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“Lesotho which nobody has ever heard of”: this is Trump three weeks ago with customary offensiveness berating a US-funded aid programme in this small majority-Catholic African nation. Unusually not a flagrant lie - at least as far as his followers are concerned. Lesotho is not desperately poor but some 35% of people in Africa’s 55 countries are still living in extreme poverty, 43% without electricity, relying on only the most basic of health services. Even though ‘the poor you will always have with you’ [Mark 14.7], we seem no longer to be with them. They are becoming invisible. You might think that a continent with annual GDP growth projected to rise from 3.8% this year to 4.1% in 2026 would receive more attention from the UK government. Ditto an export market of a projected 2.5 billion population in 2050 (world population around 9.7 billion). Add abundant rare earths and minerals sought for the information and renewables economy, and consolidating relationships with Africa, political, economic and humanitarian, should be a no-brainer. But here’s the rub. Take Nigeria, the future fourth largest population in the world by 2050 after China, India and Pakistan. Nigerians have entrepreneurial vigour seeping from every pore. Lagos has multiple small business start-ups. The Nollywood film industry, worth $.6.4 billion, employs 300,000 people churning out 2,500 films a year. But Nigeria has massive youth unemployment and comes damagingly high in Transparency International’s country rating for perceived corruption at 140/180 (higher the score, worse the corruption). Its Government has failed to curb ethnic conflict over scarce land with its persistent killing mainly of Christians by nominally Muslim and by jihadist criminals . The 4 Cs - Corruption, Climate Change, Conflict and Coups - threatening Africa’s future are interlinked. Corruption undermines an “economy as if people mattered” (F.S. Schumacher Small is Beautiful). Coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have damaged the economy and security integration of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States). Prolonged droughts beset East Africa. So how do China, Russia and the EU, in potentially game-changing relationships with Africa, together feature in this picture? The People’s Republic of China’s complex relationship with Africa is becoming more mutually beneficial. China’s total trade with Africa was $295 billion in 2024, up 6% from 2023. It has easier visa requirements for Africans than the West, not only for those who intermarry. There is surprisingly a Congolese Pentecostal Church in Guangzhou city, services in Mandarin for Chinese Christians in some African States. Although China has done nothing to stop debilitating corruption or the coups that hold Africa back. China’s contribution to transformative infrastructure dates back more than half a century. It includes railways, Addis Ababa to Djibouti, Mombasa to Nairobi, a huge Nile dam, the 1,600 kilometres long Greater Nile pipeline, from oil fields near the Nuba mountains to Port Sudan run by the China National Petroleum Company. Chinese companies are involved in many port projects around the African coast. I remember eating Chinese dinners, unappetizing pieces of tinned chicken, on holiday in Dar-es Salaam in 1970. Chinese workers were beginning building the Tanzam railway linking Zambia’s copper-belt to the coast - avoiding South Africa - at the cost of $3.2 billion in today’s money. A major improvement on ‘the hell run’, a meandering road full of huge potholes plied by oil-tanker drivers. Tanzanians’ bon mot was “you could tell they were drunk if they were driving in a straight line”. The West’s portrayal of a predatory China and a supine Africa describes States rather than citizens. China’s African - once large - loans are accused of creating debt-dependency. Oil-producing Angola owes some $20 billion. A third of its population still live on less than $2.15 a day. China seeks Africa’s minerals and rare earths. It has a stake in 15 of 19 cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The collapse of a ‘tailing dam’ at a Chinese, State majority owned, Zambian copper mine recently released a catastrophic 50 million litres of toxic slurry into the Kafue river. Over 50% of the population rely on its waters. Exporting their home human rights record, working conditions in China’s mines have been appalling – though not uniquely so. China’s autocratic regime doesn’t easily bend to popular concerns nor downgrade its commitment to a carbon-neutral 2050. China still relies on coal-fired energy generation but is making strides towards effective storage for its fast growing solar and wind generated energy, and improving the efficiency of semi-conductors used in lighting. But it needs cobalt for batteries, as well as - not so scarce - lithium, and more copper – smartphones - than in the past. China is now supporting economies with a strong digital and energy-transition component, and regional economic integration. Russia, in