Globalization, Rural Life and the WTO
What is Happening Globally and How This Impacts Rural Settings

Brother David Andrews, CSC

Theological Education in Rural Ministries
Adam's Mark Hotel
St. Louis, Missouri
December 11, 1999


In India, and many other countries around the world, rural people are heirs to centuries of shared knowledge about the curative uses of their many indigenous herbs and plants, such as turmeric and ginger. To them, this medicinal wisdom belongs to all. It's a worthy sentiment, but it sells poorly in the global marketplace. In the new order of intellectual property rights, international pharmaceutical firms are queuing up for exclusive patents on these new "products." Some wonder if the traditional herbal arts practiced in millions of households will soon mutate into anonymous transactions over the drugstore counter.

In Lima, Peru, Beni Serrano has risen from the ranks to become leader of the nation's comedores populares, or communal kitchens. This movement rallies together poor women who collectively cook and buy food to push down the cost of family meals. It also agitates politically for "food security" as an ingredient of the basic right to life. For this 46-year-old mother of three, it's a response of solidarity-to the suffering wrought by her country's arduous adjustment to the global marketplace.

In Zimbabwe, austerity, privatization , and deregulation have forced many rural fathers to take factory jobs in cities, leaving families behind. While there, it has become common for them also to take a "temporary wife. The fiscal retrenchment caused by the structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up school fees beyond the reach of many families. The story in Zimbabwe is one of families being shattered by drugs, prostitution, and suicide, after the older children drop out of their rural school and enter into the urban wasteland.

Two years ago, international relations scholar and consultant David Rothkopf writing in Foreign Affairs said the central objective of United States foreign policy should be to "win the battle of the world's information flows, dominating the airwaves as Great Britain once ruled the seas. In an effort to be polite or politic, Americans should not deny the fact that of all the nations in the history of the world, theirs is the most just, the most tolerant...and the best model for the future." One might call this our most recent version of "manifest destiny," this time its central symbolic motif has either Mickey Mouse ears or golden arches.

In its report of an international meeting entitled "Rural People in the Face of Globalization-What is our Christian Response? (1998) The World Council of Churches sponsored conference said the following:

1. We, from all the regions and many different churches, share the experience that our churches (at all levels) are not sufficiently aware of the concerns and struggles of rural people and communities. Nor have they yet become aware of globalization and the impact its misuse has on small and marginal farmers, on rural people, on nature and food security in all the regions of the world.

2. Therefore, we decide together to work, each in our own place and country, to challenge and assist our churches and their leadership to gain knowledge of and take seriously, the struggles, the cries and concerns of rural people, of the hungry and of Creation. This may include:
Supporting crucial policy aspects with ethical, justice, economic and political dimensions.
Emphasizing rural exposure in theological education and pastor training.
Building support networks better for rural pastors and rural churches.
Using church resources better, to support and strengthen rural communities, in just and environmentally responsible ways.
Building many different, appropriate forms of partnerships, between rural churches; between farmers/peasant organizations and churches; between farmer training centers; between experimental models of holistic Christian village life, which are taking root in different regions.
Finding and exchanging creative artistic expressions, signs and symbols, arising from and meaningful to rural community life and spirituality, coming out of diverse cultures, integrating these symbols and art into our liturgies and using them to strengthen us.

The report concludes: Churches need to analyze the impact of globalization, especially on agriculture and the food system, to develop church statements and enter into a dialogue over these with their members, with the political and economic actors and with ecumenical partners worldwide. Special emphasis needs to be given to the analysis of the way in which globalization could aggravate the imbalances of the North - South relations; the effects on rural life by transnationals; of how biodiversity is being reduced by globalization (and standardization) and how solidarity between urban and rural churches can be enhanced. (Rural People in the Face of Globalization-What is our Christian Response? MK Publishing House, July 1998)

On February 2, 1999 the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, spoke to the annual Davos, Switzerland meeting of the World Economic Forum. His theme was "The Moral Dilemmas of Globalization." He presented a moral framework for the world's leading economists, politicians, dignitaries to consider:
... when ranking values the human person occupies a place higher than economic activity; neither is there any doubt that economic progress, which is present when there is growth in economic activity, becomes useful when-and only when-it serves to enhance the non-economic values that make up human culture. The advance of humanity towards globalization is a fact arising primarily out of the private sector, in particular they are the desires of multinational economic giants. This fact finds support in the incredible development of communications. Already the role of states is being constantly downgraded, with few exceptions; whereas the role of the economically powerful is growing in magnitude, even among the larger states.

Christian ecumenicity differs substantially from globalization. The former is based on love for one's brother and sister and respects the human person whom it also seeks to serve. The latter is primarily motivated by the desire to enlarge the market and to merge different cultures into a new one, in accordance with the convictions of those who are in a position to influence the world-wide public.

Unfortunately, globalization tends to evolve from a means of bringing the peoples of the world together as brothers and sisters, to a means of expanding economic dominance of the financial giants even over peoples to whom access was denied because of national borders and cultural barriers.

It is not our intention or responsibility to suggest ways and means by which this danger can be contained or eliminated. We do, however, have a duty to point out and proclaim that the highest pursuit of humanity is not economic enrichment or economic expansion.

