The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology - 08 - Globalization and Narrative

Globalization and Narrative
Oxford Handbooks Online

Cheryl Kirk-Duggan
The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology
Edited by Sheila Briggs and Mary McClintock Fulkerson
Print Publication Date: Nov 2011 Subject: Religion, Religious Identity, Christianity, Global Religions
Online Publication Date: Jan DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199273881.003.0024
2012
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter explores from a Womanist perspective the complexities of how commingled systems, texts, and violence
shape lives, stories, and experiences of the sacred across the globe, beginning by presenting a methodology and
exploring concepts of narrative, theology, and globalization. It then analyzes an assortment of texts, noting points of
ambiguity, especially in the intersections between story, belief, and worldview. The selected texts represent a variety of
narratives or modes of expression that convey tensions between inclusion and exclusion, and which pertain to community
development, yet are not often used together in feminist or Womanist analysis. These texts include: (1) The Tower of
Babel (Gen 11:19); (2) selected chapters from the 1948 United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which
focus on what happens to human bodiesliving bio-texts or embodied narratives in and of themselves); (3) the song, We
are the World (1985); and (4) human bio-texts, such as bodies of victims of sex trafficking, sexual assault, and rape as
an act of war.
Keywords: womanist thought, narrative, theology, globalization
People worldwide experience supreme beings or powers and speak of their experiences through stories. From
Genesis, the Gilgamesh epic, and the Vedas to sacred creation narratives of Yoruba, Shinto, Apache, and Cherokee,
humankind has pondered its beginnings, witnessed divine revelation, and transmitted these myths orally and in written
form. With modern technology, we have access to even more stories, global theologies, and philosophies. But what do
these narratives teach us about life? Rich in textures, characters, parables, allegories, and symbols, stories communicate
a myriad of dynamics, from epistemology and ethics to rhetoric and revelation. Stories empower and instruct, but also
penalize and invalidate those deemed other. Some voices are privileged. Other voices are silenced and oppressed. Some
narratives transform and encourage renewal. Other texts humiliate and destroy, stomping on creative cultural
imaginations, and scapegoating persons because of gender, class, race, ability, sexual orientation, age, and other
categories of identification. While some epics and myths have elevated, empowered, and endorsed women and feminine
deities, other stories and their interpretations have dishonored or demonized women and made them responsible for the
world's evils.
My essay explores from a Womanist perspective the complexities of how commingled systems, texts, and violence shape
lives, stories, and experiences of the sacred across the globe. After presenting my methodology and exploring concepts
of narrative, theology, and globalization, I shall analyze an assortment of texts, noting points of ambiguity, especially in
the intersections between story, belief, and worldview. The selected texts represent a variety of narratives or modes of
expression that convey tensions between inclusion and exclusion, and that pertain to community development, yet are
not often used together in feminist or Womanist analysis. My texts include: (1) The Tower of Babel (Gen 11:19); (2)
selected Articles from the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which focus on what happens
to human bodiesliving bio-texts or embodied narratives in and of themselves); (3) the song, We are the World (1985);
and (4) human bio-texts, such as bodies of victims of sex trafficking, sexual assault, and rape as an act of war.
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(p. 475) Womanist Thought: Exploring Narratives
Womanist, derived by Alice Walker from the term womanish (1983: xi), refers to global women of African descent who
are audacious, outrageous, in charge, and responsible; a black feminist or feminist of color. Womanist theory invites one
to live in the present, be aware of history, engage in radical discerning, challenge, analyze, and make a difference.
Womanist theory is a discipline, thought process, and lifestyle concerned with exposure, analysis, and transformation of
societal and personal injustices affecting the marginalized, as symbolized by poor black women. Womanist theory is
interdisciplinary and examines oral, aural, visual, and written media, as well as bio-texts to create its epistemology,
hermeneutics, and philosophy of intellectual, spiritual, and holistic life. Womanist emancipatory theory engenders
mutuality, community, and stewardship of freedom amid responsibility, and honors the image of God, the essential
goodness in everyone.
The body of knowledge and research of Womanist thought includes, but is not limited to, theology, ethics, and sacred
texts that excavate questions about the divine and human, faith, thought, power, language, values, praxis, history,
behavior, culture, aesthetics, and community in diverse contexts. Womanists champion God-given freedom and see God
as a personal, not an abstract philosophical construct. Womanist analysis mines from both theory and lived reality, a
combination critical for engaging theology and narrative amid globalization.
By using a Womanist reading founded on noted black feminist bell hooks rubric of killing rage as a transformative
metaphor, I shall use twelve liberative and creative concepts for reading narratives.
Hooks argues that oppression is insidious. If we pretend that it does not exist, that we do not see or know how to
change it, oppression will continue. Change requires commitment. Denial fuels our collusion in oppression. One way to
alter denial is to employ killing rage: a revolutionary resistance, a place of aliveness where one names, unmasks, and
engages self and others in profound politicization and self-recovery in order to grow and change (hooks 1996: 12, 16).
Pathological, addictive, and dysfunctional behaviors dull pain and rage, and we become complicit with white supremacist
patriarchy. We must temper rage by engaging a continuum of emotional responses toward self-determination (19). For
hooks, sharing rage facilitates communication and builds relationships; dampening rage leads to assimilation and
forgetfulness. Killing rage, an electrifying tool for change, energizes and encourages those who experience it, but
thwarts violence. It initiates action and exposes how apathy, dominance, misery, and complicit thoughts and actions bind
us. It allows us to experience narratives anew as we educate for freedom (4, 8, 19). By using twelve themes that
emerge from the concept of killing rageradical, revolutionary, righteousness, revelation, rhetoric, realization,
risky, representational, rising, restorative, relational, and resiliencewe can analyze the content and context of
narratives in a way to inspire transformation and just action. Killing rage, as a lens for reading globalization, theology,
and a variety of texts, thus encourages originality and poses difficult, reforming questions that lead toward healing and
justice in life-giving ways.
(p. 476) Playing Hopscotch: Globalization, Narrative, and Theology
Hopscotch is a game in which one tosses a stone into an area drawn on the ground and then hops through it and back to
regain the stone. Game rules vary according to the group and number of players. Because little girls tend to be
hopscotch players, hopscotch makes a good metaphorical lens for exploring language about women's experiences and
stories. All players have the opportunity to win (even though, because winning is determined by accuracy of throwing the
stone, staying off the lines, and strength and balance, not everyone may score easily), and to win in a game that offers
communal enjoyment. A childhood game like hopscotch thus invokes the possibility of transformation, and when used in
concert with a form of revolutionary resistance such as killing rage, it provides us with a way for critiquing both how
scholars talk about globalization, theology, and narratives and the impact of economics, culture, and politics on women's
lives.
Globalization, a business marketplace practice, affects the designing and developing of financial, technical, personnel,
marketing, managerial, and other entrepreneurial decisions for facilitating economic integration and worldwide
interdependence of countries, ignoring traditional political boundaries and historic geographical limitations. Globalization
emerged with voyages of discovery, land theft via manifest destiny, imperial hubris, freebooting conquest, and
