with the sensibilities expressed in the gospel of Mark and in the story of the hemorrhaging woman. The miraculous cure of the woman has been read by scholars as exemplifying the overarching themes of the book. It is a story that offers both a model for discipleship and hope for the coming kingdom of God. Given the current uses of apocalyptic thinking, in order for this story to be helpful
in any way, it may need to be wrested from its apocalyptic context. Without entering into the debates about the historical context or genre of the gospel of Mark, I will simply outline several points that have been made by scholars about the apocalyptic context of the gospel, and then about the story itself. First, there is general agreement by scholars that Mark was written during a time in which Christians were under stress of persecution and hardship, most likely during the time of the Jewish War (Marcus 2000, 33–37; Meyers 1988, 64–67; Kee 1977, 100). Support for such a supposition is taken from the references to suffering in the text. As Joel Marcus points out, “a preoccupation with persecution … seems to be reflected in the very structure of the book” (2000, 28). The central part of the gospel is framed by predictions of persecution for the disciples (4:16–17 and 13:9–13), while the middle part of the gospel contains predictions of Jesus death, also linked to the hardships the disciples will face (8: 31–38; 9: 30-31; 10: 17-39) (2000, 28–29). The gospel seems to reflect the Markan community’s struggle in a hostile environment. Second, the genre and literary style of Mark has often been likened to that of Jewish apocalyptic literature (Vines 2002; Horsley 2002; Marcus 2000; Collins 1992; Kee 1977; Donahue and Harrington 2002). The most obvious connection to apocalypse comes in Mark 13, with its future predictions, but scholars have found the overall themes of apocalypse to be present in Mark as well. Howard Kee defines the theological goals of apocalypse as: assertion of the rule of God and defeat of hostile powers, redefinition of the community, a demonstration of certainty, and an encouragement to stand firm (1977, 70). These themes can all be found in Mark. There is a clear emphasis on the coming kingdom of God in Mark, as is made clear in the first chapter (1: 14–15), and continued throughout the book (e.g. 4: 11, 26–32; 9: 1; 10: 13–31; 14: 24–25). Jesus’ statement that “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power” (9: 1) indicates that the Markan community expected the kingdom imminently (Kee 1977, 107–8; Donahue and Harrington 2002, 37; Marcus 2000, 71).11 Also consistent with apocalyptic thinking, the coming of the kingdom is preceded by conflict with hostile powers in Mark (Marcus 2000, 72–73). Jesus confronts demons, illness, the sea (chaos), and death, all of which he conquers in the group of miracles in 4:35–5:43 (Donahue and Harrington 2002,
9
11
The Apocalyptic Framework in Mark
10
For further analysis of the logic of this citation, see Castelli 2003. A quick internet search on “globalization” and “belly of the beast” renders about 1700 hits.
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Marcus argues that “Mark holds this note of imminent expectation in tension with a sense of present fulfillment” (2000, 71). 228
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37-38). There is a certainty that Jesus’ work will prevail, as the resurrection demonstrates, and as the call for the disciples to follow Jesus’ example in teaching and driving out demons suggests (16: 15-18). Jesus also redefines the community, drawing his followers into a new family and a new understanding of Judaism, by challenging the Jewish elite (e.g. 8: 14-15) and re-reading the Torah (e.g. 2: 23-27) (Kee 1977, 109-110; Meyers 1988, 73-80; Selvidge 1990, 36, 4763). And finally, as a new, but persecuted, community, the implied readers of Mark are called to stand firm in their faith. Discipleship appears to be a difficult but central task in the gospel (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 30-34).12 As Ched Meyers reads it, in the gospel of Mark, “discipleship is the only form in which faith in Jesus can exist” (1988, 11). This call to faith is implicated in the preoccupation with persecution, generating what Meyers calls the “conviction that the suffering of the just is somehow in itself efficacious in bringing down the old order and creating the new” (1988, 103). A number of these apocalyptic themes are also present in the story of the woman who has bled for twelve years and who gathers up her courage to touch Jesus, in order to be healed. First, the story demonstrates Jesus victory over hostile powers. As mentioned, the pericope comes as part of a series of miracles in 4: 38–5: 43 that reveal Jesus’ power over evil forces, here illness and suffering. The woman’s touch – and confident expectation of healing – shows a certainty that Jesus is able to prevail over these hostile forces. Her healing is also a sign that the coming kingdom of God is also already present. The story likewise exemplifies a redefinition of community. In healing a ritually impure woman, Jesus works toward establishing a new community by challenging the religious status quo and by including her in a new family, with the appellation “Daughter” (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 176; Marcus 2000, 360). Most importantly though, the story motivates discipleship, and models what it means to stand firm. The woman is presented as one who persists in her faith against all odds and in the face of great suffering (Beavis 1988, 8; Swartley 1997, 19).13 In spite of her fear, when she is
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called upon, she tells the whole truth, and as such serves as a model for the community (Selvidge 1990, 100–101).14 The woman’s faith in the face of hardship is set as a model and metaphor for discipleship, over and against the twelve male disciples’ unreliable discipleship (Selvidge 1990, 98–99; Beavis 1988, 7–8). Marcus goes so far as to read the story as an apocalyptic metaphor for the Markan community: Mark’s readers may well have been reminded of the time when their own faith ‘saved’ them from the world of death and set them on the path toward eschatological [peace]… The story of the woman with the menstrual disorder, then, is their story… Jesus has turned to them and confirmed that, through their faith in him, they now stand within the sphere of the new age; when persecution, apostasy, and death threaten to engulf them, their faith will save them (2000, 369).
Whether or not intended to be read metaphorically, the story is deeply embedded in the apocalyptic framework of the book. Re-reading
What difference does it make in reading this story that an apocalyptic framework, similar to that of the gospel of Mark, is partly responsible for the imperialist program of the United States? Bush has managed to portray the U.S., without straying too far from the language of civil religion (Barnes 2003), in apocalyptic terms of an embattled messianic figure, struggling against hostile forces; yet certain of God’s help in meeting success. What difference does it make that in this messianic role, the U.S. makes much of “saving” other nations, and their women? (Runions, 2004a). What difference does it make that the rhetoric of sacrifice and suffering for freedom has become so ubiquitous in Bush’s encouragement to the population to stand firm in its resolve for war?15 To my mind, the apocalyptic strain in dominant discourse makes all the difference in reading this story. The
14 12
13
The disciples are shown both in positive terms (being given authority, e.g. 16: 15-18) and in negative terms (being clueless, e.g. 8: 14-21). Beavis also makes the interesting observation that as a pronouncement story, the story of the bleeding woman challenges traditional Greco-Roman gender roles. She argues that the passage is similar in form to the GrecoRoman literary form of the chreia, stories that tell something useful for living. But where Greco-Roman chreia about women would typically expound on female virtues, the chreia about women in Mark “do not provide models of specifically female virtue, but of faith and discipleship in general” (1988, 8).
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15
Jesus’ answer to her confession, “your faith has saved you,” has been read by scholars as an indication of the importance of faith for salvation, and as a proclamation about faith and discipleship (Sabin 2002, 189). To give just one example of Bush’s rhetoric of sacrifice, in a recent press release, in response to a question about increasing American disillusionment with the war, Bush responded by saying: “I plan on telling the American people that I’ve got a plan to win the war on terror… They understand the stakes… One of the hardest parts of my job is to console the family members who have lost their life. It is a – it is – it’s a chance to hug and weep and to console and to remind the loved ones that the sacrifice of their loved one was done in the name of security for America and freedom for the world” (2004, emphasis mine). 230
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apocalyptic themes being mobilized in the present moment have become so closely allied with oppressive power that for the moment, in my context, they are unrecuperable. I would like to think about how this story might be read outside, or at least against, its apocalyptic framework.16 Can the story provide any new metaphors for thinking about activism in the present moment? First, let me suggest what might be resisted. Some of the problems with apocalyptic thinking in the present American context stem from the fact that many of those who use it are part of a social context that is opposite to the context in which the New Testament was written. As Meyers points out, Mark’s “primary audience were those whose daily lives bore the exploitative weight of colonialism, whereas [the North American audience] are those who are in a position to enjoy the privileges of the colonizer” (1988, 5–6). A facile identification of those in power with the persecuted makes it too easy to use that power against others. It is one thing for the persecuted to stand firm, quite another for the oppressor to think itself persecuted and therefore called to stand firm.17 Moreover, power wielded by the “persecuted” is often accompanied by an unreflecting sense of self-righteousness (perhaps developed from a synoptic perspective of the persecuted as righteous) that might efface responsibility for the suffering of others. Activists who adopt apocalyptic metaphors may also tend to do so with a sense of persecution (and perhaps more justifiably so than Bush), and with a sense of self-righteousness. They, therefore, also run the risk of overlooking oppression. Activists necessarily have to (and do) wrestle with their own implication in the power structures; but a sense of embattlement slows down such an engagement. Secondly, the force that is generated by apocalyptic thinking is necessarily strong, because it counters “evil.” As Bush puts it, the stakes are high. Thus, those who oppose the persecuted righteous are called “unrighteous.” As I see it, what has become so problematic in the present context is the identification of the forces of evil with a people (or particular leaders), rather than with nature (illness, suffering, storms, etc.). The identification of particular leaders with evil may come, in large part, from the model of apocalyptic thinking given in Revelation. Demonizing
16
17
Following Derrida’s discussion of the parergon (1979 [1978]), I am aware of the difficulty in trying to separate the work from the frame. Elizabeth Castelli (2004) has shown the way the theme of the “persecuted church” is central to the devotional life of many Christians and also how it gets taken up in discussions of American foreign policy.
