wfn.org | ALC Noticias 31 Jan 2005 Ecuador Brazil Nicaragua

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

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CONTENT

ECUADOR: Pastors comment on International Transparency Report
NICARAGUA: Violence in the media concerns Evangelicals
BRAZIL: Theological forum points out challenges to Churches and religions
BRAZIL: Communication forum proposes alternatives
BRAZIL: In the consumer society we are always clients and not human beings,
affirmed economist

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ECUADOR
Pastors comment on International Transparency Report

By Manuel Quintero

QUITO, January	28 (alc). Church leaders commented on a recent report from
Transparency International, based in Germany, which places Latin America
among the most corrupt regions in the world.

According to the so-called 2004 Global Corruption Barometer, Latin American
politicians are among the worst. The Barometer is based on surveys carried
out in 64 countries around the world and polls more than 50,000 people.
Those polled are asked about how certain institutions (politicians,
legislators, police, among others) are affected by corruption.

According to its citizens, Ecuador has the most corrupt politicians in Latin
America. On a scale of one to five, with five marking extreme corruption,
Ecuador scored 4.9 points, followed by Argentina and Peru with 4.6.

However, according to Abelardo Schvindt, executive secretary of the
Evangelical Reform Church of the River Plate (IERP), the Transparency
International report is biased.

In a globalized world, and above all given Latin America's history, it is
not enough to demonstrate corruption with a point system, he said.

The Transparency International report is barely one side of the coin and it
is worth asking whether or not this type of report is beneficial and whether
corruption can be seen isolated from the history that has both promoted and
generated it, said Pastor Schvindt.

In Argentina, he added "we cannot reduce corruption to a single crime of
'influence peddling' in the current government as corruption is not only
related to economics and policies. It has to do with other agents and
individuals as well as situations and circumstances and is a much more
complex issue that spans every level of life," he said.

While it is correct to point out the corruption in the political, military
and police power it is also necessary to address people's basic attitudes,
he said.

"From the bribe we pay to avoid a traffic ticket to jumping the line in the
hospital because we are friends with the head nurse, or paying the customs
officials to allow us to bring in an elephant. Not to mention those who
adulterate their balance books or add earning that are, as Scripture says,
unjust," he said.

Pastor Estuardo Lopez, president of the Ecuadorian Evangelical
Confraternity, shares this view. According to Lopez, corruption is not
limited to government circles and economic and political power, but to
average citizens who participate in acts of corruption seeking personal
advantages. "There is a generalized culture of corruption throughout the
country," he affirmed.

Lopez underlined that the Confraternity has impelled a series of activities
to expose the reality of corruption in the country and to challenge the
Church and society to adopt a "new life style, a life style based on the
values of the Gospel."

"Now that Evangelical Churches have grown and have the possibility of being
heard, we must be the salt and light in society, to battle the spirit of
materialism, which is one of the causes of corruption and propose a spirit
of service and solidarity with the neediest," said the CEC president.

Schvindt, for his part, believes that Churches themselves "are not free from
suspicion when we talk about corruption and the exercise of power. For this
reason we must work for full transparency both within the Churches as in the
interior of our societies."

We must denounce what we see and announce who we are. From there we must
construct a critical relationship with culture and society, aimed at life
together that is based on building a common project of life. Because
corruption, he concluded, kills and generates death, he said.

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NICARAGUA
Violence in the media concerns Evangelicals

By Trinidad Vásquez

MANAGUA, January 27 (alc).  Four television stations and several radio
stations, such as Radio Ya, are embroiled in a dispute to hike their ratings
and each day offer their audiences a breakfast of news stories that reflect
violence, said Pastor Felix Ruiz, of the Baptist Convention of Nicaragua.

Pastor William Gonzalez, president of the Nicaraguan Evangelical Martin
Luther King University notes that violence has its roots in the loss of
moral, spiritual and ethical values but that current television programs do
nothing to control it but rather seek to increase it.

