STEINBACH, Man. – It’s a well-known proverb: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.However, it’s not that simple in the real world, said Peter Rempel, executive director of the Mennonite Central Committee in Manitoba.”What if the fisherman doesn’t have access to the sea? Then there are some issues of injustice that also need to be addressed,” he said.To explore this and related food issues, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Manitoba’s Mennonite community initiated an art exhibit, Just Food: The Right to Food from a Faith Perspective.The exhibit, on display at the Mennonite Heritage Village Museum in Steinbach until July 4, features the creations of six Canadian and 12 international artists.Each artist was given a biblical text related to sharing or providing food or a modern human rights declaration on food issues and asked to produce a piece with a related theme.Aside from the art, the exhibit features informational panels.For example, Canadians spend 11 percent of their income on food, compared to 60 to 80 percent for people in the undeveloped world.The organizers wanted the artists to explore the faith and human rights perspective because there is a difference, said Paul Hagerman, public policy manager for the foodgrains bank.”The human rights perspective puts the individual at the centre,” said Hagerman.”The faith perspective has always emphasized the responsibility of the community.”Rempel said most Christians distinguish between rights and empowerment.”Human rights talks about entitlement and something you claim, whereas maybe we should be thinking about human rights as something we are responsible to extend to others.”It may not mesh perfectly with Christian values, but the modern idea of human rights has helped the world’s poor, Rempel added.”It doesn’t say everything we want to say as Mennonites or Christians, but it can be a useful way for us to talk about our obligations to each other.”Rempel said there is the danger of human rights devolving into dependence.”If human rights just becomes a tool for demanding things of others and not doing our own care for one another, then there are some problems.”Hagerman said when the Bible was written, people didn’t have an understanding of human rights, but understood they had an obligation to help.”For many Christians (today), that’s their main understanding of charity work, when it comes to feeding hungry people,” he said. “It’s referred to in various places in the Bible … that you have a duty, by your faith, to try and help out.”Hagerman said there are also references in the Bible where wise men urged the king or ruler of the day to consider the poor in their decisions.”Prophets, including Jesus, (said) we expect a society to be organized in such a way that there is provision for the poor.”Modern church and aid organizations continue to take that approach, lobbying governments here and abroad to establish a just society. That means governments should establish rules and structures that permit people to grow their own food or earn money to buy food.The debate over Christian values versus human rights is only a piece of the puzzle, Hagerman said, because thousands of books have been written on the topics of social justice, food aid and global poverty.
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