Theology of land rights discussion group

Encarnacao Consultation, July 8, 2004

Atty. Raineer Chu, Paulo, Dave, Drs Pushpa and Sattu Wagmere, Jacob

Agenda:

What is the problem?
What is the proper response?
What is God saying to us on this issue?

The problem:

Paulo (Antipolo context):

Make distinction between rural and urban land.
Corruption and inefficiency in all levels of govt. – affecting land titles.
Fake titles
General problem of poverty – land rights insecurity reinforces this, cannot feel peace of mind to develop house and community.
Indifference of govt. officials, etc. to help address this issue.
Unjust laws and systems.
Lack of coordination and overlap between govt. agencies.

Raineer:

Indifference of the church to the problem of land rights.
Poor urban planning or lack of any urban planning.
Lack of options for resettlement, etc.
Wrong prioritization of international funding and loans.
If squatters were to become legal land title holders and owners, they would be liable for property taxes. In many of these inner city areas, these could be high land values and high property taxes – which the poor could never be able to pay.
Those who are fake landowners and invite poor to squat and pay rent to them, and also sell fake land titles.

Pushpa:

Exploitation of ignorant by the wealthy.
Lack of focus on or planning for the poor by govt., etc. – the poor are forgotten.
Lack of common understanding between funders and govt. and residents, etc.
Environmental issues.
Political motivations for maintaining slums – blocks of votes.

Dave:

Lack of coordination between rural and urban planning – reactive rather than proactive planning. Lack of foresight. Mexico City is example where the govt. has invested in the capital but not in the other cities and areas of the country, compounding the attraction of the city to migrants.
High costs of legal action both in time and finances.
Psychological stress, unhealthy lifestyle of uncertainty, not being able to invest in local area.
Marred identity of poor.
Why is the church indifferent? Western and middle-upper class folks who would oppose land reform on the same basis, saying it inserts uncertainty for entrepreneurs to develop land and start business if they have to worry about losing their land to the poor.
Can’t trust the poor to keep their land, they might sell it off and move and squat in another area. Didn’t really help them.

What is our proper response?

Paulo:

The land rights issue is huge, difficult, and long. We first have to help the poor build confidence and lead them to succeed at winnable projects. [The whole community organizing gradual action-reflection process.] Develop their confidence and trust and cohesiveness gradually over time.
Seek implementation of just laws and such – remind the govt. and landowners, etc. of its laws and responsibilities.

Raineer:

Journeying with the poor in this struggle. This may be an intractable problem, so maybe that is all we can do and we do what we can. But it is important to walk with the poor in this struggle.
Being Christ to the people in their struggle – suffering with them, giving them hope, encouragement.
Community organizing is certainly a method that we should use to help the people accomplish small wins along the way, etc.
If help for land rights comes from the outside, it may not be appreciated by the residents.
If we move along too quickly with the people, we may discover land rights is not something they really wanted. We must develop ownership of the process and make sure this is what they want first.
Be and advocate, seek to get the process, the govt., etc. moving.
Co-management of the problem with govt, etc. We will help with many volunteers if you will do this little bit and provide legitimacy to these efforts.
Train, raise up good negotiators who understand the law and will be stubborn, persistent in reminding officials of laws, educating residents and encouraging them to unify together, etc.
Seek access to necessary documents to research, etc. and contact Christian senators who can help in this process, providing letters of introduction, request so that we can get into govt. document libraries and investigate. Maybe get some sort of “access card”.
Seek to cooperate with a multinational cooperation to finance a comprehensive survey of the land titles in the city, including overlapping ones and put this on a GIS map. Or seek funding from First Fruit or Geneva Global.

Pushpa:

Really feel the plight of those under threat of eviction.
Mourn over it.
Pray over it.
Seek help from those we think might be able to help.
Advocacy, tell those in better situations how the squatters actually live and the problems they have.
Study the laws and constitutions – we need to do this ahead of time, not at time of crisis – we must educate ourselves so we know the rights of the poor, the responsibilities of the govt. and other entities and we can educate the poor and fight/advocate for them.
Remind the poor that we are with them and we are sticking with them through this process and fighting for them and we will work to educate them and help them fight this.
Be calm and advise against the poor from shouting and becoming violent, but encourage them to seek God’s counsel and intervention and also present themselves to govt. authorities, etc. as well dressed, calm and reasonable, diligent people.
Unify as one.
Be persistent.
When God intervenes miraculously, give testimony to the power of God.
Advise govt. authorities, etc. of the opportunities, good realistic. alternatives for the poor that they might be able to make reality.
Be willing to help other slums, represent them to the govt. when asked to by either the people or the govt. officials.
Don’t just focus on or be satisified with our own community’s resolution, this is a problem for many, we have to advocate the problem for others as well.
Seek Christian impact even upon the govt. authorities – be ready to explain Jesus’ commitment to the poor and how that influences us to do this.
Work it out in such a way that it is appealing both to the govt. and the people.
Don’t be afraid to go to the top and contact the mayor, etc. for help.
Help the people make and collect all their necessary documents and help present them to govt. authorities to make sure there is no corruption or pressure for bribery.
Present yourselves as cooperative people – tell govt. officials, “This is the law, you’re supposed to do X, Y, and Z for the people, but we can see that you don’t have the staff to be able to do this now. We will help. =)”

Dave:

Be very diligent in educating ourselves on the system and the laws and the rights.
Seek to change the system where it is injust or inefficient.

What is God saying to us about land rights?

