URM CONCERNS AND THRUSTS
AHN Jae-Woong

The global system

For a long time we had experienced a bi-polar system where there existed a confrontation between two rigid Cold War ideologies which dominated global politics. However, after the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and their allies in the Eastern bloc, we are experiencing a post Cold War uni-polar power domination by the United States. This was evident through the Gulf War when the United States was capable of mobilizing the military power of her allies to pressurize the United Nations.

Today, global politics clearly testifies that the tri-polar system, based on economic powers such as the United States, the European Union (EU) and Japan, has become a common feature. Under the bi-polar system, the world was developed into two ideologies which were pitched against each other, thus, appearing like a relationship between two enemies. The present tri-polar system heavily concentrates on the economic interests between the allies and thus their relationship is based on competition for the sake of their own national prosperity.

Thus, we are faced with the difficulty of finding a clear vision and direction within our present global politics. Although we are growing accustomed to adjusting ourselves to this postmodern era, we are still unclear what postmodern means in relation to living in a highly compact techno-globalized society.

Global trends

During the Cold War era, geopolitics was the dominant term in our history. We tried to understand everything from the standpoint of geopolitics. According to geo-politics in the Cold War ideology, national security was a central issue in this particular context/ Military build-up, nuclear capabilities, arms race space discovery were the main concerns of super powers in those days.

After the end of the Cold War, geo-economics is the focus of our time. We are trying to achieve everything from the standpoint of geo-economics. As we may observe, the central element of geo-economics is trade. Trade wars are taking place everywhere crossing the borders of ideologies and nation states. This trend has resulted in alliances among blocs such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), etc. This trend will continue for some time, I'm afraid, especially after the signing of the Uruguay Negotiations under the General Agreement of Trade and Tariff (GATT) last December 15, 1993. Geo-economics is a real powerful ingredient in geopolitics. The pressure of super powers to open up local markets is very visible. Globalization has created serious problems for the already depressed national economies of the South with the world Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the soon-to-be-formed World Trade Organization (WTO) as its machinery.

What then is next after geo-economics? Many people are predicting that geo-culture will be the new area of human history to be highlighted. It is not clear as to the kind of core that will characterize geo-culture. However, I think integrity is going to be an important area in the life of geo-culture. I enjoyed reading an article of Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilization (1993). He emphasized that culture will become a central area in human history in the future. And I quote:

"It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be culture. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future."

As we may observe, geo-culture will be facing the problems of how to resolve the clash of civilizations. In my mind, integrity of each culture or civilization will be the most important factor to determine new historical developments in the future. Integrity in the areas of geo-culture will be able to co-opt all the differences of cultural barriers for the enhancement of human life.

A state of well-being for all

According to Aristotle in his book Politics, "The State is the perfect community having the full limit of self-sufficiency, which come into existence for the sake of living, but exists for the sake of living well." Aristotle's idea expresses that the final perfect state exists only when those who live within it live not like any beasts but as decent human beings.

The problem with politics in Asian states is the lack of concern for the well-being of their own people. Instead, the people are used as pawns to borrow money from international institutions. In the case of popular election, the ruling party has a premium to control all procedures in order to secure victory over the opponents. During the election campaign, all kinds of dirty tricks are used. As a result, corruption permeates every level of politics. After election, everything is justified and normalized by means of control of power.

In this context, we as a part of the peoples movement have a large role to play in dealing with corruption and abuse of power used against our own people. As long as this state of affairs persists, people in our societies will be more marginalized and victimized than ever. Unless we, the peoples movement, reshape our goals and strategies, we will lose our ground with the people. We have the important task of developing and articulating new ideologies, formulating relevant theologies, revitalizing organizational structures, and developing self-sufficiency in financial and human resources in every field in order that we might have effectively carry out the peoples agenda.

A state is supposed to provide the basic economic and social necessities for its people. The facilities of health core, education, public housing or housing subsidies and utilities should be guaranteed for the larger benefit of the people. If these needs are not met, then the peoples movement has to directly tackle these issues as their top priority to ensure that the state provides these benefits to all citizens of the state.

