LOOKING BACK AND MOVING FORWARD

WSCFA A-P's faith journey in Quest for Its Ideology and Theology

 

 

Yong Ting J in, a former Regional Secretary of the WSCF A-P, is cur­rently the coordinator of the Asian Women's Resource Center fo r Culture and Theology.  (This paper is taken from her pres­entation at the Student Empower­ment for Transformation program 2000in Singapore List June)

 

Introduction

My task is to share with you the history of the WSCF A-P region in the -80s and t[he 90s, giving special regard to its ideology and theology. I think the feeling is that the region has suffered and continues to suffer from a lack of clarity in the area of ideology and theology.

I would look at the "history of WSCF AP in the 80s and the 90s" through its regional activities, programmes, events planned and carried out in that pe­riod. Since much time, energy and effort were put into promoting women students' active involvement, participation and leadership development in the region in the same period, I will give due attention to it as well.

First let us recall some of the most significant global and regional develop­ments in the last two decades. It is after all the socio-economic and political context/arena within which our regional activities and programmes took place. Locating ourselves within this larger context brings out the relevance or irrelevance and significance or non-significance of our region's work. This will also enhance our reflection/discussion on ideology and theology of the region. Second, let us reflect on the regional activities/programmes of the last twenty years. We shall highlight and critically reflect on two main regional programmes: the region's leadership formation and development programme (earlier called Human Resource Development or HRD and now the Student Empowerment for Transformation or SET) and the Regional Women's Programme.

 

Global/Regional/National Developments  in the 80s and 90s

Global Developments:

The fall of State Socialism reflects the "failure" of so­cialism as a system that can deliver. Conversely capi­talism has been touted by the capitalist media as the system that works, the system that will not only usher in and realise "the good life" on earth through global-isation (or is it not Gobblelisation?) but even bring it to its ultimate consummation. In fact, Cuba, North Korea and China are still among those that claim to be socialist-oriented societies. In the last ten years or so, however, China has gone into capitalistic ven­tures and was very recently admitted into the WTO. Is there any ugly side to capitalism/globalisation?

In fact our world order is still capitalistic, a global so­cial economic political system based on and backed by crude fire-power and shrewd rigging (through "democratic" electoral exercises every few years) and by the ideas, policies/laws/structures of society that further benefit the already rich and dominating, racist (white supremacist) and sexist (rich, white and male) classes. This is the system that will bring about the globalisation (more aptly the gobblelisation) of the world.

"Success" and "progress" of the Women's struggle to liberate women from the shackles of patriarchy and to raise their status and position to their rightful place.

Information Technology Age has brought the world really closer together and yet it is no guarantee of the truth and value of all the information or of the equal access to it by everyone.

 

Regional/National Developments:

Most if not all countries in the region share a common colonial heritage and are neo-colonies whose devel­opment in the last twenty years were tied to the socio-economic and political interest of their former capitalist colonial masters. Over the past two dec­ades it can be observed that these countries have become even more entrenched and integrated into the global capitalist, racist and sexist world order.

As neo-colonies some countries were ruled through crude militaristic regimes; others, for some periods, were put under martial law or emergency rule; and still others were controlled through draconian laws enacted by people elected through so-called "democratic" processes. We also witnessed the fall of military dictators, and the rise of statesmen who've held the fort till today. Park Chung Hee, Chun Do Hwan, Roh Tae Wu, Suharto, Marcos have come and gone while paramount leaders like Mahathir and sen­ior ministers like Lee Kuan Yew have been at the helm for ages. We've witnessed that for those who've come and gone, even their successors whose inter­ests were tied and linked to the interests of their colo­nial masters were not able to transform society for justice and peace. Thus we learned that genuine social change required more than mere change of leaders.

In an attempt to prove the success of the capitalist way of development, the Newly Industrialised Coun­tries (NICs) of Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong were, if only for a while, given full media coverage. All too soon however through the Asian regional economic downturn, South Korea became a bankrupt nation dependent on IMF intervention while the others teetered on the verge of collapse.

There is an underside to the capitalist mode of social development. In the last twenty years industrialisation brought about many untold stories of human suffer­ing. The abuse of human dignity and labour, irrespon­sible exploitation, depletion of earth's resources, pol­lution of the air, rivers and seas, ecological crises, a real threat to the very life support system for human beings and all creatures in creation itself are some of them. While capitalism purports to deliver the good life on earth, it is in fact steam-rolling humanity towards hell.

