Faith and
Justice in a Postmodern World
Michael Amaladoss SJ
he 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus
realized that the promotion of justice is an integral dimension of the
profession of faith. Faith is not merely belief but commitment to love God in
the Other, that is, all others. In a context of
injustice and inequality, loving others, especially the poor, demands that we
ensure that they receive what is their due as humans in the world. This calls
for a transformation of the economic and political structures that make people
poor. Faith is therefore not merely fidelity to religious ritual or to an
otherworldly spirituality. It has to do justice through the transformation of
socio-economic structures. (cf. Decree 4)
The 34th General Congregation
realized that the transformation of socio-economic structures is not possible
without cultural and religious transformation. In a situation of cultural and
religious pluralism this can happen only through dialogue between cultures and
religions in the context of an awareness of God’s presence and action in that
dialogue. The Congregation also mentioned areas besides poverty that needed
attention: human rights, globalization, the defence of human life, environment,
human solidarity, Dalits and indigenous peoples, the
excluded, refugees and displaced persons. It also spoke of a need for our own
personal conversion. (cf. Decree 3)
The 35th General Congregation,
while recommitting the Society to this mission, highlights two elements of the
contemporary world that need special attention, namely, globalization and
postmodernism. Let me look at them from an Indian point of view.
Globalization
GC34 had already spoken about globalization in the context of
“a growing consciousness of the interdependence of all peoples in one common
heritage.”
“While this
phenomenon can produce many benefits, it can also result in injustices on a
massive scale: economic adjustment programmes and market forces unfettered by
concern for their social impact, especially on the poor; the homogenous
‘modernization’ of cultures in ways that destroy traditional cultures and
values; a growing inequality among nations and – within nations – between rich
and poor, between the powerful and marginalized.” (D. 3, 7)
It is a pity that
the document does not spell out the “many benefits” but focuses only on the
negative factors. GC35 does make a positive remark about globalization of the
network of communications and how this can be used advantageously. This is an
indication that globalization itself is a neutral phenomenon. It can be abused
for economic, political and cultural domination. But it can also be used for
building the global solidarity of people, especially those who are struggling
to promote justice in various ways. I am afraid that, in talking about
globalization, GC35 is ‘globalizing’ a particular western attitude to the
phenomenon. Colonial capitalism was the dominant force in the world from the 16th
century onwards. The communist revolution created an alternative model of
state-centred ‘socialist’ capitalism, however contradictory this may sound.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, this alternative disappeared and
liberal capitalism seeks to dominate the world. But for a person living in a
Third World country like India there is nothing
very new about all this. The colonizing countries dominated and exploited the
rest of the world for nearly four centuries. Though political colonialism
disappeared in the middle of the 20th century, economic, commercial
and military domination and exploitation continue. The global domination of
Euro-America, though it may take new forms, is thus nothing new for the Third World.
There is, however, a new element in the
contemporary picture. At the political level (and also at the cultural and
religious level,) the now politically independent Third World countries are resisting such
globalization. India and China are modernizing without ‘westernizing’.
They are not in the process of becoming secularized in the same way as Europe was. The Muslims are even resorting to
violence to defend their religious-cultural identity, though they may be
branded fundamentalists for this. The Third World countries stand their ground today in
international bodies like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization
(WTO), though they are dominated in other international entities like the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, both of which are controlled by
the richer countries. The picture of the Doha round of WTO negotiations is instructive.
The USA, the European Union and the Third World countries, led by Brazil, India and South Africa, pulled in different directions, making
agreement impossible. It is obvious that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries offer a counterbalancing force
to the Europe and America. The OPEC countries exploit the others in
their own way. So globalization is not as smooth as one might pretend. We live
in a multi-polar world. There are many international NGOs networking today to
resist globalizing tendencies. The post-colonial situation has empowered the
poorer countries politically and many of these countries do experiment with
mixed economies.
