Biking to a better world

By KIM KOSAKOWSKI, Los Angeles Times, 07/13/00

The annual G8 summit will convene Tuesday in Okinawa, Japan, and if three bicycling British vicars have their way, debt relief for impoverished Third World countries will be at the top of the agenda. The three Anglican vicars, who left Washington D.C. on May 18, cycled 80 miles a day across the United States to raise awareness for the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign. They arrived in Los Angeles on July 1, their last stop before flying on to the Okinawa summit.

The cycling party, including three vicars, a secretary, a social worker, and an 8-month-old baby, gave a presentation at All Saints Church on July 2 to describe their mission. Roger Harrington, 51-year-old Church of England Vicar, cycling freak and professional actor, burst into rap: "So what's going on. What is it all about? Are we just crazy English? Yes, of that there's no doubt.

"But there's also something else I would like to explain -- that we are a part of a worldwide campaign -- people working together to try and make sure, that there aren't so many countries who are quite so poor. "All it takes for evil to triumph, someone once said, is for people of goodwill to do nothing. We didn't want to do nothing, so what was the something we could do?" said Harrington, who is vicar of a church in Leeds, 200 miles north of London.

Harrington had cycled to previous summits in Birmingham and Cologne, so he and some colleagues thought, why not cycle to Japan? Leaders of the G7 and G8 countries -- including Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States -- have met annually since the 1975 oil crisis to discuss global economic issues.

While a major debt relief initiative was ratified at last year's Cologne summit, G8 governments have been slow to implement the plan. The cyclists hope to draw media attention in Okinawa to emphasize the urgency of the issue.

"There is a simple humanitarian issue of justice here," said Ben Humphries, a vicar in Leeds who works for Christian Aid, an ecumenical development agency that provides assistance in many of the 41 countries designated as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries by the World Bank and IMF.

The debt burdens in these countries are considered unsustainable. For example, in Mozambique, where the interest burden equals 50% of the national budget, the government spends twice as much on debt payment as on education, and four times as much as on health. Humphries noted that the Economic Structural Adjustment Programs imposed by the World Bank are so onerous that in Kenya the initials ESAP have come to stand for the "Eternal Suffering of the African Peoples."

The UN estimates that 7 million children die each year because the poorest countries spend more money on debt repayment than on health, sanitation, and clean water. The concept of "jubilee," originally described in the book of Leviticus, involves "proclaiming release," according to John Goldingay, professor of Old Testament at Fuller Seminary.

"What happened was that (every fiftieth year) things went back to square one. In the jubilee year people who had been forced by hardship to lease their land were to receive their land back," Goldingay said. Goldingay notes that this concept is re-envisioned in other biblical contexts, such as release from captivity, or release from sickness and guilt.

"This is another such moment," Goldingay said. "The indebtedness of Third World countries puts them into another form of bondage. The visionaries who gave birth to the Jubilee 2000 idea invite us to see God calling us to see another way in which the image of 'release' can be realized in the world."

Along their 3,000-mile pilgrimage through Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona, the British cyclists have done their best to increase public awareness in the United States. Cyclist Claire Wigg, a social worker and wife of Vicar Nick Howe, has been urging Americans to lobby Congress to speed up debt reduction legislation that is "making its way extremely slowly with lots of obstacles" through the political process.

Their baby son William rode out the journey alternating between bicycle trailer and support vehicle. Wigg urged listeners to petition the Japanese prime minister to put debt relief at the forefront of the Okinawa agenda. "If you could send something their way to say, 'We think this needs to be urgently discussed,' that would be brilliant," said Wigg.

See also:

• From Leed to Okinawa on 2 wheels, 15 May 2000