When Social Justice Hits You In The Face

(This is an exert from my article, "Have a Coke and a Smile in a Third World Country.")

Its been four months since my awakening of the injustice and results of globalization of Third World Countries while reading reading N.T. Wright's, Evil and the Justice of God. The insights and thoughts of N.T. Wright opened my eyes to a concept that there is more to be done and to become a change agent and to cast vision for a leadership opportunity to get more assistance to the people of Ghana. After reading N.T. Wrights book, I started researching the Coca-Cola industry, reading about the economics that play into globilization, and lead me to a 20 page stategic plan to take to Global Coca-Cola on how they can take on the role of servant leadership in third world countries. It has lead me to seek out the right people within this industry. Perhaps it will be a dead end, but its worth trying to see if this can be another way to make a little piece of change in this world. It is the, "what if theories" that drive me. What if we partner with Coca-Cola of Ghana and it produces another 61 wells to the Volta? What if children grow to be healthier because of the partnership of clean water? What if all of these lead to less diseased deaths and more lives saved from disease ridden water? The following are my journal notes that sparked the full article and strategic plan to write, "Have A Coke and a Smile in a Third World Country." It is the fire that lead me to book my fifth trip to Ghana on my own to be able to walk the land and keep my eyes open for the loophole that I can bring home with me to make a business plan to profit the Volta Region of Ghana. It is only one of the many reasons that I will go back.

