First I apologize to those of you who have been following
this blog and have wondered about the lack of entries over the past two
months. I have been struggling
with writing what I have been thinking.
Struggles.
Living here in Southern Africa, next door to the Republic of South
Africa with its history of apartheid, I find myself often contemplating a troubling question. If I had been born white
in apartheid South Africa instead of in Canada what would my response
to apartheid have been? Would I
have joined those who were actively supporting and entrenching the power and privilege
of the white minority? Would I
have been amongst those who simply accepted and supported the stability of the
status quo? Would I have
disapproved of the intent and excesses of apartheid, but continued to enjoy its
privileges? Or, would I have
joined those in the white community who risked personal safety and financial
wellbeing to actively oppose and obstruct a system that conveyed wealth and
privilege to the few, while denying opportunity and dignity to the many.
My current struggle:
As I am faced daily with the awareness of the immense and growing
disparity in the world, what will my response be? I was born white in a western country where I enjoy a
disparate amount of the world’s wealth and opportunity. So how do I
respond? How should I
respond? Do I simply accept that
such is the way things are, and carry on enjoying my wealth and privilege? Will I do something to confront this
massive inequity, including challenging others to also consider
their response? Am I prepared to
risk, while not personal safety, at least the indignation and possible
alienation of friends and family?
It has been this risk of offending that I have cowered behind, avoiding my blog and my
writing. But after a conversation
with one of my sons, I was challenged to take the risk, and try to pull my disparate thoughts
together in a fashion that somehow conveys my struggle and my disquiet.
A book I am reading is challenging me to move beyond simply
accepting the way things are. The
book, The Hole is Our Gospel1 presents the story of a man
called by God to walk away from his Jaguar, his ten bedroom house, his first
class travel to Paris, Tokyo, London and Florence2, to accept a 75%
cut in pay3 and to become the CEO of a Christian relief and
development organization. The
author has some pointed questions and observations about our western
society. He is writing about
American culture, but what he says is applicable to many western cultures, I believe, including my Canadian culture.
Recent news article have also added to my disquiet.
Disparity. A
recent news article about the U.S. pointed out that Americans’ expenditures for their pets now exceed $50 billion per year4. The U.S. government’s budget for
foreign aid (including military aid) is $49 billion5. America’s citizens spend more money
pampering their pets than their country spends to sponsor fresh water, basis
health services, and education in developing countries around the world.
I also recently learned that every iPad sold generates $8
for the workers who put it together, while earning a profit of $150 for Apple
and its shareholders6.
Meanwhile in factories that supply Apple products workers die in
explosions, commit suicide, are exposed to dangerous chemicals, are employed as
underage workers, and at times receive less than the minimum wage7. I do not intend to single out Apple,
some years back in was Nike8, and many other corporations that
provide consumer products are guilty of similar practices9.
The Hole in Our Gospel author, Richard Sterns, makes
many challenging point. In world
wide terms most of us in western economies are well within the top 10% of wage
earners world wide10, and in Red Deer, where I am from, with a median family income of $75,00011, well over 50%
of the families are in the top 1% world wide. Forget “Occupy Wall Street”, we are the 1%. Sterns, then makes the following
comment:
If you don’t feel rich, it’s
because you are comparing yourself to people who have more than you do … . It’s also because we tend to gauge
whether or not we are wealthy based on the things we don’t have.
If we think we need a bigger house or apartment, a nicer car, more
clothes, or the ability to go out for dinner more often, we don’t feel “rich”.12
The
largest employer in Lesotho is the garment industry, manufacturing blue jeans
for the North American consumer.
Thousands of Basotho toil in factories, earning $120 Cdn per month. And it is not as if unionization could make a
difference. In their pursuit of
profit, companies simply threaten to move their manufacturing to Bangladesh
where wages are reputedly significantly lower.
Like the iPad story, who really profits from the Basotho people's labour? Would I be willing to pay an additional
$2 on a $50 pair of jeans if I knew that the producer would pass that on to the
workers in Lesotho, or Bangladesh, so that workers might earn a salary remotely
able to lift their family out of extreme poverty?
Lesotho is a land of orphans. Numbers are difficult to pin down. About the best I can conclude is that some 220,000 children13are
orphaned. Somewhere between 1 in 5
children have lost at least one parent, while the number of double orphans,
those who have lost both parents, is around 1 in 20.
I have read that development aid often misses those families
that are most in need. A school
bursary for double orphans administered by the government of Lesotho is
one such program. The bursary is
available to all double orphans.
