rev. dra. ofelia ortega “biblical – theological answers to globalization”
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Rev. Dra. Ofelia Ortega
“Biblical – Theological Answers to Globalization”
Our Church dilemma in front of FTAA
(Free Treat Agreements of America):
The most important thing of this class should
be the unanimous purpose of raising our
voices to prophetically denounce a process,
which according to many economy experts,
has been secretly dealt.
The committee, which has been working since the end of the year 1999,
integrated by the vice ministers of trade of each country (except Cuba), has
totally worked without taking into account the demands of the civil society
and the demands of the Second Summit of the People of the America in
their declaration of April 19th, 2001 in which it is affirmed that:
“Neither the people of the region, nor the diverse group of union and social
organizations, nor the parliaments have been able to participate on the debates
nor to know the detail of the agreements. On the contrary, with great cynicism,
the negotiators affirm that they have taken note of the recommendations of the
Managerial Forum of the America.”
“And these recommendations have been
valuable contributions to the process of the
FTAA. The governments prepare
themselves, in a few weeks, to secretly sign
a treaty behind the people’s back and
threaten to radically deepen the terrible
consequences that the effective neo-liberal
politics afforded”
As Germán Gutiérrez, from the Ecumenical
Department of Investigation of San José, Costa
Rica, affirms:
“The main objective of U.S. in the FTAA is to
strengthen its domain over Latin America and
the Caribbean, inside the context of their
economic confrontation with the European
Union and Japan and to exclude the latter from
their influence in the region.”
“It is about to narrow the control over Latin America in the conflict for markets
or investments, for placement of speculative capitals, but mainly for the access
to natural and energy resources, petroleum fundamentally, for the access to
the drinkable water that is another great interest; and for the access to the
wealth of biodiversity of the region.”
We have to admit, that at the present time, winds of reaction prevail against
the social values and the humanitarian attitudes. The power is in hands of
those that manage the financial capital and control the most important
markets in the world. These impose a neo-liberal vision, which attempts
against the people’s expectations. Life is difficult, especially for those that
lack privileges.
Another objective is to destroy the
current intents of economical
integration of Latin American and
Caribbean that promote relationships
with other economical areas of the
world in order to attenuate its
excessive dependence on the North
American economy”
Those that dominate seek to impose a vision
according to which we come closer to the “end
of the history.” Or with other words; that the
transition that we are experiencing is definitive
and it can not be reverted. Simplifying their
message, we can say that their vision is that of
a world formed by winners and losers. The
winners are those able to compete, to be
aggressive and to be authoritarian. The losers
are most of the population of the planet.
However who sees history with the eyes of faith in the God that calls, has the
conviction that the human beings can not definitively determine the historical
processes. It is God who moves history, not the human beings.
This conviction was already expressed by a prophet in times that the life of
the community of believers was extremely difficult, in moments that there was
little or any hope. In their proclamation, the prophet called up the people to
believe, not to give up.
“Turn to the Lord and pray to him,
now that he is near. Let the wicked
leave their way of life and change
their way of thinking. Let them turn
to the Lord, our God; he merciful
and quick to forgive”.
Then the Lord says: “My thoughts
are not like yours, and my ways
are different from yours. As high as
the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways and thoughts
above yours” (Is. 55: 6-9).
The prophetic word points out to a mystery of
history: the final result of the historical processes will
always escape to the control of the established
powers. This means that we have to expose the
ideology that proclaims the end of history and the
definitive character of the domain over the world on
the part of the established powers. It is necessary to
clearly establish that powers generate injustice!
An incompatibility exists between its regime and the promises of the gospel,
where it is said that Mary, Jesus' mother who praised the Lord after she
received the news that she was conceiving the Son of God, went to see
Elisabeth and sang: “He has stretched out his mighty arm and scattered the
proud with all their plans. He has brought down mighty kings from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the
rich away with empty hands.” (Lucas 1: 51-53)
We have to recognize that the biblical
texts were written in different historical
periods. However, they are always
related with very concrete economical
and political contexts. In certain
historical periods God’s message was
directed to kings and feudal lords.
From the century VIII b.c. the biblical texts confronted the new economy
dominated by the private proprietors, the credit, the money and the
mechanisms of debts. This new economy was developed in the political
atmosphere of the empires of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome.
Different biblical traditions in
different contexts:
The absolute power about the property
introduced by Greece in the century VIII b.c
introduced an endless chain of loans,
interests on the loans, the debtor's slavery
and absolute prevalence of poverty. It was
necessary to pay tributes and taxes to the
imperial powers; all these mechanisms led to
poverty and hunger, to slavery and even to
death (Nehemías 5; 1-5).
