Ranjit Mathews is flanked by Ethan Flad, editor of The Witness, and Archdeacon Taimalelagi Matalavea, Anglican UN Observer.

Reconciliation vs. Globalization

by Ranjit Mathews

Three thousand casualties of war; actually there’s more.

"Three thousand casualties of war, actually there’s more." These are the words of British hip-hop artist, Jonzi B, as he describes the events of September 11^th, 2001. But he is also very poignantly making reference to the thousands of people who died that same week around the world; but weren’t mentioned.

Why isn’t there the same moral outrage when three thousand people die every week in South Africa because of HIV/AIDS? Is it because they are Africans and aren’t worth as much as Americans? Is it because they are black? Some friends of mine in South Africa want to know.

"Global reconciliation" is the topic. Many people in the developing world are asking right now: When am I going to get my next meal, where can I get some water? Whereas somebody like me is asking, "What meetings should I attend here at General Convention?"

Can somebody here tell me which question is more important? I need to know, because I’ll believe you. Where would we rather live? Would we rather live in a place where everything we do is of ultimate importance because our very lives depend on it? Where even our faith is not just an appendage; but the very force that keeps us alive.

When thinking of the HIV/AIDS statistics in sub-Saharan Africa, Graca Machal, the former first lady of South Africa, said it best. I paraphrase, "The statistics are too much, they just don’t do it. What we need to do is picture someone who is very near and dear to us, then picture that person with HIV. Then we can put a face to it, and maybe then it will affect us and then move us."

How can we be missionaries in places like the developing world, where what we are actually doing is telling people about Christ, all the while our developed feet are on their necks, through economic policies that cause more debt to these countries?

It’s funny. When I was in South Africa, last year, I was a part of the Young Adult Service Corps — I was a missionary. But to tell you the truth, even though I came to South Africa as a missionary, I felt as if I was being evangelized. I mean, I felt I was moved by God in amazing ways.

One such way occurred when I met a non-Christian by the name of Zackie Achmat. He is the chairperson for the Treatment Action Campaign, an advocacy group that is lobbying the South African government to implement a national mother-to-child prevention program. I met him one day, as we were discussing a possible opportunity for the Anglican Church and TAC to work together. We got into some personal conversation, and to tell you the truth, even though he’s an atheist, after meeting him, I left believing more in the God of the heavens. Here was this humble man with HIV, who wasn’t taking anti-retroviral medicines because his countrymen and women were not privileged enough to have the same access. I remember leaving that meeting, believing that in some way shape or form, I had seen the living God, and it wasn’t a Christian. It was as if I was being evangelized to believing that God has many, many different faces, and that I shouldn’t let my own prejudices of what I think God is, constrain the possibility of God.

The poverty that many people find themselves in is a sin on my part. I think of the economic oppression, the starvation that people are going though, while I waste food and my money on things that are of no spiritual or physical importance.

I believe that this is where Christians need to step in, and let people know that they are valued by the living God. To stand in solidarity with them, regardless of their caste, creed, race, political affiliation, sexual orientation or what have you. For what does it say in our baptismal covenant, but to look for Christ in all people, to seek the dignity of all people? Are the economic policies of the IMF and World Bank really looking to uplift the dignity of the people, or does it simply seek to take their personhood, manifested in mammon and give it to the corporations of the first world? If this is the case, then the church must say something, the church must be a witness and raise its prophetic mantle. For isn’t the business of the church to witness to the ultimate reconciler, Jesus Christ?

This is not an easy road — any group of people that has gone through such a process will tell you that much. It’s very painful; but it’s a road that we must take. First of all, I believe "reconciliation" for us must be deeply spiritual, taking into account the fact that it is from the spiritual malnourishment of the developed world that has caused such deep poverty in the developing world. Once we are fed spiritually, or challenged to confront our own sins, then maybe we can be better prepared to service the needs of others. September 11^th was a horrible, horrible tragedy, there is no doubt about that; but what it may have done is cause us as Americans to realize that we are a part of a global village, one in which we too are affected.