A dream of a robbery-free society

Our observation is that Asia still has a long way to go in terms of improving facilities to meet the basic human needs of all her people. It is obvious that these problems are there for us to tackle. However, our tendency is to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the pleas of the suffering people, an attitude which is well-described in the famous parable of the good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke 10:25-37. We are accustomed to easy living and do not care to get involved. Similarly, the priest and the Levite went over, looked at the victimized person, and walked on by to the other side.

Through this Bible story, we learn that exactly the same thing happens in our workplaces. In this story, the robbers are portrayed as people who attacked and stripped and beat up the traveler leaving him half-dead. Who are the robbers today? Who are the ones always attacking the people? Who are the ones constantly stripping the people? Who are the ones beating up the people? Who are the ones inhumanely leaving half-dead half of the world's population? Such robberies are common features in our community. Therefore, as URMers it is imperative that we initiate campaigns for a robbery-free society so that all peoples may live together without fear and worries. We need courage to build up a robbery-free society where peoples will be protected from external robbers - the TNCs, and internal robbers - the elite of authoritarian repressive regimes.

Kim Chi-Ha, a radical prominent poet in Korea, once wrote a sensational poem entitled Five Bandits. He gained great popularity among the people when this poem appeared in a monthly magazine, The Sasangge (Korean for The World of Ideas) in May 1970. His courageous poetic metaphor uses the technique of bold exaggeration and caricature to sharply criticize the corruption of the Korean society under military elitist rule. The Five Bandits represented a tycoon, an assemblyman, a government official, a general, and a minister. He ridicules the privileged class in our societies. His typical satirical writing style was amazingly popular during the oppressive authoritarian regime of the late Park Chung-Hee.

Kim Chi-Ha paid a high price for the poem he wrote. He underwent torture and interrogation, imprisonment and trials, and was stripped of his civil rights. His health was badly affected and his body tremendously weakened. However, his spirit grew stronger and his inspiration to fight on knew no bounds. He continuously produced more excellent poetry than ever for the people. These and his other writings helped inspire the Korean people in their struggle for democratization during the 1970s.

The Five Bandits must remind us of our own situations in Asia. As long as these 'Five Bandits' are allowed to continue exploiting and manipulating the people in our societies, we will continue to live without freedom wherever we may be. How then do we establish a robbery-free society? We need to constantly ask ourselves this question.

The first thing we have to do is to respect all the laws. The laws are supposed to protect the basic rights of the common people. However, robbers like the 'Five Bandits' are breaking the laws for their own convenience and to promote their own self interests. In Burma, for example, the military-minded people are breaking the laws to maintain their rule in spite of the opposition party winning a landslide victory over the military in the 1990 elections. The military regime is still holding power although that power is illegitimately gotten.

In Matthew 5:17, Jesus thought, "Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets." He clearly explained, "I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true." The original nature of the law should be strictly observed in order that we might be able to build up a robbery-free society.

In the case of natural law, if the law is imposed by the authorities as a convenient means of control then our moral duty is to reject the law rather than obey it. The law is no longer valid because the motive for the law is no for the protection and security of the people. Therefore, we need to think again what Jesus taught us concerning the law. According to Jesus' teaching all human-made laws are derived for the common good of the people. Obedience to such a system of good-intention laws may enable us to achieve a robbery-free society.

A second point we need to remember is that moral conduct should be reinforced in our daily lives. Morality is the central beauty of all human beings. It is what makes humankind different from other living creatures. Should anyone break the moral law, the whole community becomes badly affected. In relation to moral conduct, the Ten Commandments, which is the divinely-given law, would serve as a good set of teachings for us to live by. Perhaps, if every single person tried to follow the teachings of the Ten Commandments as a way of life, our dream of a robbery-free society might be realized.

The third point is we have to uphold justice as a criteria for the creation of a robbery-free society. St. Augustine, in the City of God, described a society without justice as being made up of a band of robbers. Augustine's own words are, "What is a state but a robber-band?" The whole issue of justice is related to the harmony of equality and peace in our day-to-day life. Reinhold Niebur also reminds us, "If you want peace, work for justice." hence, justice and peace are interchangeable for the benefit of the human community. This is the course to pursue if we are to achieve such a state in our life.

