By Maya Mailer Oxfam International March 12, 2015
If you type ‘Syria’ into Google News, the headlines that normally appear are about airstrikes, beheadings, and Jihadi John. The less dramatic, everyday human cost of those caught up in the crisis gets much less play. Perhaps this is inevitable. As the conflict enters its fifth year, a sense of fatigue and helplessness has set in. My hardnosed media colleagues tell me that we need to find something ‘new’ to say. Everyday human suffering, even of such magnitude, clearly doesn’t cut it. But while international interest is waning, the suffering continues – on an epic scale.
As 21 humanitarian and human rights organisations, including Oxfam, document in a report launched today, Failing Syria, Syrians are experiencing ever-increasing levels of death and destruction. Civilians continue to be indiscriminately attacked, despite the passage in February 2014 of what was thought to be a landmark UN Security Council Resolution demanding an end to such attacks. In fact, 2014 was the deadliest year of the conflict, with reports of at least 76,000 people killed. So much for grand demands from the great powers that sit on the UN Security Council.
In what was a middle-income country, 11.6 million people are in need of clean water. Some 3.7 million are refugees. What I try to hang on to, and I admit it’s not always easy, is that behind these colossal numbers are millions of individual lives that have been shattered. These are farmers, teachers, students, musicians – ordinary people like you and me – fighting for survival and battling for normality. People like Ayham, a pianist who performs concerts broadcast by skype amid the ruined streets of Yarmouk, a district of Damascus, or Noor, a refugee, who teaches children Arabic in a tent in Lebanon.
Like many of Syria’s refugees, Noor lives in an informal settlement. The aid jargon does not do justice to what an ‘informal settlement’ is really like – a dirty area packed with people living under tarpaulins where people try their best to make a semblance of home in the midst of hardship. On a visit to one such settlement, where Oxfam is providing water, blankets and cash assistance, I sat with a refugee family in their tent, huddled around a central stove for warmth. It was home to eight people – the children, wearing flip flops in the bitter cold, charged in and out as we spoke. The father of the family said he was increasingly anxious about their legal status in the country but quickly ruled out any hope of returning to Syria soon. ‘Maybe in five or ten years – who knows?’
I was struck by the impossible choices refugees were facing. With the majority living outside formal camps like Zaatari in Jordan, many refugees must pay rent to private landlords. Indeed one landowner in northern Lebanon referred to the informal settlement on his land as a ‘hotel’. But in Jordan and Lebanon, refugees face huge barriers to gaining permission to work. So where does the money come from? Cash assistance provided by agencies like Oxfam helps – and is just one example of why it is so crucial that humanitarian funding is maintained – but it’s not enough to cover the needs.
Wealthier refugees can sell off their assets, but for how long? An elderly woman told me how she had taken off her earrings and sold them, and now there was nothing left. As always, though, it is those that were poorest to begin with, who are forced to take the gravest risks. A group of women told me that ‘when it comes to the end of the month and it’s time to pay rent, some of us are very vulnerable’. Behind that word ‘vulnerable’ lay many decisions too painful for them to speak about.
Ultimately, of course, a political solution is needed. I spoke recently to a Syrian peace activist who said that Syria was still waiting for its ‘Rwanda moment’. By that, he meant that there needed to be a groundswell of global moral outrage so great that it would be impossible for the world to ignore what was happening and do all it can to stop it.
To be honest, I’ve been struggling with this, as surely that moment has long gone. If the death of over 200,000 people including thousands of children isn’t enough, then what is? But giving up isn’t an option for Syrians and it’s not an option for us either. We must continue to shine a spotlight on Syria and build the political resolve to end the bloodshed (you can take action here). [Abridged]
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/03/12/four-years-syrian-conflict-we-must-never-lose-sight-civilians-behind-story
Tuesday, 17 March 2015
Forgiveness is the hardest option – but also the surest path towards healing
Ian Harris Otago Daily Times March 13, 2015
It’s awesome how far some people will go to forgive. One such is Iafeta Matalasi, whose son was shot dead by two Mongrel Mobsters in a Petone stand-off. Instead of demanding revenge and punishment, he asked a judge to set the killers free so they could begin to live with compassion for others. “I have lost my boy,” he said. “Nothing will bring him back. The only thing that is left for me is forgiveness.”
