open forum davos 2010: bulletin fspc

bulletinOpen Forum Davos 2010 Special Edition

The Magazine of the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches

No. 1/2010

4 SWITZERLAND AND ITS BANKS

Interview on tax evasionand bank secrecy

9 AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Ideas for a new economic model

24 RELIGIOUS CLAIMS TO TRUTH

A recommendation for a basic consensus among religions

26 AGEING SOCIETIES

Is ageing just a matter of planning?

30“YES WE CAN!”

The Gospel of Barack Obama

36PORTRAIT

Eco-activist Vandana Shivafights against global players

sek · feps

2 bulletin No. 1 / 2010

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©The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches FSPCP.O. BoxCH-3000 Berne 23Phone +41 (0)31 370 25 01Fax +41 (0)31 370 25 [email protected], www.sek.ch

Frequency of publication:4 times a year

Print run:6500 German, 1200 French, 500 English

Head of Communications:Simon Weber

Administration:Nicole Freimüller-Hoffmann

Editing:Maja Peter

Translation from German:David Dichelle, Leipzig

Correction:ManRey

Design/Production:Meier Media DesignSilvan Meier

Print:Schläfli & Maurer AG

Cover:Open Forum Davos 2009 Alessandro della Valle / Keystone

EDITORIAL Welcome to the 2010 Open Forum Davos

Dear readers and dear guests,

The FSPC Bulletin has taken on a new look for the new year, taking our readers’ changing aesthetics and reading habits into account. It is also important to us to put a little more colour into a world that is much too often presented to us in terms of black and white.

Climate change, the financial crisis, interreligious contention, the ageing of our Western societies and all the challenges that this entails: So much bad news can already begin to ruin our day early in the morning, and the answers provided are often mired in a black-and-white mode of thinking, simple and without nuance. Our environment is becoming more and more complex, just as the vocabulary that we use to express this complexity shrinks. This can prove irritating since simple solutions and one-dimensional thinking do nothing to solve our complex problems in the long run. As the French physicist and philosopher Marc Halévy wrote: “Complexity demands that we raise ourselves to meet it, and complexity does not exhibit any goodwill in the process.”

The Open Forum Davos, jointly presented by the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FSPC) and the World Economic Forum, serves as a platform, in the midst of our complex and tempestuous world, for political, economic, scientific, and religious figures to meet in public debate. The participants can present their suggestions and reflect on those topics that are most important to our times. The Open Forum Davos, in short, can inspire us all to think for ourselves.

You too, dear guests, are invited to pick up the ball and join the debate, and to refuse to be satisfied with simple solutions and black-and-white answers.

The Protestant Church will of course participate in this discourse as well. In the pages to follow, church leaders, theologians, and ethicists have presented their thoughts on the topics discussed at the Open Forum. They have provided new insight into ageing, a different view on the financial crisis, and a theological reflection on the Gospel of Barack Obama.

I hope you find reading this report stimulating and edifying.

Rev. Simon WeberFSPC Head of Communications

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PANEL 1 MISFIT SWITZERLAND

4“We all profit from the financial industry’s business.” Interview with Business ethicist Christoph Weber-Berg by Maja Peter

PANEL 2 AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

9 Ideas for a neweconomic model By Hella Hoppe and Otto Schäfer

13FSPC

The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches at the Open Forum Davos By Theo Schaad

14AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Can morally respon-sible action prevent a crisis? By Beat Kappeler and Denis Müller

PANEL 3CLIMATE CHANGE

16 The churches andclimate policy By Otto Schäfer and Hella Hoppe

PANEL 4RELIGION’S CLAIM TO TRUTH

20 “Truth is God.” By Rajmohan Gandhi

22 When is a religiona religion? By Christopher Caldwell

24 TO DISCUSS

Thomas Wipf towards a basic consensus among religions. By Thomas Wipf

PANEL 5AGEING

26 Everything undercontrol? By Ivana Bendik

PANEL 6“YES WE CAN”

30 The Gospel of Barack Obama. By Matthias D. Wüthrich

PANEL 7 NUCLEAR WEAPONS

34 Nuclear weapons: What happens next?Photo by Shigeo Hayashi

PORTRAIT

36 VANDANA SHIVA

“Those who destroy nature destroy their own basis for life.” By Stephanie Riedi

39 FINAL POINT

Our ageing society:a challenge and oppor-tunity for the church. By Helen Gucker-Vontobel

Contents

bulletin Open Forum Davos 2010 Special EditionThe Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches and the World Economic Forum have joined together to host the Open Forum Davos for the eighth time. This edition of the FSPC bulletin features themes of relevance to the Open Forum programme. For more information on the Open Forum’s individual panels and guests, please consult www.openforumdavos.ch


PANEL 1 – Misfit Switzerland

“We all profit from the financial industry’s

business.”In this interview, Dr. Christoph Weber-Berg, a theologian and ethicist

specializing in economic concerns, explains his understanding for certain aspects of bank secrecy and how profits and ethics can reinforce each other, and puts forward his vision of a corporate model for the future.

By Maja Peter *

Dr. Weber, what is your view of bank secrecy from an ethical perspective?

On the one hand, I think that indi-viduals need to be protected. Private in-

formation requires protection from an ethical point of view. On the other hand, it is of course a problem when bank secrecy is abused, and when this abuse is practically enabled by the regulations themselves. Bank secrecy should not be misused to escape from one’s responsibility to society.

Bank secrecy laws differentiate between tax evasion and tax fraud. Is this approach ethically tenable?

From the understanding of Swiss law, it is indeed ethically tenable, but Switzerland is not an island unto itself. When the differentiation between administra-tive and criminal offences provides foreigners with an avenue for abuse, it loses its legitimacy.

What end does this differentiation serve?It keeps you from being stamped as a criminal if

you do not fill out your tax returns correctly and do not declare the piggybank that you inherit from your grand-mother. You might of course be punished, and possibly even harshly so, depending on the case. But you would not be charged as a criminal in the legal sense.

There have, however, also been a few Swiss who have transferred their grandmothers’ piggybanks

to accounts in Liechtenstein that are protected by bank secrecy, and who have conveniently “forgot-ten” about them.

A lot has been changing in Liechtenstein as well. And actively avoiding one’s taxes does indeed consti-tute tax fraud. While I do not wish to glorify bank se-crecy, there are aspects of it that I can in fact under-stand. We cannot, however, support bank secrecy when it invites people from abroad to engage in its abuse.

It was not always bank secrecy alone that invited foreigners to abuse the system, but Swiss bank employees have themselves invested considerable criminal energy to get customers to do so, as records from the UBS case in the United States and Switzerland have shown.

I do not blame the foreigners. Business models are illegitimate if they lead their foreign customers to violate the laws of their own countries. It therefore comes as no surprise that certain Swiss bank employ-ees are now afraid to travel abroad.

Is it ethical for the Swiss Federal Office of Justice to help bankers to figure out whether they need to fear arrest?

The state has, until now, generally assumed that the banks have been working on this basis. The bank-ers have thus been right to expect protection. We can therefore say that the state does in fact owe them this.

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Business ethicist and university instructor Christoph Weber-Berg points out that inefficiency is not only economically “wrong” but also ethically “bad”.

I do, however, oppose any general suspicion of every-one who has handled the personal banking of foreign customers. I know numerous decision-makers at Swiss banks who did not make use of the situation, even to their own detriment. Their banks’ ethics and reputa-tions were more important to them. But even they have now become anxious.

Churches, developmental aid providers, and politicians of the left have been criticizing bank secrecy for a long time. Even Hans J. Bär, the doyen at the Julius Bär Bank, wrote years ago that one should and could do away with bank secrecy. So why has it taken so long until the system actually broke down?

Too many people have benefited from it for too long, both in Switzerland and abroad. It is in the na-

ture of many people that they do not like to change things when they work well. The negotiations on the interest taxation agreement of 2002-2004 were the last opportunity that could have been used to maintain bank secrecy in the future. The negotiators, however,

only played for time, and many of those involved did not seize the moment to prepare their busi-nesses for a future without bank secrecy.

Their desperate clinging to bank secrecy might also have something to do with the way it has been criticized. Church lead-

ers, left-wing politicians, and developmental organiza-tions have all criticized the institution at a fundamen-tal level. And the reaction to this criticism was equally fundamental: Both sides were not willing or able to view the situation from a more nuanced point of view.

“Too many people have benefited from bank secrecy for too long.”


Your critique of bank secrecy is rather reserved.In my view, bank secrecy, in the narrow sense, is

not the central matter of concern, but instead the ques-tion of tax justice. Let us take Germany as an example. Some Germans were able to attain great wealth through the country’s “economic miracle” years, which were in-deed made possible by state policy. Some of them are now leaving the country in a huff, however, and view it as unethical for the state to demand high tax rates. This seems absurd to me. They have a responsibility to the society in which they became rich. And moving their wealth out of the country means evading this responsi-bility. This is unjust and impermissible. Bank secrecy must not support this type of behaviour.

Top officials at UBS have created a similar situation by earning large amounts of money through high-risk actions, and then allowing the state to save their bank without contributing anything of their own.

This is a systemic problem. We must not privatize profits while socializing losses. We must, however, ask whether the profits were in fact only privatized. Esti-mates have shown that 16 percent of tax receipts in Switzerland emanate from the financial industry. The pension funds also account for 8 to 10 percent of the capitalization of the Swiss stock market, which means that they too profit from rises in the share prices of major corporations. This affects life in-surance policies as well. Therefore, not only bank officials have been filling their pockets. We all profit from the business of the financial industry, whether directly or indirectly.

As Hans Geiger, professor emeritus at the Univer-sity of Zurich, wrote in May 2009, bankers have been accused of greed from time immemorial; Jesus himself chased away the moneychangers. Geiger thus comes to the conclusion that these objections are pointless and that “the bankers were already greedy a long time ago without it leading to this type of crisis”. What did Jesus actually say about dealing with money?

There is no ethics of money in the New Testa-ment, but there is criticism of wealth when the needs of the poor and other social commitments are not tak-en into account. In my opinion, Jesus reacted in ac-cordance with the different situations that arose. He said, for example, that one should give unto Caesar the money he deserved, which is to say taxes. In another account, Jesus was criticized for sitting at a table with a

tax collector. The tax collector subsequently undid his acts of fraud and gave half of his wealth to the poor.

