The study of post-exilic literature posits community decline as a ‘miss-take’ of community objectives. This is mostly due to predominantly myopic leadership and consequential breakdown of community. Narrow vision leads to egocentric looking out for ‘number one.’
Many development proponents have referenced the biblical book of Nehemiah as a template for community restoration. While I concur with the gist of their proposition, I cannot help but note the vicious cycles of temporal healing and relapse of communities. Sometimes the golden years last a generation but when that generation is gone then the relapse takes the community back to square one.
Intellectual solutions have the bane of smart sound bites because a lot of the proponents do not have boots on the ground and advocate for theories they have not tested. Picture this, a single mother in Uganda has raised a family of nine and sent them to school eking a living from a 2 acre plot in subsistent farming. Then a western trained youth who has never seen a chicken butchered comes as an expert to teach her sustainable farming. This youth has never taken care of a family from subsistent farming but funds their lifestyle from donor funds. The “expats” fund their lives with well written proposals that please funding managers and sponsors who have also never set foot on the ground. Proposal writing is an industry and social networks are packed with proposal writers and editors. The whole intellectual industry will review past projects and come up with ‘money saving strategies’ and ‘productivity streamlining’ curated by expats with no boots on the ground. Do we still need Band-Aid solutions? How do we bring transformation that reforms a community for more than a generation?
The study of post-exilic literature posits community decline as a ‘miss-take’ of community objectives. This is mostly due to predominantly myopic leadership and consequential breakdown of community. Narrow vision leads to egocentric looking out for ‘number one.’ Pop inspirational speakers bend exilic script to a community in distress and individualize it to titillate already individualized cultures. When Jeremiah says, “I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the LORD; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 CEB) The scripture is taken out of context to individualize it. It would make more hermeneutic sense to include (in-clue) the previous verse so it reads, “This is GOD ’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” (Jeremiah 29:10-11 MSG). Context communalizes the promise and contextualization references the reason for their present circumstance (displacement, dispossession, disenfranchisement, exploitation etc.)
Therefore, the non-profits (which capitalize on donor funding to stay afloat) should consider whether, as in the case of exploitative ‘for profit’ concerns, it is expedient to keep the poor and ignorant in their place to justify their project’s existence. Or, if their motivation is genuine transformation, consider whether doing the same things and hoping for different results isn't redundant and counterproductive? If a badly thought out project is reviewed and improved, won’t the danger be that bad philosophy is being perpetuated and fostering worse outcomes? [a project that does not address the root causes of the problem being addressed will not result in long term change or development, no matter how attractive or “cutting-edge” it may appear. On the contrary, it may even perpetuate worse philosophy and aggravate outcomes.]
Perhaps “band aid” projects should be replaced by projects that consider the root causes for the context that requires transformation. What, like with the exile, is the reason for the predicament in consideration? Is it wrong worldview or physical factors that determine their outcomes? What is the role for theology and philosophy in mitigating their predicament? How do we find community solutions for really generationally sustainable solutions as transient beings so we do not depict ourselves as indispensable?
For the Exile, Chronicles explained what goals were ‘mis-taken’ and how to recalibrate the community (note; “not the individual” but the community). Ezra explains how to re-center or recalibrate the worldview of the community being transformed. Nehemiah addresses systemic and structural factors that corrodes a community's safety nets and weakens community's self-determination. Shouldn’t the expats and experts do the same so that they are not imposing culturally irrelevant solutions. Esther addresses the reality of disenfranchisement and possibilities of hope and redemption in whatever circumstances the communities find themselves in.
© Moses Kariuki 2019
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