Responses to events last week in America
Ordinary Sunday 24, 16th September, 2001
The Rev'd Dr Colin Holden
Assistant Priest and Archivist, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
This is one of those rare occasions on which comment, not in the style of an
editorial, but rather from a distinctly Christian perspective, is appropriate
concerning responses to the events of the past week. We all need to be aware
of potentially dangerous, as well as simply unhelpful and illogical, responses
that we have probably all already encountered – responses that we should
discourage, or directly challenge and reject on grounds that are central to our
belief.
Firstly, there is the understandable and partly natural response that seeks
retaliatory action against what may seem to be an appropriate target. But all
too easily, talk of rights and justice becomes a mask for aggression and a
desire for revenge which sweeps up and targets what are often the most innocent
and inappropriate victims. Already, some Australians have stoned buses carrying
children to Islamic schools, or publicly abused women in particular by spitting
on them. Such acts remind us that ignorance, prejudice and hysteria are alive
and well and need to be identified as such and spoken against. Such actions
degrade the humanity of those who commit them, not those at whom they are aimed.
Islamic culture and tradition contains a degree of diversity similar in
many ways to that within Christianity; it includes many with sophisticated
views who wish to, and have shown great ability in living in harmony with
neighbours of other religious traditions. Many have come to this country in
order to escape from regimes whose standards are those of an Islamic tradition
different from their own. These are the last people that Australians should
condemn at this moment. The President of the Islamic Council of Victoria has
reminded a number of us that Australian Islamic people are appalled, as we all
are, by the tragic events of this week.
We particularly need to beware of those who will encourage Christian people
to identify the possible origins of the terrorists in religious terms, so that
armed hostility against their country or countries of origin becomes some kind
of crusade essential for the preservation of Christianity. Such interpretations
are mischievous in the extreme. There was much identifying in our churches of
the Allied effort during World War I as a Christian crusade. Canon Hughes did
it here in this pulpit at St Peter's. I think that the passing of time makes
it easy for us to see that the Australian Anglican who then described Jesus
as the ultimate British patriot was confusing patriotism, well-placed or misplaced, with something else, and using Jesus as a recruiting symbol.
We should likewise be able to see that the American fundamentalist preacher
who claimed this week that if Jesus were incarnate at this moment, he would
be leading American army officers in giving bayonet practice, is indulging at
least in some very confused thinking, and at worst, is using the person of
Jesus to manipulate people towards feelings and actions that are rejected by
Jesus as we find Him in the Gospels.
Positively, we do well to recall the responses of the minority of Christian
leaders in the recent past who have spoken out when the general tenor of
public feeling has considered that the government would be acting acceptably
if it were to sanction retaliatory behaviour beyond the minimum level of force
necessary to end a conflict – in other words, to act in a basically
vengeful way. Such voices now stand out prophetically and impressively from
the mainstream around them. For example, during World War II, Bishop Bell of
Chichester was a rare voice among Anglican bishops in England in reminding
that nation's public that any acts designed to terrorise, intimidate or
humiliate an opponent would finally degrade the humanity of those who
committed them. History may well view more favourably than did many Americans
the lone voice of the Californian Democrat who urged that there should be a
slower, more considered response than the one which has placed greater power
in the hands of the American president to initiate retaliatory action.
Government leaders may be in a situation in which a retaliatory act is
seemingly the best choice out of a range of imperfect actions available for
the moment. But such actions will also involve the loss of many innocent
lives, something as unjustifiable in itself as the loss that has been sustained
in the last week. Such action will ensure the creation of another generation
who will nurture strong feelings of resentment against those who took it; it
will not convince them of any justice in the cause of the USA – rather
the opposite. It is most likely to strengthen, rather than dispel, resistance.
From dangerous responses to unhelpful ones. For some more than others, this
week's events have provoked a strong sense of anxiety. As we have learnt to
create more and more complex systems – whether technological, economic
or of other kinds – many people have come to think that we are on a
continuous move forward into an ever-progressively developing and expanding
future. We have seen increased control over some parts of life – for
example through medical developments. What used to make us feel vulnerable
has in some cases lessened. But we also seem to receive more of a shock when
we are reminded of the possibility of vulnerability of any kind, let alone of
a descent into barbarism.
