Quarterly Bulletin

“Why do you church people speak out on all these socio-economic issues?  Where do you get all your leftist ideas?  Aren’t you over-stepping what should be your real business of saving souls?”

These seem to be the critical questions of some people here in Zambia when they read the pastoral letters of our church leaders, or look at the CCJP statements on the budget, or study the monthly “Basic Needs Basket” of the JCTR. 

I’ve heard these questions expressed many times in recent years, as the churches and faith-based organisations relate with clear analytical examination and strong moral force to the situations in Zambia.  Zambia, a country of very rich resources and very poor people….

I thought of this recently when engaged in some friendly dialogue with officials of a visiting mission of an international development agency.  Whereas these officials were focusing so strongly on what they considered promising macro-economic indicators of “economic growth” in Zambia, my colleagues and I kept returning to what we saw as discouraging micro-social indicators of “dehumanising poverty” in Zambia.  I came away from the conversation a bit disturbed!

POWER OF SOCIAL TEACHING

So I think it is a fair challenge to ask what it is that guides the social justice drive of the church.  Obviously, it is first and foremost the daily contact that the church has with the people, especially with the two-thirds of the people of Zambia who live seriously impoverished lives.  These people are members of our churches and the suffering of these people is the concern of our churches.

But there is another great force that pushes the churches into social activism on behalf of the poor in this country.  That is the rich wisdom of what we call the “church’s social teaching” (CST). 

Bible-based and theologically-nuanced, this CST provides a framework for judging social situations and motivating action to remedy injustices.  We have seen wonderful examples of this CST in the pastoral letters of the church leaders of Zambia over the years, many of these letters being ecumenical productions.

Recently I’ve been thinking much about the significance of the CST to our current socio-economic and political situation in Zambia because this year is the fortieth anniversary of the publication of one of the greatest and most influential of the CST documents in recent times.  This is the pastoral letter (called an “encyclical”) of Pope Paul VI, entitled The Progress of Peoples.  I was excited and encouraged to re-read that document – particularly after my disturbing conversation with those “development experts” referred to above!

The Progress of Peoples (PP) was released just three years after Zambia’s independence.  But its message is so very relevant to the current scene in Zambia today that I don’t hesitate to lift it up for consideration today.  Let me mention just three key lessons among many that would have a profound impact on the future of this country if we followed them seriously.

PEOPLE-CENTRED DEVELOPMENT

The first is the clear definition of exactly what “development” means.  PP came out almost three decades before the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) began challenging the orthodox view of development with its highly respected “Human Development Index.”  According to Pope Paul VI (who was influenced by some of the best economic thinkers of his day), authentic development is “for each and all the transition from less human conditions to those which are more human,” since the aspirations of all women and men, especially those who live now in poverty and misery, is “to seek to do more, know more and have more in order to be more.”  “To be more” – yes, to be more human!

Development simply cannot be reduced to economic growth or wealth creation.  These can be helpful along the way but can never be the measurement of true development.  For development, in order to be authentic and lasting, “must be complete: integral, that is, it has to promote the good of every person and of the whole person.”  It must be people-centred or it is not desirable or sustainable. And it  must be ecologically sensitive.  All those fancy economic statistics going up are meaningless unless the people’s full living conditions are also going up!

Now you can understand why the church organisations in Zambia – and so many like-minded NGOs – constantly speak about a “people-centred budget” or call for greater commitment to social services such as health and education, or demand more effective and equitable  attention to eradicating poverty.  We simply have a very clear and compelling vision, from our CST, of what development means – and we won’t be quiet about that!

REJECTION OF NEO-LIBERALISM

A second and allied teaching from The Progress of Peoples is the strong – indeed, the radical – rejection of the “neo-liberal” model of the economy.  Listen to these words:  “It is unfortunate that on these new conditions of society a system has been constructed which considers profit as the key motive for economic progress, competition as the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation.”  Remember, this is a Catholic pope not a Marxist revolutionary who is speaking!

Zambians know what “neo-liberalism” means as we have experienced the most rigid, most rapid and most radical imposition of that model in the infamous Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the past two decades.  Just read that quotation above again, and think of the current debate about the consequences of the secret agreements relating to the privatisation of the copper mines. 

At this very moment, the church’s cry for renegotiating those secret agreements so that the profits of exploitation of Zambia’s wealth more fairly benefit the Zambian people comes out of a reflection on this central lesson of the CST found in The Progress of Peoples : “the economy is at the service of the human.”  The document speaks radically and truly that “a type of capitalism has been the source of excessive suffering, injustices and fratricidal conflicts.”  So we shouldn’t be accused of wanting to go back to the “bad old days” of socialism in Zambia if we speak sharply against the “bad new days” of capitalism in Zambia!

NOT FREE TRADE BUT FAIR TRADE

A third strong lesson from the CST of The Progress of Peoples  is very relevant right now in relating to the issue of trade and the demands placed on Zambia and other developing countries by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the European Union (EU) and other trading partners. 

Though written forty years ago, the document reads as if it were written today in its sharp analyses of the inherited patterns of injustice in trading relationships (often rooted in a colonial inheritance), the unreality of “free trade” regimes among nations of excessive inequalities of economic power, the unfairness of agricultural subsidies in rich countries, the need to go beyond mere market considerations if poor countries are to move forward.  

“Freedom of trade is fair,” Paul VI states bluntly, “only if it is subject to the demands of social justice.”  And this explains the church’s strong calls right now in Zambia about the “development” content of the Doha arrangements of the WTO and about the “impact on the poor” of the EU’s push for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). 

ADVOCACY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

“Why do you church people speak out on all these socio-economic issues?  Where do you get all your leftist ideas?”  Well, I hope that these few reflections prompted by the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of The Progress of Peoples provide some answers to these challenges. 

What development means for the church is human improvement in every aspect of life and community, including the community of creation of which we are members.  And we will continue to have our say and promote our advocacy on whether policies of government, business, multi-lateral and bi-lateral organisations meet that all-important definition!  

Peter J. Henriot, S.J.
JCTR
Lusaka

JCTR Mission Statement
The mission of the JCTR is to foster from a faith-inspired perspective a critical understanding of current issues. Guided by the Church’s Social Teaching that emphasises human dignity in community, our mission is to generate activities for the promotion of the fullness of human life through research, education, advocacy and consultation. Cooperating widely with the other groups, our Jesuit sponsorship directs us to a special concern for the poor and assures an international linkage to our efforts. We aim to promote an inculturated faith, gender equality, and empowerment of local communities in the work of justice and peace and the integrity of creation.