A new economic order

I read Fr Peter´s Perspective (The Sunday Times, May 10), with great interest. Of course I am worried about the problem Malta is facing with the boat people, and I feel that the Maltese should rise to the occasion, make of the problem a challenge, using their best qualities.

These are: (i) nerves: since the war it is the first really and truly international problem we have been pushed into; (ii) brains: we have intellectuals, historians and grassroots people engaged in a never-ending discussion of local, regional and world problems; and (iii) charity, which if let loose can give a lesson in generosity to one and all, including neighbouring nations.

The only differing detail is that this time the catastrophe is on our shores. But the same charity, added to what the nation institutionally can and is affording, should leave our suffering visitors in a relatively dignified wait till a political solution is found.

But what I would like to briefly comment on is Miriam Vincenti's question as to "whether this attempted mass migration from Africa... created the opportunity to reopen the perspectives of creating a new world economic order...".

What Fr François Houtart, a Belgian sociologist who dedicated most of these last 30 years to the struggle of social movements in Latin America, had to say goes directly against the opinion of Perry Anderson, quoted by Fr Peter, that as a result of the events of 1989, "for the first time since the reformation there are no longer any significant oppositions" to the "universal dissemination of neo-liberalism".

Anderson´s opinion here in Latin America is referred to as the theory of pensamento unico - there exists no alternative to neo-liberalism, against which idea the World Social Forum has been working on.

How can humanity come out of the crisis which is affecting the world economy and threatening to end in a social and human disaster?

Fr Houtart begins by pointing out four distinct reactions: (i) of those who are proposing to punish and change those responsible but without changing anything; (ii) those who want to regularise the system but without changing its parameters; (iii) those who think that the very logic of the contemporary system is at stake; and hence (iv) the need to look for alternatives.

He thinks that the major challenge is the urgency needed to find a solution to the climate problem, to work on energy alternatives, to react against the fact that in these last years 100 million people fell below the poverty line.

Fr Houtart dreams of a "Universal Declaration of the Common Good of Humanity" following the same steps taken when the United Nations proclaimed the Declaration of Human Rights.

And as this declaration was the fruit of a process, the same declaration of "the common good of humanity" should be the result of a process, even if a lengthy one.

He points out four directions: (i) the sustainable and responsible use of natural resources; (ii) the importance given to the value of use rather than the value of exchange which asks for a transformation of the present system of production; (iii) extending the concept of democracy to all social relations and institutions and not be confined only to the political field; (iv) respect multi- culturalism in a way to make it possible to profit from all wisdom, cultures, philosophical and religious traditions, in the search for the definition of "the common good of humanity" and the elaboration of its ethics.

The world badly needs new solutions. And Fr Houtart's dream is a fresh start for a much needed discussion.