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?