colonialism. Recent expansion of technology and increased interdependence has made globalization an even more
critical issue in understanding economic, political, cultural, and demographic interconnectedness. When viewed through
the lens of hopscotch, we are invited to notice how, in the process of globalization, in the fluid mix of transnational
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entities, production, people, investment, and information, a particular authority constructs a new sociocultural, economic,
political world order (Brysk and Shafir 2004: 4). Globalization exploits and commodifies people through economic and
political hegemony, and unequal distribution of resources, and facilitates the movement of power from weak to strong
states, and from states to markets (5). Killing rage, as revolutionary risk, presses us to ask about the impact of
globalization on the lives of the least of thesepoor black women and poor women globallyand the levels of our
complicity in the process. As a community engaged in hopscotch, as people offering a chance of succeeding, we are
thus forced to ask how we can create hopeful possibilities to make a differences in such women's lives.
A Womanist reading of revolutionary risk via hopscotch must also wrestle with how we engage in theology and the
structures and functions of narratives. Tensions between belief systems, the quest for justice, and lived-oppression call
for us to focus on our human capacity to care and change through prophetic imagination, and to explore the role of
creative expression.
Narrative, a mechanism for storytelling, allows us to display this creativity by making events and thoughts engaging.
Narrative is made up of character, which involves the development of attributes. Scenes are its arenas of action, and time
frames the story's events. (p. 477) Narrative technique is use of descriptive dialogue and writing. Narrative's purpose
provides information about the intended action (Anne Fadiman and Joel Rawson, quoted in Scanlon (2003)). Often
complex and dynamic, narratives have a lot to teach us, particularly about the use of language to create meaning, and
how history scripts one's complex identity (Mathur n.d.). Thus narratives, as complex, powerful, and fluid texts, can be
engaged in order to investigate their interactive world processes (globalization) and to discern experiences of faith, God,
and humanity (theology), especially when viewed through hopscotch. I shall begin with the story of the Tower of Babel.
Narrative Run Amok: Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 19)
The Tower of Babel is an excellent foil for exploring narrative and globalization. In Genesis, the text suggests that there
is only one language spoken on Earth, and thereby implicitly rejects different dialects, nuances, and inflections. The
narrative introduces migration, building construction, and a city where people become one. The divine character
indicates that the people's perfect communication means that nothing is impossible for them, and determines to go down
and confuse their language, creating chaos and a world of different languages. The text thus lends itself to an analysis of
divine confusion versus human control, and I shall also use it to explore women's epistemology.
Genesis 11 sits at the crossroads of primeval stories and patriarchal narratives. Previously in the text, God has responded
to a rebellious people who had repeatedly failed to recognize God. Such failure to obey shatters the divinehuman
relationship, so God ultimately intervenes with the flood as reproach. Each reprimand is a response to a particular sin.
Amid sin and grace, people act and God responds, toward promises bestowed in Genesis 12: 13, where God covenants
to give Abram land, a son, and a relationship between Abram's people and God forever. Genesis 10 adds Israel's story to
all the world's nations, emphasizing her accountability. Although it mentions other languages for different peoples, the
narrative's real force is not about language development or national identity, but about theological questions of unity and
scattering (Bratcher 2008).
Genesis 11 focuses on Sumerian arrogance as the people build a tower that challenges God's power. Israelites twist
Bav-El, Gate of God, into Baffle/Babble Town. God reverses tables on the Sumerians, trumps their ingenuity, tempers
their arrogance, and diminishes their empire building. Unity dissolves into divergent communities as God leaves them with
difference: of language, people, communities, and cultures. The farmers and shepherds defy the Babylonian empire's
advance between Babylon (the city, the Tower) and Sinai (the wild, the Mountain) (Waskow 2001).
The whole earth (Gen 11: 1) rhetorically signals theological issues. Because God acts in response to the Tower, rather
than the huge Babylonian ziggurats or large step pyramids, the real concern of the story is not the construction but the
intent behind the tower's formation. (p. 478) Human beings constructed the Tower of Babel to enshrine themselves.
Their self-definition contrasts sharply with the divine action whereby God promises to empower Abram. Dennis Bratcher
notes that, ironically, people fear being scattered and now God does not want them scattered. While they find meaning in
their quest, their own human pride and arrogance are problematic: people do not like God or anyone saying what they
can and cannot do. God does not like humans deciding the same for God.
Modern Towers of Babel might include the World Trade Center towers before 9/11 and New Orleans before Hurricane
Katrina. The Twin Towers, like ziggurats reaching to heaven, symbolized heighted greed and capitalistic consumerism,
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where the haves got more, the have-nots were robbed, manipulated, and got even less. Those who consumed more
produced less. New Orleansa disaster waiting to happen as a seaport on a swamp situated in a fishbowl between a
flooding river and two major bodies of water in hurricane alleyalso shows human hubris defying, in this case, God's
natural environment. The aftermath of the World Trade Center suicide crashes and Hurricane Katrina reflect an inability of
responders to communicate. Disruption and alienation resulting from human beings becoming gods underlies Genesis 11,
where people focus on unity to set themselves apart from God. Theologically, creating human unity for the wrong
reasons may precipitate future unspeakable harm. Metaphorically, the scattering and multiple languages depict God's
revelation and God's purposes for humanity. Often when people violate God's purposes, disorder or babble occurs
(Bratcher 2008). Erecting towers or Holy Roman/Anglo-American empires can cause disorder and, significantly,
oppression for those deemed other.
Genesis 11 demonstrates human compulsion and obsession to erect monuments in hopes of a peaceful future, argues
Bob Deffinbaugh; the Tower is only a detail, not the real problem. A distorted common language endorses unbelief and
disobedience, thus embezzling grace. God prevents people from achieving their desired evil (Deffinbaugh 2009). Amid
rebellion, and the arrogance, and pride of human activity, the core problem is fear: fear of obscurity drives some to acts
of shame and daring, excessive tedium, or self-aggrandizement in order to take that which belongs to God. God halts
human progress, and satire highlights the foolishness of human activity (Deffinbaugh 2009).
Building a city does not threaten God's rule. However, the human belief that there is no human limit to human progress
and human perfectibility is problematic. Assuming human unwarranted self-confidence if people succeeded with their
edifice complex, God confuses human language in order to clarify reality, abruptly ending the Tower project. Ironically,
many people desire most what can destroy them, as they falsely identify with and find real meaning in the accumulation of
wealth and bricks and mortar that bear their names. False activity and shallow relationships make us miss life's meaning,
enshrining our insecurity (Deffinbaugh 2009).
Three readings of the Genesis 11 narrative by so-called racial ethnic scholars reflect diverse ways of ascribing meaning
and identity, and provide an opportunity to search for revolutionary resistance and optimistic transformation. The African
Blue Bird story, which contextualizes Solomon Avotri's reading of Genesis 11, is a folktale that concerns a human
community connecting with earth and Sky (Nyame/God) in African traditions (Levison and Pope-Levison 1999: 17). The
Blue Bird folktale addresses why people do not have the (p. 479) power to affect life, their salvation, or their own
group. Avotri argues that when God causes confusion, halting tower construction, God acts to remain transcendent and
unreachable. Human identity evokes powerlessness, and people find meaning and connection with Nyame/God.
Paradoxically, however, God remains close to humanity. While the God of the Hebrew Bible is an ethnocentric God, with
