II

II. Where Do We Go? With Whom? And How?

We now turn from the analysis of our situation to the question of the choices before us. What are the options? Who are moving towards

a viable society? Can we join with them? How? This time I would like to start with a biblical-theological reflection.

(1) To the Sources

One image for our present situation for where we are was that of the desert. Biblically the desert is a place of escape, of encounter with God, of new insight and vocation, of severe testing for persons and for whole generations, of miraculous survival and subsistence, and of the revelation of God's will for life in the promised new society. It is the place from where you can see the system of bondage and oppression in its brutal totality and thus come to the insight that an exodus, an alternative, is needed. [13] It is a place where God's voice is heard from the midst of a burning bush (Exodus 3). Why a bush? Jews have asked. It symbolizes the suffering of the people, the rabbis have answered. The glory of God's name, the promise of God's presence ("I shall be with you"), is revealed where it hurts and bums in the thorns of bondage and the flames of oppression and where an old shepherd turns to face reality once more and makes up his mind to go, to face the powers that be.

Desert is the place where people are taught to share as a matter of survival, as the manna story tells us (Exodus 16) which finds its continuation in the stories of Elijah and Elisha and in the gospel stories of the feeding of the crowds. But it is also the place where people get lost and give up. They remember the fleshpots, the fish-curries and the cucumbers of Egypt and curse the day that they ventured out on the long road to freedom (Numbers 11). This reminds us that even in the desert, or rather especially in the desert, we do not live by bread and water alone. We need a vision to sustain us, a sense of direction, stamina to carry on. The most difficult wilderness to cross may after all be the inner desert of defeat, of despair, of cynicism. That is why John's gospel ends the narrative of the feeding of the crowds in the wilderness by speaking about the "bread of life." People find these sayings too hard. Disappointed, they fade away. Jesus asks the

disciples, "Do you also wish to go away?" Peter answers, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of lasting life" (John 6:6ff.). But what does it imply if we affirm afresh the need to turn to the sources of our faith?

Today we find many people who, having lost their orientation, turn to their religious sources with frightening results. Religious fundamentalism and communalism is one of the desperate responses of people in our time to the spiritual and social devastation caused by modem global capitalist civilization. There is the search for solid ground where everything melts away — customs, values, relationships — the search for fundamentals which last. This is true among Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians — everywhere you find it. And politicians are busy exploiting it. So going to the sources seems to be a rather disastrous advice. Of course, I am not advocating fundamentalism. But I think that it is not enough to be just against it. It indicates a need which deserves to be satisfied in an alternative way. Religion is not the basis for political organization, economic programs, legislation and exercise of power. That leads only to endless bloodshed.

But we may turn indeed in an open-minded way to the Bible and other wells of people's traditions, to various cultural and religious sources, to find spiritual resources for resisting the forces of death in present-day society. Religious fundamentalism however tends to be exclusive: our God, our truth, not yours. My reference to various sources implies that we don't go to the sources for ready-made answers and recipes, but always with a discerning, searching mind. Israel selectively assimilated from the cultures and religions it encountered all that it could affirm to be in the perspective of God's liberative purpose of justice and peace, and rejected what would be an obstacle to that.

This critical universalist approach we find in Romans 12. Paul speaks, after his profound Christ-centered discourse in the first part of his letter, in a very open way of the renewal of our mind that we may

find out what is "good, acceptable and perfect." m that he includes what non-Christian wisdom — such as Stoa — had to offer to those who have chosen to follow Jesus. His concern is to avoid mindless conformism, floating with the stream, not asking where it leads us, closing our eyes to the disasters ahead. How do we resist being brainwashed in our educational degree-factories which prepare us to become agents of destructive productivity? How do we help each other to be transformed into critical, creative human beings who are able to discern what is good?

Pious Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists have taken the call to non-conformism with this world in an individualistic, often ascetic, way. That has its own value which many radicals have ignored to their own and others' distress. After all, the fight against lung cancer, alcoholism and drug addiction has also to do with self-discipline.

