Hey, who’s that girl?

That was more or less what Boaz said when he walked into his barley field to check on the harvest.  Over the years, I have interpreted this favourite chapter 2 of the Book of Ruth variously.  This reflects to some extent contextual changes as well as changes in my life and work.

1.       Refugee work

I first noticed this chapter, which is almost a one-act play, when I was living in Zimbabwe during the 1980s.  There were so many Mozambican widows crossing the border for refuge at the time, as their men engaged in that proxy war.  Like Ruth leaving her land of Moab and coming to Israel, leaving a series of disasters behind her.

I even preached from this chapter at times, as a way of unpacking what was happening, and the need for those with resources to provide mechanisms to show mercy.  Gleaning was the Hebrew mechanism, a form of charity.  Relief agencies are a modern equivalent, and I was working for World Vision at the time.  The problem was that in refugee camps, the widows could not do much to receive the benefits of charity, which I found degrading.  So we explored other options like food-for-work projects that still helped the needy without robbing them of their dignity.

2.       Volunteering and Voluntarism

In the next decade, after the Cold War ended and apartheid with it, the focus was on building Democracy, participation, inclusion… My practice as an NGO consultant (“helping development organizations with organization development”) in the 1990s was one of the roots of C4L as a resource centre for nonprofits, beginning in 1999.

In morning meditations at C4L training events, I would often read this beloved chapter and apply it differently.  All those in the work place are contributors, whether paid managers or unpaid volunteers.  Gleaning may be a mechanism of charity, but it also serves an agricultural purpose in the scheme of crop rotation.  If Boaz was going to plant another crop in that field during the next season, this would avoid having barley popping up where ever the grain has fallen to the ground during the harvest.  So what every person contributes is important, no matter how insignificant they may feel.   In fact, for a Human Resources meditation - in any sector not just for nonprofits - the drama of the Book of Ruth chapter 2 is useful and instructive.

3.       The Rainbow Nation

During my two decades living in South Africa, into the new millennium, themes like non-racialism and xenophobia have been recurrent.  One could always turn to this chapter for inspiration.  Unlike the much stricter Nehemiah, who tore people’s hair out for inter-marrying with other races and culture, the message of the Book of Ruth is unambiguous.  Ruth was not Jewish, but that didn’t matter to Boaz.  By the same token, Ruth bought into the local culture, being a cultural relativist, not an enclave of Moabites in Bethlehem.  In this she was incarnational.

4.       Age-disparate Romance

Now some of you will laugh!  I don’t know whether Boaz was a bachelor, a widower or a divorcee, it doesn’t say?  But it is clear that he was older and wealthier than Ruth.  One thing is for sure, though… it certainly didn’t take Boaz long once he arrived (fashionably late) to notice her.  Did he have that much of an eye for detail?  Or was she just drop-dead gorgeous?  I’ll ask him when I meet him one day, this intrigues me.

In 2004, Save the Children published a study of research in Malawi called Cross-generational relationships: using a ‘Continuum of Volition’ in HIV prevention work among young people.  It concluded: “rather than defining cross-generational relationships as inherently problematic, it is important to understand the choices (or lack of choices) that young women have in their own communities.”  Ruth could have told them that, three thousand years earlier.

By lunch break, Boaz invites Ruth to eat with him and his workers. She stuffs herself full of bread and wine (she's poor and hungry, remember?).  Then when Ruth leaves to go glean some more (she been at this all day; the young lady is a hard worker), Boaz tells his workers that she is allowed to take some non-charity grain as well. Was he just being altruistic?  Or did he already have a crush on her?

Graca Machel married a man almost 30 years older than herself when he was almost 80.  She and Nelson Mandela still got on like a house on fire, as did Boaz and Ruth… who eventually became the grandparents to King David.  What better endorsement could you get than that?!

5.       Inequality

Unemployment is a kind of inequality, because the others have jobs.  Poverty is a manifestation of inequality because the others are wealthy.  So I am not sure there is a “triple conundrum” – the lowest common denominator is inequality.

In its Medium-Term Strategic Framework 2014-2019 (MTSF), the government has lambasted as “offensive” those who show off their wealth.  Josephilda Nhlapo-Hlophe, outcomes facilitator for the presidency’s department of planning, wrote the social cohesion section of the MTSF document.  Get this! 

“Many times we see people who we know do not work or have any access to income and suddenly, the person is driving a flashy car. The question people will ask is: ‘Where does that person get this money from?’

“This person might not be a good role model for young kids who think getting flashy things is more important than hard work and the contributions they are making to society. We are trying to build a citizen who knows you get rewarded for working hard.”

Makes you wonder if Boaz arrived at the barley field that day driving his Mazerati, or what? 

It is that kind of insensitivity that led Karl Marx to famously comment: “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”  Well, then what?  In my view, scientific Socialism failed miserably to improve the quality of life.  I lived and worked in Angola and Mozambique before the end of the Cold War.  I walked into so many stores with empty shelves, they didn’t have food to sell, let alone rope!  The answers lie rather in the example of Boaz, and three comments from our time:

“Warren Buffett wrote: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Pope Francis wrote: “These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that’s a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer.”