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others is precisely what allows for the gross misuses of power we are presently witnessing. Rather than adopting a position based on dualism and separation, it may be more helpful, as postcolonial theorists have suggested, to analyze the overlaps between self and other, between persecuted and persecutor, between colonized and colonizer, between oppressed and oppressor (see Bhabha 1994). Another apocalyptic element that ought to be resisted, one not elaborated by scholars of Mark but nonetheless alarmingly present in this story, is the heroic male messiah figure who is crucial in mastering the forces of feminine evil. In this story, the messiah figure saves the ostracized woman; all her own attempts come to naught. Moreover, as typical of the treatment of women in apocalyptic literature, the woman is depicted as sexually impure, and somehow suspect or needing to be forgiven in some way. Her bleeding, as well the immodesty of walking out alone and touching a man, as Wendy Cotter suggests, could be interpreted as sexual deviance (2001, 57–59). One commentator goes so far as to suggest that the woman’s bleeding might be a challenge to Jesus’ authority, since a certain strand of the rabbinic tradition suggests that that “contact with a menstruant… might cancel a charismatic individual’s miraculous power” (Marcus 2000, 358). In this reading, the woman not only needs the male hero, but she challenges him, and must be overcome by him in some way. The feminist critique of male heroism and of the tradition of misogyny within apocalypse provides an important counterbalance to such a reading (see Pippin 1999; Quinby 1994). In light of such a critique, identification with the hero of the story ought also to be resisted. Identification with the messianic figure is as problematic as identification with the persecuted/suffering group. The need to save the suffering turns them into “others” and creates an inequality between hero and victim. Again an analysis of the overlap between self and other would be a useful corrective. What remains, then, of the story, from which to try to build new metaphors for doing activism? I will focus on the woman’s faith, her touch, and her speech. The woman’s touch cannot be read without her faith. As Mary Ann Beavis asserts, “Her faith is not only a trusting attitude, but also an action involving risk” (1988, 6). Her touch shows that initiative, agency and determination are part of her faith (see Dube 2001, 59–60). There is no place here for resignation or cynicism. The woman did not give up, but continued trying new options, perhaps even as they seemed increasingly strange, and socially unacceptable. As noted above, the woman’s touch violates norms of gender, of social rank, of acceptable behavior, and 232
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of religious propriety. Violation of social norms is risky; but perhaps it is necessary, the only remaining possibility, if justice is to be prevented from bleeding to death. Perhaps risk is a part of faith. But if the element of heroism is extrapolated from the story, what appeal to faith can be made? If faith is not placed in a miracle, a quick fix, or a savior, in what can it be placed? Significantly, Jesus tells the woman that it is her action, resulting from her faith, which heals, and even saves, her. He does not claim it as his own work. Her initiative and her touch begin an interaction that even the more powerful cannot control. In a sense, the woman’s faith is her determination; it is oriented toward the very possibility of healing. Again there is no place for hopelessness or cynicism. There is no place for heroism either. The interaction between the woman and Jesus may be successful because touch is something that both establishes and breaks down boundaries. As Luce Irigaray points out, touch is what allows one to know the limits of one’s own body, and the limits of another; but it is also what can transgress those limits (1993 [1984]).18 The woman’s action does both: in touching Jesus, the flow out of her body is stopped, she finds her limits, but his are transgressed, as power goes out of his body. Again the question of self and other comes into focus. The story does not show Jesus to be a clearly defined self, in control of an other; but as a porous self, open to another’s touch. He does not overcome her; rather she evokes his power. The woman’s touch creates something like Bhabha’s “third space,” that disorienting and catachrestic19 overlap between the self and other, between the powerful and the powerless, the dominator and the dominated. The overlap between self and other is a place of non-sense, a place of “threatened ‘loss’ of meaningfulness in cross cultural interpretation” (1994, 125–26). This troubling overlap shows that “the symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew” 18
Irigaray writes: “The most subtly necessary guardian of my life is the other’s flesh. Approaching and speaking to me with his hands. Bringing me back to life more intimately than any regenerative nourishment, the other’s hands, these palms with which he approaches without going through me, give me back the borders of my body and calls me to remembrance of the most profound intimacy. As he caresses me, he bids me neither to disappear nor to forget but rather to remember the place where, for me, the most intimate life is held in reserve” (1993 [1984], 187). Time does not permit a more in depth interrogation of this text alongside Irigaray’s difficult engagement with Levinas through the trope of the caress. It would be a task worth pursuing (to be clear, I am not suggesting that the woman’s touch is a caress). 19 Catachresis is a term Bhabha takes (1994, 183) from Gayatri Spivak who describes catachresis as “reversing, displacing and seizing the apparatus of value-coding” (1990, 228, see also 229). 233
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(1994, 37). Perhaps from this place, even apocalypse could be read anew. More immediately, I might ask: How could an exploration of both the limits and the overlaps of the righteous persecuted self and the evil, unrighteous other help to stop the flow of blood? How might activists work toward enabling more popular understandings of the limits and overlaps of self and other? Finally, there is the woman’s speech. She tells the whole truth. Commentators have suggested that this line signifies beyond the simple telling of her troubles. Marcus suggests that the woman’s words serve as a model for a community that might be tempted to hide its association with Jesus in the face of persecution (Marcus 2000, 369). Selvidge suggests the word “truth” associates the woman with Jesus, and shows her to be in allied with the divine, thus also overturning received ideas about femininity (1990, 100–101). However it is read, the telling of the whole truth is a courageous and difficult act. It is made possible, however, by the interaction between the woman and Jesus, by the overlap between the two. Perhaps it is not possible to speak the whole truth without this overlap. Activists have often heard the call to speak the whole truth (to power); this story suggests that such speaking is only possible with an awareness that there is a place of non-sense, in the “third space” between self and other, a place where the truth cannot fully signify (Bhabha 1994, 124–26). Such awareness can guard against self-righteousness. At the very least, understanding apocalyptic convergences in disparate discourses – between the framework for Mark, the belief system that smoothes the way for current atrocities, and the language sometimes used by activists – may be a starting point for thinking about each differently. The attempt to read outside of apocalypse may also transgress the bounds of order that apocalypse struggles to establish; it may return the reader to a place of chaos and disorder. Just as envisioning order and conquest of chaos may be imperative for the struggle of the oppressed, perhaps stepping into a space of disorder and disorientation is crucial for enabling the privileged to change. The story of a woman’s determination to initiate the exchange and overlap between self and other, between blood and healing power, between boundaries and porousness, can be read as modeling such a disorientation.20 20
Thanks goes to Michael Casey for comments on an earlier draft, extended discussion of many of these ideas, and help with the conclusion. 234
Miracles, Apocalypse, Globalization BIBLIOGRAPHY - APOCALYPSE: CAUGHT IN THE EYE OF THE STORM. 1997. Prod. Peter and Paul Lalonde and Jack Van Impe Ministries. Dir. Peter Gerretsen. Videotape. Niagara Falls: Cloud Ten Pictures. - BARNES, FRED. 2003. “God and Man in the Oval Office.” Weekly Standard 8, no. 26 (March 17): 11–12. - BEAVIS, MARY ANN. 1988. “Women as Models of Faith in Mark.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 18, no. 1: 2–9. - BHABHA, HOMI K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. - BOYER, PAUL S. 1992. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2003. “When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy.” AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15221. - Bush, George W. 2002a. “President Promotes Compassionate Conservatism,” April 30, San Jose, CA, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020430-5.html. ———. 2002b. “President’s Remarks to the Nation.” September 11, Ellis Island, NY, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020911-3.html. ———. 2002c. “Remarks by the President on Iraq.” October 10, Cincinnati, OH, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html. ———. 2003. “New SEC Chairman Sworn-In.” February 18, Washington D.C., http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030218-1.html. ———. 2004. “President Addresses the Nation in Prime Time Press Conference.” April 13, Washington D.C., http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040413-20.html. - CASTELLI, ELIZABETH A. 2003. “Globalization, Transnational Feminisms, and the Future of Biblical Critique.” Paper presented at the conference, The Global Future of Feminist New Testament Studies, 28 February, at Scripps College, Claremont, CA. ———. 2004. “Praying for the Persecuted Church: American Christian Activist Engagements with Violence, Conflict, and the Language of Religious Freedom in the Global Arena.” Paper presented to the Bridging Seminar, February 20, at the Center for Religion and Media, NYU, New York, NY. - COLLINS, ADELA YARBRO. 1992. The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context. Minneapolis: Fortress. - COTTER, WENDY. 2001. “Mark’s Hero of the Twelfth-Year Miracles: The Healing of the Woman with the Hemorrhage and the Raising of Jairus’s Daughter (Mark 5.21-43).” In A Feminist Companion to Mark, ed. AmyJill Levine, with Marianne Blickenstaff, 54–78. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. - DUBE, MUSA W. 2001. “Fifty Years of Bleeding: A Storytelling Feminist Reading of Mark 5:24–43.” In Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible, ed. Musa W. Dube, 50–60. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. - DERRIDA, JACQUES. 1979 [1978]. “The Parergon.” Trans. Craig Owens. October 9: 3-11. - DONAHUE, JOHN R. AND DANIEL J. HARRINGTON. 2002. The Gospel of Mark. Sacra Pagina Series 2. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical. - GLANCY, JENNIFER. 2004. “Torture: Flesh, Truth, and the Fourth Gospel.” Working paper, LeMoyne College, Syracuse, NY.
