Wolterstorff on AJS

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What I Learned in Honduras
by Nicholas Wolterstorff

Wolterstorff (second from right) and fellow visitors listen to a child rape survivor’s mother tell how AJS helped them.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, an eminent Christian philosopher and prolific author, has taught at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford, and the Free University of the Netherlands, as well as at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Mich.). His books on justice include Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Eerdmans, 1983), Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2007), and a forthcoming book on the relationship between justice and love. In late March he spent five days visiting AJS in Honduras along with several others from the U.S.

Over the course of my five-day visit with Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa I was moved and inspired by the dedication, tenacity, imagination, and courage displayed by the staff and leadership of the association. Two aspects of ASJ's work particularly impressed me, and two ideas I was exposed to were especially thought-provoking.

Impressive aspects of AJS's work

1. I was fascinated by the way in which AJS has crafted its struggle against injustice to the particularities of Honduran society—particularities very different from those of North American society. While working for a North American relief organization, Ver Beek, Jo Ann Van Engen (his wife), and four Honduran colleagues saw the need for an organization that was indigenous to Honduras and focused not on relief and development but on dealing with the most egregious of the injustices present in Honduran society. They founded AJS in 1998. The association now has fifty-five people on its staff, about three-quarters of them women and almost all of them Honduran.

2. I was impressed by the courage of AJS staff and leaders. One anecdote particularly encapsulates this. On December 4, 2006, AJS lawyer Dionisio Díaz was assassinated as he was headed for court to participate in a hearing involving security guards whose labor rights he was defending. Kurt told me that upon hearing the news he fully expected that most of the staff of AJS would resign; the work was just too dangerous. Only one person left.

Thought-provoking ideas

1. Justice is impossible in the midst of pervasive fear and distrust. The first item on the agenda for my trip was a visit with AJS's Peace and Justice Project, which provides investigative, legal, and psychological aid to poor victims of violent crime. Project coordinator Roberto observed that it is commonly said that the failure of Honduran officials to deal with crime against the poor is due to corruption.

Both he and Kurt argued, however, that though there are indeed corrupt officials, the fundamental problem is not corruption but fear and a pervasive lack of trust. Poor people do not trust the police or the judicial system. The police do not trust the prosecutors, the prosecutors do not trust the police. The result is that the poor are afraid to take action when they are the victims of crime, and police and prosecutors are afraid to take action when crimes are reported. There is plenty of evidence that this fear is warranted.

However, I also saw that this fear and lack of trust can be overcome, and justice done. In the afternoon we were driven up into one of the targeted neighborhoods and invited into a neat, clean, small, and humble living room. Two women spoke of the rape of their daughters and told of how the police declined to do anything; then AJS intervened, and victims, justice officials, and AJS worked together and the perpetrators were discovered, apprehended, and convicted.

2. AJS takes a distinctive stance toward government. Our field trip one afternoon was to the Attorney General's office. Here we met with the heads of several divisions. They expressed their gratitude for the many ways in which AJS had assisted them: conducting investigations, encouraging witnesses to testify, lending the prosecutors cars when they were without transportation.

AJS representatives declared that they too appreciated the level of mutual cooperation, but they made clear that they would continue to file complaints when they found officials negligent in carrying out their responsibilities. The people from the Attorney General's office nodded to indicate that they were well aware of this!

In the course of these discussions the distinctive stance of AJS toward government came into focus for me. The implicit assumption in everything AJS does is that it is the task of government to establish justice in society by instituting a system of just laws, by enforcing those laws, and by securing justice when the laws are violated.

Given this assumption, AJS does three things: First, it stands alongside the victims and defends their cause. Second, AJS does not try to execute an end-run around government, nor does it content itself with dispensing aid and charity to victims; it holds government responsible. Third, it does not content itself with issuing denunciations; it assists government in carrying out its task.

These observations led me to recall what St. Paul says concerning the task of government in Chapter 13 of his letter to the Romans. Government, says Paul, is the servant of God for our good; God has assigned to it the task of “executing wrath on the wrongdoer.” We are to give it “due respect.”

My visit was all-too-short. But my impressions were vivid, and my memories are indelible. I had seen the faces and heard the voices of some of the wronged and vulnerable in Honduras. And I had witnessed first-hand the work of a thoroughly indigenous organization which, in the name of Christ, defends the cause of the “downtrodden” with great tenacity and courage.

Read more of Wolterstorff's thoughts on his trip: Check out this full-length essay in the Christian Century.
(Views expressed in this article are the author's, and are not necessarily those of AJS)

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