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July 15, 2005
Think Globally & Act Locally? Yes, but…Looking for a New Paradigm
by Faithful Progressive
In 1972, the United Nations held the first international conference on the human environment in Stockholm, Sweden. The great biologist Rene Dubos and other experts prepared an innovative report on the status of the environment and how to improve it. This UN conference was the origin of the phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally". FP was 16 years old that year, and I fondly remember placing one of those bumper-stickers (with this catchy new slogan and a picture of the planet as seen from space) on my VW bug. There was just one problem with this idea: people bought into it too much. Many activists set their sights almost exclusively locally: particularly those of us to the left of center who had experienced so many national defeats. This was especially the case with liberal religious activists, who created a whole slew of lasting local social service institutions during this period. And they--we-- have accomplished a lot in our own communities. But it may be time to re-think the idea of just thinking globally and just acting locally. To use the jargon of the moment: it may be time for a paradigm shift.
In his piece, Breaking Out of the 'Disaster Management Rut,' Ilan Kelman of Cambridge University writes:
“Action is frequently most effective when implemented locally so that local conditions are understood, and objections or concerns can be dealt with more immediately and directly, assuming that appropriate mechanisms exist to effect the desired action…Local small-scale and decentralized efforts, however, might need wider and higher-level support to inform them of preferred policies and actions, to supply necessary resources and provide an external evaluator or monitor which could add credence and impetus to the local efforts...National agendas, guidance and operational support for linking disaster-risk reduction, development and sustainability would provide strategic direction and promote consistency, thereby helping to avert local decisions that fail to account for impacts beyond the local area, or which could otherwise conflict with the longer-term and wider objectives... More global approaches are also necessary for certain threats… International intervention is also often demanded for conflict and trans-boundary creeping environmental changes among other situations. For disaster-risk reduction, "think globally, act locally" must be matched with "think locally, act globally", plus thinking and acting in between levels.” Though his topic is disaster relief, his points obtain to most efforts to create compassionate change. Acting locally is simply not enough anymore.
What are the implications of this for U.S. activists? First and foremost, we need to start acting much more forcefully at the national level. Think about this Movement we are trying to build, the Christian Alliance for Progress.(CAfP) A great bunch of people came together in Jacksonville, Florida to express their frustration at the divisive and cruel agenda of the Christian Right and to describe what they think real Gospel values, the heart of the ministry of Jesus, would look like. They acted locally but did not stop there--they are doing the hard work of trying to take this new movement to the national level, where we can have a wider impact. The leaders of CAfP have even been heard to say that in this they are consciously following the model of the Christian Right.
If there is one thing that the Religious Right has understood better than the religious center and left it is the need to act nationally as well as locally. While we were busy tending our own gardens (a la Candide) and staffing our local homeless shelters, the Right was organizing at the national level. James Dobson himself claims to have an e-mail list with more than 3 million members. Through their Values Action Teams, Extreme Right Christian leaders meet with more than 100 Congressional staffers on a weekly basis. They gather to push their agenda of putting limits on the ability of scientists to do basic stem cell research, restricting the rights of gay Americans and trying to criminalize abortion in every case while cutting funding for proven sex education and birth control programs that dramatically reduced the actual numbers of abortions in the 1990’s. (For the first time in a decade, the numbers of abortions has remained the same and not declined.) The national agenda of the Christian Right has dominated the discussion of moral values.
Meanwhile, we’re mostly still stuck in the 1970’s, acting locally and often just thinking globally (say, listening to World Music at Starbucks and reading the New York Times)--while skipping altogether the national level where so much that impacts all of us happens.
There are, however, some recent hopeful efforts of people organizing National advocacy groups, including the Christian Alliance for Progress itself. The Internet and e-mail have played a key role in bringing people of common vision together to create a new Movement. It's not enough to come together nationally every four years at the time of Presidential elections--that's why many of us are here.
Beyond this, there are exciting new efforts to act globally such as the Make Poverty History campaign. Much of this effort has had a specifically religious cast to it, and it has brought together people of diverse views and faiths.
Writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, ELCA St. Paul Bishop Peter Rogness recently wrote:
“I think this movement is, at its heart, a religious one, not in the narrow "my line to God gives me all the right answers on lots of issues" sense, but in a powerful, converging and unifying sense. Perhaps the time of claiming exclusive religious certainty that polarizes and vilifies is waning, finally, and a new movement stirs -- a recognition that at the heart of our faith (and, much to our surprise, we find it at the heart of virtually all faiths) is the simple claim that God is gently but surely guiding us to live lives of compassion and solidarity with all who live in the grip of poverty.
For all the attention we give to the many "wedge issues" that divide us, it is clear that acting on behalf of the poor is a convergence issue. Whether dealing with malaria and literacy in Africa or health and child care in Minnesota, an agenda of compassion is bridging divides and uniting people.
What is needed is political leadership that gives expression to this new movement. The budget stalemate in this state came about in part because of the growing reluctance to arbitrarily withdraw services from children and low-wage workers. National policy is beginning to acknowledge that the rest of the developed world is far ahead of us in seeking to save the lives of the 29,000 children who die each day from poverty and disease. There is growing awareness that our health -- our future -- as a people will come not from our arsenals but from our compassion.”
Posted by Faithful Progressive at July 15, 2005 06:17 AM
Comments
I think this part is the crux of our problem; we've got to emerge from our own sweet little enclaves and do the work:
"While we were busy tending our own gardens (a la Candide) and staffing our local homeless shelters, the Right was organizing at the national level. James Dobson himself claims to have an e-mail list with more than 3 million members. "
Posted by: Jayne at July 16, 2005 11:12 PM
Hi Jayne:
Glad you are still with us. I love the quote from Bishop Rogness, the brother of the former pastor of my own church. Maybe it can be a model here:
“I think this movement is, at its heart, a religious one, not in the narrow "my line to God gives me all the right answers on lots of issues" sense, but in a powerful, converging and unifying sense. Perhaps the time of claiming exclusive religious certainty that polarizes and vilifies is waning, finally, and a new movement stirs -- a recognition that at the heart of our faith (and, much to our surprise, we find it at the heart of virtually all faiths) is the simple claim that God is gently but surely guiding us to live lives of compassion and solidarity with all who live in the grip of poverty."
Amen, to that.
FP
Posted by: FP at July 16, 2005 11:18 PM
If you want to think globally, why on earth do you not mention or make a link to the World Council of Churches. This is one organisation that the Dobsons and the Fallwells find discomforting. It would make your organisation much more effective and give a sense of moral superiority if WCC became an important link on your site
Posted by: Michael Warren at July 21, 2005 07:32 PM
Just out of curiosity, what are you fighting for? If you really care about people - act where the people are - locally. I assume, because you're Christians, that you're out to improve peoples' lives. That is done far more thoroughly on a local scale. You say you should focus on "the national level where so much that impacts all of us happens." But what affects you more? A national policy or your friends and family and fellow community members. The action must be local. Any national alliance should simply be a community of locally-acting groups. I feel that any other national group would only serve the power hungry.
Posted by: Patrick Sewell at March 30, 2006 07:07 PM
Patrick is right. It is too easy for our efforts to be hijacked by power hungry leftists if all efforts promote global or even national organizations.
Actually Jesus Christ was apolitical and look at what He did to the world! He knew the spiritual forces in the world trump the political forces. The real struggle has been between occult forces and Christian forces. The 60's thru the 80's truly were the "season of the witch", but the Christians are finally learning what they are fighting and how to fight.
Posted by: Tim Temple at September 16, 2006 06:20 PM
