Who Am I to Speak on Behalf of Them?

Reflecting on the disconnect between (my) privilege and (their) suffering

I recently caught up over lunch with an African friend – I mention not the country simply for reasons of anonymity – who voiced the guilt she felt for having a good job and living a comfortable and relatively affluent life in the UK whilst her family and friends in Africa had to deal with conditions of lack and poverty. I didn’t pry as to whether or not she sent the money she earned back to them, but this situation was familiar to me since it paralleled many Asian immigrant narratives in the West.

Just last week I made a trip back to Singapore for Chinese New Year to see family for the first time in 3.5 years. My paternal grandmother remarked that I must be making a lot of money since I was working overseas (sorry, Nai Nai). And my maternal grandmother remarked worriedly that I’d got skinnier, was I eating properly (I am, Por Por). For my great-grandparents who migrated from China and persevered through poverty, war and hardships of all sorts, making enough money and keeping one’s belly full – as well as the bellies of their children and grandchildren – was/is an utmost priority.

But suffering in Asia has a particularly sinister and ugly face. “More Asians are hungry, homeless, unemployed and illiterate,” it is reported, “than all the rest of the world put together. More men and women are despised, humiliated, cheated; more suffer the tyranny of governments and oppressive elite, and the fear and shame that tyranny brings, than all the rest of the world combined.” (p. 8)

So says Choan-Seng Song (aka C. S. Song) in Jesus, the Crucified People published back in 1990. As such, many East Asian theologies have emerged from this context of suffering and emphasise the need for liberation. Some insist a relevant Asian spirituality cannot disregard the ‘suffering millions’; it ‘cannot be an elitist or a “pie in the sky” spirituality’ but ‘a liberating spirituality’ that meets people’s needs and situations (e.g. dehumanising economic and political conditions).¹

I’ve come to realise this. The issue, or problem, however, is that my knowledge is based more in theory than in practice. Song continues:

This is the Asia betrayed by the prosperous Hong Kong, the orderly Singapore, the industrialized Japan, and by pseudo-democracy in most Asian countries. (p. 8)

Ouch. As a fourth-generation immigrant in Singapore, a missionary kid in Japan and now a first-generation immigrant in the UK, I’ve managed to avoid the distinctly Asian suffering Song refers to. I’ve never been hungry, homeless, unemployed or illiterate. I’ve been by all counts relatively prosperous and privileged. Yet I am also undeniably Asian.

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So here’s the question: How can I ‘represent’ Asia and be Asia’s spokesperson in the West when I have not experienced the full weight of ‘the history of suffering and pain’ (p. 8) generations over have had to bear? What right do I have to identify as an ‘East Asian Christian’ when my East Asianness is not rooted in experiences of poverty, oppression and suffering but nurtured in ‘orderly Singapore’ and ‘industrialized Japan’; and my Christianness is informed and shaped by western hegemony? Why bother when my privilege and affluence fails to reflect the realities on Asian soil, potentially making me more of an exploitative fraud than a credible authoritative voice?

It doesn’t help that ‘Asia’ is a woefully inadequate term whose monolithic connotations betrays its multifaceted reality/realities – East is so distinct from South is so distinct from West (e.g. linguistically, religiously, politically). But when living in western contexts as an Asian, one is automatically pigeonholed and identified with the great big continental mass because of a lack of awareness and knowledge that prevents nuanced distinctions between peoples, cultures and countries. (Many a time I’ve experienced well-meaning and friendly Christians in western churches mistaking me for other East Asians despite us looking nothing alike – or, more seriously, who find themselves in hot water when they treat mainland Chinese, Hong Kongers and Taiwanese as all the same.) The responsibility – or burden – of representation is often not by choice for many ethnic minorities; rather it’s one hoisted upon us whether we like it or not. And thus the dilemma of authentically representing 2.4 billion people regardless of whether or not my experiences accurately reflect theirs. (They don’t.)

