This was originally written as a piece for the February 2014 edition of the Monkwearmouth Parish magazine. Thought it was apt to share it today!
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For me, February has come to mean Fairtrade Fortnight. This year it runs from 24th February - 9th March, and I find it a good time to explore the principles of Fairtrade & ask some difficult questions of myself. Now some of you may feel the urge to immediately flip the page – you may think Fairtrade produce overpriced, or of poor quality, or just view it as not really any different from the other stuff on the shelves. You may feel that, if somebody has a job, they should be grateful. You may even believe that, as everything is so much cheaper in the developing world, the money they get goes a lot further – that they should try surviving in modern Britain on a low wage or pension!
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For me, February has come to mean Fairtrade Fortnight. This year it runs from 24th February - 9th March, and I find it a good time to explore the principles of Fairtrade & ask some difficult questions of myself. Now some of you may feel the urge to immediately flip the page – you may think Fairtrade produce overpriced, or of poor quality, or just view it as not really any different from the other stuff on the shelves. You may feel that, if somebody has a job, they should be grateful. You may even believe that, as everything is so much cheaper in the developing world, the money they get goes a lot further – that they should try surviving in modern Britain on a low wage or pension!
If you do
feel like that - I understand! All I ask is you please bear with me
for a few more seconds.
You see,
I know that for some reading this the cost of Fairtrade
goods is a stretch too far – if you live off the Tesco value range,
or only buy those goods that work out the cheapest through special
offers or promotions, it becomes much harder to support or buy
Fairtrade, as it is rarely the cheapest product on the shelf (though
if you do spot it on offer, please take the chance – remember the
story of the poor widow in the temple!1)
However, for the rest of us, who buy our favourite brand regardless
of the price because we “only get an ooo with Typhoo” or
whatever, then we can use our resources to support Fairtrade and make
sure that the people working to bring us the goods we enjoy are not
exploited.
A
bit of context. After World
War II the links between individual countries financial well-being &
that of the world economy deepened as new technology, especially in
transport and communication, opened up the world markets. People in
the “Global North” - i.e. people like us - got used to cheaper,
more abundant food, clothing and lifestyle products; but while our
material wealth increased, so did the divide between the rich and
poor. This led to what has been described as the “race to the
bottom,” in which corporations looked around the world for the
lowest cost human labour and set about “exploiting” them for
profit. Fairtrade is rooted in the Christian response to this.
The
theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez
sees sin as “the ultimate cause of poverty, injustice, and the
oppression in which persons live.”2
He describes poverty as a “scandalous condition” in the Bible,
and contrary to the will of God. Terms such as poor, weak, bent over
and wretched are not only expressing degrading human situations in a
descriptive manner, but are used as a form of protest; God taking a
stand, made explicit in the “vigorous rejection of poverty.”
Throughout the Bible the way poverty is described expresses God's
indignation, as does the description of the cause of poverty: the
injustice of the oppressors.3
Passages such as Job 24:2-14, Amos 2:6-7 and Isaiah 10:1-2 show this,
alongside numerous Old Testament passages condemning fraudulent
commerce and exploitation, the hoarding of the lands, corrupt courts,
slavery and unjust governance. He also draws on the rules laid out in
Leviticus and Deuteronomy, as well as passages from Exodus, to show
God’s desire to avoid poverty becoming established among his
people.4
Some
of you may recall a talk I did on James 5:1-6 at Harvest time. In it
I noted that for us,
here in 21st century Sunderland, it is easy to skate over this kind
of passage. We may not think of ourselves as rich, and probably don’t
think of ourselves as people who hoard up gold and silver. But
perhaps there is a challenge to all of us here that we need to take
seriously.
For
us, the fact James was writing to Christians, rather than godless,
‘evil’ people, is important. We may not think that we exploit,
condemn and murder people, but if our choices support a system that
does, then James appears to argue that we are implicated. Whenever
we buy basic products like tea, coffee or chocolate that are not
fairly traded, in a sense we have colluded with, and contributed to,
unfair payment of workers and – in some cases - child slavery. In
James' eyes, this isn't an option for a follower of Christ. For him,
to turn a blind eye to this shows support such regimes, and makes us
as bad as the rich oppressors.
The
Fairtrade movement gives us Christians a framework to explore the
concept that being poor is “a way of living, thinking, loving,
praying, believing, and hoping, spending leisure time, and struggling
for a livelihood.”5
Looking at scripture from the point of view of the oppressed gives
weight to Fairtrade principles such as the “development of people
to achieve their God-given potential…the fair and equal treatment
of women and men” and the desire to “protect the interests of
children.”6
So,
however rich or poor we feel today, we are called to live in
solidarity with our brothers and sisters across the world – to show
“the free and unmerited love of God for every human being and
especially the poor and forgotten…a key element in the message of
Jesus.”7
Don' forget, the Bible has over 250 verses speaking on the proper use
of wealth, and over 300 highlighting the response God requires from
His people towards poverty and injustice (compared to, for example,
less than half a dozen talking about the supposedly 'big' issue of
homosexuality!)
I
know how generous the people of this Parish are. As I said in the
opening piece to this magazine my family & I have experienced
this generosity first-hand over the last couple of months. So what
I'm saying here isn't
a hard message to hear – you could say I'm preaching to the
converted! It's really just an encouragement to use the choice many
of us have about how we spend our money.
The
ultimate goal is for all
trade
to be fair trade – but this won't happen unless average people like
us show we'll choose products that are fairly traded over ones that
aren't.
So
next time you’re doing your shopping, and especially over Fairtrade
Fortnight, could you to take a few extra moments to consider the
workers who have made the products you’re buying. Maybe use the
time to prepare for Lent, which begins on the Fortnight's final day?
Instead of giving up something, why not try swapping it for a
Fairtrade alternative?
Are
we brave enough to sacrifice a little more of our comfort to do
justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God?8
1
Mark 12:41-44, Luke 21:1-4
4
For example Deuteronomy 24:19-21, Leviticus 23:22, Exodus 23:11,
etc. See “A Theology of Liberation,” P260
7
Quoted from Gustavo Gutiérrez, “On Job:
God-talk and the suffering of
the innocent,” (Orbis Books 1987)
Pxiii
