Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on 16 June 2000:
The Most Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane
Archbishop Of Cape Town
Introduction
It is a great privilege and a distinctive honor to have been invited to address such a prestigious gathering.
I have chosen as the theme for my address: A New Humanity for a New Age: Moral and Ethical Imperatives in a Globalizing World. I believe that this is a crucial matter, which requires our urgent attention. We live in a world that is often described as a global village wherein global realities have a significant impact on local communities. We have become very much aware of our interdependence. An event in one part of the globe has a domino effect on the rest of the world. The way we respond to ethical and moral imperatives posed by globalization will determine to a very large extent the kind of future we fashion for ourselves, our children and our children's children.
What is Globalization?
The buzz word today is globalization, and we need to spell out, albeit very briefly, our understanding of this phenomenon. Globalization is market-driven and technology-fueled. Its main characteristics include a creative dynamism of invention and entrepreneurial risk-taking--which is quite thrilling--and the breaking open of old, honored traditions when they get in the way.
There are at least five major interconnected but distinct processes wrapped up inside the notion of "globalization." Over the past decade there has been:
While these processes are a reflection of humanity's advancement and are irreversible, nevertheless there are three discernable elements of this globalization process which are cause for some concern:
1. The powerful/wealthy are establishing the character, priorities and values of the emerging world order. These priorities and values are a global free market economic system based on competition, efficiency and productivity. But, all too often, this is at the expense of an increasingly disadvantaged sector. This is creating problems that, in the long term, I believe will threaten world order and economics.
2. A single, lucrative market, which is increasingly the site of heated contest, is emerging in the process. Alternatively stated, globalization processes are dramatically extending the reach and depth of the international political economy. In the process, many poorer countries are being drawn further into the global economic system, but the terms of inclusion are dictated by and are in favor of the wealthy. Others face the spectre of exclusion from economic activity.
3. International markets increasingly favor the economics of scale and collective capacity. That is, competitors with the greatest capacity (those that can instantaneously mobilize vast resources and/or coordinate economic strategy across a range of domains) will ultimately be the only ones able to compete. Accordingly, prosperous regions are striving for more pervasive political and economic interconnection and integration, and poor regions are increasingly being left behind.
Combined, these three characteristics are resulting in the simultaneous integration--but also subordination--of poor countries in the international political economy. At the dawn of a New Age, there are serious questions over whether developing states will be able to survive these globalization processes at all. Poor countries and regions of the world face the danger of permanent marginalization. In economic terms they find themselves consistently "out-competed" in international markets by the wealthy and powerful.
Global recession and generally depressed international markets for primary export products continue to stifle the export-oriented development drive of most Third World nations. Less-developed countries have been forced to accept worsening terms of trade for fear of complete exclusion from international economic activity. For the wealthy, continents such as Africa remain the source of oil and scarce, non-renewable resources. Simply put, in the New Age the poor face the danger of designation to perpetual irrelevance.
So, while the powerful plot and strategize to become more powerful, the underlying, fundamental result is that the poor countries get poorer. At present 800 million people go hungry every day. Many more are malnourished. The world's population of underweight children below five years of age is expected to grow from 193 million to 200 million in twenty years time, with most of the deterioration in Africa. Today we are villagers living in a global village. We have to face these children and take responsibility for what happens to them.
World Bank Studies show that people living on less than two U.S. dollars per day number almost half the world's population. The least developed countries have grown in number from twenty-five in 1971 to 48 this year--thirty-three of those are in Africa. The number of poor people in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa is expected to rise.
Every year eight million children die of diseases linked to impure water and air pollution; fifty million children are mentally and physically damaged due to poor nutrition, and 130 million children--eighty percent of them girls--are denied the opportunity to go to school. All this in a world in which twenty percent of the population enjoys eighty percent of the world's wealth.
Last year's Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) revealed that the assets of the World's top three billionaires are more than the combined gross national product of all the least developed countries and their 600 million people.
This state of affairs poses a threat to the survival of humanity and
therefore should not be allowed to continue unabated. Salvadore Marcus says:
A new world war has begun, but now it is against humanity as a whole, in the
name of "globalization." This modern war assassinates and forgets....
As in all world wars, what is at stake is a new division of the world. This new
division of the world consists of increasing the power of the powerful and the
misery of the miserable.
We need to engage now in combating this war by putting in place strategies to create a world with a human face. We need new economic systems which put people, not profits, first.
Ethical and Moral Imperatives
In examining globalization and its effects on the world community, we must recall that the world's major religions, which influence our moral behavior, constantly remind us of the dignity and intrinsic worth of each individual human being. There is a recognition that human beings are made in God's image. There is a Rabbinic saying that "Before every human being there walks an angel proclaiming 'Make way, make way for the image of God.'" This unique feature of our humanity implies that we ought not to treat fellow human beings arbitrarily and in an exploitative manner. What it does affirm is that human beings hold the future in their hands and that they should act with an enormous degree of ethical and moral standards based in mutual care and respect for one another and for the whole created order.
The world's major religions also hold that God in not just the creator but the author of all life. He provided the resources of the earth for the well-being of the created order and continues to do so. From this it follows that our Creator is a hospitable deity. He requires that we too should be hospitable, showing love and tolerance towards one another. This entails, inter alia, equitable sharing of resources that God has provided for our well-being as well as participating as equal partners in decision making processes in the world.
It follows from this, therefore, that in the ordering of the affairs of the world, human values should take precedence over money values. People must be factored into the profit-incentive process. Some two years ago His Holiness Pope John Paul II said, "The law of profit alone cannot be applied to that which is essential for the fight against hunger, disease and poverty."