When we understand the context and what happened in this historical
period, we find many reading keys that can help us in our specific situation
in front of the contemporary International Financial Institutions.
Examining the biblical texts from the perspective of justice, four
fundamental biblical traditions can help us to be able to define how to
settle down and to maintain fair economic relationships, which can serve
as specific points of reference and guide even nowadays.
The biblical writers affirm that God
can mobilize different against-
strategies in front of the mechanisms
that lead to poverty, to hunger and
slavery in its people, creating, at the
same time, alternatives for what we
can call the structural and corporate
sin.
This biblical tradition calls us to:
1. To criticize the injustices prophetically
and to create new visions.
2. To support all the possible legal
reformations so that the political and
economical structures serve the
theology of life.
3. To courageously resist the totalitarian and globalizing powers and to
try the alternatives that the Kingdom of God offers us to live.
4. To live and to promote those alternatives that we have to go
discovering in the practical daily experience of our people.
Prophetic Critic of the
injustices and creation of the
new visions:
A great number of churches have
begun to follow the examples of
the prophets, criticizing the
injustices and creating new visions.
The Churches in the Pacific have developed a alternative vision called “the
Hope Island” as an answer to the challenge of the economical Globalization.
The “Cry of the Excluded Movement” in Latin America constitutes a sign of
hope in the Continent. We have among us Bishop Federico Pagura that has
been one of the initiators of this process.
The World Council of Churches, in an answer to this economic dominance,
responds that:
3. The dominance of globalization should be
challenged by the creation of effective
institutions of global ruling - (United Nations).
A concrete form of responding to this
dominant phenomenon of the economical
globalization is to support the United Nations
as a structure that tries to carry out a fair
world order).
1. The vision of globalization should be challenged by the vision of our faith.
2. The logic of globalization should also be challenged by alternative forms of
life in community.
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches is wrapped in a “process
confessions” in connection with all the economical injustices and the ecological
destruction considering this process as an integral part of the reformed faith
and of the confession of that faith nowadays.
The Lutheran World Federation has expressed the same commitment in a
process that they call “Facing the Economical Globalization with the concept
and the practice of our Communion”
The prophet Isaiah (5:8) criticizes the
accumulation of wealth through property, credit,
interests and mechanisms of debt. In the same
way Jesus challenges the rich proprietors of the
earth in Marc 10: 21 indicating that he knows
that the wealth in that system is derived from the
exploitation of the poor. At the same time the
prophets also present us the vision of justice in
all moment (Isaiah 60:21-22)
The basic ideological pattern in which the International Monetary Fund and
the World bank is based should be prophetically criticized in the light of the
biblical teachings.
Of course the economists of those
institutions affirm that they are based on
the science and not in the ideology. They
try to force us so that we believe that the
pattern of mercantile growth that they offer
leads to the good common, this is opposed
to all the empiric evidences that manifest
the opposite.
The rhetoric of the IMF and the World Bank is simply distorted in the
analysis of the reality that our live.
The alternative vision should be:
- No economy can be considered
successful if it is not socially
ecologically and democratically
successful at the same time.
Consequent with our ethical
principles we should reject all the
“Programs to reduce Poverty” from
the IMF and the World Bank until
they stop imposing the structural
adjustments and the continuous
collection of interests and payment
of the debts for the benefit of the
rich at the expense of the poor.
- The human beings are not for the
economy but the economy is for the
human beings.
Defence of the legal reformations:
There is a theory that the money was
historically linked to a new economy related
to the property that was created in the VIII
century b.c.
In the first place, the emphasis in the property (the land) was a fruit of the fight
of the peasants against the feudal lords that possibly led to the formation of
the polis (city-state). But the value of the property led to the credit system by
means of which those that requested credit had to pay not only the capital but
also the interest.
On one hand as the work force and the land of
the family they had to be a guarantee for the
credit, if families could not pay the credit they
had to suffer the loss of the land and slavery,
on the other hand, the moneylenders could
accumulate more and more lands, slaves and
money.
The prophets strongly criticized these mechanisms (Isaiah 5:8). Also the
legal reformations of the “The book of Covenant” (Exodus 21-23),
Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code (in the book of Leviticus) provide
measures that were taken in Israel to counterattack these mechanisms, for
example, the prohibition of the interests charge and the regulation of
guarantees (Exodus 21:27) the regular cancellation of the debts every 7
years (Deuteronomy 15:1-2) and the redistribution of the land every 50
years (the “jubilee” of Leviticus 25).
