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Emerging
from the Rubble
Richard Bower Martin Barahona
The structures and logistic capacity of this country have fallen apart, like houses in the earthquake. There has been a huge cost in the damage of social and economic life in this country. It makes me very sad. It is very difficult to repair this kind of damage. And, of course, for me personally this has brought many, many challenges in to my life and ministry. As a pastor I have felt powerless much of the time. When I visit places heavily damaged and I see people with their arms crossed in resignation, unable to do anything, and when I see my government incapable of responding in any meaningful way, it is very frustrating and sad for me. Nevertheless, I would like to say that there is something that is not lost, a small light in every person; and for this reason I remain hopeful. I have not lost faith or hope. Even through all of the damage and rubble, we need to find ways to raise up our people But most of all just now I want to express how grateful I am, how important and helpful it has been to have you here with me, sharing in these difficult moments of our life, but also in the renewal of hope among our people. A New Spirit of Unity Between the Churches RAB
MB I remember that a couple of years ago an official from the Lutheran Church in Germany came to El Salvador to talk with all the churches about how to respond to the needs of the people in El Salvador, after the war. Almost all the churches were gathered together for this meeting. But the Lutheran official remarked, how sad that the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church did not come to be with us. "Where is your older brother?" he asked us. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest church here in El Salvador, with the most members - there has grown in recent days a bit of an opening, a willingness on the part of the RC Church, to work with us. There is a kind of special moment now which is making possible a new kind of unity and cooperation. In spite of the many fears the RC Church has in ecumenical relationships, many of these fears are dissipating now. And so I have a hope for the betterment of relationships with our older brother. There have been good relationships among the other churches here, the Lutherans, the Reformed churches, and the Baptists; but I am hoping to see these relationships deepen in the coming months because of our important work together. And I hope that our Episcopal/Anglican Church might have a stronger presence here. We have always been present and visible in our commitment to the country, but I hope this presence among all our people can be strengthened. I hope that people in this country can learn that we are here in order to serve the people in the name of Christ, without being concerned who is a member of our church, and who is not. And so I dream of a rebirth among our people and churches, with a new understanding and commitment, and a deeper sense of unity, confronting together the national shame of crime, violence, and individualism... so much that is evil in this country. RAB
MB Our Government and Non-Governmental Organizations Are Corrupted RAB MB
And what is even more sad is that the opposition, the FMLN [Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional, a leftist political party, which developed from the left-wing revolutionary guerrilla army of the 1970s and 80s], doesn't have any clear proposals or direction for the country either. It is consumed by internal struggles, focused on itself, each sector focused on its own interests. And so in general there exists an "orphaned" leadership, that is to say, no meaningful leadership on the national level. And for this reason, the people have no trust in any of the national institutions, not in the legislature, nor the presidency, nor in the courts, because there is too much corruption in the system. Let me say something else. Among the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), there is also much corruption. There are 1,800 NGOs in this small country. It's insane. Much competition, each NGO trying to defend its own interests. Obviously there are exceptions, but they are few, I have to say. We are very frustrated by all of this. RAB MB I think that for all of this, the role of the churches is becoming very important. I would like to say to you that our President, [in] trying to face the needs brought on by the earthquake [and] being powerless to do much himself, has created, in addition to the National Emergency Council, another organization called the Council of Solidarity - yet another organization, which like the first is not functioning. The government, in its paralysis, finally declared that the churches are officially authorized to be agencies for responding to emergencies and for the rebuilding of the country. That was a declaration by the government, one of its better decisions! This means that the churches will be playing a decisive role in the country. It may well be through the churches that a long term national vision and process of renovation will come, not through the government. We want not just to build new houses for the homeless, which is the concern of the government. As churches we want to participate in an integral reconstruction, in which all sectors of society participate, and in which human values are nourished, and the total needs of the people - education, health, organization and communitarian values [cooperative communities, where the collective good is valued more than the individual good] - will be addressed and provided for. I think that people understand that no movement that uses violence will accomplish anything, and that the vision and commitments of the churches are the best way to struggle for the future. Our civil war did little good for our country. It helped create a culture of violence and individualism, fractures and disunity, without solving many problems. We all recognize that the war not only destroyed physical things, but produced a moral destruction too. RAB
MB Fundación Cristosal: A Vision for Hope RAB MB My vision and concern for Cristosal was that, as it was born, it would need to grow up, mature in its vision and mission, become adult and give birth to other daughters and sons. I give thanks to God that much of this vision has been realized, largely because of the earthquakes of these past two months. Cristosal was not born like other great institutions, but was born in a time of pain, maturing rapidly because of our tragedy In our country there are not many regulations or rules that would either help or hinder you. The call is to come, be with us, bring resources if you have them, be a part of bringing Christ to this country again, bringing the good and hopeful news of the Reign of God to us. Work with us. Struggle with us. Let us touch you too. This, for me, is the dream of Cristosal.