In India, for instance, there is a Public
Distribution System to provide the essentials of life to poorer people at
subsidized rates. There are affirmative action programmes for Dalits and Tribals, as well as
religious and cultural minorities. Employment generation programmes have also
been launched. Indian industries are protected against global takeovers; global
monopolies are resisted. While it is true that corruption and mismanagement
vitiate these programmes, the fact is that they are there and are proving
useful to many people. In a democratic country like India, the poor also have the power of the vote
and cannot be ignored. Local and even national governments have been chosen or
thrown out for economic reasons during elections. On the other hand, a certain
globalization of the knowledge and service industries is bringing jobs and
economic progress to the emerging middle class in India. There are still many poor people, but
the solution does not lie in sharing poverty through a distributive justice of
available resources. We have to create riches that can be shared and these
cannot be created today without integration into the global processes of
production and the market. India had a protected, mixed economy for
decades after independence and it led us nowhere. Progress is being made now
only after India has opened up to the world, though in a
controlled way. It is true that India has to be careful not to play into the
hands of the multi-nationals. But the experience of China, and later India, not to speak of other Asian economies
like Thailand and Korea, has shown that opening up to the globe
carefully need not always be detrimental. It is significant that Europe and America, after preaching the virtue of open
economies to the rest of the world, are now playing protectionism in the WTO
with regard to agricultural subsidies, for example.
I think that the phenomenon of globalization
has, therefore, to be approached not ideologically and abstractly, but
practically and sensitively. Globalization, thanks to the facility of
communications, is a fact. The poorer countries should not close themselves in
or shut themselves off, but organize themselves and fight for their rightful
place and share in the world economically and politically, even while defending
their cultural identities. It is also surprising that, while people talk about
abstract forces like globalization, no one dares to challenge prophetically the
rich and the powerful, and the multi-nationals of the world, who are out to
exploit the poor. The problem is that our documents are often strong on
ideology, but weak on praxis. The fact that they are also ‘global’ documents cannot
be an excuse.
If I may be permitted an aside, I suggest
that the church itself seems to seek global domination without respecting the
identity and autonomy of the different local churches and their cultures. At
times it seems that a claim is made that we cannot be Christians without being
culturally Greco-Roman.
Postmodernity
Postmodernity is another global phenomenon that people
like to evoke. Europe was ‘religious’, but with the
Enlightenment and scientific progress, became ‘rational’ (modern). Now that the
claims of ‘reason’ have weakened, it is said to have become postmodern.
There are sociologists who would speak rather of late modernity than of postmodernity. One could discuss whether America is postmodern
in the same way as Europe. Science and technology do not seem to
have had the same secularizing influence in America as in Europe. The Asian experience has also shown that
one can become scientific and ‘modern’ without becoming secular. So I doubt
whether postmodernity is really a global phenomenon
as some claim. As a matter of fact, many of the Third World countries may still be negotiating the
tensions between tradition and modernity. Some of the middle class elites in
these countries with pre-modern roots in the villages but with technical and service
jobs in the cities, may be passing directly from pre-modernity to a situation
which some may call postmodern. But they integrate
this passage in ways very different from young people in Europe. It is perhaps too early to analyze this,
since it is happening just now and we do not know how it will develop.
Postmodernity is often linked to relativism. The
pre-moderns had faith-based absolutes. The moderns had reason-based absolutes.
The postmoderns are said to reject both types of
absolutes and believe only in personal experiences, perceptions and
affirmations; hence they are considered to be relativists. Obviously, if truth
is what I say without any reference to an objective order, then it is
relativism. But such a discourse does not recognize legitimate pluralism, which
it brands as relative. This may be true in a mono-cultural or mono-religious
society. But in India with its rich pluralism of cultures and
religions absolute affirmations are not possible and pluralism need not be
relative.
God alone is absolute. But God is beyond
whatever we can say about God. As the Scholastics used to say, we can say that
God is, not what God is. God as an absolute is perceived and affirmed by each
one of us in different ways conditioned by our personality, culture, history
and conditions of perception and the language of affirmation. The God I affirm
is absolute, not my affirmation of God. The young today are not interested in
my abstract absolute statements about God. They are rather interested in what I
can share of my experience of God. But my experience is always conditioned by
various factors. The experience of each person (even one’s own at various
times) is bound to be different. In so far as my experience is of God, it is
true. But it is not the whole truth about God. It is limited, related to God on
the one hand, and to my various conditionings on the other. In that sense it is
relative and pluralistic, while true. It is in and through the many limited
affirmations that I reach out to the absolute God without ever really grasping
God fully. St. Thomas Aquinas said that even the incarnate manifestation of the
infinite God is limited. (cf. ST III, 3, 7). Such a pluralism of affirmations
is therefore legitimate and is not relativistic in the postmodern
sense. Moral principles sound absolute in the abstract: “Thou shalt not kill”. But what constitutes killing in the
concrete is subject to many conditioning factors.