The fourth point is we have to ensure that minimum security is given to everyone so that they may have sufficient to live by without robbing each other. This assurance of personal and social security must be pursued in every aspect of our lives for our own protection as well as to guarantee security for others. We are all seeking different types of security through practices, moral conduct, system of education, and common ethical norms. However, our societies continue to be filled with robbers. Therefore, as URMers, we should take immediate action to work for the creation of a robbery-free society. This should be a permanent task of URM work.

The final point is we have to care for each other to the extent that none of the victimized neighbors in our community will be abandoned. For such a vocation, it is of utmost importance that we possess a genuine capacity to have pity on the victimized in our society so that we might allow ourselves to care for them.

These people are not only victims of 'robbers' but also victims of an 'uncaring-unloving-enough' society. These victims are made up of the homeless people, AIDS patients, refugees, the boat-people, orphans and child laborers, prostitutes, and countless other marginalized peoples.

As long as such categories of people still exist in our society, it is not possible for us to call ourselves 'Christians'. Therefore, we have an urgent task before us. We are called as followers of Jesus Christ to participate in God's salvific work through sharing our Christian love and care so that the wounded in our human community may experience total recovery. This involves more than a touch-and-go one-time experience. It involves a life-long commitment and dedication. From the example of the Good Samaritan, we can see that this task of loving and caring for the victimized involves our total commitment to a process of rescue from a critical situation. Let us be reminded of Jesus' words, "You go, then, and do the same," as what the Good Samaritan did.

What then is URM's role in this context? If URM is truly committed to building up supportive communities for the well-being of all people then the responsibility is ours to nurture caring communities within our societies. Our work continues until ultimately poverty, unemployment, illness, disability and old age may be regarded not as marks of individual moral failure but rather a responsibility of the state. The welfare for the well-being of people is the supreme task of the state and where the state fails the peoples movement should act as its conscience in both word and deed.

What kind of mission

We are facing all kinds of conflicts in our daily life. Conflicts that we have to seriously deal with whether they are due to ideological differences, economic polarization, socio-cultural discrimination, religious chauvinism or elitist attitudes. Conflict situations eventually make people feel frustrated. It is just the situation of the disciples of Jesus after the crucifixion.

"It was late that Sunday evening and the disciples were gathered together behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities. Then Jesus came and stood among them.Peace be with you, he said." (John 20:19)

We are like the disciples who are always afraid of something and are gathered together behind locked doors. We are afraid of ideological indoctrination, cultural domination, military maneuvers, religious fundamentalism, and socioeconomic competition. We are always trying to hide behind the history arena and lock ourselves in the comfort of each other without achieving anything.

But we have to open our eyes and sharpen our ears to see the risen Lord and listen to the Lord's words, "Peace be with you." This is the central message for URM workers to carry out our task in work places, conflict situations, in the frustrated human community to be heard of once so that there may be hope for all humanity.

Mission has a priority concern. These 12 men were sent out by Jesus with the following instructions:

"Do not go to any Gentile territory or any Samaritan town. Instead, you are to go to the lost sheep of the people of Israel. Go and preach, the Kingdom of heaven is near! Heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, heal those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases, and drive out demons. You have received without paying, so give without being paid" (Mt. 10:5-8)

Therefore, the mission is to build a Kingdom of God in our midst. Let us examine our situation. According to this Biblical passages, all the conflicts occurred due to physical disability and mental illness inflicted by demonic powers in our societies. As long as all sickness, disability and demonic possession are among us our day-to-day life, mission has to continue. However, for the first stages we have to limit ourselves to certain areas of concern and concentrate on these until we meet the human needs. And then eventually, we have to work beyond our territory, extended to the Gentile and Samaritan towns.

"But other believers, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and proclaimed the message to Gentiles also, telling them the Good News about the Lord Jesus. The Lord's power was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord" (Acts 11:20-21)

Mission is inclusive of all the races, classes and territories. Mission is to make people recover from brokenness, sickness, social diseases and madness of contemporary lifestyle. Mission, therefore, means to preach the Kingdom of God proclaiming the Good News, teaching the proper ethical lifestyle, healing sick people, serving a broken community and caring for each other.