But the biblical call goes far beyond that. For it, a nonconformist lifestyle is part of a transformative social praxis in response to the groaning of people and of the whole creation because of its bondage. It is following Jesus step by step, guided by visions of an alternative social set-up, which makes sense in the light of God's kingdom which he announced. That is an option which requires persistence, courage and a peculiar sort of discipline. It is not easy to climb down the ladder when most are pushing to move upwards.

Finding out what is the will of God, Paul says, happens in the way of presenting our bodies. It is a matter of social praxis. With whom do we associate?

"Associate with the lowly." That little sentence (Romans 12:16) sums up the praxis of Jesus and the basic guideline for a constructive, liberative non-conformism. That is the bottomline of liberation theology which I am presupposing throughout. The question which arises is, whether we are non-conformist enough in that sense. Are we crazy

enough to show how crazy present-day trends actually are and how sound and sane it would be to seek urgently a way out? It requires guts to swim against the stream in the academic world, to question the prevailing assumptions, be it in economics, medical science, biotechnology, energy-policies, etc. How do we equip students to have the guts later, in an institute or planning board, to take it up for the bullock-cart, for the cycle, for organic farming, for sustainable and people-controlled solutions? The Economist (London) recently came up with an analysis of India's economic problems and with the usual solution of liberalization which indeed would serve the upper 10 or 15 per cent of the Indian population. What does association with the lowly mean in terms of viable alternative economic policies which start from their needs?

Or what means non-conformism when the spirituality of destruction, the evil spirits of violence, engulf a whole society as has been happening in Sri Lanka? Is it possible to refuse to conform, to overcome evil with good, as Paul suggests? (Romans 12:21). Can we risk to practice that incredible code for unconventional behavior, the Sermon on the Mount, which advises to do the unexpected, the surprising which may unsettle the evil forces? Or what about being nonconformist in male-female relations, not in the shallow way of a libertinism which confuses emancipation with the absence of commitments, but in the sense of serious resistance against all forms of patriarchal domination and exploitation of women?

(2) Towards a Viable Society

It is puzzling that the evangelicals and pentecostals who rightly so much emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit hardly dream of a new society. That is central to Peter's sermon on Pentecost, quoting the prophet Joel, about the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh so that the young see visions and the old dream dreams (Acts 2). So many visions and dreams have collapsed, as we have analyzed. But that is no reason to stop dreaming. The Spirit sends new visions or renews old visions.

The point is not to impose dreams on others by force and then see it all turn into nightmares, but to share dreams and to move towards their realization step by step, finding companions on the way.

That is the other side of the picture today: new visions are emerging. And what is most encouraging is that they are emerging in the context of actual struggles. People are already on the move and, in the process of exchange and networking, they start articulating what moves them. Rulers and planners may have their projections for the 21st century but the people's movements are pointing at alternatives.

A People's Plan for the 21st century (PP21) has been formulated in the course of the gathering of activists of various movements from 33 countries. Their vision of an alternative, viable and peaceful society is not the product of abstract reasoning but of common reflection in connection with people's movements resisting the destruction of their lives and of the future of their children. Farmers who rise to fight the international food business, the threat of new GATT agreements and the destruction of household farming; indigenous peoples like the Ainu in Japan who come together across borders to resist the denial of their identity and the destruction of their cultures in the name of development; women resisting old and new forms of exploitation and fighting for their rights; workers, students, consumers, people affected by environmental destruction and militarization. They constitute a long list of people who are moving already.

In his keynote address at the Minamata Gathering in 1989, Muto Ichiyo spoke of new horizontal relations both in economics and politics based on an ecologically sustainable relationship to nature. One quote from the section on a new economics gives an idea of the approach:

It is important that we begin with basics - what we need for a decent living and how those needed things should be produced, distributed and consumed. Value added (GNP) should cease to

be the measure for economic activities. Instead, satisfaction of human needs in a human way should be our yardstick.