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In Prophetic Lament, Soong-Chan Rah discusses Walter Brueggemann’s distinction between a theology of the ‘have-nots’ and a theology of the ‘haves’ – the former develop a theology of suffering and survival, the latter a theology of celebration.

Those who live under suffering live “their lives aware of the acute precariousness of their situation.” Worship that arises out of suffering cries out for deliverance. “Their notion of themselves is that of a dependent people crying out for a vision of survival and salvation.” Lament is the language of suffering. (p. 22)

In contrast:

Those who live in celebration “are concerned with questions of proper management and joyous celebration.” Instead of deliverance, they seek constancy and sustainability. “The well-off do not expect their faith to begin in a cry, but rather, in a song. They do not expect or need intrusion, but they rejoice in stability [and the] durability of a world and social order that have been beneficial to them.” Praise is the language of celebration. (p. 23)

Rah concludes:

Any theological reflection that emerges from the suffering “have-nots” can be minimized in the onslaught of the triumphalism of the “haves.” (p. 23)

This difference can be generally applied to the West (celebration) and Asia (suffering/survival). I felt convicted reading this, not because celebration is bad – in fact, it’s necessary and central to the Christian faith since we are indeed people of resurrection hope and future – but because celebration has become my instinctive default. It’s also the default of a comfortable western church that often alienates those who suffer, survive, lament. (I won’t rehash how the western church is abysmal at lamenting, failing to reflect the full gamut of human experience and emotion that you see in Scripture like the Psalms.)

I don’t think one should underestimate the prevailing influence of a pentecostal-inflected hope that manifests itself in a tone of unequivocal victory (within a spiritual warfare framework) – one that declares the name of Jesus over every situation, that breaks lies and speaks truth which sets one free, that claims overcoming of evil. Now I agree with all of the above; and the sure and certain hope of Jesus’ ultimate victory over evil is precisely one that sustains the faith of many in the Majority World especially in the midst of poverty, oppression and suffering. But I’ve come to realise that confident declarations are too easily distorted or corrupted if welded to an affluent and triumphalist exceptionalism that self-reinforces positions of status and privilege. Rather, perhaps, only when this victorious hope is melded with circumstances of poverty, oppression and suffering does it become a powerful and unadulterated weapon that does justice to the triumphant (yet upside-down) kingdom of God that Jesus declared on earth in the midst of his own poverty (itinerant preacher), oppression (Roman Empire) and suffering (persecution and crucifixion).²

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So perhaps a substantial part of the Christian message can only be grasped if there is greater understanding and/or identification with the realities of poverty, oppression and suffering – serving as a helpful corrective to a solely triumphalist version of the faith. But as much as I make an effort to understand… will I ever really be able to understand? I’ve experienced hardship and suffering, but compared to countless others it’s a mere trifle.³ A distinctly Asian suffering is neither my upbringing (past) nor my context (present).

And how qualified am I to speak a prophetic rebuke to the western church to rouse it out of a filled and satisfied lull when I myself am benefiting from and therefore complicit in the systems that allow for said filling and satisfaction? I think more and more about this as my engagement in social justice increases – as do, I suspect, a lot of well-intentioned, passionate activists in the West – where coming from positions of privilege means on one hand we have a greater voice more likely to be heard, but on the other the dissociative gap can make advocacy feel short-lived and meaningless. Simon Chan emphasises this ‘grassroots versus elite’ distinction in Grassroots Asian Theology – I too risk being an elite sitting comfortably at my desk, lecturing in ivory towers about and speaking on behalf of the people ‘down there’.⁴

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And then there is also the fact that so much of the poverty, oppression and suffering is so systemic – how does one even begin to tackle it? Okay, say you’ve done your research: you understand and acknowledge your own privilege; you listen carefully to voices on the ground, even providing platforms for them to speak instead of speaking on behalf of them;⁵ you gain entry into the ivory towers or boardroom meetings where power congregates and world-altering decisions are made... yet at the end of the day what can one mere person do? My friend who was an MP in an Asian country – again, lack of specificity for reasons of anonymity – went in to her role full of vigour and hope, only to come out a few years later crushed and disillusioned by the entrenched corruption in political institutions. What should one do? What can one do?

