The Gospel and Globalization
by Brother David Andrews, CSC

In India, and many other countries around the world, rural people are heirs to centuries of shared knowledge about the curative uses of their many indigenous herbs and plants, such as turmeric and ginger. To them, this medicinal wisdom belongs to all. It's a worthy sentiment, but it sells poorly in the global marketplace. In the new order of intellectual property rights, international pharmaceutical firms are queuing up for exclusive patents on these new "products." Some wonder if the traditional herbal arts practiced in millions of households will soon mutate into anonymous transactions over the drugstore counter.

In Lima, Peru, Beni Serrano has risen from the ranks to become leader of the nation's comedores populares, or communal kitchens. This movement rallies together poor women who collectively cook and buy food to push down the cost of family meals. It also agitates politically for "food security" as an ingredient of the basic right to life. For this 46-year-old mother of three, it's a response of solidarity-to the suffering wrought by her country's arduous adjustment to the global marketplace.

In Zimbabwe, austerity, privatization, and deregulation have forced many rural fathers to take factory jobs in cities, leaving families behind. While there, it has become common for them also to take a "temporary wife. The fiscal retrenchment caused by the structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up school fees beyond the reach of many families. The story in Zimbabwe is one of families being shattered by drugs, prostitution, and suicide, after the older children drop out of their rural school and enter into the urban wasteland.

Several years ago, international relations scholar and consultant David Rothkopf writing in Foreign Affairs said the central objective of United States foreign policy should be to "win the battle of the world's information flows, dominating the airwaves as Great Britain once ruled the seas. In an effort to be polite or politic, Americans should not deny the fact that of all the nations in the history of the world, theirs is the most just, the most tolerant...and the best model for the future." One might call this our most recent version of "manifest destiny," this time its central symbolic motif has either Mickey Mouse ears, golden arches or the masthead of Monsanto.

It should be known that among the participants of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Seattle were many faith based non-governmental organizations. I met participants from the Quakers United Nations offices, the World Council of Churches Urban Rural Mission, the Vatican, to name a few. The same has been true of the World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

• When I attended a United Sates Department of Agriculture -sponsored listening session in preparation for the WTO held in Des Moines, Iowa, I learned first hand how the world of globalization has been structured for the powerful. The orchestration of the listening session in Des Moines reflected the attempted orchestration of the WTO, the WFS, and the WSSD. While giving some limited structural attention to democratic processes, the format made clear who was in charge, what the politically correct lines were, and gave a grudgingly acknowledged limited role for citizens. The session included state and U.S. government officials. These were the official listeners. They were on one side of the stage in the lights, with signs in front of each of them identifying their names and official positions; each had a microphone.
• On the other side of the stage, with five minutes each to speak, were three panels of four representatives of agribusiness: such as Monsanto, IBP, Pioneer HiBred. They each had a sign and a microphone in front of them, and were seated under the lights.
• In the audience were persons like myself, representatives of organizations that had long experience working on the issues and agenda of the WTO. We sat in the dark. Our names were listed on the handouts, but without designation clarifying who we represented. We had microphones placed on the floor in front of the stage in the dark. No light over our places to speak, and a limit of three minutes was to be observed.
• The voices of the government representatives and of corporations were the same: forcing Europe and Asia to accept biotechnology; forcing the rest of the world to remove any subsidy; getting rid of state market boards; pushing hormone beef on the Europeans; liberalizing trade everywhere to free markets from any so called "distortions." The challenges to these perspectives came from the "peanut gallery" of groups which took the time to be present in the room, but for whom the hosts provided little light and minimal identification. Insiders and outsiders were clearly distinguishable.

At some point, the outsiders were to have their say; their day came in Seattle.

Seattle marked a turning point in global solidarity. It provided a new opportunity for a new consciousness to be developed, one that places the human global and biotic community in its richness and diversity above economic forces that would destroy nature human cultures. Since Seattle, I have attended meetings with small farmers and environmental leaders from communities in a number of small countries.

Last March I travelled to Belize, a small central American country, with Agricultural Missions, which is based in New York in the headquarters of the National Council of Churches. There I saw the vulnerability of a small country which upon development of the free trade of the Americas will find its agricultural production overwhelmed by larger countries. Yet the Belize government is a strong advocate for free trade.

