"The Bible, the Coin, the Gun"

"We can imagine the fatal meeting between the native and the alien. The missionary had traversed the seas, the forests, armed with the desire for pofit that was his faith and light and the gun that was his protection.  He carried the Bible; the soldier carried the gun; the administrator and the settler carried the coin. Christianity, Commerce, Civilisation: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity" (Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1977) "Petals of Blood").


"Waweru [ a Black Prebyterian minister in pre-independence Kenya] was amongst the first Africans allowed to grow pyrethrum as a cash crop and to sell it to the white growers. This gave him a head start over his more pagan neighbours, some of whome had been pacified to eternal sleep or to slave-labour camps in towns or farms by Frederick Lugard...and other heirlings of Her Imperial Majesty, Defender of the Faith, Elect of God. God save the Queen they sang after every massacre and then went to church for blessings and cleansing: it had always fallen to the priest to ordain human sacrifice to appease every dominant God in history" (wa Thiong'o, "Petals of Blood").


These two excerpts come out of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's post-colonial novel set in Kenya in the aftermath of independence from Britain. They represent a damning critique of colonialism's framework linking civilization, economy and chrisitianity.  This framework essentially equated Christianity with civilization and modernity and economic and social 'progress'. Everything the primative native lacked could be summed up in what the white colonizer had. Wa Thiong'o goes even further, arguing that Christianity was used to justify mass violence, which it was.


The question Kurt and I ask ourselves today is, is there a place for expressing faith in the context of development? If so, what is that place and how do we think about faith and development in the context of colonialism and Christianity's sordid legacy in the developing world?


This is a vast topic for debate and consideration.  However, I think there are at least two key entry points into this topic.


First, I think it is worth considering alternative applications of Christian ideas through development history. Two examples come to mind: Ghandi's reference to Jesus's teachings of non-violence and peace-making as an inspiration for his activism in India leading up to Partition in 1947.  Likewise, Martin Luther King Junior, a Baptist minister, explicitly looked to Jesus's teachings as model for non-violent resistance as a tool for social transformation and liberation. The liberation theology movement in South America used Jesus's teachings and other scriptures as speaking about emancipation and liberation of the poor and oppressed in a very real, physical sense and this informed their thinking and radical activism, especially in Nicaragua with the Sandinista movement (ironically, perhaps, linked to the Communist threat by the ultra-conservative Regean administration - Regean himself is almost a saint in some conservative circles of American Christianity).


Second, like Schumacher's Buddhist Economics, in Small is Beautiful, Jesus's teachings, as well as the social law and practices of the Israelite nation before Jesus, point to a much more egalitarian, people-centred vision of society and economics then that associated with Colonial Christianity and mainstream representations of Christianity today. Schumacher makes reference to Jesus's well-known series of teachings pointing towards such a society (known as the Sermon on the Mount). Quoting Schumacher at length:


"Strange to say, that Sermon on the Mount gives pretty precise instructions on how to construct an outlook that could lead to an Economics of Survival.

How blessed are those who know that they are poor;

The Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

How blessed are the sorrowful;

They shall find consolation.

How blessed are those of a gentle spirit;

They shall have the earth for their possession.

How blessed are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail;

They shall be satisfied;

How blessed are the peacemakers;

God shall call them his son.

It is not difficult to discern what these beatitudes may mean for us today:

We are poor, not demigods.

We have plenty to be sorrowful about, and are not emerging into a golden age.

We need a gentle approach, a non-violent spirit, and small is beautiful.

We must concern ourselves with justice and see right prevail.

And all this, only this, can enable us to become peacemakers."

These two points are relatively uncontentious, I expect.  More contentious is the notion that a particular faith or a set of spiritual teachings is normative. While proposing that any set of values is normative potentially leads to all kinds of abuse, manipulation and exploitation - the problems that Colonialist Christianity, economics and security exemplify so strongly - how does development happen in the absence of any norms?

This question comes back to the questions I posed in my last post. And I'm still working through the answers. I think a key thing for development workers of any faith is to determine what their own value framework is, have a good reason for holding to that value framework and then approach the development context in a spirit of deep humility, willing to engage with other value frameworks. 

The way to work out the relative values of different value frameworks, I believe, is through working together around a common project, as equals and to try and let that experience lead.  And then, most importantly, being willing to critically reflect on what that experience says about your own value framework and being willing to take actions based on that learning to adjust your value framework.

Back to reality

I would like to ground things a little bit and talk about real examples of moving towards living sustainably. Although this might come across as a bit more about "green living" than "sustainable development" my take is that it demonstrates an example of what development could be aiming towards.

So we'll start our little tour right here in Kitchener/Waterloo. There are quite a number of people who are working together to live as sustainably as possible. One example can be found at Little City Farm. This couple grows much of their own food, generates much of their own electricity (of which they minimize their usage) and many other green efforts. The key is that they do this all on a normal city plot, not out in the country.

A note for two of the links on their site. One is to Bullfrog Power - a power company here in Ontario that sells power from renewable sources. Another is to the EF Schumacher Society which I had never heard of before. According to their website,

"Founded in 1980 the mission of the Schumacher Society is to promote the building of strong local economies that link people, land, and community. To accomplish this we develop model programs, including local currencies, community land trusts, and micro-lending; host lectures and other educational events; publish papers; and maintain a library to engage scholars and inspire citizen-activists."

Very interesting stuff!

But what about the things that simply cannot be produced reasonably independently...
For food there are food co-ops where people can buy local food (which is often organic and all that) - eg Bailey's Local Food.
For clothing, appliances and electronics check out Good Guide, a website that ranks all sorts of products from toilet paper to cell phones. There are a number of these kinds of sites and IMHO they are still fairly rudimentary and probably not very accurate but I think Good Guide is a strong start.

But what about sustainable communities (this is where Jordan could probably provide much better links) the US Green Building Council has put out guidelines for a sustainable buildings and even neighborhoods through its LEED program.

I will save your time and let you surf some of those sites but I wanted to tie it back to development. I wonder how our development efforts in the rest of the world would be different if this kind of mentality were much more pervasive in our society. I say this with the whole actions affect beliefs conversation in the back of my mind. If our development efforts concentrated on changing developing AND developed countries into a sustainable society instead of using the wildly changing western society as a "goal" I think things would be a lot different and the real weight of development would be an international burden, not just for the developing world.

Any other links to what a sustainable society looks like? I know they're out there, I'm just stopping myself from searching for "sustainable society".

Kurtis (in Waterl00)