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is also of relevance in this regard: The workers begin their toil at different times, but each receives the same denarius in return. While this is not an ethics lesson but a par-able concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, I still think that Jesus did not choose his metaphor by chance. He is saying something about a wage that covers what one needs to survive.

And how do you interpret the account of Jesus and the moneychangers, which we discussed before?

It is not a demonization of all business, but is ad-dressed at using faith for business purposes. From a theological perspective, the question “What does mon-ey do with people?” is more relevant than the question “What do people do with their money?” There is the example of the rich man who asked Jesus what he had to do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus asked him in return what he had done previously to achieve this. He responded that he had followed all of the Jewish laws. Jesus then demanded that he give all his money to the poor and follow him instead, upon which the man

went away, saddened. His disciples then asked him who would in fact be able to enter into heaven. This is an important message for me. It is about one’s attitude toward money, about the “attitude of the heart”, as it is expressed in the rabbinical tra-dition.

Joe Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank, has said that the banking business is only about making a profit. Do ethical and moral considerations have no place in economic matters?

Of course they do. Morals have a role to play whenever people are involved with other people. The economy is an important area of human activity, and we cannot remove ethics from it. Ethics and business are not irreconcilable. [He sketches a diagram.] There is a dimension to the economy in which things can be “wrong” or “right” and there is a dimension to ethics in which things can be “good” or “bad”. Every eco-nomic action can be placed on one of the four result-ing quadrants. If social concerns lead to economic in-efficiency, we are doing something wrong from an ethical perspective as well.

How is that so?If you run a social institution inefficiently, it is

economically “wrong” and ethically “bad”. You can of

“We have yet to pay the price of the crisis.”

course do much more for people in need when you work efficiently. Ethically legitimate solutions tend to be morally “good” and economically “right”, or put an-other way: they tend to be sustainable.

Is maximizing profits therefore ethically good?I differentiate between the maximization of prof-

its and what is economically right. When maximizing profits, one can adopt solutions that are morally bad. That is unethical.

Years ago, you were a loan officer for Credit Suisse. What was the job like for you? Was there room for ethical concerns?

My work at Credit Suisse did in fact propel me towards my future career path. I was on assignment at the department for foreign corporate customers and put together information for the evaluation of risk in terms of countries and companies. When it came to national risk, numerous criteria reflected ethical and normative characteristics such as the human rights situation in the respective countries. This was not done systematically enough in my opinion, however, and I was originally planning to write my doctoral dis-sertation on which ethical criteria are taken into ac-count in loan decisions.

How can concerned employees apply ethical values without incurring professional disadvantages?

I tell the students that they should not give up in face of the major problems that they cannot solve themselves, but should work to solve those problems that are within their sphere of influence. I conduct ex-ercises to sensitize them to the ethical scope of action that they will have.

At the managerial level, a majority still prioritizes the maximization of profits.

The incentives are wrong. While most companies have an ethical code that employees need to sign, their financial incentives completely ignore the code. This can often even result in those employees who hold fast to the code of conduct receiving smaller bonuses. I was able to observe this back in my days at Credit Suisse.

What needs to be changed?Josef Wieland, professor for business ethics at the

University of Konstanz, Germany, describes compa-nies as cooperative projects. Many corporate leaders, especially in the financial industry, organize their companies, in contrast, in terms of a competitive free-for-all. Financial incentives only serve to drive this

process onward. Wieland shows that, beginning at a certain point, internal competition can no longer be desirable whether seen from an ethical or financial point of view. Large salaries and bonuses are transac-tion costs that often do not pay off for companies. People actually have to be encouraged to improve their cooperation together, and to react less to individual financial incentives. For me, this is the model for the future. Cooperative companies work more along these lines.

The Swiss banks seem to have survived the crisis rather well. And they are already doing everything they can to avoid requirements such as a higher capital ratio, increased supervision, and stricter regulations. Will everything just remain the same?

On bad days, I would say yes. On good days, I hope that something will change. Every day, I think that we have yet to pay the price of the crisis. <

* Dr. ChrIstoPh WeBer-Berg is a theologian and ethicist specializing in economic concerns. He has run the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility of the University of Applied Sciences in Business Administra-tion Zurich since April 2009, where he teaches and conducts research. Maja Peter is the editor of The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches FSPC

PANEL 1: Misfit Switzerland 7

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the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in september 2008 drove home the need for new rules in the financial industry.

PANEL 2: After the financial crisis 9

The current financial and economic crisis has left its mark on countless people around the world, just as it remains inexplicable how this could happen. There has also been a

growing sense of helplessness regarding how the situa-tion will continue to develop. What do we need to do in order to avoid financial crises in the future? Does the main problem lie with the individual representa-tives of particular areas of the economy? Are the capi-tal markets to blame in their great lack of transparen-cy? Has our political system failed or does the crisis indicate fundamental deficits in our economic system?

The questions all tell us that the causes of the cri-sis can only be understood if we look into all the various facets of the international financial and eco-nomic system. This applies equally to the question of responsibility and thus the ethical side of the equation. Must we look for individual culprits to blame such as Bernard Madoff, the American financial advisor who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for billions of dollars in investment fraud, or Jérôme Kerviel, a French trader accused of speculation that resulted in some 4.9 billion euros in losses for the bank Société

Générale? From this individual-ethical standpoint, the financial crisis was triggered by greed, the desire to make fast money, and immoral behaviour on the part of speculators, bankers, and investors all vying to earn as much as possible. While this view is not entirely wrong, it is one-sided in its scope.

It all comes down to corporate cultureWhether as representatives of their professions or

as corporate employees, individuals are always part of a collective group in their working conditions, habits, and interests, and in their pressure to conform. There is little room for divergent views. In his book “Nach der Krise” (“After the Crisis”), Swiss publicist Roger de Weck quotes Jens-Peter Neumann, the former capital market officer at Dresdner Bank, as saying: “Do you know what would have happened if I had said that these investments were dangerous back in the good old days? They would have thrown me out.”

Corporate cultures can promote this sort of tun-nel vision – or, alternatively, an open and fearless at-mosphere in which criticism is valued and honoured. Ethical codes, like those that apply to doctors and en-

PANEL 2 – After the financial crisis

Ideas for a neweconomic model

the financial and economic crisis is a challenge that involves the reorganization of global economic structures. the churches have

focused on the values involved in the global economy and the international financial system. social market economies must be expanded to address concerns regarding ecology and globalization.

a “global green New Deal” will play a crucial role to this end.

By heLLa hoPPe aND otto sChäfer *


gineers, could serve to strengthen the conscience of individuals in other professional organizations as well. This level of professional and corporate ethics does not indeed apply only to bankers and traders but to economists as well. The crisis also revealed how strongly the prevailing anti-regulatory and neo-liberal currents have marginalized any voices of warning over the past several years, impeding the de-velopment of a productive diversity of opinion in the field.

In the end, it was the state support for major banks that was (temporarily) able to stabilize and al-leviate the financial crisis so that the global recession (if all goes well) is likely to lead to a 1 to 3 percent fall in growth rather than 20 to 30 percent (as in 1929). Global structures, molded both by economic “global players” and by national governments, are thus of cru-cial importance in this process. Even as many futurists have predicted the demise of the often maligned na-tional states, the individual states have indeed proven to be vital in this process, particularly with regard to their ability to even out international imbalances. At the same time, national states have begun to reach their limits, espe-cially in connection with the strong rise in debt. The strength-ening of structures that are bind-ing in international law, for exam-ple global governance, is urgently needed to promote a working glo-bal financial system. In the words of French political consultant Jacques Attali, the “globalization of the markets without the globalization of the rule of law will lead to a financial system that does whatever it wants”. Attali calls for a “global state of law”. This realm of Ordnungsethik, ethics focused on the overarching order, is thus to be seen as superordinate to the indi-vidual and professional-corporate ethical domains, which focus respectively on individuals acting in their own responsibility and on collective action.

The latent economic crisis before the financial crisis

All around the world, Christian churches have spoken out time and again on matters of economic ethics. The terms economic and ecumenical are in fact closely connected, both containing the Greek root oikos (“house”) as both address the “global household” in different ways. The economy is thus to be under-stood as the pursuit of an upstanding household in a house with particular house rules. If one is to play in the house, one must respect rules that protect the

rights of each player. The formation and examination of these rules promote ethical reflection. This is also a task for the churches as a service to the common good.

In Arthur Rich’s approach to Protestant social ethics, Christian churches are committed to both an accurate and humane approach to social and political issues. This ethical approach is accurate in its evalua-tion of the problems at hand, and humane in its advo-cacy for conditions in which people can prosper and are respected as individuals, and which promote both human community and the community of all earthly creation.

An accurate evaluationThe recent global financial crisis was triggered

by the real-estate bubble in the United States. The fi-nancial crisis was, however, not the result of one sin-gle event, but in fact followed in the wake of a latent economic crisis. The countries of the West have actu-ally enjoyed only minor growth in real terms since the end of the 1970s – in contrast with the emerging economies in Asia and petroleum-producing coun-

tries. This is reflected in the major global economic imbalances that we currently face – and the im-balance between China and the United States in particular. The high yield of financial products (seemingly) serves to compensate for the stagnation of the real economy in Western countries, just as the national financial mar-kets become increasingly open,

leading to overblown global markets with a high level of liquidity. Less than five percent of the available funds indeed suffice to finance the global trade vol-ume and direct foreign investment. Pension reform has played a role in this process as well, with funds being transferred over the past several years to sys-tems with capital coverage. This has led to a consider-able increase in the demand for long-term invest-ment opportunities on the capital markets.

