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SOLIDARITY -- WHAT IS IT?
Solidarity is one of the four key principles of Catholic social teaching. Catholic social teaching is a collection of principles that are designed to reflect the Church's social mission in response to the challenges of the day. The principles are rooted in biblical values and reflections on Christian tradition. This tradition calls all members of the Church, rich and poor alike, to work to eliminate the occurrence and effect of poverty, to speak out against injustice, and to shape a more caring society and a more peaceful world.
The four principles of Catholic social teaching are:
The principle of the dignity of the human person reminds us that every human being is made in the image and likeness of God and has an inalienable and transcendent human dignity which gives rise to human rights. It is the bedrock of all Catholic social ethics. The principle of the common good reminds us we are all really responsible for each other and must work for social conditions which ensure that every person and every group in society is able to meet their needs and realize their potential. The principle of subsidiarity concerns how participation and decision making should be organized. Responsibility should be kept as close as possible to the grassroots. The people or groups most directly affected by a decision or policy should have a key decision making role in it. Human beings are social by nature. We can not survive without others and can only grow and achieve our potential in relationship with others. Our salvation is bound up with that of each other. Solidarity is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good.
Option for the poor
Seeing the world through the eyes of the poor and standing with the poor in solidarity is a consistent theme of Catholic social teaching. The option or love of preference for the poor should lead to action for justice with and on behalf of those who are poor and marginalised.
An option for the poor is a response to the unjust ordering of society. Such a choice makes sense only in the context of an awareness that society is unjustly structured and of the urgent need to work for structural justice in each society and in the world as a whole.
To make an option for poor is not something added on to other virtues and other aspects of the Christian faith; rather it is an option which radically transforms all aspects of the Christian and moral life. This means that, if the world is to become a place of true justice, peace, and human fulfilment, it is essential that we give preferential treatment to the poor and the marginalised to compensate for their disadvantaged position.
Solidarity
Solidarity is an authentic option for the poor.
Solidarity is a deliberate choice to enter into the world of those who have been left on the margins of society-to share in a significant way in their experience of being mistreated, by-passed, or left helpless. Such a choice springs from compassion-a word which means, literally, suffering with others. It involves a choice to deepen this compassion by sharing to some extent, in the suffering of the poor. By entering the world of deprived people we extend and deepen our experience of ‘suffering with' those on the margins. And by doing so we come to share not only their pain and struggle but also their hopes and their joys.
By sharing in the life of marginalised people we begin to have that sense of togetherness which can be called the experience of solidarity. Without this experience of solidarity the would-be helper cannot help thinking about the poor not as ‘us' but as ‘them', merely the objects of our sympathy.
Solidarity - being one of us
The person who is not living in solidarity with ‘the poor' can scarcely avoid being paternalistic. And when it comes to working for change, such a person is tempted to be manipulative-trying to get ‘the poor' to take the actions which seem right to the ‘do-gooder'. Poor people will sense this, no matter how well it is disguised. To become an effective and respectful agent of change one must become part of the group in some degree and one must be able to experience oneself-and be experienced by others-as ‘one of us'.
Of course the person who is making the option has probably come from a different background and may retain a different accent or even have a different skin colour. In that sense the person may always be seen as distinct; but the group with whom he or she has come to live or work may nevertheless choose to accept this person as ‘one of us'-or at least ‘one with us'-one who shares their interests (in both senses of that word). In this fullest sense solidarity is a gift which those who are poor or marginalised may freely offer to the person who opts to share their life in some degree. It is a gift which cannot be presumed or demanded from them. They give it in their own time and in their own degree, and never to those who come to them with an attitude of superiority or paternalism.
God has a special concern for the poor and the marginalised. God ‘has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong; chosen what is low and despised in the world ...' (I Cor 1:27-8). The weak, the poor, the marginalised, and the disadvantaged are privileged instruments of God in knowing what needs to be done to overcome poverty and to bring about a just society. This means that we must take particular account of the experience and the views of those who are poor.
We must be careful not to assume that we are superior to the poor and the marginalised just because we think we are better educated or more efficient or more morally upright. This kind of unconscious cultural arrogance can be noticed only ‘from below' not ‘from above'. It would be picked up immediately by those who are disadvantaged but seldom by privileged people who have taken on this collective superiority complex.
The crucial point is that privileged people have a blind-spot in relation to these kinds of cultural assumptions and prejudices. If more privileged people do not make a serious effort to come into solidarity with the poor by sharing their experiences-at least in some degree-it is almost certain that their reading of social and political situations will be incorrect or inadequate.
It is necessary to take account of, and give special weight to, the view and the experience ‘from below', that is, from the perspective of those who are disadvantaged. This is because those who see things only ‘from above' are generally unaware of the blind spots which arise from their privileged position. Consequently they are unable to understand the situation correctly and therefore they cannot work out a correct solution.
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