How Shall We Live Part VI:
On Living in the Midst of Globalization
The Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
Unitarian Universalist Society: East
Manchester, CT
December 9, 2007
The Jewish festival of lights, the festival of dedication, Hannukah, began this week. Themes in the Hannukah story from First Maccabees—portions of which we heard earlier—sound strangely familiar in our modern era: the struggle for religious freedom; the struggle to maintain cultural identity as a dominant culture encroaches; the potent sense of loss and alienation as one witnesses the destruction of one’s homeland; and—always tragic no matter what the outcome—the resort to violence in an attempt to maintain that which a people holds sacred. We’ve seen all these themes play out over the past century, and certainly over the past two decades as the processes of globalization have accelerated.
I want to talk about globalization and the notion of global citizenship as a way of exploring the sixth Unitarian Universalist principle, the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. I continue my series on the Unitarian Universalist principles entitled, “How Shall We Live?” In my view, the sixth principle says little about how to live. It names a goal yet is silent about how we might achieve it. Still, over the past two Sundays we’ve been talking about some negative impacts of globalization and naming concrete examples of what global citizenship might look like. When Kathy Hampton and I spoke about global clean water shortage, we identified actions as simple as not running water when brushing teeth, limiting shower length, and putting objects in toilet tanks to take up space so they use less water; and as difficult as learning which methods of food production waste the most water and cutting back on foods produced by those methods, supporting clean water legislation, and figuring out ways to work with organizations like the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee who partner with groups in poor and developing countries who are organizing to hold governments and businesses accountable for providing sustainable, clean drinking water in their communities.
Last week Al Benford gave his famous “coffee talk” about the importance of supporting fair trade initiatives so that workers in poor and developing nations can earn living wages, control their own land and modes of production, develop schools and health clinics, avoid using their children as laborers, and sustain traditional cultural identity. Al has witnessed first-hand the dramatic difference between the lives of those coffee growers participating in fair trade programs vs. those trapped picking coffee beans for sale on world markets through so-called “free trade,” receiving substandard wages and having no opportunity to pull themselves and their families out of crushing poverty.
How shall we live if we want to help build a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all? In the very least, as North Americans, as people who live in the United States which still consumes more than any nation on the planet, we shall strive to understand the stories behind the things we consume—not only water and coffee, but the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the toys our children play with, the spices we cook with, the services we receive from software technicians in India answering computer questions, the petroleum we put in our cars, the non-native fruits and vegetables that appear without fail and without regard to season in our supermarkets. Who picked the banana I sliced into my breakfast cereal this morning? The tiny label on the peel says Columbia. There’s a story there, a human life there. Because I ate it I know how the human being who picked that banana helped sustain my life. The question is, can I name how my life helps sustain the banana picker beyond a subsistence level existence? Can I name how my life, my labor, my decisions, my patterns of consumption help sustain the coffee grower, the sweat-shop sewer, the oil-driller, the car-part maker, the dehydrated child who doesn’t have access to clean drinking water while the multinational soft drink company bottling plant in the child’s neighborhood has all the clean water it needs? How shall we live? We shall live as people who thirst and hunger for the answers to these questions—for the details of these stories—for the details of these very human lives—so that we may take their well-being into account and slowly, painstakingly begin to alter our living in ways that better sustain those around the globe who sustain us. For me, sustainability is emerging as the most important value for the global citizen.
The term globalization has to do with the way different nations, economies, cultures, and religions are converging and conflicting as a result of rapid innovations in communication, transportation and information technologies. Such convergences and conflicts have always taken place: European colonization was a form of globalization. The Roman Empire had globalizing tendencies. But the world has never witnessed the pace and scale at which globalization is happening today. It is exciting. It is disorienting. It is frightening.
