Economics at the service of peopleby Fr. Kizito
Economics should be guided by ethical principles. But this is easier said than done. In fact, history teaches us that the few experiments that started with the idea of putting economics at the service of society and people have, up to now, gone sour. There is a weed growing in the hearts of people called "greed" that is very difficult to extirpate. It is the work of a lifetime. There is a need of moral and ethical education. I do not think there is anything we can do "urgently" that can change the situation. Recently I had a reflection on the issue of our relationship with wealth with a teenager coming from the Nuba mountains. At the end of it I felt compelled to write him a letter. Here it is: Paolino, you are already 15 years old, and six months have passed since you came to Nairobi, leaving behind the Nuba Mountains in Sudan so tormented by civil war in order to go to school. When you arrived I was worried when I saw that the big houses, storefront display windows, the hundreds of cars on the streets of the city, and all of the other things that you had never seen enchanted you. Later that day in the evening I was less concerned when I heard you express your own judgment: "This city is strange. Today I have seen many new things, but no one spoke with me." Certainly you were remembering your walks in the mountains, where in every village those passing through exchanged news with the villagers who offered them a drink of water or a handful of nuts as encouragement for the long road still ahead. The Nuba people are rich in human relations, but poor in material things. "Do not lust after the things of others" is a commandment important for you and for all Africans because in the past Africans have been victims of those who have desired everything that Africans owned. And in order to justify their frenzy to take possession of everything, they theorised that even Africans themselves were "things." So they could be bought and sold. If we were to calculate in economic terms the damage done by slavery it would be obvious that Europe and America have a debt to Africans thousands of times greater than the accumulated external debt of African nations. Notwithstanding the fact that slavery and colonialism exploited Africans, modified and almost destroyed the sophisticated interpersonal relationships of traditional societies, they were unable to steal the soul of Africans. Deep down, thanks to God, you Africans, even those who outwardly imitate foreigners, have remained Africans. Since I first arrived in Africa, I have never ceased to admire your ability to share. Paolino, decide to be a person who continues this tradition. A great contribution that Africans can bring to the world is the stubborn refusal to turn everything into a commodity. This is your revenge on those who approach you as a commodity. I remember the time when together with Jibril Tutu, the catechist who baptized you, we stopped for a break near the great rock where people of your village had offered and still offer small gifts of daily life to the ancestors: a chicken, a little bit of beer, a handful of sesame seed. The sun was setting and Jibril, as his eyes embraced the view, said: "Here our ancestors are buried. Our land, our fields that nurture us and our ancestors are a single thing. They will never abandon us." In your tradition, everything is seen from the perspective of the spiritual, the community, and solidarity. In Nairobi, symbol of "modern" Africa, no one measures the value of land in terms of the presence of ancestors, but in terms of distance from the shopping centre. As you grow, keep the detachment from things that you were taught at home in your village. Look, admire, use, but make sure that things are at the service of persons. Don't let yourself be dominated by the lust to have things. When you desire to have the things that belong to other people, it is a sign that you are no longer aware of others. You don't see them as persons, as brothers and sisters who could give you companionship, friendship, and love. In the end, you will not distinguish the others from their things and other people will become a thing to possess. Lust for the things that belong to others is against community spirit, against solidarity and leads to divisions like the domination of the few by the many. Exercise the art of sharing, an art in which your ancestors were masters. In this way you will contribute even in the church to an authentic African way of being Christian. Lust for things fades. Keep your clear and joyous eyes on things, not like someone who wants to posses them, but as a person who wants to enter into communion.
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