Charge given to the churches: speak more loudly

Edelberto Behs, NAIROBI, Kenia, January 29, 2007

At the opening of the World Social Forum, held for the first time in Africa Taxi Heathrow Airport from January 20 – 25, the Co-Chairperson of the worldwide Peace Woman movement, Kamia Bhasan, carried a poster which read, “The American dream created a nightmare for many.”

In a sense, the Indian activist’s poster expressed what seven editions of the WSF have been emphasizing as the flags of their struggles: natural resources are limited, the creditor countries cannot make savings accounts of the foreign debt of poor countries, and there cannot be peace without an equal distribution of wealth.

This banner of struggle unfolds into many others, all in some way related to the principle heading: without justice peace is impossible, which is also a principle stated in the sacred texts of Christians. The exploring of natural resources in Africa (by foreigners) and the lack of access to water for the poor of the continent’s population were issues which appeared at various moments during the Seventh World Social Forum.

In the capital of Kenya itself, 50,000 inhabitants of Nairobi who have not paid their bills in the past months, run the risk of being without water, according to a news report in The Standard of the Kenyan capital on January 18. The right to water and housing justify the slogan of this WSF gathered on African soil: “Popular struggles, popular alternatives.”

The World Urban Forum of the United Nations Organization, meeting in 2002 in Nairobi also, made public alarming statistics on slum areas in Africa. In Ethiopia, 99.4% of the urban population lives in slum areas; in Tanzania, the percentage is somewhat lower at 92.1%, and 85.7% in the Sudan.

Taoufik Ben Abdalla, a member of the African organizing committee of the 2007 WSF, commented to the Africa Flame daily newspaper that only 50 of the 850 million inhabitants of the African continent are “real citizens” having their basic rights attended to. In Nairobi, 57% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day!

“God cries,” said the Nobel Peace Prize, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, when speaking to the participants in the World Forum of Theology and Liberation, on Saturday, January 20 in the Roman Catholic Basilica of the Sacred Family in Nairobi.  The South African Archbishop emphasized that:

“God sees what is happening in Zimbabwe, in Nigeria, in Ethiopia, in Palestine, and God cries. God sees persons playing with food while others are suffering hunger. God says to us, please, help me so that we may have a different world, a world in which the rich can share with the poor and help each other.”

In the seminar on illegitimate debt, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and founder of the Green Belt movement, Kenyan Wangari Maathai, pointed out that the debt payment is the greatest obstacle in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the fight against the poverty of their people. "We should ask the governments of the countries and the international financial institutions to question their moulds of thinking about correction and justice, and to see that the commitment of the poor countries to the debt payment is illegitimate,” Maathai emphasized. “They knew that the people could not pay the debt and that now they are paying it with their lives,” he added.

According to journalist Susanne Buchweitz, Maathai reminded those present that millions of persons are dying because they do not have access to medicines and hospitals, because the governments spend their resources in paying their foreign debt. The Kenyan activist made a very clear call, directed to the churches: the churches have the moral authority and have many members, but they need to speak more loudly.

For the Argentine Franciscan, Aldri Crocolin, who took part in the seventh edition of the WSF in Nairobi, if the church places itself alongside the poor, it will recuperate a role it lost when it was co-opted by the Roman Empire. “Our role is not that of doing lovely worship services, but rather, as Jesus says, that of the struggle that all may have life and have it abundantly.”

Now it becomes necessary to listen with attention to how many decibels high will the cry of the churches be on behalf of life, peace and justice, in the many events for 2007 that have taken shape in the seventh WSF.