Gordon Brown and David Cameron must be ruing the day they agreed to take part in the televised leaders’ debates which have catapulted Nick Clegg to X Factor prominence.
The sight of the three men standing behind their lecterns creates the impression that this is a three-way race. Electoral mathematics may make it unlikely that all three parties have an equal chance of winning, but, psychologically, the political landscape has been transformed.
Fears that the debates would be dull have been dashed. A country which is addicted to reality television was ready to embrace this prime- time High Noon.
The leaders were also ready to debate outside the House of Commons and before a television audience.
It is hard to imagine Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home or Anthony Eden responding well to a less than deferential questioner – and Harold Wilson might have set off the sprinkler system by lighting his pipe in a blaze of indignation.
Tonight’s final debate takes place in a Britain which has left the imperial age. None of the three men is even pretending to audition to run a superpower.
They appear to have calculated that voters are less interested in a vision for Britain’s role in the world than in a strategy for how to control the number of people from other parts of the world crossing our borders.
Last week’s debate was supposed to be about international affairs.
There was rightly engagement on Afghanistan, a tussle over Trident and a row about Europe. But the conversation spiralled into discussion about the Pope, details of what they were personally doing to combat climate change, hand-wringing about faith in the political system and counter-punches over pensions.
These are all worthy topics, but Russia and China were only mentioned a couple of times, there were fleeting references to North Korea and Iran and a complete avoidance of discussing Zimbabwe, Israel or Palestine.
Why is there this lack of ambition and imagination about Britain’s potential to be a force for reason and progress in parts of the world which have enormous influence on our own security?
Do they believe that thinking globally is a vote loser, or have the recession and Iraq left us feeling broke and bruised?
Men who want to lead the sixth largest economy should tell us how they want to shape the world. Otherwise, the swirling forces of international finance, global unrest and environmental decay will trample a country hungry for hope.
A Thursday column
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Maybe Not Quite the End of the World
Wales has inspired bursts of genius in artists as eclectic as impressionist Alfred Sisley and rock titans Led Zeppelin.
But now, as the most interesting UK election in more than a decade rounds into its final fortnight, are politicians drawing inspiration from this turf?
Last week started with Gordon Brown denying that he had worked to thwart a partnership with the Liberal Democrats in the early days of the Blair administration – and the Welsh television audience may have felt a ripple of deja vu.
Mr Brown told the ever-chipper Andrew Marr: “I think when the history books are written, they’ll say something different; that my conversations with Liberals have been an attempt to get them involved in what I call a progressive consensus.”
This was fascinating for pundits who look for signs of flirtation between the two parties with the same avid delight that a rom-com audience follows Jennifer Aniston’s perennial adventures of the heart.
But Mr Brown’s remark was especially interesting for anyone who remembers the sun-blasted days of drama in Cardiff Bay in 2007 when Labour leader Rhodri Morgan went in search of a coalition partner.
The May 2007 elections left him with the largest minority in the Assembly and on May 25 the Queen re-appointed him First Minister. In his acceptance speech he told the gathered AMs that “we shall seek to build on a progressive consensus”.
On May 31, as he unveiled his minority cabinet, he again pledged to build a “coherent, progressive consensus”.
And such a deal was struck with Plaid Cymru. When that party’s leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, stood up in plenary on July 11 as Deputy First Minister, he said the pact between the once warring rivals was “a new partnership based on the progressive traditions which have been at the heart of our nation’s politics for over a century”.
If, as some polls suggest, Labour emerges from next month’s election 59 or so seats short of an outright majority, could the Lib Dems be persuaded to play the role that Plaid has done in Wales with such gusto since 2007?
Last Tuesday, Mr Brown appealed for a “progressive alliance” of traditional Labour and Lib Dem voters who would stop a Tory victory.
His present priority must be preventing Nick Clegg’s party peeling away crucial votes in the predominantly urban areas where Labour needs to do well. But someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of political history and such experience of playing the long game must also be wondering whether policy consensus could lead to a full-on alliance in parliament.
It would be no surprise if some night soon a phone rings in Michaelston-le-Pit and a former First Minister is asked for tips on building an unprecedented coalition.
But now, as the most interesting UK election in more than a decade rounds into its final fortnight, are politicians drawing inspiration from this turf?
Last week started with Gordon Brown denying that he had worked to thwart a partnership with the Liberal Democrats in the early days of the Blair administration – and the Welsh television audience may have felt a ripple of deja vu.
Mr Brown told the ever-chipper Andrew Marr: “I think when the history books are written, they’ll say something different; that my conversations with Liberals have been an attempt to get them involved in what I call a progressive consensus.”
This was fascinating for pundits who look for signs of flirtation between the two parties with the same avid delight that a rom-com audience follows Jennifer Aniston’s perennial adventures of the heart.
But Mr Brown’s remark was especially interesting for anyone who remembers the sun-blasted days of drama in Cardiff Bay in 2007 when Labour leader Rhodri Morgan went in search of a coalition partner.
The May 2007 elections left him with the largest minority in the Assembly and on May 25 the Queen re-appointed him First Minister. In his acceptance speech he told the gathered AMs that “we shall seek to build on a progressive consensus”.
On May 31, as he unveiled his minority cabinet, he again pledged to build a “coherent, progressive consensus”.
And such a deal was struck with Plaid Cymru. When that party’s leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, stood up in plenary on July 11 as Deputy First Minister, he said the pact between the once warring rivals was “a new partnership based on the progressive traditions which have been at the heart of our nation’s politics for over a century”.
If, as some polls suggest, Labour emerges from next month’s election 59 or so seats short of an outright majority, could the Lib Dems be persuaded to play the role that Plaid has done in Wales with such gusto since 2007?
