Blessed are they who hunger and thirst

Last we visited 4 rural Community Schools and spoke with community leaders regarding their situation. At Sikuzu we found empty lishete, traditional wattle and thatched granaries, empty. People are selling chickens and their own stock of dried-fish to buy mealie-meal. People were eating buhobe/inshima and wild greens once a day. Some were only eating buhobe/inshima dressed with cooking oil.

Some more drought resistant cassava cuttings from Sichili had been reintroduced and planted, but would not be ready for another year. We came across a hobbled stirk belonging to Mr Sampaya, lying on a scotch-cart, about to be taken to the butchery in Mwandi, 8 kilometres away. It had broken its leg while grazing down at the river bank and could not get up. The poor beast would be sold for a pittance to butchers from Livingstone and the proceeds used to buy mealie meal, cooking oil, salt and perhaps some soap. Sikuzu people are generally reluctant to sell their cattle as they are seen as capital.

We moved on to Aibelilwe Community School where we found the PTA in session on the holiday Monday. They welcomed us warmly and asked us to join their meeting. Many of the families from here, we heard, had moved with their cattle to the fishing camps at the river as the local water sources had dried up. No production unit was possible here without a borehole or chokochoko – hand pump. Namakau, the sister to a community matriarch in Sikuzu, movingly and in frustration told that she had ploughed and sown at the usual time after the first rains but the rains had failed and the sun had scorched the maize seedlings, so they had sown again with old seed and these too had failed. Where in a good year you could expect 6 to 10 sacks from a lima, this year they hardly got a bucket! They needed help.

Mr Ndala, one of the Committee, took us to the next school Alibuzwi at Sitali’s village where Mubita’s family comes from. According to him the last time there was a drought like this was in 1993, when our Catriona/Shamiso was born.  En route, we passed a dry and rusting chokochoko, an Indira hand- pump, drilled about 12 years ago. The spare parts still have to be imported from India. This is a good example of wasted aid. The drillers were paid to drill a certain number of 30-50m boreholes regardless of the local geology. There is an underground belt of salt which runs from Sesheke to Kasaya in our area and they drilled through it, without either stopping before they reached it or protecting the water being pumped up from below, being contaminated by it. So people here in high numbers suffer from high blood pressure, strokes and kidney disease. But, hey, chillax, it’s only a statistical cluster, and some European Development Minister could get up in their Parliament and report that so many more thousands of people now had access to drinking water because of the number of boreholes they had paid for to be drilled in Western Province, Zambia! An excellent example of the difference between the quantitative and qualitative?! But reports of which will never see the light of day.

At Alibuzwi we met Manyando, the young teacher there. He is unqualified and lives modestly in a traditional daub and wattle house..The classrooms are low, mud-walled ‘flats’ with a zinc roof. The water, both drinking and for any other purpose, is scooped out by a dish from a 4m deep hand-dug well. The mothers of the children were there at school, busy smearing mud on the walls of the classroom to prepare them, hopefully for the onslaught of the rains in December. We picked up some kids on their way to school. They were grazing on manganda, fruit from local palm trees. They had eaten nothing else today. Manyando was teaching over the holidays as he had been away on an In-Service Course for two days the week before. He told us of a number of children that had dropped out of school this term, as there is limited food at home and they only really attend school when they have the energy to do so. As the only wage earner in the community, he is able to feed some from his own resources, those children he knows who are in desperate need.

We moved on to Sooka Community School. It is closer to Mwandi and as the Headteaher said, a local lodge, as part of its community responsibility programme, goes more than the extra mile to help them out. However, the school relies on water from the lodge and would appreciate having a source of its own. Being beside the river means that fish and vegetables are more readily available and can be caught and grown. So as not to ‘flood’ the Mwandi market with fish and vegetables at the same time, a community agreement has been struck with individuals, agreeing on certain days of the week to sell their wares. The children here at Sooka Community School too are mainly from subsistence farmers and the granaries are empty here too.

On our way back to Mwandi, we passed four sites where Community-owned fish ponds are being dug to help take the pressure off the wild Zambezi fish stock.