Mission, however, have two different approaches in mission today. There is evangelization on the one hand and Missio Dei on the other. I quite understand the notion of Lesslie Newbegin's interpretation of mission in his book, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (1989). In his book, he argues that 'mission station' is not an ideal model. Instead, he quotes from Ronald Allen's approach.. Allen who served in China in the early years of this century, carried on a sustained polemic against the missionary methods of his time and contrasted them against those of St. Paul. St. Paul, he argued, never stayed in one place for more than a few months, or at most a couple of years. He did not establish what we call a 'mission station'. And he certainly did not build himself a "mission bungalow."

If we apply Allen's approach adopted from St. Paul, the role of URM should be able to initiate new programs that will be developed together with those who were involved in the process. Today, we have a tendency to stay in one place without the proper development of new programmes with new perspectives and leadership, just like building-up our "mission stations". We know that many URM centers in Asia are intended to be "mission stations" rather than mission initiative centers. Perhaps following St. Paul's model, URM should spread out in every direction and reach out to all the marginalized, exploited and oppressed peoples to empower them. We should be with the people and find out common social evils and enemies and cast out all kinds of demons. This is an urgent issue we have to reflect on to overcome our tendency of building-up "mission stations".

Some possibilities

Sallie McFague, the author of Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (1982) has produced another fascinating book,  The Body of God: An Ecological Theology  in 1993. I am always inspired by her way of theological interpretation on god from the feminist perspective. McFague's <M>Models of God which portrayed God as "mother, lover and friend of the world" created a great impact in the theological circle. In her new book, she highlighted that "the world is our meeting place with God." She further developed that "the model of the universe or world in God's body." This is centrality of her ecological theology and in her scholarly investigation on God. Also, this led to "the organic model which we need to understand ourselves, our world and our God."

Although this quotation from McFague's new book is rather long, I want to share it with you:

"We do not use nature or other peoples as means to an end — our union with God — but each and every creature, everybody, as intrinsically valuable in itself, in its applications, its distinctiveness, its differences from ourselves. This acknowledgment of difference and intrinsic worth is not only the basis of an ecological ethic as we have seen, but it is also the source of a nature or spirituality. The earth becomes the place where we put down our roots and renew ourselves to stay in the course, not because all creatures are transparent images of God but because each in its own peculiar, idiosyncratic, special difference is a wonder to behold.

The model of the world as God's body encourages us to dare to love bodies and find them valuable and wonderful just that and nothing more. The "God part" will take care of itself if we can love and value the bodies."

This is a new trend of theological interpretation on nature or our environmental concerns that is going to be an important priority to tackle for the sake of our day-to-day life. Probably, we may get enough ideas of inter-relatedness between God-man, man-man and man-nature. These formula may be a major concern of our life. Perhaps divinity in God-ma, humanity in man-man and spirituality in man-nature need to be sharply articulated. As we are working with the grassroots in URM, some possibilities may be initiated in the light of new historical developments.

According to Peter F. Drucker, in his book The New Realities (1989), future society will be dominated by "knowledge workers", what he calls the "knowledge society".

Education fuels the economy. It shapes society. But it does it through its 'product', the educated person. An educated person is equipped both to lead a life and to make a living. Knowledge is information that changes something or somebody - either by becoming grounds for action, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different and more effective action. And this, little of the new 'knowledge' accomplishes."

In this light, once more I want to highlight popular education as one area where URM must continues to put more emphasis on. I hope this message can help prepare ourselves for the 21st century "to lead a life and to make a living".

URM involvements

In the midst of these political developments, URMers are supposed to be agents of social transformation. But were we there? This is a question we constantly need to ask ourselves. Are we in the front-line of the battle against injustice and oppression or are we playing a supportive role in the people's movement, or are we content with being onlookers in these political developments?

Moreover, the first issue of Newsweek  for 1991 boldly entitled A Survival Guide: Issues, People and Predictions for the Age of Anxiety lists some major anxiety-causing issues as forced migration, democracy, leadership, debt, survival, brain power, and genetics. It is true indeed that we are living in an age of anxiety. But what are the causes of these anxieties? Very broadly, they are experienced in the problems of overwhelming poverty, population explosion, brain-drain, racism, sexism, classism/casteism, pollution, war and other socio-politico-economic issues. All these issues are inevitably related to the peoples movement because they concern life and as such ought to be taken seriously. A strong peoples movement will be able to bring about change in the quality of life, one that enhances human dignity and is based on truth and justice, which God intends for all God's people.

