|
Che
Guevara
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War /
Che Guevara: Radical Writings on Guerrilla
Warfare, Politics and Revolution
The African Dream: The diaries of the Revolutionary War in the
Congo /
Self- Portrait Che Guevara
Paulo Freire
Pedagogy of the Oppressed /
Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage
Education for Critical Consciousness /
Teachers as Cultural Workers
*
* * * *
Liberation
for Social Justice: The Common Struggle
of Christians and Marxists in Latin
America
By Julio de Santa Ana
One of the methods which have been used to
open breaches in the oppressed Christian consciousness is the
liberating pedagogy of Paulo Freire. Its importance lies in the
fact that goals and objectives have to be formulated on the
basis of popular expectation, without any attempt to impose on
the oppressed any preconceived idea of how to do things or of
what to seek for by action.
This method is also capable of
correcting the mistaken views of people who want to work with
the masses but in reality adopt a paternalist and therefore
antiliberating attitude towards them. Freire’s method
emphasizes that in a true process of education and popular
mobilization no one educates anyone else; rather, all increase
together in awareness of their class problems and of how they
can be overcome. This has been and remains an especially
appropriate method of carrying out the joint programme on the
theological level.
It is clear that it is particularly
important here, as we noted earlier, for Christians and Marxists
to set aside a priori positions, sectarianism and dogmatic
attitudes. Guevara pointed this out to the leading cadres in
Cuba.
To sum up this part of our essay, we
can say that Christians and Marxists are agreed on a common
goal: to overcome the flagrant injustices and social
contradictions which characterize Latin American societies in
order to establish a just society. For those who are committed
to this process, the road that leads to this goal is that of
socialism.
As the Final Document of the Christians
for Socialism meeting put it:
|
Socialism is the only
acceptable means of overcoming class society. For
classes are the reflection of the economic basis which
in capitalist society creates an antagonistic division
between the possessors of capital and the wage earners.
The latter have to work for the former and are thus an
object of exploitation. Only by replacing private
property by social ownership of the means of production
can objective conditions be created for the suppression
of class antagonism. |
Open Questions
Agreement on such matters as action,
tactical, and strategic alliances and joint programmes of
ideological struggle is not sufficient to overcome all the
problems which can arise in a dialogue between Christians and
Marxists. But as we have already noted, such problems need not
separate them, but can prompt both partners to deeper
reflection. Christians and Marxists call each other to be more
faithful tot heir essential bases, and this has led to a
restatement of both Christian faith and Marxism.
In this process Christians discover
anew that faith is not restricted to the inner life of a human
being, disembodied and separated from action and social
responsibility. Consequently, Christians try to understand the
Gospel on the basis of the context of conflict in which they
live, and this obliges them not only to make a choice but also
to engage in specific political activity.
|
Another element of
this restatement of faith (. . .) is the political
dimension of faith. Faith cannot be political, since it
is a matter of giving concrete form to our love of man
by taking a stand in favor of the struggle of the
people. When we speak of “political action” in this
context, it is no longer a question of the seizure and
exercise of power by a group, but of the total struggle,
with the aim of creating a socialist society in which
the people call the moves. It is also a question of a
transformation of man as a whole, in all his dimensions.
Faith has a part to play in this process, opening him to
the gift of God. |
This reformulation of faith leads to a
thorough examination of ecclesiological questions within the
context of a common struggle for liberation. There are, of
course, many Christians who once opted for revolutionary
commitment but gradually abandoned the Church – they “lost
their faith.” But there are also many, very many more in fact,
who still declare themselves Christians and who maintain their
militant devotion to liberation. Both, however, are agreed on
one point: the Church’s traditional forms of life no longer
seem valid to those who are trying to express the faith in the
present revolutionary Latin American context.
Miguel Bonino, who deals with the problem
particularly well, notes:
|
Perhaps
the gravest disagreements among Christians dedicated to
the process of liberation arise in regard to their
attitudes to the institutions and objective celebrations
of Christian faith, which range from uncritical and
sometimes fervent participation at one extreme to
systematic refusal to take part in any liturgical form
of worship or institutional aspects of the life of the
Church including critical participation or the creation
of substitute groups and forms of celebration. (. .
.) |
In fact, the Christian who reflects on his
practice in terms of socio-political analysis and of the facts
which give him his identity as a Christian is located (however
“incarnate” his reflection may be) within two circles of
consciousness, not concentric but intersection. Both are
essentially communal. And, in my view, the one cannot be
substituted for the other. But participation in both in the
present situation (and we cannot speak of any other) inevitably
involves conflict to a greater or lesser extent.
|
It is
this, it seems to me, and not some subtle theoretical
question, which is the real ecclesiological problem. And
here again, it will not be resolved by speculation but
by concrete commitment. In other words, the Latin
American revolutionary Christian has to solve the
problem of his church practice, without which his
Christian identity is incomplete. |
While Christians are restating their faith,
the Marxists are undergoing a similar process of reflection. If
anything is clear in the dialogue, it is that the Marxists are
not maintaining their theoretical and political position with
the dogmatism of earlier times, but are showing themselves
increasingly ready to consider the problems of Latin America
without seeking to judge them from the perspectives which
perhaps were correct in other contexts but have no universal
validity.