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Movements of the Spirit in History LEE CORMIE Canada
“... people’s movements necessarily are the means by which we serve the Kingdom.” (Kairos Central America, 1988, para. 68)
Introduction
From the American and French revolutions at the end of the 18th century to the anti-slavery, labor and socialist movements and first waves of feminism and environmentalism in the 19th century, along with continuing indigenous resistance to colonialism and imperialism, “modern” projects of social order have been marked from within and without by social movements of resistance and hope for another world.1 This truth became even clearer in the second half of the 20th century. As soon as order was re-established after the international cataclysms of World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, and the “end of ideology” (Cormie 1980) being celebrated by Western social scientists and politicians, choruses of “new” voices erupted in 1960s and 1970s around the world in Third World liberation movements, feminist liberation movements, civil rights and black power movements, indigenous movements, anti-war and peace movements, environmental and ecology movements. Subsequently, “newer” voices – of gays and lesbians, transgendered and bisexual people, disabled or differently abled, Asian-American and Asian-Canadian, etc. – have continued erupting to the present. And there is no end in sight. Here, after (1) contextualizing myself and signaling my hermeneutical priorities, I offer brief probes – hypotheses to be tested in terms of your own experiences and perspectives – on: (2) growing awareness of social movements as primary actors/forces in shaping the social world, and as primary sites of our encounters with the Divine in history; (3) epochal transitions associated with
1
Broad and Heckscher suggest that “the anti-slave trade movement was the first modern social movement and the innovator of social-change methodologies used by virtually every social movement that followed” (Broad and Heckscher 2003, 716). 238
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developments in science, modes of knowledge production and new technologies, the project of neoliberal globalization, growing resistance to this project in anti-globalization or alternative globalization movements; (4) challenges faced by the “new” voices in theology in terms of recognizing and celebrating the challenges and opportunities associated with these developments; (5) the good news of convergence among popular movements; and (6) contributions of Christian theology to naming the new – and very old – experience of the Spirit in history when faith in the modern doctrine of progress is no longer possible, and the only genuine hope is that “another world is possible.” 1. Hermeneutical Priorities ... and Epistemological Humility
First, a word of personal contextualization is in order. I was born in the U.S. in 1943, near the end of the last stage of the great, prolonged crisis of “modern Western civilization” – World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. And I grew up during the stitching together of the bipolar post-War global order, this time centered on the U.S. as the highest stage of development, defender and promoter of “Western” and “Christian” civilization against poverty, backwardness, and the “world communist threat.”2 In Christian, specifically Catholic, terms this meant that I grew up in the pre-Vatican II church, with its strong sense of limited possibilities in this “vale of tears” in what was framed as an essentially unchanging history, full of temptations to sin, demonic threats, longing for salvation beyond history, and need for authority and discipline. By the 1960s though, especially in the North, horizons were shifting radically. Suddenly there was a new (at least for Catholics) sense of wonderful possibilities in this life on earth, and endless experimentation in the cultural revolutions of the 1960s. Along with many others I was swept along by the new spirit of openness to the world, symbolized in Catholic circles by Vatican II and the reforms flowing from it. As a university student in Canada (where I ended up through sheer luck, or 2
In many circles in the social sciences, after long adherence to the doctrine of secularization as increasingly marking the “modern” world, there is a resurgence of interest in religion. For example, analysts have begun to recognize the religious, specifically Christian, dimensions of Cold War ideology and politics in both its “liberal” and “conservative” expressions, and the roles of Christian thinkers, officials and institutional policies in articulating and mobilizing support for both; see Kirby, D., Religion and the Cold War, 2003; Warren 1997.
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pure grace) I grew increasingly excited by these possibilities, and by contact with priest theologians who were helping to pave these new paths. Caught up in wrestling with how personally to make the transition from pre-Vatican to post-Vatican Catholic, the growing need to think about earning as living as I approached graduation, and the suddenly new career opportunities for lay theologians with the vast expansion of higher education and growing shortage of priests, I embarked on the graduate study of theology in 1965. In those good old days, college and university teaching positions were open everywhere, even to those equipped with only a MA. And in 1967, only vaguely conscious of how little I knew, I embarked on a career as professor of theology and ethics. This was shocking in many ways, not only for my students but for me too. During the early and mid-1960s, I had been shielded from the cultural and political winds by my Catholic sense of separation between heaven and earth, church and world, religion and politics, by my unquestioning faith in America as a bastion of Western, Christian values,3 and by my sojourn as a university and graduate student in Canada. I was marked neither by the crude overt racism of the U.S. south sparking the civil rights movement nor by the intense anti-communist rhetoric dominating politics and culture in the U.S., commitments to policing world order, and escalation of the war in Vietnam sparking the anti-war movement.4 I was shocked, then, upon returning to the U.S. to teach, at the intense debates and conflicts which had already erupted over the civil rights and black power movements and the anti-Vietnam war movement and the agonizing choices being faced by male students confronting the draft, and by faculty members and administrators in colleges, like my own in Buffalo, NY, many of which were located in increasingly black inner city neighborhoods. The expanding sense of wonderful new possibilities was suddenly colored with the deep stains of evil, 3
4
As Kirby notes, “Christianity was appropriated by Western propagandists and policy-makers for their anticommunist arsenal... [A]nti-communist rhetoric emphasised freedom of religion and Christian ideals, which, combined with its emphasis on democracy and freedom, enabled anti-communism to assume a doctrinal status with the claim to moral superiority owing to its spiritual component as opposed to the base materialism of communism” (Kirby, D., 2003, 2). Of course, civil rights and anti-war movements erupted in Canada too, but with a bit of a lag, with less of the same highly polarized sense of opposition to the reigning culture and politics, and in other ways wrestling with the peculiarities of Canada, and especially Quebec. 240
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suffering, and conflict, provoking widespread cultural, ethical and political turmoil and anxiety, and seemingly endless new challenges to conversion. Surprisingly, much of this resonated with experience in my own marginal white working class family of origin marked by a few new opportunities for jobs and housing, but also by turmoil and regular crises in the cycles of boom and bust in the economy, frequent unemployment and constant fear of unemployment, and accompanying stress on bodies, psyches and souls. In view of my family’s experiences and many others’ – indeed the majority of white working class Americans (Levison 1974) – who did not fit the image of affluent and conservative, it seemed that there were many reasons for resistance to the reigning U.S. culture and politics and hope for alternatives. But, for many complex reasons, critical voices like this were muted in the eruptions of “new” voices. Indeed, scholarly elites and too often spokespeople for the “new left” converged in criticizing white working Americans for all that was wrong when the evidence was (and remains) far more mixed, overlooking completely the concentrations of corporate, media and cultural power, and the roles of elites (or “ruling classes”) in manipulating public discourse and policy-making, often in secret.5 In any case, in this turmoil, I too was born again – theologically, ethically, politically and of course personally – in dialogue with growing choruses of “new” voices in the world and in the church, and in the rediscovery of older, long-marginalized voices. My continuing apprenticeship in theology since then has been marked by a priority on attentiveness to these “new” voices, dialogues among and with them, and to supporting networks and organizations supporting them.6 Witnessing the births – in political and scholarly terms – of these “new” voices has been exciting. Of course, this pilgrimage has been end5
6
For a contemporary response to caricatures and denunciations of white, working class, ethnic Americans see Krickus 1976; specifically, for an explanation of the “right turn” in US politics associated with the election of Ronald Reagan focusing on the convergence of born-again liberal (“neoliberal”) and born-again conservative (“neoconservative”) politics and orchestration of limited forms of “conservative” populism which did not reflect political shifts among white working class Americans in general, see Ferguson and Rogers 1986. For me personally, this has included work in and support for Theology in the Americas (Torres 1976; West, Guidote and Coakley 1982), the American Academy of Religion Liberation Theologies Working Group, the Canadian Theology Reflection Group (Lind and Mihevc 1994), the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologies (EATWOT) (Fabella and Torres 1985), and the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative (Canadian Ecumeical Jubilee Initiative 1998; Cormie 2004).