Economic activities should be reintegrated with the life of the people — people in the community. Production and consumption should be organized as material aspects of communities. On this basis, communities need to be horizontally linked so as to exchange their surpluses. This is not an image of subsistence economy, nor is it a call to go back to pre-modem society. It is an image of an economy of a new affluence made possible by accumulation at the grassroots level by people themselves. Here, people-to-people relations regulate the economy and not vice versa This is what we mean by "taking back the economy."

It is here that we must examine the role of counter-economic systems. Now a variety of such movements are developing, cooperatives linking organic farmers to urban consumers, workers' production collectives, people-to-people trade, buffalo banks and credit associations. How far and in what way can these people's economic systems be a basis for our future economic systems? [14]

Another international document which points into an alternative direction, summing up feminist reflections, is the DAWN declaration on Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (1985). The follow-up discussions on local and regional levels have moved towards analyzing women's issues in closer connection with economic and ecological issues. The analysis of women's displacement and marginalization by modem industry and agriculture leads to questioning that sort of development and the search for an alternative. The insight into the effects of environmental degradation on women in terms of increased burden of daily labor is a further reason to oppose a "development" which makes life more difficult, f 15]

On the national level, similar trends are emerging. From India I quote a draft statement of a network of organizations called Janvikas Andolan. These organizations have been fighting a gigantic scheme of huge dams on the Narmada river in West India sponsored by the World Bank:

In a general sense, Janvikas Andolan is a movement against the development paradigm being practiced in post-independent India whereby a narrow elite primarily benefits at the cost of a very large population that continues to be marginalized, displaced and pauperized, along with large-scale degradation and plundering of our natural resource base. The movement does not have an antidevelopment perspective. It is not against development. Rather, it maintains that much of what today goes under the name of development is not genuine development but is in fact socially disruptive, biologically and genetically homogenizing and environmentally destructive. The Andolan's demand is for real development in which the over-riding objective is not just a bigger growth rate regardless of its human and environmental cost, but the fulfillment of basic human needs and the creation of just and humane conditions of life for all our people.

I understand that the People's Caucus in the Philippines which was inaugurated in October 1990 also signifies a new step in the direction of linking up one-issue struggles in a more comprehensive approach towards an alternative sustainable development. [16]

Much of these declarations, of these "alliances of hope," still sound somewhat Utopian. But they are based on realistic insights into the present crisis. That is the crucial difference with the projections of the multinationals and so many politicians. Their projects and dreams will be unsustainable; they will be built on the misery of millions of people. There will be only a future for humankind if we stop following the pipers of techno-utopia which will end in the terror of techno-fascism.

What are the implications of the alternative movements? Muto Ichiyo and his team pomt at new forms of democracy evolving. We are used to "democracy" as a form of state which often is the opposite of people's rule. But here we find community-based democracy, empowering people to exercise power over the things that matter in their lives. The indigenous people's movements confront us with values and attitudes which sustain a different, more cooperative relationship with nature. Women's movements point at the need for an alternative development if we seriously want to fight against women's exploitation and discrimination.

The emerging alternative is based on a basic re-orientation in the fundamental relations of life: from an approach of conquest and domination to one of mutuality, cooperation and sharing on the basis of equality. It implies cooperative relationships with nature, horizontal integration of individuals and groups implying cultural diversity, community-based democracy, economic activity serving human needs on the basis of people-to-people relationships, trans-border participatory democracy, and people's struggles rooted in daily life, and drawing strength from the personal capacity to relate to others.

One of the key questions remains that of political economy. Is such a re-orientation economically possible, and how? We need a lot of very serious theoretical work on that. We should have no illusions about the problems involved. In daily life, in the continuous struggle for survival, it is all terribly difficult and full of drawbacks. Yet I think it is justified to discern in it steps in an alternative direction, a hopeful non-conformism which calls for support and which needs to be strengthened.

