Because my own understandings of church and my deepest hopes for the Christian faith are embedded in a social ethic of transformation and woven into a vision for the development of nurturing and sustainable communities, issues of justice and international development work are inextricable from my own observations, inextricable from any conversation we might begin about who we are as North American Anabaptists in this complex relationship we call the global church.

These themes have washed over me repeatedly throughout these last months in Cambodia, a nation so recently crippled by brutal totalitarian governance and long-term unrest. Only within the last decade have the remaining pockets of Khmer Rouge soldiers disbanded, and this newfound “stability” (if only it were so simple!) has meant a sudden influx of foreign contact and influence, and, consequently, Cambodia has found itself thrust into the galloping race for economic development known so well by those countries around the globe which we have dubbed “underdeveloped nations.”

It is here that I get caught up in the complexities and nuances of development. I seek a brighter future for Cambodia. I yearn to see an end to the corruption that seeps into every layer of government, that renders the criminal justice system defunct, that breeds hopelessness and distrust among a people still struggling through the trauma and exhaustion of years of war. I dream of the day when my host cousins in the village can eat three instead of two meals a day, and don’t get sent home from school every few days because their under-paid teachers have decided not to show up. I hope that soon, less young people will need to leave home to help support their families, that the appeal of the human traffickers will no longer lure so many to work in unsafe factories, border-town casinos, and the sex trade.

Simply put, Cambodia is a nation in need of transformation for their social, political and economic systems. And yet the rapid changes I see unfolding here are frightening. My fears arise because of the way I see development being defined, the manner in which “success” is understood. Development and success, it seems, are ideals adopted in their entirety from manipulative, Western powers and contexts. Not only does this concern me as I think about the danger of cultural imperialism broadly; I’m also distressed because these ideals and definitions have not proven to be positive, holistic, or sustainable in the West. It troubles me to note the rampant growth of a consumerist, materialistic notion of success here, which feeds a desire to get ahead, regardless of who gets trampled on or left behind. It pains me to see the fragmented communities and social inequalities such attitudes have helped feed at home, hence I’m wary to see such standards gobbled up here as well. Where will such definitions lead Cambodia? And yet what are the alternatives? Who am I to deny my host family’s desire to get off the farm and make a better, easier life for themselves and their children when they have only known a life of hard work, just because I hold idealistic notions of intentional agricultural communities? How can themes of sustainability and long-term thinking be encouraged when so much of life has been spent scrambling for basic survival, and any move away from such an unstable existence, any movement towards this “success,” are, understandably, eaten up as welcome breaths of security?

I want the church to take these concerns seriously. Not only does such a reality implicate itself in the way our churhes’ programs and ministries do international aid and development work. It should also inform how we think about our own lifestyles at home, how we chose to define and perpetuate “development” and “success” for ourselves, and remind us of the multiplicative ways in which such understandings play into the web of a dynamic global community.

Nicole Cober Bauman

24 April 2007

Posted by Nicole Bauman

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