24th September, 2009

LYN LUSI

I remember my daughter coming home in tears from school, and the first words from her mouth are: "Mum, it's not fair". She tells a story of being the victim of aggression, of being misunderstood and not believed when she's telling the truth. The emotions she feels are anger, hurt, powerlessness. And she expects me to be her champion.

If you unpack these emotions of a child, you find deep down an instinctive desire for good to prevail and evil to be punished; at the same time you see emotions that flow from our own sense of entitlement. My rights have been infringed. As a mother, you can react in two ways: you pile into the fray and defend her rights; or you tell her the facts of life: “Sweetheart, life is not fair!”

Lyn Lusi in Canberra during Micah Challenge's 'Voices for Justice' gathering. "When I compare North Kivu in Congo now to what was happening in Jesus' time in Palestine, I see no difference. And if you look further, worldwide, and see the situation in the global village, the minority rich countries and the vast majority in extreme poverty, I see no difference. The same injustice that Jesus lived through is all around us today."

The foundation of our faith as Christians is that God is just, and justice will reign in the cosmos: "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18: 25).

There's a story in the Bible about fair and not fair, in 1 Kings 3: 16-27.

The story revolves around disputed ownership, a theft or kidnapping, disputed identity at a time when there's no DNA testing. Surrounding the whole dispute is the emotion of bereavement and mother's love. Let's look at what the judicial system can do. At best, it can even score. Let's cut the child in half. But it's clear here that Justice in the sense of balancing the score completely ignores the true values of God's justice. What brings about true justice is the true mother's love: she's prepared to sacrifice anything that is hers by right for a greater value, the life of her child. And to ensure that greater value, she has to sacrifice her own sense of entitlement.

This story in the Bible has a happy ending. But in real life, this is rarely the case. I think it is more often the case in Australia than it is in Congo, where I work. Here you can count on an impartial justice, police protection, laws that are enforced even if this is all done imperfectly. This is what we understand by living under the rule of law. Congo is considered a failed state, precisely because there is no rule of law.

In our area there are vast mineral resources - gold, diamonds, tantalite. They are easily exploited through surface mines, easily exported to neighboring countries, easily sold on the anonymous global market. To be rich and powerful means dominating the geographical area around a mine. To dominate this area, you need to get rid of the people, and allow back only those who will work for you. To get rid of the people is easy: you attack their subsistence base. And in eastern Congo, that means food production, small family plots farmed by women and girls. If you can terrorize these women and girls, then no one can eat. The family has to flee to a safer place. And in North Kivu province where we work, a province with just five million people, over 800,000 people are displaced by such terrorism. It's terrorism by rape.

We can care for these women, give them treatment and psychosocial support and counseling, but we are just mopping up the puddle, without turning off the tap. What's needed in this situation is justice. Criminals must be caught and punished. The state must defend its weakest members.

But now comes the crunch!

Just last week, I received an e-mail from my colleague Ciza. He had been contacted by Human Rights Watch to work with them to collect testimony for the ICT. Ciza has all this information, because the program he manages in North Kivu helps over 4,000 women a year who have suffered rape. At the hospital, we have a one-stop shop: women who have suffered rape can come for speedy medical treatment; they then go on to see the counselor for psychosocial support. And right next door is the legal aid clinic, so all the evidence is there on record on every case sheet.

But this is the response of Ciza: "I think that it will be a high risk for me as individual and for HEAL Africa to play such big role. First I'm fearing for my life and my family: what can be the dramatic consequences if one day HEAL Africa or my name is quoted in justice? I need some specific guarantee and security."

This is no idle threat. A friend of ours, Julienne Lusenge, testified at the Hague against Thomas Lubanga. She has had to flee her home in Oicha and her husband and children are in hiding in Kinshasa, because Lubanga's henchmen are out to get her. The cost is very high. The results are uncertain. Often the government gives no backing at all. The criminals are walking free and at times promoted to high office in the army.

All these examples show how weak and unsatisfactory is our justice system. It's based on evening the score. And it is a human society, and it's probably the best we can do. For someone like Julienne or Ciza, it involves putting their own life on the line to defend the rights of others.

Gary Haugan, the founder of International Justice Mission, has no illusions about law and justice. His book Good News About Injustice is really worth reading. Injustice, he says, is the use of power to oppress and exploit the weak. And powerful people use the justice system to reinforce their power. Injustice is evil. I don't say this to describe injustice. Injustice equals evil.

When evil came into the world and ruined his creation, God cried out in anguish. He saw us as defenseless and exploited by the overwhelming power of darkness. We can do nothing to overcome evil on our own. That's why He came, just because of his deep love and compassion towards us, to fight on our side and to bring us through to a life of righteousness. He makes it possible to live in the light and live for ever in his presence where no evil, no injustice can touch us.

