Trust, Risk, Passing Over and Ubuntu
  
Rev. Canon Vincent Strudwick, Emeritus Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and Honorary Fellow, Kellogg College, Oxford, UK

In the experience of most of us, trust is, by its nature, accompanied by risk.   We trust somebody, and that trust is betrayed; we are trusted, and find that we ourselves have broken that confidence.   This can damage and break both personal relationships, and community relationships at all levels in society; but it is the very life of society.

In the global society in which we now all live, it is essential for our common survival and well being that we build cultures of trust, being prepared to take risks for the common good.

But on what basis do we take the risk?  What distinguishes naivety and gullibility from trust?

Trust surely comes from the experience of a relationship – an in-depth experience – which faith communities and culturally diverse communities within our society have to work at very hard in order to achieve.   We think we ‘know’ about each other, but too often that knowledge is superficial, and not the basis for trustful commitment.

We need to create opportunities to ‘pass over’ into the experience of an alien community, its beliefs, habits and customs before we can begin to trust ourselves to dialogue together about the common concerns of life together and survival.

After the recent (July 2011) shooting tragedy in Norway, I was encouraged by the press coverage of the first of the funerals of the young people murdered; it was that of a Muslim girl, and the funeral procession emerged (apparently) from a Christian Church, led by an Imam and Christian Minister, walking side by side.  It was a huge act of trust and solidarity that could only come from trusting relationships already established.

At the basis of such trust is an understanding that in spite of our differences, we have our humanity in common. Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks of ‘that African thing, Ubuntu’ – the notion that a person is only a person through other persons.   A person with ‘Ubuntu’ is open and available to others; all others, for we are incomplete without each other.  Ubuntu echoes the insight of John Donne, that ‘No man is an island…..I am involved in mankind’, and that was in the seventeenth century, long before globalisation.

The future is full of risk and perils for our planet and all peoples.  If we are to survive we must surely build cultures of trust, whatever that risk, and like the Imam and the Minister, walk together to face the future.

Copyright 2006 - Journal of Globalization for the Common Good - www.commongoodjournal.com