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lessly challenging – not least because being white, male, First World, (more recently for me) middle class, heterosexual, and middle-aged has often been identified as the problem. And the challenges have only become more numerous and complicated, as the Canadian pole of my bi-national identity flourished since returning to Canada as a professor in 1979,7 my connections with distant others, especially in Latin America, have grown deeper, and the diversity of standpoints, perspectives, concerns and claims has exploded. Diversity is growing, central and irreducible, in ways which our theologies and ecclesiologies, spiritualities and ethics are still struggling to acknowledge and accommodate. But, in my experience, equally central in the midst of growing diversity is repeated experiences of convergence across difference, broader solidarities, and new hope for the future. And here I wish to testify to this experience, to probe the contours of this path of this Spirit in history, and to wrestle with the implications of this experience for our theologies and ecclesiologies, spiritualities and politics. I realize that there is no one right standpoint, perspective, or reading of this history. But I also believe deeply that authentic hope for the future – if there is to be a future for us – must be shared, collaboratively witnessed to in campaigns and movements, and celebrated. And in this Spirit I offer the following reflections. 2. Irruptions of the Historically Silenced and Marginalized
A series of “new” voices have erupted around the world in liberation, feminist, social justice, racial justice, eco-justice and peace movements. Above all, they have given voice to the sufferings and hopes of historically marginalized peoples, their standpoints, perspectives, and concerns. And in the process they irrupted – broke into – reigning cultural and religious, ethical and political discourses in countless ways, disrupting horizons, categories, and frameworks, historically expanding participation, and transforming the character of dialogue and debate in every area. These “new” voices are different in many important ways. From the beginning, though, they converged in protesting the idealization of post7
For example, only on my return to Canada did I begin to fully appreciate the diverse streams of the social gospel movement which had become almost completely marginalized and invisible in the U.S. in the 1950s, but which remained vital and influential in Canada through the 1980s (Allen 1975; Wells and Hutchinson 1989). 242
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World War II forms of social order in the Western – “First” – world and the promises of “development” for the “Third” world.8 They condemned its contradictions and limitations (named in terms of neocolonialism, dependency and capitalist world system, class divisions, racism, patriarchy, militarism). They dreamed of a different future, which transcends reigning constellations of forces, patterns, and trends. They demanded the right to speak for themselves, and to have a voice in the centers of decision-making power. And they called for changes that go to the roots, “radical” changes, in personal relationships, in established ideologies, institutions, social structures, and decision-making processes. In the churches this resurgent spirit of hope for marginalized, oppressed and exploited peoples and causes found expression around the world in liberation and contextual theologies: Latin American liberation theology, black and feminist theologies in the U.S., black and liberation and contextual theologies in Africa, indigenous spiritualities, Caribbean liberation theologies, gay and lesbian theologies, theology of struggle in the Philippines, Minjung theology in South Korea, Sri Lankan liberation theologies, Dalit theology in India, and inter-religious dialogues.9 In the 1980s these “new” voices were (re)joined by those yearning for peace, protesting the arms race and the deepening shadows of nuclear Armageddon accompanying the Reagan administration’s acceleration of the arms race as a strategy to threaten and to bankrupt the USSR. They were also joined by a growing chorus of voices seeking to speak on behalf of the earth, pointing to the ecological crises of industrial civilization and to the need for conversion to another path of development. In different ways, these “new” voices sought to empower marginalized peoples to affirm their own dignity, to speak for themselves concerning their sufferings, joys and visions of society, and to make their voices heard in the centers of power. In doing so, they drew on earlier expressions of the spirit of 8
9
Most were also critical of the only experiment in developing a concrete “modern” alternative, socialism in the USSR initially, though images of other possible socialisms – Latin American socialism, African socialism, Chinese socialism – continued to stir imaginations in the 1960s and 1970s. Gradually, though, and long before the tearing down of the Berlin wall in 1989 and collapse of the USSR, criticisms grew, and really existing socialism lost its appeal in many progressive movements. For a rich sampling of this growing list of “new” voices and their many contributions to global theological dialogues, see Fabella and Surgirtharajah 2000.
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liberation in black slave religion, the popular religiosity of peasants and workers, indigenous and women’s spiritualities, the social gospel movement and turn-of-the century feminism, movements like Young Christian Students and Young Christian Workers, the Student Christian Movement and World Student Christian Federation. They rediscovered at the heart of the bible the God who is passionately concerned about poor and oppressed peoples, and the hermeneutics of suspicion and prophecy from the perspective(s) of oppressed groups. They reaffirmed their right to think and speak theologically. They sought to understand Jesus and his mission in his historical context, and to revolutionize theological methodology through dialogue with social scientists. They sought to broaden and deepen theological discourse, to re-connect history and salvation, religion and economy, ethics and culture, spirituality and activism. And they brought a new openness to popular cultures and religions, and the revelations of the Divine in them. They criticized classical “liberal” celebration of the modern Western world as the epitome of progress in history, with its triumphalism, individualism,10 and relegation of religion to a separate sphere of culture and personal life unconnected to economics and politics. They criticized classical “conservative” fatalism concerning the (supposed) impossibility of progressive change in history, toleration of inequalities and injustice, projection of hope beyond history, and condemnations of “radicals” who affirm the possibility of good news in history. They challenged church structures and pastoral priorities which marginalize poor and working class people, and especially women and peoples of color, their cultures, experiences and hopes. And they called the church to conversion to solidarity with poor and oppressed peoples everywhere, and with the earth.11 Throughout the 1980s and 1990s and into the 21st century, newer voices, like African American women (“womanist”) and Hispanic American women (“mujerista” and “Latina”), queer and transgendered people, have 10
11
As Hopkins has pointed out, “due to the post-World War II global reconfigurations, the poor have burst upon the world scene like an earthquake shaking the foundations of North American and European hegemony and supremacy” (Hopkins 1997, 209). As Baum pointed out, “the period beginning with the 1960s was experienced by the churches as a ‘kairos,’ i.e. a special time when major social change toward greater justice was an historical possibility” (Baum 1991, 2). 244
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continued to expand global dialogues. And the choruses of old, new, and newer voices continues to expand, with no end in sight. 3. Epochal Transformations and Neoliberal Globalization
In many ways these movements have been extraordinarily successful, above all in introducing many choruses of new voices to public debates of important issues around the world. And for the first time in history since our human ancestors left the Garden of Eden in Africa, a new era is dawning for “universal” – or at least planetary – human discourse. However, rarely, perhaps never, have these movements succeeded in the terms imagined by their initial visionaries and architects, participants and supporters. There are many reasons. Certainly there have been many tensions and conflicts, sometimes bloody, among these movements, so often splits within movements, and rapid, sometimes radical, shifts over time. Moreover, the sheer multiplication of voices, standpoints, perspectives and concerns has also been overwhelming, swamping the capacities of individuals, groups and communities to understand and respond to all the new voices, standpoints, perspectives, concerns, sufferings, fears, hopes, and challenges to conversion. As widely noted, these movements – along with new communications technologies, the distorting impacts of advertising and public relations industries, and global immigration and refugee flows – have helped to disrupt local cultures, weaken the boundaries of traditional communities, fragment identities, relativize traditions (hastening the “end of tradition” as unselfconsciously transmitted and accepted (Giddens 1994)), provoke crises in established authorities and modes of authority, along with confusion, cynicism and paralysis widely associated with “post-modernity.” Meanwhile, developments associated with emerging planetary civilization have been transforming the contours of existence: vast and accelerating expansions of knowledge and scientific modes of knowing; vast and rapidly expanding arrays of new technologies, especially communications (Internet and cell phones), transportation, and bio-technologies, both agricultural and human; more dynamic forms of management and governance, and new accounting frameworks; great flows of refugees and immigrations; globalizations (partial and uneven) of multinational corporations and markets, and the 245
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vast expansions of the powers of international financial institutions (the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization); popular movements of solidarity and collaboration. Precisely because these developments are so new, fundamental and widespread, they are challenging traditional cultures, religions, and politics worldwide (also contributing to the crises associated with “post-modernity”). In the mist of these changes, and in direct response to the growing profusion of new voices, perspectives and claims, a new project of neoliberal globalization was established in the centers of power around the world, including in the major mass media (Clarkson 1993; Heilbroner 1998; Kelsey 1995). This project targeted the old and “new” social movements, and formulated an agenda in explicit opposition to them. And in its triumphs there have been many popular defeats, in which earlier expressions of hope have died, or been executed,12 (sometimes to rise again) and retreats from previously established standards and policies on many fronts. With the emergence of the clearly imperial Project for the New American Century (Project for the New American Century 2000) and institution of the global “war on terror” by the George W. Bush administration, the obstacles to pursuing liberating insights and forms of action are growing.13 And still there are too few resources or institutionalized spaces specifically committed to nurturing dialogues among the growing list of “new” and “newer” voices and all those seeking to be in dialogue with them. 4. Limits and Challenges
Among their historic contributions to knowledge, various liberation theologies have contributed in moving our horizons beyond the purely abstract frame of established forms of fundamental, dogmatic or systematic theology with few or no references to concrete historical circumstances. In particular, they insist on the importance of “experience,” especially the
12
13
As Vilas has noted, “civil society [in Latin America] did not awaken from a revolutionary dream [as some critics have claimed]; it was defeated in its attempts to achieve global change. Tens of thousands of Latin Americans went from that ‘revolutionary dream’ to their graves” (Vilas 1993, 40); see also Blum 1995. For example, in the U.S., Hunt notes that in the context of the post-September 11 global war on terror, “women’s voices are frequently ‘disappeared,’ especially from the media and politics,” and that “feminist liberation theology is increasingly marginalized rather than increasingly accepted” (Hunt 2002, 108). 246
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suffering and hopes of the victims.14 More generally, they impel us toward everyday experience – lo cotidiano, in the words of Latin American and U.S. Latino/Latina theologians (Aquino 1993, 38-41) – as the context for our encounters with the Divine, pulling theology and spirituality down from the clouds–more accurately, re-connecting Creator and creation, heaven and earth, history and salvation.15 At the same time, insistence on recognition of the situated and partial character of each expression of human knowing has destabilized established notions of objectivity and universality, authority and truth. Each network and movement of scholars and activists confronts the challenges of other voices, standpoints, perspectives and claims in wrestling with their own understanding of objectivity and authority, relevance and truth. And each confronts the central and irreducible significance of diversity and pluralism, both within traditions, including Christianity, and among them. The challenges are simultaneously epistemological, theoretical, and methodological. For abstract and ahistorical categories and frameworks always reflect in specific ways the standpoints and perspectives, concerns and interests of their authors. They have been and can always be interpreted in different, even contradictory, ways. Thus, in reacting against this kind of abstraction, with its claims to objectivity and universal relevance, the insistence of new voices on class, ethnicity and race, gender, sexual orientation, dependency and world system serves to substantively qualify traditional references to man, humanity or human nature, world, society and nation, community and church, pulling them down from the heaven of abstraction into dialogue involving particular people and debates addressing particular circumstances.
