Category: Current Affairs

I don't usually connect between Facebook and this blog. They're two different places; only friends read what's on Facebook, whereas this blog is open. Both are places I sometimes have fun, or think out loud, or share concerns, jokes and much of the other exchanges that make this life interesting, frustrating and by and large, all things considered, when it comes down to it, bottom line wonderful.

This morning I posted this on Facebook:

It takes a lot of love, faith and courage to decide "I shall Not Hate", and to resist calls for revenge. This is the personal story of a Palestinian doctor who lost three daughters and a niece when the Israeli Defence Force targeted their house in the 2009 incursion into Gaza. A tank shell was fired through their bedroom window. "Hatred is an illness. It prevents healing and peace….we use hatred and blame to avoid the reality that eventually we need to come together." Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor, describes the book as "a necessary lesson against hatred and revenge." Izzeldin Abuelaish is the founder of Daughters for Life Foundation which offers educational support for Middle Eastern women. The book tells the story of one Palestinian family's grief and the determination of a doctor to overcome hatred with love, violence with peace, and fear with the persuasion of truth told, and lived.

The post speaks for itself, but I wanted to think out loud a bit more about this remarkable man, and the tragic killing of his family.

I am tired of the rhetoric of blame and justification from the Israeli Defence Force and those who give the orders for military incursions into Gaza.

I refuse to ignore the prolonged siege and dehumanising humiliation of a people on the grounds of security as disguise for land appropriation.

I acknowledge the threat posed by Hamas, but also acknowledge the ludicrous imbalance of power and the disproportionate measures, military, legislatively and economically, taken against civilian people in the interests of this unchallenged idol of national security.

I am apalled at the policies of a Government of a country which came into being as a nation state to provide a home for homeless persecuted people, and now in turn practices institutional persecution of the Palestinian people.

And yet.

I have much to learn from Izzeldin Abbuelish, who near the end of his book, writes a list of the lessons he has learned in the tragedy of his children, and in converting that anguish into creative energy to build a better future. Here are five of those lessons that have deep echoes of the words of Another whose entire life was built on self-giving love, and who embodied that so humane defiance of unspeakable grievance, "I shall not hate":

1. Hate is blindness and leads to irrational thinking and behaviour. It is a chronic, severe and destructive sickness.
2. Anger is not the same as hate. Anger can be productive. Feel the anger, acknowledge it, but let it be accompanied by change. Let it propel you toward necessary action for  and others.
3. When your core values align with your heart, they become non-negotiable. If this is your guide you can make decisions with the utmost integrity.
4. Peace is humanity; peace is respect; peace is open dialogue. Good ideas become great ones when shared with others.
5. Trust children's opinions. They are most likely to speak the trruth, and far less likely to have a personal agenda.

May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Lord who is One God, touch with mercy hearts that hate, and hearts that refuse to hate, and out of that history of anguish and broken dreams, build a new future.

The Scottish Labour Leader, Jim Murphy, has said an unequivocal no to scrapping Trident. That's no surprise! He also said, and I quote, "The nuclear deterrent is too important to get involved in that sort of horsetrading on the nation's safety. I want a world free of nuclear weapons but you should negotiate that away with other nuclear powers, not negotiate it away for party political gain." More about this over here.

For now though, I want to pick up two words, which isn't nit picking, but a serious scrutiny of the discourse used in the political manoeuvering and rhetoric evident in the way words are used.  First, Mr Murphy said it would be wrong to get rid of Trident. Now would that be strategically wrong, economically wrong, geo-politically wrong, party politically wrong, internationally tactically wrong or any other kind of wrong? Except the one sense in which used in this context, and about a matter of such grave human consequence, I think the word wrong would be correct. That is, on the grounds of moral principle. Would it be morally wrong to get rid of Trident? If so on what ethical grounds can this argument be made?  

Second, Mr Murphy uses two synonyms which are not synonymous – horsetrading and negotiation. He is absolutely right that the question of a nuclear deterrent, the nation's safety and therefore the question of renewing and upgrading our nculear weapons is too important for party horsetrading should it come to a coalition Government. So the question of whether we renew Trident is too important for part political horsetrading. Renewing Trident allows us to negotiate (not horsetrade) with other nuclear armed powers in hypothetical multilateral discussions some time in the (distant) future. My problem with this word negotiate is that such a soft word can obscure the reality that the content of the discussion is the commitment of nuclear powers to the ideology of mutually assured destruction as ultimate deterrence. Which brings us back to the use of the word "wrong".