To this end, URM needs to empty itself of the old (that which is useless and bears no fruit) in terms of outdated practices and goals. Instead, we need to put on the new in order to equip ourselves to provide alternative ideology and strategies to work for transformation in the context of the new sociopolitical developments. This is especially needful in the fight of the cessation of the Cold War ideology.

How do we, as URMers, work more effectively to address these problems? Let us look at our human history as a series of peoples' struggle for dignity, justice and freedom which concretely ought to be experienced as equal opportunities for women and men, for the poor and rich, and the enjoyment of basic human needs so that none may experience lack, and the state of well-being and opportunity for self-determination.

Since we work on the belief that people matter, we need to devote ourselves to organizing for the empowerment of people in all sectors. Thus far, in all the recent historical developments, we have not provided an alternative ideology. URM has to be involved in ideological cum practical issues in the work of social transformation. Being URMers means we are no longer to be habitual ritualistic Christians (HRC) but to be totally concerned and committed persons (CCP) to the cause of Christ.

The URM is under no illusion that the concerns raised are major problems which are deeply rooted in the socio-economic-political structures of the societies we live in. Nevertheless, together with the community of people in Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world, we will continue striving in our work for justice and peace, which God intended for all creation.

URM emphasis

The primary focus of the URM has always been and will always be the people. It is the people who matter, especially the farmers, the fisherfolks, the workers, the slum-dwellers, the ethnic minorities, all those people of God who are victimized.

Our work in the URM is to actively communicate with the people and share with them the liberating message of the Gospel. Those who suffer under political oppression, economic exploitation, socio-cultural discrimination, ideological manipulation, foreign domination, and religious indoctrination. We must communicate and share their lives in such a way as to empower them to truly become a people of God in order to build a genuine human community, where peace, justice, equality, love and care are prevailing way of life.

URM concerns and thrusts

The URM in Asia is trying to work closely together with the people to develop a new strategy based on the peoples' aspiration for social change. People can be empowered by exercising their own abilities to organise themselves for the transformation of society. A new mission is to be articulated both in theory and in practice within the Asian multi-cultural context. URM work needs to be concretized with regard to the respective issues whether rural, urban, fishery, ethnic and minority, migrant worker, economic justice, multi-faiths and cultures or peace and environmental issues.

Needless to say, this mission is not easy to carry out in our local contexts because of various constraints. Politically, most Asian countries are under dictatorial or authoritarian regimes, thereby depriving their peoples of the right to participate in creating a better society for all.

Socio-economically, Asians live within discriminatory and exploitative structures which have Western capitalistic values intricately woven into it. Thus, there is an evil force at work which subtly and continually nurtures a spirit of competition that ruptures the sense of community and the wholeness of creation.

Religio-culturally, we are diverse in our thinking and lifestyle. As such, antagonistic sentiments can be easily aroused to cause division so that the ruling governments may more easily take the peoples' attention away from more important issues. This will enable them to carry out their exploitative policies in collaboration with the West without much opposition, however, the URM in Asia will continue to deal with the immediate concerns and hold them in top priority of its mission task.

According to the Marxist view, the social system is divided into three spheres. The first is the family where love and care is the basic relationship between people. The second is the civil society wherein exists individualism and competition amongst people. The third is the state which tries to combine the two spheres into a unity.

It is needful that URM thrusts should focus on these three primary groups in its endeavour to help the people achieve the totality of their ideals and aspirations for bringing about a just society. The ultimate achievement of this is when we witness a real degree of human liberation in the family, the civil society and the state.

URM ideology is action-oriented. URMers hold the belief that people have the potential power within themselves to work for the betterment of their life through social changes. As such, the people demand and expect constant changes to happen within their respective situations. The rise of the masses of people/minjung to political consciousness and their direct participation in political changes is a good example of social transformation happening in the midst of modern historical developments of our time.

Authoritarians practise the way of `initiative from above'. In other words, changes can only be brought about from top-down by bureaucratic reform. URM ideology, however, giving utmost respect to peoples' power, believes and practices the way of `revolution from below', that is, from the grassroots upwards. We have sufficient examples of the success of peoples' movements in various parts of Asia. I cannot over-emphasize the fact that URM thrusts should focus on the people—those who are oppressed, exploited and marginalised in Asian society. They are the ones capable of bringing about structural changes from the grassroots itself.