covenantal relations to Israel, Nyame is not related to a particular people (204). Thus, by eliminating a particular chosen
group or elect, a resistance against elitism optimistically moves toward inclusion of others.
An Asian reading focuses on imperialism. Choan-Seng Song frames his reading of Genesis 11 within a story concerning
Japanese colonial conquest of Taiwan. After being defeated by Japan, China ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895, but a group
of Taiwanese villagers desired to find meaning in the experience of peace. Therefore, five Taiwanese brothers tried to
negotiate for peace with Japanese soldiers via writing in Chinese characters, which both groups understood, but all five
brothers were murdered as they approached the Japanese (Levison and Pope-Levison 1999: 2736). For Song, conflict
resides between human beings, not between God and humanity. Those with tremendous power, with financial and
political resources, identify with excess and accumulation, building monetary Towers of Babel, perpetuating an unjust
global economic order. God strives and suffers with people as they struggle for justice (312). Song challenges us to
engage in revolutionary resistance toward community where one language and the same words can be heard in many
languages and different words (32), a shift or hopscotch of justice, inclusion, and diversity.
A Latino reading of Genesis 11 reflects on genocide and colonialism. Using the blitzkrieg of 1552, when Pizarro landed
and began demolishing the Tahuantinsuyu (Inca) empire, Jos Miguez-Bonino also reflects on the Babel story. Speaking
of language as a tool of communication, conquest, and dilemma, he posits that Nimrod, who begins building his empire in
Babel, is a tyrant who represents Assyrian or Babylonian kings (Levison and Pope-Levison 1999: 1316). The text
denounces the ancient colonialism found in the false unity of Babylonian domination and imperial arrogance, and
celebrates a liberation brought about by new ways of speaking that brings freedom to different nations. God's action of
going to see and act is God's judgment on colonialism and the deliverance of people: it is hopscotch or transformation
enacted by the divine. God wants a new unity and blessing, not domination. Revolutionary resistance asks whether there
can there be unity and universality that requires eliminating all languages, or adoration of a tower.
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A Womanist Reading Engages These Voices of Liberation, Via Justice and Intimacy
A Womanist reading of Avotri's, Song's, and Miguez-Bonino's interpretations of the Tower story unmasks imperialism,
genocide, and colonialism, but works for global justice, liberation, and intimacy, while my analysis of Bratcher and
Deffinbaugh finds (p. 480) that fear is at the root of the Genesis narrative. What Genesis 11 affirms for God, it
problematizes for humanity and raises the following questions: How can God be so close, yet so far away? How can God
be in control, yet good things happen to those who do bad, and bad things happen to people who do good?
Following Avotri, we see that many women have no access to power or healthy lives. Technological advance has not
necessarily benefited women. Some religious traditions force women into subjugation, robbing them of a salvific
experience of God. With Song, many women experience undue conflict and lack financial and political resources; they
are forced to do menial, migrant, domestic, and sex trafficking work. Following Miguez-Bonino, others use language
against women, through manipulation, control, and low pay as Western extraction of care forces poor women into
enslaved, integrated systems. Many want power over and have no desire to share power with women. Some make noise
about justice without personal intimacy. Many lie about beliefs and identity. Following Deffinbaugh and Bratcher, many
are too afraid of obscurity, shame, being scattered, and being told what to do; ultimately, there is a fear that they cannot
control women, and they do not want to be told that women are equal and have a right for liberation. For some, the
desire to be God impedes their capacity to hear and see people's differences without needing to manipulate or do
violence.
Another way to think about the Genesis 11 narrative focuses on God's motive for confusing the language. Some persons
lives indicate they do not believe in a good God, and are not committed to the well-being of others. Has God confused
our languages so that we can no longer articulate words of community and empowerment? With my twelve Womanist
hermeneutical concepts, inspired by hooks notion of killing rage, we can ask radical, revolutionary questions about
women and note how the world is not a safe place for them. By so doing, we can heighten their awareness so that they
do not unconsciously contribute to their own harm or demise. We can embrace righteousness by understanding that
women are sacred vessels and should not be deemed insignificant. We can temper our need to engage in conflict over
manifest destiny, oil, and territory, to colonize or demonize women's bodies. We can embrace divine revelation by being
open to new ways of communication. We can embrace a rhetoric of language to provide opportunities to learn women's
stories that often go unheard and to discern new ways to be with women. Discernment brings us to the realization that
such moves would be risky, for this is unchartered, complex territory that might teach us something we would rather not
know. Such truth telling requires courage and a commitment to justice that may leave us vulnerable and open to the
possibility that such truth telling may alienate the very ones we are trying to help. A focus on representational and
relational aesthetics helps us see the one and the many. We are at once individuals and members of multiple
communities. Neither experience is superior to the other; thus the impact of both experiences must be recognized. In
the rising and restorative view of language, we see how confusion stymies women and thwarts justice. Language and its
use are so powerful; once words are spoken, they can never be unheard. Thus, we must also be ever vigilant in the ways
we speak and the particular words we use because class, place, and culture all shape how words are heard and the
appropriateness of their utterance. We must be careful in what (p. 481) we say and how we say it, notably if our goal is
justice and solidarity. Relational connections of mutuality promote care and resilience. Perhaps people and communities
can come to see new options as we communicate in good faith.
Legal and Fragile: United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In 1948, the United Nations produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After adopting this historic document,
the General Assembly requested that all Member countries share and display this text regardless of their political status
of country or territory. This Universal Declaration represents the bio-texts, that is, the individuals and communities of
persons, often in developing nations, though also including the poor in socio-economically advanced nations, who as
people engage in actions for themselves and their communities in particular places and particular times. The Preamble
and thirty Articles claim all persons are due dignity, freedom, and respect (United Nations 1948). In order to decipher
connections between narratives, rights, and worldviews, I shall examine selected Articles that highlight gender, race, or
class: Articles 2, 4, 12, 16, and 25.
Human rights, a focus on the universalization of rights based on valuing a sense of common humanity, were first
articulated in the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.1 In this historic document, traditions of
natural law and individualistic, anti-hierarchical Enlightenment ideas commingle. Such individual rights have since shifted
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from citizens rights in a political entity, to human rights for all persons in a political state, to global solidarity rights that
transcend geopolitical boundaries. International human rights do not yet have the coherence of US white male citizenship
rights; nevertheless, universal human rights press us toward a global community (Brysk and Shafir 2004: 45, 7).
Globally, there is tremendous tension between human rights, the rhetoric and reality of human rights, and state
sovereignty. Laws and rights are political narratives. State sovereignty, the state's right to self-govern, is supposed to
promote stability, peace, and security, while universal human rights call for action that transcends borders. States view
rights as legal entitlements and a form of protection. Human rights activists focus on moral entitlements, toward
increasing global legal entitlement. However, loopholes remain in international human rights law, making enforcement
