February 14, 2009

Preferential Treatment and Preferential Option for the Poor:

These two very different ways of being in the world; of different worldviews; of different pairs of lenses through which to see the world have become more real to me this week here in China. This is not only because of my being in China, it also has to do with my travel in other parts of the world. This includes my very recent trips to both Japan and the Philippines.

I am reminded of the book Church in the Round by Letty Russell. I read this book for a seminary class at Fuller Theological Seminary. This was for Systematic Theology Three -- The Holy Spirit, and was thus focused on the church. We had a Baptist teacher who was most certainly something of a feminist. She helped to open our eyes to many things. In the book Letty Russell spoke of herself as a white, middle class, well educated woman and said that even while she desired to be a part of the solution to poverty and to be a part of God's preferential option for the poor, even so she knew that she was benefitting from the labor of the poor. This last week that concept has become more real to me as I have seen how I am a person who benefits from preferential treatment of someone from the United States; of someone with a good education; of someone who is white and a speaker of English. I benefit because I come from a country who has colonized other countries.

In Japan the very first thing that struck me was that the taxi drivers (yes, someone poor could not afford a taxi) drove on the "wrong" side of the road. They drove on "the other side of the road", they drove, for goodness sake!, on the British side of the road! I thought Japan was a closer friend of the United States than of Britain, so when did this error come in to practice!!!???? Japan is an interesting country. "She" was soundly defeated in World War II and yet has been both a colonizer herself (China will NEVER forget this it seems) and also is most definitely a First World Country.

I stayed in a guest room in a guest compound for a church in Tokyo. The interesting thing to me about this compound was that it is now in a neighborhood of great wealth. It is surrounded by a famous block that has designer clothing and designer chocolate! Originally however it was a modest neighborhood. This was for me a first hand illustration of how neighborhoods can change right around the churches that were originally built to serve them. What then becomes the new mission field for the church? Well, I digress....

I was so thankful for a very effective wall mounted heater in my room at the guest house. The heaters South of the Yangtze in China are not effective. This may be a matter of supply as much as of economics. I was told however that there are indeed places in Tokyo where people cannot afford adequate heating, though I did not see those places first hand. I did, however, visit the Asian Research Institute (ARI) in the countryside outside of Tokyo and there I saw conditions a bit more in line with the poverty I see in China and saw in the Philippines. The ARI is a working/teaching organic farm where people from different vocations in life go to learn about/experience and do organic farming. The key to this particular educational program, in my opinion, is that what they are really farming is the knowledge of how to work with and communicate with people of other cultures. It is an international community in a living farm setting.

In the Philippines I learned about English as a tool for oppression. Just as European colonizers forced the English language upon the native population of North America in what is now the United States -- so too did first Spain force Spanish upon the Filipinos, and later America forced English upon them. They were not allowed to speak or to learn in their own language. The Filipinos now do speak in Filipino and I found it to be a lovely, lyrical language. Most of the Filipinos with whom I had contact also spoke English. But I gained an awareness of what I call the Language of the Elite. In China this would for centuries have been Mandarin. There were the dialects that the peasants spoke, but the written and spoken language of the courts, of the elite, was Mandarin. In ancient times in Greece, the marketplace language was Koine Greek, but the Language of the Elite was Attic Greek. And today in many countries the Lanaguage of the Elite is English. This means that if someone does not have the means to receive an education a huge part of the life of their country is beyond their reach. This is some of what is meant by Preferential Treatment and Preferential Option for the Poor. How can one's own language become a barrier to quality of life in one's own country?

On the plane trip from Manila to Nanjing via Hong Kong I read a newspaper article which said that Spanish is going to be re-introduced to the schools in the Philippines, but only available for those students who have already mastered English. It is being re-introduced because of the importance of having as many languages as possible in the world of today -- multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-, multi-....

I was introduced to Metro in Nanjing this week. It is like a Chinese Costso. I admit it was wonderful. My enthusiasm was dampened a bit when I realized that my card was free but Chinese have to pay for theirs. However what this did was give me an opportunity to reflect on Preferential Treatment and what it means to be a person of privilege, apparently whether I want to be or not.

1. I have more options for medical treatment in China than do most Chinese. Most of them must wait in a crowded waiting room to see the doctor for a minute or two, usually with at least one other person present in the room -- because doctors work at least two to a room. I have done this, next week I will be using my privilege to go to a Western style clinic here in Nanjing because I have medical insurance that will cover this except for a $15. co-pay. That will be expensive with my Chinese yuen salary, but I have things to take care of that cannot be done in a Chinese clinic. Like immunizations and vaccinations for Sudan.

2. At checkpoints between Israel and Palestine and within Palestine itself because I was an American I was often waved through. This was so totally humiliating considering the harrassment that many of my Palestine brothers and sisters endured in getting through -- or NOT getting through those checkpoints. But America is a friend of Israel, is she not?

3. And on and on.

My prayer is that I become more aware of these issues and not less aware. I desire to learn more about language as a tool of oppression and I suspect that this may indeed be some of what I will learn about in Sudan when I relocate there next fall. The British were the colonizers in Sudan. It amazes me that even though the British and the Americans took advantage of the natural resources of China, it is the Japanese and the Rape of Nanjing that is remembered so vividly in the collective memory of China.

The world is my school and I intend to learn from my classroom and my students. My prayer is that I am able to give back as much or more than I learn.