The last twenty- four hours have been the climax of GCAP's Month's of Mobilisation and activists have been invited to read the following pledge, which we read at Traidcraft this morning. I like it because not only does it call on George W and Tony to do their bit, but also recognises the role of the leaders of developing nations to do their .
We stand here proudly as members of the generation that intends to defeat extreme
poverty, the greatest challenge of our times.
"We stand here proudly as members of the generation that intends to defeat extreme poverty, the greatest challenge of our times.
We stand up now because we do not wish, years from now, to stand in front of the next generation and say ‘we knew that millions of people were dying unnecessarily every year – and we stood by, doing nothing.”
We cannot stay seated when a child born in a poor country today will die 30 years earlier than a child born in a wealthy one. It’s is time to end all this heartbreak. And we stand up because we are asking not for charity but justice – we know, that in our names, world leaders have already made promises to bring this yearly tragedy to an end – they are called the Millennium Development Goals. What is needed is the political will to achieve – and to go beyond these goals - So we, hundreds of thousands of concerned individuals from over 100 countries, are on our feet to say - To the leaders of the wealthy countries – be great - fight to keep your promises on poverty–. debt cancellation, more and better aid, and trade justice – you know what needs to be done– do it.
We also stand before the leaders of poorer countries to say – be great – make it your first responsibility to save the lives of your poorest citizens.
We ask you to tackle inequality, to be accountable to your people, to govern fairly and justly and to fulfill human rights. You know what needs to be done. Do it.
Every generation has mighty battles to fight against evils such as slavery and apartheid, which seem as though they cannot be defeated. But history proves time and again they can, if enough people stand up against injustice.
We wish to set a record today of the number of people standing up to demand action on poverty – but the record we really want to break is the world’s record of breaking promises and just ignoring the poor.
We are six billion Voices. We want justice now. No more excuses. We will not stand for them.”
One point which Tacey makes in his book is that there should be a decline in religion in the West. We should expect less people to go to church because church doesn't work for what Tacey calls 'youth spirituality'. Saying that, the growth of Pentecostalism is in some respects more worrying than the decline of traditional churches: while it may work for what is a very small percentage of the population, this model of spirituality alienates the majority of us and gives false hope to the rest of the church that if they shout/sing louder, revival is just round the corner and they can keep ignoring the metaphysical questions that young people are asking.
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