the one campaign
i encourage everyone to check out the "one campaign." it is a plan for international debt-relief and increased humanitarian assistance to the world's poorest peoples. the website is: www.one.org. you can also learn more it about through the website of world vision, which is one of the founding organizations of the campaign. the basic idea of the campaign is that it is possible to drastically reduce, even eliminate, extreme poverty around the world if the wealthiest nations would change some of their trade/economic practices and increase their international aid budgets by a relatively small amount. in addition to being promoted by many of the world's leading development organizations, the campaign has also received a large, and strikingly diverse, amount of support from religious leaders and celebrities -its supporters include bono and rick warren, billy graham and brad pitt.
the other day i wrote a post in which i argued that we ought to see development as a matter of freedom, and that if we do so, it quickly becomes clear how skewed our budgetary priorities are when it comes to promoting freedom -e.g. over $200 billion spent promoting freedom through the war in iraq, and $3 billion dollars a year in annual aid to africa, where millions are unfree because of extreme poverty and lack of resources. (june , freedom and development). in our current social-political discourse, the language of freedom is closely connected to the language of sacrifice. it is acceptable -socially and politically- to call on people to make a sacrifice in the name of freedom. the chief example of this is way in which we call on our soldiers to be willing to sacrifice their lives in order to protect our freedom and promote the freedom of others. however, because freedom and development are seen as distinct issues, it is not similarly acceptable to call on people to make sacrifices for the sake of development. when has president bush -or any other politician- talked about our moral responsibility to sacrifice so that others can have their basic needs met? even to make fairly small sacrifices -e.g. having fewer new roads- so that other people can have drinking water or enough to eat?
although the one campaign is asking developed countries to make significant increases in their humanitarian assistance, i'm not sure if what is being asked for even counts as 'sacrifice.' if the plan were adopted, development aid would still only account for one percent or less of the budgets of developed countries. yet, even if eradicating poverty meant making more serious sacrifices, what could possibly be a better reason for us to make a sacrifice? it is estimated that 30,000 children die every day from hunger-related causes and preventable diseases. what could possibly be a better reason than saving the lives of children for us as individuals, and as a country, to make a sacrifice of our energy and resources?
the other day i wrote a post in which i argued that we ought to see development as a matter of freedom, and that if we do so, it quickly becomes clear how skewed our budgetary priorities are when it comes to promoting freedom -e.g. over $200 billion spent promoting freedom through the war in iraq, and $3 billion dollars a year in annual aid to africa, where millions are unfree because of extreme poverty and lack of resources. (june , freedom and development). in our current social-political discourse, the language of freedom is closely connected to the language of sacrifice. it is acceptable -socially and politically- to call on people to make a sacrifice in the name of freedom. the chief example of this is way in which we call on our soldiers to be willing to sacrifice their lives in order to protect our freedom and promote the freedom of others. however, because freedom and development are seen as distinct issues, it is not similarly acceptable to call on people to make sacrifices for the sake of development. when has president bush -or any other politician- talked about our moral responsibility to sacrifice so that others can have their basic needs met? even to make fairly small sacrifices -e.g. having fewer new roads- so that other people can have drinking water or enough to eat?
although the one campaign is asking developed countries to make significant increases in their humanitarian assistance, i'm not sure if what is being asked for even counts as 'sacrifice.' if the plan were adopted, development aid would still only account for one percent or less of the budgets of developed countries. yet, even if eradicating poverty meant making more serious sacrifices, what could possibly be a better reason for us to make a sacrifice? it is estimated that 30,000 children die every day from hunger-related causes and preventable diseases. what could possibly be a better reason than saving the lives of children for us as individuals, and as a country, to make a sacrifice of our energy and resources?
posted by micah at 11:01 PM
1 Comments:
I wish that everyone shared your heart, Micah. I can just imagine (and in fact don't need to, having had many conversations where this has been the line of response) someone responding to you, "what do I owe them?" or "why should the U.S. pour its money into foreign countries, where they don't even appreciate what we do for them?" or any of countless variations of these.
This gets implicitly at something that I have become more and more aware of these past few years: namely, that so many Christians rarely pause to consider whether their political/social convictions are in fact reflective of the Christ-centered concerns which are supposed to be at the seat of their heart and will. We are socialized as Republicans or Democrats, or something in between, and somehow I think that political identity is often protected from any rigorous scrutiny under the light of the gospel. This is a hard thing, though, and I'm still trying to figure out for myself what "the" Christian view on certain issues is, not to mention how the Christian should even begin to approach politics in a more general sense.
All that being said, it is hard to understand how so many Americans (and by extension so many Christians) can turn a callous eye from the starving children of the world.
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