The reality that there are circumstances of tragedy and difficult times remind us that human life and creation are fragile, and that these things are basically circumstantial. They happen to the strongest and to the most simple of us. I want to say to people in the United States and in Canada, "Don't be afraid to come here. We all must change, be converted again and again, discovering new ways to live our life and faith. This is what I think is the most important mission of Cristosal, to invite people to walk together without fear. And if in the process we discover things that need to be changed in our lives, then we need to change. Come here to be changed, not to maintain what you've always lived or believed. The
U.S. Domination of Central America MB Where there has been little change in the military is in the United States. It is a very powerful country, one that often believes that it must maintain its power through military force. The focus always seem to be to make sure there is no other military force stronger than that of the U.S. This is still the logic of the U.S. military. At the same time the U.S. is feeling vulnerable in its security from various experiences with terrorism. In many ways we here in El Salvador have moved beyond fear of terrorism, which we had enough of during the civil war. It is even growing obsolete to talk of the Right or of the Left in any ideological sense. That has mostly passed from us. I think that the United States has been looking for an excuse for a military presence here. We can't offer terrorism, so the U.S. uses the excuse of the drug traffic to establish new military bases in our region: in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. In this moment the U.S. is having a hard time establishing a presence in Panama. The U.S. thinks it has to control drug traffic. As many people have been saying, if there is a great business in drug trafficking, the U.S. ought to look at their own home, where the demand is, where the market is. That is where the "war" should be. One North American told me recently that we should welcome the new U.S. forces presence in El Salvador, because they will bring many resources to help our people. Like the drug traffic issue, I think this is merely an excuse. The real motive, it seems to me, is to maintain military control, hegemony, in this hemisphere. It is an expression of the sense of insecurity in the North.
As I said earlier, here in El Salvador it is almost impossible to conceive of a military armed for combat. A totally new conception of military is emerging, a new generation of officers, professionals in service of the country. For example, when the tragic earthquakes happened, the government asked the military to be in charge of offering help. We have moved a long way in turning a very aggressive military into a resource in service to our people. It’s interesting that the national organization that has led the most in the changes in our country after the signing of the Peace Accords has been the military. They have led the way for change. Not too long ago, after the Guatemalan Peace Accords, some Guatemalan military come to talk with the Salvadoran military about how to function after peace accords have been signed. After listening to the Salvadorans a while, the Guatemalans left. They wanted nothing to do with the kinder, gentler Salvadoran military. They wanted to maintain the more aggressive military model. That is an example of the changes we’ve experienced. I would like to say something about the "dollarization" of our country. Since January first of this year 2001 the government by decree established the dollar as the currency of the country, replacing the colon. Many people have commented over this change. In fact, some in the legislature believe that it is unconstitutional. Basically the law stated that the dollar, along with the colon, is legal currency in this country. In practice the banks are destroying the colones when they receive them, leaving us only with the dollar. I don’t have much nostalgia for Cristobal Colón. His so-called discovery of our lands brought only 500 years of suffering and oppression for most of our people. So much for naming our currency after him! In reality our economy has for decades been dominated by the United States. That’s nothing new. In a sense the dollarization of our economy has been the reality for years. For me it doesn’t make sense to say that we, Salvadorans, are surrendering our sovereignty by this dollarization. We lost our economic sovereignty many years ago. We live in a time of the internationalization of culture, economics and business. It is hard for a small country like ours to talk about nationalism in any meaningful way in an epoch of globalization. Even our communication media -- telephone, e-mail, television -- all are basically globalized, with major dominance by the United States and Europe. We can talk about globalization in terms of the dominance of four areas of economic power: in the East, dominated by China; in the Middle East, dominated by powerful oil countries; in Europe, by the Common Market; and in the Western Hemisphere, by the United States, with the strongest currency in the world. I want to be as positive as I can be in this complicated situation. I can’t say really whether the dollarization of our country is good or bad. Perhaps using the dollar here will protect us against serious inflation, although the colon has been stable for a number of years. It is important to say that the social system here in our county will not change just because we use the dollar. I would be 100% in agreement with the dollarization of our country, if this were accompanied by major economic changes that would benefit the majority of our people. For example, if the dollarization of the country came with a law that stabilized prices for several years, it would prevent what is now happening, that the price for the canasta basica, the minimum daily amount of food a family needs, has been growing since the change in currency. Prices these days are all over the place, a market poco loco. Another law that would be just, in a time of economic change, is to establish a minimum hourly wage, to protect the poorest of the worker against changes they are powerless to control. I say hourly, because much of our work force works part time at several jobs daily, and need hourly protection to be more effective and productive. One can point to the Republic of Panama, where you and I both lived for a while, and where the dollar has been used for a long time. The cost of living in Panama is one of the lowest in Central America. The dollar has not adversely affected Panama. There is poverty in Panama; but there does not exist the deep of misery that we find here. RAB