comparison, unconcerned about climate change, floats on its oil and gas reserves. It is particularly interested in gold, diamonds and platinum, as well as securing supply-chains for its military-political complex. The Wagner mercenary force, some recruited from prison with $3-4,000 monthly salaries, represent a new mix of predatory – brutal - military, economic and political intervention, now under the Russian Ministry of Defense. They annually plunder c. £1 billion worth of gold from African mines. African votes at the UN are a political trophy in derzjavnost, Russia’s imperial dream of statehood, the quest for equal global status with the USA and China. Africa holds great potential but US isolationism, UK ‘s decade of economic mismanagement, leave the EU, its NGOs and Churches as the principal international alternative to Chinese support for Africa’s development. The Catholic Church educates 19.2 million children in Africa in 33,000 primary schools, 5.4 million in 10,000 secondary schools, and maintains 28 Catholic Universities and Colleges. There are c. 1,600 Catholic hospitals and 5,300 health centres. And the mainstay of this educational work and health care have been, and are, the Religious Orders, most notably Women Religious. The role of national and partnering CARITAS organisations remains critical in reaching villages and promoting development. One Catholic Sierra Leonian hospital in Makeni stands out in my mind. Treatment for the poor, say for a caesarian, was paid from charges for caesarians carried out on rich patients. The nurses had on-the-job training from a skilled instructor. A German parish had sent an X-ray machine. Built from scratch by local labour, inspired and managed by a local dedicated doctor, the Holy Spirit Hospital was a shining example of both development and the preferential option for the poor. When DfID, the UK Department of International Development was separate from the Foreign Office, promoting African trade used to be a developmental priority. But African trade remains stuck on 2.8% of global trade. Though, the UK, no longer a major African trading partner for the continent, still maintains over £10 billion of total trade annually with South Africa. South Africans, of course, have heard of Lesotho, a short hop from Johannesburg, the plane ascending to land at Maseru in the mountains, the capital’s airfield. Catholics in southern Africa will likely have also heard of its National University at Roma, founded in 1945 as the Pius XII Catholic University College by the Oblate Fathers, another part of the Church’s - preferential - love for Africa.
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Prayers for a seriously ill Pope seem to have been answered. But will we hear his voice again, speaking from the heart, truth to power, at this critical time? It is so badly needed. For his words have often broken through the political gaslighting to illuminate truths that give hope, and could do so again. It says something when a Guardian editorial (17 March) describes Francis’ pontificate as making the Catholic Church “one of the west’s most combative defenders of the liberal democratic values”.
We are in a global crisis with the moral, the military, the economic and the political intertwined. We have moved from low key realpolitik to different forms of strident proclamation, echoing across continents, that might is right. Or to use Francis’ more pointed words in his 10 February letter to the US bishops: the imposition of “an ideological criterion that distorts the life of society and imposes the will of the strongest”. We have moved from an America imagined by President Kennedy, recalling the words of the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay colony, John Winthrop in his 1630 ‘city on a hill’ sermon , to an America looked on in shock, dismay and apprehension by other democratic countries. To the modern forms of tyranny found in Russia and China is added the bizarre political dynamics of the present USA ruling clique at full throttle. Kennedy, as a political not a religious leader, did not repeat Winthrop’s appeal “to follow the counsel of [prophet] Micah: to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God. For this end”, Winthrop continued, “we must hold each other in brotherly affection; we must be willing to rid ourself of our excesses to supply others' necessities; we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality”. This inspiring vision of the Pilgrim Fathers stands in stark contrast to the current reality, a great country torn asunder, beggaring its neighbours. Social division within the USA has increased the gulf between the values projected by political and religious discourses. Think of what Pope Francis has said about, Ukraine, Gaza and particularly about immigration: “The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions —welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable”. You will not find such vision in any Party political broadcasts. Some of the US evangelical Churches, and indeed many Catholics, demonstrate