and normative global definitions impossible. While these citizen-based, human-based, solidarity-based human rights are
connected and interrelated, the sociocultural location, historical dynamics, and the individual or collective nature of these
rights often place them in tension with each other (DeLaet 2006: xiii, 2, 12, 14, 1921).
Reverberations from the global human rights movement emerged in the political arena during President Franklin
Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address, in which he named his Four Freedoms for the world: Freedom of Speech
and Expression, Freedom (p. 482) of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear of war.2 That same year,
Eleanor Roosevelt began her work on human rights, and President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill both
signed the UN Declaration. In 1945, several groups in San Francisco worked to have human rights incorporated into the
charter founding the UN, which resulted in explicit references to the need for, and importance and protection of
international human rights, but did not include specific human rights. The Third General Assembly of the UN adopted its
Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. This agreement emerged from the monstrous acts of
Nazism and fascism, and the need to reclaim human dignity and rights. Though human rights law emerged strongly after
World War I, totalitarianism, World War II barbarism, and the Nuremberg trials heightened the need for international
human rights laws. Words of freedom have not always resulted in respect for human freedom. The 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights expresses human rights significant to life and liberty: civil, political, socioeconomic, and
cultural rights (US Department of State 1994: iiv):
Human rights include life, liberty, and security; freedom from arbitrary arrest, unfair trials, and the right to be
presumed innocent until proven guilty; rights to privacy, freedom of residence and travel abroad; equal rights for
men and women in marriage, family life, and property ownership rights of personal opinion, conscience, and
religion, for the vote in fair government elections, for rights in employment and for fair pay, for protection of
children, and for education. (Neilson and Neilson 1975: 27-8)
The UN's General Assembly adopted two conventions in 1945 that include race: the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Genocide Convention bans actions
that seek to destroy racial, ethnic, national, or religious groups (33). The Refugees Convention seeks to protect any
refugee, one who fears persecution due to religion, race, nationality, group, or political view (33). Since 1967, the
Refugees Convention pertains globally to all refugees, though sovereign states still determine refugee status. Despite
stronger human rights rhetoric, the United Nations community has since made limited or no response to genocide (a
collective crime that involves destroying a group of persons because of who they are and what they represent), as
illustrated by the denial of and impotent response to the 1994 Rwanda HutuTutsi genocide.
Oppression is also experienced by millions due to their class. Poverty is a socioeconomic, class-based human rights issue.
When people cannot obtain adequate housing, nutrition, or medical care, their well-being and human rights are
threatened. Globally, about 11 million children die annually from poor nutrition and preventable disease; 2 million people
die from pollution. About 1.2 billion people exist on $1 a day in developing countries, and about 27 million people are
forced slaves. At the intersection of discrimination and poverty, laws and policies targeting the end of poverty usually do
not address gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or biological sex (DeLaet 2006: 33, 938, 139). The Articles of
the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when combined with theology and human narrative, can yield new
insights into the oppression that infringes the human rights of all people.
(p. 483) Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind,
such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth
or other status.
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Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the
country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any
other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 2 accords freedom and unalienable rights to every human being. No person or sovereign state should be able to
deny anyone freedom because of their appearance, how their culture or science defines them based on their DNA, how
they communicate, their beliefs, or their commitments. No authority should deny any person claims of freedom because
of birth origins, socioeconomic class, property, or other designated criteria. The status of one's particular country of
residence is also not to infringe on his or her human rights.
These rights of freedom herald respect and empowerment, indicating that the gift of life entitles one to respect and
dignity. Some people believe a different appearance, politics, or faith makes people inferior and threatening. To deal with
such difference, some make those deemed different scapegoats for societal ills. If person(s) deemed other have little
political power, they may be persecuted. The Preamble and Article 2, state that no designation authorizes limiting the
human rights of another because of appearance, beliefs, access to resources, or current residence.
Article 4
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Slavery concerns the state and conditions of being in bondage, where a person, group, or institution violates one's
human rights, body, mind, or spirit. Chattel slavery is legal ownership of one or many persons, allowing them to control
the enslaved for socio-economic reasons. People experience slavery whenever they work under heinous conditions for
little or no compensation.
Article 4 does not equivocate: slavery is never an option and must be completely abolished. The proclamation by the
United Nations2004, International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and Its Abolitionrecognizes
that slavery continues. Bondage still exists in the form of company stores where workers must buy all their supplies and
never freely possess their own wages, thus similar to sharecropping after the Civil War in the United States. Underpaid,
without rights, and with no recourse, some migrant workers experience slavery as illegal aliens, especially when farm or
orchard owners easily take advantage of them. In some countries, some people may never go free. Additionally, sexual
trafficking constitutes another form of bondage: (p. 484)
According to the UN, 4 million girls and women are forced into sexual trafficking annually. Sexual trafficking is
complex sexual exploitation by commodifying women and young girls (boys and young men are also victims).
Such trafficking involves recruiting persons as prostitutes and includes forced labor. Victims often are so trapped
because of poverty and deprivation. (Chaung 1998: 11)
In a study of 475 people involved in prostitution from Zambia, USA, Turkey, Thailand, and South Africa, 62% reported
having been raped; 73% reported having experienced physical assault; and 92% stated that they wanted to escape
prostitution immediately (Farley et al. 1998: 40526). Annually, approximately 50,000 children and women are trafficked
into the United States for sexual exploitation or forced labor (Feminist.com 19952008). The United Nations International
Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) claims that about one million children enter into various sex trades annually. Along
with forced sexual slavery, they may face death due to HIV/AIDS, a pandemic in Africa. HIV infection is six times higher
among young girls than boys in Uganda. Old men look for young girls, especially virgins, for sexual exploitation because
they feel that these children are free from HIV (Feminist.com). Girls are not valued in some cultures as are boys. In fact,
many girls are missing due to sex-selective abortions and honor killings (Feminist.com). Mass rape in war has been
documented in various countries, notably in the continents of Africa and Asia. More than 20,000 Muslim women were
raped during the Bosnian war. Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were systematically raped during the 1994
Rwandan genocide. Most recently in Darfur, Western Sudan, people have described systematic attacks against civilians
by government-sponsored Arab militia and Sudanese military forces (IRIN 2004).
Sarah Maguire, lawyer and human rights consultant, insists that the global community must address rape. Rape, which is
often an organized, systematic weapon of war to threaten and destabilize civilian populations, targets girls and women
because imposed harm and humiliation hurts not only them, but also significantly hurts and humiliates men in targeted