With the Vatican based International Catholic Rural Association, I traveled to Malta to look at a small country and its agricultural future. Malta is not a member of the European Union. Were it to join the EU it would find its domestic production of agricultural products overwhelmed. Currently the country is food self-sufficient in a number of areas. With "free trade" Malta would find its own food production put at risk. While the voices of the people engaged in agricultural production and the eaters of Malta might have one opinion, the voices of experts, the government managers have another.

In a few months, the International Federation of Adult Catholic Rural Movements (FIMARC) will have its world assembly in Benin. Based in Belgium and represented in 53 countries, FIMARC has a special role to play in preserving the livelihoods of small farmers and in protecting the environment. Given the architecture of much of the world's trade as seen in the "listening session" of the USDA, it is clear that the Pope had it right in "Ecclesia in America":

"However, if globalization is ruled merely by the laws of the market applied to suit the powerful, the consequences cannot but be negative. These are, for example, the absolutizing of the economy, unemployment, the reduction and deterioration of public services, the destruction of the environment and natural resources, the growing distance between the rich and the poor, unfair competition which puts the poor nations in a situation of ever increasing inferiority." (No. 20)

On February 2, 1999 the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, spoke to the annual Davos, Switzerland meeting of the World Economic Forum. His theme was "The Moral Dilemmas of Globalization." He presented a moral framework for the world's leading economists, politicians, dignitaries to consider:

... when ranking values the human person occupies a place higher than economic activity; neither is there any doubt that economic progress, which is present when there is growth in economic activity, becomes useful when-and only when-it serves to enhance the non-economic values that make up human culture. The advance of humanity towards globalization is a fact arising primarily out of the private sector, in particular they are the desires of multinational economic giants. This fact finds support in the incredible development of communications. Already the role of states is being constantly downgraded, with few exceptions; whereas the role of the economically powerful is growing in magnitude, even among the larger states.

Christian ecumenicity differs substantially from globalization. The former is based on love for one's brother and sister and respects the human person whom it also seeks to serve. The latter is primarily motivated by the desire to enlarge the market and to merge different cultures into a new one, in accordance with the convictions of those who are in a position to influence the world-wide public.

Unfortunately, globalization tends to evolve from a means of bringing the peoples of the world together as brothers and sisters, to a means of expanding economic dominance of the financial giants even over peoples to whom access was denied because of national borders and cultural barriers.

It is not our intention or responsibility to suggest ways and means by which this danger can be contained or eliminated. We do, however, have a duty to point out and proclaim that the highest pursuit of humanity is not economic enrichment or economic expansion.

The Gospel saying, "Man shall not live by bread alone" (Mt. 4:4), should be more broadly understood. We cannot live by economic development alone, but we must seek the "word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4); that is, the values and principles that transcend economic concerns. Once we accept these, the economy becomes a servant of humanity, not its master.

John Paul II also underlined the moral responsibility of the Church before the growing phenomenon of globalization:

"The Church in America is called ... to cooperate with every legitimate means in reducing the negative effects of globalization, such as the domination of the powerful over the weak, especially in the economic sphere, and the loss of the values of local cultures in favor of a misconstrued homogenization." (No. 55)

He goes on to indicate clearly the erroneous view of humankind that underlies certain social and political structures in our day:

"More and more, in many countries of America, a system known as 'neoliberalism' prevails; based on a purely economic conception of man, this system considers profit and the laws of the market as its only parameters, to the detriment of the dignity of and the respect due to individuals and peoples. At times this system has become the ideological justification for certain attitudes and behavior in the social and political spheres leading to the neglect of the weaker members of society. Indeed, the poor are becoming ever more numerous, victims of specific policies and structures which are often unjust. (No. 56).

Loss of esteem for local cultures includes the loss of esteem for many of the world's poor. It is the result of "homogenization" which flourishes when "neoliberalism" prevails. Legitimate means for countering such "homogenization" and predatory economics include political advocacy, education and pastoral care for the victims.

The Gospel has to find a voice in this new epoch. The voices of the Pope, of Patriarch Bartholomew, of grassroots faith communities, have encouraged a vision of faith as related to the project of globalism, where cultural diversity, economic justice and ecological harmony are supported. Perhaps, in this new age, we will rediscover the Pentecostal vision of many different languages abiding in a common space sharing a vision of peace and love. If such an attitude finds general acceptance, we'll be celebrating less under golden arches or by wearing Mickey Mouse ears in the new millennium; perhaps we can continue to commit ourselves to our fundamental project as Christians today as always: to build the kingdom, to shape a world cultural community which includes quite diverse local communities and to defend nature's integrity and biodiversity.