Two weeks ago I attended the fall convocation of the Greenfield Group, a UU clergy study group. Our topic was globalization. A recurring theme in the dialogue was fear—for ourselves, for our children and grandchildren, for those to whom we minister. Fear that in the United States we have not yet begun to experience the disruptions and the decline in our living standards that will come as more and more jobs shift to nations with cheaper labor costs; fear that we have not yet begun to experience the full impact of global climate change as a result of the failure to transition to renewable energy sources; fear that the growing divide between rich and poor will lead to violent political instability across the globe; fear religion will continue to be drawn into political conflicts; fear of terrorism; fear of the unknown. We don’t know the long term impacts of globalization. We don’t know how life will be for our children and grandchildren.
Such fear grips me from time to time. Despite great health and health insurance, a great job, and financial security, I catch myself in moments of fear. I worry about a flu pandemic spreading rapidly across the globe. I remember when a former employee of the Unitarian Universalist Association, a man in his late twenties whom I knew, died of the flu in the late 1990s. Then a good friend of mine lost a child—a three-year-old—to a flu-like disease two days before Max was born. These deaths frightened me. I also worry about whether Mason will have adequate healthcare to deal with his heart condition as an adult. If US companies continue to cut healthcare benefits to remain competitive in global markets, this could be a real problem for him. It will be hard for people with pre-existing health conditions to get coverage. I fear climate change. I fear terrorism.
I didn’t have these fears growing up, though we talked a lot about nuclear weapons when I was a child. I didn’t have these fears in my young adult years—perhaps I was well sheltered. I developed these fears once I became a parent. I’m struck by the very deep, primal response to these fears: the instinct to protect self, family and home. In the midst of these moments of fear, I become self-oriented and even selfish in my thought and actions. I look around, asking, “Do I have everything I need?” I imagine this is normal, that this instinct to make sure one’s self and family survive is an essential part of being human, a part of our evolutionary heritage. But when I step back and reflect on this instinct I become aware that in these moments of fear and worry I’m not focused on my neighbor. I’m not curious about the human being who picked the banana I ate at breakfast. In these moments of fear and worry the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all seems far away. Global citizenship and visions of sustaining those around the globe who sustain me seem very far away.
I read the Hannukah story not only as a testament to the human capacity to resist oppression or as a tale of the struggle for religious freedom, but as a warning for us to take great care in how we participate in globalization, a warning not to underestimate the human instinct to protect self, family and home—a warning to all those who envision a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all: it will not be easy. The instinct towards self-preservation will be a barrier to achieving that vision.
I don’t know how the Hannukah story sounds when it is told in Jewish congregations. I don’t know what parts of the story the Rabbis tell. But when I hear public references to Hannukah at this time of year—often from people who, like myself, are not Jewish—no one ever mentions the story’s deep sadness or its chilling violence. In this story the Jews face cultural and religious annihilation as the (Syrian) Seleucids attempt to expand their empire. As the invasion progresses there is sadness and humiliation among the Jews: “Israel mourned deeply in every community, rulers and elders groaned, young women and young men became faint, the beauty of women faded. Every bridegroom took up the lament; she who sat in the bridal chamber was mourning. Even the land trembled for its inhabitants, and all the house of Jacob was clothed with shame.”
Once the Seleucids take Jerusalem, their king, Antiochus, makes a statement I find instructive for our time. In a written message to his entire kingdom he proclaims that “all should be one people, and that all should give up their particular customs.” But it wasn’t a proposal. It wasn’t a suggestion—“What do you guys think, you want to be one people?” No. To become ‘one people’ on the king’s terms meant to give up Jewish identity and become culturally Greek. Much like the Spanish Inquisition when Jews and Muslims were forced to convert to Christianity, there really wasn’t much choice. Antiochus promoted his vision with violence; his soldiers killed Jews who refused to renounce their religion and offer sacrifices to Zeus. And the Maccabees killed Jews who complied with the Greek demands. It was a tense, violent, and tragic time. The Maccabees wanted nothing to do with the king’s vision. They did not want to assimilate. They were interested self-preservation, in cultural and religious survival.