Paulo:

Raineer:

God protects the poor.
God speaks to the public officials regarding these issues.
God stands in the path of the bulldozers.
God answers the prayers of his people who cry out for protection.
Pushpa’s example is one way in which God does this through us.
To see the value of the poor and their equality with us and others. Equally deserving.
What is meaning of justice? Ideal vs. practical, which are we to go for?

Pushpa:

Defend the cause of the poor, the powerless, and the weak.
Our attitude should not be of accepting their situation as ok, but rather seeking to change fatalistic attitudes.
Speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
Protect the dignity of the poor.
The poor are not object of charity, but have great dignity, value, potential in themselves. They offer friendship to the rich.

Dave:

Freeform conversation, issues:

Stewardship vs. exploitation – the land will vomit you. Warning against those who amass so much land.

Prophetic voice to the poor and to the rich.

What is the ideal system?
What is the best practice within the practical reality we find ourselves?
How do we change the reality to the ideal?
What is our role?
What is the govt.’s responsibility?
Collective versus private ownership?
What is our role in political struggle? (as opposed to allowing poor’s votes to be bought off by corrupt politicians year after year)
Does everyone have right to own land?
What about capital and lending, mortgaging, repossession?

Matthew 23:11 “He who is least among you is greatest among you.”

Raineer:

Pursuing kingdom life here on earth among the poor among the land owners and the rich. A vital aspect of Kingdom life is security of tenure for life. A life of stewardship, justice, helping those who are weak.

A part of pursuing kingdom life is to give each human being a piece of land to call his own.

Draft, of what we discuss… thoughts…. Abrevat. By having pre thought out inputs.

Pushpa:

Church planters also

Friday July 9, 2004:

Still talking about What is God saying to us about this?

Three roles:

Prophetic role – proclaiming God’s justice and law to both the authorities and the common people
Kingly role – protects his people, we are to protect the people of our nation on God’s behalf
Priestly role – relate the people to God, give counsel, praying for them, teaching them, covering them and representing them to God

In holistic mission we can’t just play the priestly role and plant churches, we have to play the kingly role and work to protect the people as well.

In the west, we have the dichotomistic problem in which we separate spiritual and physical. But its nonsense to talk about a spiritual reality that cannot or does not have a physical manifestation and corresponding reality that we can see. One cannot have a faith that does not have an impact in the world. (James 2)

There is a spiritual anchoring and rooting (at-home-ness) when you put work and investment into a place. When people are disconnected from anchoring in a place, there is a spiritual lacking.

People are spiritually released when they receive security in the land. People come to Christ and are motivated to witness in such settings. Pushpa’s example and the Tatalon example.

We make sacred places in our homes, in our churches, etc. So land and place have a spiritual element. A place becomes sacred when we focus on it. Raineer’s example of Catholic retreat center experience. We have lost the sense of sacred. John Wesley declared “The whole world is my parish”. Yes, but we must focus on distinct places and make them sacred.

Tabernacle vs. temple thinking. Able to make a temporary place, temporary dwelling sacred as well.

Even after the time that the temple was built, the people were called to live in tents once a year. We are called to hold things lightly and remember that sojourner status as well as to appreciate the value of having secure, permanent dwelling so we don’t take it for granted.

God is a risking God and we are called to be investing, risking people (Wild at Heart). So even if we don’t have a permanent secure place, we are to invest in it and make it sacred. We are to risk the potential of losing it all because while its there it is worth it to invest in it and it will always be a part of us even if it is destroyed and evicted.

A person longs for a permanent home, a place of rest, though we might be sojourners, that permanence is good and a desire. For us in Christ we recognize that our ultimate home is in God.

Even if we do sojourn, our initial home, where we grew up and where our parents may still live, is always home. Even if our parents move, that place, that house is still a sacred place for us.

Scripture says that we, our bodies, are temples of the Holy Spirit. That is a permanent thing. But we move around. So aren’t we rather tabernacles? But we are permanent. So maybe the temple is thus in a tabernacle. Or is this scripture calling us to really make a permanent place for the temple?

In ministry and community organizing, it is hard to focus on a sprawling area. But if it is a smaller community with boundaries and a sense of this is us, this is this community, it is easier to focus your heart on it. The requirement of a bounded territory for it to really be a sacred place to invest in.

Animists may understand the spirituality of the land better than most Christians. Here in Thailand there are spirit houses on every plot of land and people think they must appease these spirits. So we need to understand this ongoing spirituality of the land. Reference how Jesus said if you cast out a demon and put nothing good in, it will go and find 7 other spirits and come back in and the person will be worse off than at first. So if we cast out demons from a place, breaking the bondages of a spirit over a place, but don’t invest in the good spirituality of the actual land and place, then we may make the place worse off.

Assert the sovereignty of the Creator over the creation and these lesser spirits.

Regain the sense of awe and sacredness of a place.

Comments:

Ruth:

Structural isues – marginalization of poor for years and years back.

History – researching the history of the activities of the principalities and powers that led to the current situation of unequal distribution of land ownership

Jean-Luc:

Tegucigalpa, Honduras context:

People are involved in writing land reform legislation

Kumar:

But people have problem of not viewing “non-sacred” places as sacred too.

People will transform into another person whether they are in the church or without.

Arthur:

Risk taking is bad financial advice.

Rafael:

When people are given land they may not know how to be responsible for it and the house.

Jun:

People are willing to die for land, Christians need to come alongside in that.

Bryan:

Stewardship issue

Ruth on investment:

Make it productive when you are there. We need to invest in communities even if they are insecure. At that particular time it can help.

Jean-Luc:

What spirituality would it be to create public prayer gardens?