A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on January 19th, 2010 in World News

From Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the “rejects of life,” to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands – whether of individuals or entire peoples – need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work, and, working, transform the world.

I am very happy to see the outpouring of assistance for Haiti. God knows the poor people down there need all the assistance they can get. But, as aid stacks up because of a lack of infrastructure and the inability to move so much of everything at once, it is a good thing to pause a moment and ask: “What exactly are we hoping to accomplish?”

The stories of rescues are becoming rarer, and I suspect the stories of recovery are going to become all too common. Then the long process of clearing rubble will move forward. Then…rebuilding. But rebuilding what?

Are we going to use native labor, pouring our money into given Hatians jobs so that they can rebuild their country and then no longer need us? Will we use this as an opportunity to make a great leap forward for Haiti? Or are we just going to patch things together and then leave them to find their way out of hell on earth?

I have hopes that it is the first, even as I fear it will be the second. The American people, generous as they are, don’t look to be situated to support jobs programs in Haiti while we remain unemployed at home.

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