MB The Struggle to Develop an Autonomous Church RAB MB When I arrived here I found a church that basically functioned like a parish. That is not to say that there were no people working hard here. In fact there were and have been many valiant leaders here, lay and ordained. But they were working with another model, perhaps with the model needed at that time. There was not much experience in being an Episcopal/Anglican Church in the traditional sense. Our leadership has been to trying to develop our own tradition of being Anglicans. This means a lot more work for us, and the need to be creative in the process. When we try to organize an activity, for example, we can’t say, let’s see what we did in the past. In many ways, there is no past to reflect upon in being a diocese in the church, let alone in functioning as a National Church within a Central American Province. When I talk about the need to develop structures for the diocese, I don’t mean to say that we haven’t accomplished anything. Perhaps the most we can do is set the foundation, the base for a future development of our church. We have to dedicate much of our energy and resources in the education and formation of our people and of our leadership, lay and ordained. We live in a country where, because of the civil war, education has suffered greatly. This is a long range need and process. There is no quick repairing of the lack of strong educational formation.
We have also been through, and are going through, the process of autonomy as a church. Our struggle is to become more secure as we become more mature. It’s hard. We have to construct the base of our church, economically and in terms of leadership. All of this requires strong financial support. But I must say, that we should not be focused primarily on our finances, but on our energy and commitment as a missionary church, as a church in mission. With this energy we will be able to find economic strength, not the other way around. What most concerns me, in the next five years, is to find and prepare persons, leadership, lay and ordained, to do the work we need to do, including the role of a bishop in the future. We need to grow in the numbers of prepared people providing leadership in our church. It is a very high priority. We have in this moment at least two people whom we count on heavily who will soon have to retire. We live with this deficiency. One thing that has occurred, not easily, has been the development among us in the church of a stronger sense of solidarity, facility to work together with care and commitment. There is more stability in the church. And we have established, more or less, the structure we need to function as a diocese. I’m glad for both of these things. As we have established new areas of work in the church, we need to strengthen the resources that support this work. That is our challenge. We now work in six of the Departments [regional governmental districts] of the country, and hope to be present in all of the Departments in the future. One of my hopes is to be able to begin some work in the central and eastern part of our country, especially establishing a base in the city of San Miguel. The need is great. RAB MB In this time we need to take this inheritance and maintain it, because these days the voice of the Salvadoran Episcopal Church is always listened to. Under the weight of being a small church, our message is a national message, not merely a parochial one. You asked me, Ricardo, about our use of the words Iglesia Episcopal/ Anglicana. We use this identity intentionally. If we use only the word "Episcopal" people are confused, since the conference of RC bishops here is El Salvador is called the Conferencia Episcopal. What helps us in our national identity is to use the word Anglican, indicating our roots as an Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. In reality we have two roots important to us. We were founded decades ago by the Church of England. Later in the 50’s we came under the jurisdiction of the Episcopal Church in the United States. So our heritage is from both sources, and both are important to us. So we use the name Iglesia Episcopal/ Anglicana. RAB MB
Related Links Learn more about Fundación
Cristosal at their home page: For related content, check out: "The Land Without Indians is Worthless" from the January/February 2001 issue of The Witness, which discusses the failure of land reform efforts in El Salvador, at: http://www.thewitness.org/archive/janfeb2001/elsalvador.html "A ‘Natural’ Disaster?" from the April 2001 issue of The Witness, which examines the El Salvadoran earthquake in the context of the political ecology of developing countries, at: http://www.thewitness.org/archive/april2001/ "San Romero de las Americas" from the June 2000 issue of The Witness, a reflection on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, at: http://thewitness.org/archive/june00/june.shorttakes.html
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Richard
Bower is President of La Fundación Cristosal, Inc. He is an Episcopal
priest whose ministry has included serving as dean of St. Paul’s
Cathedral in Syracuse, New York. He is also a member of the Episcopal
Church Publishing Company’s board of directors (ECPC publishes "The
Witness").