Mr Murphy thinks it would be wrong to scrap Trident – he doesn't mean morally wrong. I think it would be wrong to renew and keep a nuclear deterrent, and I do mean morally wrong. Now where is the ground for negotiation there? The moral argument for maintaining a deterrent threatening massive obliteration of millions of human beings I'm sure can be made, but Mr Murphy doesn't make it. That is perhaps because there is a category confusion in the current debates around nuclear weapons, Trident replacement, and international and geo-politics. The moral question is marginalised in the political discussions, even when politicians say their opposition is principled, as Nicola Sturgeon has said on repeated occasions.

I'm well aware of the complexities, or at least as aware as any other person interested enough to go looking for the moral cases for and against nuclear deterrence. My point in this post is more modest than stating the moral case for scrapping Trident. I simply want to put the case for the moral arguments being included for consideration in the intellectual, political, strategic, military, economic discourse of such a far reaching dilemma. If Jim Murphy thinks it would be a political mistake, an error of defence judgement, a tactical faux pas, an economic own goal, that would be his privilege and he would be entitled to be heard. But to say it would be "wrong" to scrap Trident, uses a word that imports substantial questions of ethics at the personal, social, national, international levels which he has no intention of addressing.

Or am I the only one who suffers ethical dissonance when I hear someone say "it would be wrong to scrap Trident". All along I've argued it would be morally wrong to replace it just as it was wrong in the first place to buy into the brutal game of deterrence. The other ways it might be wrong are secondary – principled opposition to nuclear deterrence arises in my case from a refusal to countenance the possibility of global scale destruction of humanity and our planet as a way of ensuring my personal survival. That brings me from morality to theology, and that would be a quite other, but deeply related, form of discourse.

Am I the only person who wonders if somewhere in the nether regions of Whitehall there's a small but dedicated task group whose primary responsibility is to examine carefully the social capital of this country and work out ways of dismantling, reducing, diminishing, eliminating, erasing or rubbishing those features of our common life and common good that are inconvenient to their ideology, constituency or economic interests.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for example, is now a target for disempowerment in our own country should we elect a Conservative Government in 2015. The ECHR is enshrined in British Law since 1998 – but it's European, nuff said, and it gets in the way of policies and UK Court decisions so should be replaced by a much more convenient and less legally awkward Bill of Rights. The UK is a founding member of the Convention – the moral argument for supporting it rather than disaffiliating is overwhelming. British Parliamentarians and lawyers were key participants in its drafting. The shame on a country which walks away from such a high moral position is deserved, and will have a long half life.

This comes out on the very day newspapers are leading with the emotive headline that terminally ill people whose life expectancy is over 6 months, can be required to do work experience or risk reduction of benefits. I thought that was just another odf those scare stories – but it is yet another floated proposal to add to the other welfare and benefits changes that are beginning to look like obstacle courses aimed at reducing life to a series of economic calculations related to deficit, austerity and welfare cuts.

Oh, and waiting in the car for Sheila today, I listened to a profoundly deaf business woman speaking through a Communication Support Worker (CSW) explain what happened to her. Without consultation, her allowance had been cut for the provision of a CSW to enable her to conduct her business (by answering the phone and facilitating conversations) and so have access to work. This from a Government which prides itself in encouraging and enabling people with disabilities to work by ensuring there is access through such support.

Any Government impatient with a Human Rights Convention is already suspect in my world view; any correlation between benefits, work experience and terminal illness is straight and simple immoral; trumpeting access to work provision, and withdrawing it by stealth is at best hypocrisy and at worst planned dishonesty.

My problem is, these three case stories all hit the news on one day. That's a lot of threatened social capital in 24 hours. And that's why I think there is a little cottage industry somewhere in Whitehall, where people with no sense of the real hard world many live in out here, manufacture new improved misery, construct more effective obstructions, dismantle the defences of the already vulnerable, and, while drinking their coffee to go and munching their 400 calorie muffins, are oblivious of the new growth industry out here, food banks.

I know. I'm guilty of caricature. You think? Frankly, for such stories as these three to even emerge with credibility from the frantic posturing and vote chasing of Westminster is itself a damning critique of a Government whose moral imagination is firewalled by selfishness and the arrogance of self-conferred omniscience about what's good for the rest of us.

I read isaiah 1.21-23 and wonder at the scary fit between the prophet's words to the city and our experience of the City:

See how the faithful city
    has become a prostitute!
She once was full of justice;
    righteousness used to dwell in her—
    but now murderers!
²² Your silver has become dross,
    your choice wine is diluted with water.
²³ Your rulers are rebels,
    partners with thieves;
they all love bribes
    and chase after gifts.
They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;
    the widow’s case does not come before them.

