So today’s blog post is devoted to sharing and showing some problems with the way the global economic system actually negatively affects people in our world today. And yes it has everything to do with theology, because our God is a God of Social justice, and dares to love and live amongst the poorest of the poor.

So Last Friday my Studies in Industrial mission class piled into a van and we went up into the rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal. Which made for a wonderful experience, and a wonderful chance to chat with people in my class, it was a really blessing. We arrived in the community around noon, and went into a community center to talk with some locals. (the building was the community hall, not owned by the community, but rather the municipality).

We were meeting with some local contacts from the Ujaama center. Ujaama is an organization that works with and through SORAT as a means of bridging communities, to theology, and theology to the community. It serves as a way that ensures theology maintains its roots in people’s situations. Many of my professors do work with and through Ujaama, and it involves many really cool projects, like community mobilization, or HIV awareness, or Development programs, Or organizing contextual bible studies to discover how the Biblical text can be used by ordinary people to see their world in a new light. Some really cool stuff.

So when we arrived we were greeted by uBaba John Mkizi, who is a Methodist Minister from Pietermaritzburg, who has been serving in Mt. Elyas for the Christian community there. He doesn’t have a church building as the community has a strong distrust of religion and the way it works. uBaba couldn’t get enough of a body of believers together to justify the building of a church, and (not that the building is important for a church to exist, but it could have practical applications) therefore was not being paid by the Methodist church in South Africa.

We then as people arrived and moved in, sat down in a circle together, and we the Students from UKZN introduced ourselves to them, saying where we were from and what we were studying. Which was wonderful (I love being centered out as the North American, I am not the only foreigner in the group though, we have a Tanzanian, Indian, and a Kenyan I think). We then had a few people introduce themselves and share their stories of Unemployment and underemployment.

We heard several stories that were all very similar, often times people have been unemployed or underemployed for at the least 7 years. They survive by taking the occasional 2-3 days of casual labour that is unfortunately not sufficient for them especially if something were to happen. It provides base necessities, rather than any security for living. Of the people who were at the meeting from Mt Elyas Only 3 were currently employed. One was a woman working for the Government coordinating NGO’s and social services through those means. Another was a teacher in a nearby school, and the other was uBaba John Mkizi, the minister. There was nearly 34 people at the meeting (this is only a small representation of the population of Mt. Elyas).

When we asked people about why they thought there were no Jobs the answers were pretty diverse, from The Economic recession, to the lack of government involvement. From the companies not caring enough to protect the labourers. The majority of Jobs in the area are for a sugar company and working in the sugar cane fields. They increasingly have made a shift towards making labour as cheap as possible by letting full time employees go, opting more for the cheap and easy option of Casual employment. They hire enough workers for the day, and because the workers are economically dependent on this system they lack the ability to negotiate strongly their wages. As such they get paid very little for their work, and are further impoverished. This cycle of economic indebtment maintains the poverty in their area.

As for what the Government is doing, the community doesn’t know. The Council members are dropped in by the party and are not residents to the area. The Larger and broader officials are the same way. They don’t provide information, and they don’t go about telling the community about the processes and the decisions made in the government. The local leadership (tribal) is often times at odds with the government officials so little to no communication is made between them. This lack of communication deadlocks the community in underdevelopment. The Government promises Jobs, and infrastructure, but when it comes down to the results of it, they are lacking proper and safe water, they lack electricity (in their entire community), and they are on a dirt road (the paving was spotty at best when we came in for at least 15-20 min of a drive).

They asked us questions as well. They were trying to figure out if Poverty like this exists elsewhere in the world. They asked me that question. And the truth is that in Canada we do have economic poverty much a kin to this. Nowhere near as bad but still it is similar. One area that it is evident to me is within the Native reservation system where the Government doesn’t seem to be doing enough to be responsible or to work them out of the poverty that they are stuck on. (I Told them about that situation.). Urban poverty is very different especially with problems of homelessness, that is often times caused by other structural pressures that are different than that of the economic situation of Mt. Elyas.

They also asked us what we promised to do. That is a very hard question to be asked. Yet it is so key. My response to it is as follows. I will chose to actively remember Mt Elyas, to remember it as an example of many situations of Economic injustice. I will tell their story to others so that Economic Injustice doesn’t become a thing of theory, but so that it places faces to people affected by casual labour and so many neoliberal practices within our world. I will tell their story and let it be made know that this isn’t right. And in doing so I hope to awaken people to the realities of the Neoliberal structures that we are adopting and encouraging in a variety of ways.

It is so important to address these issues of underdevelopment, as without addressing these things as people are getting caught up in the societal hopes and goals, of riches and success, they will turn to more destructive means to either achieve those expectations, or destructive ways to avoid the experience of those expectations. If they remain as they are (and all ready it is happening) they will become a crime and Gang invaded community. And the hope for successful development will be left in criminal activity.

So it is my hope that we will pray and also we will act, consider and ponder deeply on this sort of thing as it is important!

Also I am deeply sorry for not posting for almost 20 days ( just realized) so you know this weekend is going to be busy, but up I will be posting again the up and coming themes in the next post coming just now!