People in numerous developing countries with no responsibility for causing the financial crisis will be hit by the serious economic repercussions of the crisis, and will be involved in an immense game of chance in which they have more at stake than the players them-selves. The human right to development, for example, has been limited in numerous developing countries by the consequences of the crisis. This is reflected in a downturn in the sales of raw materials along with a drop in demand for processed goods for export, all of which has led to a massive drop in production for ex-

The high yield of financial products (seemingly)

serves to compensate for the stagnation of the

real economy.

port and to a rise in unemployment. The income crisis has also intensified as migrants working abroad trans-fer less money back to their home countries as well. Developing countries are also being hit particularly hard in terms of their debt, with the crisis also threat-ening their right to food. The financial crisis in Asia, moreover, has increased the suffering of women and girls in particular.

A humane frameworkA humane and ethical viewpoint focuses on the

degree to which a social system – in this case the inter-national financial and economic system – serves the people. What values must it take into consideration in order to promote a human existence in dignity and meaning? These values are founded in certain pre-conditions. This includes trust, which is needed to even ensure social cohesion in the first place, and which makes reliable relationships of exchange pos-sible. The financial crisis is, at its core, a crisis of trust (trust in the value of investments and the reliability of banks, but also in debtors and even entire states). National governments have indeed provided finan-cial support, in part, in order to restore trust in the financial system and certain major banks as an im-portant part of the system. The public trust in the in-ternational financial markets is, however, still far from being restored in full.

Another important precondition is the apprecia-tion of work and thus the real economy. Work is a means of human development, one which fills life with meaning and substance. The significance of trust and work has two consequences:

– Both trustworthiness and the ability to trust are irreplaceable factors in building up the capital of the financial system, which translates into consid-erable profits even if these profits cannot them-selves be computed in terms of absolute figures.

– The meaning and justification of the financial economy is to serve the real economy.

Both of these points demonstrate the need to an-chor finance in working social relationships and cul-tural systems, and in tying the economy into precondi-tions such as trust, which it itself cannot guarantee. It is also remarkable that both preconditions have a Christian, theological component. From a biblical point of view, trust is the underlying factor that allows human life to flourish, and work is a calling – and one which includes manual labour in stark contrast with the intellectualism of the Greek philosophers. The idea sounds more impressive than it actually is. In reality,

the theological view calls for letting people be people, in that they are not God, but stand in a relation to God. People and all that is human are creations, and are indeed to be respected, but not to be idolized. This also applies to the social systems that are invented and created by people. Money must remain a dispassionate matter and must not be idolized as a type of Mammon, to which we would dedicate and sacrifice our lives. Church statements, particularly from the ecumenical world, have raised their voices in protest against any form of idolizing money. As he wrote in 1921, the phi-losopher Walter Benjamin saw capitalism as a religion. Speaking of God then entails protesting against this confusion of the creator with his creatures, and object-ing to a system that creates its own world and subju-gates everything else to it.

Polarizing economic debates fuelled by strong ideologies have attracted a new following during the financial and economic crisis. This can, however, only lead to a greater lack in the broad social support that is necessary for the implementation of the reform processes that are now required at the national and international political levels. We therefore need de-ideologized, secular, and socially committed strate-gies to bring about a social, humane globalization process.

A “Global Green New Deal”One thing remains clear: The financial crisis must

not be solved at the expense of the climate, but must be viewed as an opportunity to move to a sustainable economy. A look at the real world (for now) still re-veals a different story. A study carried out by HSBC Global Research in February 2009 reported that only around 15 percent of stimulus funds around the world (over 2 trillion euros) are currently dedicated to eco-logically sustainable and climate-friendly projects. There are, however, remarkable exceptions to this trend, including the European Union (59 percent), South Korea (80 percent), and perhaps surprisingly China (38 percent).

The Global Green New Deal supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has, however, already become an emerging political reality. Further developments should continue to follow this trend. At an interreligious conference, Ban Ki-moon, General Secretary of the United Nations, flattered the repre-sentatives of the Baha’i, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Shinto, and Taoist communi-ties in that they were the leaders of the world with the broadest and deepest influence. That would of course be wonderful news. But even if the churches are only able to contribute modestly to this goal, they can at



THE PROTESTANT CHURCH CALLS FOR

Ethical business

The basic values of freedom and responsibility, justice, solidarity, participation, and sustainability constitute the source of a human ethical approach. We can derive practical norms from these basic values. This includes the human rights to development, food, and protection from discrimi-nation. Practical norms can be phrased as principles (A. Rich’s “maxims”), without being linked to binding texts such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We can postulate three general ethical principles:– Deregulated and non-transparent financial markets

geared toward making “fast money” endanger the efficiency of national economies and are incompatible with making the real economy a higher priority than finance.

– Ownership entails social obligations (just as all civil rights and liberties are generally linked to responsi-bility).

– There needs to be binding international laws, principles, and corresponding structures to support the develop-ment of trade relations in a globalized world.

Specific ethical principles derived from this include:– Subsistence economy and the public supply of goods

essential to life are to be particularly promoted and respected as aspects of primary importance to the real economy.

– A precautionary principle is to be promoted in financial policy as an analogue to the environmental precaution-ary principle. This should prevent the financial system from collapse through necessary measures (e.g. raising the equity ratio of banks, and the clear separation of control bodies and rating institutions).

– Just distribution is a precondition for social peace and hence for a prosperous economy. (This also applies to the payment of bonuses and the like.)

– Tax justice must also be obtained at the global level (and tax havens must therefore be eliminated).

– The tried and tested social market economy model must be expanded to take into account ecological and global concerns.

– Outmoded growth indicators such as the gross domestic product (GDP) need to be replaced by officially recognized indicators of qualitative growth.

– The regulation of the international financial system must be carried out in a subsidiary, transparent, and efficient manner.

– Financial support packages for poor countries must not be set off against each other when they are to be used for different purposes (e.g. compensation for damages and for the overuse of global goods such as the climate, oceans, and biodiversity; and economic and social solidarity).

least do so with conviction. They remain true to their aims as they proclaim, in a most crucial area, the gos-pel that frees us to live. <

This text is a summary of the study on the financial and economic crisis that is to be published by the FSPC in 2010.

* Dr. heLLa hoPPe is an economist and serves as the FSPC senior economic affairs officer. otto sChäfer is a theologian, pastor, and doctor of biology (plant ecology). He is in charge of ethics and theology at the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FSPC).

Switzerland’s 24 Reformed can-tonal churches, the Evangelical Methodist Church in Switzer-land, and the Église évangélique

libre de Genève joined together in 1920 to form the Federation of Swiss Protes-tant Churches (FSPC), as a platform for them to discuss their mission as churches and as a means of external representa-tion. The FSPC has been a recognized partner for the Swiss federal authorities, ecumenical organizations, and partner churches abroad ever since. The Federa-tion is involved with matters of social policy, and is active in the consultation process for new legislative proposals, as well as religious and church policy at both the national and international lev-els. The FSPC also publishes its bulletin four times a year, and maintains a website that provides access to all of its studies and statements in addition to informa-tion on topics of current interest.

The FSPC issues statementsThe FSPC Assembly of Delegates,

the organization’s legislative body, found-ed the Institute for Social Ethics (ISE) in 1971. This was quite a trailblazing effort at the time; during the period of post-war economic prosperity, ethical discourses had been left primarily to theology and philosophy departments. The FSPC, however, quickly began issuing state-ments on political and economic matters. The Open Forum Davos would later be founded in this tradition, and was hosted this year for the eighth time by the FSPC and the World Economic Forum. The FSPC’s 2005 study, “Globalance – Chris-tian perspectives on a humane globaliza-tion” also addresses issues of economic globalization.

The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches has now returned to connect-ing social ethics more closely with theo-logical argumentation. The institute – now known as the Institute for Theology and Ethics (ITE) – has consequently joined the central church office as a new department. The department conducts studies on the foundations of ethical and theological issues, and has prepared texts over the past several years that address both church-internal and ecumenical dialogue on baptism, the eucharist, and church ministry. The department has published material on social ethics and the basic values of life in society, includ-ing issues such as religious freedom, energy ethics, and life’s beginning and end, from stem-cell research to assisted suicide.

Swiss Council of ReligionsStatements on federal consultations

and referendums are important contribu-tions to social discourse in Switzerland, including the recent major efforts made in opposition to the referendum initiative to ban the construction of minarets. The results of the vote have, however, shown that the churches need to continue to pursue a dialogue on the visibility of reli-gion in the public arena. This has come about in part through the cooperation of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Swiss Council of Religions, which was co-founded by the FSPC. The FSPC mi-gration desk, which has focused on im-migration-related matters for many years, has been particularly active in this regard.

The FSPC is currently working on a revision of its constitution. This will equip the Federation even better for its

future work in proclaiming the Christian message all throughout Switzerland. <

theo sChaaD Director FSPC

OPEN FORUM DAVOS

The Open Forum Davos highlights current issues in the critical debate about globaliza-tion and its consequences. From 2003 on, this platform for dialogue has been hosted in tandem with the World Economic Forum. Like every year, there is an open microphone: after an initial panel discussion, the audience is called upon to challenge the panellists with controversial questions and positions. www.openforumdavos.ch

THE FEDERATION OF SWISS PROTESTANT CHURCHES IN BRIEF

The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FSPC) consists of 26 churches with a total of over 2 million members. The FSPC Assem-bly of Delegates serves as its legislative body with 70 delegates in total. The FSPC Council serves as the organization’s executive with a full-time president and seven other members.The FSPC headquarters in Bern is staffed by 35 employees working at a total of 27 full positions. The church office consists of the FSPC’s Department of Ecumenical Relations, Institute for Theology and Ethics, Communi-cations Department, and its Central Services Department.

FSPC publications can all be downloaded at www.sek.ch

– The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches at the Open Forum Davos the federation of swiss Protestant Churches and the World

economic forum have joined together to host the open forum Davos for the eighth

time. this is an important part of the social commitment of the Protestant churches.

Open Forum Davos 2010 13

Beat Kappeler *


The 2008 financial crisis could have in fact been avoided through moral action, albeit on the part of unexpect-ed actors.