The mother of American journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by Islamic State’s Jihadi John (Mohammed Emwazi) in Syria, said Emwazi was a sad and sick man: “We need to forgive him for not having a clue what he was doing.” Foley’s father added: “If we capture Emwazi and bring him to justice, what does that do? Islamic State is still doing its thing. It’s a very narrow approach.”
There’s a healing power in forgiveness, and it’s especially powerful in those who forgive. Contrast those responses with a sister’s bitterness towards the thugs who bashed to death farmhand Justin McFarlane in North Otago: “I will never, ever, forgive any one of you.” And with Millie Elder-Holmes’ venom towards the man accused of murdering her partner in Auckland: “I wish him all the pain and suffering in the world.” And with the curse of beheaded English aid worker David Haines’ daughter, whose wish for Emwazi is “a bullet between his eyes”. Hurt has turned into hatred. Hatred locks in the hurt and heals no one.
I suspect, though, that more of us would identify with the impulse towards vengeance and punishment, often confused with justice, and say “Right on! Why should anyone forgive the unforgivable? Doesn’t justice demand judgment?” Yes, of course. But there’s a difference between judgment and judgmentalism. Judgment is something everyone must exercise in all sorts of situations – but when judgment morphs into judgmentalism it can turn sour and become destructive.
Judgmental people see right and wrong in terms of black and white, are quick to condemn, and usually set great store by punishment as a way of making people behave better. They have probably never heard, and certainly not heeded, the German philosopher-poet Goethe’s caution: “Always distrust a person in whom the urge to punish is strong.” In his book On Forgiveness, former Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway agrees it is too much to expect communities, still less victims and their families, to forgive horrendous acts of cruelty. But he invites them to distinguish between reprehensible acts and those who commit them.
It is this distinction, he says, that makes it possible to forgive the people who carried them out, “because we know that personal action is the fruit of character and that character is largely predetermined by factors that are not in our control”. Recourse to violence is a tragic example – and that applies to nation states as much as to individuals.
Violence appeals to the perpetrators because it gets results, at least in the short term. There is power, dominance, a winner – but also a ticking time-bomb, because the losers will one day seek redress. Just look at the mess the victors of World War 1 bequeathed to succeeding generations through a triumphalist peace treaty. And the shambles produced by the invasion of Iraq, which lit a jumping-jack of violent religious, ethnic, tribal and political causes.
That suggests there’s a crossover between community attitudes to violent criminals in Godzone and the Government’s decision to commit troops to wage war by proxy (by training Iraqi soldiers) in response to IS brutality. Both appear to be a product of judgmentalism, rather than mature judgment.
On the domestic front, judgmentalism demands justice by way of cracking down hard, longer sentences, more prisons. Judgment is more considered. It seeks justice through understanding what it is in the upbringing, social influences and mental make-up of offenders that shapes their outlook and actions, and then works to change these for the better.
On IS, a goodies-v-baddies judgmentalism would answer violence with greater violence. The moral outrage is genuine. But New Zealanders can justify the decision to enter the fray only by keeping ourselves ignorant of the underlying causes, and then failing to use our seat on the UN Security Council to push for avenues of reconciliation. That would be one obvious alternative to the “very narrow approach” which Foley’s father, who had every reason to cry vengeance, deplored.