The basic theological argument is: “the land belongs to God” (Lev. 25: 23);
therefore, each family should have its means of production, for the support of
its family. The same thing is true for all the human beings. They should not be
enslaved. They belong to God who freed them from the slavery of Egypt (Lev.
25: 29).
The Bible is very clear in connection with the legal
reformations that have to break the absolute will
of property and money and to create a fair
distribution of the wealth created in the society. In
consequence the states should be agents that
facilitate the common good of the countries. This
means that they have to regulate the economy
according to social, ecological and democratic
approaches.
To resist with anger:
The resistance can be the only option
when the prophecy and the legal
reformations fail and the economical and
political powers become totalitarian.
This was the case in the time of the Hellenistic-Roman empires. The Book of
Daniel tells us the history of the three men that refused to lean before the
statue of gold that symbolized the absolute, political, economical and
ideological power of the imperial power.
The risk was that they would be burnt alive. They are miraculously saved from
the fire but this is not enough guarantee in the resistance. The resistance can
lead to the suffering.
Jesus suffered in the cross for his “civil disobedience.” He challenged the
central economical power of the priests of the temple of Jerusalem, who
betraying their people, were protected by the Roman Empire. Jesus attacked
those that supported the sacrificial system exploiting the poor (Marc 11:15).
This resistance can take different forms:
1. To reject the legitimation of the neo-liberal
pattern. This system serves to the totalitarian
power of the transnational capital through the
mechanisms of the global economy and the
instruments such as IMF and the World Bank.
2. To let know the feet of mud of the system
exposing their vulnerability and the present
and future disasters (Daniel 2: 43-45), to follow
strategies that ridicule the system and help us to conquer fear that we can
show of their absolute power.
3. To not cooperate with the terms that the IMF and the World Bank
impose.
4. To participate in campaigns that lead us to a fundamental
transformation of the mechanisms of control of the IMF and the
World Bank.
5. It is necessary to resist all cooperation
with the macro-economic paradigm of
the IMF and the WB; that imposes the
impoverishment of the poor at great
scales and the global enrichment of the
rich. We should also help to dismantle
the apparent democratic genuineness of
these global financial institutions.
The system tells us: “there is not
alternative.” Jesus helped the poor and
hungry multitudes guiding them to share
what they had at hand building this way
what we call “The economy of the Grace of
God” (Marc 6:35 and 8:1).
There are local and regional alternatives that can be implemented and
supported by the churches and the congregations.
The Primitive Church challenged the system of the private property and
emphasized the necessity to share all the possible resources, what allowed
that those primitive communities became witness of the full life in God (that is
to say the resurrection), trying that there were not poor among them (Facts 4:
32).
Visions and alternative projects of life:
Conclusion:
We would like to finish with the proposals of
Franz I. Hinkelammert and Henry M. Mora in
“Coordinación Social del Trabajo, Mercado y
Reproducción de la Vida Humana” book on
which they say the necessity that we have of an
ethic of good common.
This ethics of common good has to be of resistance, of interpellation, of
intervention and of transformation.
This ethics introduces values. Value to which any calculation of utility (or of
own interest) has to be subjected. They are the values of the respect to the
human being, to its life in all dimensions, and of respect to the life of nature.
They are values of the mutual recognitions
among the human beings, including in this
recognition the natural being of all human
being and the recognition on behalf of the
human beings toward the external nature to
them. They are values that are not justified
for calculable advantages in terms of utility
or of the own interest.
These values question the system, and on their behalf it is required to
exercise resistance to intervene it or to transform it. The common good is this
process in which the values of the common good are faced up to the system
to question it, to intervene it and to transform it.
Nevertheless, they are the base of the human life, without which this is
destroyed in the most elementary sense of the word. Its principle is: Nobody
can live, if the other can not live.
The values of the common good are not
laws or norms; they are approaches on
laws and norms. In consequence, their
force is the resistance, the
interpellation, the intervention and the
transformation.
We have to actively work around
concrete and feasible alternatives to
the neo-liberal pattern of economic
integration to the service of the great
transnational corporations.
The calendars of the social movements will go appearing,
strengthening the great dream to which we, all the Latin Americans
and Caribbean, aspire that are able to live in a society where we all fit,
in a society even more humanized and involved, in which the values
and approaches of life, peace, solidarity and coexistence are always
imposed to the values of war, power and domain, vanity and
vengeance.
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