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I don’t want to gloss over these difficult questions and issues with a trite note of optimism, but being part of a faith tradition that allows me to identify as part of a people of hope compels me to try.

Two thoughts: one, I can’t change the world (even if I may have believed I could when I was younger),⁶ but I can impact the smaller spheres I operate and find myself in;⁷ two, that that is precisely the heart of Jesus’ message – that he’s come

to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;⁸

that wrongs will be made right, that justice will be fully served when Jesus comes again, and not one welded to empire (whatever form of Christendom, be it Roman or British or American) or to those in positions of earthly power and affluence and privilege.

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And finally, going back to the question of my own personal role and responsibilities: I will never fully know or identify with the predominant grassroots Asian experiences of poverty, oppression and suffering. But I’m also not going to throw in the towel and turn a blind eye. I must accept my current state of being, shaped by all my upbringings and influences – Asian (Singapore, Japan) and western (America, Britain) – because only then can I engage in my own contextual theologising. Then I need to figure out what I can do with who I am to bear upon where I am – and it’s already begun with being equipped with an awareness of the history of Asian suffering. This doesn’t mean needlessly bearing its full weight or superficially embracing a martyr mindset; rather it’s embracing hope that wrestles with and transcends precisely those sufferings.

To summarise, as an East Asian Christian in the West I seek:

• to prioritise listening to and learning from the diverse breadth of East Asian voices and theologies emerging from the grassroots level;

• to be just one voice in the West that advocates for my ethnic and cultural heritage out of a cross-continental, intergenerational solidarity to honour my East Asian siblings and ancestors who have undergone said hardships;

• to confront the oft-paralysing struggles of life and to cling on to a hope that will last – a hope that is realistic about life’s sufferings but that also transcends them by envisioning and positing a better future;

• to convey this hope whilst maintaining integrity with Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God – one not triumphalist in the worldly and material sense, but powerful in its subversive ability to both lament and celebrate.

As I aim to speak into my specific western context and trust others to speak into their respective contexts, hopefully together we can be voices that speak against the systemic evils and injustices that abound; and further declare the hope that we know in and through Jesus for all peoples, for all cultures, for all ages.

I don’t think the tension between my privilege and widespread suffering in Asia will ever fully resolve. But that’s probably a good thing – it’ll keep me from lukewarmness and complacency. And ultimately may I have ‘neither poverty nor riches’, but ‘only my daily bread’ (Proverbs 30.8).

1. Virginia Fabella, Peter K. H. Lee, and David Kwang-sun Suh, ‘Introduction’, in Asian Christian Spirituality: Reclaiming Traditions, ed. by Virginia Fabella, Peter K. H. Lee, and David Kwang-sun Suh (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992), pp. 1–10, at pp. 1–2.

2. Two books which significantly shifted my perspective and helped me to grasp the radically subversive, counter-cultural message of Jesus and the (upside-down) kingdom by opening my eyes to the contextual world of the Bible were Christos Tsiolkas’ Damascus and Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited.

3. Not that I like or encourage comparing degrees of suffering with others; but I am for, at least, an awareness of others’ sufferings in order to gain a more holistic perspective on one’s own life.

4. A theology professor-cum-friend also criticises Chan’s own elite position and his insights being more theoretical than practical.

5. After all, everyone has a voice. As Arundhati Roy says, ‘There’s really no such thing as the “voiceless.” There are only the deliberately silenced or the preferably unheard.’

6. My school motto was ‘Impact the World for Christ’ – and to be fair, a lot of us graduates are out in the world doing marvellous things.

7. When George Floyd was murdered I spent several days mulling over how I should respond. I finally realised that in my context I had the most influence and say amongst Christians, which led me to widely recommending Ben Lindsay’s We Need to Talk About Race.

8. Isaiah 61.1–2 – favour for the lowly, vengeance for the evildoers.