Skip to main content

On the Kindle

I am currently kindling 'Journey toward Justice : Personal Encounters in the Global South' by Nicholas P. Wolterstorff. The greatest moral philosopher alive today. What he observes about injustice in Honduras is fascinating:
"..It is commonly said that the failure of Honduran officials to deal with crime against the poor is due to corruption—graft and bribery...Though there are indeed corrupt officials, the fundamental problem is not corruption but fear and a pervasive lack of trust. Poor people do not trust the police, the judicial system, or the bureaucracy. The police do not trust the prosecutors; the prosecutors do not trust the police. The result is that the poor are afraid to take action when they are the victims of crime or illegal treatment; they fear that if they file a report with the police or some government official, the person or organization that wronged them will retaliate. The police and prosecutors likewise fear that they will be the victims of retaliation if they take action. There is plenty of evidence that these fears are warranted. What I saw, more clearly than ever before, is that justice in ALL its forms is impossible in the midst of pervasive fear and distrust.

A missionary with whom I talked described the Hondurans as the most passive people he had ever encountered; he had previously worked in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. By the end of my visit I concluded that describing the Hondurans as passive is not on target. Nor is it correct to describe them as simply accepting the wrongs done to them. Though they put up with them, they do not cease to say, “This should not be.” Better to describe them as believing that, because government cannot be trusted, there’s nothing to be done in bringing to justice those who have wronged them.."
(Source : Journey toward Justice)

That last sentence in the first paragraph is worth reading twice. It says "justice in all its forms is impossible in the midst of pervasive fear and distrust". There cannot be economic, political, social or criminal justice in a climate of fear. This climate means that they cannot demand basic rights or hold supposedly elected leaders accountable. And where there is a fearful climate people will not reach their full social and economic potential. 

The observation has strong resonance with much of Africa, and in my own country Zambia. At the root of Zambia's poverty is a poverty of power. The poor are powerless to change things. Wolterstorff's observation from Honduras seems to suggest that it is not just powerlessness, it is also simply due to fear. It is not that the people are cowards or docile. It is just that the where trust does not exist each one looks after number one. So no one sacrifices for anybody because the cost is too great.

Question:

What book are you reading this week? And what insights have you picked up so far? Please share!


Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2013

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I Am Mother

I think it is true to say that the Netflix film I Am Mother is one the most disturbing movies I have watched for a long time. The film is set in a near future. Human life has been wiped out. An artificial intelligence (AI) called Mother is living inside a bunker where thousands of embroyos are stored. It selects an embryo and initiates a program to grow a baby within 24 hours. The AI then goes on to raise the child as its mother over the next few years.  After 16 years, the girl, who now goes by the name of Daughter (Clara Rugaard) is a teenager. She has never been outside because Mother has told her that the air is toxic. Her time is spend being home schooled in science and ethics so that she can become a perfect human being. The bond between Daughter and Mother is unusually strong. To our surprise there does not appear to be any mental or pyschological trauma of having a machine as her mother.  The strength of the bond between man and machine is tested when a nameless Woman (Hilary

What is the best preparation for preaching?

The best preparation is not to be too anxious about it. Anxious care hinders liveliness and efficacy. It leads to too little dependence on the Spirit. Be not didactic. Aim at the conscience as soldiers aim at the faces. Consider I may be preaching my last sermon. This leads to setting forth Christ as The Way, the Truth and the Life . .. Make Christ the prominent figure…Pay less attention to dear self. JOHN NEWTON

White Fragility, A Review

Robin DiAngelo has a sermon to preach. It is in form of a short popular book called White Fragilit y. Straight off the bat she tells us not to expect balanced analysis but a forceful argument “unapologetically rooted in identity politics”.  She understands identity politics as “the [political] focus on the barriers specific groups face in their struggle for equality”. The group she wants to save is black people, whom she blankets under “people of colour”.  So what is White Fragility about?  DiAngelo is sick and tired of white racism in the western world, and specifically the USA. She believes every white person, including babies, are guilty of racism by virtue of being white. So she wants to use her “insider status” as a white American woman to challenge this white racism by getting her fellow “white progressives” to force forward her thesis. In her words, “I am white...and I am mainly writing to a white audience”. I was immediately tempted to put down the book because being black Afri