Is it fair?

Since the end of the Second World War, society has moved away from a philosophy of one-size-fits- all to made-to-measure. I am not only talking about clothes but everything. We only need to walk into a supermarket and look at the vast choice available to realise that the customer is king. We can choose the product which exactly fits our criteria and needs. Take cornflakes, for example: we can choose the original cornflakes, cheaper supermarkets' own-brand cornflakes, high fibre flakes, fairtrade cornflakes, flakes with various types of dried fruit added, sugar coated or with chocolate; the choice is huge and that is an example of just one product.

How many choices do we make each day? Choices about what to wear, where to go, how to get there, when to leave or come back, what, when, where and how much to eat; our choices might be based on pleasure, ethics, desire, peer pressure, conformity or any number of other reasons. We are a society which is used to making choices: we expect that and we are used to having views and opinions which we can choose to air in a variety of ways if we wish.

How does our faith fit in to all this? We may choose to wear only fairtrade clothing which is produced for a fair days' pay in another country. This of course will affect our fashion choices and style. We may choose to wear clothing that is not produced by child labour. Are we well enough informed to know which chainstores are using suppliers who have no child employees or do we not look into it and just hope for the best?

We can ask the same of the food we eat, is the farmer who produced it being paid a fair price for the product? Does he have enough to be able to feed his own family? Soya is produced in many countries, it is used in our food but also in the feed given to cattle in meat production. Huge amounts of rain forest is being cleared to give farmland so more products, especially soya, can be produced for animal feed in the western world.

Farmers in some countries are forced to buy seed which has been gene manipulated to only produce one crop. This means that the farmer cannot keep back some of his crop for the following year and plant it to produce a harvest, it would not grow. New seed has to be bought each year but what if the crop fails due to weather or pest? The farmer then has no money to buy more seed for the following year...

These issues should concern us a Christians, we ought to know what is going on in our world when it affects us and the choices we make. God is a god of justice, he is always on the side of the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. We who worship him and seek to live our lives for him should try to be like him, supporting the poor, weak and vulnerable.

It is easy for us to say that we  alone cannot change the world. That is true but we are not necessarily called to change the world either. We are however called by God to make wise and godly choices when and where we can. With modern technology it is easy to find out about the products we buy if we choose to but that perhaps is a choice we unconsciously make; to not find out, so we don't have to respond to facts we are uncomfortable with.

This is one example of many excellent websites for information:
http://www.traidcraft.co.uk/international_development

Play the trade game:
http://www.thebuyinggame.org/

More info, reports on purchasing practice:
 http://www.traidcraft.co.uk/international_development/policy_work/purchasing_practices/purchasing_practices_reports.htm
http://www.traidcraft.co.uk/international_development/policy_work/purchasing_practices/purchasing_practices_reports.htm

The Lord our God says:
Psalm 82.2-4
“How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?  
Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.