I kind of came to university to learn about how to save the world. My program is “International Development Studies” which, in my mind, translated into “the study of how to save the world”…After about the first month of study, I quickly sobered up, and was humbled by the fact that saving the world really had little to do with just ME.
As a result of my optimism (and pride), I signed up for a tonne of mailing lists for a bunch of large scale international NGOs, most of which I have yet to get off the mailing lists of, so my inbox is filled with outdated emails giving me facts about recent world events and economic statistics and how ‘my small gift of ____$’ or my electronic signature can change all of that.
Today I got a message from one that I happened to read entitled “We know how to end world hunger”. In it was a story of a woman somewhere in Africa (I wasn't told where) who had been living in a crappy little hut until she got a micro-credit loan which changed her whole life, and now she has livestock, a proper roof over her head and children that go to school. I was told that this story was "a testament to the fact that U.S. foreign aid can make a huge difference in people’s lives".
I thought: 'This is how we end hunger? By giving people micro credit loans and enabling them to get out of poverty by participating in small scale international capitalism? Isn’t the structural inequalities caused by international capitalism what made them hungry in the first place? So we are setting people free by asking them to participate in the forging of the chains that bind them...'
The fact that this kind of ‘change’ is fueled by “Churches and businesses from the US” and people like me ‘playing my part’ in the ‘fight against poverty’ kind of makes me shudder.
I’ve been thinking this week a lot about what it means to for things to really change. Can you change things without sacrifice? I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if I would rather just be comfortable, then see things change. If things changing meant sacrificing my own comfort, would I really ask for things to change?
I am a person of faith, I believe that Jesus really does and is saving the world, setting people free from poverty and the chains that bind them. Sometimes when I am praying for this world or for my city, that His justice and mercy will pour out through these streets, that His love will come down and He will set the captives free, I think, do I really want this? Do I really care if God sets people free? Does it effect me?
Sometimes I even think that it affects me in a negative way. If every poverty-stricken person in the world owned a micro-credit enterprise, it would defeat the functionings of the global market place that undermines the poor and allows us to get our stuff so cheap. I like getting my stuff so cheap! So it benefits me to keep people living in poverty across the world poor, and yet I pray for them to be lifted out of poverty, to be set free. Is this not a contradiction to the very core of my humanity? So when I pray for change, do I really mean change?
I want to. And truthfully it is very humbling, to think that if God does have his plans to save the world, that he is doing it, either through me or in spite of me, whether or not I pray for it, and this includes what he is doing to me. For are we not as much, if not even more, a captive to our wealth and our money, our pride and our vanity, as others are in chains because of their poverty?
Let me end this with a sweet quote..
"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
--Ms. Lilla Watson,an Aboriginal Austrailian woman addressing a missionary serving in her country
Great post, Jenn! Thoroughly enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteI second that. Great post. Straight from the heart, pure, insightful and questing.
ReplyDeleteYour distaste or distrust of access to micro-credit loans interests me though. Is it allowing people to forge the chains that bind them? The chains being the exorbinant compounding interest on third world debt or the inequality by-product of capital? Or is it an attempt (imperfect albeit) to complete the circle?
With purchasing power parity and a medium for the benefactors of exploitation to lend back, at least there's an equilibrium in the disparity. An omniscient being would get economics, but it just makes sense that a more balanced system would include both the producer and the purchaser in it's trade of resources.
Poverty is *the* social determinent of health. I'm a nurse, not a business person. What're your cons to access to credit?
Jenn, I'm really glad you posted this. I saw it in draft and thought it was very valuable and significant. Many thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mike!
ReplyDelete@ Joe- My grievances are simply towards a system that relies so heavily on credit/ capital to assist the poor. Micro- credit has been an important step in empowering some out of poverty, and I don't denounce that. Micro credit in itself, however, is not an adequate solution or answer to poverty alleviation in the long run, i believe, because to 'complete' the 'circle' like this would be to systematically oppresses the many for the benefit of a few. I just mean, there are other circles to be considered.
Thank you for such an incredible post Jenn! I'm not sutdying International Development Studies and until recently I was what you might refer to as oblivious to this so my knowledge of the topic is limited but I really do understand what you are saying. I also think it is nice to see that you're not afraid to question if you're willing to really sacrifice your own comforts for change, because I do believe that is what it will really take from those of us living in the privelleged world to create change.
ReplyDeleteI have been learning a lot more as I've been working with TGLC and we actually screened a documentary called "The End of Poverty?" with Paul Shafffer last week that touched on a lot of the same ideas. It is a long video and has it's faults but it also has a great message and challenges some of the more popular views on how to end poverty. If you have time, I would recommend you watch it.
There's this idea that we support those living in poverty but I really believe now that in reality they are supporting us. We think that going in and industrializing areas in some of these countries, loaning them money to help them jump start some kind of industry (that essentially only runs to serve first world countries) forever indebting them to 'us' is going to fix everything. Yes, it might be a temoprary solution but not a long term one. And of course we think that industrialization is the answer because it 'works' here but we destroy their lands and we strip them of their culture because we know what's best, and what's best is what benefits us.
It is an awful thought, and like you I really do want to create change, but am I really willing to sacrifice my own comfort for it? As I sit here in my warm room, eating a celmentine imported from another country, drinking the fresh water available to me from a tap 50 feet away and wear clothing likely made by what I would call slaves in a third world country it hits me. In a second I feel like I could give it all up to enahnce the lives of so many people but can I, and do I really want to? Of course I do, but how?
How has been my question, and how, is something that TGLC and I are really starting to explore.