Last Tuesday, Mr Brown appealed for a “progressive alliance” of traditional Labour and Lib Dem voters who would stop a Tory victory.
His present priority must be preventing Nick Clegg’s party peeling away crucial votes in the predominantly urban areas where Labour needs to do well. But someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of political history and such experience of playing the long game must also be wondering whether policy consensus could lead to a full-on alliance in parliament.
It would be no surprise if some night soon a phone rings in Michaelston-le-Pit and a former First Minister is asked for tips on building an unprecedented coalition.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Down by the Riverside
It's an astonishing thing to take a photo of your brother when he's standing in front of a home he now owns. It's like seeing him beside a lion he has tamed or a zebra he has taught to play chess.
But he's always gone in search of new perspectives. And in Holland-flat East Anglia you can see for miles if you just stand on a can of beans.
His extraordinary wife, Heather, also finds he offers a new viewpoint on the world.
What was going on down there?
Friday, April 16, 2010
My Space, Your Space and the State's Space
Not even the most power-crazed author of a British manifesto would entertain the idea of introducing measures to make sure we get to bed on time.
But the South Korean Government is pushing forward with plans to stop young people playing online games between midnight and 8am.
Gamers would face a blackout during these hours and could find that their network connection slows to a grinding pace if they have been connected for a long period of time.
A further proposal guaranteed to send shivers down the spines of young men who receive no thanks from society for their efforts to slay digital beasts is that their parents could be informed each time they step into a virtual universe.
It is hard to imagine South Korean-style direct intervention happening in the UK.
Regardless of whether it is a good idea to get young gamers to put down their joysticks and get under their duvets, this is an area of life which is considered the responsibility of a parent.
But, as we watch globalisation grip, it is increasingly clear that different cultures have radically varying notions of where the state has the right to tread and the private space where it cannot intrude.
This week an extreme example was provided when it was reported that Islamic insurgents in Somalia had successfully stopped most radio stations playing music. Films and football have been banned in the past.
Through Western eyes, this displays an extraordinary arrogance. They may feel that pop songs corrupt and trigger base instincts, but rather than appeal to people to abstain from such alleged vices the insurgents have opted to cut off the supply.
A hallmark of European liberalism is that we should be left free to make our own mistakes, providing we do not endanger our neighbours. The Government can tax alcohol and cigarettes and ban smoking in public places and drinking and driving but there is no push for Al Capone-era prohibition.
However, there is anguish over how to clamp down on obesity. If a teacher sees that parents are feeding their children a diet of sugar and fat, what can they do to intervene? To suggest that a parent does not know how to feed their child does imply, in many cases correctly, an employee of the state knows best.
The Welsh Assembly Government’s 2008 ban on junk food in hospital vending machines was an attempt to nudge people towards a healthier lifestyle by taking away the temptation of a sugar rush.
Differing views of the role of Government have already become a hallmark of this election campaign, but the fight over where the state should and should not go is just beginning.
Originally, a Thursday column
But the South Korean Government is pushing forward with plans to stop young people playing online games between midnight and 8am.
Gamers would face a blackout during these hours and could find that their network connection slows to a grinding pace if they have been connected for a long period of time.
A further proposal guaranteed to send shivers down the spines of young men who receive no thanks from society for their efforts to slay digital beasts is that their parents could be informed each time they step into a virtual universe.
It is hard to imagine South Korean-style direct intervention happening in the UK.
Regardless of whether it is a good idea to get young gamers to put down their joysticks and get under their duvets, this is an area of life which is considered the responsibility of a parent.
But, as we watch globalisation grip, it is increasingly clear that different cultures have radically varying notions of where the state has the right to tread and the private space where it cannot intrude.
This week an extreme example was provided when it was reported that Islamic insurgents in Somalia had successfully stopped most radio stations playing music. Films and football have been banned in the past.
Through Western eyes, this displays an extraordinary arrogance. They may feel that pop songs corrupt and trigger base instincts, but rather than appeal to people to abstain from such alleged vices the insurgents have opted to cut off the supply.
A hallmark of European liberalism is that we should be left free to make our own mistakes, providing we do not endanger our neighbours. The Government can tax alcohol and cigarettes and ban smoking in public places and drinking and driving but there is no push for Al Capone-era prohibition.
However, there is anguish over how to clamp down on obesity. If a teacher sees that parents are feeding their children a diet of sugar and fat, what can they do to intervene? To suggest that a parent does not know how to feed their child does imply, in many cases correctly, an employee of the state knows best.
The Welsh Assembly Government’s 2008 ban on junk food in hospital vending machines was an attempt to nudge people towards a healthier lifestyle by taking away the temptation of a sugar rush.
Differing views of the role of Government have already become a hallmark of this election campaign, but the fight over where the state should and should not go is just beginning.
Originally, a Thursday column
Monday, April 12, 2010
Merton on Monday
[The] fire Prometheus steals from the gods is his own incommunicable reality, his own spirit. It is the affirmation and vindication of his own being. Yet this being is a gift of God, and it does not have to be stolen. It can only be had by a free gift - the very hope of gaining it by theft is pure illusion.
Not knowing that the fire was his for the asking, not knowing that fire was something that God did not need, something that God had created expressly for man, Prometheus felt he had to steal it. But why? Because he knew no god that would be willing to give it to him for nothing. He knew no god that was not an enemy, because the only gods he knew were a little stronger than himself. He had to steal the fire from gods that were weak. If he had known the strong God, everything would have been quite different.
Thomas Merton, The New Man, p. 16
Not knowing that the fire was his for the asking, not knowing that fire was something that God did not need, something that God had created expressly for man, Prometheus felt he had to steal it. But why? Because he knew no god that would be willing to give it to him for nothing. He knew no god that was not an enemy, because the only gods he knew were a little stronger than himself. He had to steal the fire from gods that were weak. If he had known the strong God, everything would have been quite different.