Mamphela Ramphele wrote: “South Africa does not have a poverty problem. Poverty is a result of denialism of the way corruption taxes poor people, the inefficiencies that undermine poor people’s opportunities and our refusal to admit that we are part of the problem.”

Thinking Together

An old adage says that the secret to marriage is not in thinking alike, but in thinking together.  Partners in marriage may not agree on everything, but if communication breaks between them, the marriage can fall apart.

This line of thinking needs to be applied to the next 2 elections in South Africa – the local elections in 2016 and the next national elections in 2019.  In any democracy you get checks and balances not only from the division of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches.  You also get it from different levels of government – national, provincial and municipal.  In South Africa there are really only two moments of choice for voters – national and local.  Because provincial legislatures stem from the national voting results, and premiers are even ministers in the national cabinet.

Two articles in the press this week really hit this home.  The first was written by Andrew Chirwa, the chairman of NUMSA.  It is a key player in COSATU which is one of the three forces in the “ruling alliance”.  However, it has begun to raise questions of late about WHY the trade unions – normally leftist - are in a centrist government?  His article points the finger at one of COSATU’s allies in the tripartite alliance, the Communist party.  The article is titled “SACP is leading the Inkandla cover”.  It is a brutal expose.  It ends with the following 3 paragraphs:

“The SACP has had to formulate a theory for its rotten political practices. In a political programme adopted at its national congress in July 2012, it identified two “opponents” that had to be defeated: first, the “new tendency”, which it described as “a populist, bourgeois nationalist ideological tendency with deeply worrying demagogic, proto-fascist features”, and, second, what the party calls “liberal constitutionalism”.

“The “new tendency” referred to the ANC Youth League rump led by Julius Malema.

“Liberal constitutionalism” included those who insist on good governance, the rule of law and action against corruption.”

This is very insightful.  The two largest opposition parties – the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Democratic Alliance should NOT in my opinion be seen as the left and right poles, on either side of centre, occupied by the ANC.  The reasons why are best explained by Mzukisi Qobo writing in the Sowetan.  His article is titled “SA caught between two extremes”.  Here follow a few excerpts:

“There is, on the one hand, the Democratic Alliance, which has a long history on the opposition benches, and remains a significant numerical force, although its clout as an alternative government is fast diminishing.  It relies, in the main, on reformist strategies to tackle the governing party.  It has largely used legal channels to hold the ANC to account.”

“On the other hand is the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), whose youthfulness is its greatest asset.  Many of its leaders come from a tradition that prizes slogans, rhetoric and militancy – all cultural repertoires of the struggle that used to be associated with the ANC and other grassroots movements.  Remarkably, the EFF has succeeded in hogging the political limelight even though it is still in its infancy.  This has been made possible precisely because its symbolism and militancy resonate deeply with the frustrations of a significant section of the black majority.

“Historically, expressive forms of protests have always captured the imagination of blacks in South Africa until the ANC and the National Party government set the dynamic of elite negotiations in motion in the early 1990s to end apartheid.

“SA’s experience of an elitist outcome of political transition is nothing unique.  To borrow from Vaclav Havel’s work The Power of the Powerless, beyond its formalism in setting out rights and responsibilities, the constitution has limits to guaranteeing a rich, humane and dignified life.  Havel suggests that constitutions limit themselves to whether or not the laws are upheld rather than improving the quality of life substantively.

“That there is no consistent logic in the radical policy propositions of the EFF is something that is overlooked by many who are blinded by its messianic illusion.  Equally, socio-economic change through the DA is more of a fairy tale.

“In the wake of its parliamentary theatrics, the EFF received greater applause that the DA got for extracting the spy tapes – though the latter had more tangible outcomes.  For our politics to be redeemed from the current extremes in the opposition, there remains a need for a strong voice of moderation on the left to champion the urgent issues of social justice alongside the imperative of defending our fragile constitution.”

In closing, he raises the prospect that real change may only come from a “powerful social agency in the civic sphere”.  These are almost exactly my views, for the very same reasons.  EFF and DA are like two strong oxen pulling the cart of the “loyal opposition”.  But they need to start pulling together, and in one and the same direction.  How will that ever happen?  Who can possibly put their hand to such a plow?

I sense that faith groups can do this.  Not by forming a Coalition, but simply by voicing a demand for both social justice and constitutionalism.  Government has shown repeatedly that its once noble ideals have given way to elitism and triumphalism.  A prophetic voice must be heard again, crying in the veld…

St Francis of Assisi has been a huge influence in the Catholic and mainline churches.  The first Pope from the South symbolically adopted his name.  This suggests an intention to prioritize Poverty, as John Paul the Polish Pope addressed Communism.  Most Reformation churches adhere to the Lausanne Covenant which adopted the slogan “Live simply, so that others can simply live.”

Faith groups, churches mainline and African-initiated, Christian families and individuals could provide mortar to bond the red EFF and blue DA bricks together.  There are old and new movements pushing in this direction already.  For example, the “secular Franciscans” and also Unashamedly Ethical.  There was once a group in the USA called the “Moral Majority”, whose political influence was felt in the politics of that democracy.  South Africa needs voices like that at this juncture.

