Who profits from the Asia bailouts?
Economic Justice
Jim Wallis 1-01-1998
Several notes and e-mails commented on the mention of my then wife-to-be in my column last month.
Duane Shank, Carol Fennelly 1-01-1998
How will your community participate in the second annual "Pentecost to Overcome Poverty"?
Charles Villa-Vicencio 8-01-1988
What is happening in South Africa is not just a conflict between church on the one hand and state on the other. There is a conflict within the church between those reactionary forces that continue to seek to domesticate the church and those forces within the church, represented by people such as Desmond and Allan and Frank, who are affirming the radical gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a struggle for the soul of the church.
It is very important to ask, if Desmond and Allan and Frank do not represent the entire church, as P.W. Botha charges, why is it that they are perceived as such a significant danger to the status quo and to the state? I believe P.W. Botha is absolutely right when he says they are a danger to the state--for three reasons.
First, they are articulating a message that is instinctively understood and responded to by the majority of the oppressed people, who make up the majority of the church. They recognize that message to be, in fact, the message of the residual gospel of liberation which has been suppressed for so long within the life of the church. It's the gospel they read about in the New Testament, even if it's not proclaimed within their pulpits.
Second, what we are experiencing within the life of the church today is an organization, a mobilization, of the church of the poor and the oppressed in a way that we've never seen before. For the first time in South Africa, there is an overt and explicit attempt, by recognized church leaders to mobilize the oppressed within the churches to be on the side of the broad liberation struggle.
Allan A. Boesak 8-01-1988
Allan Boesak, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and moderator of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in South Africa when this article appeared, was interviewed in his home outside Cape Town.
Jim Wallis: You have said that you received a great deal of nurture from your family, your home, and your church. How did these lay a foundation for you in your early years?
Allan Boesak: The family is the basis of all, I think. I was 7 years old when my father died. That was too soon, I thought. I still think so. After that my mother took the responsibility in almost every way.
Also the church has always played a very important role. I was very lucky to be the second youngest of eight children in a home where we had daily Bible readings and prayer. And we got to really know the Bible, and we would talk about the biblical stories and the meaning of faith.
We have always believed that the Bible is a basic source of strength and comfort for the whole family. And when you're really poor, then the biblical story is not just another story. When it is applied to your life, often in the very powerful way that it was in our lives, it becomes very, very meaningful; in fact, one of the very few meaningful things in your life.
Danny Duncan Collum 8-01-1988
Solidarity is back. That was the message from Poland this spring. For seven years after the December 1981 imposition of martial law, Poland's independent labor movement survived as a clandestine organization. And despite its low public profile, it survived as the symbol of Polish society's material, democratic, and nationalistic aspirations. It has continued to represent what Poles call "the civil society" in its confrontation with an oppressive and unpopular state.
In 1987 Solidarity began to emerge from the underground and work openly to challenge the state-controlled unions at the shop-floor level. Last November Solidarity called upon Poles to boycott a referendum on economic reform. The boycott resulted in the first electoral defeat ever acknowledged by a Communist state and confirmed Solidarity's prestige in Polish society.
This spring Solidarity was again at the forefront of world attention with a wave of strikes around the country demanding wage increases and relegalization of the independent labor movement. As it was when Solidarity was born eight years ago this month, the Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk was at the forefront of the struggle this spring, and once again Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa was in the occupied shipyard hatching strategy and raising spirits.
The news reports had an aura of deja vu. But a lot has changed in eight years. This time the band of workers occupying the Lenin Shipyard was much smaller and mostly very young. In 1980 the Polish authorities were afraid to use force against the strikers. This spring riot police and a so-called anti-terrorism unit recaptured a Krakow steel plant with clubs and percussion grenades.
Jim Wallis, Joyce Hollyday 8-01-1988
South Africa. Just to say the name conjures up vivid images and strong feelings. It is a land of such pain and promise. And yet one has to wonder if South Africa is really so unique. Or is this tortured country a stark and illuminating parable of the rest of the world—a place where the issues, divisions, and critical choices facing us all are displayed in sharp relief?
For years we had hoped and prayed to go to South Africa, but we couldn't find a way. Then last spring, unexpectedly, a way opened up for us.
We went to South Africa at the long-standing invitation of Allan Boesak. We were hosted throughout the country principally by the country's black church leadership. That perspective is therefore strongly reflected in these pages.
The issues at stake in South Africa are quite simple and at the same time very complicated. We recognize that to write about them is a risky thing. Our 40-day sojourn had both the personally transforming power of an in-depth experience and all the limitations of a brief stay. While we were treated as friends, we remain outsiders like anyone who does not walk in the shoes of those who must carry on the struggle every day.
Our days were full, intense, and rich in both the breadth and depth of contact with people and events—a rare opportunity. Yet the report we offer is just that—a report on what we saw, heard, did, and felt-and cannot pretend to be a comprehensive analysis. The church leaders themselves, interviewed in depth on these pages, provide the best background, analysis, and vision for the future.
David A. Wade, Desmond Tutu 8-01-1988
Desmond Tutu, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize when this article appeared, was interviewed at his home in Bishopscourt outside Cape Town.
Jim Wallis: We would very much like to hear your perspective on what people speak of as the new era for the church in South Africa, the new level in the struggle against apartheid as the church moves to the front lines.
Desmond Tutu: In many ways the church—perhaps less spectacularly in the past—has been involved in this struggle for some time. Church people have been responsible for bringing the Namibian issue [South Africa's illegal occupation of neighboring Namibia] before the United Nations. And they have brought the plight of squatters very much to the fore.
For instance, the church was involved over the issue of forced population removals, particularly in Mogopa, one of the villages that the government "moved." The South African Council of Churches, with a number of church leaders, was there. We went and stood with the people to try to support them at a time when they were under threat.
Perhaps the government had not yet learned how to be thoroughly repressive so that the church did not need, in many ways, to be quite so spectacular. There were other avenues available for people, avenues that were more explicitly political.
What is different, perhaps, now is that the government has progressively eliminated most of the other organizations which legitimately could have been around to articulate the people's concern. And their repression has intensified. They have chosen the military option.