May development come
May democracy be done
On earth as it is in Britain…
We are now a fifth of the way through the 21st Century. And our world is changing. The certainties, hopes, and blunders of the 20th Century have been replaced by a new set of uncertainties, different longings, and our own unfolding mistakes. All of this leaves me wondering how to live as we go forward in this new decade.
I grew up in Hong Kong at the tail end of British colonialism. The empire may have gone, but we still knew, with an unshakable certainty that Britain was great, and that we, with beneficence, could grant to others the benefits of that greatness. It was an era of optimism and hope and I, in my privileged ex-pat bubble, was mostly unaware of the tensions and fractures that rocked much of the world. I caught glimpses of it through the waves of Vietnamese refugees flooding into our little colony, the poverty of many living in the crowded housing estates and shanty towns of the growing city, and the horrors of triad gangs, drugs and prostitution in Kowloon’s walled city.
The 80s and 90s ushered in the era of post-colonial aid and development. Going to university and studying, then practicing, medicine, I was all too aware that the world was not all as it should be. But we were on a wave – an awakening to the potential to change all that. Live Aid, Make Poverty History, Fair Trade, and our own missionary endeavours in South East Asia all held out the promise that we really could make a difference; that the famine, disease, child mortality and extreme poverty gripping so much of our world truly could be eradicated.
And yet…
As we moved into the new millennium it became clear that aid and development wasn’t eradicating poverty and the world’s problems. In spite of really exciting improvements in child mortality, literacy, and other key indicators, some of the cracks were showing. Too much aid and development money was tied; too much seemed to leak out of the system into the pockets of the wealthy and corrupt; and it was all too firmly under the control of the rich and powerful.
In an insightful essay in the latest edition of New Internationalist, Wolfgang Sachs writes an obituary for the age of development. And it was that which got me thinking and inspired me to write this blog.
Sachs (to whom I must also attribute the inspiration for the opening lines of the blog) points out that development, being based, still, on a capitalist view of the economy, is not sustainable. With the move to the UN sustainable development goals and the growing awareness of the climate emergency, it is clear that the situation has become one of survival for most of the world, and continued extravagance for the wealthy and middle class.
With the new millennium, we moved into an age of globalisation, with improved communications and information flow, a mushrooming global middle class (defined, incidentally, as those with an income of more than $10 per day), a greater appreciation of diversity, and a greater awareness of human rights. All of which I have embraced. And yet, with this has come increasing inequalities (both within and between countries), a greater awareness of the large numbers in our global society whose human rights are not respected, growing threats from international terrorism, and a slowly dawning realisation that as a global society we are not living within the resources of our planet. It is now clear that the golden egg of constantly-increasing GDP is simply not attainable.
So on that background, we seem to have now moved into an era of increasing nationalism, xenophobia and populism, in which looking after myself has become the dominant paradigm. Unrest in so many parts of the world, the cracks in Western democracy (highlighted so strongly in both the US and UK elections and referenda), the sinister threat of hidden surveillance by both nation states and global multi-nationals, our ongoing damage to the planet, and our unsustainable western lifestyles show that we haven’t come up with a meaningful solution to the problems of wealth, coercion and deceit.
And yet…
We do live in a world of plenty. A world in which there is beauty, truth and goodness. As Mahatma Gandhi pointed out,
‘The earth has enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.’
So, as we move into the 2020s, what can I do to make a difference?
I can’t change the fact that I am wealthy, privileged and powerful. As a white, educated, professional male, living in a Western, industrialised, supposedly democratic society, I am about as wealthy, privileged and powerful as it is possible to be.
I guess what I come round to is that I have to somehow live with that in solidarity with those who don’t have such wealth, privilege or power.
And that means, first, that I have to adjust my lifestyle to live more simply and sustainably; perhaps even to forego my ‘right’ to use my wealth and privilege as I see fit. And, second, to use my power and privilege, as a member of the electorate and as a professional with a voice, to speak out for justice and compassion.
I may not always get it right, but I do want to keep trying.
As a nation, we may no longer live under the delusion that we are the answer to all the world’s problems. I love Britain, but I certainly don’t think we can claim to be great anymore, and the divisions caused by Brexit suggest that we are no longer the united kingdom we once were.
Perhaps, in his famous prayer, Jesus wasn’t so much envisioning our flawed Western models of development or democracy as the way to heaven coming on earth. Perhaps he had in mind a much more inclusive, participatory and transformational vision – one that starts with individuals like us learning to live in solidarity with others, with justice and compassion?