For a socially just, life-sustaining and democratic Europe
A call

• to faith communities, trades unions and all movements and individuals that are working for social, political and economic change,
• to build coalitions
• to work for the liberation of society from the stranglehold of the deregulated globalised economy and its competitive culture.

May 1998

In Europe there are clear signs of change. Unemployed people are no longer willing to be excluded and are taking the initiative. Trade unions are again active in politics and no longer allow their hard-won rights to be destroyed. Women's groups are tackling patriarchal structures. Students are protesting against cuts in education, the community against a health system that favours the rich and farmers against agricultural policies that benefit large companies and the owners of capital. Christians and even institutional churches are returning to their biblical roots and rediscovering their "preferential option for the poor". Congregations and citizen's action groups are giving sanctuary to refugees threatened with deportation and taking further action. Non-government organisations (NGOs) are pooling their resources in various campaigns for justice between North and South. The peace movements have gone public again, and ecological movements fight vigourously against threats to the natural world. Intellectuals, artists and even middle class people are speaking up and saying, "This is enough!"

With this European KAIROS DOCUMENT, we would like to discern the meaning of these new movements in Europe, and play our part in the changes they seek.

In 1985 the repression of the majority of the population in South Africa by apartheid reached its height. At the same time resistance was growing inside and outside the country. Following their theological reflection, Christians involved in the liberation struggle called upon the churches to opt clearly for resistance and solidarity. This served to strengthen the world-wide anti-apartheid alliances. They called their challenge a KAIROS document. They understood Kairos as the Greek word used in the Bible with the meaning opportunity for repentance and a change of heart, opportunity for change and for decisive action with the oppressed in a time of crisis or at the moment of truth.

In 1988, Christians in Central America were inspired by the South African document and produced their own Central American Kairos Document. In cooperation with the military regimes of the region, President Reagan had begun a "Total war against the poor" and their social movements. Those Christians among them formulated "Challenges to the Churches and the World". Finally Christians from the Philippines, South Korea, Namibia, South Africa, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala joined together to publish "The Road to Damascus - Kairos and Conversion". They called upon the churches and Christians, particularly in the North, to withdraw their support for the persecution of people (particularly in the South) and to renounce colonialism and imperialism - by analogy with the conversion of Saul to Paul on the way to Damascus, when he turned from persecution to establishing the Messianic community of peace and justice.

In 1989 ecumenical groups took up this call at the First European Ecumenical Assembly for "Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation" in Basel. They formed the European grassroots network KAIROS EUROPA. They had two particular concerns. Firstly, that injustice is not life-threatening only for people in the South. Neoliberalism, based on deregulated market forces, is leading to mass unemployment and social cutbacks in Europe too. It is not just a matter of the injustice that Europe meets out to other continents, but also of growing injustice within Europe itself, against which there is growing resistance. Secondly, such resistance can only be successful if people in solidarity with the excluded and disadvantaged in South and North, East and West, join together across the borders of different faiths and philosophies. This challenge, therefore, is not issued to Christians and churches alone. How did it come about?

Since 1996 KAIROS EUROPA has invited groups, movements and individuals to develop a European Kairos Document. To date, over two hundred of them have shared in the process of discussion and in formulating several drafts. New responses, additions and amendments have been coming in every day, so it is clear that we cannot claim that this version is the last word. We wish to contribute to stimulating a process that goes beyond this document.

We invite you to think about this document, to sign it, to continue the discussion and, above all, to form alliances with others in order to change the present situation. The causes of unjust developments in Europe and worldwide have common roots. We can only tackle them with any expectation of success if we work together.

Who are the people making this call?

The authors and signatories are people and groups of different kinds, with varying interests and political options, but with a common concern.

They include mainly self-help organisations of people particularly hard-hit by economic and social developments in Europe, along with grassroots groups and movements in solidarity with them. They work for social justice, peace and the environment; solidarity groups in partnership with groups and movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America; people struggling for social justice in central, western and eastern Europe; groups working against patriarchal structures and for just relations between the sexes; groups combatting racism on behalf of coexistence based on equal rights; peace groups and groups fighting against environmental degradation and for sustainable ways of living and working, and for sustainable attitudes and structures in all areas.

Among us are people who have been excluded. Their work has been taken away. They are in debt. They have lost their homes. They are recipients of social security and are lone parents. They are disabled. Women are especially disadvantaged in all groups. They are older people on small pensions. They are asylum seekers and migrants who suffer discrimination. They are victims of structural and sexual violence. They are excluded from society and the official churches, and from any possibility of influence, either directly or indirectly. Some of them even have no legal status. Many of them have retreated into ghettos, others suffer depression and others react with unaccustomed aggression.

They seek to unite with others for the right to be included.

