Reprinted from The Common Good, No 7, Lent 1998
RE-COLONISING NEW ZEALAND - THE EMPIRE STRIKES AGAIN
ÔBlessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.Õ (Matt 5:6)
The response to my knock on the door on Christmas Eve took me by surprise. Normally, Lindy and Jason are most friendly and welcoming. This time they were quiet and withdrawn, almost suspicious. I knew Lindy was a good worker and had a stable job. Jason had proved to be an excellent house parent to their three little children. Upon inquiry, Lindy told me of how she had been laid off at her job at a garment factory two weeks earlier when it suddenly closed. A market flooded with cheap imports was the reason given. With no trade barriers and no protection, her factory had joined the long list of failed companies that has seen New ZealandÕs once thriving garment industry virtually disappear.
Income Support had said that some money would come through in time for Christmas and they had planned to invite their extended whanau over for a hangi on Christmas Day. However a few minutes prior to my arrival Lindy and Jason had been rung and told that a mistake had been made and no money would be through before 14 January. This left Jason, Lindy and their children unable to pay the rent nor buy food or presents for Christmas. The corporate consumer empire (CCE) had struck again, and once more its victims were poor and vulnerable people.
I was shocked, angry and saddened at their plight. But at that time of the year there is little one can do. It reminded me again of how heartless structures can be, despite the goodness of many individuals they employ.
This family are the recipients of the 'trickle down' effect of our restructured economy, which has abolished trade barriers, promoted open markets and trading, and created a permanency out of unemployment that is now set in concrete. The New Right market driven economic miracle is pure illusion. The only ones convinced of its correctness are those set to make an economic killing from it and their political puppets. Nearly one hundred jobs were lost in Christchurch in the month leading up to Christmas, making a mockery of the notion of peace and goodwill to all on earth. They were lost because of the 'economic miracle'. Hundreds more have gone since.
At the heart of this corporate consumer empire, this global economy, sits the trans-national corporation (TNC). The rise of the TNC in recent times is a continuation of a process of colonisation. The difference this time is that it is no longer nations colonising one another. Rather, international business corporations are at the heart of the process. Like colonising nations of old, they create their own rules, disenfranchise the local populace, over-ride democratic governments, marginalise the less powerful, change the culture of the nation to suit their own corporate image and expatriate vast profits overseas.
The first great wave of colonisation of New Zealand took place in the 19th century when thousands of European settlers came to make a home and seek their fortune. Through a variety of now well known means, they took control of many of the resources of the country including most of the land. They imposed a new set of laws for all to follow and established new social structures of government, religion, education, health and justice to mention a few. By such actions and despite the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi, Maori became marginalised and largely dispossessed within their own country. And just as 19th century colonisation was presented as being beneficial to those colonised, so too is the modern corporate culture presented.
Thus a second wave of colonisation is under way and New Zealand is in the process of being re-colonised by trans-nationals. This time Maori are again being hit hard, but so too are the majority of Pakeha. Marginalisation and disempowerment go hand in hand with growing levels of poverty. Parliament itself has been captured by the corporate culture. The proposed Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI) is but the latest sign of our sell-out. Democracy at a national level has become a joke. Ordinary people now have virtually no say about their economic futures, no say about issues of war or peace and little say about their working lives.
The TNCÕs corrupting influence is not confined to the social mayhem they create. The values of the economic globalisation they seek to create run counter to everything Christian teaching proclaims. At its heart the global economy is based on idolatry, built on greed and exploitation, domination and control. The corporate culture reflects a terminal sickness within society itself. The frustration and sense of disempowerment this is breeding is evident everywhere. Most of the worst statistics in health, disaffected youth, premature death, suicide levels and crime can be linked directly to this spiritual sickness and the values it promotes.
A LENTEN RESPONSE
The season of Lent requires Christians to re-examine their lives in the light of teachings of Christ and the traditions of the Church. This examination has both a personal and a social dimension. Any social structure that deliberately fosters oppression and fails to free people to grow in dignity, is sinful.
Jesus came to change all that as the Gospels teach us. That is whey they are 'good news to the poor.' Take the Beatitudes, for example. They teach us the revealed teaching of God regarding how we are to treat our neighbour. At the time they were written, Matthew's community was under persecution from both the state and the religious establishment of the time. The Beatitudes is a text addressed primarily to Christians facing persecution. That is its cultural context.
The state ideology of the day demanded compliance with Roman regulation and the acknowledgment of the absolute authority of the emperor. Shortly he was to be declared a god. The empire was all supreme. Most of the religious establishment had acquiesced and paid their dues. The voices of the prophets were heard no more. Some few however didn't acquiesce, believing that the ideology of the time which provided wealth, power and privilege to the few and the enslavement of the many, was a false god. It was in this context, Matthew taught the Beatitudes of Christ.
In the text, Matthew offers encouragement to the faithful to maintain their beliefs of working for justice and peacemaking, while at the same time exhorting them to reach out, in particular to the poor, the bereft, the wounded. For the illiterate early Christians, the Beatitudes were a small but dynamic catechism of beliefs to be learnt off by heart. They provided a vision of what might be if Christian faith was truly expressed through the love of neighbour. They were to be the principle marks of Christian life, the instantly applied ready reckoner, a litmus test of Christianity. Their practice was to be the sign of the New Creation that Christ brought into the world through his life, death and resurrection.
Ever since that time Christian believers have grappled with these teachings. They are not precepts for the faint-hearted. They are the tools which provide the cutting edge for the building of the New Creation. Their focus is the common good of all people, not an elite. They are powerful sticks of divine dynamite just waiting to explode into the lives of each succeeding generation. But somehow we usually manage to domesticate these radical teachings. We pull their teeth and wonder why they have no impact.
The old Roman empire is no more. Gone too the other empires that followed. Now there is a new empire abroad. The corporate consumer empire is everywhere. New Zealand forms part of that empire. The old symbols of empire, the flags, the slaves, the Roman forum, the statues of the emperor, have been replaced by the modern symbols of empire, the sky scrapers, the designer brand names, the casinos, the corporate boxes. The ideology of the new empire remains curiously akin to the one of Roman times. Its processes are similar. The new golden calves are the old golden calves - money, power, control. Reward the elite, centralise power, turn people into economic slaves, cast aside those perceived to be not contributing, pull the teeth from the teachings of Christ, domesticate God.
The Beatitudes continue to speak to empire today. The tentacles of the global economy, whose leaders worship the golden calf in New York, Tokyo, London, wherever, refuse to heed their message or hear the voice of Isaiah echoing through the centuries, 'worship only the Lord your God, you are mine.' And what a false god it is!
The recent teaching of the New Zealand Catholic bishops provides a timely reminder. 'The continuing globalisation of the economy is resulting in the creation of a super-rich elite, while at the same time millions more are being disempowered and economically starved.' The Pope himself describes the process as 'structurally sinful' since it is built on the international shifting of capital which creates instability, the exploitation of cheap labour and the use of ever shrinking resources.
These issues aren't to do with party politics. They are to do with the very soul of the nation, of who we are as a people and who we are going to be.