Thomas Merton, The New Man, p. 16
Saturday, April 10, 2010
On Liberty
Democracy is beautiful
Especially when election season
Converges with the start of spring.
Walk the streets of Cardiff and look up at the trees.
It as if someone has turned on the Christmas lights in April.
Branches are ablaze with bright green buds.
Yet again,
The winter has heaved to an end.
God’s creation is shimmering with the wonder of photosynthesis
And the warmth of his sun.
Look in windows.
Zealous souls are already putting up election posters.
On May 6 we will be invited to step into a polling booth,
Pick up a pencil and cast a vote.
Like the billions of bees who go about their work of pollen transportation,
And somehow keep the ecosystem humming,
The millions of votes cast that day
Will determine who arrives in Downing St the next morning.
In this expression of collective will
We will decide who makes the laws of our land.
Power does not rest with a military dictator,
A government thug
Or a network of oligarch gangsters.
We should shout thanks to God.
Leaders who can be sacked at each election
Are forced to care about crime and poverty.
We do not live through grinding decades
Hoping that a benevolent king
Or a just general
Will gain command of the country.
Sure, it is a wonderful thing to have a Prime Minister
And a Government
Motivated by mercy and compassion.
But we do not rely on their benevolence.
We can fight injustice
Online, or in the press.
We can go to court,
Protest and lobby,
And even stand for election.
Being born in a prosperous democracy
Is like winning a lottery ticket at birth.
Such a child will not grow up fearing criminals and the police.
She or he will not have to bribe schoolteachers to get
A fair crack at passing exams.
Basic social services such as healthcare and education
Provide a freedom of opportunity which liberates him or her
From the tyranny of ignorance and hunger.
A child growing up like this is truly blessed.
He or she is also in a minority.
The world is in the middle of a “human rights crisis”,
According to Amnesty International.
In 2008, people were tortured or otherwise ill-treated during
interrogation in half of all countries surveyed;
Men and women were subjected to unfair trials in nearly a third.
And in at least 50 of the 157 countries,
Prisoners of conscience were kept locked behind bars.
The 2010 report of Freedom House
Warns that for the fourth year in a row
Global declines in freedom outweighed gains.
Just 46% of the world’s population lives in a “free country”.
You can download epic reports
On liberty around the world.
These document the backstreet beating-up
Of whistleblowers and activists
And record the cruelty and killings which stamp out dissent,
Force believers to meet in secret,
And allow Mafia rulers to prosper.
Reading these accounts leaves you feeling angry and grubby.
Such reports are not just indictments of flawed political systems.
Each is evidence of sin.
Print out the pages for documentary evidence
Of this filthy, toxic, putrid and corrosive expression of evil.
Just as we recoil at the sight and smell of rotting fruit or meat,
So corruption at the heart of Government
Makes us gag in repulsion.
In the first pages of the Bible,
The Genesis story establishes the unique dignity of the human being
And the duty on all of us to act as stewards of our world.
We learn God made men and women in his image.
Even a vile vagabond would think twice
Before desecrating a religious icon,
But in Matthew 25, Jesus told us we can see him
If we look at the hungry,
The thirsty, the unclothed and the imprisoned.
Any society which does not protect those whom Jesus calls
The “least of these brothers of mine”
Is guilty of blasphemy and a dereliction of duty.
In countries such as Sudan, North Korea and Burma,
These brothers of our king are not just neglected
But persecuted.
This is a crisis of sin.
News headlines
Daily document sin’s wildfire ravaging of creation.
The Bible gives us the diagnosis of this polluting plague.
But it does more than that.
In the story of Jesus
We learn of the cure for the disease,
Receive the promise of coming justice
And are given a hope beyond the wildest of a wild man’s dreams.
The revelation of Jesus as a king
Who will return to judge and liberate
Is a prospect which makes the cosmos quiver
And a bright bolt of hope
That tears through the deepest darkness.
Jesus launched his public ministry
By standing in a synagogue
In his hometown of Nazareth
And reading these words from Isaiah 61:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed me
To preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
And recovery of sight for the blind,
To release the oppressed,
To proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.”
The Spirit which poured down
On the first Christians at Pentecost
Anointed Jesus so he would
Preach to the poor,
Release the oppressed
And bring freedom to the jailed.
But Jesus himself lived in poverty;
He was thrown into a Roman cell
And soldiers broke his body.
Did he fail in his mission to win liberty?
After all,
At the start of Luke’s gospel
The same Spirit had filled Zechariah when his son was born.
This baby named John would one day be called
The Baptiser and
Blaze a trail for Jesus.
The old priest gave a cry of delight.
Declaring God had remembered his pledge
To the patriarch Abraham
To “rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
And to enable us to serve him without fear”.
This is a direct allusion to Exodus 2,
When God resolved
To liberate his people from the tyrants of Egypt:
“The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out,
And their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant
With Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.”
But Jesus did not liberate Palestine from Roman rule.
Nor did he replace one political system with a new model of Government.
In fact, in AD 70,
The siege of Jerusalem would culminate
In the destruction of the Jewish temple and
– according to Josephus –
The slaughter of 1.1 million people
And the enslavement of 97,000.
Yet the story of the life, death and resurrection
Of Jesus
Has not been buried
Beneath the rubble of history.
It is daily remembered
In the breaking of bread and drinking of wine
And in each generation
Growing numbers of people
Are thrilled at its proclamation of freedom.
Why?
In his three years of ministry 2,000 years ago,
Jesus traced back the poisoned river of sin to its source.
