Do we walk in the light?

It is a long weekend in Australia which is a reasonably common occurrence —though someone needs to explain to me why we have weighted our long weekends in the first half of the year— This one is the Australia Day long weekend. It has the baggage of colinisation and frontier wars, a concept of terra nullius which was blatantly incorrect.

Ironically the verses used today from Isaiah 9.1-4 which is also quoted in our Gospel, Matthew 4.12-17 is one that would have been quoted to support colinsation and forced assimilation of local cultures,

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation,
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden,
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.

To do this the verses are taken out of context and viewed through a lens of Christendom (or the active fall of it). To imagine that the act of colinisation in many places placed a yoke of burden on people, distinctively against the call of Christ and the call of this scripture.

It is my hope in Australia we can learn from this, understanding those who were thought to be savages, non-human and non-citizens knew this land well, surviving and thriving. I do not know the future of the 26th of January of course, and I think there are many ways to approach it but all these ways sadly won't be discussed well for another generation or two.

Western countries still live in a problematic colonial mindset. thankyou.co started by selling bottled water, their water was merely spring water with nothing fancy but they had one special thing; they were a non-for-profit donating their profits to water projects around the world particularly in communities in poverty. They expanded to muesli bars for food security, baby and hygiene products for basic hygiene projects. All of this had "Track Your Impact" codes so you could see where the $1 from you water-bottle went.

Then, one day, they released a letter with a bolded phrase,

we had become part of the problem.

The letter continues that when they were in Cambodia, investigating a water project they funded to get to their clean and safe water pump in a village they had to walk past three others; they thought they were mislead, but instead they mislead themselves, they had given money for a new water pump but the community needed one of the others fixed for a fraction of a cost, and education in how to safely maintain it.

An investigation started, 40% of these hand pumps in Africa were broken, local apparel businesses were being tanked because of donations of clothing overburdening the community, innovative solutions served limited practical purpose and were four times expensive.

This issue was in every meeting we had had with every single impact partner we’d ever worked with. ‘It’, the issue, was us; the donor.

Are we walking in the light or so blinded that we believe we are serving the opposite of the community needs? Are we the ones in the dark that need to be enlightened. I have learnt so much as a Christian from non-Christians or even anti-Christian media. Christian initiatives can seem great, yet if for instance their impact is sent to Islamic countries beyond proportion because the organisation got gummed up with evangelism there is a critical failure. Those in need elsewhere were left out of the shared purse of the church because they were already Christian. All regardless of the fact that the organisation had limited desire to build genuine connections with the recipients anyway.

If we of organisational, institutional, colonialism basis make a choice to "help" someone from the perspective of being better, being well organised or believing we hold the light; may we first test ourselves, learn from the other, learn what they may actually need and not force another well of water when there are three are broken down the road.

Reference
Thankyou.co. 2020. ‘Letter from the Trustees’. Thankyou, Australia, September 29. https://thankyou.co/blogs/all/letter-from-the-trustees.