What originally triggered the crisis? The American authorities provided incentives for the coun-try’s two government-associated giants of the mortgage industry to lend around 2 trillion dollars to households that had no means of repayment. State funds in Asia and the Arab world then purchased this dollar debt, all while lowering the interest rates over a period of years. The temptation thus grew to join in the great gamble and incur debt, whether as house-holds, companies, and individuals. Two political play-ers can thus be seen to have been at the source of this disaster. Without this political cover, investment bank-ers, high-level managers with all their bonuses, hedge fund operators and the like would not have been able to go as far as they did. The third politically driven

– One question – two responses

Can morally responsible action prevent a crisis?

cause was the paper money itself with which national states have been filling their people’s pockets ever since the dollar went off the gold standard in 1971. Paper money has no real backing, and most of it is produced by banks transforming short-term reserves into long-term debt. A crisis of trust in the system, and indeed the financial crisis itself, would thus ensue in Septem-ber 2008.

The political remedies on offer can only be con-sidered to be immoral, as they refused to admit that free houses and the creation of paper money by banks actually involve promises that are hollow to the core. Politicians have instead reverted to their favourite top-ics such as bonuses, currency exchange taxes, and in-creased regulation. Any solution would instead neces-sitate the obligation on the part of bank bond holders to convert their bonds into bank shares in a crisis. Money would then become expensive even during pe-riods of normalcy, while banks would be able to in-crease their capital in a crisis without having to resort

to taxpayer money. Paper money should, moreover, only be issued by the appropriate central banks. And banks should directly reinvest their customers’ money in produc-tive assets, just as asset manage-ment banks do today. The banks would then no longer be overbur-

dened by loans. Financial markets are technically complex, as are indeed all markets, and given the right framework, they could keep greed at bay. The political system should be responsible for this – and nothing more. <

* Beat KaPPLer is an author and a columnist for the Sunday edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel. His latest book, “Sozial, sozialer, am unsozialsten”, was published by the NZZ Verlag in 2007.

The political remedies on offer can only be consi-

dered to be immoral.

Denis Müller *

Ethics never entails the ambition or naïveté to believe that ethics can be translated into re-ality in all areas of society and life at the same time and to a complete degree. It is

framing the ideals and goals that are to be pursued. This applies even more so to Christian ethics, which is seen as part of God’s kingdom – or in other words, as part of the ultimate reality towards which all penulti-mate realities are to transform themselves.

In the name of an ethics of such a radical and un-compromising nature, we are called upon to speak out on the economic, financial, and political realities. This is, however, not about solving all current problems with the wave of a magic wand, but instead a matter of decrying the blatant injustice and short-sightedness that have emerged from the current financial crisis.

Arthur Rich’s two-volume work on economic ethics appeared between 1984 and 1990. Although it was conceived at a time in which the Communist re-gimes served as one “model” among others, Rich as-tutely foresaw the collapse of their economies (while also honouring their ideals of solidarity and jus-tice). The author wrote that only a fundamentally democratic and liberal economy would be able to renew itself, and spoke out in sup-port of a “social market economy” that can overcome the dead ends of unconstrained liberalism. Rich’s theologically in-formed social ethics are exemplary and substantive in this regard as well, and his ethical intuitions have been

– One question – two responses

Can morally responsible action prevent a crisis?

borne out in the financial crisis: Liberal democracies need to renew themselves even as change remains a

far-reaching and painful process. Switzerland is currently receiving the full brunt of this process, and is paying a high price for its lack of lucidity, vision, and courage. The country has plunged into its cur-rent negative state of affairs due to the errors (cf. Swissair and UBS) of certain financial and economic

leaders, as well as to parts of its political establish-ment.

Ethics is meant to both inspire and regulate lib-eral democracy, the market, and the financial world. To deny ethics this crucial role, one would have to be irresponsibly cynical or prone to a delusive prag-matism. <

* DeNIs MüLLer is a theologian and professor of ethics at the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne.

Switzerland is paying a high price for its

lack of lucidity, vision, and courage.


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the Protestant churches have been advocating for climate justice beginning back in the 1980s. the roman Catholic Church, and

the past two popes in particular, have also set an excellent example for society. any improvement in the state of the world’s climate must

be anchored in five underlying ethical principles.

PANEL 3 – Climate change

The churches andclimate policy

2002 2006

the North would have to change their consumption habits, as the greenhouse effect and damage to the ozone layer demanded urgent and coordinated inter-national measures.

A year later, Pope John Paul II, in his well-received World Peace Day message entitled “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All Creation”, emphasized the need to limit the artificial greenhouse effect, and for rich countries to follow a controlled and moderate lifestyle. Switzerland’s churches thus act as part of a

The churches number among the forces of civil society, present throughout the world, that have been working to bring about cli-mate justice since the 1980s. The first Euro-

pean Ecumenical Assembly met in Basel, Switzerland, during the 1989 Pentecost holiday. Even at that first meeting, climate change was already being treated as a serious challenge and discussed in depth together with the European Physical Society and others. The Assem-bly’s final statement stated that the rich countries of

global warming is threatening switzerland’s biodiversity: the trift glacier in Canton Bern has been shrinking rapidly. Its melted waters have formed a new lake that has in turn accelerated the melting process.

By otto sChäfer aND heLLa hoPPe *

PANEL 3: Climate change 17


greater tradition in their advocacy for climate justice, while they focus in particular on the ethical issues connected to energy policy. Upon the initiative of the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FSPC), the three main Swiss churches collaborated in October 2009 on a letter to the Swiss Parliament and the Swiss delegation to the World Climate Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen. In the letter, the churches called for a 40-percent reduction in greenhouse gases in Switzer-land from 1990 to 2020. The churches, moreover, called upon Switzerland to follow with a contribution of similar magnitude to reduction and adaptation measures abroad, arguing that Switzerland would it-self benefit indirectly from such a programme. This benefit would be reflected both in terms of climate justice and in terms of the development of climate-friendly state-of-the-art technology (génie climatique) with considerable export potential.

The Swiss churches advocatefor climate justice

It is, in any event, plain to see that a climate-friendly society cannot be brought about through technology alone, and a resource-friendly society even less so. Be-yond climate change itself, we will be faced with challenges such as resource scarcity, reduced biodi-versity, and global pollution with plastic waste products, not to mention atomic energy. As has of-ten been said, and correctly so, a revolution in efficiency alone will only lead to a displacement and reinforcement of demand – if it is not combined with a revolution in sufficiency and a move toward a new frugality. We should take our cue from the seemingly paradoxical, but indeed particu-larly apt concept of progress toward moderation, as postulated by the economist and father of ecological tax reform, Hans-Christoph Binswanger. Sufficiency and moderation would indeed be necessary to meet the requirements of a 2000-Watt Society as advocated by the FSPC in its 2008 study on energy ethics.

The five principles of climate justiceA globally binding international climate policy

cannot evolve without ethical foundations or without climate justice. The following five principles are related to such an ethical perspective on climate justice:– Equality Principle The right to use resources that are essential for life pro-

ceeds from the right all of people to live and develop.

– International Justice Principle Affluent countries are obliged to undertake finan-

cial and technological efforts for the benefit of weaker countries.

– Polluter Pays Principle Polluters are liable for damages, in this case climatic

damage, even if the damage occurs far away from the source of the damaging effects (greenhouse gas emissions). This liability also applies to damages caused in the past. The year 1990 is usually used as a pragmatic cutoff, however, as it is of little use to address damages caused before the emergence of a broad environmental awareness and of a scientific understanding of climate change.

– Principle of Avoidance and Precautionary Principle

Our obligation to act sustainably is more important than deliberating over the uses and hazards of fossil fuels in the past. Any damage needs to be avoided that is likely to result under prevailing conditions (Principle of Avoidance). Particularly severe forms of damage must not be viewed as acceptable either – even if they are not especially likely to occur, or if

their likelihood is difficult to de-termine (Precautionary Princi-ple). Precautions include both re-ducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting the expected conse-quences of climate change to as tolerable a level as possible. The Swiss populace is not always aware of how much climate-related ad-aptation measures will be of rele-vance to the Alps with regard to matters such as flooding, land-

slides, and rock avalanches.

The cynical protection of the interests of the privileged

The most dramatic impact of climate change will, however, affect the Global South, where it is precisely those who did little or nothing to cause climate change who will suffer the most, in part because they do not have the financial or technical means to adapt. Up to 200 billion euros a year would, however, be needed by developing countries to protect against drought, water shortages and floods, to limit deforestation, and to in-troduce climate-friendly energy sources. If these countries are not supported financially, many will be forced to flee from places such as Bangladesh, which could lose up to a tenth of its surface area to the rising sea. In anticipation, India has in fact begun to build a fence, 3 metres high and 4000 kilometres in length, to

A globally binding interna-tional climate policy can-not evolve without ethical

foundations or without climate justice.

protect itself against waves of Bangladeshi climate ref-ugees, and Myanmar, Bangladesh’s other neighbor, has plans to do the same. This is unacceptable from an ethical point of view. The Principle of Avoidance and the Precautionary Principle would lead only to the cynical protection of the interests of the privileged without thorough adherence to the Polluter Pays Prin-ciple and the Principles of Equality and International Justice. Even from today’s perspective, this has to be about the future generations of our one global human-ity. Immediate financial support for these countries is therefore of existential importance.

Self-enforcement and coordinated monitoring

No world government or police force would ever be able to overcome any major resistance to the en-forcement of international climate agreements and their control mechanisms. It is therefore important that these mechanisms are able to enforce themselves as much as possible. The emissions trade constitutes one step in this direction. As attractive this idea may be, however, when it comes to matters of detail, the system is still lacking in many ways. The climate policy and diplomacy of individual countries is indeed often neither transparent nor credible, especially with re-gard to data and figures. No progress would thus be possible without a coordinated and enhanced interna-tional control system. Extensive self-enforcement needs to be combined with the necessary controls.

Solar panels on the roofs of the VaticanIt is one thing to introduce international regula-

tions; implementing them is, however, an entirely dif-ferent matter. Have the churches set a good example in their construction work and management, in their congregational life, and in the offices of their institu-tions? Yes and no. The ambitious climate-protection goals that the Evangelical Church in Germany set for itself in 2008 are, however, quite remarkable, as is the way in which the German regional churches employ environmental officers and church energy consultants. The church’s “Green Rooster” environmental label has become so well known and widespread that it has since been emulated in Switzerland as well.