Even the force of prayer should not be under-estimated in this regard.  One hadith says that Mohammed taught that the prayers of a person who prayed and gossiped at the same time were interrupted for 40 days.  The point is, don’t invade other people’s privacy, for they even have a constitutional right to it.  Don’t practice habits that are unethical and self-serving.  Equality stems from such holy values, because the focus on health (i.e. shalom) can displace the focus on wealth.

If we pray and act for BOTH social justice and the rule of law, and intentionally so, while at the same time doing a self-audit of our lifestyle and practice, we will be drawing the two powerful oxen together to pull one and the same plow, in the same direction.

Oliver Tambo said that a nation that doesn’t think of its youth doesn’t have a future – and doesn’t deserve one.  The triple-conundrum of poverty, unemployment and inequality is a time bomb, because it is youth-centred.  Every species protects and nourishes its young.  The resources of this country are concentrated in the hands of older people, black and white.  The time has come to be “unashamedly ethical” and also to “live simply, so that others can simply live” - namely, our youth.

Three Key Themes Revisited

Earlier this year, C4L launched three blogsites, on three themes that seemed distinct, important, and recurrent in our bulletins and prayer letters over 7 years.  The trilogy includes:

1. Altruism, philanthropy and missions
2. Leadership (which frequently raises related questions around non-racialism)
3. Youth

Well, today’s Sunday Independent just made it too easy for me!  I simply cannot resist sharing with you some tasty and nourishing morsels from it…

On Altrusim                                                                           www.trilogy-altruism.blogspot.com

First there is an article on Albie Sachs winning a Tang prize, Asia’s version of the Nobels - for his contributions to human rights and justice.  Here is a white veteran of the struggle, who really took it on the chin – time and again - for his dissenting views under apartheid.  But he returned from exile under Nelson Mandela and was appointed to the Constitutional Court.  What a guy!  And good for Asia for its Tang Prize Foundation, and for esteeming such role models whose values are exemplary.

Then there is an article saying that the number of millionaires world-wide grew by nearly two million last year, and that group grew nearly 14% richer.

The USA has 4 million millionaires; Japan has 2.3 million; Germany has 1.1 million; and China now has 758 000. 

The gap between rich and poor is widening, not just in South Africa but world-wide.

My view is that BOTH rich and poor are caught in a system that is not working.  It is not the rich who are the problem, it is that system.  I believe that we all need to work on changing it into a more just and equitable system of re-distribution.  Intentionally.  And not just some of us – all of us.

Malema and the Economic Freedom Fighters are making noises about this – “acting locally”.  But I am “thinking globally”.  I tell people that the only leader I know who is more radical than Julius Malema is Pope Francis I !  It sort of gets them thinking…

An EFF leader sent me a text message today saying that he and some Fighters sat together last night and watched my MOUSELAND 2014 video repeatedly on YouTube.  He said that they were convinced that I must have worked with Malema on that video!   (They have never heard of Tommy Douglas or the CFF!  It’s déjà vu all over again.)

Charity Begins At Home

I am not an economist.  Nor am I a latter-day John the Baptist.  But I have to say a bit more about the two themes of “affluence extremism” and Inequality that are still on my mind…

In the link cited below, I learned that:

• The 100 top paid CEOs in America earn an average income of  $13.9 million per year

• The top paid 350 executives earn an average annual income of  $11.7 million

• The average income in America is $35,000

• The rate of income for those top 350 executives is 331 times higher than what most people earn

• The top 1% of the population earns 60% of the income

The April 18^th 2014 interview focuses on a book by French author Thomas Piketty called CAPITAL.  This book maps the concentration of inherited wealth and suggests that an Oligarchy is emerging.  This is because of the disproportionate influence on policymaking that wealthy families have, because they have the money to lobby in the corridors of power.  This is undermining Democracy, in the sense that while ordinary wage earners may be able to vote, they have little impact on public policy formulation.

<http://billmoyers.com/episode/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know-2/>

The Economist recently ran a cover story about Capitalist Cronyism.  Please note that the two words are reversed – pointing to this same phenomenon.  It is no longer ad hoc, it is entrenched.

An interesting trend is that while investors can earn about 4 or 5% on their capital, economies are only growing at about 2 or 3%.  In other words, private wealth is being stashed away by those who already have plenty.  While economies are growing too slowly even to catch up with the rush of school leavers into the work force.  The result is high rates of unemployment or underemployment, while the gap keeps widening between haves and have-nots.

Here is what I wrote in the last C4L Bulletin on April 22nd:

“The gospel of neoliberalism, brought to you by Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher, said that lowering taxes would stimulate economic growth.  Business would experience that “my cup runneth over” – and that would cause plenty of “trickle-down”. 

“Pope Francis pointed out that the problem with this approach is that they keep making the cup bigger!  His metaphor is instructive.  Neither do I see it as only governments that do this, slowing the trickle-down effect.”

