Global Studies Presentation

No pictures today and I still haven't caught up on our activities in Rio on the blog.  However, I am going to post something if you don't mind.

I was asked for the third time to be part of the Global Studies course.  Previously, I spoke on the African religious context; then, I co-presented with Professor Andrea Smith on the Dirty War in Argentina.  Today, I was part of a panel that addressed "justice and human rights" reflecting on things we have learned on the journey that inspire us.   We watched a short video on the UNs Universal Declaration on Human Rights then Professors Kay Slaughter (Environmental Studies), Elizabeth Manning (Political Science), and I, along with one student and Lisa Slavid, Dean of Students offered 5 minute reflections on what we've seen that we will take home with us.

Here's what I said (more or less):

There are two significant things that have inspired me on the journey.

 

The first was the work of the Cape Town Interfaith center led by Anglican Father John Oliver.   I took one of my world religions classes on a field lab there and Father Oliver took us to a Muslim Mosque, a Hare Krishna center, a Pentecostal Church in a township, and another traditional Hindu Temple.

What my students commented on frequently in their reports on the experience was the obvious friendship among the various religious leaders who met with us during.  There was a genuine warmth that went visibly beyond mere tolerance.  

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights affirms that a person's equal status may not be affected by their religious affiliation and that all have freedom of conscience and religion.   But what we observed in Cape Town suggests to me that a true end to competition and even outright hostility between religious groups  ASEultimately depends upon the sort of friendship we saw displayed in Cape Town.

I'm part of an Interfaith Group in the Northern Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, but I don't think anyone who observed my interactions with the group would probably notice the sort of warmth we saw in Cape Town and I want to change that. 

The second thing that has inspired me is what I saw among leaders in the Human Rights movements in Argentina.  They came into existence in response to the kidnapping, torture, and disappearances that occurred under the military dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s. 

I had wondered what they are doing now that a stable democracy has emerged and state terrorism no longer exists.  What I was pleased to discover was that many in these movements have expanded their vision for human rights.

Let me cite two examples.  The ecumenical movement for human rights has now made things like same-sex marriage, and women's equality before the law, abortion rights, and even environmental issues a part of their agenda.

And I had the good fortune of having dinner with an 84 year old bishop emeritus from the Methodist Church in Argentina who had just returned to BA from the northwest of Argentina where, in his capacity as co-President of the permanent Assembly for Human Rights in Argentina, he had helped 800 indigenous families gain legal title to land for the first time.

All this suggests to me that while it is important to have a particular cause to which one is devoted, and very often people become engaged with justice issues because some particular narrow issue is particularly compelling for them, it is important to maintain a broad vision of human rights and of justice.

I do want to conclude my remarks going in a somewhat different direction however.   As inspired as I have been by the two examples I have given here, I have to say that I think I will go away from this trip mostly discouraged.

For all the progress I'm seeing around the Atlantic with respect to democratic respect for political disagreement, racial justice, gender justice, justice as it relates to sexual orientation, respect for religious difference, etc.  it seems to be the world is doing woefully bad in what I think is the number one justice issues and that is poverty.  Half the world's population lives on less than $2 a day more or less and in a world in which there are adequate resources and adequate current productive capacity to feed, house, educate, and provide health care for every human being, that is unacceptable.   I think we have bought into a myth that the only way to improve the prospect for the poor is an ever-growing economy.  But the truth is the earth will not sustain an ever-growing economy and we already produce enough for all to have all they need and more.

And while I celebrate the emergence of democracy around the Third World, it seems to me that it is a version of democracy sponsored by the United States that largely draws a boundary between political and economic power and refuses to allow the democratization of economic power.   The truth as I see it is that the economic power concentrated in a global elite and in transnational corporations has kidnapped our democracy, made it a tortuous exercise in arguing about secondary issues, while the concentration of economic resources and power in a few hands guarantees that millions disappear prematurely into graveyards every day.

Let me try to turn this in an inspiration:  I'm going home more inspired to commit myself to campaign finance reform and to challenging every politician who asks me "Are you better off than you were four years ago."  I'm going to respond, "I don't need to be better off , the earth cannot sustain our being better off, and I'm not voting based on whether I'm better off. "

 I challenge all of us to require that our politicians make poverty a priority, in the United States and around the world.