"A long time ago, in a Galaxy far away…." the Scottish theologian P T Forsyth delivered an address on The Ideal City. He too felt Britain was on the cusp of history. It was July 1913, in Llandridnod Wells, and he argued passionately for Christian engagement in politics to build a Christian City – characterised by large ideas, justice and kindness.

His address is now dated, and the gender exclusive language, the norm for his age, is almost laughably blatant – so I edited it a wee bit – (and he's probably burling in his grave!) But the vision of citizenship as those committed to the common good, and civic life salted and radiant with Christians as passionate about the community around them as about their church, is one that may help us look beyond next Thursday determined to make good things happen – large ideas, justice and kindness. Here's the last couple of sentences.

"May God who set up the Kingdom of His Grace in a true and holy Man [Jesus], send us true women and men always to build our cities. But, if we be left with cities inhabited only by pushing egoists, then we shall need all His mercy, for we shall have neother beauty, worth, power, nor prosperity in the end."

If you want to read the whole address it's here   http://cruciality.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/revelation-old-new-nc.pdf

The problem with the controversy over Malky Mackay's texts to Iain Moody is that the main protagonists seem to speak a different language from the rest of us.If you haven't read the offending texts, I'm not copying them here – try the BBC website.

I've read the texts carefully, allowing the words used to have their mainstream dictionary meaning, and they are, by any inguistic and reasonable standards,  racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Jewish. Mackay now, on a third attempt at an apology, admits they are "unacceptable and inappropriate" and that there is "no excuse".

He insists he is not a racist, sexist, homophobic or anti-Jewish. That leaves me linguistically confused. The texts are unacceptable and inappropriate, why? It isn't the grammar, the poor choice of vocabulary, the timing, the recipient, the fact that he was "under pressure" – it's what they say, and what that tells us about the mind that thinks in these gratuitously abusive terms in the first place, articulates them, and communicates them.

Football managers at the highest level are under pressure all the time – it's the job, and the financial rewards are meant to purchase the experience, character and skills of someone who, under that pressure, behaves in a way that is – well, acceptable, appropriate and respectful. So pressure is no excuse – not even an explanation.

Quoted on the BBC website, Mackay says, "I'm a leader of people and it shouldn't have happened. But I'm a human being and I made a mistake." Quite so.

But the word mistake is a wee bit of an understatement, a piece of spinning rhetoric, an attempt to make serial offences sound like an oversight. Jesus said it's out of the heart the mouth speaks, and Luke 6.45 is a much more honest and realistic assessment of what happens before the thumb presses send.

As a Christian I am appalled at Mackay's language, the mindset that lies behind and chooses the words, and the character of someone who can even think the thoughts requiring such crude, dangerous vocabulary.

So what am I saying? That he should never serve as a manager again? That his claim it was a 'mistake' should be dismissed as self-serving minimising of damage? That his claim to have shown contrition is not enough? I'm frankly gob-smacked that a high profile football manager, who must know that in an age of digital footprints and carnivorous media interest, he is required to act in the character of his role – "a leader of people" – would be arrogant enough to send this stuff and think no more about it.

Perhaps the best question big Malky could ask is "What do I need to do to put this right?" Those who are targeted by, and offended by his language, what would they ask of him, that would enable him again to hold his head up in any company, including theirs?

The word redemption is a rich, old fashioned and essential community restoring word. It enables language to move from conflict to resolution, from prejudice to understanding, from acknowledged guilt to forgiveness, and from a broken past to a recovered future.

If Malky Mackay has any sense, and can think his way forward with or without the aid of publicists and lawyers, he might come to realise what is needed is an intentional and determined decision to face the reality of what he said, and therefore who he is. That will mean repentance, a turnaround, an inner re-orientation, a combination of remorse and commitment to change. Then there would be at least the possibility he can recover a sense of personal integrity as a first step towards restored public credibility.

He needs to hear from those he offended, to listen and understand. He needs equality and diversity training, which he is now quoted as saying he will seek. Good. He needs a refresher course in leadership and self awareness, exposure to the consequences of language and an understanding of the linear moral connection between the words we use and the heart and mind that chooses them to tell the world what we are thinking.

If Mackay insists he is not racist, sexist, homophobic or anti-Jewish, then that now needs credible evidence to prove it. He can do that by showing willingness to learn and understand why these texts are morally repugnant, and why they were sent by him. In the fantasy world of football, there are times when what's needed is moral realism. Mackay is not being asked in a post match interview to justify his team's poor performance – he's being asked to do something infinitely more demanding – to identify the weakness of his own performance and train to put it right. I for one hope he will find a way that is redemptive for him, and brings good out of evil, and enables a talented man to work again at the highest level (by which I mean ethics as well as tactics) – but it will require far more than words.