He revealed that the human heart was infected
By the most ancient and evil powers of darkness.
Humanity was a dying species
In urgent need of a healer,
And an imprisoned people requiring rapid rescue.
His pronouncement that even the most “righteous”
Members of society needed
Healing from the choking and sclerotic
Presence of sin
In no small way led
To his own execution
At the instigation of the religious elite.
Our human minds cannot grasp
The full immensity of what Christ achieved
In dying on the cross and rising to new life.
But he understood this
As both a confrontation with the forces of evil
And the beginning of the healing of humanity.
Shortly before his death,
We read in John 12:31,
Jesus said: “Now is the time for judgment on this world;
Now the prince of this world will be driven out.
But I,
When I am lifted up from the earth,
Will draw all men to myself.”
Jesus did see his work as an act of epic liberation,
But not from something as petty and impermanent
As a passing empire.
Instead, he was redefining the relationship
Between God and people.
He introduced us to a freedom
Which will transform this world and shine into eternity.
In John 8, Jesus told his audience:
“If you hold to my teaching,
You are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth,
And the truth will set you free.”
Jesus did not train a band of military insurgents
Who would hide in the shadows and jump out
To slice the throats of Roman legionaries.
But he did raise revolutionaries who would
Follow his commands and
Capture the attention of the world.
In the Upper Room,
Seconds after Judas had left the table of the last supper
To arrange the betrayal of Jesus
Into the hands of a corrupt band of ruling thugs,
Christ said:
“A new command I give you:
Love one another.
As I have loved you,
So you must love one another.
By this all men will know that you are my disciples,
If you love one another.”
This command is a manifesto of freedom.
In laying down the law of love
He freed us to live by a code
Other than the Darwinian rules of natural selection
And the survival of the fittest.
In Luke 6, he said: “Love your enemies,
Do good to those who hate you,
Bless those who curse you,
Pray for those who mistreat you.
If someone strikes you on one cheek,
Turn to him the other also.
If someone takes your cloak,
Do not stop him from taking your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks you,
And if anyone takes what belongs to you,
Do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
With instructions such as these,
Jesus was unthreading the very DNA of sin
Which has twisted the course of human history
So often towards ruin and wrong.
He gave his disciples permission to break
The cycle of abuse and retaliation
Which has rolled this world towards hell.
Jesus does not want us to avenge him
By killing his enemies
But he dares us to love as he loved.
In the life of Jesus we see the ultimate example
Of someone living in the
Freedom of the law of love.
He was not bound by any religious or
Political faction;
Fear of social disgrace did not stop him eating and drinking
With people others regarded as
Sinners and scoundrels.
Jesus was more than ready
To break social conventions
To heal and share his message
With anyone who had ears to hear.
He also understood that
Just as we can be enslaved by sin,
So we can,
So easily,
Be imprisoned by worry.
In Luke 12, he told his followers
“Do not worry about your life”.
He instructed:
“[Do] not be afraid,
Little flock,
For your Father has been pleased
To give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out,
A treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted,
Where no thief comes near
And no moth destroys.
For where your treasure is,
There your heart will be also.”
This is not what they teach you
At Harvard Business School.
But it was the lesson Jesus planted
In the hearts of the disciples.
He liberated them from the tyranny
Of a value system that
Determines your worth
On your material wealth.
In an age of so-called affluenza,
Do we have the faith and courage
To trust him and not fret?
These are marvellous lessons,
And the world would be a better place
If there was less retaliation,
More mercy and
Weaker bondage to materialism.
But evil stalks every land.
Sin still trips us up.
No government has the power to legislate the law of love
And enforce it in our hearts.
Is the message of Jesus Christ
More than a lesson in how to live nobly
In a bad world?
Hallelujah, yes.
Jesus was not an independent mystic
With uncanny insights
Who flouted regressive social conventions.
He had an intense relationship
With the God he knew as Father,
And he formed a bond with his disciples which
Death could not cut.
He told them in John 6:
“All that the Father gives me will come to me,
And whoever comes to me
I will never drive away.
For I have come down from heaven
Not to do my will
But to do the will of him who sent me.
And this is the will of him who sent me,
That I shall lose none of all that he has given me,
But raise them up at the last day.
For my Father's will is that everyone
Who looks to the Son and believes in him
Shall have eternal life,
And I will raise him up at the last day.”
The refusal to play by the rules of the world
And meet hate with hate
Was not weak resignation in the glare of evil.
Rather,
It was a sign
Of certainty
That a new and
Everlasting kingdom
Founded on love
Was alive.
Just as Japanese knotweed
Can force itself through Tarmac and concrete,
The kingdom we glimpse
In the glory of Christ’s resurrection
Is flowering into reality
Right n our midst.
Empires built on sin, greed and death
Are decaying,
But all of creation
Will be renewed
When this true reality is revealed.
The Apostle Paul wrote
In the eighth chapter
Of his letter
To the first Christians living in Rome,
The capital of the empire,
Some incredible words:
“The creation waits in eager expectation
For the sons of God to be revealed.
For the creation was subjected to frustration,
Not by its own choice,
But by the will of the one who subjected it,
In hope that the creation itself
Will be liberated from its bondage to decay
And brought into the glorious freedom
Of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning
As in the pains of childbirth
Right up to the present time.
Not only so,
But we ourselves,
Who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
Groan inwardly as we wait eagerly
For our adoption as sons,
The redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved.”
Paul tells us that the
“Glorious freedom of the children of God”
Is a joyous cause for hope for
All creation.
Just as the buds on the tree
Signal the end of winter
And the birth of spring,
So the acts of love
Which the Holy Spirits prompts the church to perform
Are a sign of the great and beautiful
Liberation which awaits.