Reconciliation is hard work, forgiveness even harder – but they open the way to healing. Violence never will.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/336071/refusal-forgive-can-lock-you-hatred
It’s awesome how far some people will go to forgive. One such is Iafeta Matalasi, whose son was shot dead by two Mongrel Mobsters in a Petone stand-off. Instead of demanding revenge and punishment, he asked a judge to set the killers free so they could begin to live with compassion for others. “I have lost my boy,” he said. “Nothing will bring him back. The only thing that is left for me is forgiveness.”
The mother of American journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by Islamic State’s Jihadi John (Mohammed Emwazi) in Syria, said Emwazi was a sad and sick man: “We need to forgive him for not having a clue what he was doing.” Foley’s father added: “If we capture Emwazi and bring him to justice, what does that do? Islamic State is still doing its thing. It’s a very narrow approach.”
There’s a healing power in forgiveness, and it’s especially powerful in those who forgive. Contrast those responses with a sister’s bitterness towards the thugs who bashed to death farmhand Justin McFarlane in North Otago: “I will never, ever, forgive any one of you.” And with Millie Elder-Holmes’ venom towards the man accused of murdering her partner in Auckland: “I wish him all the pain and suffering in the world.” And with the curse of beheaded English aid worker David Haines’ daughter, whose wish for Emwazi is “a bullet between his eyes”. Hurt has turned into hatred. Hatred locks in the hurt and heals no one.
I suspect, though, that more of us would identify with the impulse towards vengeance and punishment, often confused with justice, and say “Right on! Why should anyone forgive the unforgivable? Doesn’t justice demand judgment?” Yes, of course. But there’s a difference between judgment and judgmentalism. Judgment is something everyone must exercise in all sorts of situations – but when judgment morphs into judgmentalism it can turn sour and become destructive.
Judgmental people see right and wrong in terms of black and white, are quick to condemn, and usually set great store by punishment as a way of making people behave better. They have probably never heard, and certainly not heeded, the German philosopher-poet Goethe’s caution: “Always distrust a person in whom the urge to punish is strong.” In his book On Forgiveness, former Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway agrees it is too much to expect communities, still less victims and their families, to forgive horrendous acts of cruelty. But he invites them to distinguish between reprehensible acts and those who commit them.
It is this distinction, he says, that makes it possible to forgive the people who carried them out, “because we know that personal action is the fruit of character and that character is largely predetermined by factors that are not in our control”. Recourse to violence is a tragic example – and that applies to nation states as much as to individuals.
Violence appeals to the perpetrators because it gets results, at least in the short term. There is power, dominance, a winner – but also a ticking time-bomb, because the losers will one day seek redress. Just look at the mess the victors of World War 1 bequeathed to succeeding generations through a triumphalist peace treaty. And the shambles produced by the invasion of Iraq, which lit a jumping-jack of violent religious, ethnic, tribal and political causes.
That suggests there’s a crossover between community attitudes to violent criminals in Godzone and the Government’s decision to commit troops to wage war by proxy (by training Iraqi soldiers) in response to IS brutality. Both appear to be a product of judgmentalism, rather than mature judgment.
On the domestic front, judgmentalism demands justice by way of cracking down hard, longer sentences, more prisons. Judgment is more considered. It seeks justice through understanding what it is in the upbringing, social influences and mental make-up of offenders that shapes their outlook and actions, and then works to change these for the better.
On IS, a goodies-v-baddies judgmentalism would answer violence with greater violence. The moral outrage is genuine. But New Zealanders can justify the decision to enter the fray only by keeping ourselves ignorant of the underlying causes, and then failing to use our seat on the UN Security Council to push for avenues of reconciliation. That would be one obvious alternative to the “very narrow approach” which Foley’s father, who had every reason to cry vengeance, deplored.