The Vatican has now even set itself the goal of be-coming the world’s first climate-neutral state. Around a year ago, for example, solar panels were installed on the roof of the audience hall, while 7000 trees were planted in Hungary on the Vatican’s behalf.

We should also mention the stunning Baptist Church in Brande, Denmark, built in 1972 of recycled materials including bricks and fieldstones. The church

remains a dignified example of humility to this day. And perhaps this Christian virtue expresses best what we most urgently need today, globally, socially, and ecologically. <

* Dr. heLLa hoPPe is an economist and serves as the FSPC senior economic affairs officer.

otto sChäfer is a theologian, pastor, and doctor of biology (plant ecology). He is in charge of ethics and theology at the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FSPC). His study “Energy Ethics” appeared in 2008 and can be accessed at www.sek.ch

PANEL 3: Climate change 19


Gandhi was the target of religious extre-mists, once on 20 January 1948 when an unsuccessful attempt was made on his life by a Hindu who took exception to his

friendly overtures to Muslims. Yet, after this violent incident Gandhi said: “You should not have any kind of hate against the person who was responsible for this. He took it for granted that I was an enemy of Hin-duism.” He successfully contested the advocates of hate and violence (whether against the British or bet-ween Hindus and Muslims) and sidelined them for over 60 years. Yet he was assassinated by one of those very extremists whom he had been trying to win over to the paths of peace and understanding.

Gandhi would caution the worldToday the problem of violent extremists remains

a large reality in the world. But there are other realities too: economic misery, Aids and other diseases, the ravages of climate change and environmental degrada-tion, war and oppression. But there are also many signs of hope and renewed dialogue across critical glo-bal divides. This is especially important in the case of the divide between the so-called Western world and the so-called Islamic world. If Gandhi were alive to-day, I think he would caution the world against falling into the temptation of believing that one faith commu-

nity out of all is uniquely fallen, uniquely infected, uniquely dangerous to the rest.

In our era of an apparent clash of civilizations, many in the democratic world see the populations of Muslim lands as flawed, even while good relations are maintained in many cases with their rulers, who are viewed as people with whom business can be done. Many influential people in the USA and Europe equate terrorism with Islam and believe that terrorism and Islam are strongly interrelated. Such thinking in parts of the West has its counterpart in much of the Islamic world, which has seen persistent negative propaganda about Christians and the crusades, Jews and Zionism, and Americans and Europeans.

How enemies became alliesThe hostilities of 1914–18 and 1935–45 were

called world wars, but any “Islam versus the rest” war today would be a world war in a much more compre-hensive and diffuse sense. And it will be a people-against-people, civilian-against-civilian war. When, as often happens, I hear the argument about the flawed nature of Islam, I recall the faces and lives of Muslims I have known. I recall images of Muslims kneeling in prayer or raising their arms in supplication to God, or carrying their dead or wounded on cold earthquake-hit slopes, and ask myself if I could truly believe that

PANEL 4 – Religion’s claim to truth

“Truth is God.”twenty years before he was assassinated, my grandfather gandhi said

he preferred the phrase “truth is god” to the phrase “god is truth” because although many people had been killed in the name of god,

nobody had been killed in the name of truth.

By rajMohaN gaNDhI *

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Islam so practised was particularly and peculiarly flawed. I cannot believe it is. When I hear such an argu-ment I also at times recall the recording of a radio broadcast that I first heard as a boy. The voice was that of Winston Churchill, speaking nearly three quarters of a century ago in June 1941, when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union and made Russia Britain’s ally against Nazism. Having spent several previous years warning people about the dangers of Russian Communism, Churchill now had to gather support for an alliance with those same Russians and Communists.

Muslim children also playThe man whose eloquence rose to every challenge

again found the right words. In his speech in June 1941, which included the famous line about fighting Hitler “by land, by sea and in the air”, Churchill also said, referring to Russians threatened by Hitler: “I see the 10,000 villages of Russia, where the means of exis-tence was wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play.”

Well, Muslim maidens laugh too, and Muslim children also play, and all Muslims, Sunni or Shia are grateful for primordial human joys. They hate terro-

rism as much as anybody else in the world, and perhaps even more, for more Muslims have been killed in terrorist acts than non-Muslims.

Violence has no religionIn Rwanda in 1994, some massacres actually took

place in churches. Does that make the Rwanda killings a Christian crime? When in the 1970s, Buddhist Cam-bodia was the venue for the killing fields, did the mas-sacres reflect an innate Buddhist flaw? When a few years ago, almost all members of the royal family of Nepal were shot dead, and later a large number of peasants and security men were killed in shootings, was some Hindu teaching to blame? Indeed, were the two Great Wars of the 20th century a result of Christi-anity?

That religion is an element in the complex stories of modern violence is only too true; but we should be careful before saying with finality that it is religion in general and one religion in particular that fills a heart with hate and the desperate desire to destroy others and oneself. We should recognize that the clash in the world today is not between civilizations, cultures, reli-gions or nations, but rather between forces inside each heart, between fear and faith, between fear (or hate) and acceptance. <

* rajMohaN gaNDhI is a politician, author, and professor of history at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Illinois in the United States. Gandhi was twelve years old when his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. In 2006, he published a biography of his grandfather.

SUGGESTED READING

Rajmohan Gandhi: Mohandas A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire, Penguin Books: New Delhi – New York 2006, 745 pages.

Mahatma gandhi (1869–1948), leader of the Indian independence movement, at a constitutional conference in London in 1931.

PANEL 4: Religion’s claim to truth 21


Last summer, during his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, President Barack Obama took America’s harshest rhetorical shot at France since Donald Rumsfeld dismissed it

as “old Europe” when he was defence secretary in the run-up to the Iraq war. Alluding to western countries that try to “dictate what clothes a Muslim woman should wear” – as France did when it banned head-scarves in schools five years ago – Mr Obama said: “We can’t disguise hostility towards any religion be-hind the pretence of liberalism.”

This was bound to confuse his fellow Americans, even the Francophobes among them. They are taught not to be judgmental about customs and rituals that differ widely from their own. And now they are being enjoined to cut no slack to the democratic republic whose political tradition, of all the political traditions on the planet, most resembles theirs.

Is taking vitamins a spiritual practice?France aggressively polices the borders between

church and state. It rules on questions that other west-ern countries permit to slide. This week, a court in Paris convicted two offices of the Church of Scientol-

ogy – its “celebrity centre” and an affiliated bookshop – of fraud. It levied a €600,000 ($884,000, £537,000) fine against the group and gave a two-year suspended sentence to the man it described as the French church’s de facto leader, fining him and three others. (In June, prosecutors had called for the sect to be banned, al-though legal reforms passed the month before ren-dered that impossible.)

At issue was the church’s sale of courses and prod-ucts to aid the spiritual “purification” of its adherents. It sold vitamins and an “electrometre” device meant to measure users’ spiritual condition. The electrometre retails for more than € 3,500. The judgment arose from the claims of two women who alleged they had been bilked of their life’s savings – about € 20,000 each – at a time when they were vulnerable.

The basic intellectual question about Scientology concerns whether it is a “real” religion – or at least whether practices such as electrometry and vitamin dosing are religious. The basic legal question concerns who has the right to decide that. In this sense, the dis-cussion of electrometres resembles the discussion in US courts of Indian religions that use peyote, a banned drug. Generally, federal courts have ruled that states

religious freedom excludes the state from getting involved in religious affairs. and yet, judges are time and again faced with the decision of what

is a part of religious practice and what is not.

By ChrIstoPher CaLDWeLL *

PANEL 4 – Religion’s claim to truth

When is a religiona religion?

can bar its use if they wish. In practice, most have al-lowed exceptions.

Economic and religious practices are sometimes inseparable

The French ruling attempts to step out of this thicket. On top of the fraud charges, the court fined two Scientologists for illegally practising pharmacy. The mark-ups on the electrometre and on the vitamins were high and the court declared the church’s person-ality tests “without scientific value”. It separated the “business side” of the church from the “religious side” and based its judgments on the former. This shifts the grounds of debate from freedom of religion to con-sumer protection. Thus far, we are not too far from the regulation of the beer sold by Belgian Trappists or the home-made jams sold by the Amish in Pennsylvania.

There are two differences, though. First, econom-ic and religious practices are sometimes inseparable. Scientology’s retailing may be part of the religion it-self, as charitable obligations (zakat) are in Islam. Sec-ond, it is easier to arrive at a “just price” for beer and jam than for purification. To put a value on that re-quires making a judgment about whether the religion’s claims are legitimate.

Which religions can be practised fully?In recent decades, western elites have been aller-

gic to such judgments. In her majority opinion in the Planned Parenthood v Casey abortion case of 1992, US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the uni-verse, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of per-sonhood were they formed under compulsion of the state.” But if everything is transcendent, then nothing is tran scendent. Why should the state protect a vulnerable person from paying to be “purified” by an electro metre, if it is not going to protect a vulnerable person from going to the shopping centre and spending thousands of euros on clothes she does not need?

The Age of Casey, though, appears to be drawing to a close. Authorities are growing more comfortable drawing lines on what religious conduct they consider acceptable. Maybe the growing influence of Islamism in the west, or at least the growing fear of it, is to blame.

Consider the initiative about the ban of minarets in Switzerland. While it does not declare Switzerland’s religious identity to be anything specific, it establishes, by exclusion, which religions can be practised fully. This approach has also come up in the Netherlands. There, the anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders denies Is-

lam is a religion at all. This allows it to sidestep the constitutional headwinds his proposals (such as ban-ning the Koran) would otherwise encounter.

The French decision trips up Scientology without having to prove it is not a religion. Yet the verdict is seen as a landmark because, as Georges Fenech, presi-dent of France’s interministerial body on cults, said: “The very structure of the Church of Scientology has been convicted.”

Although it is the business structure that was convicted, not the belief structure, the two are so in-tertwined that the case strikes the latter at its heart. The case indicates that western authorities are less content than before to leave actions done under colour of religion undisturbed. <

* ChrIstoPher CaLDWeLL is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. This article has been published in October 2009 in Financial Times. The part about minarets in Switzerland is actualized.

Copyright 2009 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Please do not cut and paste FT articles and redistribute by email or post to the web.