that there is an overlap between values claimed by Trump and some aspects of the Christian faith. Some Christian teachings, notably condemnation of the death penalty, solidarity with the poor, feeding and clothing the hungry, welcoming the stranger are rejected whilst those on abortion and gender are embraced. But there can be little doubt that, as far of the Trump presidency is concerned, this overlap is consciously fostered and, to a large degree - perhaps less cynically after his near-assassination - manipulated. On the President’s passion for peace the jury is out. Using religion to fool the masses, as Marx pointed out, works. A large part of Christian America is willing to overlook Trump’s sense of entitlement to millions of dollars, unlimited power and sex, if he waves a bible, bows his head in prayer but expresses what they are feeling, makes them laugh, and promises to raise their standard of living. Some also seem to believe in a theology in which God, to preserve the nation’s saviour, deflects a bullet. As Europe’s politicians are increasingly discovering, it is difficult to deal with the Trump Presidency. And a no less intractable problem is how should people of goodwill approach his followers. Or more pointedly what kind of theology might bring about a hang-on-a-bit moment, the beginning of a Christian prise de conscience amongst the MAGA millions, or indeed amongst populists in Europe. These are all people who have a right to the truth, and to a theology which speaks to their condition in a language they can understand. As Massimo Faggioli recently wrote in La Croix - and in correspondence with me - the problem is not just Trump’s supporters , who mainly have missed out on college education, but also the many, particularly theologians, who seem unable to see that they have to turn from speaking to people who agree with them and talk to people who, for a variety of reasons, voted for Trump. As Faggioli wrote: “It’s not just a moral problem but also practical, that is, how to save this country.” Pope Francis has been more than willing to take the lead in changing thinking. But if the UK is typical, very little of the Pope’s teachings reaches mass-going Catholics. The “option for the poor” is a formative principle of Francis’ pastoral concern as Pope . But talking recently with three committed, active, educated Catholics, I realized they were only vaguely aware of the term. Living in my own bubble, I thought for Catholics the phrase was common knowledge. But why should they have heard of it if expounding of the liturgy of the Word takes up all the sermon time and there is never any mention of papal guidance and seldom the contemporary relevance of the biblical texts? The persistent fear of being political isn’t an adequate excuse. What could be more political than the Samaritan narratives, the Magnificat, the Beatitudes and the behaviour of the biblical Jesus, His incarnational identification with the Poor. It is difficult to find the right language to engage with Christian Nationalism, its search for white dominance and exclusion, or exploitation, of other faiths and ethnicities. Although it could be called a heresy that wouldn’t be a good start to the conversation. Without a shared respect for the moral teaching of the Gospels, it is difficult to engage with fascist-leaning populism. But here lies the rub. Trump has a powerful appeal. The practical politics of foreign policy requires treating him cautiously, sometimes obsequiously. In domestic politics, it means persuading the reluctant to go through the appropriate lobby whilst giving attention to “Border Controls”, “Fiscal Rules” “Stop and Search”, “Shrinking the costly State”, “Defense Expenditure”. Amongst our residual political values, defending national security needs much wider thinking. What greater security threat than the consequences of climate change? But Gospel values, genuine stewardship of creation, loving your enemy as well as your neighbour, defending human dignity and all that entails, and yes, “pulling down the mighty from their thrones”, aren’t often practical politics. So how to make the moral practical? The question needs asking. But the answer to that dilemma is a matter of pure faith: Gospel values will never be practical politics until Christians all around the world try, with great courage and in great numbers, to put them into practice, what theologians call building the kingdom of God. One of Francis’ achievements to date is to have built the foundations by drawing on the spirituality and practice of Catholic Social Teaching for our troubled times. May he continue. The title of my first online book of blogs was May You Live In Interesting Times, the supposedly Chinese curse or Chinese greeting. What follows is to promote my second book of blogs, recently published on my website. I needed to tweak the title above to cover the hundred or so blogs written as the world became even more troubled, from 2021 to 2025. Though a tweak does scant justice to the magnitude of the global changes that have taken place since.
