Valiance in the service of meanness
Dr. Michel E. Abs
Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches
This article is about people's exploitation of people, but rather about people's use of people until they are consumed or they perish.
This article draws from decades of experience in working with people and among them, as well as from university teaching and research in sociology and economics.
“If you see the poor busy, know that the rich have exploited him,” says our popular adage.
This saying covers the socio-economic dimension and the relationship between social classes, and it embodies only part of the truth that this article wants to highlight.
Should the issue be confined to the economic sphere and to the exploitation of the financially weaker by the financially stronger, the matter would have been easy and it would have been possible to fix it through a social and tax policy that aims at achieving social justice and narrowing the differences between classes as much as possible.
However, the matter goes beyond the economic sphere to reach the political or religious spheres in their dimension, which is called "struggle" and this is what this article is all about.
In the relationship between classes, the matter is clear and there is no controversy around it: the rich buy the skills and energy of the poor and divert his production to their advantage because the free economic system allows them to do so.
Here, I must clarify an important matter in order to avoid misinterpretation. There is no room for the condemnation of the liberal system, because it has proven that it is the only one capable of withstanding historically, developing human life and stimulating innovation and creativity. These are the best ways to alleviate human suffering - as is the case in the medical and industrial sectors, or to increase human welfare - as is the case in the consumption sector, despite our condemnation of consumerism - and of the consumer society in general. The free economic system needs several amendments in order to become suitable for a decent life for human beings. In the meantime, it is necessary to fight savage capitalism and direct socio-economic policies to a free system based on the equitable distribution of the fruits of production.
As for the matter that we are interested in highlighting here, it is related not only to economic exploitation, which is the least harmful dimension in it, but also to ideological exploitation, both economic as well as political and religious.
Those who deal with ideologies are of two types. The first type is the one who adheres to them and gives them all his energy and even his life. The second type is the one who knows what the "ideological game" is about and the means of capturing souls and minds, harnessing them to his interests, and dropping them when he gets what he needs from them. They “bring you in sheep’s clothing, but ravening wolves within” (Matthew 7:15).
Those who embrace ideologies are people who have accepted their content, believed their promises, and walked after them, dreaming of a better tomorrow for themselves or their societies. They are authentic people who believed what they read and did not hear the saying “Read and rejoice, try and grieve.”
Adherents of ideologies accepted the invitation of a founding leader, who may be honest at first and then become exploitative or as he may have gone and replaced by exploiters. Otherwise, the establishment promoting the ideology may be at the out start based on exploitative intentions of the good, honest or inexperienced members of the community. Hence the focus of ideologies on the youth and students component.
In the economic field, revealing that which lies hidden is easier, even though it might meet with some difficulties, as was the case in Lebanon in the nineties, that is, after the end of the civil war. At that time, every critic of the economic policies, that destroyed Lebanon and the fruits of which we are reaping today, was labeled as the enemy of reconstruction. This accusation was used in order to plunge Lebanon into a public debt and a systematic plundering scheme that has brought it to the bottom from which it is difficult to get out.
As for the outwardly religious and inwardly political, the matter is more difficult, as the alleged leader relies on the metaphysical and the other world in order to control his followers and exploit them until they perish.
Therefore, we cannot equate the one who harnesses religion in order to exploit people and the one who sacrifices that which is most precious for the sake of righteousness according to his faith, as he understands it.
There is a being who uses immoral mean ways in order to manipulate the feelings of good people - or gullible ones - and get what he aims at. On the other hand, there are good, inexperienced, misguided, or brainwashed people who walk the path they thought was best for their world or faith, and eventually found themselves in a furnace that destroys them.
Examples of this abound.
In all societies and at all times, there have been people who have chosen the task of misleading others in order to exploit them. On the other hand, there are people who believe what they hear or read and thus put themselves at the disposal of those whose aims and efforts objectivized their aspirations and struggle and even their lives.
This is the story of valiance in the service of meanness! It is the story of people described by the Apostle Paul "filled with all manners of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless" (Romans 1:28-31).
Spreading awareness, knowledge and education, coupled with improving social organization and curbing unemployment and social and economic marginalization constitute the most powerful weapon to control such phenomena. At that time, the valiant and honorable people in societies can employ their energy in the service of benefactors who aim in society for goodness and for the good of humanity.
If you see in a society that valiance is in the service of meanness, then know that this society is backward and that its legislation and political society are corrupt.
That is why we repeat what the Apostle Peter said: “rid yourselves of all malice, and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind” (1 Peter 2:1).