Talk by Farai Maruzu, Mothers' Union Provincial Trainer, Central Africa

JUBILEE 2000 - 'THE WORLD WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN' EVENT

2.12.00 Emmanuel Centre, Westminster, 2nd December 2000

Where in the world would a black African woman, like me, stand on the stage after a Chancellor of the Exchequer, except in some very creative and open event like the Jubilee 2000 movement that pulls south and north, poor and rich, together for the cause of justice. It is at a time like this, for those of us coming from the south, when we look around and we recognise, in our struggle, that we are not alone. We do have friends!

Two years ago my 7yr. old daughter said to me 'Mum what are you planning for us when you die?' This is not a question that is expected from the north, from the rich, because parents are not expected to die just like that. But I asked her honestly 'why are you asking me this?' She said to me 'a lot of mamas are dying, mother, and you are no different,you could die.' So death in the face of poverty, in the face of the debt crisis,is a reality not only embodied by adults in the passage of time, but by young children who have had to learn how to mourn day after day when mothers died either in childbirth or because we could not buy them drugs which can easily be found. So I speak against the backdrop of an historic struggle. When I came to the children with the Jubilee 2000 paper to sign they began to ask why. I said to them, 'if you sign this you join the thousands and thousands of people who want me not to die, because we are trying to create a world when drugs can be purchased by the poorest of the poor.' And they are (now) signatories to this wonderful movement of justice in our time, so thank you for that.

We are inheritors of a long struggle for justice. When Wilberforce was fighting against slavery, it was the time. When Martin Luther King was marching in the southern states of America, fighting against racism, it was the time. When we were in London as young students dancing away in the Africa Centre, against apartheid in South Africa, it was our time. So each time has its own historic figures against oppression. There are people at any given time who can see beyond. In our time we have recognised the oppressiveness of the debt crisis and we in Jubilee 2000, and in the churches, you and I stand here together. We have agreed that it is our time and we are going to tackle this injustice with all our vigour. So we cannot stop until that stone has been rolled away.

I speak from my own Christian perspective and I look at Jubilee 2000 and analyse it and compare it with the great mission that Moses was given when he saw the burning bush. The tree was not burning up and he stopped to look. You saw the burning bush of oppression, you saw the burning bush of dying mothers,the burning bush of dying children. The bush was burning and Jubilee 2000 dared to stop and enquire why is the bush burning and not completely destroyed? It is in that burning bush that our God of justice speaks. It is in the burning bush in Zimbabwe, of children dying. It is in the burning bush of the young people of Zambia, who have no hope of living until their 20th birthday. It is in the burning bush, of husbands burying their 20 year old wives, that the God of justice is saying that the debt must be cancelled because it is an unjust and unfair system. We have dared to stop at this burning bush. You have also dared to stop and we would like you to continue until debt cancellation is a reality. God chose Moses and I compare Jubilee 2000 with Moses.You live in the north, you know Gordon Brown, and you know the Houses of Parliament.You are nearer the heartbeat where the economic policies are made. You are nearer the world market where the prices are determined. We are very far. So you are the Moses who have grown up and been brought up in the corridors of power in the north. Jubilee 2000, you negotiate and push, as Moses did. God is saying 'I have heard my people groan' and we are groaning! Therefore, I think you have taken control rightly and for that we commend you. But you are not struggling for a passive people in the south. We are not dying, willy nilly, just taking it lying down. No we struggle and survive and come up with survival tactics. We dig up our herbs and find alternative medicines.If we had not used herbs when we could not afford antibiotics, then we could have lost thousands more. We have survival tactics and we want you to come and aid us in our poverty alleviation activities.

We have faith and hope we believe in God and know that he does listen - by the reality of the existence of Jubilee 2000. Therefore this spirit (of Jubilee 2000) cannot die, but it can change and find other ways of coming up with what we had as a dream, a dream of freedom. We never thought that apartheid would be completely dismantled. Martin Luther King never thought at that time the southern black people in America would be free. We might not think that the world will be free of the debt crisis but we have a hope and around that hope we want all of us to rally and move forward.

We want to maintain the momentum that Mr. Gordon Brown maintained and we really want to thank him. We read and hear and digest and reflect and we sift, because we have known that struggles are not easy, it is not an overnight achievement. When the women came to the tomb of Jesus Christ they asked who will roll away the stone for us. It had been rolled away and I'm sure one day that Jubilee 2000 will turn round and find that the stone of the debt crisis has been rolled away.From that, resurrection will happen and we (the poor) will arise and take our rightful stand with the many all around the world. We will arise and take our dignity given to us by God, as a right of mine and my children and my grandchildren. The grave is no place for us and we will arise and on the resurrection day we will want to meet all together, celebrating that day! So let us look beyond what we have been doing. May I say congratulations for waking up and realising the unfairness of the economic system. Congratulations for tackling the IMF, the World Bank, the 'pharaohs' of today as we call them in the south. We, like Moses, together will find freedom for our brothers and sisters who might not know us, but we are assured that we know each other in our common purpose of justice.