You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘politics’ tag.
There are many questions to be asked about SB 1070, Arizona’s controversial new immigration law: questions of constitutionality, of enforcement, of specific provisions, of racial bias. These issues are certainly important and require much thought and discussion. But for the follower of Jesus they must take backseat to a much more important question: how does SB 1070 impact the “least of these”?
Matthew 25 contains some of Jesus’ most famous stories. Jesus speaks in the parable both to the righteous and the wicked, and to the latter he says, “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. … Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” This passage has long stood as a perennial call to Christians to stand with the oppressed, with the “least of these,” with those at the bottom of society, those most marginalized by “the system.” I believe that it is this passage which must frame Christian discussion of Arizona’s immigration law.
I submit that Christians must regard undocumented immigrants as “the least of these” in the context of the American immigration debate. Every year, millions of people around the world struggle to make enough money to live, to feed their children, to be able to go through their day-to-day lives with some semblance of security. Many of these people find that they are unable to find work in their own country, and so they seek to emigrate and establish a new life somewhere else to provide for themselves and their families. Pushed out by broken systems and broken circumstances, marginalized by greedy economic structures and ineffective governments, many look towards the United States and its relatively strong economy as offering hope for the future of themselves and their children.
Unfortunately for most of these people, it is incredibly difficult to immigrate legally to the United States. The process is time-consuming, costly, and uncertain, and can thus leave a potential immigrant who is denied a visa worse off at the end of the attempt than at its beginning. Daunted by the difficulty of this long-term process, with fears compounded in many cases by immediate economic uncertainties, many people are put into a situation where they see no other option to provide for their themselves and their families than to enter the country illegally. With no realistic alternatives, they live at the margins of American society.
These undocumented immigrants, truly the “least of these,” are the targets of Arizona’s new law. SB 1070 is manifestly designed to further marginalize these people and those who help them, to make it easier to arrest and prosecute them, to interrupt their day-to-day lives as they work (often in below-minimum-wage-jobs) to set food on the table every night. Rather than try to fix the broken systems that put these people in the situations they are in, Arizona has decided to punish them and ostracize them. Arizona has cracked down on the victims of America’s broken immigration system rather than try to address the underlying problems with the system itself.
I believe that a straightforward application of the message of Jesus Christ condemns Arizona’s immigration law. The Kingdom of Heaven is a kingdom of grace not legalism, of inclusion not exclusion, of welcome not hostility. The Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth is a proclamation of justice in the face of oppression, of liberation from bondage, of love for the marginalized. With this in mind, I ask Christians across America to remember that as they do to the least of these, so do they do to Jesus himself.
[This post was originally published at YourPerspective.org]
I went to the midnight showing of District 9 last night (this morning). It was a remarkable movie, one of the best of the year. It wasn’t too heavy on the special effects, it actually had a decent plot (unlike certain other sci-fi films this summer — *cough* Transformers *cough*), and it dealt with compelling socio-political themes. In a departure from my previous “film theology” posts (on Watchmen, Star Trek, and Terminator, respectively), I’m going to focus more on the political message of the film, rather than the strictly theological implications, though the political issues involved are deeply concerned with social justice and thus do have profound theological import as well. 
Two key political issues are integral to the plot of the movie: legalized apartheid, separation, and discrimination; and exploitative corporate greed.
1. Apartheid
The film is set in post-apartheid South Africa, where an alien spaceship has coasted to a lumbering halt over the city of Johannesburg. Three months pass before first contact is made, and then it is discovered that the aliens are sickly, malnourished, and lacking leadership and initiative. The South African government ferries them all to the surface, where they are given an area of “Joburg” all their own: District 9. But the movements of the aliens, colloquially called “prawns”, become restricted, and their freedoms begin to disappear under the administration of Multi-National United, the global weapons manufacturer put in charge of the District. The aliens’ “safe haven” quickly becomes a slum.
Thus, in post-(human)-apartheid South Africa, a new system of (nonhuman) apartheid emerges. The lives, livelihoods, and rights of the aliens are ignored daily: forced abortions occur frequently; aliens are shot in miscommunications and disagreements with humans; searches and crackdowns are commonplace.
Implicit in the film are several issues of both political and theological import. How do we define “the other”, and how do we respond to it? What is the basis of “rights”? How do we engage with, accommodate, or respond to unwelcome immigrants?
2. Corporate Exploitation
Multi-National United is the corporation charged with administering District 9 in the film. MNU claims to be operating the District with good of both humans and non-humans alike in mind; but it is soon revealed that the company is actually after the aliens’ powerful weapons, which human scientists have been unable to operate. MNU is a weapons manufacturer and mercenary company, making millions of dollars from the sale of guns and from the use of its private armed forces. It soon becomes clear that MNU values its bottom line much more than the rights (and even the lives) of both the “prawns” and any humans who stand in their way.
Multi-National United thus exemplifies what has become a literary archetype unique to our time: the exploitative, greedy, all-powerful corporation. Like all archetypes, this one has its basis in reality. We see it around the world, in corporations that stretch across national boarders, escaping the rule of law and exploiting local peoples and resources for their monetary gains. The fearful specter of MNU in the film is unmistakably grounded in the real experiences of local peoples around the world (at least outside of the West, which often stands to benefit in the short term from this sort of exploitation).Thus, in its unflinching portrayal of the reality of corporate greed in the world, District 9 strikes at some of the prevailing myths of our exploitative society, and implicitly challenges us to re-examine the way our dollars affect the lives of others.
Conclusion
Like any compelling narrative of artistic merit, District 9 raises questions that clearly speak to the issues of the day. The film offers no neat, clean answers to these questions; rather, it seeks only to present them, for us to ponder, consider, and engage in the context of our own lives. Let us hope that we will treat the film not only as an entertaining and intriguing summer sci-fi flick, but also as a serious exploration of themes and controversies that affect us all and that should be foremost in the social and political consciousness of the Church.