Marcelino Basset, of the Evangelical Faculty of Theological Studies (FEET)
added that he rejects these programs that disseminate this type of news
because they contribute nothing to the nation's stability.

The Ministry of Education, authorities and parents should take measures to
offset this wave of violence in the media that is traumatizing a society
that wants tranquility, said Basset.

For his part, Apostolic Church pastor and psychologist Eduardo Izaguirre
said that the population is suffering from a syndrome of intra-family
violence and no-one can predict what will happen in the future if violence
continues to be promoted. He also called on Evangelical Churches to raise
their voices in the face of such a dangerous theme.

Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, at the end of his Sunday sermon in the
Managua Cathedral said that this competition among radio and television to
transmit blood and violence, harms the people of Nicaragua, in particular
children and young people.

This concern about the promotion of violence in the media also worries
Vidaluz Meneses, leader of the Civil Coordinating Committee, who said that
this competition for blood means that the population is paying the
consequences of the free information market.

Marta Cabrera, Director of the Antonio Valdivieso Center said that this type
of news is promoted in countries where their basic problems are resolved,
where they are isolated incidents. However, in Nicaragua, we must make
everything good visible as there is a clear and enormous imbalance regarding
the image of good and bad.

Evenor Jerez, sub director of the Evangelical Pro Denominational Alliance
Council of Churches (CEPAD) said that this type of news twists the mentality
of children and young people and leads to negative behavior.

Pastor Walt Morgan, dean of the Baptist Theological seminal, said that the
transmission of bloody acts on television channels provokes insecurity among
the population.

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BRAZIL
Theological forum points out challenges to Churches and religions

By Micael Vier B.

PORTO ALEGRE, January 26 (ALC). The question of God, the emergence of
fundamentalisms and religious plurality in a globalized world are major
challenges to religions, said Lutheran Theologian Vitor Westehell, of the
Chicago Theological Faculty during the I World Forum on Theology and
Liberation (FMTL).

The Catholic Bishop of Jales, Sao Paulo, Demetrio Valentini, noted that
current reality emphasizes the importance of theology. He said that theology
that has no impact on reality and no social concerns is worthless.

The forum took place just before the World Social Forum which will run until
January 31. Some 200 theologians from around the world participated.

During the event, Mexican theologian Elsa Tamez condemned the feminization
of poverty around the world and the recent murders of women in Guatemala and
Mexico. What is the Church doing about this, she asked?

At the same time, the director of the Institute of Dialogue with Cultures
and Religions of Chennai, India, Jesuit Michael Amaladoss, condemned the use
of religion to justify repressive policies such as apartheid in South Africa
and the caste system in India.

Religions and ideologies should not be obstacles for collaboration among
humanity, he said. He noted that Hinduism went through a period of reform in
the face of the impact from Christianity in the XIX Century and said that
all religious should participate in building another possible world, as the
World Social Forum proclaims.

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BRAZIL
Communication forum proposes alternatives

By Edelberto Behs

PORTO ALEGRE, January 26 (ALC). The I World Information and Communication
Forum, which brought together some 300 journalists and communicators from
different countries proposed alternatives to change the current information
and communication system, dominated by the powerful.

During the forum, one of the events leading up to the World Social Forum
meeting until January 31, proposed the need to build a network of
journalists, a network of alternative media and a virtual journalism school.

The general secretary of Media Watch Global (MWG), Roberto Savio, noted the
difficult situation is not that different from what was observed 30 years
ago, when debates began about a New International Information and
Communication Order (NIICO). In reality, he said, there is an NIICO but it
prioritizes commerce as the foundation for information.

Given the current domination in media ownership, who decide what is
published, the creation of a virtual journalism school will make it possible
to form communicators for civilian society, based on their values and
concerns. This school would produce different journalists, he said.

Existing journalism schools teach people how to produce material that sells
and not what is needed for common good. For this reason, news is guided by
the law of the spectacle, by supply and demand and is not a true reflection
of reality, said the president of MWG and the daily Le Monde Diplomatique
Ignacio Ramonet.