The UCZ’s intervention is not only to introduce better policies but also to train communities in the best ways to cope with the negative effects of climate change that are already taking a toll on Zambian communities, The  UCZ is very concerned with the direction in which the world is moving especially with the continued denial by many world leaders of climate change despite evidence to the contrary However, the UCZ believes in both prayer and action. Climate change is inextricably linked with environmental justice especially in the extractive mining industry and as part of our socio-economic programme, climate change is a significant component.

It is too simplistic, as some do, to portray climate change as the fulfilment of the biblical “end times” prophecy, but nevertheless with the prolonged drought the UCZ has organised prayer meetings to address climate change and its visible impact. The Church has to be a watch-dog on behalf of the people and to understand and be involved in the climate change discourse. It is a complex and moral struggle we are engaged in. This requires us also to engage politically to try an influence policy. The Church through the CCZ, has worked with Government already regarding policy highlighting to the dangers of uranium mining

A campaign called “We have faith – act for climate justice”, collected over 200,000 signatures across Africa, demanding a “just and legally binding climate treaty” at COP 17 in South Africa, in 2011.Since then, we have used our church structures to influence change. Disaster Risk Reduction Church Committees have been trained in tree planting, good forest management practices and sustainable agriculture.

Although the Zambian Government and the UCZ share the sentiments of “polluter pays” principle, demanding a fair share of resources to cope with climate shocks, we still see it is the most vulnerable communities that bear the brunt of climate change.

God’s True Church- 50 Years Working Together

Recently we had the rather unedifying spectacle of the ‘Citrus Convention’ taking place in George Square in Glasgow, triumphalistically harping back to a sectarian conflict and ‘victory’ that is now almost 330 years old, that body pretending now, to be transformed into a fraternal and charitable organisation. The World Church has thankfully moved on from Glasgow 2015!

In contrast we have had the Pope in Turin this week, asking the Waldensians, whom the Catholic Church accused of heresy, excommunicated and persecuted for 800 hundred years, for forgiveness for their historically un-Christian and inhuman attitudes and behaviour. Instead of banging a drum outside their place of worship, Pope Francis was the first pope in 800 years to visit a Waldensian Church. The Waldensians are a denomination that have, to use a current and much-used phrase in certain circles, ‘punched above their weight’ in the Mission field. Their contribution to the spreading the Gospel here in Barotseland is both significant and substantial. The sins of the Waldensians were evangelisation by the laity and producing a Bible in the vernacular!

Horrors of horrors for some, the Pope has also suggested that being brothers and sisters in the faith, as in a family, does not mean you have to be identical, but you admit to having the same common origins, so we need to concentrate, with our eyes fixed on Jesus, on that communion that came before,

Pope Francis also criticised a world of ‘soap bubble values’, hypocrisy and delusion and urged the building of a world of love with an economy of creativity and courage, to replace the world that disrespects, uses and deceives people. The political elite all have interests in the arms industry and being ‘two-faced’ is the currency of the day. These vested interests failed to prevent atrocities such as carpet bombing and the Nazi persecution in Concentration Camps of Christians, Jews, homosexuals and gypsies.

The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit also marked 50 years of ecumenism. Unity remains at the heart of all our efforts for common witness and contributions to ensure justice and peace for people and creation, he said. We are grateful and proud of the 50 years as a working together, promoting ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue, peace, social justice and works of charity and humanitarianism. These are all ways for Christians to testify together to the real, though imperfect, communion shared by all who are baptized as we care for Earth, our common home. Together, we can address issues of community, cooperation, common interests, shared concerns, or even issues of controversy or conflict.

But, we confess in sorrow, that divisions still do not allow us yet to share in the fellowship of Holy Communion, but common purpose has thankfully been achieved on Baptism. Tveit said that there needs to be an awareness “of this deeper theological reading of our context” in a new phase of cooperation which cannot be business as usual, but an expression of our faith and a witness to the love of God revealed in Christ.

Metropolitan and Archbishop Nifon of Targoviste from the Romanian Orthodox Church, and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of the Catholic Church are members of the WCC Faith and Order Commission and reciprocal arrangements have been implemented, with active Orthodox and Protestant participation in Catholic forums.