Let me take a few examples from India. I have made some studies of the various environmental movements there: against deforestation (Chipko); against big dams displacing hundred thousands of people, mainly the so-called tribals; against nuclear factors; against the poisoning of the environment in so many ways. [17] These are

struggles for survival rooted in daily life and carried on by women. fishworkers, peasants and sympathizers such as critical scientists and students. But they imply a radical and different understanding of economics, a different approach to technology, a different sort of politics. Actually the implications come close to the early ideas of socialism: a society in which people control together the economy which is geared towards the satisfaction of human needs. It is a tragedy that others, especially certain forces on the right, are quicker to grasp that these are life-and-death issues and are making political capital of it, whereas many on the left have not yet understood that these are crucial contradictions on which capital has to be confronted today.

Some far-sighted trade unionists in India have started to relate to these questions. They fight for workers' control over resources and this could be the way to create the necessary spaces in which people again start deciding what to produce for whom. One encouraging victory which has opened up new perspectives has been the take-over ofKamani Tubes by a workers cooperative.

In India, this struggle is further complicated by the deep-rooted reality of caste division which is again connected with patriarchy. These vertical divisions of society' are confronted by workers, dalits and low caste groups, and women. Much will depend on how they will horizontally relate to each other.

Gail Omvedt, in a forthcoming book, lists the following characteristics of these "new social movements" in relationship to traditional leftist movements: (a) they are "social" movements in the sense of having a broad overall organization, structure and ideology aiming at social change; (b) they are "new" in the sense that they define the exploitation and oppression which they confront in "new" terms as compared to traditional marxism, and they refuse to subordinate to vanguard-parties of the Leninist type; and (c) they are movements of groups which were either ignored by traditional marxism (women,

dalits, peasants) or are exploited in ways not conceptualized by it (state-and-market exploitation of farmers, exploitation through environmental degradation). Let me give one example of a recent people's struggle to illustrate some of the points:

One such localized forward-looking struggle of peasants began in Sangli district following the textile workers' strike of 198283. Here peasants and activists (and some former textile workers) of one drought-ridden taluka toured their villages surveying conditions of rivers and wells and proposing concrete small-scale alternatives. Their slogan expressed resistance to state-imposed drought and "rock-breaking" relief projects: We will no longer break rocks; we will no longer build roads; we will not stop without abolishing drought.

One alternative proposal developed into a struggle, building a small dam irrigating 900 acres of land in two villages. Three unique aspects existed for this Ball Raja Memorial Dam: (a) the coming together of some modem scientific/technological expertise with the indigenous peasant techniques (a "vidnyan yatra" and a demonstration against the local university for not doing enough anti-drought research were part of the long-term movement), (b) the proposal to provide water to all, including women and the landless, on an equal per capita basis; and (c) .the proposal to finance the dam by demanding permission to sell the sand from the dried-up bed of the river running between the villages. The equal-water proposal was indirectly against the interests of the rural rich; the claims to rights over the sand challenged directly the government, the bureaucracy, with its claim to own and control the "commons" (forests, "wasteland," water and sand) and its right to extract the surplus from these for its OWTI interests. It was the latter that proved the more explosive issue, and the Ball Raja struggle posed the peasants and a broad united front of supporters primarily against the bureaucracy (where profiteering contractors united with local

bureaucrats) and the state.

If peasants themselves build dams, what will be left for the government to do? Such was the question reportedly asked in the first state cabinet meeting that discussed the Bali Raj Dam. What indeed? f 18]

(3) Can SCMers Join?

That is obviously not easy. Being based in universities, we find ourselves in places of learning, training and brainwashing which are, to a large extent, designed to produce agents of the dominant development model. "Science and technology" is the strongest ideological weapon used by the development planners, the multinationals and the military. But that also means we are challenged to face the enemies of the pauperized masses, of the millions of ecological refugees, of the marginalized women, of the victims of scientific and technological experiments — from Bhopal to Chemobyl and Minamata — in a crucial strategic area, within the center as it were. Christian churches and missionaries have contributed much to an uncritical promotion of Western science and technology, to the destruction of traditional wisdom and skills, to the repression of viable scientific alternatives available in the Asian context (e.g. medical science).