According to Ramonet, communication media are currently the central problem
in democratic regimes. He said that we live under a system of informative
insecurity because we do not receive the necessary information and we do not
know if what we receive is true or false.

Italian Journalists Giulietto Chiesa and a member of the European parliament
affirmed that the main dailies and radio and television media instruct
journalists to lie.

Flavio Lotti, coordinator of the Peace Table, said that social communication
is a "battle field because the lords of war and the terrorist try to
disfigure reality." Professor Andrew Calabrese, of the University of
Colorado said that there is collusion between the press and the federal
government.

An analysis of 1,600 interviews published in North American media in the
three weeks following the war in Iraq demonstrated that 63 percent of the
interviews were with government civil or military officials.

In recent US elections nearly 60% of all voters were convinced that Hussein
had organized the tragic September 11 attacks, which is not true.

This meant that a "liar and assassin" was re-elected as president said
Chiesa. He added that without the "great dream factory" primarily
manipulated by the television, American-style globalization would not have
been possible. We need to invent a massive vaccination against TV, which is
the main obstacle for democracy, he said.

In the increasingly concentrated media world there is a loss of independence
in journalistic work as well a lack of citizen control, said Latin American
Information Agency representative Sally Burch.

Following the slogan of the World Social Forum, "Another World is Possible,"
the forum proclaimed "Another Communication is possible," but Uruguayan
journalist Esteban Valenti said that the slogan should be "Other
Communications Are possible."

The World Communication and Information Forum was sponsored by the World
Association of Community Radios (AMARC), the Brazilian Institute of Social
and Economic Analysis (IBASE), Inter Press Service, Le Monde Diplomatique,
Media Watch Global and Oxfam/Novib.

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BRAZIL
In the consumer society we are always clients and not human beings, affirmed
economist

PORTO ALEGRE, January 25 (alc). Fair treatment in commercial relations is a
Biblical principal, but the market distorts it when it offers efficient
services only to those who have buying power, warned economist Rogate
Mshana.

In his intervention in the forum on Theology and Liberation, which began
January 21 as a prelude to the World Social Forum here, Mshana noted that
one of the major challenges of the Church is to ensure that this buying
power is shared.

At the same time, South Korean theologian and professor from the Methodist
University of Sao Paulo, Jung Mo Sung said that capitalism, through the
market, took on the ability to satisfy desire, displacing love as a
mechanism to realize desire.

Theologian Mo Sung and Rogate Mshana, of Tanzania and executive of the World
Council of Church's Justice Peace and Creation program spoke before 200
theologians from around the world, convened by Latin American ecumenical
organizations.

Mshana said that the market could be compared to a race between lions,
tigers, frogs and turtles. When the rich compete with the poor the poor
always lose. For this reason it is necessary to protect the poor.

He warned that in modern society there are many things that should not be
commercialized, such as health, education, justice, dignity, respect, love
and grace. However, he noted that in the consumer society "we are always
clients and not human beings. For this reason, we struggle for commercial
contracts and not for social contracts, he said.

Author of the book "El sujeto y la sociedad compleja", Jung Mo Sung said
that thoelogy in the modern world is increasingly interested in Social
Sciences.

In the Middle Ages, he said, Cathedrals presented the images of saints that
the population admired as examples of goodness and wisdom. Currently he
said, can we present hegemonic companies as examples capable of orienting
human beings?

Currently, no one pays attention to the images of the saints. "Beckham,
Gisele Bündchen, Xuxa and Ronaldinho are the symbols that personify desire
today", he said.

The great lie of the contemporary world is the affirmation "wanting is
power." We want but we cannot and therefore we end up frustrated, he said.

Mo Sung emphasized that the theology of grace proclaims that people are who
they are, regardless of what they have. "We are before any social
difference. If a poor person is treated badly for being poor, then I am only
recognized because I have money and no for who I really am," he said.

In the consumer society "we are what we buy," he said. For this reason, Nike
does not only sell its products but a lifestyle and McDonalds is worth $68
billion and Coca Cola more than $40 billion, he said.
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