14
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Since the 19th century, “liberal” theological discourse, in contrast to ahistorical (“conservative”) theologies, has been articulated as “historical” and “critical.” Nevertheless, as Tracy notes, there has been a shocking silence in mainstream “theologies of historical consciousness and historicity alike on the evil rampant in history, the suffering of whole peoples, the destruction of nature itself. The history of modern progressive theologies of history is too often a history without any sense of the radical interruptions of actual history, without a memory of historical suffering, especially the suffering caused by the pervasive systemic unconscious distortions in our history – sexism, racism, classism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Eurocentrism” (Tracy 1995, 29). “History” has too easily been conflated with notions of evolution and progress, which renders the past as irrelevant and present contradictions and conflicts invisible, perpetuates monolithic notions of reason and rationality, and reduces choices for the future to simplistic highly polarized alternatives, only one of which is rational and good. See for example Richard 1997.
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In turn, though, the contours and dynamics of class, ethnicity and race, gender, sexual orientation, dependency, world system, Eurocentrism, post-modernity, post-coloniality, are also complex and changing, in some respects profoundly. And, for many reasons, within both activist and scholarly liberation, social justice and eco-justice circles too much discourse remains static, unhistorical, apolitical. In theology and ethics too we regularly hear laments over the lack of “social analysis.” For example, Castillo pointed to the stall in Latin American liberation theology already in the 1980s in addressing the shifting analyses of dependency (Castillo 1989b).16 More generally, Pilar Aquino has noted that “with rare exceptions U.S. theologians have shown great resistance against seriously incorporating into their work a critical analysis of the politicaleconomic theories that accompany contemporary patriarchal capitalism” (Aquino 1999, 12). Schüssler Fiorenza notes the gulf between much feminist academic scholarship and the concrete experiences of feminist movements (Fiorenza 2002). Eaton has pointed to “the lack of political analysis, interest in social transformation and attention to social movements” in Canadian feminist and eco-feminist theologies. And Cone and others have criticized U.S. African American theology for its lack of concrete analysis (Cone 1984, 88 ff; Paris 1994), and lack of attention to challenges of other movements, for example the challenge of ecology movements to African American movements (Cone 2000). Too seldom is there attention to the shifting contours of experience – including class, gender, race, nation and world/empire, civilization and nature – and to dialogues and debates over four decades in conceptualizing and theorizing, analyzing, and organizing around these dynamics.17 Too seldom is there acknowledgement that social movements are sites of human agency in shaping history, involving people in persevering, resisting suffering, and hoping for a different future. Too seldom is there reflection on particular social movements, their contexts and trajectories, their many successes in helping to transform our consciousness, consciences, and world, their failures anddefeats. And too seldom is there discussion of their similarities and 16 17
For a helpful overview of the debates over dependency, see Grosfoguel 2000. For example, concerning developments in re-framing analyses of multiple and shifting racisms, and transforming anti-racist politics, in local, national and global contexts, see Marable 1995; Quijano 2000; Rattansi 1995. 248
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differences, points of divergence and convergence in forging shared hopes for a different world, broader solidarities, and collaboration in action.18 I wish to suggest that these impasses may be articulated in specifically theological terms. On the one hand, many theologies and christologies remain insufficiently incarnational (e.g., too unqualifiedly abstract, ahistorical), in the process underestimating the transcendent capacity of specific actions in specific times and places, like those of Jesus, to transform established social patterns, constellations of power, and prevailing trends, in inaugurating a genuinely new (if always historically limited) beginning in history.19 In our own time, the movements giving voice to historically marginalized peoples and concerns signal the real historical possibility for a different future; and no news is more important than this. On the other hand, many theologies remain insufficiently Spiritcentered, underestimating ongoing primordial creativity, in nature and natural law (e.g., “creation,” human “nature,” and “existence”) as well as in society (identity and culture, knowledge and technology, economy and politics); expanding human reach and capacities to act; the radical openness of history; the growing weight of human choices in history; irreducible diversity in standpoints, perspectives and concerns, and the central significance of ongoing dialogue and negotiation; the requirement of theological creativity at the heart of tradition.20 So, to summarize, in the spirit of these movements and of the many signs of convergence among them, I propose the following three inter-related 18
19
20
Welch has noted the almost metaphysical tendency of some liberation theology discourse: "while these [liberation and feminist] theologies criticized the dualistic logic that excludes most of humanity, they often merely reverse the division of humanity into legitimate and illegitimate knowers and actors.” Moreover, she continues, this approach involves dangerous epistemological assumptions: “Much of liberation theology equates epistemic inclusion with epistemic privilege. Women, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the exploited are assumed to be somehow more moral, less culpable, less subject to the abuse of power than those in positions of dominance. But the truth is we are as partial, as petty, as subject to error, betrayal, and cruelty as those currently in power” (Welch 1997, 126). Ironically, then, reversals of dualisms and of familiar elite “scientific” claims for the neutrality, objectivity and universal relevance of their claims versus popular or lay, common sense or intuitive knowledge, re-inscribe central categories, theoretical frameworks, and epistemological assumptions/claims of the paradigms being rejected. As discovered in the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative, in the context of wrestling with the bible and in the context of a global campaign to cancel the debts of poor countries, the biblical notion of jubilee involves the sense of new beginning in history (Cormie 1998). It has become commonplace to note the underdeveloped character of the Trinity in much Christian theology, and specifically of the theology of the Spirit (Bevans 2001, 21).
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hypotheses concerning the movement(s) of the Spirit in history. 1) Social movements giving voice to marginalized peoples and concerns are central in shaping the debates and struggles over social order and the course of history (in contrast to static views of “culture,” “community,” “society,” “world,” and in critical social theories to emphases on “structures” which smooth out the partial, limited and contested character of every version of social order, the significance of resistance and alternative hopes, and the openness of history).21 This is a 20th – and now 21st – century phenomenon; as Hobsbawm has noted of the twentieth century, “the common people entered history as actors in their own collective right” (Hobsbawm 1995, 582). 2) Accordingly, movements are also primary sites for negotiating our identities and relations with the rest of the world. Movements are also primary sites of encounter with the Divine. Indeed, this has been true since the beginning of Christianity. As Castillo has noted, “Christianity, before being an institution, before being church, is a movement; before being structured in institutional forms, it is a messianic movement and that means a social movement” (Castillo 1989a, 63). 3) And this renewed experience of the Spirit in history involves re-centering our spiritualities, theologies, ecclesiologies and ethics. Just as earlier generations of exegetes and theologians were challenged by conclusions that Jesus’ words and action did not focus on his divine self but on the coming of the reign of God in history, so too are we challenged to re-center our horizons from “faith” and “church” as allegedly separate spheres to “culture,” “politics” and “economics” as the sites of encounter with the Divine in history, to discern true and false spirits and the movements incarnating them, to stitch together links of solidarity with all the suffering, 21
Surprisingly perhaps, much the same challenge also exists within the social sciences, where too much attention has been placed on monolithic “culture” and/or “structures.” As anthropologists Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff point out, “... the epistemic objects of our inquiry are no longer nouns – culture, society, institutions, or whatever – but compound verbs describing the construction and deconstruction of more-or-less stable practices, conventions, forms, commodities, abstractions... Without human agents, without specified locations and moments and actions, realities are not realized, nothing takes place, the present has no presence” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999, 16). This shift in perspective puts human agency as expressed in social movements at the center of social theory and social analysis.
