Bolivia: Christ – the first revolutionary

Yesterday, CAFOD partner Marcelo Ortega told all who were offering their open ears at the World Peoples’ Climate Change Conference that the Bolivian Catholic Church has something to say about climate change too.

First, Marcelo reminded us that Christ was the first revolutionary, living in times of big change and challenge, just like we are now. Then he explained the similarities of how, with ecological wisdom the Old Testament is easily comparible to the society built over thousands of years by the Andean indigenous peoples.

For example, Leviticus cautioned that every seventh year was to be a Sabbath Year: the land is to lie fallow. For the Andean indigenous peoples, letting land lie fallow is key to allowing Mother Earth to replenish herself. An essential element in the complex climate risk management and food security systems of the communities.

Interestingly, what the Bolivian Bishops of today say in their Pastoral Letters on Land and Water, is remarkably similar to the message of the Bolivian indigenous organisations about the Rights of Mother Earth that I talked about in my blog yesterday.

For example, the Bolivian Bishops reiterate what the Latin American bishops said in Puebla in 1979: “The finishing of natural resources and the pollution of the environment will be a dramatic problem. We affirm once more the need to profoundly review the consumerist tendencies of the most developed nations; the essential needs of the poor peoples who form the majority of this world should be taken into account”.

In my view, to “profoundly review the consumerist tendencies of the most developed nations” is just another way of saying what the world social movements are fervently shouting out from the conference in Cochabamba: “We need a different life model, profoundly different from the economic development model based on the production of goods for consumption and the extraction of resources. The financial, ecological and food crises all show that this model has failed.”

But where do we start with the construction of this different model by which to live by? No doubt we have huge challenges ahead, but maybe we should simply start by letting ourselves be inspired by others.

People such as Gualberto Baraona Aymara, the indigenous leader who explained that to live well is to live collectively: “What we harvest, we share; the water from the spring, we share between all of the community, like brothers and sisters without discrimination.”

The question is: Are we truly ready to let go and to share?

Email your election candidates on climate change and poverty

Posted by KarenL