The one third of the world’s people who struggle for survival on less than US$2 per day are just a statistic. But they are real people like you and me. I think about this in the context of the Church’s teaching on the dignity of the human person and find it has huge implications. I put faces to these people from the visits I have made to places like the Philippines and get upset at the global financial system that has contributed to their suffering for so long. As I try to get my head around the enormity of financial institutions talking about trillions of dollars of losses in the current global financial meltdown, and billions being spent by governments on bailing out failed companies, I ask why are they being rescued and not the poor? On Jubilee Sunday this year, May 17th, the theme Digging to the Roots of Poverty focuses on the debt of poor countries.
Since the first debt crisis in the 1980s, the people of highly indebted poor countries, have been paying with their lives, denied basic services because of their governments’ unjust, unpayable debts. The full cancellation of those debts has always been possible, but instead, $400 billion flows out each year from developing countries to their debtors. This situation which is one of the root causes of extreme poverty, has never been dealt with. Now with the current global financial collapse, at least 38 countries are likely to go into even more debt. This will exacerbate their peoples’ suffering and extend the problem long-term.
The Philippines spends more than one third of its budget on debt repayments. It has high interest rates, imposed privatization of water, power and other essential services and poor social indicators. While overseas people fly in to the Philippines for cheap medical surgery, local people cannot easily access health care and some sell their kidneys to make ends meet. Rises in the price of rice are contributing to hunger in a country that used to be a rice exporter.
Yes, world leaders have acknowledged the vulnerability of these countries! But their response is the setting up of a World Bank fund of $840 billion for a new round of lending. Countries will be unable to deal with their current debt servicing let alone repay new debts which will have more unsatisfactory conditions attached. Jubilee Debt Campaign researchers say the Philippines is due to repay $8 billion in debts this year which will be very difficult in the current situation.
Urgent change is needed. Debt campaigners say that this means a radically new financial system starting with “a new wave of debt cancellation led by an international Debt Tribunal, internationally binding responsible lending standards, and reform of the global tax system to allow developing countries greater independence from global finance.” www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/newdebtcrisis
Pope Benedict XVI has continued the call for debt cancellation made so strongly by Pope John Paul II prior to the Great Jubilee in 2000.
This year for Jubilee Sunday, Christians have the opportunity to really respond to the challenge of what it means to respect the dignity of every human person and stand in solidarity with those who are suffering. Jubilee Australia has liturgy resources available and practical ways that ordinary people like you and I can help the debt campaigners bring pressure to bear for change to a more just system. www.jubileeaustralia.org
As we do our best to support those close to us who are affected by the financial recession, we should not forget those in extreme poverty who have no social services to support them. We are all part of the same human family.
Anne Lanyon is the Co-ordinator of Columban Mission Institute Centre for Peace Ecology and Justice