According to Mao Ze-dong, the term `the people' holds different meanings in different countries and in different historical periods within each country. He further expounds that there is a four-class bloc, viz: the proletariat, the peasantry, the petite bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie. These four classes are struggling and competing with each other for greater participation in the leadership of the society. For Mao, revolution can only succeed when the poor peasantry are allowed to participate in the leadership roles in China. The locus of the people's power stems from the rural area and lie in the hands of the peasants. We can see from world history also that the working class people are the real power base in the socialist countries.

Herbert Marcuse, however, has a different opinion as to where lies the locus of people power. He holds that in advanced industrialized societies the working class is no longer a revolutionary force and that the revolutionary future resides among students, women, blacks and other alienated groups. These groups of people form the real power base. The growing consciousness of their own enslavement make them candidates of revolutionary action for social change.

The alienated groups in the urban and rural areas are the major thrusts of URM for their empowerment as subjects of their own history. Although Mao and Marcuse might be considered as old schools of thought in social studies, we URMers still need to study and know their theories in order to derive a better understanding for our ministry in the area of urban and rural concerns.

According to Mao, everything in the universe contains contradictions. These range from ideas to matters and to social relationships. Contradiction is the nature of reality. This means that certain contradictions will continue to exist in any social system. Furthermore, not all contradictions are the same. This is because there are antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions which constitute a special denial of certain elements. In classical Marxism, the major source of conflict in the world was the struggle that was constantly occurring between classes. The antagonistic nature of class conflicts or antagonistic contradictions can be resolved through complete victory of the proletariat. It is becoming clearer for us that the real power base is founded on people who are alienated and who no longer remain under a contradictory state but rather who want to be agents in bringing about social change.

We URMers claim to be `the people of God', a term which goes back to the Old Testament, `the people of Yahweh', those who were liberated from slavery in Egypt. The liberation motif of the people, more specifically the liberation experiences of the people of God, will be a permanent source for URM involvement in the peoples' movement of which we are engaged in.

URM's theology is a theology of the workplace where God's salvation and liberation is taking place through the peoples' struggle for self-realization. Therefore, URM's theology should begin with the people—the grassroots—and reflect a biblical liberation story of the people of God, sharing the common vision of the people, and following the life of Jesus who liberates us from sin and frees us from all bondages of human enslavement. We are proud of the new developments of contextual theologies in our region, particularly in Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. I am sure all of us are quite familiar with our own contextual theologies which deeply express our peoples' experience and faith in the light of the biblical message of God's work of salvation and liberation.

Consideration needs to be given also to URM's place in the social movement, in other words, within the peoples' movement. The classical school of thought regarding social movements categorizes five dominant groups as leading forces in modern history. They are the labour movement, the students' movement, women's movement, the peace movement and environmental movements. The URM is related to all these important movements for the purpose of carrying out its ministry. The problem is that these social movements or peoples' movements have gradually developed into movement organisations, a result of institutionalization.

Of course, we recognise that every movement requires some sort of organisational structure in order to fulfill its aim and purpose and to ensure the smooth running of its day to day work. However, our weakness is that now we have lost the movement character of the past, which is actual action-oriented movement work. Whereas in the past, the spirit of the movement was in the actual involvement in the lives of the people, now the institution has quenched the spirit of the movement.

Now is the time, therefore, to remember the past character of the movement and with a new spirit develop a radical movement through fresh and creative initiatives for URM work in Asia. We may retain the original character and spirit, as well as ideas and concerns of URM but we must avoid the tendency to repeat old strategies and methods year after year. Instead, let us work towards developing new and radical paradigms to achieve the aspiration of the people for a just and peaceful society.

"URMers"

URMers are people who are being sent into the enslaved human community HERE and NOW to do the work of liberating, after the example of Christ. In order that we might experience the true meaning of the power of Christ's resurrection, let us try to follow Jesus Christ, our example, remembering his humiliation, his suffering on the cross, to the point of his death and his resurrection. We need to overcome our human weakness in our faith in Christ and commit ourselves anew as disciples of Christ in order to fulfill the "missionary mandate" as given by Christ in Matthew 28:16-20. We need to constantly look into the authentic messages of the Bible which is the record of God's liberating act in human history. Therefore, we have to take God's plan and will for the world and its inhabitants seriously.