……………………

This post was drafted this morning for publishing later. But then came this. On Football Focus today Garth Crooks a Kick it Out Trustee said, "There has to be room for redemption. This is about education. We are keen for managers, players and coaches who fall from grace in this area to understand what is acceptable in a working environment."

Amen to that, all of it, including his use of that wonderful word – redemption.

I posted this on facebook this morning. Don't like posting the same stuff on both places, but 1) I feel deeply and strongly on the matter of Israel and Gaza 2) there are different constituencies between this blog and facebook.

…..

The Book of Lamentations is one of the masterpieces of human art. The art of articulating suffering; the art of living without hope but beyond despair; the art of using words to persuade us that for some experiences there are no words; the art of looking on a devastated land, a crushed city and a people broken by a violence disproportionate, ruthless and revelling in its triumph, and doing so through the lenses of tears that will not stop flowing.

The Book of Lamentations is one of the great gifts of Jewish faith to a world that always needs reminding of the sorrow we visit upon one another. It represents the heart cry of a people who want to live. The deep spirituality of such suffering is a call for compassion, the anguished cry of the suffering in the face of the taunts and cheers of the enemy is a sound every human being should recognise and seek to comfort.

When I see the flag of David waving and crowds cheering missiles and shells raining on Gaza, I am reminded of the Book of Lamentations, and a people shattered by the cheering of their enemies. And when Mr Netanyahu tells me the problem is a terrorist Hamas organisation that uses people as a human shield I share his outrage, but not his ruthless intent to destroy the shields, because they are human beings. People compelled to be human shields are by definition powerless, and the slaughter of the powerless is precisely what the Book of Lamentations immortalised in words that come from the heart of a people who know.

No, I have no answers to Hamas' ruthlessness, nor Israel's ruthlessness so I pray as the Prophet did that God will silence the song of the ruthless.
Kyrie Eleison

Rockets and missiles. Ground troops and guerilla fighters. Women and children. Dead and wounded. Hatred and revenge. Jew and Muslim. Walls and razor wire. Oppression and freedom. Oppressor and opressed. East and West.

The problem is these are not polar opposites; they are mirror images. They represent vicious circles of violence, grievance, vengeance; of trauma, fear and lost trust; of memory, hatred and outrage; of Gaza, Israel and history; of Jew, Muslim and Christian.

During the renewed conflicts between Israel and Gaza I;ve been reading Yopssi Klein Halevi's book, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden. A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. This is a deep book, with revolutionary possibilities in the service of peace.

"There is nothing diaphonous or ethereal about  the striving toward God. It is all about the striving for an end to the bloodshed in one holy, tortured corner of Earth".

This book is written by a Jewish soldier turned journalist turned spiritual seeker for peace amongst the three monotheistic faiths. This isn't a book about inter-religious dialogue for the sake of it; this is an account of how hope is hard won, tough minded, but in the end adamantine in its persistence, because hope is one of the essential persepctives of human being and humane living.

Here are some sentences from the end of this remarkable eirenicon.

More than ever, the goal of the spiritual life in the Holy Land is to live with an open heart at the centre of unbearable tension. Still, I regularly disappoint myself, unable to exorcise, except for brief interludes, the jinns of fear and rage…

The one enduring transformation that I carry with me from my journey is that I learned to venerate – to love Christianity and Islam. I learned to feel at home in a church, even on Good Friday, and in a Mosque, even in Nuseirat. The cross and the minaret have become for me cherished symbols  of God's presence, reminders that he speaks to us in multiple languages – that he speaks to us at all.

Then, he takes his children to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, this Jewish soldier journalist who has spent months learning new language and discourse with those of other opposing faiths, and who has come to see that these faiths are not irredeemably hostile, but are different languages of faith and faithfulness to God,

This Jewish soldier finishes his book with these words, as he stands in the historic centre of Christian faith in the incarnate God in Christ:

I am suddenly aware of the muezzin , summoning me from the next hill. I get on my knees, press my forehead to the floor, immobile with surrender."

Not since reading Kenneth Cragg's The Call of the Minaret have I read a book of such deep understanding which has grown out of humility, courage and hopefulness. Courage to reach out seeking the other without fear, humility to listen to new visions and unlearn old prejudices, and hopefulness as goodwill and humane openness of heart and hand. And at heart a determined peacableness which sees those of other faiths, not as enemies, but friends, not as aliens but as neighbours, not as strangers but as family – "For this reason I kneel before the father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem – and Gaza.