And even in the jingoistic nationalism that has come about because of September 11th, why are we doing now to our fellow Americans? Why are thousands of South Asians, Muslim and Arab-Americans being rounded up on extremely suspicious allegations? Is this not the Japanese internment all over again? In light of September 11^th, and in the light of globalization, we need to create a new paradigm, maybe a Christian paradigm of tolerance.

I feel this word reconciliation very deeply. For it was because of the reconciling love of Christ that I became a Christian. My family and I were traveling in India, now nearly four years ago and we were in the state of Karnataka. I was 20 and had recently completed my sophomore year at school. But within that, the form of Christian worship that I was a part of had a lot to do with fundamentalism. That means there were a lot of regulations put on me, such as I couldn’t listen to hip--hop because it wasn’t Christian music, or I couldn’t hang out with a certain group of friends because they weren’t Christian. I found this to be very problematic for it was not allowing me to be me. I felt like this wasn’t what it meant to be a Christian for it was putting me in a box.

…at the top of the stairs were two leper girls. They had no legs and were rolling around on makeshift skateboards. One of them came to me, and we both stared into each other’s eyes, and then she took her hand, touched my foot and then brought it to her mouth. I had been reconciled very distinctly.

St. Paul, in Ephesians, talks about the "new being," and it was at this point that I had believe I had become one — and isn’t that what we proclaim as Christians, that we are new beings. We are new creations.

I was in Cape Town for nine months, and most of that time was spent with Capetonian youth working on issues of HIV/AIDS. For the most part, these young people came from different socio-economic situations, faith traditions and they were racially diverse. One of the young people that I came across was a woman by the name of Babalwa, who was from the township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town. There’s a common myth in South Africa that if an HIV positive person sleeps with a virgin, then he or she will be cured. Babalwa was raped by her uncle. Now in South Africa, there’s a great deal of stigmatization if one is HIV positive. She was heavily ostracized by her family, who often didn’t speak to her and left her alone, where she was chastised by neighbors and even other family members. But though the love of other Christians, an NGO[non-governmental organization] named Wola Nani, she was given a place where she wasn’t looked at as if she were an object of derision; but as a human being who needs love and care. It’s as if these people looked at the Christ within her, and through a deep sense of care and solidarity, Babalwa was able to feel empowered and to have her dignity restored. It was amazing to see and hear her, and a testimony to the living God. Instead of being HIV positive, she was now positive about HIV.

Now since 9/11, we as Americans have a great opportunity, amidst the death and destruction of that day, to be reconcilers. And in lieu of the phenomenon of globalization, how can we as Americans — as the most powerful country in the world — how can we best serve the world? Must we not leave our comfort zone and stand in solidarity with people of the developing world through a showing of revolutionary love? Must we not realize that we don’t have all the answers; but that we are willing to humble ourselves, our economic policies, our military might to those comrades who are in most need? By doing this, are we not seeking dialogue, are we not seeking to uplift the humanity of other people? In fact, the only type of globalization that I am for is the one that would globalize dissent, globalize peace, and globalize justice.

Ranjit Koshy Mathews is the first "Witness Anglican UN Intern," an internship program launched in 2003 by the Office of the Anglican United Nations Observer, with the support of The Witness magazine. Ranit is a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York, NY. He previously served from 2001-02 as an intern on HIV/AIDS ministry with the (Anglican) Church in the Province of Southern Africa, based in Cape Town. Ranit may be reached by email at misterranjit@yahoo.com

For more information about the "Witness Anglican UN Internship" contact Ethan Flad at ethan@thewitness.org or Archdeacon Taimalelagi Matalavea at unoffice@episcopalchurch.org

Ed. Note: This essay was delivered at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Minneapolis, Minn., on July 31, 2003, at the Presiding Bishop’s Forum on Global Reconciliation.