Reconciliation is hard work, forgiveness even harder – but they open the way to healing. Violence never will.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/336071/refusal-forgive-can-lock-you-hatred
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Ukraine has ignored the far right for too long – it must wake up to the danger
Volodymyr Ishchenko Guardian/UK 4 March 2015
The indifference of officials and mainstream opinion to the election of far-right MPs is hugely worrying. That has been ratcheted up still further with the murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. The Russian president has, of course, been blamed for the killing, though that makes little sense. Nemtsov was a marginal figure whose role in the “catastroika” of the 1990s scarcely endeared him to ordinary Russians. Responsibility for an outrage that exposed the lack of security in the heart of Moscow and was certain to damage the president hardly seems likely to lie with Putin or his supporters.
But it’s certainly grist to the mill of those pushing military confrontation with Russia. Hundreds of US troops are arriving in Ukraine this week to bolster the Kiev regime’s war with Russian-backed rebels in the east. Not to be outdone, Britain is sending 75 military advisers of its own. As 20th-century history shows, the dispatch of military advisers is often how disastrous escalations start. They are also a direct violation of last month’s Minsk agreement, negotiated with France and Germany, that has at least achieved a temporary ceasefire and some pull-back of heavy weapons. Article 10 requires the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Ukraine.
But Nato’s hawks have got the bit between their teeth. Thousands of Nato troops have been sent to the Baltic states – the Atlantic alliance’s new frontline – untroubled by their indulgence of neo-Nazi parades and denial of minority ethnic rights. A string of American political leaders and generals are calling for the US to arm Kiev, from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, to the new defence secretary, Ashton Carter. For the western military complex, the Ukraine conflict has the added attraction of creating new reasons to increase arms spending, as the US army’s General Raymond Odierno made clear when he complained this week about British defence cuts in the face of the “Russian threat”.
This anti-Russian incitement is dangerous folly. There certainly has been military expansionism. But it has overwhelmingly come from Nato, not Moscow. For 20 years, despite the commitments at the end of the cold war, Nato has marched relentlessly eastwards, taking in first former east European Warsaw Pact states, then republics of the former Soviet Union itself. Instead of creating a common European security system including Russia, the US-dominated alliance has expanded up to the Russian border – insisting that is merely the sovereign choice of the states concerned. It clearly isn’t. It’s also the product of an alliance system designed to entrench American “leadership” on the European continent – laid out in Pentagon planning drawn up after the collapse of the Soviet Union to “prevent the re-emergence of a new rival”.
Russia has now challenged that, and the consequences have been played out in Ukraine for the past year: starting with the western-backed ousting of the elected government, through the installation of a Ukrainian nationalist regime, the Russian takeover of Crimea and Moscow-backed uprising in the Donbass. On the ground, it has meant thousands of dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees, indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas and the rise of Ukrainian fascist militias such as the Azov battalion, supported by Kiev and its western sponsors.
Most Russians want Putin to take a tougher stand ‘because of their experience of the past 25 years'. Russian covert military support for the rebels, on the other hand, is denounced as aggression and “hybrid warfare” – by the same governments that have waged covert wars from Nicaragua to Syria, quite apart from outright aggressions and illegal campaigns in Kosovo, Libya and Iraq. That doesn’t justify less extreme Russian violations of international law, but it puts them in the context of Russian security. While Putin is portrayed in the west as a reckless land-grabber, in Russian terms he is a centrist.
In the west, Ukraine – along with Isis – is being used to revive the doctrines of liberal interventionism and even neoconservatism, discredited on the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, Angela Merkel and François Hollande have resisted American pressure to arm Kiev. But when the latest Minsk ceasefire breaks down, as it surely will, there is a real risk that Ukraine’s proxy conflict could turn into full-scale international war.
The alternative is a negotiated settlement which guarantees Ukraine’s neutrality, pluralism and regional autonomy. It may well be too late for that. But there is certainly no military solution. Instead of escalating the war and fuelling nationalist extremism, western powers should be using their leverage to wind it down. If they don’t, the consequences could be disastrous – far beyond Ukraine. [Abridged]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/04/demonisation-russia-risks-paving-way-for-war
The indifference of officials and mainstream opinion to the election of far-right MPs is hugely worrying. That has been ratcheted up still further with the murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. The Russian president has, of course, been blamed for the killing, though that makes little sense. Nemtsov was a marginal figure whose role in the “catastroika” of the 1990s scarcely endeared him to ordinary Russians. Responsibility for an outrage that exposed the lack of security in the heart of Moscow and was certain to damage the president hardly seems likely to lie with Putin or his supporters.