I then got very bold with an attempt to challenge you all (coz Bill Gates and Warren Buffet aren’t on my mailing list) to do your part.  Coz charity begins at home:

“Most people gauge their giving by their income - for example, by tithing ten percent of it.  But if you earn 100 000 per year, live on 50 000 and tithe 10 000, then you “store” 40 000 away in investments.  You accumulate wealth by doing this year after year.  What about deploying ten percent of your wealth for development, as well as ten percent of your income?  That would make the cup smaller, and increase the trickle-down.  We all need to do more, because the gap is getting wider as the trickle-down dries up.”

Well the best response that I got to that Bulletin so far was when one of you sent me the above link today.  Thank you old friend!  It makes me realize that you out there are thinking about what this voice crying in the wilderness says.

Do you remember that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission here in South Africa made a number of recommendations to government how to redress past imbalances?  One was a once-off wealth tax.  Desmond Tutu has recently lamented that this was never implemented, and I second the emotion.  Redistribution is clearly needed – but how?

Let me come back to that question: What about deploying ten percent of your wealth for development, as well as ten percent of your income?

If you are up to this, I can put you in touch with a bona fide investment broker in Canada, although your own broker could do it as well...

Put aside ten percent of your wealth.  I mean the accumulation, on your balance sheet, not the tithe on your annual income.  You are not giving it away, it still belongs to you.  Invest it for a specified period, let’s say a year – until you need it back.  The broker will skim off what she predicts it can earn during the period specified, and release that amount to charity.  Then she grows your capital back to the same amount that you invested, and returns it to you.

This is not the Giving Pledge, where you give away 50% of your wealth.  Coz you are not fabulously wealthy.  But if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.  Some people are caught in a web of poverty, and others in a web of affluence.  Please recognize that the system is stacked against the poor.  But you can do something about it, without marching on Wall Street!

If you are up to this, I will make you a pledge.  If C4L is nominated as your charity, we will not give that money away.  We will lend it to poor and unemployed youth to start viable business ventures.  They will pay it back in less than 3 years into a revolving loan fund.  So others can also benefit.  I am speaking about our Chaya microfranchising, which also has nutritional and medicinal benefits, not to mention the job creation and positive impact on food security.

I am talking about voluntary redistribution of wealth.  Not about tithing your income.  Make the cup smaller.  Increase the trickle down.  Then think of the mustard seed, so small, but it grows into a tree that birds can sit in.  You don’t have to be a billionaire to do this!

Viva Contentment, Gratitude and Moderation!

There was a time when these three qualities were extolled as virtues.  Today other forces are displacing them – like entitlement, consumerism and over-exuberance.  So we hear of “lifestyle audits” and even spending ceilings to keep leaders from setting a bad example.  In Canada, when Tommy Douglas was premier, he drove a Dodge – not a Cadillac.  In Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara made the Renault 5 the official car of cabinet ministers, to reduce expenditure on Mercedes limos.  In the past year, Pope Francis has stated that leaders should drive “humble cars”.  He has declined to move into the Vatican Palace and is leading by example.  Actions speak louder than words.

On my recent trip to Canada, the Premier of Alberta had to resign for making extravagant plans for a penthouse suite at the top of a government building.  The planning did not follow normal channels.  In South Africa, this is exactly what happened at Nkandla.  Yet here the President’s party did not ditch him, as hers did in Alberta, in spite of very clear outcomes of an investigation done by the ombudsman known as the Public Protector.

Contentment

Consumerism is the more modern, North American version of Capitalism.  It is quite different from the older European version, in which wealth accumulated tended to be re-invested rather than spent.  In fact, Consumerism was resisted in Europe at first, in the post-war years.  It was regarded as gauche.  But it prevailed.  In this version, people are encouraged to be spenders not savers.  The medium for this is called Marketing.  How can Marketing work where there is contentment, gratitude and moderation?

The chickens have come home to roost.  According to Sampie Terreblanche, it was high levels of consumer debt and government deficits led to the global economic slow-down that he calls the Great Recession (from 2008).  He links this to both bail-outs of companies that were “too large to fail” and to an increase in corruption and corporate criminality.  Again on my recent trip to Canada, I found that scandals in politics are not just a South African phenomenon! 

Terreblanche writes: “The ideologies of neoliberal globalism and market fundamentalism that were sold so triumphantly – and arrogantly – to South Africa by the Americans in the early 1990s now stand thoroughly discredited.” (p 35, Lost in Transformation).

I am a missionary not an economist.  But on both sides of the Atlantic, I would like to see more redistribution of wealth – poor people living with more and rich people living with less.  In South Africa, the legacy of neoliberalism is inequality.  Some people have become fabulously wealthy, while most people have not felt an improvement in their lifestyle.  This imbalance needs to be corrected… there is just no question about it.

Gratitude

The gospel of neoliberalism, brought to you by Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher, said that lowering taxes would stimulate economic growth.  Business would experience that “my cup runneth over” – and that would cause plenty of “trickle-down”.  This is where the nonprofit sector comes into Democracy.  It is there to carry social benefits on through what in South Africa is called CSI (Corporate Social Investment).  In this way companies express their gratitude to society by having a double bottom line – financial and social.  They fund registered NGOs to provide care to the marginalized – those who fall through the cracks of the economy - like the unemployed and the destitute.