A quick overview of the 20th century should remind most people that complex,
powerful and sophisticated empires and systems – British, Russian
communist, Nazi, to mention a few – have reached peaks and dissolved.
Those in the tradition of the great monotheisms, including ourselves, should
be a little better able to cope. The Old Testament pictures the survival of
God's people against a backdrop of huge rising and falling empires – each
with illusions about its own grandeur, power, and permanence. Rome is the
background for the Israel of Jesus' earthly life; and the fall of Rome in 410
was a powerful symbol of vulnerability of various kinds to Christians such
as St Jerome and St Augustine. All of those who were part of this stream, to
which we also belong, were firmly convinced of the impermanence of what seemed
most solid around them, and of the ultimate reality and enduring nature of
another kingdom and world.
At the apparent height of the power of the British Empire during Queen
Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1897) the poet Rudyard Kipling was disturbed by
the degree to which its members seemed to lack any sense of the Empire's
vulnerability. Over familiarity has perhaps blunted us to the pointedness of
his words in the Recessional:
Far-call'd our navies melt away –
On dune and headland sinks the fire –
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre . . .
If drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe –
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law –
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard . . .
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Whether British or American, an empire may call frequently on God, while
in practice putting an unnecessary and misplaced trust in the stockpiling and
use of weapons and armed force.
Lastly, to simplistic and naive statements concerning the supposed loss
of innocence inflicted on our world this week by a total or absolute evil.
Some can only comprehend acts of a horrific nature by seeing them in terms
of black and white. The act may have been primarily or consciously a protest
against the United States and its allies; that is, against a particular world
power bloc: but it is also a protest against the affluence of Western
democracies and the network of governments whose alliances have certainly
benefited some, but have resulted in raw deals, oppression or repression for
others – whether particular nations or cultures, or particular economic
groups within them. These are not radical insights; nor are they new ones.
In other words, the likelihood – or rather, inevitability – of some
dramatic registering of protest of the kind we have just witnessed, has been
sensed for some time. I am about to quote some words by a prominent Australian,
written a quarter of a century ago, in 1974.
The constant rise in our standard of living [in Australia and other Western democracies] has been achieved only by the exploitation of a large
part of the human race. The gap between our standard of living and theirs
has increased to an appalling extent. As long as this gap continues and grows
security and peace for mankind will be impossible.
The same voice made the following comment in 1972 about revolutionaries
and insurgents, then supported by communism.
The nations of the 'free world' are likely to step in to prevent
what is depicted plausibly as subversion. Of course communists will make use
of a situation like this. But we must not forget that they are only able to
make use of it because corrupt forces, often backed by the political and
economic interests of the great powers of the 'free world', have created a
situation ripe for revolution.
These were not the words of a political radical or someone encouraging
political violence. The prescient voice is that of Dr Keith Rayner, our
former primate, writing as bishop of Wangaratta.
These, and the reflections and warnings of many others of different points
of view from both within and outside the Christian world, stand as an
indication that any claim for a sudden loss of innocence is difficult to
justify; if some genuinely believe it to be the case, the kind of comments
I have just quoted suggest that those who remained innocent until last week
were remarkably unaware of themselves and the world around them. Those who
repeatedly try to press others into believing that we have only just lost our
innocence are guilty of something else – manipulation of emotion in a
time of insecurity.
Meanwhile, Christian people should seek to join hands with others in
pressing for restraint, and the creation of some kind of middle ground in
the face of the tendency to polarise and gather at extreme points. Moderation,
middle ground restraint and mediation are not forms of weakness, but positions
which take real strength to maintain. In a period such as this, it will be
highly unpopular in some circles. It nevertheless remains an essential one,
one that we abandon at peril not only to basic beliefs, but also to the peril
of the wider community.
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