I contend the tension and violence in the Hannukah story is similar to what we see today as cultures come into conflict through globalization, especially when there are economic interests at stake. Those who react negatively to the influx of undocumented people into the United States, for example, often feel tension around the very real threat to their own economic well-being. And they often feel a threat to their sense of national identity—to their sense of who is and who isn’t a US American. The conversation for them is not about world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. It’s about protecting self and home and maintaining cultural and national identity. It also often includes a request to immigrants to give up their particular customs and become “like us.”
Another example: people who perpetuate the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan do so for many reasons—many of them despicable—but certainly some of them do so because resent what they perceive to be United States and Western attempts to control their economic resources, their political destinies, and their cultural and religious identities. Some of them resent what they perceive to be an attack on Islam. Some of them resent the admonition, “let us be at peace,” when what they see are guns and tanks attempting to enforce the peace. There is very deeply human impulse to protect self, family, home and identity at work in Iraq and Afghanistan, making it more difficult to move in the direction of peace, liberty and justice for all.
And yet there is a world community. There always has been a world community. Today it is hurting. When I consider all the things going wrong in this world community —all the evils—all the modes of exploitation and oppression—all the looming environmental catastrophes—and when I consider all the potential opportunities that exist to lift people out of poverty, to transition to renewable energy sources, to advance scientific discovery, to deepen spirituality—I realize now is not the time to give into fear. Now is not the time to let the instinct to protect self, family, and home prevail over the instinct to love global neighbor as self. Now is not the time for isolationism, for erecting fences and barricades. Now is not the time for military solutions to diplomatic problems. Now is the time for global citizenship, but not in the fashion of King Antiochus. Nobody should have to give up culture and religion to be part of one global people. Nobody should have to flee into the mountains and resist foreign occupiers.
Certainly it is appropriate and healthy for us to acknowlege our fears, acknowledge our worries, acknowledge the deep power of our instinct towards self-preservation, but global citizenship requires that we learn to pursue our vision despite our fears. Global citizenship requires that we learn to recognize when government and the media are using and promoting fear, and that we learn to resist being consumed by that fear. Perhaps our congregations can become nurturers of global citizenship by helping us find ways to recognize, name, heal from and resist our fears so that we can focus on our greater vision for the world.
And speaking of our vision for the world, I’m no longer sure “peace, liberty, and justice for all” are sufficient for a viable world community. I believe we will never see peace, liberty and justice for all without a more fundamental focus on sustainability. Now is the time for sustainability. Global citizenship, for me, values sustainability—sustainable development, sustainable agriculture, sustainable drinking water, sustainable opportunities for work, sustainable opportunities for education and healthcare. Global citizens look for opportunities to partner with people around the world who are struggling to create sustainable ways of life, self-sufficiency, self-determination, struggling to sustain cultural and religious identity. But I’m not only talking about our relationships to people in other parts of the world. We know our way of life in the United States is not sustainable. Our over-use of fossil fuels, our rates of consumption, our global military presence are not sustainable. Global citizenship, for me, is about pursuing sustainable agriculture, development, and community arrangements locally—where we live. Global citizenship is about strengthening our communities here in eastern Connecticut so that our carbon footprint is less; so that our consumption is less, so that our negative impact on the rest of the globe is less. and so that when the crises do come, our way of living is sustainable. How shall we live? We shall live as people who seek a sustainable world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.
Hear this description of the Hannukah celebration from First Maccabees: “So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and joyfully offered burnt offerings; they offered a sacrifice of well-being and a thanksgiving offering. They decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields; they restored the gates and the chambers for the priests, and fitted them with doors. There was a very great joy among the people, and the disgrace brought by the gentiles was removed.” I leave you with this image of a people coming back to life, a people celebrating their capacity to sustain themselves in the midst of a globalizing empire, a people who did not succumb to fear.
Amen and Blessed Be.
