A.M. RANAWANA: A Liberation for the Earth: Climate, Race and Cross, London: SCM, 2022.

The ecological crisis that confronts the world affects all nations and communities, many of which are facing extremes owing to the long-term impact of colonial exploitation and environmental harm. However, not only are nations and communities affected in different ways and to varying degrees, the movements that receive the most media coverage and funding in their protest against the impairment of the earth are located in the Anglo-European and North American regions, and their perspectives may belie their selective interests. “White tears” may well conceal a protective insularity that is driven by migratory fear.

In contrast, the Asian and Global South regions have little time for grief; and breast-beating remorse is insufficient. Anupama Ranawana turns primarily to Asia and chiefly to Indonesia and Sri Lanka for her examples of the erosive and corrosive agricultural and mineral practices that continue to increase deforestation, ensure the maintenance of indentured labour, sustain embedded poverty, and hasten the wastelands of the present.

Recalling the longer history and significance of theological pronouncements on the ecology, and highlighting the importance of Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Siʹ, Ranawana is critical of the various oversights both in them, and also in secular research reports that do not defer to those who are confronted daily by the severe threat of the ravaged earth. The conclusion to this brief and highly informative book invokes biblical and “prophetic anger” to impel a renewed “theology of rage” that challenges and contests too many tepid gestures and vacuous promises about the fragility of our future.

Frank England, University of Cape Town