Pope Francis pointed out that the problem with this approach is that they keep making the cup bigger!  His metaphor is instructive.  Neither do I see it as only governments that do this, slowing the trickle-down effect.  Certainly governments in the North rarely meet their pledges for development assistance, and public servants live on a gravy train where ever you go.

Sharing wealth with others is but a way of expressing thanks for what you have received.  A good example is the Giving Pledge, but it is for millionaires, not for ordinary people.  Do we give enough, as families and individuals? Or is our generosity diminished by the environment of Marketing, that drives people away from the values of contentment, gratitude and moderation?  I have a sense that in the context of Consumerism, there has been a lot of drift from those virtues, and that each of us has a role in making the cup bigger, and thus reducing the trickle-down.  This applies to prosperous South Africans living in a country where disparity is phenomenal – and to those overseas in “the West” whose lifestyles may become an issue to the Great Shepherd when he returns to separate the sheep from the goats.

Moderation

The ancient Stoics espoused this virtue.  It was not Pope Francis who thought it up.  The Lausanne covenant promotes the slogan: Live simply so that others can simply live. 

C4L has scaled down for its own reasons – not so much there is less trickle-down, but because it recognized that it was living beyond its means.  This caused it to go chasing after funding not so much to carry out its mission as to keep the wheels turning.

Some people may see this as slowdown or even failure.  We don’t.  We see it as a sign of the times.  How can we point the finger at government “fat cats” in our Advocacy programming when we ourselves are not ready to redistribute our wealth, especially for the cause that we champion – youth unemployment?

There is a difference between your income and your wealth.  One is your personal Profit and Loss Statement for a month or a year.  The other is your personal Balance Sheet.  Most people gauge their giving by their income - for example, by tithing ten percent of it.  But if you earn 100 000 per year, live on 50 000 and tithe 10 000, then you “store” 40 000 away in investments.  You accumulate wealth by doing this year after year.  What about deploying ten percent of your wealth for development, as well as ten percent of your income?  That would make the cup smaller, and increase the trickle-down.  We all need to do more, because the gap is getting wider as the trickle-down dries up.

Affluence Extremism

I coined the phrase “affluence extremism” for the title of the last C4L bulletin.  It was a counter-balance to the allegation that Pope Francis must be a Marxist for using terms like, “unfettered capitalism”, and “a new tyranny” and “the new idolatry of money”.

Since then I went to see a movie called The Wolf of Wall Street.  Without suggesting that all rich people live in that kind of depravity, he lived very extravagantly.  He extended the roof of his personal yacht to make it a helicopter pad.  To smuggle cash out of the country he literally taped it like football pads around the arms and legs of his “mules” before they headed through Customs at the airport.  He mocked his investigators because their salaries were so low they had to travel by subway to meet him. 

Reviews of the film raise questions about its excesses.  Director Scorcose contends that this was done to expose “affluence extremism” not to condone it.  But like the “conversion films” of earlier generations, most of the entertainment focuses on the story before they say the prayer of repentance, not after.  Then suddenly… they live happily ever after.

Now I am looking forward to seeing another move – Twelve Years a Slave.  Although it takes place in another era (the 1850s instead of the 1990s) it is once again about a depraved system.  A wealthy free black man gets captured in the USA and sold into slavery in another state.  His brutal master, who is evil personified, resists social change.  No doubt if he were alive today he would call Pope Francis a Marxist!

What I have recognized is that today’s economic imbalances between rich and poor, North and South, even still men and women, and in South Africa whites and blacks - are systemic like Slavery was.  Change agents are needed, like the Abolitionists and later the Suffragettes.  Calling them “Marxists” says more about yourself than about them!

Saying No to both Socialism and Capitalism?

As both Left and Right crowd around the Centre, the question is whether “welfare capitalism” and “market socialism” are the only two options?  Market socialism brought New Labour and Tony Blair to the fore, and welfare capitalism brought you George Bush and his PEPFAR – said to be the biggest gift ever given (to fight HIV/AIDS).

Radical centrism

I am getting to the age where I can start quoting myself… here is something I wrote in 1988 in my book Thinking Communally, Acting Personally (page 136):  “One new agenda - communitarianism - is gaining momentum. According to one advocate, Amitai Etzioni, “radical individualists confuse the right to be free from government intrusion with a nonexistent right to be free from the moral scrutiny of one’s peer and community...  Communitarians, in other words, differ from classical liberals (known confusingly in America as conservatives) by challenging the idea that individual self-interest is a decent basis for a society. But they differ from socialists in championing small social units: the family, neighborhoods, school, churches...”  

But “ideological communitarianism” is still centrist, because it combines leftism on economic issues with moralism or conservatism on social issues.

In the book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam observed that nearly every form of civic organization has undergone drops in membership exemplified by the fact that, while more people are bowling than in the 1950s, there are fewer bowling leagues.  This results in a decline in “social capital”, described by Putnam as “the collective value of all ‘social networks’ and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other”. According to Putnam and his followers, social capital is a key component to building and maintaining democracy.  So Communitarians seek to bolster social capital and the institutions of the third sector or Civil Society.