 

News from our partners around the world

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND

The Church of Scotland convened its annual General Assembly in May 2015 and welcomed the new Moderator, Right Rev Dr Angus Morrison. 800 delegates came together to discuss, debate and decide on issues pertaining to the work of the Gospel and the building of God's kingdom in Scotland and beyond. 

There were also ecumenical delegates from many other Christian denominations, and partner churches around the world; some from areas where Christians suffer extreme persecution. All of us rejoice in membership of a wonderful extended family – not without its difficulties – but, nonetheless, marked by love and care for each other.

There was a moving speech from Rev Ram Kumar Budhathoki of Ebenezer Bible College in Nepal, who described the 42 seconds it took for the earthquake to devastate the country; and another from Rev Ibrahim Nseir from Syria, speaking of the persecution being experienced by our sisters and brothers there.

On the Sunday there were different acts – and styles - of worship: in English and Gaelic.  Heart and Soul in Princes Street Gardens in the afternoon was a time of open-air public witness and celebration of life in the church. The 2015 General Assembly gave encouragement and re-energised many to continue serving God with faithfulness, love, joy and hope.

THE METHODIST CHURCH

On the Methodist website the two most recent stories concern the United Mission to Nepal’s response to the recent earthquakes. Emergency food is still being delivered by truck to affected areas and by helicopter by Mission Aviation Fellowship.

Other needs are being seen to with the provision of psycho-social education and counselling and the provision of other household materials including mosquito nets by Rescue Network Nepal. The UMN’s 2 hospitals at Tansen and Okhaldlungaare are at full capacity.

Another ministry, in partnership with the Church of Scotland, is ‘Out of Africa … into Malta’, which helps families fleeing from Africa who end up in Malta. Here migrants are detained in ‘open centres’ which United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) say breach basic human rights. They also face rejection by many on the island.

St Andrew’s Scots Church ministers there, focusing particularly on families, with babies and young children. Many are from Sub-Saharan Africa and have harrowing tales to tell of journeys through war zones, across the desert and human trafficking rings. St Andrew’s has become a natural focus for many non-Catholic African Christians, as worship and fellowship are important aspects of this ministry too. The work now involves integration – moving families into Maltese society, and enabling them to become financially independent and socially integrated.

COUNCIL FOR WORLD MISSION

In his 2015 Easter message, CWM General Secretary, Rev Dr Collin Cowan spoke of the recent floods, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones and tsunamis in Malawi, Madagascar, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands that brought death and destruction in their wake.  It has been a time of great sadness for many but also an opportunity for bringing healing and hope to the stricken.

 

Good Friday has its own pain, terror and brokenness, and creation today groans under the pressure of our irresponsible lifestyle, such disasters seem to be creation’s Good Friday! Appeals for solidarity and support and the humanitarian response following these natural disasters demonstrate humanity’s goodwill. The resilience shown by those affected and the abundant supply of God’s grace amidst the chaos brings renewed hope and confidence.

 

The message of Easter is that God’s gift of life cannot be stolen, killed or destroyed by evil, natural disasters or by humans failing to care for creation. Acts 10:29-30 says that ‘God raised him from the dead”, defying logic and declaring life forevermore. Easter is a time to speak life into and from all circumstances of lifelessness; and to present the God of resurrection as hope for the broken. Confident that “we serve a risen Saviour” is our guarantee for the future.

 

CEVAA

Cevaa brings together 35 churches around the world from Europe, Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and Latin America Its English name is the Community of Churches in Mission. Its main story is its Secretary General and the Executive Secretary responsible for Cluster Projects and People Exchanges travelling to Cameroon to meet with the heads of the three churches: EEC (Evangelical Church of Cameroon), UEBC (Union of Baptist Churches Cameroon) and EELC (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cameroon).

 

The second story is a summarised French translation of the article on the Synod website called ‘Turbulent Times’ which looked at the consequences of climate change on local people in Western Province. 

WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

The World Council of Churches website leads with the Rev Phyllis Wong Mei Fung, Minister of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Union Church (KUC) urging the Church to work ecumenically to take seriously the needs of the excluded, marginalised and oppressed so that all can receive God’s love, grace, justice and peace, and in particular women, children and gender minorities. Patriarchal structures, globalisation, distribution of resources and environmental issues all needed to be challenged

An international conference on peace and security in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) held in Geneva recently invited DRC churches to consolidate existing ecumenical initiatives and consider new ones.