The signs of hope

In an age where socioeconomic and political events are pointing to a bleak future especially for the Asia-Pacific scene, what signs of hope can there possibly be? To my mind, it is clear that we as members of the URM together with the people are one of the signs of hope. the <M>minjung church in Korea, the Basic Christian Community in the Philippines, and the Community Labor Church in Hong Kong are examples of the signs of hope in our time.

The community of believers should continuously provide for people to be sent out to preach the Good News to the poor and the oppressed in order that the sign of hope may become a reality. Furthermore, as individuals we are called to spread the faith by word and deed, to be true witnesses that Christ, the Liberator, is in our midst. This salvific work would require us to work together with peoples of other faiths and ideologies to build a just society based on peace and full humanity.

A new age is dawning soon. We are living in a crucial historical age of 'great risks' and 'uncertain future'. It is an age where a constant battle is going on between human efforts and the natural environment - where technology versus ecology. Whereas, in fact, human efforts and nature should mutually respond to each other in order to maintain a balance in life.

URM tasks

Although the following statements may seem to center along the same trend of thought, let me highlight some of these URM thrusts:

• URM is promoting and supporting the peoples movement so that all the sectoral groups may be empowered.
  
• URM is participating and working with grassroots so that a strong solidarity networking can be formed to work for democratization and humanization.
  
• URM is responding and challenging in conflict situations so that a just society might be established in each particular context.
  
• URM is cooperating with and encouraging each other in relation to other ecumenical organizations and non-governmental organizations so that social change might be hastened.
  
• URM is developing and promoting younger leadership within URM groups so that each one may be enabled to independently handle relevant issues in their given workplaces.
  
• URM is searching for and articulating alternative ideological and theological perspectives so that new paradigms may be found.
  
• URM is compiling and producing more resources so that new challenges on the "people's agenda" may be consistently dealt with.
  
• URM is concentrating on finding out new visions and strategies so that URM tasks may be sharpened in each given situation.
  
• URM is analyzing and investigating mass media and social systems so as to liberate people from being captive to ideological indoctrination.

Action required

Let me reiterate the priority concerns of URM:

1. Community Organizing for Community Development (COCD)
   
   One of the main characters of URM work is community organization (CO). Community organizing and community development should continue in our work to enhance the quality of life of peoples.
   
2. Theological Articulation for Self-Confidence Building
   
   We, Christians, have our own faith tradition. The scripture is the source of our faith which leads us to practice where God and his peoples along with the whole creation has responded with each other. Therefore, popular reading of the Bible is an important aspect for URM work. Also, theological articulation is a liberating element for the oppressed peoples, compassionate element for the marginalized, visionary element for ordinary people and contextual element for the peoples who are facing every difficult situation. We have to provide a certain theological framework so that neglected peoples so that they may be truly empowered based on Biblical teachings.
   
3. Solidarity Networking for Coalition-building
   
   Presently, TNCs and religions are organizing themselves to exercise their powers in people's day-to-day life. How then can we break through these powerful mechanism? To my mind, perhaps solidarity networking among the genuinely concerned people may be one way to overcome this barrier. It is testified that Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi writer who receive death threats from Islamic fundamentalists were able to escape to Sweden. Although it is an individual case, solidarity network has successfully managed a fate of her life. Another example is the issue about `comfort women'. The `comfort women' issue was a tiny voice of a few concerned people in Korea during the campaign's early stages. But it spread like wildfire to neighboring countries because of a strong solidarity network. A coalition was eventually formed to popularize the issue and include it in the global agenda. Now this issue has met a certain settlement to some extent.
   
4. Advocacy Work for Awareness-building
   
   Sometimes people are misused by others unknowingly. In the same vigor that people try to discern why they are facing all kinds of problems, they should also conjure how to tackle and resolve such problems. We have to pose issues sharply in order to raise the awareness of people with particular sensitivity to the fact that URM relates with different sectors in our society. Advocacy work start with posing issues and then leading to a concientization process that will contribute to the whole course of awareness-building in our URM-related work.
   