Our society is currently undergoing a com-prehensive process of inner searching. What will Switzerland be like in the fu-ture? What are its main characteristics?

And what are its values and spiritual foundations? How do we wish to live together in the future?

While the question of what keeps a society to-gether is not a new one, it is being asked again today with greater urgency than before. It has become clear that our secular, democratic state of law, and our free, multicultural society require a new framework that goes beyond security, economic, and social policy. Switzerland is also a humane place, and a place of hu-man coexistence. As Christian churches, we know that this also touches on faith and ethical orientation, as-pects central to the identity of a human society.

The churches and religious communities now play a crucial role in this societal process of searching.

Diversity continues to grow in Switzerland with people coming from all over the world to settle in Switzerland. There is a new urgency to the question of what holds a society together. Even well before the referendum to ban the construction of new mosque minarets, we were able to observe that the integration of Islam into our society, with its Christian background, will require great efforts on the part of all those involved. The churches of Switzerland have long been engaged in dialogue with other religions. This dialogue will, however, require a new depth to it. Reverend Thomas Wipf suggests that the religions come together to design and sign a basic consensus on what we need to live together in society.

But what does it now mean for this process when other religions, and Muslim communities in particular, join Christian churches along this path?

People of Muslim faith have long been part of Switzerland. They are residents of the country and a large number of them are now Swiss citizens. Islam is indeed not only part of our economic world, but a part of our social and religious lives as well. People of Mus-lim faith now inquire of us concerning our willingness to share our Swiss living space with them.

When is trust possible, when opposition necessary?

The FSPC member churches and the FSPC itself have now long been active in interreligious dialogue, and in dialogue with Muslims in particular. Since 2006, national representatives of Jews, Christians, and Muslims have also been meeting in dialogue within the context of the Swiss Council of Religions. The churches have responded to the concept of a clash of cultures with their own concept of religious dialogue.

We are happy to answer the questions of Mus-lims, just as we, too, confront them in dialogue: The emergence of certain groups and individuals – and not only outside of Switzerland – has led to irritation and even opposition. Many people have a hard time un-derstanding the Muslim faith. When are trust and agreement possible? And when are distance and op-position necessary? We are only just beginning to tru-ly understand the magnitude of the task of integration.

PANEL 4 – To discuss

Thomas Wipf towards a basic consensus among religions

By revereND thoMas WIPf President of FSPC Council

Multiculturalism and religious pluralism are challenging social concepts. It means that we can deal constructively with the tensions inherent in conserv-ing that which is ours, while remaining open for that which is strange to us.

Key issues include the role of religions in the sec-ular state of law, the relationship between Islam and democracy, the freedom to profess and also to change one’s religion, gender equality, religiously legitimized violence, and human rights in general.

Dialogue among religions in Switzerland needs to reach a new stage in its development. A basic consensus among religions has now become necessary in order to continue to move forward, especially with regard to the dialogue with Islam. This basic consensus should not, however, involve details of faith. The religions are in-deed all different, and these differences will always con-tinue to exist as they constitute the richness of each in-dividual faith. It is our task today to take the basic differences among the religions seriously so that they do not become a cause of conflict but a spark to strengthen social cohesion. We must have a basic consensus of reli-gious communities on the exigencies of coexistence. This needs to be determined together, to be set down in a document, and established in a binding form.

A basic consensus as a requirement for coexistence from

a Protestant standpoint:

1. Consensus on truthReligion is anchored in God’s revelation. In its

orientation toward God’s revelation, religion also re-mains an historical reality on a continual basis, and one which is fraught with human weakness. Religion must therefore not become absolutist, but must always listen anew to God’s revelation, questioning itself from this perspective. Religions should not oppose each other and persist in an absolute claim to truth, nor should they make claims to power and seek to wield it over others. Religion must instead serve God and the people for the good of all.

2. Consensus on religious freedomThe freedom to pursue one’s faith both as an indi-

vidual and in community is a basic civil right. This ap-plies in particular to religions such as Christianity and Islam for which the call to mission is an integral part of their identity. A consensus on religious freedom would mean that all religions active in Switzerland would advocate for this right everywhere. This in-cludes the rights to change one’s religion or even to have no religion at all.

3. Consensus on religious pluralismSwitzerland is a country with a Christian back-

ground. The churches expect other religions to be sen-sitive to this heritage. Pluralism is, however, also part of the reality of today’s Switzerland. The diversity of languages, cultures, and confessions is founded in the history of the country, and is a sign of its strength, not of its weakness. We must treat this diversity with care.

4. Consensus on human rightsHuman rights are an achievement, and we need

to bear responsibility for their being observed. Every religious community in Switzerland should recognize and reaffirm the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. Through this affirmation of human rights, all the religions active in Switzerland would be committing themselves to working on ensuring the fu-ture of this particular achievement.

5. Consensus on the rule of lawThe religions should recognize that the Swiss

state is anchored in secular law and not on the profes-sion of any particular religion. The state law applies equally to all. Legal pluralism – such as the application of religious precepts in certain areas of civil law (e.g. family law, inheritance laws) or the use of religious courts – is not compatible with the idea of a state founded in the rule of law.

6. Consensus on the maintenance of peaceEvery religion yearns for and has a potential for

peace. The religions in Switzerland need to commit themselves to maintaining religious peace in the coun-try through their actions, and to strengthening the so-ciety’s cohesion.

From a Protestant standpoint, a basic consensus should be sought along these lines among the religious communities of Switzerland. People require a mini-mum of certainty in times of fundamental changes. By subscribing to such a basic consensus, the religions could make an important contribution toward laying the foundations for coexistence. <



A sea of colourful lights illuminates the disco ceiling as youthfully dressed women and men, all of retirement age, jump and hop to the rhythms of pop music, arms and

legs all in motion. It is a television commercial as de-picted in the 1990 film Tie me Up! Tie me Down! (Átame) by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. The narrator asked: “Why do German retirees get to sun-bathe in Benidorm while...” The scene then cuts from the German retirees’ nighttime revelry to the reality of Spanish life by day. We see an old woman with grey hair and black clothing standing in a large open square, holding out the palm of her hand to passers-by. The speaker continues: “...while poor Spanish retirees need to beg at Metro entrances?” Two more provocative scene cuts follow that reveal the answer to this ques-tion: A young German couple in Nazi uniforms care-fully plan out their future in detail, while Spanish cou-ples succumb to the joys of flirting and tango. “Gerobank pension fund, so that you may continue to dance”, the speaker concludes. Inspired by the mes-

sage, Marina, a young former porn actress and the film’s main protagonist, asks her 23-year-old friend Ricky, who was released a few days earlier from a psy-chiatric institution: “So what are your plans for the fu-ture?”

Ageing well depends on financeThe very point that Almodóvar makes through

his sharp artistic eye and overstated imagery does in-deed touch on important matters in the current dis-course on ageing. There would in fact seem to be differ-ent ways of growing old. How one ages depends to a great degree on one’s financial resources. In the Swiss context this translates into the difference, for example, between a single scientist in a leading position at No-vartis and a single mother employed in shift work at the same company. This is also reflected in the differ-ences between North and South, particular with re-gard to wealth, as well as an East-West divide – ever since the expansion of the European Union (EU) to Eastern European countries at the latest. There are ma-

PANEL 5 – Ageing

Everything under control?

the beauty industry, advanced medicine, and adverts for preventive medicine centres all would have us believe that “good ageing” is

something that can be planned. are we really able to take full responsibility for our own good health, fitness, and happiness in our

old age? the following looks at this topic from a theological point of view.

By IvaNa BeNDIK *

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only very few are able to stay young to the very end.


jor differences within the EU that relate to financial matters and connected social and health concerns. This inequitable distribution of financial means is of-ten met by the attitude that people should be responsi-ble for their own welfare (even) at an advanced age. This attitude derives from the predominantly West-ern/Central European social perspective in which eco-nomic and medical progress are seen as greatly respon-sible for one’s welfare and physical health, and thus places our lives and our “ageing well” in the hands of each individual. This, in turn, implies that those who age more rapidly and are thus not as well-equipped fi-nancially not only have themselves to blame but in-deed place an unfair burden on society.

Old, with only themselves to blameSo what exactly does “ageing well” mean – and to

what degree are people responsible for this them-selves? A worldview that extols eternal youth, as can be seen to a great degree in our society and media, en-tails remaining good and indeed youthful consumers all through one’s life. Advertising also employs a virtu-ally limitless number of ways of making life vital and sexy until a ripe old age. As one slogan would have it, “you’re as old as you feel”. The inherent message is that those who look and feel old are themselves to blame for doing too little for themselves, their fitness, and their physical and mental well-being. If we follow this line of reasoning, we can conclude that, at least in Central Europe, it is now possible for many people to extend their youth for a good number of years, thanks to medical progress, improved hygiene, humane work-ing conditions, and legally regu-lated pension plans.

Medical progress does, how-ever, also have a flipside: In con-trast with our ancestors, we not only stay young longer, but we stay old longer as well. In other words, the burdens of the ageing process are extended as well. This is the phase in which the biologically determined reduction in organ perform-ance, connected to a reduction in physical and mental ability, have clear consequences on individual well- being and appearance. More ailments also affect people during this period that do not (immediately) lead to death but which still reduce one’s quality of life consid-erably. The most typical of these ailments include Par-kinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, diabe-tes, and incontinence. “Ageing well” viewed in terms of “remaining youthful to the end” has developed into a challenge that only few can really master. A third of all suicides in Switzerland are committed by people over

the age of 65, with men over 70 at greatest risk, accord-ing to the Sunday edition of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on October 22, 2006. This is compounded by the fact that a decreasing number of children are being born, leading to the society ageing as a whole, with conse-quences for the economic system and for state pension guarantees. Even the advertising slogan for private pension plans in Almodóvar’s film seems particularly relevant in this context; and the question “What are your plans for the future?” can indeed become partic-ularly daunting. Are only a former porn actress and someone who grew up in a psychiatric clinic able to escape from the constraints of what is apparently nor-mal?