The Occupy Movement (Indignados)

Also called the 99 Percent Movement, this was sparked in 2011 by Occupy Wall Street in response to what I call “affluence extremism”.  Its manifesto started as follows:

“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.”

Marxist scholar John Holloway asserted that you can “change the world without taking power”. However, many in the new generation of activists have become painfully aware that in order to achieve real change you also need to take power; that in order to really scare the 1%, you also need to occupy the state.  So some veterans of the Occupy Movement are considering a turn towards electoral politics. This change of direction reflects an increasing awareness that there is a limit to what you can do out of Civil Society.

Zapatistas

Fighter Andile Mngxitama wrote: “The indigenous people of Mexico declared a different path and very boldly told the world: “We are going to rise up to overthrow the supreme governments, to overthrow corrupt officials, to throw the rich and powerful out of this country and begin building a new Mexico with humble, simple people.”

“The Zapatistas refused to choose between two bad systems: they proclaimed dissidence to both Capitalism and Stalinism. They denounced the party and the cult of the leader, and even state power.  John Holloway's book Changing the World Without Taking Power can be read as the Zapatista manifesto.

“The Zapatistas, consistent with their new ideology against money and power, refused to participate in the mainstream political process to try to take power.  Instead, they formed their own autonomous governments, which get no assistance from the Mexico state.  This experience is not without weakness and hardships; the indigenous people have gained visibility but not economic or cultural freedom.  Twenty years later, they remain under attack and are all but quarantined in their territories.”

Economic Freedom Fighters

The front page story in today’s Saturday Star is about Wiekus Kotze, an Afrikaner who was so impressed by Nelson Mandela that 20 years ago he joined the ANC and has voted for them in 3 elections.  But he has just switched allegiances - to the party of Julius Malema.  He is now wearing a read beret.  Why?  He feels that the ANC is not closing the gap between rich and poor, largely because of all the self-enrichment going on.  He sees Malema as a visionary like Mandela who is talking sense and has the courage to challenge the status quo.

Papal Bull or Affluence Extremism?

In a recent article called Radical Pope, Traditional Values, Robert Colderisi quotes the Pope’s assurances in responses to being called a Marxist by Rush Limbaugh:

“Marxist ideology is wrong,” he told the Italian newspaper La Stampa. “But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended. There is nothing in the exhortation that cannot be found in the social doctrine of the church.”

Colderisi goes on: Francis’ economic opinions may appear naïve to those more worried about productivity trends and price-earnings ratios than the 10,000 children who die every day from hunger. But his passion and purpose are timely. Last year, the World Bank reported that the number of extreme poor (those making less than $1.25 a day) had dropped in every region of the world, including Africa, but that the number of those living on less than $2 per day — 2.5 billion people, or 43 percent of the population of the developing world — had hardly budged in 30 years. In other words, improvements in public welfare have barely kept pace with population growth, and there is still much to be done to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

I have often heard that the padres in Mozambique quoted as saying: “Do as I say, not as I do.”  So I am impressed to note that Pope Francis declined to live alone in the Vatican palace.  He opted to live in a simple apartment with 2 others.  His predecessor also did the unthinkable – he retired.  No one is saying so, but this could set a precedent as well.  Actions speak louder than words.  This is not being radical, just pragmatic.

By the way, C4L is following suit.  In our case, we are calling it “co-habitation”.  We have devised a way to stay on the same campus while scaling down.  This converts assets from one kind to another in a way that makes C4L more sustainable.  “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

It has been a tough year all round, not just for C4L.  Even Warren Buffet is poised to report that Berkshire Hathaway, his $292 billion company,  failed to increase net worth more rapidly that the S&P 500 index during the past 5 years.  This will be the first time in 44 years that he falls short of the mark since his 1965 takeover of the firm.

Was Warren Buffet called a Marxist when he endorsed the Giving Pledge?  I like Colderisi’s notion that you can still take radical actions while conserving traditional values.  Some years ago I quoted a film called The Blind Side in a previous C4L Bulletin.  A white wealthy Southern family took in a black street kid.  In one of the most poignant scenes in the film, the family invites “Big Mike” to stay with them permanently, after he has been sleeping on the couch for awhile:

Leigh Anne Touhy: Find some time to figure out another bedroom for you.
Michael Oher: This is mine?
Leigh Anne Touhy: Yes, sir.
Michael Oher: I never had one before.
Leigh Anne Touhy: What, a room to yourself?
Michael Oher: A bed.

I have to admit to choking up at this point.   Two Bible verses came to mind: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” and “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  This is not Marxism, this is generosity.  Do you have a blind side to this?

Greatest Hits

Initially, from 1998, C4L Updates - like this one - served as progress reports.  This is part of C4L’s Advancement and they often takes the form of exhortation.

Then in 2006, these updates began to be interspersed with thematic bulletins.  Most of these were on the theme of Childermas – transforming leadership, so that children are safe.

From 2010, the two aspects of Childermas began to diverge.  Transforming leadership has become the dominant theme; in the past year its focus has narrowed – to Triumphalism vs. Constitutionalism.  As for the second aspect - C4L’s focus has shifted from “child protection” to livelihood security for youth.