The Holy Father is right. The law of profit alone--it has already been proved--cannot put food in the bellies of the millions--mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, workers--the millions who hunger and starve on the African continent, in Latin America and in Asia. For it is in the developing world where the most people suffer. The law of profit alone will not allow them the drugs they need to treat the most stressful and appalling diseases known to humanity: HIV/Aids, malaria, hepatitis, tuberculosis. The law of profit alone will not help the majority in the world to climb out of the deep well of poverty into which they have been plunged by a ruthless economic system whose main driving force is greed.
Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Amartya Sen has emphasized that the validity of any economic policy should be judged on whether it takes into account its impact on people who are on the downside of the economy. He says that it is necessary to bring social deprivation into the domain of public discussion and create systems for social opportunities. A guiding principle in designing an economic policy that has, as its major focus, the well-being of humanity is the notion of the common good. In so doing we would ensure that communities and individuals benefited.
To sustain the world, we need a new brand of science and technology, and this needs to be governed by a new brand of economics and politics, with a sound moral foundation. Ethics should precede politics, economics and the law because political action is concerned with values and choices. Ethics must, therefore, inform and inspire political leadership to fulfill our obligations as human beings for the well-being of others and our earth.
One only has to watch the stock and bond trading activities throughout the world to realize that in the buying and selling of stocks, little or no thought is being given to the people's lives that may be decimated by job losses as a result. The fundamental human element is missing in these transactions.
The time has now come for action. The inequalities of the world are increasing at an alarming rate. The rich are getting far too rich and the poor are becoming desperately poorer. God looks down and does not like what He sees happening on earth. The Jewish Old Testament prophets called long ago for justice and righteousness in our dealings with one another and our care of God's created order.
When the people of Israel were on their journey to the Promised Land, God provided a miracle. It was called manna: food from God for all the people to meet their needs for the day. The instruction from God was not to attempt to hoard, but to learn to trust. Some tried to hoard the manna from God and overnight it began to rot and stink. Sisters and brothers, there is a lot of hoarding going on by some and it is beginning to stink! We must stand up and demand action now. If the rich and the powerful do not take action, they, with the rest of the world, will suffer.
The rich nations, and the multinational corporations, must recognize that they cannot continue on the present course of economic growth and exploitation which disregard the consequences upon fellow human beings and the natural world. The rich must recognize that the purpose of life is not just the acquisition of wealth but the development of the world for the good of its inhabitants and the world itself for future generations. This change of attitude has enormous repercussions. We must grasp the responsibilities given to us to care for the future of our people and of our world.
Imagine a world which has a different economic system from that which exists today. A world where profit is not made by focusing only on monetary reward, disregarding any possible negative effects on jobs and lives. Rather, a world in which the powerful multinationals are economically rewarded by a system which values helping others as much as it values profit, a balanced and equitable global economic system, where the focus has shifted to meaningful improvement of the lives of the greatest number of people possible. It takes a small fundamental alteration in our thinking to start a movement which could result in quality of life, not just for a favored few, but for all.
We cannot allow those who wield economic power to govern the world on one criterion of economic profitability. We have to consider the well-being of people and the natural world and recognize the responsibility we have, for every facet of our lives.
Professor Klaus Nurnberger from the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, wrote (in Prosperity, Poverty and Pollution, Page 10): "Economics is too important to be left to the economists, politics to the politicians, and matters of faith to the theologians. Responsibility for the economic and ecological well-being of humankind rests with the entire, academic community, in fact, with the citizenry at large." He went on to write: "A humanity which has lost its sense of responsibility has abandoned its birthright." (Page 1)
We have to take responsibility for our world, for our economic system harnessing it to serve us, rather than allowing it to enslave us. We need a fundamental reappraisal of economics, so that need and capacity, rather than supply and demand, provide our guidelines.
As we cast our eyes into the future we would do well to remember the words of UNICEF: "The progress of nations will be judged not by their military or economic strength, nor by the splendor of their capital cities and public buildings, but:
Conclusion:
The Year 2000 is a year of Jubilee. It is a time of decision and action. The Judeo-Christian injunction states that periodically, every seventh sabbath year, we should review our social, political and property arrangements. Every fifty years, the Jubilee year, we should right the wrongs that have been woven over the period into just and equitable economic relationships, relationships between developed and developing countries.
Now is the time for morally responsible people, like yourselves, to bring about a new world order. We need creative, innovative and imaginative minds to shape the future of the world whose main characteristics would be good governance, equity and the general well-being of everyone. In the contemporary world economics influences not only the state of the world economy, interest rates, balance of trade between nations and other important fiscal questions, but also the economic outlook for ordinary men and women. It is important therefore to ensure that a caring ethic is practiced in economic relations between people and their governments and between international agencies and the people of this global village of which we are part.
Let us seize the opportunity and utilize the resources and technology that are at our disposal for the general well-being of humanity. In this way we will not only be able to eradicate abject poverty in the world, but we would also create conditions for sustainable growth and development, thereby bringing about peace, stability and a good life for all people.
As we tackle this massive agenda, we may hold before us the words of the Biblical Book of Revelation, chapter 21:
Behold, I make all things new....Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them, they will be His people, and He will be their God, God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone. Then the One sitting on the throne spoke: "Look, I am making the whole of creation new."
Our responsibility--yours and mine--is to spearhead a new world in which this Revelation vision is fulfilled: a world in which the tears of poverty will be wiped away. In my country we have a uniquely African concept which we call Ubuntu. Its main philosophy is captured in the phrase "I am, because we belong together." In other words: I am only a person through other people.
African Academic Professor C.L.S. Nyembezi has described the values of Ubuntu thus:
My hope is that these values will grow and govern the way we deal with each other as individuals and as nations. We must join hands across economic barriers and together step forward to assure not only our economic, but our spiritual future and that of all our children, forever.
Grace and peace to you all
Thank you.