The young today affirm their freedom and
refuse total loyalty to any system or institution. I do not see anything wrong
with this; it seems to me an element of human growth. This is the tension
between ‘law’ and ‘freedom’ that Paul explored in his letters to the Romans and
the Galatians. Personal freedom has to be educated and guided, not subordinated
to a group or an institution. Our only option then is dialogue with, and
persuasion of, individuals. It is sometimes said that the young today prefer
spirituality to religion. What they question is not God or God-experience, but
institutions presuming to capture God in their formulae and ritual. In the name
of God, institutions, and the people who represent them, tend to absolutize themselves. This is fundamentalism. The Indian
tradition affirms the Absolute “One-without-a-second”. But it also experiences
this Absolute’s manifestation to us in a thousand different ways. Such
manifestations are not ‘relative’ in any pejorative sense, but legitimate and
pluralistic.
I am not saying that there is no
relativism in the world today. There are ‘New Age’ groups that pick and choose
elements from various religions to make up their own, but with no basis in
authentic religious experience. On the other hand, there are many religions and
they have different ways of living and sharing their experience of God. We
cannot absolutize our own experience and relativize the experience of others. There is a pluralism
here that calls for dialogue. Between absolutism and relativism there is
authentic and legitimate pluralism. Some ‘postmoderns’
may be discovering this and I find nothing wrong in it. Their attempt to
personalize the praxis of faith is also welcome, though it should not be
privatized.
Personal Transformation
In promoting justice we speak of transforming social, economic,
political, religious and cultural structures. But one hears hardly anything
about converting the agents – the persons – who create and maintain these
structures and who alone can change them. GC34 speaks of converting ourselves.
GC35 speaks of using the Spiritual Exercises to convert others. I think that we
have to be more practical than this. I shall make my point by quoting Fr. Arrupe:
“Clearly, the
present world order is based neither on justice nor love, but almost always on
personal and national interest. The balance of power is a balance of terror ...
One hears the candid statement that only two possibilities exist: either a
striking personal conversion of those who have most influence to bring about
the needed changes, or the violent tearing down of unjust structures. My own
conviction is that violence is not the right way to get positive results. If
that is true, the only thinkable alternative is the other: namely, the personal
conversion of those who have power and influence.” (Pedro Arrupe, A Planet to Heal, Ignatian Centre of Spirituality 1975, pp. 25-26)
“According to St. Ignatius, we must give
preference to people and places capable of multiplying our work for others. He
gives these examples: “princes and rulers, magistrates and administrators of
justice, people who are outstanding in literature or authority.” My question
is: who are these multipliers, these influential people, these “magistrates and
princes” of today? Are they, for example, politicians, trade union leaders,
youth leaders, influential thinkers, scientists affecting the course of history,
those who control the mass media? Today we are aware of the tremendous impact
of ideologies, structures, and public opinion. It is crucial that we be active
in these fields where we can best spread the truth or remove obstacles impeding
evangelization.” (Final Address to the Congregation of Procurators, Oct. 5
1978, 12)
This insight of Fr. Arrupe throws
before us an important challenge. Our option for the poor leads us to serve the
poor as they organize and empower themselves and struggle to promote justice.
But it should also lead us to work with the ‘non-poor’ – not the rich, but the
people who have power and influence and who can bring about social change. The
people whom we have to convert are more likely to be in the First (Christian?) World than in the Third. It is at this level that our
universities, journals, intellectual and spiritual apostolate are relevant
today.
Conclusion
Our task in India will focus on our service for the
liberation of Dalits, Tribals,
women and nature. Being a small minority (just 2.3 per cent), we Christians
cannot bring about any social transformation unless we collaborate with people
of good will of all religions and ideologies. As a matter of fact, our
contemporary experience is one of inter-religious conflict. Religious
fundamentalism and communalism are vitiating relations between people and
leading to violence. For this reason, even before promoting justice, we will
have to engage in conflict resolution and reconciliation.
Michael Amaladoss
SJ
Institute of Dialogue with Cultures and Religions
Loyola College, Nungambakkam
Chennai – 600 034 – INDIA