Still, by way of introduction, I itemize below the themes that have been dropped and those that have been introduced. A little of what I wrote by way of introduction to the first book, covering 2017 to 2021, may usefully be repeated for this second collection. “Blogging is ephemeral. I hope that pulling together these blogs on-line under thematic headings in chronological order will increase their life span. Broaching some of these topics, getting some of the shared frustrations of the day into my website, may even have increased my own life span. Dip in where your interests lie and explore”. This new book of blogs, as was its predecessor, is divided into four thematic parts with subsections whose subtitles are indicated in this introduction by italics. Part One Gone is Terrorism. Well not in reality. Europe’s intelligence services have become more adept at pre-empting major incidents, though lone wolf attacks are manifestly more difficult to see coming. In has come Immigration with topics from the Kindertransport to small boats. Disinformation about illegal immigration, alongside accurate figures for documented arrivals, had given Leave voters victory in the 2016 UK European Union Membership referendum so badly judged by Cameron. I have pointed out government’s parallel but contradictory policies: the one keeping up the supply of necessary migrant labour for the British economy, amounting to hundreds of thousands, the other most strikingly seen in Sunak’s prolonged obsession with deporting to Rwanda those arriving on small boats, which brought on the Conservative government’s bizarre legislation: Rwanda was safe because they said it was safe. It was a good story, with TV pictures, to tell faithful Brexiteers wanting to ‘take back control’ of our borders and end freedom of movement. Popular anxiety about immigration could scupper the new Labour government. It has had brutal consequences under Trump in America. There has been plenty to comment on under the other retained titles. Blogs included within Democracy and Politics discuss the decline witnessed in both. Human Rights features new violations globally that have pushed the importance of international humanitarian law to the fore. Looking back, I’m unhappy not to have written about the terrible plight of women in Afghanistan. Finally in this section, Catholicism: the focus of blogs has remained on Pope Francis, his teaching and his speaking truth to power with creative compassion. Sadly I’ve also written obituaries for four outstanding Catholics: Sister Pamela Hussey SHCJ, Bruce Kent, Father Albert Nolan O.P. and Father Gustavo Guttierez O.P. Part Two Brexit has gone. Its multiple consequences remain, the economic equivalent of long-COVID. We are all sick of it. In has come Culture Wars, about the degradation of politics, ‘woke’ versus ‘anti-woke’, and the whole question of identity including what it means to be British. In, of course, has also come the Labour Party, its plans and the ‘vision thing’. Government & Policy remains covering issues from disability and cuts in international development aid to the Post Office scandal. The Conservative Party including its wrecking-ball to the NHS, Partygate, and the blunders of the 1922 Committee. Part Three Gone is the heading Middle East & North Africa. In has come Putin’s Ukraine War with its own prolonged devastation and death toll. Though a biproduct was the fall of Assad in Syria. In the last three years, Putin’s invasion has transformed geopolitics and the immediate future of Europe, diverting scarce resources into the demands of modern warfare. It had created a new not-so-Cold War between an authoritarian and European democratic bloc of States, with other countries expected to choose sides. Now under Trump this configuration has changed for one even worse. USA remains. Its themes have revolved around the Presidency, Biden, Trump, and the elections, Harris and Walz. I did float the possibility that US male voters might baulk at a black female President, but I thought Harris would narrowly win (having got the 2016 election wrong too). The extraordinary global re-alignment caused by Trump’s relationship with Putin and its dire consequences globally and particularly for the people of Ukraine came after publication. This will preoccupy international relations for some time to come. Africa also remains: There are still mass killings by jihadist religious extremists, those of Christians grossly under-reported. Not to mention the desperate plight of Sudan’s people, casually terrorised by two barbaric armies, a particularly dreadful example of the consequences of the arms trade. I should have written about it. There are blogs on eradication of malaria. Themes have concentrated on events involving South Africa, their role in taking Israel to the International Court of Justice – see also under the next heading - and the Government of National Unity. The heading Israel, Palestine and Iran stays, dealing most notably in the last few months with the passionate debate about genocide in Gaza. The old threat of an Israeli – or USA - attack on facilities in Iran associated with the potential development of a nuclear weapon has intensified. Part Four Nothing gone. But in has come Climate Change - which appears elsewhere, for example under Catholicism. It seems absurd to be discussing the future of our atmosphere and the planet almost as an afterthought, in four blogs. Everything that could be said and written about global warming and renewables has been said and written. Trump has delivered a severe blow to any chances of bringing it under control. But for fear of popular revolt, no-one with political authority seems open to the radical social and economic changes that are needed. Doomed to short-termism, what other hope do we have but some scientific miracle to avert catastrophe? And friends and family have had enough gloomy blogs to be going on with as 2024 turns into 2025. So, it is a relief to turn again to the old catch-all section Observations which ends the book. I particularly enjoyed writing about Dogs, Dunwich Beach and Detectorists. Unconditional love, gentle beauty, hope and perseverance. Not a bad prescription for surviving the rest of the decade. With thanks to Edmund Ross for IT work making this on-line book possible. |
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