But did it work? Did His intervention really work? We see Jesus born into a peasant family under the Roman Empire, in a country exploited and oppressed for taxation to enrich Rome. Anyone who dared to raise their voice against the occupier was brutally and cruelly eliminated. Foreign armies marched to and fro across their land like locusts, eating everything in their path.

When I compare North Kivu in Congo now to what was happening in Jesus' time in Palestine, I see no difference. And if you look further, worldwide, and see the situation in the global village, the minority rich countries and the vast majority in extreme poverty, I see no difference. The same injustice that Jesus lived through is all around us today.

At the end of Jesus' ministry we see His disciples hoping for justice, hoping that Jesus would reestablish their entitlements as a nation. They hoped He would even the score and give them their rights. They were sorely disappointed. He did not bring justice to the Jewish nation.

In the eternal view of God, did Jesus really win over injustice? Did He defeat evil? The oppression of Rome continued for centuries; religious leaders continued to enslave people in fear and legalism. The authorities tortured Jesus, mocked Him, put Him to death with murderers and criminals.

So in what sense did justice prevail? To really understand what happened, we come back again to the difference in our perspectives, between us and God. We see things according to what is good and right for us in our 70 years of life; God views things from eternity. Jesus was not going for the quick fix. He was not looking for a quick solution to even the score, Je was looking for lasting change in the heart of people. He asks us now to be like a yeast of justice in the place where we live.

I love the image of yeast. Jesus uses it to describe the message of the kingdom of God. He says it is hidden in the dough. It works in the dark, away from the spotlight. It works silently. But it transforms completely; it lightens, it raises. We are called on to be yeast in our generation against injustice.

My husband Jo and I recently traveled all around UK, across the north of England and Scotland. People were pointing out old factories, old ports, and they all said: “This used to be..."/ It used to be the biggest centre of ship building, it used to be the biggest fishing port on the North Sea, it used to be the centere of steel manufacturing, coal mining, textiles, and so on and on. But another thing that struck me was how this incredible wealth built in the 19th century was based on vast inequalities between classes: compare the stately homes with the back to backs in Leeds. The owners lived on the hill, the workers in the slums in the valley. People were used as expendable commodities in someone else's grand schemes for enrichment.

Happily, those days are over. Or are they? Maybe things haven't changed that much. It's just that the work force that makes money for wealthy investors is not so visible in the affluent world, but they're still there in the favellas of São Paulo. The smoke of the dark satanic mills does not cover England's green and pleasant land, but it certainly covers Northern China. There aren't any miners in England anymore, now they are in Africa. Today, commodities have never been cheaper; profits from investment overseas flow back through western investment banks in greater volumes than ever before. The big advantage for all of us in the 21st century is that we don't see this slums any more, we don't breathe in the pollution, we don't drink the poisonous water, we don't see land depopulated by mining operators, we don't see the massive rural exodus of starving people on our streets, no gangs of hungry children like Oliver Twist looking day and night for things to steal.

Today what does God expect of us? If we share God's passion for justice, we are not walking in uncharted territory. God sent 19th century Christians on two different paths: there were the philanthropists and there were the reformers, George Mueller and William Wilberforce. Both were motivated by the same desire, shared from the heart of God, to fight injustice God's way. The same call to fight for justice challenges each of us today. It's a challenge to give sacrificially, with respect for the dignity, the autonomy of people who receive. Not in the style of lady bountiful, but with intelligence, understanding and commitment to a relationship. It's also the challenge to get involved in advocacy for a fairer world, for more accountability in faceless business and global investment.

Remember Jesus' interpretation of justice. He says - You have been taught: An eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth. But I tell you not to try to get even with a person who has done something to you. I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your father in heaven: He makes the sun rise on good and bad people; He sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong.

Our children would say: “It's not fair!” But this is grace. Grace is not fair. Grace is undeserved. Grace is costly.

The cost of justice is to give up our rights. The cost of justice is to fight for the rights of others. Jesus defeated injustice and evil by the gift of Himself. It cost Him His life.

Will it cost us any less?

We believe in a new heaven and a new earth. We believe in the kingdom of God now and forever. We are enlisted to start building it now. Every war has front-line soldiers and support staff back home. Pray for people like Ciza and Josephine on the front line. And here at home, please keep your antenna up to detect every sign of injustice; not for ourselves to defend our own rights, but to defend the rights of the powerless. This is the call of God to every generation, raise your voice, put your life on the line, for Justice.

Lyn Lusi is the founder of HEAL Africa, which provides holistic care for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo - including training for health professionals, supporting social activists and providing physical, spiritual and social healing - and is based in Goma. This is the text of a speech she gave at the Micah Challenge's Voices for Justice gathering in Canberra, from 14th to 15th September, 2009.

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