Work groups reported on sexual and gender-based violence and responses to HIV/AIDS, natural resources and their exploitation, and human rights and humanitarian concerns. Preparations were also made for and monitoring elections this year as well as the 2016 Presidential Election.

The denial of visas to youth delegates in particular was a problem but the conference was live-streamed to Kinshasa’s United Methodist Church allowing it to be followed there.

The final communiqué voiced concern for youth, children, women and other vulnerable persons, in the DRC and the need for education and employment, training in non-violence and peace-building, and preventing gender-based violence and harassment.

CHURCHES COUNCIL OF ZAMBIA

CCZ reports that the Zambian Government recognises and appreciates what the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) has been doing over the years with its pro-poor agenda.
It has also been a moral voice that has brought to Government’s attention many ills in mining.

The Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) in partnership with local Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) want to reduce voter apathy by increasing voter education ahead of elections. It supports greater powers and autonomy for the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to enhance voter confidence and urges all political leaders to take a strong stance against political violence and intolerance. The churches are useful to the Electoral Commission as they have a wider coverage nationwide through their various respective local structures.

The CCMG  is made up of the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), the Evangelical Fellowship in Zambia (EFZ), the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) and the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR). The Churches generally have a wider coverage than the commission nationwide through their various respective local structures.

 

 

Religion and Politics

As Linus from Peanuts once memorably put it: “There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people ... religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.”  Well, today we can forget about the Great Pumpkin as another interesting analysis appeared recently in the Economist about Scotland, politics and religion following the recent Westminster Election results. 

 

The article argues that over the past 200 years there has been a steady decline in religion as the main focus of people’s public loyalties; this being replaced by secular nationalism. The recent landslide for the SNP suggests that Scotland with its history of religious conflict is a good example of this. Many Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and atheist Scots voted in early May for the re-establishment of an earthly rather than a heavenly kingdom.   

According to the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey of 2012, Scottish people are even less religious than English people.

 

Some other statistics from the survey:

 

Those identifying with the Church of Scotland: 20%

 

Those professing "no religion": 54%.

 

Those believing Protestant-Catholic tensions are still a problem: 88%

 

Those believing there has been an improvement in recent years: 47%

 

Religion is "an important part of who you are":  RC 72%      Protestant 45%.

 

Scottish Catholics, account for about 16% of the population and no longer fear a privileged Protestant Church in an independent Scotland. The proportion of Catholics supporting independence is higher than the share of Protestants who feel the same way, as the Catholic Church has been more successful at retaining the loyalties of young people; who are more likely to be pro-independence.

 

While the Catholic Church maintains its traditional position on abortion and the family it also opposes nuclear weapons and opposition to nuclear weapons is strong amongst left-leaning Christians of most denominations, so the SNP was the obvious choice there

 

It is also significant that no religious authority warned their flock against voting SNP. The SNP with its social democratic and progressive ethos became the obvious home for many  Catholics whose identity is no longer anchored in religious faith. The same was probably true of Protestants who in the past saw their Presbyterian identity as a mark of difference from England, but now that difference can be demonstrated in other ways.

 

All this brings closer the prospect of an independent, secular Scotland with no established or state religion, but whose flag is an ancient religious symbol, a cross associated with Andrew, the "first-called" among the Christian disciples.

Turbulent Times

A major concern in this part of the world is the failure of the maize harvest in the South West of Western Province. A local Mwandi District Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock report has looked at the impact of the severe dry spell in the district and identified priority needs and interventions.  90% of subsistence farmers are affected. There is a lack of both surface and ground water due to non-inundation of flood plains from the Zambezi River and its tributaries. This has challenged dependent households and livestock with high commodity prices, the collapse of local markets and the selling of household assets to buy food.

The main findings:

·         85% of rain-fed maize and drought tolerant crops have failed. 

·          3,800 households (21,800 people) will need food aid for 9 months.

·         There has been a significant increase in the prices staple food in the affected areas.

·         Income from crop based and agricultural paid labour to address any food deficit is unavailable.