But it’s certainly grist to the mill of those pushing military confrontation with Russia. Hundreds of US troops are arriving in Ukraine this week to bolster the Kiev regime’s war with Russian-backed rebels in the east. Not to be outdone, Britain is sending 75 military advisers of its own. As 20th-century history shows, the dispatch of military advisers is often how disastrous escalations start. They are also a direct violation of last month’s Minsk agreement, negotiated with France and Germany, that has at least achieved a temporary ceasefire and some pull-back of heavy weapons. Article 10 requires the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Ukraine.
But Nato’s hawks have got the bit between their teeth. Thousands of Nato troops have been sent to the Baltic states – the Atlantic alliance’s new frontline – untroubled by their indulgence of neo-Nazi parades and denial of minority ethnic rights. A string of American political leaders and generals are calling for the US to arm Kiev, from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, to the new defence secretary, Ashton Carter. For the western military complex, the Ukraine conflict has the added attraction of creating new reasons to increase arms spending, as the US army’s General Raymond Odierno made clear when he complained this week about British defence cuts in the face of the “Russian threat”.
This anti-Russian incitement is dangerous folly. There certainly has been military expansionism. But it has overwhelmingly come from Nato, not Moscow. For 20 years, despite the commitments at the end of the cold war, Nato has marched relentlessly eastwards, taking in first former east European Warsaw Pact states, then republics of the former Soviet Union itself. Instead of creating a common European security system including Russia, the US-dominated alliance has expanded up to the Russian border – insisting that is merely the sovereign choice of the states concerned. It clearly isn’t. It’s also the product of an alliance system designed to entrench American “leadership” on the European continent – laid out in Pentagon planning drawn up after the collapse of the Soviet Union to “prevent the re-emergence of a new rival”.
Russia has now challenged that, and the consequences have been played out in Ukraine for the past year: starting with the western-backed ousting of the elected government, through the installation of a Ukrainian nationalist regime, the Russian takeover of Crimea and Moscow-backed uprising in the Donbass. On the ground, it has meant thousands of dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees, indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas and the rise of Ukrainian fascist militias such as the Azov battalion, supported by Kiev and its western sponsors.
Most Russians want Putin to take a tougher stand ‘because of their experience of the past 25 years'. Russian covert military support for the rebels, on the other hand, is denounced as aggression and “hybrid warfare” – by the same governments that have waged covert wars from Nicaragua to Syria, quite apart from outright aggressions and illegal campaigns in Kosovo, Libya and Iraq. That doesn’t justify less extreme Russian violations of international law, but it puts them in the context of Russian security. While Putin is portrayed in the west as a reckless land-grabber, in Russian terms he is a centrist.
In the west, Ukraine – along with Isis – is being used to revive the doctrines of liberal interventionism and even neoconservatism, discredited on the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, Angela Merkel and François Hollande have resisted American pressure to arm Kiev. But when the latest Minsk ceasefire breaks down, as it surely will, there is a real risk that Ukraine’s proxy conflict could turn into full-scale international war.