Judgement is also coming.
The evil which has driven the rape and slaughter
Of people and nations
Will be exposed.
Justice will be done.
While we might rejoice at the thought
Of the architects of genocide
In the dock,
The idea of our own wretched and miserable deeds
Illuminated in the presence of God
Is terrifying.
But just as Jesus went to work to heal us of the disease of sin,
His death has also won us forgiveness.
This is perhaps the ultimate act of liberation
He has performed for us.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae,
A start-up of the faith in what is now Turkey,
A great letter in which he announced
“[God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness
And brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
In whom we have redemption,
The forgiveness of sins.”
This is why Christians do not need to rise up in fury
At every perceived slight.
It is why they can take absurd risks
In love.
They know what they have coming
And they know what they have now.
Jesus is not just a guide in history whose example they follow
But a king who calls them
A friend
Today.
This is why Paul felt able to write
In his second letter to the Christians in Corinth:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit,
And where the Spirit of the Lord is,
There is freedom.”
There is also love,
Forgiveness
Healing
And hope.
This is liberty
Which should make tyrants shudder
And the trees clap their hands.
Especially when election season
Converges with the start of spring.
Walk the streets of Cardiff and look up at the trees.
It as if someone has turned on the Christmas lights in April.
Branches are ablaze with bright green buds.
Yet again,
The winter has heaved to an end.
God’s creation is shimmering with the wonder of photosynthesis
And the warmth of his sun.
Look in windows.
Zealous souls are already putting up election posters.
On May 6 we will be invited to step into a polling booth,
Pick up a pencil and cast a vote.
Like the billions of bees who go about their work of pollen transportation,
And somehow keep the ecosystem humming,
The millions of votes cast that day
Will determine who arrives in Downing St the next morning.
In this expression of collective will
We will decide who makes the laws of our land.
Power does not rest with a military dictator,
A government thug
Or a network of oligarch gangsters.
We should shout thanks to God.
Leaders who can be sacked at each election
Are forced to care about crime and poverty.
We do not live through grinding decades
Hoping that a benevolent king
Or a just general
Will gain command of the country.
Sure, it is a wonderful thing to have a Prime Minister
And a Government
Motivated by mercy and compassion.
But we do not rely on their benevolence.
We can fight injustice
Online, or in the press.
We can go to court,
Protest and lobby,
And even stand for election.
Being born in a prosperous democracy
Is like winning a lottery ticket at birth.
Such a child will not grow up fearing criminals and the police.
She or he will not have to bribe schoolteachers to get
A fair crack at passing exams.
Basic social services such as healthcare and education
Provide a freedom of opportunity which liberates him or her
From the tyranny of ignorance and hunger.
A child growing up like this is truly blessed.
He or she is also in a minority.
The world is in the middle of a “human rights crisis”,
According to Amnesty International.
In 2008, people were tortured or otherwise ill-treated during
interrogation in half of all countries surveyed;
Men and women were subjected to unfair trials in nearly a third.
And in at least 50 of the 157 countries,
Prisoners of conscience were kept locked behind bars.
The 2010 report of Freedom House
Warns that for the fourth year in a row
Global declines in freedom outweighed gains.
Just 46% of the world’s population lives in a “free country”.
You can download epic reports
On liberty around the world.
These document the backstreet beating-up
Of whistleblowers and activists
And record the cruelty and killings which stamp out dissent,
Force believers to meet in secret,
And allow Mafia rulers to prosper.
Reading these accounts leaves you feeling angry and grubby.
Such reports are not just indictments of flawed political systems.
Each is evidence of sin.
Print out the pages for documentary evidence
Of this filthy, toxic, putrid and corrosive expression of evil.
Just as we recoil at the sight and smell of rotting fruit or meat,
So corruption at the heart of Government
Makes us gag in repulsion.
In the first pages of the Bible,
The Genesis story establishes the unique dignity of the human being
And the duty on all of us to act as stewards of our world.
We learn God made men and women in his image.
Even a vile vagabond would think twice
Before desecrating a religious icon,
But in Matthew 25, Jesus told us we can see him
If we look at the hungry,
The thirsty, the unclothed and the imprisoned.
Any society which does not protect those whom Jesus calls
The “least of these brothers of mine”
Is guilty of blasphemy and a dereliction of duty.
In countries such as Sudan, North Korea and Burma,
These brothers of our king are not just neglected
But persecuted.
This is a crisis of sin.
News headlines
Daily document sin’s wildfire ravaging of creation.
The Bible gives us the diagnosis of this polluting plague.
But it does more than that.
In the story of Jesus
We learn of the cure for the disease,
Receive the promise of coming justice
And are given a hope beyond the wildest of a wild man’s dreams.
The revelation of Jesus as a king
Who will return to judge and liberate
Is a prospect which makes the cosmos quiver
And a bright bolt of hope
That tears through the deepest darkness.
Jesus launched his public ministry
By standing in a synagogue
In his hometown of Nazareth
And reading these words from Isaiah 61:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed me
To preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
And recovery of sight for the blind,
To release the oppressed,
To proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.”
The Spirit which poured down
On the first Christians at Pentecost
Anointed Jesus so he would
Preach to the poor,
Release the oppressed
And bring freedom to the jailed.
But Jesus himself lived in poverty;
He was thrown into a Roman cell
And soldiers broke his body.
Did he fail in his mission to win liberty?
After all,
At the start of Luke’s gospel
The same Spirit had filled Zechariah when his son was born.
This baby named John would one day be called
The Baptiser and
Blaze a trail for Jesus.
The old priest gave a cry of delight.
Declaring God had remembered his pledge
To the patriarch Abraham
To “rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
And to enable us to serve him without fear”.
