Thought for the Week: Jubilee
Tim Jones reflects on the Biblical meaning of 'jubilee' and its relevance today
This time last year, Elizabeth the second said to a meeting of faith leaders ‘the concept of a Jubilee is rooted in the Bible’. Whilst looking forward to her own celebration, she failed to mention that a biblical jubilee is not about a monarch’s reign, but was a celebration because debts were cancelled, slaves freed, land returned and fields left fallow.
All these were linked. Those working on the land got into debt when harvests failed. To feed their families they borrowed from neighbours. As debts rose and families became unable to pay, they had to sell off their land. Rent was charged on the sold land, creditors got richer, debtors poorer, and debts increased. Now, when struggling to pay, debtors sold off what was left to them; daughters, sons and themselves. Many ended up in slavery. Jubilee was a time to stop and put right these wrongs.
In the 1990s, the ancient concept of jubilee began to be used to articulate the imperative to cancel third world debts. Many countries, particularly in Latin America and Africa, were lent large amounts in the 1970s by US, British and Japanese banks. In the 1980s interest rates shot up at the same time as prices for these countries’ commodity exports crashed. The debt was no longer payable. But it kept being paid. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) made new loans, which paid off banks whilst recycling the debt. In return, countries were made to implement radical austerity and liberalisation.
Large debt payments, low commodity prices and austerity proved a disastrous mix. In both Latin America and Africa, economic ‘growth’ was negative across the 1980s and 1990s. In Africa, the number of people living on less than 80p a day increased from 205 million in 1981 to 330 million by 1993. And the size of the debt increased, too.
The jubilee campaign challenged the view that these debts must be paid. Today thirty-four countries, primarily in Africa, have had $130 billion of debt cancelled, finally freeing them from the 1970s debt burden. Others, such as El Salvador and Jamaica, are still trapped by a four-decade old debt.
Throughout the 2000s, even larger debts were building-up. In countries such as Ireland, Spain and the UK, banks lent and borrowed huge amounts amongst themselves, and from foreign banks in countries such as Germany. When this bubble burst, debts were pushed onto the public through, amongst other things, the bailout of banks.
Today, the people of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain face a similar crisis to Africans and Latin Americans in the 1980s and 1990s. Bailout loans are paying off banks, with debts coming to be owed to other governments through the EU and IMF. Austerity and debt payments are leading to increases in poverty; one in two young people in Spain are now unemployed. And the debt is just getting bigger.
As with the call for third world debt cancellation, we need a moral voice calling for a change of direction. Unjust and oppressive debts need to be cancelled, avoided taxes paid in, and regulations introduced to prevent the financial system creating huge debts.
Jesus declared ‘The year of the Lord’s favour’ – widely understood as the year of jubilee. One of his central messages to his followers was to ‘release us from debt, as we release our debtors’. But as well as endorsing jubilee, he goes beyond it. He tell those who have wealth to lend without expecting a return to stop making debt a moral obligation that has to be fulfilled – no matter what the consequences are.
Tim Jones
Jubilee Debt Campaign
More than three hundred faith leaders have signed an open letter to the prime minister, which will be delivered on 5 February, calling for a ‘Jubilee for Justice’. It calls for debt cancellation and major changes to the world’s financial systems.
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