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and to forge ways of effectively collaborating in a shared Spirit without agreement on theory or doctrine. In the words of the Central American Kairos document, “people’s movements necessarily are the means by which we serve the Kingdom” (Kairos Central America, 1988, para. 68). Meanwhile, I wish to suggest, the great questions at the heart of religious traditions everywhere continue to haunt humanity, and the stakes are greater than ever, concerning the powers of creation (and destruction), the shifting contours and dynamics of humanity, other species, and global ecology on earth, the openness of history and possibilities for fundamental change, the possibilities for hope when faith in progress is no longer possible. “The present-day world,” Sobrino points out, “is the site of a great battle... for the hope of the poor” (Sobrino 1999, 113). In the end, I would also say, this is a great battle for all people, and for many other species too. 5. “Another World Is Possible”
At the same time, there are many signs – even if the eyes of faith are required to see them – of hope for a different future. Here I would like to reflect on one important sign of hope and new opportunities for Christian churches (and other faith communities) in articulating – and witnessing to – hope for the future. Like many human encounters when the Spirit is present, the World Social Forums (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2001, 2002, 2003) and Mumbai, India (2004) are far larger than the sum of their parts, or the intentions of their organizers – so many participants and groups, representing so many constituencies, from so many different cultures and languages, struggling around so many issues, with so many stories of suffering, and so many hopes, for themselves, for the world, and for the whole Earth!22 These encounters in the annual WSFs and in the myriad local and regional processes springing up around the world are not traditionally religious, in the sense of being formulated in terms of religious communities or churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, traditional discourses of belief in 22
The most valuable source is the WSF web page: http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br. For other collections a commentaries reflecting participation and close attention to WSF processes and documents, see especially Sen, Anand, Escobar, et al. 2004; many of these texts are also online: http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.html. For European perspectives, see Transform! Europe 2004; for Indian perspectives, see Sen 2003.
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god(s) and morality, or familiar liturgical expressions. How could they be, since organizers explicitly encourage participation from every part of the world and every people? But, amazingly, there is an increasingly wide sense of shared values amidst all the diversity, along with experiences of convergence at many points in the trajectories and agendas of different movements. And the sensibilities and concerns traditionally identified with religion are everywhere. In particular, ethics is affirmed as central and irreducible, in opposition to the suppression of ethics in the supposedly neutral, objective scientific discourses of science, technology, and economy. For example, new discourses of ethically explicit economics (e.g., “economy of solidarity”) are being advocated. “Cognitive justice” – in the production and dissemination of knowledge and expertise” – is affirmed. Opposition to the project of neoliberal globalization embodies options for the historically marginalized and for the earth. Opposition to the war on drugs in Columbia and the war on terror in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) is oriented to active peace-making. And the all important ethical – and political – questions concerning which voices participate in analysis and decisionmaking processes are central. In World Social Forum circles there is widespread opposition to the notion of a single dogma, ideology, or form of organization. But I also sense a growing sense of convergence and new kind of unity which is dynamic, affirms diversity, is multi-centered, requires participation and ongoing negotiation. This is not just the much heralded “post-modern” end of overarching metanarratives, fragmentation, relativism and paralysis. For in the midst of this exploding diversity, there are also multiplying points of convergence, broadening solidarity, increasing collaboration in action – there is a strong, if unarticulated, experience of the Spirit. Certainly, there is no adequate single tradition or discourse for all the dimensions of these issues. No single community or movement can address all the key issues, or have all the answers. This is true for Christian churches and other faith communities too. But these processes of convergence also need fuller discourses of the values and spirit animating them. And here there are many opportunities for faith communities to make important contributions. In particular, I would like to suggest, Christians in particular have many rich, if recently under developed, traditions of speaking and calling on the Spirit. And our churches 252
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could become creative centers of dialogue drawing on these traditions in discerning and (re)naming this Spirit present across diverse expressions in different contexts but everywhere continuing the ongoing Divine mission of creation and redemption/liberation in history. Our churches could become renewed nodes in an expanding worldwide multi-religious and multicultural networks witnessing to the Spirit animating the hope that “another world is possible.” 6. Pentecost: Great Diversity / One Spirit / Hope for Another World
Broadly speaking, there are three popular, radically different scenarios for the future: 1) New Golden Age: Faith in a wonderful new age of progress for all (at least in the long run) propelled by breakthroughs in science, new technologies and the spread of markets (Schwartz and Leyden 1997; Roco and Bainbridge 2002) flourishes in certain narrow circles of wealth and power deaf to the cries of the victims and blind to the many bad fruits of their perspectives and policies; this faith infuses neoliberal ideology. 2) Armageddon: A final cataclysmic war ending history is affirmed by many American Christian fundamentalists, including those, like presidents Reagan (The Cristic Institute 1984; Lang 1984) and George W. Bush (Wallis 2003), with their hands on the weapons to make it happen. 3) Apocalypse: This image is widely used in an exclusively negative way to evoke threats of devastation, by both conservative (especially in the U.S. where it is a fundamental characteristic of right wing discourse) and of the left. In its more profound biblical sense, it combines the notion of abrupt and cataclysmic transition heralding the demise of the old order and, resonating with the biblical notion of millennium (“one of humanity’s great inventions” (Thrupp 1970, 25), the dawn of a fundamentally different new order. Among popular movements, and in many expressions of popular culture, there are powerful and growing preoccupations with cataclysmic social and ecological disruptions undermining the conditions of life, for countless indigenous communities, their traditions and languages, whole societies wrestling with HIV/AIDS, tens of thousands of species, and whole ecosystems. And in these conditions hope for another future requires profound acts of faith. 253
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The only unavailable option is more of the same; as Hobsbawm has noted, “if humanity is to have a recognizable future, it cannot be by prolonging the past or the present.” (Hobsbawm 1995, 585). In such a tumultuous and threatening context, the first priority is survival. This is perhaps nowhere clearer than in Africa. In the context of failed development, widespread and growing poverty, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Dube points to Africans’ “shattered dreams and cul de sac/ed roads” (Dube 2004), and their radical challenges to established modes of doing theology and social analysis, ethics and politics. And elsewhere, searching for signals of hope, she weaves a powerful parable of Mama Africa, drawing on the biblical story of the bleeding woman (Mk 5: 35-43) who defies death and, against all odds, actively searches for healing and survival (Dube 1999). In contrast to bright dreams of liberation and development in the past, she is certainly right in pointing to the terrifying shadows which haunt modern progress, evident in massive and growing suffering, and the ominous future which it seems so surely to portend; and she is right to warn against magic hopes for sudden deliverance preached by too many Christians, revolutionaries, and development experts. In such a context, survival requires a miracle, and seeing the signs of hope require the eyes of faith. Moreover, in the shadows of possible nuclear and/or biological warfare, and/or cascading ecological disruptions and corresponding social turmoil an increasingly dark shadow increasingly looms over all people on earth. And the future, if there is to be a future for us, requires many miracles. Never more than at the dawn of the 21st century have people more desperately needed clues about authentic signs of hope. In conclusion, drawing on experience of social movements in recent decades and more historically contextual reflection on the book of Acts, I probe the experience of the Spirit in the midst of civilizational crisis in the first century C.E. and today. Pentecost (Acts 2) lies at the intersection of a complex series of developments in the tumultuous world of the first Christians. Jesus had been executed, and the movement gathered around him had scattered. Then came the encounters of some disciples with the risen Christ. These encounters were powerful, convincing them that persecution and death were not the last words in witnessing to the coming of the reign of God even in the midst of the Roman empire. But they were also mysterious, because in no simple sense were 254
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these encounters with the historical Jesus; he appeared only a few times, in different forms, not immediately recognizable; and others had trouble believing these stories. Moreover, the implications of this experience were not so obvious for the Jews and others still suffering exploitation and oppression at the hands of Roman authorities and the Jewish elites in collusion with them. Then, the appearances ceased, and the risen Christ was no longer present, but, the texts say, ascended into heaven. Meanwhile, the air was heavy with a sense of looming apocalypse threatening annihilation of the world the Jews had known. With the crushing of the liberation struggle and destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., the Jewish state, priesthood, and temple were destroyed, scattering many Jews into diaspora, and threatening the disappearance from the pages of history of the people, their God, and their traditions. And the only imaginable future required nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21: 1). Only in the broadest terms do we know what happened next: both rabinnic Judaism and Christianity were born from this apocalypse. We have very few details, though we can discern some central threads. The Pentecost story weaves together some of them. One thread concerns the absence of Jesus, even of the risen Christ who ascended into heaven. A second concerns diverse efforts to interpret the concrete significance of his life, death, and resurrection in the strong and growing Roman empire. A third concerns the constituency for this “good news,” in the cosmopolitan mix of peoples stitched together by the roads, military campaigns, floods of refugees, expanded trade routes, and shifting opportunities in the far-flung empire. At the heart of the story lie confusion and doubt, cultural and religious diversity, imperial power on a previously unknown scale, and the experience of the Spirit. To simplify a series of complex cultural, social and political developments, the early Christians finally articulated these experiences theologically in terms of the Spirit who inspires the coming together of diverse peoples of the empire in the ekklesia, the assemblies of the people of God; together they continue the incarnate presence of the Divine in history witnessing to the coming new basileia (kingdom or reign). With the great cultural and religious diversity, and the shifting horizons of possibility and hope in the evolving, then declining fortunes of the Roman empire over succeeding centuries, there was no single answer to questions concerning the 255
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concrete character of this new reign, or how to witness to it; and along this twisting path inspiration of the Spirit and creativity remained essential. But in specific times and places no experience was more important or moving and joyful – ecstatic – than the experience of unity amidst diversity and shared inspiration in witnessing concretely to hope for a new beginning in history for all. There are many analogies between the world of the early Christians and our world. We live in a new kind of empire with historically unprecedented power and scope, now to the ends of the earth and high into the heavens. Its high priests promise peace and prosperity for all. But looming apocalypse threatens countless communities and their traditions, whole societies, tens of thousands of species, and whole eco-systems. And too many of our religious leaders are intertwined with the promises of empire, or overwhelmed by the sins of the past, or paralyzed by the magnitude of change and challenges to conversion. Still, there are many opportunities for a new relationship with the Divine in nurturing the future development of life. The horizons of alternative hope are also expanding with new knowledge, technologies and global linkages. On the margins there are many social movements witnessing concretely to other hopes for the future. And more than ever, mutual respect is essential in forging broader solidarities, shared hope, and effective collaboration. In the midst of the throes of change, one of the central signs of the times is the irruption of new voices of the historically oppressed and marginalized. They have complicated our thinking and acting in introducing new standpoints and perspectives, which have relativized established frameworks and modes of action in biblical studies,23 theology and ethics, the social sciences and politics. But they have also evoked new revelatory experiences, recovering long-cherished but more recently forgotten faces of the Divine, and disclosing new ones. And in the wake of many shocks, discoveries, and new perspectives on ourselves, they have also pointed toward broader kinds of solidarity, shared hopes for the future, and new, more participatory, multicentered, continuously negotiated modes of unity with diversity.