This is a direct allusion to Exodus 2,
When God resolved
To liberate his people from the tyrants of Egypt:
“The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out,
And their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.
God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant
With Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.”
But Jesus did not liberate Palestine from Roman rule.
Nor did he replace one political system with a new model of Government.
In fact, in AD 70,
The siege of Jerusalem would culminate
In the destruction of the Jewish temple and
– according to Josephus –
The slaughter of 1.1 million people
And the enslavement of 97,000.
Yet the story of the life, death and resurrection
Of Jesus
Has not been buried
Beneath the rubble of history.
It is daily remembered
In the breaking of bread and drinking of wine
And in each generation
Growing numbers of people
Are thrilled at its proclamation of freedom.
Why?
In his three years of ministry 2,000 years ago,
Jesus traced back the poisoned river of sin to its source.
He revealed that the human heart was infected
By the most ancient and evil powers of darkness.
Humanity was a dying species
In urgent need of a healer,
And an imprisoned people requiring rapid rescue.
His pronouncement that even the most “righteous”
Members of society needed
Healing from the choking and sclerotic
Presence of sin
In no small way led
To his own execution
At the instigation of the religious elite.
Our human minds cannot grasp
The full immensity of what Christ achieved
In dying on the cross and rising to new life.
But he understood this
As both a confrontation with the forces of evil
And the beginning of the healing of humanity.
Shortly before his death,
We read in John 12:31,
Jesus said: “Now is the time for judgment on this world;
Now the prince of this world will be driven out.
But I,
When I am lifted up from the earth,
Will draw all men to myself.”
Jesus did see his work as an act of epic liberation,
But not from something as petty and impermanent
As a passing empire.
Instead, he was redefining the relationship
Between God and people.
He introduced us to a freedom
Which will transform this world and shine into eternity.
In John 8, Jesus told his audience:
“If you hold to my teaching,
You are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth,
And the truth will set you free.”
Jesus did not train a band of military insurgents
Who would hide in the shadows and jump out
To slice the throats of Roman legionaries.
But he did raise revolutionaries who would
Follow his commands and
Capture the attention of the world.
In the Upper Room,
Seconds after Judas had left the table of the last supper
To arrange the betrayal of Jesus
Into the hands of a corrupt band of ruling thugs,
Christ said:
“A new command I give you:
Love one another.
As I have loved you,
So you must love one another.
By this all men will know that you are my disciples,
If you love one another.”
This command is a manifesto of freedom.
In laying down the law of love
He freed us to live by a code
Other than the Darwinian rules of natural selection
And the survival of the fittest.
In Luke 6, he said: “Love your enemies,
Do good to those who hate you,
Bless those who curse you,
Pray for those who mistreat you.
If someone strikes you on one cheek,
Turn to him the other also.
If someone takes your cloak,
Do not stop him from taking your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks you,
And if anyone takes what belongs to you,
Do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
With instructions such as these,
Jesus was unthreading the very DNA of sin
Which has twisted the course of human history
So often towards ruin and wrong.
He gave his disciples permission to break
The cycle of abuse and retaliation
Which has rolled this world towards hell.
Jesus does not want us to avenge him
By killing his enemies
But he dares us to love as he loved.
In the life of Jesus we see the ultimate example
Of someone living in the
Freedom of the law of love.
He was not bound by any religious or
Political faction;
Fear of social disgrace did not stop him eating and drinking
With people others regarded as
Sinners and scoundrels.
Jesus was more than ready
To break social conventions
To heal and share his message
With anyone who had ears to hear.
He also understood that
Just as we can be enslaved by sin,
So we can,
So easily,
Be imprisoned by worry.
In Luke 12, he told his followers
“Do not worry about your life”.
He instructed:
“[Do] not be afraid,
Little flock,
For your Father has been pleased
To give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out,
A treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted,
Where no thief comes near
And no moth destroys.
For where your treasure is,
There your heart will be also.”
This is not what they teach you
At Harvard Business School.
But it was the lesson Jesus planted
In the hearts of the disciples.
He liberated them from the tyranny
Of a value system that
Determines your worth
On your material wealth.
In an age of so-called affluenza,
Do we have the faith and courage
To trust him and not fret?
These are marvellous lessons,
And the world would be a better place
If there was less retaliation,
More mercy and
Weaker bondage to materialism.
But evil stalks every land.
Sin still trips us up.
No government has the power to legislate the law of love
And enforce it in our hearts.
Is the message of Jesus Christ
More than a lesson in how to live nobly
In a bad world?
Hallelujah, yes.
Jesus was not an independent mystic
With uncanny insights
Who flouted regressive social conventions.
He had an intense relationship
With the God he knew as Father,
And he formed a bond with his disciples which
Death could not cut.
He told them in John 6:
“All that the Father gives me will come to me,
And whoever comes to me
I will never drive away.
For I have come down from heaven
Not to do my will
But to do the will of him who sent me.
And this is the will of him who sent me,
That I shall lose none of all that he has given me,
But raise them up at the last day.
For my Father's will is that everyone
Who looks to the Son and believes in him
Shall have eternal life,
And I will raise him up at the last day.”
The refusal to play by the rules of the world
And meet hate with hate
Was not weak resignation in the glare of evil.
Rather,
It was a sign
Of certainty
That a new and
Everlasting kingdom
Founded on love
Was alive.
Just as Japanese knotweed
Can force itself through Tarmac and concrete,
The kingdom we glimpse
In the glory of Christ’s resurrection
Is flowering into reality
Right n our midst.
Empires built on sin, greed and death
Are decaying,
But all of creation
Will be renewed
When this true reality is revealed.