Among us are people in insecure employment. Many are afraid of being the next to lose their jobs. Therefore they allow their employers to pressurise them into accepting lower wages, to accept worse working conditions, even to abandon a sense of solidarity with others and to pursue their own self-interest. They feel under stress, fall ill more and more often, but may not do so without risking their work and income. They feel that they are fighting for survival and have little joy any more. Together with others they seek strength to hold their heads up high.

Among us are young people with no hope of a decent future. They receive education that is inadequate. Many of them are illiterate, others are not very competitive and will never have a regular job. Instead of going to school or college they struggle to make a living. They fight for survival by living on the streets, working for meagre wages and by prostitution. They fight as child soldiers against other child soldiers in the wars of others, or find themselves constantly fleeing from oppression. Carefree play and the opportunity to develop their talents has given way to drug-taking and a culture of violence. Among us also are groups working for street children, others for the ecological rights of children who have been poisoned in their mother's womb by environmental pollution. Young people watch the present adult generation stripping the earth of its resources as if there were no tomorrow. Since Chernobyl, an industrial disaster that recognised no international frontiers, they have lost all confidence in any responsibility being taken for future generations. They are searching, therefore, for partners with whom they can fight together for a future worth having.

Among us are women threatened by cultural violence, physically and mentally. They are often treated like objects and degradingly stereotyped by the media, in literature and other arts. They are subjected to sexual harassment in many work situations. Their contributions to work and home are often taken for granted and made invisible in a world where women are considered to be subordinate to men. Violated and excluded by economic, political and religious structures, women resist all these forms of oppression. With other excluded groups they wish to be full participants in these areas from which they have previously been excluded.

Among us are groups and people from central and eastern Europe who are in the midst of transition and sometimes dramatic change. Before the majority of people had any idea about what was happening, a minority with power and influence were quickly able to take advantage of the situation. There was no analytical debate about the failed experiment with state socialism or the structures of the market economy. Many of the people have lost out socially and culturally; many have been uprooted. They were looking for a better connection between freedom and justice.

They feel they have been forcibly colonised by a new power. They do not want a bureaucratic state in which all the structures are extremely well organised, but a state in which they can enjoy social and economic justice. So more and more people are now ready to oppose the dictatorship of the market. A voice from Hungary said, "We live under the third dictatorship in our lifetimes, Stalin, Hitler and now the world market."

Among us are people of the middle classes who have in some way or other suffered discrimination or poverty and so have become aware. They see that injustice, the dismantling of the social welfare system, violence and the destruction of nature are in the end damaging the whole of society and consequently their own children and grandchildren. It is now clear that poverty is increasingly affecting their social class. They too suffer illnesses caused by pollution, and are becoming spiritually empty. They are trying, therefore, not to get stuck in the ethical dilemma between understanding these issues on the one hand, and the pressure to keep up their standard of living on the other. They wish to join with others to bring about the necessary changes in society.

Whom are we addressing?

Many people have lost faith that they are able to do anything to correct economic or political mistakes through voting or through dialogue with those in power. Some have given up hope. Others, however, organise themselves in civil society, a term used internationally to describe organisations and actions by citizens in all spheres other than the private and public sectors and the armed forces. We are convinced that it is only through such civil engagement from below that practical alternatives can be developed, and that economics and politics can once again be placed in the service of human beings. For this reason this appeal does not go directly to economic and political institutions, but more indirectly by being addressed to people active in civil society.

The concept of civil society is not unambiguous. There are those active in civil society working for the interests of the politically powerful and economically wealthy. We want to engage with those active in civil society working for people, nature and future generations - particularly those in conflict with those with power and money. We want to invite as many people as possible, given the very critical situation both in Europe and worldwide, to join (in their own interest) with these vital movements and, thereby, to send out signals of hope.

Most self-help organisations and movements concentrate on a single issue or particular group of people, e.g. unemployment. Such a sharp focus is necessary, but because the urgency of the work itself is so great, activists sometimes have no energy or courage left with which to fight on a broader front or to get involved politically. Single issue organising is the best way to overcome the exclusion and discrimination against people in our competitive society. Single issue groups are unique resources of wisdom, experience and knowledge of strategies for action.

A fundamental change in our economic, political and value system is necessary today. Because no individual can achieve that alone, it is paramount to work together. Our goal is to invite civil society groups like those mentioned above, as well as individuals, to engage in a process of reflection and action so as to reinforce their capacity to network and form alliances. It is not about building a new large-scale organisation, but the enabling of practical coalitions at all levels and with specific goals; local coalitions like Agenda 21; national coalitions like the solidarity with organisations of unemployed people in France; European alliances like the Euromarches against unemployment, job insecurity and exclusion.

In order to strengthen the ability to form coalitions, and to actually form them, we propose four steps in this document:

1. Seeing the truth of the situation
2. Recognising the causes
3. Making a judgement with our hearts and minds
4. Acting together

In this spirit we invite organisations and persons committed to a socially just, peaceful, life-sustaining and democratic Europe to reach agreements going beyond their single issue and, together with the victims, to support, or form, politically effective coalitions.

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