23
As Jobling notes in relation to the irruptions of so many new voices in biblical studies, “speaking in tongues [from the Pentecost story] readily stands for the recent invasion of biblical studies by many new methods, methods of great and irreducible diversity” (Jobling 2001, 216). 256
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In increasingly multicultural and multi-religious contexts we may all have little Pentecost experiences, when in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces we encounter shared concerns and a similar Spirit in responding to local problems and possibilities – though rarely is there time or space to try to name this Spirit or to reflect together on the implications of faith in it. Larger gatherings too, like the World Social Forums drawing together representatives of movements from around the world, confirm, on a historically unprecedented scale, the possibility – the growing reality! – of mutual respect among peoples of many religious traditions and no religious tradition at all, new links of global solidarity, and increasing capacities to act together in witnessing to the emergence of another world. These are experiences of Pentecost in our time, powerful new experiences of the Spirit, poured out across the differences, gaps and barriers which have traditionally divided peoples, in the different tongues, accents and dialects of the peoples of many places, cultures and languages, religions and politics, calling for repentance and conversion, inspiring us to broader solidarities and more inclusive identities, and pointing the way forward together in this time when the whole creation is groaning in the labor pains of new birth (Rom. 8: 22).
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LEE CORMIE BIBLIOGRAPHY - ALLEN, R., ed. 1975. The Social Gospel in Canada. Papers of the Inter-Disciplinary Conference on the social gospel in Canada, March 21-24, 1973, at the University of Regina. M. S. National Museum of Man, History Division. Ottawa, ON: National Museums of Canada. - AQUINO, M. P. 1999. “Theological method in U.S. Latino/a theology.” In From the heart of our people: Latino/a explorations in Catholic systematic theology, eds. O. Espín and M. Díaz, 6-48. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - AQUINO, M. P. 1993. Our cry for life: Feminist theology from Latin America. Trans. D. Livingstone. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - BAUM, G. 1991. “Good-bye to the Ecumenist.” The Ecumenist 29(2), Spring:1-3. - BEVANS, S. 2001. “Wisdom from the margins: Systematic theology and the missiological imagination.” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 56: 21-42. - BLUM, W. 1995. Killing hope: U.S. military and CIA intervention since World War II. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. - BROAD, R., AND Z. HECKSCHER. 2003. Before Seattle: The historical roots of the current movement against corporate-led globalization; corporate responsibility; codes of conduct; united nations commission on transnational corporations; tncs;. Third World Quarterly 24(4):713-28. - CANADIAN ECUMEICAL JUBILEE INITIATIVE. 1998. A new beginning – A call for Jubilee. The vision of the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative. Toronto, ON: Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative. - CASTILLO, F. 1989a. “Comentario teologico.” In Teología de la liberación y realidad chilena, F. Castillo and et al., 63–67. Santiago: Ediciones Rehue. __________. 1989b. “Teología y ciencias sociales. Marco para debate.” In Teología de la liberación y realidad chilena, F. Castillo and et al., 7–11. Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Rehue. - CLARKSON, S. 1993. “Economics: The new hemispheric fundamentalism.” In The political economy of North American free trade, eds. R. Grinspun and M. Cameron, 61–69. Montreal, Que.: McGill-Queen’s University Press. - COMAROFF, J., AND J. L. COMAROFF. 1999. “Occult economies and the violence of abstraction: Notes from the South African postcolony.” American Ethnologist 26(2):279–303. - CONE, J. 1984. For my people: Black theology and the black church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. __________. 2000. “Whose earth is it anyway?” Cross Currents 50(1–2), Spring/Summer. Http://www.crosscurrents.org/cone.htm. - CORMIE, L. 1980. “The sociology of national development and salvation history.” In Sociology and human destiny, ed. G. Baum, 56–85. New York: Seabury Press. __________. 1998. “Jubilee and the reign of God.” In Making a new beginning: Biblical reflections on jubilee, ed. Canadian - Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative, 3–13. Toronto, ON: Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative. __________. 2004. “CEJI and ecumenical coalitions: Hope for a new beginning in history.” In Intersecting voices: Critical thoelogies in a land of diversity, eds. D. Simon and D. Schweitzer, 300–22. Ottawa, ON: Novalis. - THE CRISTIC INSTITUTE. 1984. President Reagan and Armageddon ideology. Statement by a group of one hundred religious leaders. Washington, DC: The Christic Institute. - DUBE, M. 1999. “Fifty years of bleeding: A storytelling feminist reading of Mark 5:24–43.” Ecumenical Reivew, January, 11–17. 258
Movements of the Spirit in History __________. 2004. “Doing theological/religious education: A paradigm of shattered dreams and cul de sac/ed roads.” Ministerial Formation No. 102 (January): 4–12. - FABELLA, V., AND R. S. SURGIRTHARAJAH, eds. 2000. Dictionary of Third World theologies. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - FABELLA, V., AND S. TORRES, eds. 1985. Doing theology in a divided world. (Papers from the Sixth International Conference of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, January 5–13, 1983, Geneva Switzerland). Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - FERGUSON, T., AND J. ROGERS. 1986. Right turn: The decline of the Democrats and the future of American politics. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. - FIORENZA, E. S. 2002. “Thinking and working across borders.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 18(1):71–74. - GIDDENS, A. 1994. “Living in post-traditional society.” In Reflexive modernization: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order, U. Beck, A. Giddens, and S. Lash, 56–109. Cambridge, England: Polity Press. - GROSFOGUEL, R. 2000. “Development, modernity, and dependency theory in Latin America.” Nepantla 1(2):347–74. Http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nepantla/v001/1.2grosfoguel.html. - HEILBRONER, R. 1998. “The ‘disappearance’ of capitalism.” World Policy Journal 15(2):1–7. - HOBSBAWM, E. 1995. Age of extremes: The short twentieth century 1914–1991. London, England: Abacus. - HOPKINS, D. 1997. “Postmodernity, black theology of liberation and the U.S.A.: Michel Foucault and James H. Cone.” In Liberation theologies, postmodernity and the Americas, eds. D. Batstone, E. Mendieta, L. Lorentzen, and D. Hopkins, 205–21. New York, NY: Routledge. - HUNT, M. 2002. “Water as a locus for feminist liberation theology.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 18(1):107–10. - JOBLING, D. 2001. “Postmodern Pentecost.” In Postmoden interpretations of the bible, ed. A. Adam, 207–17. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press. - KAIROS CENTRAL AMERICA. Signed by more than one hundred pastors, priests, theologians and lay leaders. 1988. Amanecer No. 3 (June). New York, NY: New York CIRCUS. - KELSEY, J. 1995. Economic fundamentalism: The New Zealand experiment. East Haven, CN: Pluto Press. - KIRBY, D., ed. 2003. Religion and the Cold War. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. __________. 2003. “Religion and the cold war–an introduction.” In Religion and the Cold War, ed. D. Kirby, 1–22. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. - KRICKUS, R. 1976. Pursuing the American dream: White ethnics and the new populism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. - LANG, A. 1984. “President quotes armageddon ideology.” National Catholic Reporter, 11 February, 8. - LEVISON, A. 1974. The working-class majority. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. - LIND, C., AND J. MIHEVC, eds. 1994. Coalitions for justice. Ottawa, ON: Novalis. - MARABLE, M. 1995. “History and black consciousness: The political culture of black America.” Monthly Review 47(3):71–88. - PARIS, P. 1994. “Review of Martin & Malcolm & America: A dream or nightmare,” by James Cone (Maryknoll: Orbis 1991). Religious Studies Review 20(2):87–90. - PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY. 2000. Rebuilding America’s defenses: Strategy, forces and resources for a new century. Washington, DC: Project for the New American Century. Http://www.newamericancentury.org/ RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf. 259