The Apostle Paul wrote
In the eighth chapter
Of his letter
To the first Christians living in Rome,
The capital of the empire,
Some incredible words:
“The creation waits in eager expectation
For the sons of God to be revealed.
For the creation was subjected to frustration,
Not by its own choice,
But by the will of the one who subjected it,
In hope that the creation itself
Will be liberated from its bondage to decay
And brought into the glorious freedom
Of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning
As in the pains of childbirth
Right up to the present time.
Not only so,
But we ourselves,
Who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
Groan inwardly as we wait eagerly
For our adoption as sons,
The redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved.”
Paul tells us that the
“Glorious freedom of the children of God”
Is a joyous cause for hope for
All creation.
Just as the buds on the tree
Signal the end of winter
And the birth of spring,
So the acts of love
Which the Holy Spirits prompts the church to perform
Are a sign of the great and beautiful
Liberation which awaits.
Judgement is also coming.
The evil which has driven the rape and slaughter
Of people and nations
Will be exposed.
Justice will be done.
While we might rejoice at the thought
Of the architects of genocide
In the dock,
The idea of our own wretched and miserable deeds
Illuminated in the presence of God
Is terrifying.
But just as Jesus went to work to heal us of the disease of sin,
His death has also won us forgiveness.
This is perhaps the ultimate act of liberation
He has performed for us.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae,
A start-up of the faith in what is now Turkey,
A great letter in which he announced
“[God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness
And brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
In whom we have redemption,
The forgiveness of sins.”
This is why Christians do not need to rise up in fury
At every perceived slight.
It is why they can take absurd risks
In love.
They know what they have coming
And they know what they have now.
Jesus is not just a guide in history whose example they follow
But a king who calls them
A friend
Today.
This is why Paul felt able to write
In his second letter to the Christians in Corinth:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit,
And where the Spirit of the Lord is,
There is freedom.”
There is also love,
Forgiveness
Healing
And hope.
This is liberty
Which should make tyrants shudder
And the trees clap their hands.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
The Limitations of Coconuts
Holiday advertisements sell visions of a utopia scorched of stress by the rays of a blazing sun where the horizon is stripped of challenges and replaced with an ocean view of unremitting blue.
But the life of Robinson Crusoe would not be an exercise in unadulterated pleasure, even if he had access to 24-four cocktails, a personal barber, and enjoyed an undying fascination with coconuts.
We are not programmed to be happy in a state of stasis.
Jeff Tweedy, the fabulous musician behind the band Wilco, struck a true note when he said: “Once you have time to fall apart you fall apart very quickly.”
The landmark 1942 Beveridge report which laid the foundations for the post-war welfare state identified five “giant evils” in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease.
The penultimate evil, idleness, is not something we hear a lot about these days. Politicians talk about economic inactivity or worklessness.
Perhaps “idleness” fell out of fashion because it suggested the people who were out of work were in some way to blame for their predicament. The collapse of heavy industry in the 1980s catapulted a generation out of secure and skilled employment.
But the psychological effects of being locked out of the workforce are almost as damaging as the economic consequences.
According to the March 2009 editorial of the British Medical Journal: “Parasuicide rates in young men who are unemployed are 9.5-25 times higher than in employed young men.”
It continued: “Youth opportunity-type schemes are almost as detrimental to psychological good health as is unemployment itself. Temporary employment is slightly better but not as good as a properly rewarded and organised apprenticeship.”
Electronics retailers urge us to turn our homes into cinemas where we will retreat from reality, but human satisfaction comes from learning and working alongside other people.
The French author Victor Hugo noted: “Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.”
And according to Forbes magazine, the essential read for the aspiring rich, “Lottery winners return to their previous level of happiness after five years.”
The ultimate proof that we do not truly hanker after idle isolation is seen in Olympians – whose lives are defined by early-morning starts and precision diets as they prepare for 2012 – and the three men who are racing across the country in an audition for the toughest job in Britain.
Despite the history of betrayals and decapitations which haunt Downing St, Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg are ready to sacrifice privacy and embrace a trial by fire in the hottest zone of the political inferno.
If they can show how new opportunities for work, learning and volunteering could cross the cracks in this country and inject true meaning into national purpose then they might even be worthy of a vote.
A Thursday column.
But the life of Robinson Crusoe would not be an exercise in unadulterated pleasure, even if he had access to 24-four cocktails, a personal barber, and enjoyed an undying fascination with coconuts.
We are not programmed to be happy in a state of stasis.
Jeff Tweedy, the fabulous musician behind the band Wilco, struck a true note when he said: “Once you have time to fall apart you fall apart very quickly.”
The landmark 1942 Beveridge report which laid the foundations for the post-war welfare state identified five “giant evils” in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease.
The penultimate evil, idleness, is not something we hear a lot about these days. Politicians talk about economic inactivity or worklessness.
Perhaps “idleness” fell out of fashion because it suggested the people who were out of work were in some way to blame for their predicament. The collapse of heavy industry in the 1980s catapulted a generation out of secure and skilled employment.
But the psychological effects of being locked out of the workforce are almost as damaging as the economic consequences.
According to the March 2009 editorial of the British Medical Journal: “Parasuicide rates in young men who are unemployed are 9.5-25 times higher than in employed young men.”
It continued: “Youth opportunity-type schemes are almost as detrimental to psychological good health as is unemployment itself. Temporary employment is slightly better but not as good as a properly rewarded and organised apprenticeship.”
Electronics retailers urge us to turn our homes into cinemas where we will retreat from reality, but human satisfaction comes from learning and working alongside other people.
The French author Victor Hugo noted: “Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.”
And according to Forbes magazine, the essential read for the aspiring rich, “Lottery winners return to their previous level of happiness after five years.”