Limited by God, not by death Christian theology has focused, from its earliest

beginnings, on peace and justice, and not on happi-ness, and may therefore come across as somewhat dry. Its strength, however, lies in being able to look at the reality of ageing and the suffering that it involves, with-out giving up on everything, because it its anchored in the ultimate truth that is God. The Christian faith is rooted in the understanding that all being is founded in God and must therefore be understood in this light. People see themselves from this perspective as God’s creatures and view their lives as a gift granted, and thus as a good limited by God. As simple as that may sound, the consequences of this basic understanding are in fact quite far-reaching. The very understanding that it is God, and not death, who sets our limits, opens up new horizons for us. The view of life as a gift also

has far-reaching ramifications, as people consequently no longer bear the responsibility for life, a responsibility that we are indeed incapable of bearing. Even if this message may at first seem discon-certing, it does reflect back on our experience of injustice and

touches on the question “Why me?” that we all ask ourselves at certain times in our lives.

Every phase of life is uniqueLife has both passive and receptive qualities as

seen in relation to God. This in no way means, how-ever, that people should remain inactive. On the con-trary, it is precisely through the temporal limits on life that women and men become aware of what it is: a precious good that we do not have forever. We must make something of this life, forming it within the lim-ited time we have, and thus improving on its quality. The limited amount of time also, however, means that

We not only stay young longer, but we stayold longer as well.

PANEL 5: Ageing 29

each phase of life is unique and will never return in its particular form. People are children, adults, and eld-erly only once, and are embedded in their own histori-cal periods within the world’s overall timeframe, from which they must make decisions that affect the further path of their lives. Recognizing and accepting this place within our lives, and opening ourselves up to this understanding, are all passive matters – passive because people must then open themselves up to be receptive in lives that are otherwise geared toward ac-tion. In theological terms, this is known as grace; God’s word is received as his acceptance of us, just as it is understood and followed as his command as well. The theologian Karl Barth expressed it in this way: “The command of God summons him to be wholly and exclusively the man he can be in this place and this place alone. It thus lifts him out of the stalls and sets him, not behind the stage, but on it, to appear at once and well or badly to say his little piece as appoint-ed. For now, in his present time, he has the unique op-portunity, and since he does not know how long it will last he must seize and use it.” People are thus called upon to take up their tasks in accordance with their age and life situations.

Youth as a commitment What does this mean as applied to “ageing well”

and to the degree to which we are responsible for our-selves? If youth also means committing oneself fully to something without asking whether it is youthful, then people do indeed have the opportunity to remain youthful to the end. Only the objects of their commit-ment will change from one phase of their life histories to another. From the viewpoint of Christian faith, in the words of Karl Barth: “The command of God ac-companies man upon his way in the changing condi-tions of life. But it is not bound by what man knows about these changing conditions. On the contrary, what man can and must always know of them is bound by the revelation of God and his recognition of the command from which it follows.”

This means that we, from the viewpoint of Chris-tian faith, cannot, ahead of time, determine what our tasks will be in the various stages of life. That is instead a matter between God and each individual in his or her particular place in life history. Women and men are thus responsible – in a Christian sense – for their own “ageing well” in that they could easily ignore this call and allow themselves to be led by external every-day worries, events, and injustices, and could thus be-come spectators instead of actors in the lives into which they were called by God. This means that the elderly can now be closer than in their youth to the

basic Christian understanding that all life exists thanks to God’s merciful grace. Only now can they place all that is painful or unfinished in God’s hands and sub-scribe to Hölderlin’s words: “A man must examine eve-rything, say the heavenly ones, so that he, well fed, may give thanks for all that he learns, and may under-stand the freedom to go wherever he would wish.” <

Further reading on this subject:Karl Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik, volume III/4 §§55–56, Zürich 1993 and Friedrich Hölderlin, Lebenslauf; in: Sämtliche Werke, volume 2, Stuttgart 1953, p. 22.

* Dr. IvaNa BeNDIK is a former hospital chaplain and has been the Senior Theological Affairs Officer at the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (FSPC) since September 2009.

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PANEL 6 – “yes we can”

The Gospel of Barack Obama

ever since Barack obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, the simple phrase “yes we can!” has been heard all around the world. What once sounded

like a mere pop song lyric, these three words have since taken on a religiously charged promise that can be applied to just about anything: ice cream, the fight against poverty, american history. Does this refram-

ing of the words “yes we can!” in fact reflect a “religious renaissance”?

It is late on December 23, 2008, and Carmen Nebel’s Christmas Show is on ZDF television, Germany’s Channel 2. The spotlights are dimmed, and the outline of a large Gothic

church appears in the soft red background – a clear attempt at creating the illusion of being inside a cathe-dral. A pianist begins to play and Howard Carpendale, a South African singer popular in Germany, begins to sing. His voice is soft, somewhat sonorous, a bit breathy, and his face and gestures convey a serious and emotional tone. His entire stage presence seems geared toward saying that he has something important to proclaim.

Carpendale’s hymn turns out in fact to be about Barack Obama and the “night of nights” of his elec-toral victory, and how the singer himself would have loved to shout up to heaven “yes we can!” A gospel choir picks up on these last three words, repeating them in a kind of swing rhythm from the interior of the “church” in the background. This “yes we can!” refrain then blends more and more into Carpendale’s German words, along the lines of: “Yes we can move toward a better future together / running our hearts against the wall / we can turn the wind once again.” On

the slogan reached its definitive zenith at obama’s victory speech on November 5, 2008.

By MatthIas D. WüthrICh *

PANEL 6: “yes we can” 31


stage, Carpendale stands in the middle of a choir of dancing black gospel singers in church garb. This is followed by a roaring round of applause from an audi-ence that would indeed seem to have taken on board the joyous Christmas message.

In the meantime, catholicexchange.com features a satirical article based on the biblical gospels entitled “The Beginning of the Gospel of Barack Obama, the Son of God”. The piece even rewrites the Sermon on the Mount: “And seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, say-ing: Blessed are those who Believe. For they shall say, ‘Yes We Can!’ Blessed are those who say, ‘Yes We Can!’, for they shall audaciously hope.”

How did this all take on a religious charge?

We could easily find many further examples for this phenomenon, such as new gospel songs on the German music market entitled “yes we can”.

The question then remains: How can the simple phrase “yes we can!” take on a quasi-religious or even Christian-religious meaning? How can these three words suddenly attain a Protestant aura?

This is particularly astonishing for what is actu-ally a banal, areligious phrase with its origins in en-tirely profane contexts. A Spanish version of the three words, “¡Sí Se Puede!”, for example, could be heard as a union slogan introduced in 1972 by the agricultural leaders César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in the US state of Arizona. We are also reminded of the Pointer Sisters’ 1973 song “yes we can can”:

Now’s the time for all good men to get together with one another.…We got to make this land a better landThan the world in which we live.…I know we can make it.I know we darn well can work it out. Oh yes we can, I know we can can.…

It is quite difficult to find examples of a religious use of the phrase. So where does this Protestant con-notation in fact come from? Its origins can indeed be traced back to Barack Obama himself, in a succession of politically and religiously mixed election campaigns so typical for the United States.

Obama in fact used this slogan as early as April 11, 2005 in a speech that he held in Washington D.C.

In the address, he evoked a sense of a common Amer-ican hope, stressing that one could put an end to social problems if one were to work together. This concise slogan would of course later grow into a main theme of his presidential campaign. As American researchers have now postulated, in may in fact have been the Pointer Sisters song, after all, that influenced Obama and his rhetoric, at least at a subconscious level.

More skilled than the best of televangelistsThe development of the slogan “yes we can!”

came to an initial head with Barack Obama’s speech in New Hampshire. In his address, the phrase turned into a testimony to the spirit of the American nation (“A simple creed that sums up the spirit of the people: yes we can”). Obama raised it to a statement of hope, which has always been viewed as the hidden engine of US history, connected with the Christian connotations of a “way to the promised land”. Obama, however, does not only anchor this statement of hope in the roots of the American pioneer spirit, but also ties it to the country’s future as well, to the creation of a common new chapter in US history: “With three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes we can.” Soon after the speech, the singer will.i.am worked together with 37 other celebrities to include a collage of quotes from the speech in his song, also en-titled “Yes We Can”, which was viewed countless times on the Internet. The slogan would reach its definitive zenith at Obama’s victory speech on November 5, 2008. The newly triumphant president-elect ended his speech with an electrifying climax in which he called out “Yes We Can!” seven times, six times as part of a rhythmic refrain. Not even the most skilled of televan-gelists could improve on Obama’s rhetorical perform-ance!

It is at this point that the phrase “yes we can!” be-gins to separate from its original context, taking on its own life and functioning in a performative manner similar to the way churchgoers call out “Amen” in the middle of Evangelical sermons. In this speech, Obama once again identified “yes we can!” as a timeless expression of the nation’s spirit. The speech also contained an implicit allusion to Martin Luther King (“a preacher from Atlanta” who told a people We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.), and concluded with Obama’s blessings (“God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America”).

Is “yes we can!” in fact the Gospel of Barack Obama? It would not be accurate to say that Obama refit the expression with explicitly Christian-religious clothing. It would also be difficult to prove that this was his tacit intention. One can, on the other hand,

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PANEL 6: “yes we can” 33

hardly argue with the fact that his use of the slogan has led to a semantic recoding of the words, as “yes we can!” has increasingly taken on its own meaning – whether intentional or not – and has shifted closer to a new pattern of meaning with virtually religious con-notations. The general public reception of the phrase, moreover, has only reinforced the emergence of this new meaning. Bolstered by a good measure of patriot-ism and the messianic charisma of the new president, the slogan has become increasingly steeped in the Protestant aura in “God’s own country”, as was indeed reflected in Carpendale’s production as well.

