Thinking from the margins.(economic refugees)

"On a clear autumn day the Asian theologian Jung Lee witnessed a huge fish jump from the center of a still pond, creating powerful waves that spread in all directions. When the waves finally reached the shore, they began to ebb back to the center. He marveled at his discovery--he had not paid attention to the waves returning to the center, but only noticed the waves coming out of the center. He thought, 'Why was I interested in something that happens only at from the center? Why did I neglect what happened at and from the margins?' Whatever came from the center eventually will return will return to the center because of the margins. Thinking from the margins gave me a new perspective--that the truth comes from the margins."

Rev. Norman Johnson,

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

I find Rev. Johnson's reflections instructive when applied to our current global context. The big fish of the past century has sent powerful waves around the world, creating wealth and poverty, and unevenly ascribed power and privilege. Capitalist-driven development championed by countries of the Global North, under the leadership of the United States, has woven intricate relationships built on social political, cultural, and economic domination designed deliberately to serve the center. It is a legacy of slavery and colonialism, where race is used extensively to exclude the majority of the world's people, mostly the colonized peoples of the Global South, from the benefits of development.

The margins come back to the center. The last quarter of the 20th century bears witness to hundreds of millions of people uprooting themselves to look for work. The United Nations estimates there are 150 million economic refugees in the world today, and the pace is bound to accelerate in the next two decades largely as a result of the effects of globalization. Families from Asia. Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa have moved--some, one labor contract at a time--to service and ...