LEE CORMIE - QUIJANO, A. 2000. “Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Trans. M. Ennis. Nepantla 1(3):533–80. Http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nepantla/v001/1.3quijano.html. - RATTANSI, A. 1995. “Just framing: Ethnicities and racisms in a ‘postmodern’ framework.” In Social postmodernism, eds. L. Nicholson and S. Seidman, 250–86. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. - RICHARD, P. 1997. “Critica teológica a la globalización neoliberal.” Pasos No. 71 (mayo/junio):31–34. - ROCO, M., AND W. S. BAINBRIDGE, eds. 2002. Converging technologies for improving human performance: Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. Draft report of a National Science Foundation and Department of Commerce workshop of leading experts from government, academia, and the private sector, with subsequent contributions of members of the U.S. science and engineering community. Arlington, Virginia. Http://wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/. - SCHWARTZ, P., AND P. LEYDEN. 1997. “The long boom.” Wired, July, 115–29, 168–73. - SEN, J., A. ANAND, A. ESCOBAR, AND P. WATERMAN, eds. 2004. World Social Forum challenging empires. New Delhi, India: Viveka Foundation. Http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.html. - SEN, J., AND M. KUMAR, eds. 2003. Are other words possible? The open space reader on the World Social Forum and its engagement with empire. Delhi, India: For private circulation and educational purposes only - Printed at Vikas Computer and Printers. - SOBRINO, J. 1999. “A total jubilee: Giving hope to the poor and receiving it from them.” Trans. P. Burns. In 2000: Reality and hope, eds. V. Elizondo and J. Sobrino. Concilium, 111–20. Maryknoll, NY and London, England: Orbis Books and SCM Press. - THRUPP, S. 1970. “Millennial dreams in action: A report on the conference discussion.” In Millennial dreams in action: Studies in revolutionary religious movements, ed. S. Thrupp, 11–27. New York, NY: Schocken Books. - TORRES, S. & E. JOHN, eds. 1976. Theology in the Americas. Documentation and papers from the Theology in the Americas Conference, Detroit, MI, August, 1975. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. - TRACY, D. 1995. “Evil, suffering, hope: The search for new forms of contemporary theodicy.” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 50:15–36. - TRANSFORM! EUROPE. 2004. World Social Forum: A debate on the challenges for the future. http://www.transform.it/newsletter/news_transform01.html. - VILAS, C. 1993. “The hour of civil society.” Trans. M. Fried. NACLA Report on the Americas 27(2):35–44. - WALLIS, J. 2003. “Dangerous religion: George W. Bush’s theology of empire.” In Sojourners Magazine, SeptemberOctober. Http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0309&article=030910. - WARREN, H. A. 1997. Theologians of a new world order: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Christian realists 1920–1948. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. - WELCH, S. 1997. “Dancing with chaos: Reflections on power, contingency, and social change.” In Liberation theologies, postmodernity and the Americas, eds. D. Batstone, E. Mendieta, L. Lorentzen, and D. Hopkins, 125–27. New York, NY: Routledge. - WELLS, H., AND R. HUTCHINSON, eds. 1989. A long and faithful march: ‘Towards the Christian revolution,’ 1930s/1980s. Toronto, ON: United Church Publishing House. - WEST, C., C. GUIDOTE, AND M. COAKLEY, eds. 1982. Theology in the Americas: Detroit II conference papers. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
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Contributors Lee Cormie is Professor of Theology at St. Michael's University College and the Toronto School of Theology. His fields of research, teaching, and publishing include: the “new" voices in in the churches and in theology associated with liberation, contextual, and social justice theologies, eco-theologies and the theologies of peace; and popular organizations and social movements, especially in their convergences in the World Social Forum and related processes. He also served on the Steering Committee of the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative, and chaired its Theology Committee. Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare is a PhD candidate at the University of St-Michael’s College, Toronto School of Theology, working in the area of liberationist and postcolonial hermeneutics, popular religion, and interreligious dialogue. He is a frequent film reviewer for Catholic New Times and for Journal of Film and Religion. He is also an independent filmmaker and member of the Volatile Works Media Arts Collective. Mario held the position of Co-Chair with the World Student Christian Federation from 1999-2004. He presently lives in his place of birth, Montréal, Québec. Musa W. Dube is a New Testament scholar, who holds a teaching position in the University of Botswana. Currently she serves as WCC Consultant for HIV/AIDS in Theological Training and Mission in Africa, assisting intitutions to mainstrean HIV/AIDS and gender in their programms. She also serves as the chair of biblical studies research in the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians. She is the author of Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, Chalice Press, 2000 and the editor of Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible, SBL/WCC Publications, 2001. Elizabeth Joy initially graduated in Science and then attained a postgraduate degree in Christian theology. She has worked with the Bible Society of India (BSI) and Christian Institution for the Study of Religion and Society (CISRS). She was the first woman General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement of India (SCMI) and is now serving the Council for World Mission as the Executive Secretary for Mission Education. 262
Regina Musselman-Pérez: Soy brasilena, nacida en Sertaozinho, Sao Paulo, Brasil, hija de misioneros norte-americanos. Soy poliglota (portugues, ingles, espanol, frances) y multicultural. Considero Mexico mi segunda patria. Tengo un doctorado en Linguistica de El Colegio de Mexico. Mis areas de interes son: el analisis conversacional, el analisis del discurso, la sociolinguistica, la educacion bilingue, el estudio del genero y su aplicacion a la exegesis bibilica desde una hermeneutica feminista liberadora. Denise Nadeau, MLitt, MDIV, DMIN, is a Euro-Canadian scholar activist who has recently relocated to Quebec from British Columbia in Canada. A dance movement therapist and popular educator, as well as a graduate of the International Feminist Theology Colloquium linked to San Francisco Theological Seminary, she leads groups for women that combine applied arts and spiritual practices in the repair of racist, sexist and colonial violence. She pursues her passion forfeminist post-colonial theology as a Research Associate with the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia and as a sessional co-instructor (with Wenh-In Ng) of Education for Anti-Racist Ministry at Toronto School of Theology. Szabolcs Nagypál is a graduate in law, literature and ecumenical theology. He is Roman Catholic, a theologian in the Békés Gellért Ecumenical Institute (BGÖI) in Pannonhalma, Hungary. He is a former chairperson of KÖD (Magyar SCM), and is currently a member of WSCF Central European Subregion (CESR) Board, European Regional Committee (ERC) and global Executive Committee (ExCo). He is the editor-in-chief of Mozaik (the European ecumenical journal of WSCF, 1992) and Student World (the global ecumenical review of WSCF, 1908). Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez received his PhD at the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago. He is of Mexican origin and is involved in various ministries in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the U.S.A.. He is Professor of Theology at the Lutheran Seminary Program in Austin, Texas.
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Rebecca Todd Peters is Distinguished Emerging Scholar and Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University in North Carolina. Research and teaching areas include economic and environmental ethics, sexuality issues, and reproductive concerns. She worked for six years with Women’s Ministries as part of the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and during that time she helped to found the National Network of Presbyterian College Women. Dr. Peters has also worked extensively with young women’s leadership development through the World Council of Churches at events in Jamaica, China, Ghana, India, Switzerland, Zimbabwe, Brazil, and the United States leading workshops, serving on committees, participating in plenary presentations and providing keynote leadership at training events. She is a graduate of Rhodes College (B.A. with Honors, Art; B.A., English), and Union Theological Seminary in New York (M.Div., Ph.D., Christian Social Ethics) and is an ordained PC(USA) minister. Erin Runions is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology at St. Bonaventure University. She is author of Changing Subjects: Gender, Nation, and Future in Micah; and How Hysterical: Identification and Resistance in the Bible and Film. She is also a social justice activist and an anarchist. Sturla J. Stålsett is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, and Head of the Research Program “Religion in a Globalised Age – Transfers and Transformations, Integration and Resistance” (RIGA), sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council. In 2002, he was a guest researcher at the Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones (DEI) in San José, and he is invited as guest professor to the Escola Superior de Teología in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil in 2004. He is also the President of the Commission for International Affairs in the Church of Norway, and since 2003 member of the Advisory board of the Initiative on Ethics and Development in the Inter-American Development Bank. Bertrand Tientcheu, économiste de formation. Formateur au Mouvement des Etudiants Protestant du Cameroun. Il est actuellement membre du Comité Général de la Conférence des Eglises de Toute l’Afrique, et membre du conseil éditorial de Student World, Revue de la FUACE. 264