The Gospel saying, "Man shall not live by bread alone" (Mt. 4:4), should be more broadly understood. We cannot live by economic development alone, but we must seek the "word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt. 4:4); that is, the values and principles that transcend economic concerns. Once we accept these, the economy becomes a servant of humanity, not its master. (www.patriarchate.org)

In 1972, Pope Paul VI wrote, "The relationship between the Gospel and Culture (or should I say cultures) (Evangelii Nuntiandi) is the challenge of our time." At the same time he wrote said that justice was a fully constitutive dimension of the Gospel (Justice in the World). More recently, his successor John Paul II has outlined the Christian responsibility in terms reminiscent of those of Patriarch Bartholomew: "The church in America is called ... to cooperate with every legitimate means in reducing the negative effects of globalization, such as the domination of the powerful over the weak, especially in the economic sphere, and the loss of the values of local cultures in favor of a misconstrued homogenization." (The Church in America, No. 55) (www.vatican.va/)

Globalization is the economic and communications process being driven by multinational companies through nation-state subordination for global economic integration and restructuring.

It should be known that among the participants of the recent WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle were many faith based non-governmental organizations. I met participants from the Quakers United Nations offices, the World Council of Churches Urban Rural Mission, the Vatican, to name a few. The major day-long meetings and prayer experiences of the NGO community were housed in the Plymouth Congregational Church, St. James Cathedral, First United Methodist Church, The United Methodist Church, Gethsemane Lutheran Church. On November 29 at 7:00 p.m. in the evening the Jubilee 2000 Northwest Coalition held a prayer service and planned to form a human chain around the exhibition center. This protest was calling for the cancellation of debts owed by the poorest countries of the world by the end of the year 2000. It was a peaceful prayer service which then had the licensed line of march broken up by tear gas.

When I attended a USDA-sponsored listening session in preparation for the WTO held in Des Moines, Iowa, I learned first hand how the world of globalization has been structured for the powerful. The orchestration of the listening session in Des Moines reflected the attempted orchestration of the WTO. While giving some limited structural attention to democratic processes, the format made clear who was in charge, what the politically correct lines were, and a grudgingly acknowledged limited role for citizens. The session included Secretary Dan Glickman, Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Patty Judge (the Secretary of Agriculture), U.S. government trade officials and the secretaries of agriculture from Kansas and Missouri. These were the official listeners. They were on one side of the stage in the lights, with signs in front of each of them identifying their names and official positions; each had a microphone.

On the other side of the stage, with five minutes each to speak, were three panels of four representatives of agribusiness such as Monsanto, IBP, Pioneer HiBred. They each had a sign and a microphone in front of them, and were seated under the lights. In the audience were persons like myself, representatives of organizations which had long experience working on the issues and agenda of the WTO. We sat in the dark. Our names were listed on the handouts, but without designation clarifying who we represented. We had microphones placed on the floor in front of the stage in the dark. No light over our places to speak, and a limit of three minutes was to be observed.

The voices of the government representatives and of agribusiness were the same: forcing Europe and Asia to accept biotechnology; forcing the rest of the world to remove any subsidy; getting rid of state market boards; pushing hormone beef on the Europeans; liberalizing trade everywhere to free markets from any so called "distortions." The challenges to these perspectives came from the "peanut gallery" of groups which took the time to be present in the room but for whom the hosts provided little light and minimal identification. Insiders and outsiders were clearly distinguishable. At some point, the outsiders were to have their say, their day came in Seattle.

Seattle was a turning point in global solidarity. It provided a new opportunity for a new consciousness to be developed, one which places the human global and biotic community in its richness and diversity above economic forces which would destroy nature human cultures. The Gospel has to find a voice in this new epoch. If I may conclude by quoting the President of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace (Archbishop Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan) in a recent address to inaugurate preparation for the World Jubilee Day of Agriculture, November 12, 2000:

The modern world of rural living is characterized by rapid changes and by many problems, as you are aware through your own qualified personal experience in this sector. It is not my intention to go into these problems here, rather I wish merely to point out that the solutions lie in greater justice and solidarity, and in protecting creation in a way that respects that ecology which is at the service of authentic human development.

Moreover, international solidarity among farmers now advocates putting an end to those modernization projects which tend to make all paths of development uniform. Each rural community has its own cultural uniqueness which not only should be respected, but should also be used in setting the course for its development. In this context, religious sense, belonging to a certain ethnic or family group, traditional customs, these all become resources on which to build the well-being of community. In particular, the rural world-for a long time judged by the standards of modernization to be backwards-has benefited from this rediscovery of local identity...This appears to be the most effective road to head off the deleterious effects of globalization, understood as the standardization of products and yielding to the tendencies of financial markets.

If such an attitude finds general acceptance, we'll be celebrating less under golden arches or by wearing Mickey Mouse ears in the new millennium; perhaps we can continue to commit ourselves to our fundamental project as Christians today as always: to build the kingdom, to shape a world cultural community which includes quite diverse rural communities and to defend nature's integrity and biodiversity.