God's Politics - Jim Wallis blog, faith blog, religion, christian, christianity, politics, values

"Must we starve our children to pay our debts?"
-- Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania

This week Congress will vote on the Jubilee Act, the most important debt legislation since 2000. I was an undergraduate theology student when the Jubilee 2000 movement made headlines, and it transformed the way I saw my faith. In short, I discovered the prophetic power of faith to transform injustice and what it looks like to see the Word made flesh. Now, eight years later, I have the honor of working for the Jubilee USA Network and writing to you about the ways in which people of faith around the world continue to fulfill the call to "proclaim jubilee."

The Jubilee Act will expand access to debt cancellation to all the countries that need it to fight extreme poverty. Without debt cancellation, it will be nearly impossible for many countries to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.

The faith community has a history of moral leadership on the debt issue. In 2000 and again in 2005, world leaders came together to cancel billions of dollars of debt in dozens of impoverished countries around the world. The money freed by debt cancellation has been directed to fight global AIDS, enroll children in school, provide clean water, and improve rural infrastructure among other poverty-focused initiatives. But there is still much more that needs to be done -- 44 impoverished countries around the world are still waiting for debt justice!

The world's most impoverished countries pay more than $100 million each day in debt payments to wealthy governments and financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In countries where the majority of the population lives on less than $1 per day, this money should be spent on clean water, basic health care, and education rather than repaying some of the world's wealthiest financial institutions.

The U.S. House of Representatives is going to vote on the Jubilee Act this week! Call your representative today through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Brian Swarts is the national field organizer for Jubilee USA Network. You can find out more about debt justice, how to get involved in Jubilee, and even find a script to use for your call by visiting www.jubileeusa.org.

Comments

this sounds good.
are we sure that the savings will get to the people and not stay in the hands of some third world dictator?
speaking of aid let's get that trade deal done with columbia too.

roger

Posted by: roger | April 7, 2008 2:42 PM

I think debt forgiveness is different for every country.
These are key questions I would ask before forgiving any debt:

How much debt is there?
Who's holding the debt?
Who was in power when the debt was written?
Who ran up the debt?
Where are all the individuals with fiduciary responsibility living at the moment?
Where is all of their wealth?
Where did it come from?
Is it stolen wealth?

We want it all back.

And we won't stop until we get it all back.

We need to look into all of those unnumbered offshore Swiss bank accounts.
And those tax free Cayman Island accounts as well.
I've seen numbers on the amount of wealth stolen from resource rich third world nations and they're staggering.

If the United Nations had the authority we should freeze all of those stolen assets and use them to pay off the debt for all Third World Nations struggling with poverty.
After this planetary Jubilee, there would be enough left over to fund UN operations going forward.

Mugabe and his cronies are down but not entirely out of Zimbabwe.
Barclay's Bank should be advised that if they want any of their money back, they should go see Mugabe and his cohorts.

Tell us about that trade deal with Colombia, Roger.

Posted by: justintime | April 7, 2008 4:34 PM

Please insert the following question third down from the top of the list:

'What did the debt pay for?'

Posted by: justintime | April 7, 2008 4:49 PM

Good questions, Roger and Justin. We've forgiven debt several times before but nothing ever seems to get better. Then we tend to loan more and the process repeats itself, making us look like complete chumps.

Posted by: Cads | April 7, 2008 6:01 PM

The Year of Jubillee passage in Leviticus sets up a system of debt forgiveness every 7 years. There was no assessment of whether or not the debtor was worthy of forgiveness. All debts were forgiven.
On the other hand, everyone knew the terms of the loan at the outset, anything left on the loan would be forgiven in the 7th year, so presumably that would have been built into the loan in the first place. It ends up being that the maximum term of a loan would be 7 years.

Posted by: Bruce | April 7, 2008 9:29 PM

I thought it was 7 times 7, or 49 years, but what do I know. Anyway, if we were to follow Leviticus word-for-word, I'd have had to have killed my 21-year old son years ago! (20:9)

Should we forgive third world debt? Probably, in most cases. But my point is and as we look forward, we can't continue to make the same unsound lending mistakes we've made in the past. Trying to buy world influence is enevitably a losing proposition.

Posted by: Cads | April 8, 2008 12:07 AM

I really do know how to spell "inevitably".

Posted by: Cads | April 8, 2008 12:11 AM

"44 impoverished countries around the world are still waiting for debt justice!"

The mentality, if there really is the misconception on the part of those countries that they are due some sort of "Debt justice" is puzzling and problemsome in itself.

An entitlement program at the largest of scales.

The year of true jubilee is when we and other lending countries will no longer allow money to be handed out blindly or without stipulations to countries that continue to part-take in human atrocities.

Good stewardship on both the part of the lender as well as the borrower is as vital in our efforts to help our fellow man as is a giving heart.

Posted by: d.e.sharp | April 8, 2008 8:34 AM

You can get this really cool spell checker from google that fits on top of your browser. I use it all the time.

Now if it could only add a little html code for me.

Any way, check out a micro lending non-profit, while you are on line. Our government should be giving out tax relief for lending to these institutions. Its a more democratic form of lending. My boy friend got very excited about lending to one of these. So I said to him, "Now your next responsibility is to get on line and learn as much as you can about that country and ethnic group. And then lets start holding our corporate leaders feet to the fire. "Are you guys with us or against us?"

We have to stop pouring buckets of water from above with out looking and start building a steady and even drip system from below the soil. We drown some countries with what we think is kindness and then the excess goes to the weeds, who have other plans. When the people justifiably rebel we send military aid to the weeds. Does this make sense?

It ticks me off knowing that we have supported corporations with our own wealth who go out into the world and manage to provoke resentment in a developing or third world community behind our backs. Their people consider us to be the ignorant ones because we don't pay attention to what our corporate brothers are doing. Well there's no excuse now, get on line and learn as much as you can about what is going on in the world.

As for the IMF and WB they need to be put on notice that their decisions should not be influenced by corporations who are just looking for an opportunity to steel resources from poor defenseless people. We need to look harder at the big projects these organizations throw funds at and make sure that they do not push poor farmers off their land and wreak environmental havoc in the world.

As for dept relief. Think of it in a selfish way if you must. Think of it as preventing our next regional conflict like the one we now have in the Middle East. And then go see that movie Bill Moyers just reviewed about an Iraq Vet in a Wheel chair.

IF you think dept relief is expensive look what war cost. War is damn expensive.

Posted by: Ms. Cynthia | April 9, 2008 6:06 AM

Forgive us Lord, as we forgive our debtors.

Posted by: Oak | April 9, 2008 11:39 AM

A New Way to 'Proclaim Jubilee' (by Brian Swarts)

Comments

Post a Comment