·         The internal migrations to the Zambezi fishing camps and island pastures will happen much earlier and in greater numbers due to a lack of grazing and water in the hinterland.

The local areas most affected are Mabumbu, Sankolonga, Kamusa and Adonsi. The main environmental problems in our area stem from an increase in population leading to deforestation, monoculture on poor soil and overgrazing.

With much loud, political scepticism abroad, climate scientists tend to be very cautious about attributing specific weather events to global warming. The variability of weather makes it difficult to know whether climate change caused any particular drought, flood, heatwave or storm. An article in this week’s Economist called, “Is It Global Warming Or Just The Weather?” dealt, I thought, with the matter fairly and objectively and is of interest to us in the midst of our drought.

Much of the debate has focused on the rise of global mean surface temperatures by 2100. That is the simplest way to measure the long-term impact of climate change, but it has drawbacks; it takes measurement over a century. While most people worry about local temperatures not global ones, and try to link climate change to their local weather, not just increases in the mean temperatures, but also in the extremes which often have a more profound local impact on people.

It is still not possible to say categorically that climate change has caused any individual storm, flood, drought or heatwave, but scientific attribution does not require certainty; it deals in probabilities. Most rational people now link smoking to lung cancer, similarly we can say climate change increases the risk of a particular weather pattern by a measurable amount and, in some cases and that even a particular episode is almost impossible to imagine without global warming. That is as near as you can get to saying global warming caused a weather event. Contributions to climate change can be calculated by looking at what the climate would have been like if people had not increased greenhouse-gas emissions. That means comparing observations of the weather with computer models of what might have happened without climate change. So you can calculate the probability of a weather pattern occurring. So it is now possible to say that man-made climate change made this or that weather event twice as likely, five times more likely, or less likely and there is now a scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for climate change. The strongest evidence for human influence can be seen in some heatwaves, where human influence increased the risk of such high temperatures fivefold, at least. Some heatwaves would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change.

Studies of recent heatwaves in in Europe, Australia China, Japan and Korea. All showed that man-made climate change had increased the likelihood of exceptional heat. This resulted in changes to ocean currents and the great Arctic melt, and to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols. However, some like the melting of Arctic ice, are influenced by natural variability as well.

Climate change also seems to be contributing to droughts, though the evidence here is weaker. Higher temperatures speed up evaporation, reduce soil moisture and lead to drought. Increased greenhouse-gas emissions are also a factor, as are other sorts of human influence, such as population growth and water consumption. Of four recent studies of droughts, two clearly showed that man-made influences were increasing the risk.

The evidence is weaker still when it comes to storms. It is often said that climate change is making hurricanes and other heavy storms more frequent but recent studies found no evidence of human influence in any of them.

A Swiss study into heatwaves and rain storms took all the heat and precipitation extremes between 1901 and 2005, defining extremes as events likely to occur once every 1,000 days. They found that 0.85°C of warming (the rise since the industrial era began) has made such heat extremes four or five times more likely. 75% of the heat extremes, and 18% of the precipitation extremes, were attributed to global warming and the probability of a heat extreme is twice as great at 2°C of warming than at 1.5°C.

That does not mean, alas, that the science of weather attribution will be able to forecast particular droughts or heatwaves, only to say that more of them are likely to happen. That is a useful addition to climate science. People are routinely told about—and routinely ignore—the bad things they are doing to the climate. The attribution studies show that the climate is doing bad things back.

Sectarianism

Sectarianism unfortunately is not restricted to Christianity and much of the conflict engulfing Iraq and Syria, where many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted for their faith at the moment, has also a sectarian aspect to it.  The two sides involved are being supported by either Iran or Saudi Arabia. The Council for Foreign Relations has recently published an article called ‘The Sunni-Shia Divide’ which deals with the origins of this divide in Islam, present tensions, how both sides differ in the practice of their faith, and where different militants are to be found.

The struggles between Sunni and Shia forces have not only fuelled the wars in Syria and Iraq but have caused tension throughout the Gulf region and led to the development of a number of transnational jihadi networks.

