Book Review: Philip Hunt, *Journeys to Justice*,
HarperCollinsReligious, 1996.

This book is a raconteur’s commentary on Dom Helder
Camara’s famous line: ‘When I give to the poor they call me a
saint; when I ask "why are they poor?" they call me
a communist.’ Philip Hunt’s aim is to convince us that aid and
development, compassion and justice, go hand in hand if the ‘wretched
of the earth’ are to see their lives improved.

Philip Hunt is a marvelous story-teller, with a journalist’s
eye and ear for detail. He is currently the executive director
of World Vision Australia (though it’s now official he’s been
appointed to another post within World Vision International –
in Eastern Europe). He has been to terrible places only Westerners
who are aid workers will ever visit – Mozambique, Southern Sudan,
Gaza, Somalia. But his commentaries on Israel, the U.S., China,
South Africa (1991) are marvelous for their frank, sometimes off-beat
(and occasionally quirky) insights.

This book may prove to be World Vision’s best literary
advocate after Stan Mooneyham’s *What Do You Say to a Hungry World?*
Philip blows away some of the myths about Western aid organizations
(like why they sometimes allow executives to fly business class,
whether the aid gets through, issues of financial accountability,
the relationship between short-term and long-term aid and development)
with subtle and sometimes humorous asides.

Is he biassed? Yes, towards the poor, the Palestinians,
Christian evangelicalism, the aborigines. On the latter, his chapter
about ‘Australia’s Occupied Territories’ is the best riposte I’ve
read recently to Australian maverick MP Pauline Hanson’s brand
of ignorant racism. There’s a marvelous page (210) listing 12
reasons why oppressed peoples all over the world have lost hope
when their cultures disintegrated: it ought to be made into a
poster for every Western secondary school’s classroom. Summary:
‘The oppression created the violence and dysfunctional aspects
under which oppressed communities laboured’ (p.211).

There’s a fascinating story about Australia’s ex-Prime
Minister Bob Hawke’s visit to Somalia (why do some of our political
leaders have to swear so profusely?). And the two chapters on
Israel and the Occupied Territories ought to be required reading
for anyone with an opinion about the Middle East.

If you’ve been critical of (or naive about) foreign
aid, read this book before you utter another word pro or con the
subject! I worked with World Vision for nine years. I know first
hand its institutional strengths and weaknesses. World Vision
is Australia’s largest non-government overseas aid organization,
with a budget of about $100 million. It doesn’t get everything
right. But, then, which human institution does?

As a Christian, I’m tormented by two things: the
fact that most of the poor can be fed, educated, housed and live
in dignity if we, the rich, had the will to help them appropriately.
And second: we have a future appointment with the Judge of all
humankind (see Matthew 25) who’s going to ask us some tough questions
about what we did or did not do when he was poor, naked hungry
and homeless. As the old Negro spiritual put it, we’d better get
ready!

Rowland Croucher