A reflection of Good Friday
THE prophetic book of Isaiah, especially chapter 53 gives a literary depiction of Good Friday’s drama and witch executions common in Melanesia.
It is, therefore, recommended that the chapter be read before this commentary.
The figure portrayed in the narrative as the servant of Yahweh is an individual with a prophetic vocation.
However, he is confronted with great difficulties and become persecuted without retaliation.
He is not under the command of any human master, and therefore, has no impulse for revenge.
He is not captivated in the conflict of reciprocal violence.
The figure in this literary narration does not respond with counter-violence to the attack of his enemies.
Because of this, Yahweh promises to introduce something radically and revolutionary new – an innovation no one belonging to the conventional social mindset has ever envisaged.
The suffering servant is described as a sacred victim that is rejected and despised by people.
The servant of Yahweh, a victim of collective violence, is not only despised and executed, but the violent execution is unfounded.
The despised and suffering one is innocent of the accusation laid on him.
“They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth” (Isaiah 53:9).
Although, the servant of Yahweh committed no guile and violence, he did not reply to the false accusation laid upon him.
The suffering servant keeps his silence and did not open his mouth knowing that legal advocacy is of no use in this conventional mindset.
Despite the theological claim that the suffering is the will of the God, a retrospective turn is found.
The scribe acknowledges that the servant was crushed for the iniquities of the persecutors, and thus an uncovering of the fault of the murderers is implied.
It is not sufficient to render the suffering servant as innocent, but to reveal the deep-seated and violent tendency of the group, who are ignorant and take no responsibility for their own evil action.
“Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
“But he was wounded for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed” (Isaiah 53: 4-5).
But in verse 11 and 12 of chapter 53, a different matter or even a reverse appears.
Indeed the writer realises that it is not the will of God to bruise him, but to use him – to speak through the suffering servant, who suffers on behalf of others.
In understanding his sufferings, in standing with him and not with the violent executioners, we will begin to transform the structures permeated by violence.
A new understanding is proposed to us by the text that the suffering servant poured out himself to death.
It implies that the servant willingly gave himself for the people to exert their violence on him.
In doing so the servant of Yahweh dramatically uncovers the nasty web of violence, a transferred fear of violence on innocent victims, in which society attains momentary complacency.
Despite whatever fleeting satisfaction, the persecuting mob enjoy after persecuting innocent victim, God condemns the murdering of arbitrary victims.
The irony is that God’s servant offers himself to the violence of the society as an integral part of his mission to overcome rivalry and violence, something which both Jews and Christians hardly decipher in their faith.
God did enable his servant to bear the evil of others without revenge or offer any form of resistance.
In the manner, the true character of violence becomes decisively unveiled, and even evil-doers can at least recognise the truth of transferring their deep-seated proclivity for violence.
The suffering servant recorded in the book of Isaiah uncovers in an implicit manner what Jesus made explicit in his death on the cross.
Thus, the cross of Jesus is believed to have narrative borrowings from the motif of the servant of Yahweh to comprehend this innocent and baseless murder.
The central idea that runs through is that the innocent one is persecuted without cause by many deceitful enemies, and that a whole mob of violent evildoers surround him.
Jesus did not die of hunger or illness of a contagious nature, but he was persecuted.
More importantly and unlike the suffering servant in Isaiah, Jesus is seen to have provoked hatred and arouse anger in the people around them so that they can in turn vent their anger on him.
In other words, Jesus will not make a willing self-sacrifice before arousing the irrational anger and the latent propensity for violence that resides in the very heart of human beings.
Thus, the cross of Jesus is the manifestation not only of a self-giving act of love, but the uncovering of deep-seated proclivity for violence operative in humanity.
Even at the cross, Jesus asks his Father to forgive his persecutors for they do not know what they are doing.
They are ignorant to the very mechanism Jesus wants to uncover.
The social order that murdered Jesus is blind to its own irrationally evil actions.
The lesson can be summed up in this way.
First, God reveals to us that He stands on the side of the innocent and arbitrarily chosen victims.
Second, the revelation implies a new blueprint for a new society built on non-violence.
On Good Friday, thousands of Christians gathered in our cities to commemorate the cross of Christ.
The huge crowd of Christians gathered made me ask the following questions.
Do the crowds understand what Jesus wants to reveal by the very act of his execution?
Do they understand the cross as the manner God chooses to unveil the deep-seated violence in human beings?
Are the crowds univocally willing to advocate the cause of all the innocent suffers of violence in our society?
Are the crowds willing to condemn violence suffered by our women in the forms of rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, witch accusation, execution, etc?
Are they univocally willing to condemn innocent people’s physical and psychological sufferings as a result ethnic and tribal violence?
The fight between good and evil in our society depends on which side the crowd takes.
Often, the crowd takes the side of the persecutors rather than stand with the innocent victims.
The practice of venerating the cross would have not significance, if we did not realise what meaning it has for the innocent suffering ones.
The victims, as in the case of Jesus, are innocent.