While this schism is 14 centuries old, it is obviously not the sole reason for these conflicts but nonetheless provides some insight to explain some of the underlying tensions. Like many previous conflicts in the world this battle is being carried out by proxies, these are determined to purge apostasy or to prepare for the way for a messianic advent. Notwithstanding this, it must be said many Sunni and Shia clerics advocate the use of dialogue and non-violence. As with other sectarian conflicts in communities, for most of the time Sunnis and Shia Muslims have lived at peace with each other, have intermarried and shared mosques. Both believe in the Koran and Prophet Mohamed’s sayings and say the same prayers but they differ in rituals and interpretation of Islamic law.

Shias trace their roots back to 7^th Century to the killing of Husayn, the Prophet’s grandson. As a minority, Shias were often considered heretics and apostates by the Sunni majority. Of 1.8 billion Muslims today, 85% are Sunni and 15% Shia.

After the death of Mohamed a dispute arose over the succession. The Shias argued for the family dynasty; supporting Abu Bakr for Caliph and the Sunnis for a theocratic meritocracy to govern the new faith. The Sunnis backed Ali ibn Abi Talib. Shia stems from Shiatu Ali (supporters of Ali), whereas Sunni comes from Sunna (the Way). The Sunnis won and provided the Caliphs, but the Shias rejected their authority so were persecuted and marginalised.

For Sunnis an Imam leads prayers in the mosque, but for Shias Imam is used for a religious leader who is a descendant of Mohamed. Shias recognise 12 Imams; the 12th became hidden and will return at the end of time. Senior Shia clerics are the Ayatollahs (Sign of God). Many forced conversions amongst Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians chose to be Shia rather than Sunni to protest over Sunni bigotry. Shias form a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain and are the biggest Muslim sect in Lebanon. Sunnis are the majority in the rest of the arc stretching from Mauritania from to Indonesia.

With Iran supporting groups with a Shia agenda, Saudi Arabia felt the need in turn to support the Sunnis and so propagated their form of Hanafi, Wahhabism, as the true faith.  However, neither side is particularly focused on fighting each other. They also have their own internal struggles to contend with, but sectarian violence does appear more common where a minority rules over a majority. In Saddam’s time in Iraq, a Sunni minority ruled over a Shia majority, this has since been reversed. The Assad regime relies on the Shia Alawis to retain power in Sunni Syria and in Bahrain a Sunni Royal family rules over Shia subjects.

Sunnis and Shias agree on the Five Pillars of Islam: confessing Allah as God and Mohamed as his messenger; daily prayers; giving to the poor; fasting at Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca. The main differences arise in the interpretation of Sharia (Islamic Law). Shias believe God provides a guide through the Imams, Ayatollahs and Maraji (religious schools). Sunis use the Koran and the traditions of Mohamed, and are constrained by legal precedent. Sunni jurisprudence has 4 divisions, the Hanafi and Shafii have their main centres in the Levant, Egypt and Indonesia, the Maliki in North Africa and Sudan and the Hanbali in Saudia Arabia

It is interesting to compare Sunni Al-Qaeda and Shia Hezbollah; neither stress their sectarianism, but rather their anti-imperialism, especially against the US and Israel. But Hezbollah is now part of the Lebanese political establishment, while Al-Qaeda continues to operate through clandestine networks. In Syria, Sunni fighters join groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic Front or Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front against Bashir Assad, while the Shia enlist in the Syrian National Defence Force supported by Hezbollah  and Asaib Ahl al-Haq to defend the Syrian regime. The Sunni group ISIS came out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and established itself in Northern Iraq and Eastern Syria. It defied Al-Qaeda’s High Command concerning its transborder presence and its extremism so was expelled from it, renaming itself IS and proclaimed its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as Caliph.

Both groups use satellite TV and the Internet in their propaganda war to demonise each other. Sunni extremists use social media to help with recruitment, easier than having to infiltrate mosques; Shias are generally recruited directly by the State in Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Saudi Arabia supplies financial support to the Sunni rebels in Syria while Iran props up the Syrian regime both financially and with military manpower.

As usual with sectarian conflict there is always a human cost. In this case another humanitarian crisis has emerged with the displacement of over 3 million traumatised and impoverished refugees. They are seeking refuge in already cash-strapped and pressured countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kurdistan and Turkey

 

 

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 21^st 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.