However, the details of the program are announced over local radio –
something many poor families do not own.
Of those that do, many do not have the extra few dollars (maloti) for
transportation to obtain the needed forms or to submit applications. Orphans that are truly in need are
unable to benefit from a basic right, education. Without education, their hope for a better future recedes
from reach. Might $2 per pair of
jeans offer even a few children a bit more hope?
Each day I awake to a world of disparity and despair. Through the randomness of my birth
place I awaken each day in the top 10% of the economically wealthy and am
spared the despair and hopelessness of those on the other extreme. Does the randomness of my birth
location absolve me from being concerned for those with less resources and less
opportunity? True, if there was
less corruption in Lesotho and elsewhere, the chasm between those on the top
and those on the bottom might be less. True, the $120 per month earned by a Mosotho, or the $8 per unit
shared by the iPad workers means they are better off than having no job. But, is rationalization to be the extent of my
response? What would Christ’s
response be?
Stearns makes the pointed statement that in our western
world we view our wealth as an entitlement. Stearns' summation of a prevalent attitude, “I worked hard, I
earned it, and it’s mine to do with as I please.”14 are an echo of
words I remember hearing many years ago from a person I knew - words of entitlement. How different from Jesus’ perspective in the parable of the
talents, where the servants were entrusted
with wealth and were required to give an accounting15. How unlike Jesus’ point in the parables
of the rich man and Lazarus and of the sheep and goats. In these stories, those
who had been entrusted with wealth were judged, harshly, for not using their
wealth to lessen the distress of the hungry, the thirsty, the hurting, and the
homeless.
Through no effort on my part, I happen to be from a culture
and country of wealth and opportunity.
There, I and my fellow citizens are, for the most part, in the top 10%
of wage earners worldwide. How am
I to respond? Do I actively look
for excuses to not share my good fortune?
‘They’ are lazy, corrupt, make poor decisions. Or, is it that I need a newer this or that. Do I begrudge my government’s
commitments to international aid?
Do I embrace the business dictum of maximum profit? Do my actions and attitudes actively
support a world order where the average annual household expenditures (not income, expenditures) in my home town can be $102,403116 while the typical family in Lesotho must make do on $1400 Cdn per
year17.
Maybe I don’t do anything to actively promote this
disparity, but do I accept it and avoid doing anything that might jeopardize the pleasures and products I enjoy simply as a consequence
of my birth locale? Or, while I
recognize the disparity, maybe I argue, “What can one person do anyways?”
Or will I take seriously the perspective that I have been entrusted with my wealth and someday will be faced with giving
an account of what I did with it?
Will I allow this perspective to influence my lifestyle in such a way
that I create more time and space and funds to support the poor, the orphan, the widow,
and the oppressed.
Ezekiel had something interesting to say about Sodom, a city
whose inhabitants many of us condemn for their sexual licence. Ezekial wrote
“Now this was the sin of your
sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned;
they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable
things before me.” ( Ezekial
16:49,50)
Is it possible that the ‘detestable things’ the overfed,
unconcerned and arrogant Sodomites engaged in, derived from a greater
shortcoming - their indifference to the plight of the poor and needy? When I turn away from the poor and
needy, the orphan and the widow, to indulge my own wants and desires, do those
wants and desires eventually become ‘detestable things’? Is it just an interesting coincidence
in our overfed and seemingly unconcerned culture, that in a study of American
men who procured sex, the researchers could not find a control group of 100 men
who did not purchase some
kind of pornography or sex service?18
Given what I know and what I have seen, what now will I
do? That is my struggle in part. Do I ask my pension fund or mutual
funds dealer to only invest in companies with a clear policy opposing the
exploitation of workers? Will I
respond to news information about unfair labour practices by reconsidering
whether I buy a company’s product?
Better yet will I write the company expressing my concern about their
labour practices? Will I forego a
small pleasure such as a trip to the movies? Will I make due with a smaller, older something
rather than buying the latest newer, bigger and better model? On my next vacation will I consider a
couple of nights in my tent, rather than a B&B? Will I then redirect my savings to an organization locally
or abroad that is doing something I support to reduce the disparity of wealth
and opportunity in our world?
My struggle has also been to risk your indignation and ire
as another irksome voice, inviting you too to ask, “What will I do?”
~ Benno ~
1 Richard Stearns, The
Hole in Our Gospel (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009,2010)
2 Ibid, pg 8
3 Ibid, pg 50
10 Stearns, pg 215
12 Stearns, pg 215, 216
14 Stearns, pg 204
15 Matthew 25
17 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/lt.html