Quite a collection of challenging reading materials has emerged!  We now invite you to visit our Drop Box… https://www.dropbox.com/sh/49c1ksy7iw66gs9/StBtCrJvPQ?m

Click on Public Engagement, to find these segregated by theme:

• Altruism, koinonia and philanthropy
• Childermas
• Transforming leadership
• Youth rights

Colerisi wrote: The educational role of the church in the developing world has been powerful and often controversial. “All we want is a labor force,” a colonial governor lamented to missionaries in Madagascar a century ago, “and you’re turning them into human beings.”

To blog or not to blog, that is the question?

Unambiguously Pro-poor

An article called Mission Schools Opened World to Africans, but Left an Ambiguous Legacy by Samuel G Freedman was published in the New York Times on December 27, 2013.  Here are a few clips:

The accomplishments of mission schools were both intentional and not. Their founders and faculties clearly parted ways with colonial leaders by believing in the educability of black Africans…

“I’m not making missionaries heroes,” said Richard H. Elphick, a historian at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and the author of The Equality of Believers, a book about Protestant missionaries in South Africa. “Missionaries and other white Christians were alarmed by the idea that the equality of all people before God means they should be equal in public life. But the equality of believers is an idea they dropped into South Africa. And it was constantly reinforced in the schools. And that made it a dangerous idea.”

Olufemi Taiwo offered a similarly nuanced endorsement, and he did so from two perspectives: as the product of a mission education in his native Nigeria and as a Cornell University professor with expertise in African studies.

“Under colonialism, there’s a tension between the missions and the colonial authorities,” said Dr. Taiwo, author of the 2010 book How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa. “There was a missionary idea that black people could be modern. And most churches cannot come out and say some people are not human. So you might have a patronizing attitude, but if you don’t think Africans can benefit from education, why would you set up schools?”

Certainly, the model of mission education was not unique to Africa. White American missionaries played a similarly complicated role as emblems of both modernity and noblesse oblige in China before the Communist revolution. Many mission colleges in South Africa modeled their practical courses in industry and agriculture — a curriculum known as differentiated education or adapted education — on those of black schools in the United States such as Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute.

Unique South African Paradigm

Just as that Chinese Church, planted by missionaries, survived on its own and has emerged as a force in that setting, one cannot lump South Africa together with most other countries in one respect.  The Union of South Africa emerged early in the 20^th century by amalgamating some of the Boer Republics with some of the British Colonies.  Other than Ethiopia, which was never colonized, South Africa was really the first state to become recognized as independent.  (Although internally, as we know, it was ruled by a repressive minority, and thus the last to be free.)

But its missiology is unique.  In many Catholic settings – in Latin America or in Quebec – the development paradigm was to build a church in a strategic location – for a town would grow up around it.  Even Europe evolved similarly, with once deep rural monasteries becoming the hub of trade and thus of urbanization in their vicinity.

Afrikanerdom evolved similarly, with the Boer communities building churches with high steeples visible from afar.  Each and every church supported two clergy – the Pastor and the Missionary.  The Boers (Afrikans for “farmers”) in the church’s catchment area were visited regularly by the Pastor.  An aside is than many farmhouses had a “parson’s lounge” that was only used on such occasions; the rest of the time the family would socialize in either the kitchen or a “family room”.

On these visits, the Missionary would also come along.  But his ministry was to “the blacks”.  So while the Pastor met the white family, the Missionary ministered to the farm workers – evangelizing, teaching and counseling.  This is why all South African cultures have become so thoroughly saturated with the Gospel.  Even more so than in the better known paradigm of a Mission school in a deep rural part of Africa – like Fort Hare where Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Robert Sobukwe and Robert Mugabe all studied.  That more familiar paradigm provided some access to education for selected Africans who eventually became part of the elite.  Whereas the Dutch Reformed church basically had much broader coverage – on a farm to farm basis.  South Africa was thus deeply Christianized, even while deeply divided racially.

The Equality of Believers

Once more the chickens are coming home to roost - on the theme of Disparity or Inequity.  And once again, there is a dialectic… for example, Pope Francis I has spoken out about this issue globally; there is too much Disparity between rich and poor, generally.  Surely there is significance in his choice of name – honouring St Francis of Assisi. 

But in South Africa, the peculiarity is that this tends to line up along the usual fault lines of race.  Not entirely, though, as a black middle class is growing.  You often hear references to “black diamonds” or to “Buppies” (black urban professionals).  Some say that this suggests that apartheid is being replaced by a class system – black diamonds on top, then Buppies in the upper middle class, then the middle class, then the working class (represented largely by COSATU), with an underclass of the unemployed.

Once more, white Christians in South Africa are in an enclave.  Whether that will some day become a white ghetto that they cannot escape depends on whether and how they can cease to be patronizing and rather promote wealth generation projects – particularly among the unemployed.

The Indian community has been present in South Africa for much longer than whites.  It somehow manages to both remain distinct and engaged.  Under apartheid Indians were “non-whites” so they now enjoy some of the advantages of affirmative action (BEE).  But on the whole they too remain advantaged - generally wealthier and better educated.