These last twenty years we also wit­nessed the sprouting of non-governmental single-issue interest groups around every conceivable issue on earth, most trying to deal with problems at a symp­tomatic level.

The white-supremacist-racist character of global capi­talism has continued to rear its ugly head. This was reflected in the "white races" who have stolen the choicest lands of the world from "coloured" indige­nous people -- Europeans in US and Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc., have to date not apologised nor sought to redress this historical misdeed in a just manner. Other lands and peoples in Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands were reduced to cheap labour sources, and as markets and dumping grounds for finished products, nuclear testing, and toxic waste. The list can goon...

In the last twenty years the domination of the world through arms, and economic stranglehold has also been accomplished through the subversion of cul­tures through what may be described as thought con­trol. Ideology and theology have not been spared. The information dissemination, schooling, "education" system is based on the same system of control/ mo­nopoly of knowledge and information and its distribu­tion.

Today with the apparent explosion of information through electronic media we may be misled to believe that we are in the information age that allows every­one equal access to the truth that sets people free. Some questions need to be raised: Who is control­ling? Who decides what information is allowed into the open market? What about the dissemination of lies/ half truths/disinformation? If whole histories of people can be distorted, what cannot be done? Infor­mation that keeps people captive must be distin­guished from truth that set people free. How about the struggle of women in the region these last twenty years?

 

Response of SCMs in the WSCF-AP

What has been the WSCF A-P's response to the global-regional developments and trends in the 80s and 90s? Let us closely examine the objectives and rationale of these programmes. What were the em­phases and priorities? What were the positions of the ideologies and theologies? What political functions did they serve given the dominant ideologies/ theologies in the larger society/church? Indeed, the themes/foci/thrusts raised and covered in all the re­gional programmes and events [including committee meetings] reflect the trends and realities of the time.

 

For examples: Themes/Focus/Programmes Thrusts

• Faith, Christian witness and response

• Christian presence in the academic world

• SCMs in solidarity with women's struggle for change

• Witnessing to life in the AP

• Race issues and struggles of minorities in AP

• Faith in Encounter with Suffering and Conflict in AP

 

Movement Building

• Leadership formation and skills training

• Promoting women and student leadership

• Deepening biblical-theological understanding

• Strengthening smaller/emerging movements

• Fostering/encouraging women-men partnership

 

Developing Ecumenical Concerns

• Developing and promoting:

• Asian and Pacific theologies

• Women doing theology

• Inter-faith dialogue and justice concerns

• Pacific concerns

• China concerns

 

Regional Realities and Trends

1. Peace and Justice against National Security

•   Militarism and nuclear issues

•   Peace movement

•   Movement for democratisation

•   People's democracy for peace with justice

•   Promoting sub-regional solidarity [esp. in the Pa­cific]

•   Foreign bases

•   State ideologies

•    Ethnic minorities/indigenous people

•   Questioning dominant development and eco­nomic development model

•   Massive human rights violations

•   Globalisation

•   Ecological crisis

 

2. Cultural Action for Liberation

• Quest for counter culture

• Conscientisation

• Critique of education and its system

• Affirming the positive values /elements in Asian cultures

• Impact and effects of information technology

 

3. Oppression of Women -Gender, Race and Class

•   Analysis and perspective of women's oppression

•   Women's leadership formation programme and history

•   Women doing theology

 

4. Human Rights and Solidarity Concerns

• Building Human Rights Network for solidarity ac­tion

 

Relating Programmes to Ideology and Theology

From the aforementioned programmes, we can see that SCMs in Asia-Pacific region have tried to subscribe to and opt for ideologies and theologies that challenged people to struggle for social transfor­mation, social justice, and peace with the belief that human beings are made in the image of God and have supreme value and worth. These run counter to the dominant ideologies which reduced people to labour digits good only for surplus value generation for the already rich. The spirituality that SCMs have always tried to bear witness to may be described as liberating, transformative, towards social justice and peace. When such "spirituality" is translated into the­ology and ideology, it is plain to see that the theolo­gies and ideologies that inspire, convict, propel, em­power and sustain students and their movements in the struggle for the above values are also opted for.

At a workshop on Theological and Ideological Devel­opment (HRD '88 in Taiwan), it was acknowledged that while SCMs in AP region had always opted for justice and social transformation there was no clearly spelt out ideology and theology that they could claim as their own or even readily refer to for purposes of student orientation, movement building, etc.

In response to this expressed need: > HRD '89 focused on biblical theological expres­sion/articulation of our faith (Book Series 16, "Re-living our Faith today").