The ultimate proof that we do not truly hanker after idle isolation is seen in Olympians – whose lives are defined by early-morning starts and precision diets as they prepare for 2012 – and the three men who are racing across the country in an audition for the toughest job in Britain.
Despite the history of betrayals and decapitations which haunt Downing St, Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg are ready to sacrifice privacy and embrace a trial by fire in the hottest zone of the political inferno.
If they can show how new opportunities for work, learning and volunteering could cross the cracks in this country and inject true meaning into national purpose then they might even be worthy of a vote.
A Thursday column.
Monday, April 05, 2010
The Easter Election
When the Queen’s curtains are opened each morning, in all likelihood she looks out to see if a 59-year-old Scotsman is approaching her gates.
Her wait is nearly over. Tomorrow, Gordon Brown is expected to make his trip to the palace. The phoney war of pre-campaign jostling will end and the struggle for power will begin in earnest on doorsteps across the UK. Political tribes will marshall their foot soldiers to battle for no less lofty a goal than taking control of the British Government.
The brutality of UK politics is not quite as gory as the French experiment with the guillotine but the consequences are almost as lethal.
Unlike in the United States, where a defeated president has a few months to vacate the White House and can go on a goodbye tour of world leaders, a defeated British PM is instantly turfed out. If he or she lost in his or her constituency they could be out of a job entirely.
In further contrast with our neighbours across the Atlantic, we do not have the neat divide between the presidency and congress – if a Prime Minister is ejected from Downing Street it is because his or her party has lost the battle to control the House of Commons.
This imperfect system is not designed to foster continuity, smooth transitions and stability. Instead, it facilitates revolutions without the spilling of blood.
The voting system may be hopelessly non-proportional and the post-devolution constitution is arguably now a mess of loose threads, but politicians can go to the country with a manifesto and then return with a mandate to yank the levers of power.
It is apt that this election excitement coincides with Easter for all of the main parties face the prospect of death and resurrection.
For Gordon Brown – a politician who seems to come to life in the heat of a campaign – a win would silence plotters and in this ultimate moment of affirmation establish him as the people's – and not just the party’s – choice as Prime Minister. He could bury the fitful post-Blair years and take forward a programme of real reform.
A successful David Cameron would lay to rest the torrid post-Major era of Tory division and disconnection. The greatest challenge of his life would then begin as he sought to build a recovery and prove his social conscience was not a marketing ploy but an expression of conviction.
And the sight of Nick Clegg at Downing Street would be taken as proof that miracles do happen. The wilderness decades of liberalism would be over and the science of election prediction would be flung into crisis.
A dogged fight awaits but the intensity of the contest so far has already established there is new life in our democracy. That, this Easter, is a cause for hope.
Her wait is nearly over. Tomorrow, Gordon Brown is expected to make his trip to the palace. The phoney war of pre-campaign jostling will end and the struggle for power will begin in earnest on doorsteps across the UK. Political tribes will marshall their foot soldiers to battle for no less lofty a goal than taking control of the British Government.
The brutality of UK politics is not quite as gory as the French experiment with the guillotine but the consequences are almost as lethal.
Unlike in the United States, where a defeated president has a few months to vacate the White House and can go on a goodbye tour of world leaders, a defeated British PM is instantly turfed out. If he or she lost in his or her constituency they could be out of a job entirely.
In further contrast with our neighbours across the Atlantic, we do not have the neat divide between the presidency and congress – if a Prime Minister is ejected from Downing Street it is because his or her party has lost the battle to control the House of Commons.
This imperfect system is not designed to foster continuity, smooth transitions and stability. Instead, it facilitates revolutions without the spilling of blood.
The voting system may be hopelessly non-proportional and the post-devolution constitution is arguably now a mess of loose threads, but politicians can go to the country with a manifesto and then return with a mandate to yank the levers of power.
It is apt that this election excitement coincides with Easter for all of the main parties face the prospect of death and resurrection.
For Gordon Brown – a politician who seems to come to life in the heat of a campaign – a win would silence plotters and in this ultimate moment of affirmation establish him as the people's – and not just the party’s – choice as Prime Minister. He could bury the fitful post-Blair years and take forward a programme of real reform.
A successful David Cameron would lay to rest the torrid post-Major era of Tory division and disconnection. The greatest challenge of his life would then begin as he sought to build a recovery and prove his social conscience was not a marketing ploy but an expression of conviction.
And the sight of Nick Clegg at Downing Street would be taken as proof that miracles do happen. The wilderness decades of liberalism would be over and the science of election prediction would be flung into crisis.
A dogged fight awaits but the intensity of the contest so far has already established there is new life in our democracy. That, this Easter, is a cause for hope.
Merton on Monday
Contemplation is the sudden intuitive penetration of what really IS. It is the unexpected leap of the spirit of man intothe existential luminosity of Reality Itself, not merely by the metaphysical intuition of being, but by the transcendent fulfilment of an existential communion with Him Who IS...
This Reality, this Freedom, is not a concept, not a thing, not an object, not even an object of knowledge: it is the Living God, the Holy One, the One to Whom we dare to utter a Name only because he has revealed a Name to us, but Who is behind all names as He is beyond all being, beyond all knowing, beyond all loving...
The pure summit of our actuality is the threshold of His Sanctuary, and He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.
Thomas Merton, The New Man, p. 19
This Reality, this Freedom, is not a concept, not a thing, not an object, not even an object of knowledge: it is the Living God, the Holy One, the One to Whom we dare to utter a Name only because he has revealed a Name to us, but Who is behind all names as He is beyond all being, beyond all knowing, beyond all loving...
The pure summit of our actuality is the threshold of His Sanctuary, and He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.
Thomas Merton, The New Man, p. 19
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