Putting the right foot forward

My basic proposition is this: reducing economic disparity leads to social peace.  Yet so often in South Africa, the fight for social justice has eclipsed the struggle for economic freedom.  Given the history of racism not to mention sexism, one can understand why.  But still, that is like coming in the back door.

Like the above mentioned “curriculum known as differentiated education or adapted education — on those of black schools in the United States… practical courses in industry and agriculture” should be the priority.  Job creation, entrepreneurship, wealth generation, enterprise development, poverty eradication, micro-loans, business mentoring, incubation (call it what you will) are the new focus of Christian Outreach.  And “the haves” should be investing generously and unambiguously in “the have-nots”.  Or the church will become irrelevant…

Selflessness

What is it like for a person to be "selfless"?

Marya Sklodowska was born in Poland in 1867.  Like Nelson Mandela, she was born in one century, and died in the next - in a new and different era.  That change in their respective settings and centuries could be attributed largely to the influence each of them exerted in their sphere

Like Mandela, Marya came from a disadvantaged background.  She too was a single orphan, she lost her mother as a child, whereas Mandela lost his father.  But compared to Mandela - who enjoyed the limelight - Marya cherished privacy.  Later in life, when she won her second Nobel prize, her husband stated that the media attention that this attracted was the worst thing that had ever happened to them!

Mandela’s life took a turn when he moved to the big city of Johannesburg.  In Marya’s case, the sea change came when she got to Paris.  Both of them spent their first few years completing their studies and struggling to get established in their respective professions – he as a lawyer and she as a scientist.  In their cities, they each got married – Nelson to Evelyn and Marya to Pierre Curie.  So she became better known by her francophone name Marie and her married name Curie.  She has come to be known, in fact, as Madame Curie.  Yet I have never known of a person who was more selfless:

• After finishing high school she put her own education on hold and worked to put her older sister through college.  After graduating from medical school, her sister reciprocated

• She practiced an austerity that verged on self-denial.  She rented small rooms that were so sparsely furnished that she didn’t even hang pictures on the wall!

• With a wedding gift she received, she bought two bicycles that she and her groom used for the honeymoon – pedaling through the countryside of France

• She worked in abysmal conditions, far beyond the limits of normal working hours - all for the sake of her passion for scientific research

• She declined to patent any of her discoveries or inventions, leaving them instead to posterity for the advancement of science

• She shared much of her prize money with others in need, in part to establish two radium research institutes – in Paris and Warsaw

• She worked behind the front lines of battle in World War I training 150 X-ray technicians to use this new diagnostic tool that she had developed to locate bullets and shrapnel for removal from wounded soldiers

• She exposed herself to radioactivity levels that shortened her life.  She died of leukemia induced by overexposure, before her time

She was the first women ever to be awarded a PhD in France.  And the first woman ever to win a Nobel prize.  And the first person ever to win Nobel prizes in two different sciences – Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911).

In this respect, the parallel to Nelson Mandela refers.  At Marie Curie’s time in France, it was unthinkable for a woman to even be nominated for a Nobel laureate.  In fact, she wasn’t – her husband and another scientist (Henri Becquerel) were.  But in more liberal Sweden, the Nobel committee awarded her the prize nevertheless, realizing that she was being discriminated against.  Who could have dreamed that after 3 decades of incarceration, Mandela would become President?  Both scenarios were breathtaking – and rooted in selflessness.  Justice and “the beauty of science” were paramount to them.

One irony is that Alfred Nobel himself had made his personal fortune from discovering and patenting dynamite.  Upon his death, he bequeathed that fortune to fund the Nobel prizes.  Either one of Marie Curie’s discoveries could have been patented far beyond the value of dynamite – Xray and radioactivity.  (It was she, in fact, who coined that word “radioactivity” to describe what she had discovered.)  Yet she declined to register patents for the sake of “pure science” for its own sake.  Excellence is its own reward.

“True grit” is part of selflessness as well.  Mandela toughed it out in prison for 27 years for the cause he championed.  He did hard labour in the lime quarry on Robben Island.  Like Marie Curie, his own health was affected by his exposure – in his case, to the fine dust, that damaged his tear ducts.

As for Marie, it is almost inconceivable just how much physical work she did!  Processing uranium ore (pitchblende) to refine polonium and later radium is painstaking, time-consuming hard labour.  In this, she was her own prisoner.  The final product turned out to be one-millionth the volume that you start with (compared to one litre of maple syrup which is boiled down from 30 litres of tree sap!)  Imagine – one million to one… processed by one person working by herself for about 4 years.  It was back breaking work.  Marie’s resolve is epitomized in this quote… she said: “One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.” 

She was also very loyal – for example, naming Polonium after her beloved homeland. 

Albert Einstein said: “Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted.”  In this, her selflessness is also similar to Mandela’s – whose movement became horribly corrupt after his voluntary retirement.

Which makes me wonder…

Have we lost an appreciation for virtues like selflessness, zealous resolve, prudence, and tenacious loyalty?

Have these been corrupted into attitudes like self-preservation, cynicism, a preoccupation with credentials and track records, and fashion crazes?

At the root of Corruption are bad attitudes.  Let us adopt role-models that serve as mirrors.