Friday 27 March 2015

Poverty & Multinationals in Zambia: A theological perspective


Below is a summary of a paper delivered by Francis Wilson at a symposium on the relevance of the Church in the 21st Century held under the auspices of the United Church of Zambia on the occasion of its Diamond Jubilee, in Lusaka in January 2015. Although pointing to Central and Southern Africa in general and Zambia in particular it is not without relevance to the Scottish Church either.

For Wilson the calling of the Christian church is to think theologically about society, economics and politics.  It has an obligation to seek to shape society for the common good against social evils. It is part of our ecumenical inheritance, a truth shared by all the great denominations, whether Reformed, Anglican or Roman Catholic.

There is a need to recognise the importance of values in shaping an economy. The market is a tool not a value and there are times when the forces of the market have to yield to higher moral values.  Christians opposed slavery as being inconsistent with the Christian understanding of human worth. As the market is generally a-moral, moral values are fundamentally important in shaping any economy and the market is a tool which can be used for good or ill.

Many of the values underpinning the present global economy are fundamentally unchristian. The emphasis always is on material things and consumerism the necessity of earning more money to satisfy greed no matter how rich one is. 

Christian values emphasise the ultimate worth of every individual no matter what they believe; what their position in society; how poor or rich they may be. The church believes in the importance of community and pushes for an ever more compassionate and caring society.

In a society with too great a degree of inequality, human community is impossible and Christians need to be very concerned about high levels of inequality in any society. What is the situation in Zambia? Does the church care? What do we, what do you, propose to do about it?

Another concern is the nature of poverty. This has many faces. But a country’s average per capita income can give one some idea as to the general well-being of the county. So Zambia with a per capita income in 2013 of $2990 is poorer than Botswana with a per capita income of $14 630 although better off than Zimbabwe with a per capita income of $1570.

In Zambia it is estimated that some 73% live below the poverty line but these figures are only guidelines. They tell us nothing about the nature or the causes of poverty, nor of the poverty endured by individual persons or their households. Nor indeed do the figures tell us anything about the distribution of income in the country concerned. There are many painful faces of poverty in the country: infant mortality, destitute old people, and unemployed young people feeling worthless and with no aim in life.  Is the Church thinking strategically and creatively about this? How does the church help people to acquire the tools - including personal courage, endurance & imagination - to improve the quality of life even if per capita income does not lift dramatically?

Zambia has been part of the modern globalisation process for more than a century with the discovery and exploitation of copper for the world market. In Zambia there are seven different types of multinationals. They include:

·         Mining or Extractive such as Copper and Coal

·         Consumer Goods including food, clothing, appliances, furniture etc

·         Media & Communications - TV; Films; Cell Phones; Internet

·         Transport - Garages; Car Hire; Petrol

·         Agriculture - Equipment; Seeds; Fertilizer; Products

·         Energy - Electricity and Oil

·         Banking - Global financial network

Wilson focuses on what he calls the three Ms

·         Mining

·         McDonalds

·         Media

 

Mining in Zambia immediately raises at least two value issues which need to be considered critically by the churches. Whose mineral resources?  Much of the Zambia’s mineral wealth has been siphoned out of the country especially when demand for copper was especially high.

In contrast, in Botswana mining companies earn agreed, reasonable, profits on diamonds whilst the bulk of the wealth stays in the country.

In Angola for example, the vast wealth accruing to the country from its oil seems, alas, to be destined to enriching the pockets of a few rather than improving the lives of the citizens. Contrast this with Norway where much of the oil wealth has been placed in a “Sovereign Fund” which now has investments around the world to be used in future for the well-being of all the people of Norway. In this context it is perhaps worth pointing out the crucial role of the church over the previous century in helping to create the political conditions and the institutions which enabled Norway to respond so wisely to the oil discoveries.

The migrant labour system is another issue: a huge source of social destruction in Southern Africa and a major factor in the spread of catastrophic levels of HIV/AIDS throughout the region.  It serves to generate poverty in the rural areas where the migrants come from. Decent family housing for all migrants and their families near their place of work is necessary, with workers treated as people with families rather than as labour units from which energy is to be extracted.

There are many multinational retail chains operating in Zambia selling such items as food, furniture, clothing and electronic equipment. Trade is of course, generally, of benefit to both sides but in any such transaction the terms of trade need to be examined with some care and here the churches could play an important role by asking some pertinent questions. For example, are the multinational retail firms doing more than training Zambian till-assistants? Is the retail sector in Zambia being educated and given the necessary experience for full global partnership employing senior Zambian managers and decision makers? Are Zambians being empowered within Zambia? Who is running the show? Or are the retail outlets in the country merely colonies used primarily to extract wealth for the imperial headquarters based in America, Europe or Asia?

Another theological dimension is the dichotomy between passive consumption and active production. “Couch potatoes”, people who may spend many hours each day passively and uncritically watching their television screens with the danger of consumerism replacing all manner of activities which used to be taken for granted.