communities. Approximately every 83 seconds a woman is raped in South Africa, although few cases are reported to the
police. Other acts of violence against women, against their bodies can also be physically brutal and psychologically
Page 7 of 14
damaging (IRIN 2004).
Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to
attacks upon [their] honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such
interference or attacks.
Privacy is the capacity of an individual to keep personal information secure, and to determine disclosure and access of
their own information. With privacy comes certain freedom to make decisions. Some scholars speak of three types of
privacy: informational, (p. 485) physical, and decisional.3 Depending upon one's socio-cultural location and one's
sovereign state, one may or may not experience privacy. Sometimes, access to financial resources or political clout may
guarantee more options for privacy. With technological advance, satellites, other surveillance devices, and increased
identity theft, privacy becomes more difficult. High profile persons in global politics or entertainment are often stalked by
paparazzi and reporters. Private citizens may also have their privacy threatened.
Article 16
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and
to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the
State.
Marriage is a relationship, historically, between a husband and wife recognized by legal and religious institutions as
contractual and consensual; ideally, it is a life-long commitment. This type of union is foundational to creating many
families. Since 2003, in some regions, marriage includes legal conjugal union of two persons of the same sex. One
concept basic to marriage is the sexual relationship as socially sanctioned activity. Though most cultures primarily
practice monogamous marriages, globally, some societies sanction polygamous marriages. Polygyny, and in some
settings polyandry, follows monogamy in popularity. In addition, there are several other types of marriages, from a
Mormon celestial and civil marriage to a proxy or a shotgun marriage.
Article 16, by declaring marriage a human right, makes provisions for a person to choose her or his life partner.
However, in some cultures, arranged marriages, where parents find a spouse for their child, remain normative. Parents
and society may frown on persons marrying outside the tribe or clan and espousing people from different social classes,
races, or religions. Some see such a marriage as one of convenience, to access a higher socio-economic bracket,
affording greater respectability. In some cultures, freedom to have equal rights is impeded through dowry killings and
sati, present in India (although not central to Indian religion and culture).
Dowry killings are homicides whereby men acquire money and gifts through marriage dowries only to murder their wives
once they receive such dowries. British reading of Hindu marriage dowry law during colonization changed ownership of
marriage dowries from women to men, which led to such dowry murders. Originally, Hindu culture did not make women
inferior to men; yet today most Hindu societies marginalize women and restrict them from employing their human rights.
Most current restrictions on women in Hindu culture exist because of interpretations of (p. 486) Hindu scriptures by
sexist males, or due to European colonization and their adaptation of European values and principles. Originally, women
in Hindu society arranged dowries that were set aside as collateral for financial emergencies. Additionally, the act of sati,
the Hindu/Indian ritual suicide of a wife after her husband's death, represents a violent practice imposed upon women.
Violence negates any sense of mutuality, and full consent (Polisi 2003).
Marriage, intimately tied to women's freedom, is complex, and many narratives about marriage are stories of care,
compassion, and contentment. Other marriage narratives include domestic abuse, sexual assault, and murder. While
women can be predators and abusers, men are the majority of abusers in marriage. Narratives of marital violence portray
the violation of human rights. Each of these UN Articles is a narrative about human rights, which affect women.
A Womanist reading calls for a radical understanding of human rights, where there is no excuse to withhold or overlook
anyone's dignity and freedom. Calling for a revolutionary understanding of human rights invites those who are able to
become activists toward reforming laws of sovereign states that fail to comply with enforcement of rights. Theologically, a
Page 8 of 14
righteousness model of human rights insists that all human beings are holy, and due freedom and human rights.
Revelation requires that we investigate to discover where government displaces human rights and have the courage to
ask our prophets, What shall we do? Rhetoric presses us to take seriously narratives of people's human rights
experiences towards speaking their truth and bringing about legal redress. Realization reveals where people are to help
actualize human rights. By taking such risks, we name violations and work for justice. Representational action invites us
to be artistic and organic as we invite others to take human rights seriously. Foundationally, human rights initiatives are
relational. To bring about global awareness of human rights failings requires alliances and working through, for example,
non-governmental organization (NGOs). Working for change involves a rising: we may take three steps forward and two
backward. A restorative posture helps us work communally, with much to learn, while avoiding paternalism. Working on
human rights reveals human resilience that fosters renewal and good will.
Such characteristics are present in a compelling way in the production, We Are the World.
A Litany of Global Love: We Are the World
Live Aid, like Band Aid before it, enlisted popular musicians to make recordings in order to help address famine in
Ethiopia.4 This song and the vision behind it reflect an altruistic narrative of globalization toward health and healing. Live
Aid began when Harry Belafonte, Calypso singer and civil rights activist, contacted Ken Kraken, president of (p. 487)
United Support of Artists for Africa, to release a benefit single. Prophetically, over 40 music industry icons enlisted to
support a human rights cause. We are the World, an anthem of conversion, won four Grammys in 1985, selling over 7.3
million singles and more than 4.4 million albums, while harnessing grassroots efforts and raising global awareness of
hunger.5 Later, in February 2005, this anthem was re-issued to raise money for AIDS research and tsunami victims. It
represents a positive movement from dream to song, from event to global action (West Coast Rendez Vous 2005).
The narratives of musicians and poets are often the stories of those we would often rather forget. We Are the World is a
dialogical confession and invitation that includes everyone, recognizes people are dying, and invites global participation
confronting famine. Because it envisions the world as one neighborhood, this powerful anthem conceives of each life as
significant and valuable. The global problem has a solution: access to food and water for famine victims. Live Aid raised
over $60 million for Ethiopia, Sudan, and other impoverished countries. This simple answer delivered needed items
despite complex bureaucracy, all too often characterized by corruption, graft, greed, and fraud, and the squandering or
misappropriating of aid. Ultimately, people need other people's love, compassion, and support to experience justice. As
children of God/Spirit, we are the world that can choose to help others. In saving others, we save ourselves and signal
that someone cares. Live Aid reminds us that everyone must lend a helping hand, because when we work together in
solidarity, we ultimately cannot fail. Live Aid provoked political change and provided a model for future action. On July 2,
2005, four days before the G8 Summit assembled in Scotland to hear a presentation from the Africa Commission
regarding debt and to combat the issue of 50,000 daily deaths of treatable illnesses, Live 8the sequel to Live Aidheld
five simultaneous concerts around the world.
However, according to Danny Schechter, in the years since Live Aid, the media, once an ally of suffering people, has
become an adversary. In 1985, struck by the Ethiopian tragedy, video-cams recorded, television responded, people
reacted globally, aid poured in, and those funds saved lives. Late Kenyan cameraman Mohammed Amin first documented
the debacle, but the Western press waited until the disaster became catastrophic before a feeding frenzy between
media outlets resulted, confirming that Africans only make the news as victims, when they suffer calamities, coups and
conflicts charity, not change, defined the response The famine was the story du jour; the follow-up was not
