Maravi

Let's engage govt over rural poverty

Let's engage govt over rural poverty
By Editor
Wednesday March 05, 2008 [03:00]

TRULY there is need for the Church and other sectors to find new strategies of making government understand the problems that Zambians are facing, especially in rural areas. We agree with Bishop George Lungu’s observations and conclusions that there is need to dialogue with the government so that it can provide equal services to both urban and rural areas.

We will only be able to build a healthy democratic society if all our citizens and institutions participate in the life of our country – adding their voices to the public debate and holding the government accountable for its actions. In this way, we will all be sharing the responsibility to shape a future for our country that will embrace the spirit of fairness, humaneness and justice.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that in a democracy, government is only one element co-existing in a social fabric of many and varied institutions, organisations and associations. And it is this diversity that is called pluralism. Many of these organisations, institutions or associations serve a mediating role between individuals and the complex social and governmental institutions of which they are a part, offering individuals opportunities to exercise their rights and responsibilities and citizens of this country. They also help to influence policy decisions and through them individuals have an avenue for meaningful participation in the government.

We cannot continue to ignore the fact that there are in our country people who each day cannot meet the basic needs necessary for a decent human life. And it is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental needs to remain unsatisfied. Living conditions must be improved especially for the low-income earners. Economic justice requires that each individual has adequate resources to survive, to develop and thrive, and to give back in service to the community.

There is no way the Church, the Catholic bishops can remain indifferent in the face of the tremendous social injustices existent in Zambia today, which keep the majority of our people in dismal poverty, which in many cases becomes inhuman wretchedness. A deafening cry pours from the throats of millions of men and women asking their bishops for a liberation that reaches them from nowhere else. We see in our country a set of injustices which constitute the nucleus of today’s problems and whose solution requires the undertaking of tasks and functions in every sector of our society.

Therefore, the Church and its leadership must be prepared to take on new functions and duties in every sector of human activity if justice is really to be put into practice. The action of the church and its leadership should be directed above all at those individuals who because of the present character of our society are silent, indeed voiceless, victims of injustice.

A mediatory role by the Church is essential to overcome day-by-day obstacles and ingrained privileges which are to be met with the advance toward a more human society. But effective mediation involves the creation of a lasting atmosphere of dialogue. A contribution to the progressive realisation of this can truly be made by the Church.

By virtue of their origin and nature, by the will of the Creator, worldly goods and riches are meant to serve the utility and progress of each and every human being. Thus each and everyone enjoys a primary, fundamental and absolutely inviolable right to share in the use of these goods, insofar as that is necessary for the worthy fulfilment of the human person.

The mission of the Church in Zambia is immense and more necessary than ever before, when we consider the situation at hand: violations of justice and freedom;
institutionalised injustice and so on and so forth. Fulfilment of this mission will require activity from the Church as a whole. For the attainment of a society that is more just, more free and more at peace is an ardent longing of the people of Zambia and an indispensable fruit of any meaningful evangelisation.

It is very pleasing to witness that the Church in Zambia has adopted a clear option expressing preference for, and solidarity with, the poor. And its doing this despite the distortions and interpretations of some, who vitiate this spirit, and despite the disregard and even hostility of others.

The Church’s concrete commitments to the poor have in not a few instances changed a number of things. All this has produced tensions both inside and outside the Church. The church has frequently been the butt of accusations of all sorts.

Not all in the Church have committed themselves sufficiently to the poor. Not all are always concerned about them, or in solidarity with them. Service to them really calls for constant conversion and purification among all Christians. That must be done if they are to achieve fuller identification each day with the poor Christ and their own poor.

The evangelical commitment of the Church, like that of Christ, should be a commitment to those most in need (Luke 4: 18 – 21). Hence the Church must look to Christ when it wants to find out what its evangelising activity should be like. The Son of God demonstrated the grandeur of this commitment when He became a human being. For He identified himself with human beings by becoming one of them. He established solidarity with them and took up the situation in which they find themselves – in His birth and in His life, and particularly in His passion and death where poverty found its maximum expression (Phil. 2: 5 – 18).

For this reason alone, the poor merit preferential attention, whatever may be the moral or personal situation in which they find themselves. Made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1: 26 – 28) to be the children of God, this image is dimmed or even defiled. That is why God takes on their defence and loves them (Matt. 5: 45; James 2: 5). That is why the poor are the first ones to whom Jesus’ mission is directed (Luke 4: 18 – 21), and why the evangelisation of the poor is the supreme sign and proof of His mission (Luke 7: 21 – 23).

When they draw near to the poor in order to accompany them and serve them, they are doing what Christ taught them to do when He became their brother, poor like them. Hence service to the poor is the privileged, though not the exclusive, gauge of their following Christ.

The situation in our country today offers an exceptional opportunity for announcing and for bearing witness to God’s kingdom. If, through fear and mistrust, or through the insecurity of some in the face of any radical social change, or through the desire to defend personal interest, they neglect this crucial opportunity to commit themselves to the poor, they would be in serious violation of the gospel’s teachings.

This commitment implies the renunciation of old ways of thinking and behaviour, and the dramatic conversion of their church. Indeed, the day when the Church fails to present the appearance of poverty and to act as the natural eye of the poor, will be the day it has betrayed its divine creator and the coming of God’s kingdom. Never before has Zambia been faced with such a need to persuasively confirm this commitment to the poor.

The poor of whom Jesus speaks and who surround Him are truly poor, the hungry, the afflicted, the oppressed, and all those for whom society has failed to provide a place. Through this solidarity with the poor, Jesus proclaimed His Father’s love for all human kind, was persecuted, and died.

It is in this light that we see and receive the call by Bishop Lungu for the Church and other sectors to find new strategies of making government understand the problems that poor Zambians are facing, especially in rural areas. This deserves the support and commitment of all men and women of goodwill.

Labels: POVERTY, RURAL AREAS

posted by MrK @ 3:23 AM