The development of cell-phones and the internet is having a radical impact on communication particularly in Africa. The isolation of the past is being replaced, seemingly in the twinkling of any eye, by the global village. What are the consequences of such a revolutionary technology likely to be? How does the church help people to adjust to the new realities in ways that are human, caring and just for all?

1.       While multinationals are not all bad. They bring with them global linkages and new ideas, organisational efficiency and some sense of corporate social responsibility but some aspect require critical assessment by the church;

a.       Multinationals are essentially driven by profits. While necessary considerations also need to be given to of human value and of the ethical goals that give real meaning to life.

b.      Multinationals create wealth but at a cost.  Mining companies’ migrant labour system is highly destructive and impoverishes areas from which the migrants came. To say nothing of the work-related injuries and diseases.

c.       Multinationals tend to create elites earning incomes far above those of the general working population and are part of the process of the  widening inequality .This needs to be reversed if  the world is not to disintegrate due to lack of human solidarity.

A strong legal framework backed by honest and alert officials multinationals can prevent multinationals from robbing a country and its people of their rightful resources.

d.      The creation of dependency on multinationals fails to provide local business leaders with the knowledge and experience to be real partners in management and decision making.

Care for the Environment provides to mitigate climate change by facilitating the planting of trees by farmers needs to be scaled up.

The Church should continue with compassion and caring ministries, nurturing imaginative initiatives to deal with society’s, helping government to formulate better policy and criticising prophetically where government falls short.

Wilson concludes that in response a representative Zambian Church Commission might reflect theologically on the challenges facing the church both in terms of Faith & Order and its Life & Work modelled on the 1933 but focusing on Abundant Life, and of Ubuntu now and in the future. 

Wednesday 4 March 2015

The Same Yesterday, Today and Forever

Had we not had Ida’s appendix operation, we would have been returning to Zambia at the end of this week. Thankfully, Ida has recovered well and we have our debriefing at 121 later this week. We are now undertaking the deputation visits that were cancelled while Ida convalesced. It has been good once again to make contact with the presbyteries and individual congregations who support the work at Mwandi materially and by prayer. Many of these are strong Churches with busy and successful outreach programmes but they remain interested in what God is doing in our particular part of the vineyard and elsewhere. It is good also to see the possibility emerging greater collaboration, cooperation and inter-church fellowship in all of this. While this is now happening at local and presbytery level, our appointment as an ecumenical one, with both the Church of Scotland and Methodists here and the United Church in Zambia, helping us and others in undertaking the Great Commission.
 


Our Power-Point presentation this time, we have entitled ‘Our World Belongs to God’. We chose Micah 6:4-8 and Matthew 25:34-40 as the two portions of Scripture to provide the framework for our pictures and discussion. The well-known verses from Micah deal with what God is looking for in his people; namely, to be fair and just, compassionate, loyal and serious. And Matthew talks about taking care of the needs of the hungry, thirsty, sick, poor, homeless and imprisoned, those often overlooked and ignored, and in doing this, you do it to and for Jesus.
 
 

In our talk we tell about the building of the new UCZ Secondary School where 500 pupils who might not otherwise have been at school, have completed Grade 12 since 2010, the challenges we face with a lack of teaching and learning resources for large classes but also the enthusiasm and eagerness to learn of the pupils. The importance and necessity of girl education is also stressed and the bursaries that we provide, using the UCZ & Social Welfare criteria to help needy but able pupils complete their secondary education by the generosity of ordinary but special people. We also share stories of students that are supported in tertiary education.
 

The ministry of the Church at Kandiana is also an area of need that we are involved with. We report too on the churches roofed, the support for rural pre-schools and the digging of the new well at Sikuzu. Other areas shared are an overview of the Mission Hospital HIV programme, integrated within this are the Church of Scotland’s HIV Nutrition programme and the Formula programme. Housing and sustainability are other areas being tackled. We end with the story of our Congolese foster children and the plight of their parents.
 

I have been reading David Smith’s Mission After Christendom and as we are carrying out our deputation work we can see that much of what he is highly relevant to the Church in Scotland today. It has been brought home to us  how much successful Church work is home mission at the new frontiers and we have seen how the Church is learning to live cross-culturally in a postmodern world obsessed by consumerism and entertainment where traditional Christianity and its values are irrelevant to most secular people. This is, however, nothing new, similar problems were faced by the early Church in the Roman Empire where people were addicted correspondingly to wealth and pleasure with the Church offering counter-cultural qualities to the Graeco-Roman values of the time. More recently during the Communist-era in Eastern and Central Europe another militant form of materialist philosophy shaped and controlled society while the Church under difficult circumstances offered meaning in Christ under another man-made and meaningless, dishonest and iniquitous economic and political system.

Under all these regimes and systems, the same human needs we see today, went largely unheeded and un-catered for by the orthodoxy of the time. The Church today with its powers of regeneration and transformation, as the world continues with its rampant economic and ecological exploitation of the world’s resources and its peoples, still brings baptised people into communities who feast at the table of Christ’s sufficiency, communities known for their contentment and compassion. This Church, having learned from the past, has and will always have something true and reliable to offer the future.  For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2Cor 12:10