wfn.org | WCC - Good news to the poor?

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Press Feature, Feat-01-11
For Immediate Use
16 August 2001

Good news to the poor?

cf. WCC Press Release, PR-01-27, of 9 August 2001

The WCC was mandated by its 1998 assembly in Zimbabwe to take up
the challenge of globalization as a central part of the
ecumenical agenda. Since then, the WCC has been working to
promote better understanding of the impact of economic
globalization and to provide an ecumenical platfom to respond to
its consequences. It is also preparing for two upcoming global
events: a UN Financing for Development (FFD) Summit in March 2002
in Mexico, and a September 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.   

A series of regional consultations on economic globalization are
part of this effort. The first, on "Globalization and Status
Confessionis", was jointly organized by the WCC and the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) in Bangkok in 1998. A second
consultation on "Globalization in Central and Eastern Europe -
Responses to the ecological, economic and social consequences"
took place in Budapest in June under the joint sponsorship of the
WCC, the WARC, the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the
European Area Committee of WARC (EAC). The theme of the present
global consultation taking place in Nandi, Fiji, from 12-17
August, is "Economic Globalization: The Island of Hope". More
regional meetings are planned for Western Europe, Latin America,
Africa and North America in 2002 and 2003.  

This article from the Fiji meeting will be followed by three
interviews of participants and a final wrap-up story. The
interviews will be available in English only. Those interested in
receiving the interviews should contact the WCC media relations
office (see e-mail address below).  

People from over thirty countries from every region of the world
are meeting in the warmth and beauty of Fiji. The conviction they
share is the need to find alternatives to economic globalization.
Each of them admits to the presence of globalization in their
lives in its many forms. But each has stories of the negative
effects of the economic expressions of globalization: increased
poverty instead of economic growth, exclusion and hardship,
decisions in the hands of fewer people, and those decisions
pushing more and more people to the edges of their own society. 

Of course it's not a new debate. It has raged in the streets
outside World Bank, IMF and G8 meetings; it has occupied research
institutes and taxed the wisdom of the intellectuals. It has also
provoked deep concern from communities of faith.  

Why must there be winners and losers? Why must competition be
the preferred engine to prosperity rather than cooperation? Why
must domination be the characteristic of the world economy and
not solidarity? Why is there such seeming indifference to the
fate of the poor instead of compassion for them? How did this
race begin and where will it drive us?  

The World Council of Churches (WCC), working with the Pacific
Conference of Churches (PCC), called these people together and
invited them to  "Tell us your story. But in your story let there
be the seeds of new beginnings and new ways of living."  The fact
that their stories are so similar has surprised the participants.
They find that there is little need for debate about the
increasingly perilous economic situation for millions of people
throughout the world. But they are acutely aware that there is
much to be thought through and discussed on strategies that will
bring change and restore security and human dignity to those who
have been marginalized.  

"One of the ecumenical movement's mandates is to be in
solidarity with the poor; a clear response to the great
commission given us by Jesus Christ to preach the good news to
the poor, the good news that sets the captives free and proclaims
the year of the Lord," says Dr Agnes Abuom from Kenya, one of the
presidents of the WCC. "Wherever forces of darkness, of death,
have threatened life, the ecumenical movement has stood up to
condemn, to speak and act against. In this particular moment, one
of the manifestations of the forces of death to humanity, to life
in its wholeness, is precisely the way economic management is
being undertaken globally," she says.  

Good news to the poor? US president George W. Bush obviously
thinks that economic globalization is that. In a recent speech to
the World Bank he said, "Trade is good for the poor and
(therefore) those who are against trade liberalization are no
friend to the poor." The voices at the Fiji consultation do not
agree. In large economies, small farmers are squeezed out. What
they once produced for their home market is now imported. In
Kenya, raw coffee beans were profitably exported, but since they
began to process the coffee beans, the markets of the North have
been closed to them because of impossibly high tariffs. Such
examples of economic injustice are many. Human labour is becoming
cheaper and abused; small businesses buckle under the pressure of
multinational exploitation.  

"We believe in a faith which affirms life. Our faith will not
allow us to stand by as people are destroyed, abused or
manipulated," says Abuom. "The WCC can bring people together at
all levels - global, regional and local - just as it has done
here in Fiji. We have a particular analysis which other parts of
civil society may not be able to articulate so clearly. The WCC,
along with other faith communities, brings its ethical insights,
a focus on the spiritual dimension of life which has been
constantly negated. If you have watched the civil society
protests of recent years, they have talked about life but they
have not talked about the spiritual resources of people, the
ethical questions. One of the major contributions of the
ecumenical movement, including the WCC, is to raise these
questions."  

At the Fiji meeting, people from both the Pacific and Africa
describe their key communitarian values - like justice,
participation and solidarity - as part of the alternatives to the
values that drive economic globalization.  

In Africa, the World Bank especially has been seeking dialogue
with the churches, speaking of partnerships and working together.
For Abuom, such invitations bring new challenges. "Of course we
have to build bridges with them. Dialogue is important. But they
must know where we are coming from. We are people of faith. This
gives us hope for a better future, but it also makes us strong
enough to break the doors open so that the voices of all those
who have become the victims of other people's greed or prosperity
can be heard and respected," she says.  

For further information, please contact Media Relations Office,
Tel: (+41.22) 791.61.53

**********
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches,
now 342, in more than 100 countries in all continents from
virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is
not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The
highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately
every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general
secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

World Council of Churches
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