They are led to be tortured and executed for no reason at all.
These people are the despised of society, vulnerable and who have no advocates.
Like Jesus, the crowd is against them, and are seen as people responsible for causing disorder in society.
The witches so far executed, perhaps in millions, are the victim of deep-seated violent proclivities of humanity.
They have become victims because people have not perceived the meaning of Good Friday and perhaps the secret revelation of the Messiah.
 
China has changed the world
By MIKE MOORE
I JUST made my 20th visit to China and my conclusion is that it will not change the modern world. It already has.
It has taken more than a million people a month out of extreme poverty over the past 20 years, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, and now generate wealth, jobs and growth everywhere.
Over a thousand new vehicles are registered every hour!
The new airport at Beijing will welcome, efficiently, over a million passengers a week.
From being self-sufficient in energy 20 years ago, it is now the second biggest importer.
The increase in its energy demands over the past five years equals Japan’s total energy consumption.
Wages in coastal China exceed wages in the Philippines and Indonesia. Salaries are up 13% last year in the Pearl River delta.
New labour laws have raised wages and awareness of Chinese workers.
During the past year, 1,000 shoe factories have closed, and the Hong Kong Industry Federation expects up to 7,000 of Hong Kong-owned factories to close this year.
Many have moved inland in search of lower wages, some are moving to Africa and Vietnam.
This shows the circular nature of wealth creation caused by globalisation; Japan in the 1950s, then South Korea, Taiwan, now China and India; and as incomes grow, new opportunities open for poor countries. It becomes their turn.
Africa missed out on globalisation but is now catching up. There are now a million Chinese working in Africa.
African exports to China have increased by 40% since 2002. Of the top 20 fastest growing economies in 2006, five are in Africa, three in the top 10. As late as 1990, China’s GDP was US$390 billion, and Africa US$405 billion, now China’s economy is about five times bigger.
The largest-ever investment in Africa has been concluded by China into a South African bank.
Africa is still home to the worst conditions but there is reason to hope and invest.
In 1999, Nigeria had less than 500,000 telephone subscribers, today there are 36 million.
Political power has imperfectly changed hands democratically twice!
Now China is integrated into the world economy, its is facing the kind of threats to its reputation that all major mature nations face.
Pressure is mounting over China’s investments and arms sales to Sudan. The appalling crisis in Darfur now needs China’s intervention and good offices to put pressure on the government. And they are beginning to.
Senior politicians in the US and UK have publicly acknowledged that China is now working behind the scenes to nudge change.
The Olympics in Beijing is an opportunity for all sorts of causes to be raised, and China, like any other country, must respond.
This is unfamiliar territory for China. They never had to care about global opinion before. Now they do.
Some of the criticism is unfair but that’s the price of global integration. Reputation is everything.
When the grandmothers of America get scared about lead in toys, they will not purchase from China. That is economic democracy; choice.
All this is splendid, it is a better world when we rely on each other for growth and success.
Old-fashioned, discredited protectionist moods and methods are never far away.
Protectionism is raising its ugly reactionary head again in the US election campaign, and it is getting some traction. If it this bad with 5% unemployment, just imagine what it will be like with 10% unemployment.
A new target is the so-called sovereign funds. Most of these are state-owned funds or state-influenced funds.
It is not just the resource-rich nations, it is state-owned pension funds, and the welcome fact that after the Asian crisis, most governments have prudently built up financial reserves.
More mature economies – Singapore, Norway, Australia and New Zealand – with aging populations, now have investment funds managed and influenced by governments.
It is good but poses new challenges.
China now has the world’s largest reserves, bigger than Japan. Russia has billions in reserves. A Russian group is trying to buy a Singapore-listed China steelmaker.
An Indian, UK-based, now owns the biggest steel-making global conglomerate.
But when governments can back major commercial takeovers, questions will be asked.
There is a danger that governments can back their national champions now they are flush with cash.
What happens when a Chinese state-owned aluminium company moves into a bidding war for aluminium giants Rio Tinto, BHP, Billiton who with Alcoa, are dancing around one of the biggest takeovers or mergers in commercial history?
These reserves must go somewhere, the money in many cases is welcome.
Countries from the US to New Zealand have rebuffed investments from the Middle East, while investing madly themselves everywhere.
What is needed is transparency, global predictable rules and standards.
Eventually a global agreement on investment will be created.
When this was suggested a decade ago, there was outrage by many anti-globalisation supporters. Many are now demanding action. They were wrong then, they are right now.
Over-reaction would be even worse.
Capitalism and global financial movements has never faced such a situation before.
We have learnt one thing – protectionism makes us all poorer, investment is a good thing. But there needs to be predictable, transparent rules.

Note: Mike Moore was prime minister of New Zealand in 1990 and became leader of the opposition when his Labour Party lost in the subsequent general election. In 1999, he became director-general of the World Organisation, serving for four years. He is now Adjunct Professor at the La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and writes a regular newspaper column in five countries. He has also written a number of books, ranging from politics to the Pacific.
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