(Schechter 2000). In recent natural and war-related catastrophes, there are even fewer documentaries. Shows about
human rights, and environmental and development issues air in marginal time slots, to smaller audiences, without
promotion; too many people die out of public view, victimized by a mushrooming digital divide. Nevertheless, some signs
of change may be on the way. While Live Aid kept African women, as creators of culture, invisible, its focus on Africa has
fostered discovery of African contemporary music, where women are many of its finest exponents. Indeed, long before
Live Aid, Miriam Makeba focused global attention on South African apartheid. She became a role model for African
women musicians who shaped global culture, world music (Schechter 2000). Thus, while the media, conducting business
as usual, may not bring about change, creative responses, like Live Aid, can have positive outcomes.
(p. 488) From a Womanist perspective, the fact that artists embrace global issues through music-making with narratives
celebrating people's lives is a radical move. Collaborating to raise funds for the impoverished transcended boundaries of
Page 9 of 14
race, class, and gender, garnering an activist spirit and, briefly, was itself a reformation. The Live Aid group understood
the beauty and sacredness of human life and made an implicit commitment to a healthy life for Africans, helping us to
discover their impoverished plight. Live Aid artists became a prophetic voice for involvement, and their rhetoric was
expressive and forceful. Such work is risky, for to care globally means to be less self-absorbed. Coming together to
create this event was representational, artistic, organic, and from the heart; it was relational, as singers helped out of
love. Excitement about the event and song was a rising, where global interest served as a gesture of restoration, aimed
at healing suffering, so that the impoverished might experience resilience and inspiration in moving beyond the famine.
Nevertheless, while many bodies were fed and nourished as result of Live Aid, many women's bodies are still abused
daily as they are targets of war.
Made Wretched of the Earth: Women's Bodies, Global Bio-texts
The underside of globalization conjures up sweatshops, forced prostitution, disenfranchisement, and limited health care
access. Although many persons of privilege think women have arrived and do not suffer exploitation, abuse, or violence,
obstacles against women remain. Globally, women had only 15% political representation in 2003. In the United States
alone, women aged 12 or older experienced almost 5 million acts of violent victimization in 1992 and 1993, and reported
about 500,000 rapes and sexual assaults, almost 500,000 robberies, and about 3.8 million assaults (SoundVision.com
2009). Analyzing worldwide statistics of abuse and crime against women, I map out global experiences of contemporary
women's bodies as bio-texts. The women's bodies reflect the commentary of abuse upon their bodies, as their mental,
physical, emotional selves are ravaged and destroyed. Often with great resilience, the women act to resist, regroup, and
recovereven forming collectives to recreate their lives, in particular places during their lifetimes, as they tell and
embody the stories of destruction, which sometimes end in nihilism, but other times engage the reader in stories of hope
and transformation.
Globally, violence against women and children occurs on individual, institutional, structural, cultural, and interrelated
levels. Individual violence occurs with particular cultural expressions in the form of dowry practices, sati (widow burning),
widowhood rites, and genital mutilation. Women are also subjected to rape, sexual harassment, sexual coercion and
assault, domestic violence, and female sexual slavery. Institutional violence depersonalizes individual acts of violence and
sanctions family violence, espousing family honor and the economic subordination of women. Such belief systems use
gender and sexual violence to maintain or champion control and power, patriarchal (p. 489) superiority ideology,
property and profit-based economy, and militaristic values of dominance. Violence becomes normative, pervasive, and
impersonal and makes women invisible (Van Soest 1997: 11624). Some women experience repeated episodes of
violence and are subject to emotional outbursts, emotional withdrawal, intense questioning, and immense control over
social relationships and contacts (Kelly 1987: 479, 51, 54), including threats against their children. Globally, violence
against women and girls includes physical beatings, sexual assault, forced sexual trafficking, rape, forced prostitution,
annihilation because of gender selection, honor killings, genital mutilation, murder by intimate partner, and sexually
transmitted diseases in girl children. One in three girls and women are sexually abused or beaten during her lifetime
across the world (Feminist.com 19952008).
Other acts of violence towards women include female circumcision and other forms of genital mutilation, and occur in
lives of more than 90 million African women and girls. Author Alice Walker has made known this travesty in her activist
work and her novel The Temple of My Familiar, but girls and women still remain under threat of sexual violence and
assault (Feminist.com 19952008). While some men experience violence perpetrated by women, most domestic
violence is perpetrated by men. Domestic abuse and sexual assault damage human rights and peoples lives. When
perpetrators validate their actions using their faith beliefs, theology is crucial.
These stories represent bio-texts: the bodies of women and children that have become sites for aggressive, violent acts
of individuals, communities, and governments. Portrayals of sexual violence through literature, popular culture, and mass
media depict much sexual abuse as desirable, normal, and natural. Denial cultivates stereotypes that portray most rapists
as black males, most victims as white females. When abuse escalates to murder, various systems often trivialize women's
deaths (Bell 1993: 216). Thus, girls and women are stalked like prey.
Unfortunately, both the courts, and faith communities often blame or fail to support victims. Myths about Eve being
responsible for the alleged Fall (which was actually an expulsion) continue to underlie oppression of women. Male
chauvinist practiceswhich make women the property of men and demand female virginity before marriageare often
Page 10 of 14
subscribed to by many faith traditions and solidify the stigma of physical and emotional rape for the victim. Until the mid-
1970s, rules of evidence allowed a defense attorney in the USA to introduce information about the victim's sexual history,
while laws prohibited introducing the rapist's past. When rapists come from middle and upper classes and also when the
rape victim is older, there is a tendency not to believe the victim. With new laws, rape victims receive care that is more
sensitive; however, cavalier, misogynist, institutional attitudes of corruption and power allow rape, sexual exploitation,
and violence to continue (Braxton 1977: 12332, 1468), for guys are really just sowing their oats, are they not?
Until recently, Western law sanctioned battering of women by their husbands or male partners, and was complicit with
clergy, police, and legal and medical care systems that failed to address the issue. Indeed, the law against wife-beating
was not addressed until about 1970, though it was made illegal by 1870. Physicians often (p. 490) underestimate a
woman's abuse, may not identify spousal abuse, or may dispense medication too quickly. Family systems often fall apart
when males subject females to violence. Due to fear, low self-esteem, and financial distress, women tend to be at a great
physical and psychological handicap in abusive situations (Swift 1987: 315). Sexual/gender oppression minimizes the
vitality of persons considered a perpetrator's property.
From a Womanist perspective, these bio-texts encourage a radical stance, removing deaf ears and closed eyes to global
domestic violence and sexual assault. We must embrace revolution, reform laws, change how we build community, and
model and teach about relationships. Silence and complacency amounts to slow homicide for our most beautiful legacy
of our children, of all personhood. Devastating statistics call for righteous indignation, where we unite in interfaith
conversations and connect narratives, theology, and well-being. Where religious law supports violence, we must
advocate and model respect for women and for all of creation. Unfortunately, the presence of billions of religious people
throughout the world does not seem to guarantee that respect for others and that human rights are acted on.
Conclusion
A Womanist perspective on globalization framed by theology and narrative presses us towards revelation about new ways