One of the challenges to the SCMs in Asia and the Pacific, in my opinion, is to stimulate new generations of students and scientists to develop a critically discerning attitude towards dominant science and technology programs and paradigms, and to contribute to the ongoing search for peaceful, non-destructive, non-exploitative and democratic technologies, and thus, serve the people.

That will happen only if we manage to be in real touch with people and their struggles. That is again not easy. How do we avoid that oppressive vertical integration which offers us a more or less comfortable middle-class life, some respectable career? How does

one actually practice that sort of horizontal integration of which the People's Plan speaks — like Paul in Romans 8 and 12, when we are already moving up the ladder? Can the SCMs keep us in touch with movements which socialize us in a non-conformist way? How? hi which concrete practical ways?

Probably that is very much connected with cultural questions. The vertical integration squeezes us into the uniform quasi-culture of modem science and tends to destroy local, cultural roots. We learn to speak computer-language and slowly lose touch with the colorful diversity of people's languages and dialects. How can the SCMs contribute to the revitalization of cultural diversity as the way to a truly ecumenical fellowship?

And now, more practically and more closely to the university. How can we strengthen those research activities which are relevant for the search and struggle for an alternative society — from organic farming to sources of renewable energy, from economic theory which does not ignore the ecological foundations of all economic activity to cultural studies which don't ignore people's culture?

How do we create communitarian forms of fellowship (basic human communities) in which alternative, non-conformist attitudes and values can be fostered?

How do we develop social forms in which modem students feel at home and at peace and find access to a sense of life which allows them to opt out of the rat-race?

The SCMs cannot replace other movements. Student movements are important but they cannot take up and sust?yi the long-term struggles which require decades of efforts of mobilizing, educating, organizing of various sections of people. A student you are only for a few years; a worker, peasant, fisherfolk, or woman you are all your life.

That means that the SCM which wants to support people's struggle for an alternative society has to build bridges for its members to get involved — hopefully on the basis of a life-long commitment — with women, dalit. ecological or workers movement, in one way or the other. The SCM whose members relate only to their SCM has failed to become such a bridge.

The political involvement of the SCMs from the 1960s and onwards was not wrong, not at all. It was part of the mission of the SCM. What went wrong was that they no longer functioned as a bridge to the other side, connecting its members with the sources of faith and tradition. We need these sources to keep going, and to remain open to new visions when old dreams collapse.

In the book of Micah we find the same grand vision as in Isaiah of the nations which turn to Zion to learn peace, to turn from destruction to cultivation, to convert swords into ploughshares. But in Micah this global vision is expressed in the simple, elementary terms of what peace means for a villager in daily life: that no high-up official comes to grab the land, that no military comes to confiscate your house, that no logging or mining company comes to cut your trees, that "they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid" (Micah 4:4). Space and fruits for everybody beyond the grasp of the state and market. In the National Campaign for Housing Rights in India we have learned how crucial this is. That is were global vision and daily life of millions of people get linked up.

Our words "economy" and "ecology" are both derived from the Greek word "oikos," meaning house. In which perspective do we work "for a home-like world for all?" Again we are facing the "I" and "We" question. Many of our college teachers and others have as the main pre-occupation the question of how to make money so that they can build their little or preferably big house which then becomes a castle. The vision of peace — everybody under his fig tree without fear — turns eventually into a petty-bourgeois nightmare.

And this is all the more the case when we consider what is the place of women in these households, a problem which is already visible in the Micah text: every man under his fig tree. Instead, we may say: we, all, women and men, under our fig trees. And then add: in order to reach that precious goal we may have to forego voluntarily our dream of a calm, peaceful life in a decent house in a suburb because we commit ourselves to join in the long, tedious struggles against capitalism and militarism which need to be fought in order to achieve that. The SCM may inspire people to be satisfied with tents as long as our societies produce so much homelessness and uprootedness. Others may respond by opting for open houses. Together they/we may be following the one who had no place of his own, who moved from place to place, and who promised his disciples who had left their houses that they would receive new fellowship and space — mothers, brothers, sisters and houses, except fathers (Mark 10).