When this article appeared, Dom Helder was Archbishop of Recife Olinda, Brazil. His witness of simplicity, identification with the poor, and nonviolence has made him known throughout the world. On a visit to the U.S., he addressed this message to Americans.
Is the so-called free world really free? When you became upset with Russian or Chinese expansion, are you really concerned about saving freedom? Or are you more concerned about saving a system which has been beneficial to you and which you have adopted?
The system which you have adopted seems to you anti-totalitarian and indispensable for saving human dignity and freedom. How do you explain to yourself then that this system has not been able to eliminate huge pockets of poverty and misery within your own country? You know well that it is possible to write a geography of hunger within the United States of America.
Before the absurd and unjustifiable reality of two-thirds of humanity living in a sub-human condition, you are forced to recognize that the problem of problems is not the confrontation between East and West but the inequality between the northern and southern hemispheres.
Do not try to fool yourselves into saying that you don’t need help from outside and that you can return to the tranquility of isolationism. The injustices that need to be redressed are too many and too serious. There is, for example, the injustice of so-called aid-for-development being accompanied by the international political takeover of trade in raw materials.
Beyond the necessity of correcting injustices on a global scale, and beyond your obligation of not leaving the field to Communist totalitarianism, you have an additional obligation to combat totalitarianism close to home. This totalitarianism does not derive its origin from you. However, it was born and nourished by your complacency and by the encouragement of your government. We are well aware that even though the multinational corporations are already installing themselves in Russia (and will, before long, install themselves in China) they are nevertheless logical outgrowths for the consumer society. We are also well aware that the multinational corporations today are stronger than the most powerful states because they master and control technology. They manipulate easily the powerful means of social communication. They infiltrate the various organs of government. They attract influential military personnel, in turn giving them access to the military world -- and then some. They control powerful intelligence services. They are completely amoral.
Look closely at yourselves. You will discover the paradox that while fighting the multinationals internally you place no restraints on them externally. It is especially in the countries that produce raw materials that these companies reveal themselves as they really are. You support these companies externally in the name of defense of private enterprise and the defense of the interests tied to them.
I know that to raise doubts about the value of multinational corporations is already to engage in polemics. Yet it is even more polemical -- and nevertheless a question of conscience -- to raise the most serious doubts about a theory grounded in a most legitimate concern: that is, national security. What may appear to be strange at first hearing, and perhaps even absurd, will become clear and rational with enough calm and foresight. I speak to you as a pastor who feels an obligation to give a warning cry. Now there is an instinct for defense and security for communities as well as for individuals. But in the name of truth, I must alert you to a new specter covering Latin America, threatening its very identity. This is the specter of national security in the name of anti-communism.
Many Latin Americans were at the side of those who fought against Nazism. But now, in the fight against communism, national security is reviving that same nazism. Regimes in Latin America tend to place themselves above and outside the law which then absolutizes and deifies those very regimes. In the fight against communist totalitarianism, they do not hesitate to utilize methods that are completely nazi. These methods include invasion of the most fundamental privacy, a climate of suspicion and denunciation, kidnapings, torture, death, defense of private property without even a minimal concern to extend private property rights for all. Political sensitization and organization have become debased, permitting the governments wholesale manipulation of peoples. Any political organization or legitimate process of raising social awareness outside of government control is considered to be subversion or communism. Universities are totally controlled as is the whole system of education. Trade unions and cooperatives are manipulated, political parties have no autonomy. Thus, the parliamentary system and democratic processes are paralyzed. While there is a concern for maintaining the appearances of democracy, the content and meaning of democracy have been stifled.
Where is our creative imagination? Can it be that the way to fight communist totalitarianism is by awakening and unleashing a new form of nazi totalitarianism?
The liberation from all totalitarianisms will not come by the use of totalitarianism! The liberations from all empires will not come from the extension of an empire. The liberation of the oppressed and those suffering injustice will come from the small, the weak, the poor.
I never tire of repeating that in all countries, in all races, in all religions, in all human groups, there exist small but solid groups dedicated to the promotion of liberty and justice for all -- and not only for the privileged individuals or countries. For all!
Who made these groups to spring up throughout the world, in the North and in the South, in the West and in the East? Some individual? Some institution? Only the Spirit of God was able to make this happen!
And the God of love, without a hint of hate, the God of the humble, with only poor resources, will use these weak instruments to raise up a union of the dispossessed from rich and poor countries. For there is an overwhelming hunger for justice as the supreme condition for peace.
The God of the weak, of the small, of the poor, will work the marvel of making force give way to weakness. Humanity is tired of wars, of racism, of hate, of the excess of so-called “progress” which suffocates life.
Humanity is beginning to understand, and will come to understand more fully, that liberty and justice will truly exist only when it exists for all.
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