of being, thinking, and learning. Narratives are critical to Womanist/feminist theology as we are able to use stories to
unmask and name injustices, and use other stories to inspire, relate, and empower. When we engage narratives, we
connect communally, as in traditional African cosmologies: I am because we are. The narratives in this chapter are
global as they reflect the tensions, contradictions, and paradoxes felt worldwide, relating many challenges and concerns
within contemporary human conditions. My twelve steps for reading narratives, from radical to resilience, provide an
opportunity for us to reflect on where we are at this moment in history. Have we been good stewards? Do we really care
about our neighbors? Do we care about the vast suffering that necessitates a human rights declaration? Do we care
about poverty, HIV/AIDS, and war? We cannot read these narratives using this paradigm without having to pause and
ask: Who are we? What are we doing? and Where do we go from here? Significantly, we must ask about what we are
doing that will support a viable planet for years to come. Certainly narratives are one place that can give us a reading
about the realities of the oppressed, those in the middle, and the socio-economically elite. With rhetoric, all words matter,
as language is our most accessible weapon. Levels of violence urge a call to awareness and action, despite risk, to
nurture healthy relationships, to speak truth to power, and to forbid the brutalization of men, women, or children. We
have an opportunity to demand theological justice, to embrace narratives, stories of the one and the many, connected to
the divine, in respect, love, and community. Can we really live if we dont care?
Works Cited
AVOTRI, SOLOMON (1999). Genesis 11: 19: An African Perspective, in John R. Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison (Eds),
Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
BELL, LINDA A. (1993). Rethinking Ethics in the Midst of Violence: A Feminist Approach to Freedom. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield.
BRATCHER, DENNIS (2008). Genesis 11: 19: Literary Context, Christian Resource Institute: Commentary on the Texts,
available at
BRAXTON, BERNARD (1977). Sexual, Racial and Political Faces of Corruption. Washington, DC: Verta Press, 1977.
Page 11 of 14
BRYSK, ALISON, and SHAFIR, GERSHON (Eds) (2004). Introduction, in People Out of Place: Globalization, Human Rights, and
the Citizenship Gap. New York/London: Routledge.
CHUANG, JANIE (1998). Redirecting the Debate over Trafficking in Women: Definitions, Paradigms and Contexts, Harvard
Human Rights Journal, 11: 65107.
DEFFINBAUGH, BOB (2009). The Unity of Unbelief (Genesis 11: 19), in Genesis: From Paradise to Patriarchs, bible.org,
available at
DELAET, DEBRA L. (2006). The Global Struggle for Human Rights: Universal Principles in World Politics. Belmont, CA:
Thompson Wadsworth.
FARLEY, MELISSA , et al. (1998). Prostitution in Five Countries: Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Feminism and
Psychology, 8/4: 40526.
FEMINIST.COM (19952008). U.S. Statistics, available at
HOOKS, BELL (1996). Killing Rage: Ending Racism. New York: Holt.
IRIN (2004). In Depth: Our BodiesTheir Battleground: Gender Based Violence in Conflict Zones. AfricaAsia: Rape as a
tool of war, available at
KELLY, LIZ (1987). The Continuum of Sexual Violence, in Jalna Hanmer and Mary Maynard (Eds), Women, Violence and
Social Control. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International.
KLUGER, JEFFREY (2004). Is God in Our Genes? A Provocative Study Asks Whether Religion Is a Product of Evolution,
Time, Oct 25.
LIVE AID (19952008). The Greatest Show On Earth, available at
MATHUR, ASHOK (n.d.). Narrative, available at
MIGUEZ-BONINO, JOS (1999). Genesis 11: 19: A Latin American Perspective, in John R. Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison
(Eds), Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
NEILSON, WINTHROP, and NEILSON, FRANCES (1975). The United Nations: The World's Last Chance for Peace. New York: New
American Library.
OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights, available at
POLISI, CATHERINE E. (2003). Universal Rights and Cultural Relativism: Hinduism and Islam Deconstructed, Bologna Center
Journal of International Affairs (Spring), available at
ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN DELANO (1941). The Four Freedoms, available at
SCANLON, CHIP (2003). What Is Narrative Anyway? (Part I), PoynterOn Line: Everything You Need to be a Better
Journalist, available at
SCHECHTER, DANNY (2000). We Are the World as an Oldie: Been there, Done That, MediaChannel.org, available at
SONG, CHOAN-SENG (1999). Genesis 11: 19: An Asian Perspective, in John R. Levison and Priscilla Pope-Levison (Eds),
Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
SOUNDVISION.COM (2009).
SWIFT, CAROLYN F. (1987). Women and Violence: Breaking the Connection. Work in Progress Series. Wellesley, MA:
Wellesley College.
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights, available at
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE (1994). Civil and Political Rights in the United States: An Initial Report of the United
States of America to the U.N. Human Rights Committee under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
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Washington, DC: Department of State.
VAN SOEST, DOROTHY (1997). The Global Crisis of Violence: Common Problems, Universal Causes, Shared Solutions.
Washington, DC: NASW Press.
WALKER, ALICE (1983). In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose. San Francisco: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
WASKOW, ARTHUR (2001). The Very Tall Tale of Babel, The Shalom Center, available at
WEST COAST RENDEZ VOUS (2005). We Are the WorldThe Story Behind the Song (20th Anniversary Special Edition), Jan.
29, available at
Suggested Reading
GUNN, DAVID M. and FEWELL, DANNA NOLAN (1993). Narrative in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
HEIDE, GALE (2009). System and Story: Narrative Critique and Construction in Theology. Eugene, OR: Pickwick.
JACOBS, MIGNON R. (2007). Gender, Power, and Persuasion: The Genesis Narratives and Contemporary Portraits. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
MCCREIGHT, KATHRYN GREENE (2000). Feminist Reconstructions of Christian Doctrine: Narrative Analysis and Appraisal.
New York: Oxford University Press.
SAY, ELIZABETH A. (1990). Evidence on Her Own Behalf: Women's Narrative as Theological Voice. Savage, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield.
SONG, CHOAN-SENG (1999). The Believing Heart: An Invitation to Story Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Notes:
(1.) La Dclaration des droits de lhomme et du citoyen is one of the vital documents of the French Revolution that
defines a set of individual and collective rights of the people. This document was adopted August 26, 1789the same
year as the United States Constitutionby the National Constituent Assembly (Assemble Nationale Constituante) as the
first step toward writing a constitution. Unlike the United States Bill of Rights, it is intended to be of universal value, and it
sets forth fundamental rights not only of French citizens but grants these rights to all men without exception; women
were still excluded.
(2.) The Four Freedoms delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on January 6, 1941:
Mr. Speaker, members of the 77th Congress:
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential
human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expressioneverywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own wayeverywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from wantwhich, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will
secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitantseverywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fearwhich, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments
to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical
aggression against any neighboranywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and
generation. (Roosevelt: 1941)
(3.) See http://www.unmc.edu/ethics/words.html
Page 13 of 14
(4.) Band Aid was the name of the group that recorded the original single Do They Know It's Christmas? / Feed The
World. Written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, We Are the World was recorded on November 25, 1984, by a group
consisting of almost 40 of the United Kingdom's and Ireland's best known pop stars of the time. Originally, Geldof hoped
to raise 72,000 for charities from sales of the single, but that estimate was exceeded almost immediately the record
went on sale; it went on to sell over three million copies in the UK, becoming the best-selling record ever, and to raise
over 8 million worldwide (Live Aid).
(5.) For lyrics for We Are the World, see