Ø       Women Doing Theology Workshop, Taiwan '91 (Book series 15, "Our Stories, Our faith"), focused on biblical-theological contents, reflections and methodologies.

These and other regular regional programmes were efforts and attempts made [HRD-SET, Women, IME-MAP, CCA-WSCF Consultations, other joint interna­tional events - AYA, ASYG, EGGYS, and the WSCF regional committees - Regional Committee; Standing Committee; and the Regional Women's Committee] to address the needs and problems over the last two decades. However, we cannot claim that we already met the needs and resolved the problems faced by the movements or that we have laid the foundation and given depth to ideological and theological devel­opment. In fact there have been many other difficul­ties in the life of the movements thereby preventing this problem from being adequately addressed.

I will now focus on two major programme thrusts, i.e. leadership formation and development for students in the region and leadership formation for women. Per­haps some critical questions to keep in mind may help in our review of HRD/SET and the Women's programme:

Ø       How were they ideologically and theologically ori­ented and what political function did they ultimately serve?

Ø       In what ways have the programmes/activities been a source of inspiration, liberation and em­powerment in shaping the ideological and theologi­cal understanding of participants and movements? > Have the leadership programmes been adequate in providing the ideological and theological orienta­tion/position to inspire and sustain students and their movements in their struggle for justice and social transformation?

Ø       Where is the place of women and feminism as an ideology and theology in the life of the move­ments?

 

HRD and SET

- essential components

The HRD/SET aims to provide skills and tools in analysis that could shape one's perspective in rela­tion to ideology and theology. This can be seen through efforts done in country reports, inputs like geo-politics in Asia-Pacific, and group work analysis of trends and issues in the regional and national con­texts. A close examination of the regional leadership formation programme will give a sense of the ideo­logical/theological options/positions adopted by the region in a particular context. While nothing as clear as, for example, "Scientific Socialism" is spelt out, these and other programmes and activities were at­tempts to reflect the prevailing or emerging "ideology/ theology" of the region. While a well expressed and clearly articulated ideology/theology would be most helpful for student formation and movement building, one of the reasons that make it problematic to articu­late a "theology" is that it has to be dynamic, issue-responsive and changing over time... With a chang­ing situation, old ideologies have often been found wanting, thereby calling for "paradigm" shifts. Thus, for example, traditional ideologies that left out envi­ronmental or ecological concerns have to be cri­tiqued, modified and updated to suit the needs of the new situation.

 

Women's struggle in relation to ideology and theology

The women's struggle for liberation and justice came to be highlighted in the WSCF A-P's life and work through its Regional Women's Programme.. While the most radical and progressive ideologies and theolo­gies to date have not addressed the fundamental issue of the subjugation of and violence against women, WSCF A-P took the challenge of addressing it through its women's programme. In fact the theol­ogy of the institutional church as well as the dominant ideology in society at large are full of rationalisations that keep women subjugated and downtrodden. What women engaged in actual struggle are finding out is that while there is much helpful literature about women's struggle, there is no one theology and ideol­ogy that covers all aspects of it. It is in process and in the making, being defined, refined and formed in praxis before it can be articulated.

Some SCMs lack a basic biblical knowledge with re­gard to Christian witness and ministry. The need for grounding and deepening of biblical-theological un­derstanding was a crucial step to be taken up seri­ously. Two comprehensive programmes were cre­ated and implemented, including skills and tech­niques in Bible reading and faith reflection from the feminist perspective. The HRD 1989 and the Women Doing Theology workshop in 1991 were conducted to achieve the said objective.

What is new in doing theology in Asia-Pacific is that appropriate and critical contextualisation has to be inclusive of the women's lived experiences and sto­ries as well as the use of gender language. There­fore, a re-reading of the Bible requires new eyes and renewed perception. Many SCMs and individual members have gradually realised the importance of giving attention and emphasis on this aspect in order to enable them to make the link between faith and social reality.

 

Conclusion

While a clearly articulated ideology and theology is necessary, its articulation is only possible in the proc­ess of new creation making - where the deed must be done before the word can be articulated. Often there are no ready-made blueprints, after all, it is a journey of faith. All we have is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen... and that is sufficient...at least for the work at hand...

I suppose it is ultimately the task of this group and each movement to assess the need of the times, to live out their faith and to articulate their theology and ideology that adequately express and reflect the dy­namic faith and deep spirituality of God's struggling people in our region. It might well be the responsibility of this group to get their teeth into the task...