Breaking the Barriers of Tribal Kinship

I was thinking about overseas aid when reading an article in The Tablet about Africa by the Nigerian Paulinus Odozor (Associate professor of moral theology). On the African situation, and the way in which tribalism causes a form of community selfishness, he comments:

In most traditional African societies people had deep respect for the "other". They went out of their way to show hospitality to this other and to accord him or her the best protection possible. Often, however, the other in this case is a "known other" - someone who is either from one's family, clan or ethnic group. In other words, human rights were granted on the basis of kinship. African traditional societies had therefore no culture of universal human rights in which equal humanity was granted to the other either on the basis of common sonship and daughtership in God or on a universal recognition of the person's humanity.

Mention overseas aid from Jersey, and there is invariably a flurry of letters to the Jersey Evening Post on the subject, to say nothing of the way in which the two leading politicians have dealt with the matter. In each case, it is precisely along the same kind of lines as tribal societies in Africa that arguments are couched - we need to help the "known other", not those far-off people. Or as the phrase has it "charity begins at home." After all, they are not facing our problems, and if we don't think about it, they need not concern us.

Here is the disgraceful attempt by Frank Walker to grab money from overseas aid in September 2007

CHIEF Minister Frank Walker wants to raid the overseas aid budget to cover the cost of free nursery education for the Island's three- and four-year-olds. In a late amendment to Tuesday's Business Plan debate - when the States will decide next year's departmental spending - Senator Walker proposes reducing the overseas aid budget by £3.5m over three years to fund changes to nursery provision.

and here is Terry Le Sueur, the man who now says that GST will raise more than its targets, back in May 2007:

ISLANDERS would have to pay an extra £16m in taxes if Jersey is to hit the UN target of 0.7% of GDP for overseas aid, says Treasury Minister Terry Le Sueur.

In the same issue of the Tablet, Jon Sobrino criticised this kind of community selfishness:

What I want to talk about is how we can be human in this world, at this point in history. From where we can get hope in what I call the 'world of abundance' - Europe, the United States, other places too. Because the human spirit breathes an air today that is a little bit polluted. In the same way as the body suffers when we breathe polluted air, the same thing happens to the spirit... We want to live well. Of course we know - and I include myself because I was born in Bilbao - there is Africa, Iraq and so on. We know and we don't know. We tend to ignore the reality of two-thirds of human kind. We don't do it because we are evil people. No, but history has moved us to think that it is normal that we live fairly well. Therefore, we get surprised if we can't have a vacation in the summer. We think something has gone wrong metaphysically. Whereas with Africa in general, we look at them with some interest right now, with pity maybe, but if Africa suffers, it doesn't for us violate any metaphysical law, because it is somehow their historical destiny. For me this is a negative, a negative in the air that we now breathe.


Book of the blog:

The Eye of the Needle by Jon Sobrino SJ is published by Darton, Longman and Todd
at £9.99

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