In reality the dialogue has served to bring
Marxists themselves to greater openness, since they have found
that faith is not an obstacle to revolutionary struggle. Some
Marxists are beginning to reconsider Marx’s criticism of
religion. This is a subject which needs deeper study, since it
is common to Christians and Marxists. Nevertheless, the events
which have produced the nucleus of revolutionary Christians
demonstrate that the Christian element can serve the cause of
liberation.
The Class Struggle
A second problem has been raised but
has not yet been solved: the relation of the Church to the class
struggle, or, rather, the Church in the context of class
struggle. Once clear feature of Marxist conduct in the last ten
years in regard to the Latin American Church has been a firm
will not to attack the Church, nor to set it in opposition to
the revolution, since Christians are seen as strategical allies.
This implies that the Marxists believe the
Christian community has a role to play in the class struggle: in
reality this matter is more serious for Christians than for
Marxists. For Marxists, the class struggle is the every texture
of history, whereas for Christians the Church is the place where
human divisions are overcome, since in Christ “there is
neither slave nor free; Jew nor Greek.”
How then can a Christian take part in the
revolution, the clearest expression of the class war? Given that
Christ unites human beings, how is it that Christians, as
Christians, can take part in division and conflict? Is this not
to admit that Jesus Christ unites some but divides others? But
according to the testimony of the Gospel and the New Testament,
the unity of Christ is the unity of all. Discussing this
problem, Fr, Noel Olaya of Columbia notes:
The unity of Christ, in its fullness, is the
unity of all; this unity in process of realization, on the other
hand, demands choices, and by that very fact it cannot fail to
create division. And these choices at the level of what we call
“worldly” matters, are political, economic, and so one. The
important thing, therefore, is the criterion which guides them.
|
The
basic criterion in this case is a commitment to the poor
and oppressed, by adopting their aspirations of freedom
and by dedication to their struggle. ‘The problem of
the unity of the Church cannot be separated from the
problem of the unity of the world’, says Fr. Giulio
Girandi. The two roads to unity go by way of the
liberation of the poor.” |
The understanding of the unity of the Church
as referring to the unity and justice which God has given to men
in Christ has brought revolutionary Christians in Latin America
to see the class struggle as the “struggle against hatred.”
For them, then, the class struggle is an instrument through
which Christian love can be shown no longer as a simple relation
between an I and a Thou, but between those who constitute the
people, the community, us.
When the Church is aware of what the class
struggle involves, it will undergo a process of reconversion
which will eventually make it possible to overcome the division
between clergy and laity, and to democratize church life, thus enabling
Christianity to regain the revolutionary drive of the early
Church. This obviously presupposes a questioning of the Church
as an agent of social conciliation, and at a time it prompts the
Church to examine its own conscience, in case it resembles the
“prophets” of the Old Testament who spoke of peace when
there was no peace.
A Third unsolved problem for many
revolutionary Christians is posed by the use of violence. There
are some who have already decided the matter by opting for
violence or non-violence. Clearly this problem does not arise
for the Marxist conscience; their position is well known
(“Violence is the mother of history’—Marx). But for
Christians who are committed to liberation, the problem of
violence is inescapable. For some, it arises at the level of
principles and ethical choices; for others, it must be examined
in the light of tactical demands (a means) with liberation (the
end).
At the same time, however, it is imperative
to lay aside “the shallow sentimentality which passes for
Christian ethics in these matters, hiding reactionary attitudes
under basic theological categories like reconciliation,
forgiveness or peace, which in the long run are more costly in
human lives and suffering and less respectful of the human
person.” When humane criteria are applied, violence can be an
instrument of liberation from structural violence. But this
means submitting the use of violence to the requirements of
political and social struggles.
Events
in Chile since 11 September 1973 put to the test the
effectiveness of the alliance between Christians and Marxists
and of their common struggle. In fact, they call in question the
whole activity of the Latin American left. It is not possible
here to deal fully with the subject, but it points to a problem
of which Christians and Marxists are not always aware, namely
that if their struggle is to be really effective it will take a
long time, and it will demand great patience. Above all, they
must realize that there is no place for hopes of miraculous
change. The struggle for a new society will inevitably demand
huge sacrifice, a love which will not admit weakness and the
cultivation of a hope which must not be confused with illusion.
On this, Christians and Marxists are in full agreement.
*
* * * *
 |
Julio de Santa Ana was born in Uruguay
(1934), where he studied Law. Then he moved to Buenos Aires,
Argentina, where he followed theological studies. He continued
his formation in Strasbourg, France, where he got a Ph.D. in
Religious Sciences. Committed since his youth to the Ecumenical
movement, he worked in Latin America, and later in Geneva and
Brazil. He was also trained in Social Sciences. He has been
Visiting Professor of the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey since
1994. Author of several books and many articles published in
specialized magazines |
*
* * * *
|