http://www.lyrics007.com/Michael%20Jackson%20Lyrics/We%20Are%20the%20World%20Lyrics.html and Joal Ryan, We
Are the World Reloaded, December 9, 2004, http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=1560
Cheryl Kirk-Duggan
Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan is a Professor of Religion at Shaw University Divinity School, Raleigh, NC, and an Ordained Elder in the
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Professor Kirk-Duggan is author and editor of over twenty books, including Exorcising Evil: A
Womanist Perspective on the Spirituals (1997); Refiners Fire: A Religious Engagement of Violence (2000); Soul Pearls: Worship
Resources for the African American Congregation (2003); Coeditor, The Africana Bible: Reading Israel's Scriptures from Africa and
the African Diaspora (2009); and with Marlon Hall, Wake Up!: Hip Hop, Christianity and the Black Church (2011). She has also
written numerous articles and book chapters.
Page 14 of 14

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Globalization and Narrative

Abstract and Keywords

Keywords: womanist thought, narrative, theology, globalization

(p. 475) Womanist Thought: Exploring Narratives

(p. 476) Playing Hopscotch: Globalization, Narrative, and Theology

Narrative Run Amok: Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 19)

Legal and Fragile: United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

(p. 483) Article 2

damaging (IRIN 2004).

A Litany of Global Love: We Are the World

Made Wretched of the Earth: Women's Bodies, Global Bio-texts

Rowman and Littlefield.

the Citizenship Gap. New York/London: Routledge.

Human Rights Journal, 11: 65107.

Psychology, 8/4: 40526.

FEMINIST.COM (19952008). U.S. Statistics, available at

tool of war, available at

Social Control. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International.

Time, Oct 25.

LIVE AID (19952008). The Greatest Show On Earth, available at

MATHUR, ASHOK (n.d.). Narrative, available at

Journal of International Affairs (Spring), available at

ROOSEVELT, FRANKLIN DELANO (1941). The Four Freedoms, available at

Washington, DC: Department of State.

Washington, DC: NASW Press.

Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Mr. Speaker, members of the 77th Congress:

The first is freedom of speech and expressioneverywhere in the world.

(3.) See http://www.unmc.edu/ethics/words.html

(5.) For lyrics for We Are the World, see

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