An American organization, Hope for
Orphans*, covered the monthly operating costs of a Zambian children’s home
associated with the foundation for which I worked. The founder and executive
director came over to visit once or twice a year. His mother, an accountant,
accompanied him on one of these trips. Over the course of their visit, they saw
causes for concern about how our Zambian pastor was using the money for the
orphanage.
Christmas was shortly thereafter,
and Hope for Orphans sent extra money for Christmas bonuses for the local
staff. A few days before that money arrived, one of the children passed away. There
was no money set aside for a funeral, so without permission, Pastor decided
to…you guessed it – use the Christmas bonus money to pay for the funeral.
Sadly, Hope for Orphans saw
this “misappropriation of funds” as the
last straw and withdrew is funding, leaving those of us on the ground in Zambia
scrambling to figure out how to provide food for the 40+ children in our care.
I deeply respected both men and also felt the awful impact their conflict had
on our entire community.
 |
| 2007 at the Children's Home in Zambia. On the right is Vwambanji whose funeral was paid for with the Christmas bonus money. |
This experience and many other similar
stories highlight a troubling concern for modern missions and development work.
Here, I explore some of the possible causes and pitfalls to avoid situations
like this – development controlled largely by the agenda of Americans**.
Pride. The
concept of complex adaptive systems is often introduced by references to natural
phenomena, such as flocks of birds. I can’t think of an inhabited place that
wouldn’t have some kind of biological example, and people with little formal education can understand concepts analogous or similar to what Western
academics, such as Homer-Dixon, call Complexity Science. Likewise, there have been devout believers in
less-developed countries for many years, and it’s often detrimental or at least
inefficient for American missionaries to come into a new context thinking they
have the answers. In the US, we look to outside experts for authoritative perspectives
on any number of topics. It is a common assumption that less developed nations
need our expert help, even our “expert” Christianity, and when nationals don’t
want to accept us as experts in their context, partnerships fall apart. We need
to move more toward genuine and balanced partnerships that demonstrates
humility, as Jesus modeled and calls us to.
Domination. I am
deeply troubled by the power asymmetry between generally the global North/West
and the South/East as considered by Diana Francis, who calls this "structural injustice and cultural imperialism, and
[it] renders dialogue about anything – particularly about
things attributable
to culture – sensitive and difficult.” I wish I could have discussed this
insight with Hope for Orphans founder and Zambian pastor! There are many such small,
independent missions organizations (I’m especially thinking of social micro-enterprises),
which call themselves “partnerships” between a small group of Americans who
have access to money and a culturally-conscious national/insider who is motivated,
in part, by the possibility of gaining personal advantage in some form. (I
write this from my own observations and not as an insult to those national
partners but as a critique of how the domination system has developed.) Quoting Francis again: “Since culture and identity are closely related,
cultural differences in dominatory relationships are seen as a threat.” If one
looks at international development, generally, as a system, it may seem that
some nationals partner with Americans as a way of adapting to an economy in
which money flows into the country because of development/missions work. Are these
individuals exhibiting resilience, as discussed by Jutersonke and Kartas, in the midst of crashing economies and high unemployment? Or it could
be that the society is self-organizing, adapting
to money coming in from foreign missions agencies? We can look at it through these different
lenses, but however we view it, for effective cross-cultural partnerships, we
need to truly empower national partners and respect their input and decisions
as equals – or even better than ourselves.
Oversimplification.
An American woman visits an impoverished area and experiences many things
contradictory to her comfortable lifestyle at home. In an effort to relieve the
incoherence she’s experiencing, she creates a new project to do something to
help the amazing poor people she met. She follows the normal American process
of linear thinking, but she doesn’t understand what Homer-Dixon describes as
the “fundamental disproportionality between cause and effect” in complex
systems. He goes on to say, “Complexity prevents us from effectively seeing
what’s going on inside a system.” The new project may cause harm in the long
run, especially if the cultural differences are not navigated with humility. However,
if everyone waited until the impact of their charitable projects were
thoroughly analyzed, many incredible and successful charitable projects would
never have been started. There also needs to be room for John Paul Lederach’s
concept of “serendipity”, which many Christians would call divine intervention
or the Holy Spirit’s prompting. Too much emphasis on either side,
precaution or impulse, can be harmful.
Considering
the state of our world, we can probably all agree that: 1) We are interconnected
and there’s no going back (especially now that we have internet!), and 2) Vast inequalities and injustices exist. These two truths cause friction and
contribute to the brittleness of our complex interconnectedness, which
Homer-Dixon calls panarchy. I can think of one thing that sums up both warning and vision for the future; it is humility.
*Name changed to protect privacy.
**My experiences and most of the stories I’ve heard are with
American organizations, so I chose not to expand my assumptions to all
“Western” missions/development.
Works Cited
Coleman, Peter. 2011. “The Big Idea: Complexity, Coherence
and Conflict” The Five Percent:
Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts. Public Affairs Books.
Francis, Diana. 2004. “Culture, Power Asymmetries and Gender
in Conflict Transformation” The
Berghof Handbook. Berlin: Berghof Research Centre for Constructive Conflict
Management.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. 2011. “Complexity Science” Oxford Leadership Journal. Vol. 2, Issue 1.
Jütersonke, Oliver and Moncef Kartas. Resilience: Conceptual Reflections. Issue Brief 6. Geneva Peacebuilding Platform.
Lederach, Jean Paul. 2005. The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace. Oxford University Press.