5. Leadership Formation and Empowerment for the Grassroots
   
   We have a lot of expertise and resources within URM groups in Asia. Unfortunately, we are unable to utilize these resources in order to develop our grassroots leadership in the local context. Therefore, we have to continuously coordinate in building grassroots leadership in URM through its sectoral groups in Asia. Empowerment is a continuous process.
   
6. Information for Effective Communication Channels
   
   We are living in a global village. Telecommunication overflows with all kinds of information. We know what is happening around us through telecommunications. However, we need to develop our own mechanism to analyze the facts and examine the consequences and disseminate all the important information to URM groups in Asia. Thus, there is greater demand for DAGA's services in this area in order to effectively develop communication networking among action groups in Asia. Also, we want to publish stories of those who wish to share with others for mutual encouragement or to help them develop their own strategy.
   
7. Building Up Mutual Supporting Mechanism
   
   It is time for us to build up our mutual supportive mechanism among the URM groups in Asia. We have to find out a way of sharing our resources including personnel, experiences, expertise, ideas and financial resources to gradually develop an inter-dependent relationship among URM groups in Asia. Hopefully, we will be guided by Christian as well as secular groups in this effort.
   
8. New Initiatives for Coordination
   
   The mass media has talked about the trade war between China and the United States. Similarly, trading arrangements are the concerns of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and never people's livelihood. Trends in economic groupings among interest blocs will be another challenge for all of us. This is one of the by-products of globalization. Therefore, URM needs to do careful examination of this phenomenon and coordinate a proper response.

URM Self-Evaluation

The URM in Asia has many good testimonies to share about people's ongoing efforts in the areas of concerns such as rural peasants, urban poor, women workers, racial minorities, indigenous peoples, migrant workers, trade unionism, economic justice, theological reflection, anti-pollution and environment. It took more than 30 years of dedicated hard work to produce these success stories.

In the past, the role of URM has been to build supportive communities of people at grassroots, caring communities of people in marginalized sectors, nurturing communities of people within the URM network, resilient communities of people to protest repressive regimes, sharing communities of people of their vision and resources, and expanding communities of people in churches as well as in societies.

As a result, URM has earned a good reputation through their direct involvement working with the people of various communities. All this work was carried out by our senior friends, with the more concrete foundation laid by the first generation of URMers in Asia. Now that one generation has passed, we have to thoroughly evaluate ourselves in relation to --

• the nature of the ongoing URM work to examine its relevance in the light of a rapidly changing Asia;
  
• the operational mechanism of URM structures to see whether it is truly grassroots-oriented for the larger benefit of the people or just carrying on for the sake of programmes:
  
• the financial self-reliance policy has been aggressively initiated by local or national groups; and,
  
• the leadership of URM which needs to be consistently provided from within URM.
  
• the renewal of church and society by providing new ideology, theology and methodology.
  
• We need to honestly examine these five basic concerns. Only thereafter can we discuss more authentically about credibility, accountability, and responsibility in relation to URM operations.

Meanwhile, I can think of two options in carrying-out the task of evaluation. One we may choose to destroy existing structures and programmes of URM and build an entirely new house for URM with an entirely new architecture along with a totally different approach. Or, we can keep the present structure and programmes and renovate according to the needs of post-modern era. Otherwise, we will tend to adopt all kinds of evaluation just for the sake of evaluation. Personally, I would prefer the idea of renovation rather than to start from square one. I prefer renovation because I feel that the ideas of URM are still valid and the theology of URM has matured in time. However, it is time for us to renovate the URM structure or framework so as to effectively carry-out our mission.

How then can we renovate URM in Asia? What kind of color? What kind of ideological perspective? What kind of functional mechanism? What kind of position in the social movement? What kind of mission work in the ecumenical movement? What kind of partnership of mission with other faiths and ideologies? What kind of involvement in the peoples movement? What kind of financial facilities to look for? These questions we have to answer if we are to find a unique place for URM in the Christian movement in our time.

As we have observed, two most important reminders are that of policy determination and implementation of URM. Therefore, in the process of evaluation we have to bear in mind that policy determination and implementation should be carefully examined. And evaluation should be fairly provided as balance sheets of our accountabilities.