Globalization & consumerism: Be a blessing and not a curse

Continued globalization of our economy is inevitable. Sometimes this is visible and obvious. You can choose to buy a foreign car or an American car. However, even such a visible distinction often isn’t representative of the entire picture. “American” cars may be made by American companies but built in Mexico. Another “American” car might be assembled in the U.S., but be comprised largely of imported parts. Conversely, “foreign” cars may be made by companies listed on a foreign stock exchange and built here in America, sourced largely with American-made parts.

Most new cars will have a label identifying which country the car was assembled in and percents identifying the major regions where the parts for the car came from. In some abstract sense you can know where and how your car was made.

Typically your clothes will have a label identifying what country they were made in. Have you ever thought about who made those clothes or in what working condition they were made with? It’s usually pretty hard to identify the factory it was made in, or in what working conditions.

What about the food we eat? In my hand I have an oats & chocolate energy bar. The label identifies 27 ingredients that make up this energy bar. I’m not sure what half of these ingredients are. What’s “maltodextrin”, “natural flavor”, or “color added”? I may be uncertain about what these ingredients are, but I have no idea where any of them came from. I can see that the bar is “distributed by” a company here in Minneapolis, but there’s no information on where the factory is that produced the bar or much less where the individual ingredients came from.

I recently learned that a significant amount of cocoa is harvested by children in forced labor (aka slavery) in West Africa. More specifically, 284,000 children toil in abusive labor conditions in West Africa’s cocoa fields. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Many of my go-to snacks – like the aforementioned energy bar – contain chocolate. While surely some of the chocolate I eat contains cocoa that wasn’t harvested by child slaves, it is inescapable that I have consumed large quantities of chocolate that came from the labor of child slaves. Wow.

So, what can we possibly do about this? Can an individual really make a difference? Well, for one, I’m going to start by eating significantly less chocolate. For whatever reason, this is harder than it seems. My favorite expensive coffee drinks contain chocolate. My cheap (money and calorie-wise) go-to snacks contain chocolate. However, I’ll work on finding alternatives.

But what if there was an opportunity to turn this would-be curse into a blessing? You’re probably familiar with fair trade coffee. But did you know that there are a whole host of other things that can be purchased fair trade? There are fair-trade options for chocolate, jewelry, clothing, handbags, and many other items. Buying fair trade ensures that workers receive a sustainable wage.

As the preceding video said – if every “churchgoer” bought just one fair-trade item per year, it would lift 1,000,000 people out of poverty for that year. Suddenly, there’s an opportunity to make a difference. It can be overwhelming to think about where everything we buy comes from. And, short of making everything ourselves or buying everything locally, it’s nearly impossible to know with certainty that everything we buy and consume was produced with sustainable labor. However, we can all commit to buying a portion of fair-trade produced goods.

Doing so not only benefits the families and individuals that helped produce the goods, it helps to send a message to industries that we actually care about this. It’s no longer difficult to purchase fair-trade coffee – most coffeehouses and supermarkets have fair-trade coffee options for purchase. If enough people voice their opinion with their purchasing habits, imagine seeing fair-trade candy bars at your supermarket or convenience station in the not-too-distant future.

Today’s Letter from Nobert

I have had the privilege of sponsoring a child through Compassion International for the last six years or so.  Periodically I receive letters from Nobert, the child I am sponsoring in Kenya.  When I first started sponsoring him, he was around 7 years old.  The letters I would receive early on often times included pictures that Nobert had drawn or colored and a short paragraph or two update.  Nobert recently turned 13.  He’s too old for coloring at this point, and the letters are getting longer.

Today’s letter was sobering to say the least.  While it started out with the usual tone, a few things set this letter apart from the rest.  Early on he said, “During the New Year we didn’t celebrate that day like Christmas because of the violence which was in the country.”  This was more or less mid-conversation, in between sentences about a wonderful Christmas celebration, and preparing for celebrating Easter.  But the real heart-wrenching part came at the end of the letter where he wrote, “Do you remember me telling you about the elections in the last letter last year?  After those elections is when violence started in our country.  There was no peace in our country.  For even one week leaders from other countries have come to speak to our leaders who say that the votes were stolen.  Me I do not know if it is the truth.  Many people have died.  Others lost their homes.  The only thing we trust on now is prayers.  I hope you will pray for my country to have peace.”

It’s really sad that Nobert’s had to mature so quickly, and is grappling with violence and the prospect of a stolen election.  I feel fortunate to live in a place where I rarely give a second thought to my own safety.  Beyond my own sadness for Nobert’s situation, I was a bit ashamed of how out of touch I am with world affairs.  While I vaguely remember hearing something in the news about violence in Kenya, I certainly didn’t dig deeper to find out more.

It serves as a good reminder to not take things for granted or otherwise become complacent.  Please take a moment to pray for peace in Africa — specifically in Kenya, and also to the north in the Darfur region of Sudan.  Also, if you’re not already sponsoring a child, please consider doing so through either Compassion International or World Vision.  I like them both because 84 to 87 cents out of every dollar goes directly to program expenses.  That’s significantly better than the average for most charities.