By Leela Ramdeen, Chair of CCSJ
Today, Sunday 20 December, the world marks International Human Solidarity Day to celebrate unity in diversity; to remind people of the importance of solidarity in working towards eradicating poverty and to remind governments of their commitments to international agreements.
The Millennium Declaration identified solidarity as “one of the fundamental and universal values that should underlie relations between peoples in the twenty-first century”. One of the 8 Millennium Development Goals is to halve poverty by 2015. Solidarity, a key social justice principle and one of the “keys to peace” (Pope John Paul II), can help us to achieve this goal.
“Solidarity helps us to see the ‘other’…as our ‘neighbour,’ a ‘helper’ (cf. Gn. 2:18-20), to be made a sharer on a par with ourselves in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God. Solidarity is a Christian virtue. It…leads to a new vision of the unity of humankind, a reflection of God’s triune intimate life…” (On Social Concern: 39, 40).
Do we see the poor as our ‘neighbour’? Anup Shah’s Poverty Facts and Stats (www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats) makes disturbing reading. There are about 6.7 billion people in the world today. Inter alia, he says:
“Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than US $2.50 a day. At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they ‘die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.’
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“Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Number of children in the world: 2.2 billion. Number in poverty:1 billion (every second child)”
In his encyclical, Charity in Truth, Pope Benedict XVI speaks about “the scandal of glaring inequalities” in our world. I urge you to read the Holy Father’s speech at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s summit in November (www.zenit.org/article-27563?l=english).
Pope Benedict XVI said then that technical solutions are not enough to help the more than 1 billion people who live in poverty in our world. “Hunger “, he says, “is the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty. Opulence and waste are no longer acceptable when the tragedy of hunger is assuming ever greater proportions… a conversion to solidarity is needed… It is necessary to cultivate ‘a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination’”
He says we need to “redefine the concepts and principles that have hitherto governed international relations, in such a way as to answer the question: what can direct the attention and the consequent conduct of States towards the needs of the poorest… Acknowledgment of the transcendental worth of every man and every woman is still the first step towards the conversion of heart that underpins the commitment to eradicate deprivation, hunger and poverty in all their form”.
I recall Pope Paul VI’s words in his encyclical: On the development of peoples: “There can be no progress towards the complete development of the human person without the simultaneous development of all humanity in the spirit of solidarity” (43). Pope Benedict XVI picks up this theme in Charity in Truth when he defines integral human development as being the development of every dimension of the person and of each person – no one should be left behind in a world that is blessed with so many gifts from God.
As Christmas approaches, let us reach out in solidarity to those less fortunate than ourselves and share our time, talent and treasure with them. On behalf of members of CCSJ, I wish you all a holy and peaceful Christmas. Let us truly celebrate God’s greatest gift to us, His Son.