A yearning for religiosityThe fading of the traditional language of faith and

the migration of words with a Christian-religious background into our everyday language has become the norm and thus virtually imperceptible. It is there-fore all the more remarkable when just the opposite occurs and an expression emerges in a new religious context. Are we to view this as the manifestation of the oft discussed “renaissance of religion”? It is likely more appropriate to speak of a return to a diffuse yearning for religiosity, at least as far as post-secular Europe is concerned, in which the meanings and certainties of religions play a little role. This can also be seen in the phrase “yes we can!” Throughout the entire complex process of recoding the phrase – for which we can only provide a rough sketch here – the expression has re-mained diffuse and unclear. What is it exactly that we can do? How can we do it? Who does the pronoun “we” actually refer to? And what gives us the ability to do what we can do? This does not, however, mean that

this type of yearning should not be taken seriously and examined from a theological point of view – on the contrary. Nor should one disparage any yearnings of an entirely secular nature. The new ice cream flavour created to honour Obama, “Yes, Pecan” is in fact not bad at all ... <

Sources:http://catholicexchange.com/2008/05/21/112550/Wolfgang Mieder, “Yes We Can”. Barack Obama’s Proverbial Rhetoric, New York 2009.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/us/politics/08text-obama.htmlhttp://www.spiegel.de/politik/aus-land/0,1518,588507-2,00.html

* Dr. MatthIas D. WüthrICh is an assistant professor for systematic theology and dogmatics at the Theological Faculty of the University of Basel, Switzerland.

obama repeated the words “yes we can” seven times during his victory speech. With his own messianic charisma and a dash of patriotism, the slogan took on an evangelical aura.

PANEL 7 – An instantNuclear weapons: What happens next?

The atomic powers, the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France, hope to prevent

nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands. But which hands are the wrong ones?

september 1945: hiroshima’s Nagarekawa Church and Main station after the american atomic attack.Photo by Shigeo Hayashi from the collection of the HiroshimaPeace Memorial Museums.


The wine-red bindi on Vandana Shiva’s fore-head is both a religious symbol and a politi-cal statement. The thumb-sized dot repre-sents the third eye in Hinduism, and is

expected to provide insight into the world soul. It also symbolizes Shakti, the primordial feminine force. Both serve the renowned environmental activist in her work against the exploitation and degradation of na-ture. Vandana Shiva uses her internal radar to root out ecological problems and their causes, which she tack-les with sufficient energy to put fear into the hearts of “cowboy capitalists” and “biopirates”.

Vandana Shiva is doubtless a tiger at heart, even if she at first would seem meek as a lamb or perhaps a cuddly Buddha with her silk sari and hair up in a bun. But she knows no compromise when it comes to glo-bal actors without a conscience. She has been recog-nized for this several times, including the Alternative Nobel Prize in 1993 and the Golden Plant Award in 1997. Vandana Shiva, who is now 57, has published over 20 books on ecology, is a member of the Club of Rome, and vice president of the international organi-zation Slow Food. The founder and current director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, based in New Delhi, she is also active as a consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Inspired by and following in the footsteps of Ma-hatma Gandhi, Vandana Shiva is a strong supporter of the weak, and calls for non-violent civil disobedience. Her appeals are full of incontrovertible facts, all with the aim of bringing about a radical paradigmatic shift towards greater global food security and a culture of work in dignity. One is reminded of a tiger readying

itself to pounce as she explains: “The industrialization of food and agriculture has sent the human race down the wrong track, indeed to the end of the road. Either we manage to find a new way to confront the econom-ic and ecological crisis in a creative way, or we will perish.”

Vandana Shiva has been vocal about the necessity for a universal awareness in the form of a broader and more profound “earth democracy”. This would not primarily focus on politics and economics but on the responsibility of each individual for the welfare of all of our planet’s life forms. As Vandana Shiva said: “Those who hide behind partisan differences in times of dramatic climate change and resource scarcity act just as Nero did when he played the lyre while Rome burned.”

Vandana Shiva forces RiceTecto back down

In her new polemic work “Soil not Oil”, Shiva calls for an economic from below against the crisis from above. She explains that it is the earth and not oil that needs to be adopted as a framework for us to transform the impending ecological disaster and hu-man degradation into an opportunity for us to regain our humanity and our future.

And Vandana Shiva knows what she is talking about. The daughter of academics and freethinkers from the Dehradun Valley at the base of the Himalayas has been fighting on behalf of the earth, which she re-spectfully refers to as “Gaia”, for nearly 40 years. The name Gaia represented the mother god in Greek my-thology and, as Vandana Shiva explains, therefore stands for biodiversity, democracy, justice, sustainabil-

PORTRAIT –Vandana Shiva“Those who destroy nature

destroy their own basis for life.”vandana shiva, a doctor of physics and environmental activist,

advocates against the global exploitation and degradation of nature. her efforts have been rewarded with the alternative Nobel Prize –

and numerous enemies.

By stePhaNIe rIeDI *

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the headstrong environ-mental activist has even been hit by cow dung patties. What her assailants did not know, however, was that cow dung is a symbol of fertility in India.


ity, and indeed peace. As she explains, “Gaia is a living organism”, whose welfare we must rigorously defend. She herself has worked to this end in her fieldwork, studies, participation in world congresses, and organi-zation of protest marches, which she always leads from the front line. In 2001, for example, Vandana Shiva led a demonstration with 100,000 participants to protest an agreement between the Indian government and RiceTec, a US seed producer, which had registered a patent on the local basmati rice. Shiva described the agreement as “food fascism” – and was successful with her opposition to it: RiceTec, in the end, was forced to relinquish over 20 of its patents. More recently, she achieved a similar victory in Europe when, thanks to her advocacy, a ban was introduced on genetically modified strain of maize (MON 810) produced by the US-based multinational Monsanto Corporation.

She dreamt of studying atomic physicsIn 1991, Vandana Shiva founded the Navdanya

cooperative to protect farmer independence and stop corporations from aggressively “poaching” patents in India. Seeds should instead be stored in self-adminis-tered depots and provided to farmers at no cost. This launched a unique and expansive project, with Navdanya now comprising 55 seed banks including 500 robust types of seed with the potential to stand up to climate change. Half a million farmers have benefit-ed from the project.

With a scholarship for gifted students, Vandana Shiva was able to attend classes at Harvard, and dreamt at first of studying atomic physics. Her career plans would change abruptly, however, when her sister, a doctor, warned her of the effects of radioactivity. “She opened my eyes”, Vandana Shiva recalls, who until then had only come to know the sunny side of science. This led to her changing course and completing her doctorate in quantum theory instead, while, at the same time, working to support India’s Chipko women, who clung to trees to prevent them from being cut down. Vandana Shiva learned from the women tilling her country’s land that the disappearance of the forests could also entail the disappearance of the water and good soil. As she says today, those who destroy nature destroy their own basis for life.

The Chipko women inspired Vandana Shiva to dedicate herself to support her fellow women, who, as she explains, suffer most from environmental destruc-tion. “When miners destroyed local water sources, it was always the women who were forced to walk fur-ther to fetch fresh water”, she said. This contributed to her theory of ecofeminism, anchored in the view that there is a connection between feminist and ecological

goals, and reflecting back upon an inequitable and sexist division of labour. In her words, we now urgently need female skills such as caregiving, and people who can use their positions of power to care for society and the environment.

These words may indeed seem to verge on blas-phemy within the context of the patriarchal power constellations that have hitherto played the dominant role on “Gaia”. Vandana Shiva has indeed made just as many opponents as she has allies. At the 2003 Johan-nesburg UN summit, she was in fact repaid for all her great efforts with two dried cow dung patties. The “gift” was the work of supporters of genetic technolo-gy, who were trying to tell her what they thought of her work. She took this in stride, however, accepting it as an honour, as cow dung is seen in India as a “source of renewal of soil fertility and hence the sustainability of human society”. As she “accepted their ‘award’ as a tribute to organic farming and sustainable agriculture” one could make out the glint of the primordial Shakti force in her eyes. <

* stePhaNIe rIeDI is an independent journalist and editor.

SUGGESTED READING

Books from Vandana Shiva, edited by South End Press:

2008, Soil Not Oil, Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis2007, Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed2005, Earth Democracy; Justice, Sustainability, and Peace

39

– Final Point

Our ageing society:a challenge and opportunity

for the church

We all know that the ageing and elderly now make up an increasingly large portion of the popula-

tion, with the number of the very old ris-ing with particular speed. This coincides with a shift in the demographic figures of those under 20, adults through the age of 65, and people of retirement age. As a re-sult, the numbers have been falling of those gainfully employed per retiree, while the need for housing has risen in line with the increase in the number of total households. These trends – in addi-tion to the increasing fragility of people as they reach particularly old ages – have led to a need for a wide variety of ser-vices, including nursing and medical care, and hence to soaring medical and other costs.

This development has presented a particular challenge to society. The isola-tion of many and the neediness of some, not to mention the risk of poverty that af-fects a number of elderly, are all issues that we wish to – and indeed need to – work on. The question remains as to what

the church can do. It will of course not be able to solve the financial problems of the health system. But the church can in fact contribute in many other ways. The church is open, present, and welcoming: open in that it listens; present in its sup-port for people in difficult situations; and welcoming in that it invites people to re-flect, to engage in dialogues, and to at-tend musical and cultural events.

Strength to work towardnew goals

Recent retirees, however, continue to have great potential, and want to put their abilities to good use, often coupled with a thirst for new educational oppor-tunities. They remain vigorous with strength to work toward new goals. The church has much to offer them, includ-ing adult education programmes in new fields that go beyond their old profes-sions, which can serve to keep them mentally fit.

The church can also put the abilities of these young retirees to use in new ac-tivities. Proactive seniors who want to

get involved in public life are perfectly capable of becoming active in new fields of endeavour. People who wish to take on new responsibilities and duties may, for example, be well suited for administra-tive work. When people retire, the church does not cast them aside and for-get about them but offers them new op-portunities to share their experience with others and to remain involved in society for years to come. <

By heLeN guCKer-voNtoBeL Member of the FSPC Council and the Church Council

of Canton Zurich

“The desperate clinging to bank secrecy might havesomething to do with the way it has been criticized.” PAGE 5

“The climate policy and diplomacy of individual countriesis indeed often neither transparent nor credible.” PAGE 19

“Twenty years before he was assassinated, my grandfather Gandhi said he preferred the phrase ‘Truth is God’ to the phrase ‘God is Truth’ . ” PAGE 20

“So what exactly does “ageing well” mean – and to whatdegree are people responsible for this themselves?” PAGE 28

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