Journal Writing: March 2, 2009
N.T. Wright says that the state of affairs has led to three things that characterize the new problem of evil in this world. First, we ignore evil when it doesn't hit us in the face. Second, we are surprised by evil when it does. Third, we react in immature and dangerous ways as a result. What caught my attention was his first point in which draws me to my own passion for Ghana as part of the third world. Unloading his first point that we ignore evil until it hits us in the face, he states that philosophers and psychologist make out that evil is the shadow side of good, and that its part of the necessary balance in the world, and that we must avoid too much dualism, too much polarization between good and evil. When you pass beyond good and evil, you pass into the realm where might is right, and where anything that reminds you of old moral values, stands in your way and must be obliterated. His example: Nietzsche's philosophy of power and Hitler and Auschwitz…and what stood in the way…the Jewish Community. Continuing…and here is where it "hit me in the face." Wright continues, "But we don't need to look back sixty years to see this. Western politicians knew perfectly well that Al-Queda was a force to be reckoned with, but nobody really wanted to take it too seriously until it was too late. We all know that chronic national debt in many of the poorest countries of the globe is a massive sore on the conscience of the world, but our politicians-even our sympathetic ones-don't really want to take it too seriously because from our point of view the world is ticking on more or less all right, and we don't want to rock the economic boat. We want to trade, build up our economies. "Choice" is an absolute good for everyone; therefore if we offer Coca-Cola and Pepsi to starving AIDS-ridden Africa, exploiting a huge untapped market while adding tooth decay and its other chronic problems, we are furthering its well-being." (Wright, p24) Now, in four trips to Africa and looking ahead to the future, Wright has awaken me and put me on fire for one more area to be in concern for the social justice in Ghana. I'm the first to admit, that there is nothing like doing work in a village, and coming back at night to settle my mind and heart with a refreshing, cold, glass bottle of Coke or Orange Fanta. For one Ghana cedi (75 cents) it is a treat, and as Coca-Cola used to have their advertising slogan, I suppose it makes me smile. I guess the slogan is suppose to state that it gives some kind of comfort as you enjoy a Coke with a friend and share a smile with community and fellowship. I get that. What Wright just made me realize, for every night that I buy a Coke product and every cedi I spend in Ghana, I get to go into my room and brush my teeth with a tooth brush and toothpaste. Then, I go home to quality dental care and a regular check up every 6 months. What does a Ghanaian, or any part of Africa get from having a refreshing Coke in a bottle? A smile, refreshment, conversation and a smile with a friend…absoluetly. However, there may not be toothpaste or a dentist, or the insurance to pay for it when the added sugar that leads to tooth decay. And as I have witnessed in a few medical clinics in the villages, a dentist is well in need. I realize that I was fortunate to be born in the U.S., and that I was born into more opportunity than those who were born into poverty. That my clean shower water alone is cleaner than most Ghanaian villages of poverty will see in their lifetime. Now, I don't think that Wright is pointing out that giving a soda as a choice of purchase to the people in Africa is a mortal sin or purely the axis of evil. Or that it is unfair for Coca-Cola or Pepsi to sell and market their product into any third world community. It bigger and it goes deeper and it can lead us to explore all kind of economic problems and social justice for the third world. The question for Coca-Cola is how is marketing their product to a third world country doing good for the people? When we are talking about marketing to human beings, isn't there more to look at than just the economic profit for the company? People are starving, dying, struggling in poverty, and Coca-cola finds that this population is a market to take over. I could make a list of how many different directions I want to go with this, but for the sake of ranting…there is just one eye opener that I have had while reading Wright. There is Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the same country that there are people who don't have the one Ghana Cedi to purchase one bottle a Coke a year. In the same country where children are dying of Malaria and other chronic problems, young parents die and children are orphaned and hopefully are taken in by someone or they become street kids. Extreme slums, extreme poverty, starving children, water born illnesses, people who can't afford or have availability to medical care, villages without electricity, areas that don't have schools, schools that can't afford books, and this is just the short list of issues. But what alarms me to the top of the list when thinking about these products in the third world, is people that don't have clean water. Not just villages that don't have running water or wells, but HUMAN PEOPLE that don't have access to clean water. I know, I can state that, because I've been witness to the disease born water that fills the bodies of severe poverty. These people have better access to Coca-Cola than clean water. I recently just read an article from the United Nations that they have finally declared that there is a new humanitarian crisis: water. They stated that water needs to be a new humanitarian right to be fighting for. It is a right that every person should have the right to clean water. It is a necessity for living, for health, for a quality of life. I'm not going to go extreme and say that Coca-Cola should pull out of every third world country, and I'm sure they wouldn't dare pull out of a market that makes them profit in the urbanization of these third world countries. My mind thinks win/win situations, a partnership, or taking the bad and bringing good out of it. My drive in this is what should Coca-Cola do with some of these profits in these parts of the world…and should they be part of the effort to plant wells and provide safe water filtration to communities and village schools? The state of poverty in this world is such a vast situation, a major humanitarian crisis that it is going to take efforts from governments, NGO's, the UN, Christian missionaries, so why not Coca-Cola, Pepsi? Why not the rest of the consumer market that globilizes these countries. Now, I did look up Coca-Cola Global. They are joining forces in the UN and the Water Millennium Project…in Kenya. That is a happy start. In one place, Kenya, they are starting water filtration projects. It is amazing, and looks good on their website. One small country in a few village communities is just a dot on the map, and it isn't enough in my eyes. My thought and push is this to Coca-Cola: Why not do this in every third world country that they are selling their product??? Coca-Cola's new marketing slogan is: Happiness. Happiness to me while opening a bottle of Coke in Ghana would be if the people down the street had the choice to choose between a Coke and the filtration of clean water for everyone in that country…and the availability to have health promotion, medical and dental care to care for their bodies. I know we do not live in a perfect world, and it is true that we are broken people that live in a broken world, where there is good and evil, rich countries and poor countries. However, what I do know is that I can spend my time striving to reach justice in a world that is not perfect for what is good and right, serve the poor and be a voice for them to prosper for their basic humanitarian rights.

During the season of Lent, I gave up Diet Coke (and all soda for that matter). In this 40 days of fasting from the refreshing beverage that is suppose to be a can of "happiness" for me in the states, and a glass bottle of "happiness" for me in Ghana, I'm prayed on the social ustice for Ghana and all countries of the third world that there is a strategic solution that can bring the clean water that I have seen bring so many Ghanaians happiness with the gift of new water well. Also, I focussed on how to approach Coca-Cola and Pepsi and bring the questions to them, and ask for help for donation or a movement for them to do their part and start planting wells and filtration systems in Ghana, and encourage them not to stop there, but go to all third world countries that they are marketing and selling their products. The problem is so big, it is going to take us all, and maybe a better part of our own lifetimes to make a contribution to turn around poverty. Our churches, our communities are doing our small part in this world, so why not ask a big, marketable company to join in and come into a servant leadership community and do mission where it is needed the most. This is just day one stuff, and one thought for today. This is just one approach to my mission of saving the world, starting with one person at a time.