The alternative is a negotiated settlement which guarantees Ukraine’s neutrality, pluralism and regional autonomy. It may well be too late for that. But there is certainly no military solution. Instead of escalating the war and fuelling nationalist extremism, western powers should be using their leverage to wind it down. If they don’t, the consequences could be disastrous – far beyond Ukraine. [Abridged]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/04/demonisation-russia-risks-paving-way-for-war
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Church of England bishops' pastoral letter: key points
Aisha Gani Guardian/UK 17 February 2015
The Church of England has published a 52-page letter outlining its hopes for political parties to discern “a fresh moral vision of the kind of country we want to be” before the general election in May. In it, leading English bishops address themes such as the church’s duty to join the political debate in an increasingly consumerist society, welfare reform and Britain’s role in the world. Here is a breakdown of some of the key sections:
Who is my neighbour? In this section, the bishops outline the principal motivation for the church’s involvement in wider society. It explains that Christians believe that human beings are created in the image of God and states: “But we are not made in isolation. We belong together in a creation which should be cherished and not simply used and consumed.”
The bishops call for a “trajectory for a new kind of politics”. The letter states that its aim is to help church members consider how to negotiate “these dangerous times to build the kind of society which many people say they want”, something voters may feel is not offered by political parties.
The duty of the church to engage in political debate. The church has an obligation to engage with the political process, according to the letter, and the bishops write that Christians “share responsibility with all citizens to participate in the democratic structures of our nation”.
The bishops assert that the claim that religion and political life must be kept separate is “frequently disingenuous”, and allege that politicians and pundits are happy for the church to speak on political issues as long as the church agrees with their perspective.
Political neutrality. The authors reject the notion that the letter tells church members to “vote for this party or that party”, and write that if this is the perception “they have misunderstood it”. Anglicans do not have a single view, the bishops write, on which political party has the best mix of answers to the challenges voters face.
What should voters ask of candidates? The Anglican bishops write that this election provides the opportunity to “sow the seeds of a new politics” and encourage voters to support candidates and policies that demonstrate the following six values:
-Halting and reversing the accumulation of power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands, whether those of the state, corporations or individuals.
-Involving people at a deeper level in the decisions that affect them most.
-Recognising the distinctive communities, whether defined by geography, religion or culture, which make up the nation and enabling all to thrive and participate together.
-Treating the electorate as people with roots, commitments and traditions and addressing us all in terms of the common good and not just as self-interested consumers.
-Demonstrating that the weak, the dependent, the sick, the aged and the vulnerable are persons of equal value to everybody else.
-Offering the electorate a grown-up debate about Britain’s place in the world order and the possibilities and obligations that entails.
The UK’s political culture. The public feel detached from political life, according to the letter, and “all political parties struggle to communicate a convincing vision”. The bishops argue that it is time to move beyond “retail politics” and instead focus on the common good – that includes the participation of more people in developing a political vision.
The role of the state. The bishops write that different communities have different needs – and may choose different priorities. But they say there is a “chill factor” when law and regulation intrude too far into everyday life. The letter demands A richer justification for the state, a better account of the purposes of government, and a more serious way of talking about taxation. The role of the intermediary institution – for example housing associations and credit unions – is acknowledged, and the bishops write how such organisations are overlooked by policymakers, and so struggle to be influential.
Role of the family. The letter says: ‘We are most human when we know ourselves to be dependent on others.’ The letter explains: We are most human when we know ourselves to be dependent on others. That is something we first learn in families, if we are fortunate enough to experience the blessings of family life. And it adds: “Families are not only for children.”
The economy. The bishops write that the UK faces a banking and housing crisis. The letter urges economics to be understood as a moral discipline and claims that the UK economy has an excessive emphasis on competition and resembles social Darwinism. It states how: Consumption, rather than production, has come to define us, and individualism has tended to estrange people from one another.
Poverty and inequality. The bishops say that material inequality has widened and in practical terms back a living wage. The letter states:
The Biblical tradition is not only ‘biased to the poor’, as often noted, but warns constantly against too much power falling into too few hands. When it does, human sympathies are strained to breaking point.
Unemployment. The letter says that it is good news that UK unemployment has not risen as high as was predicted. It adds: ‘Worklessness has long been acknowledged as corrosive of human dignity and sense of identity.’
Welfare reform. The bishops write in strong terms that political life would be enhanced if “state-sponsored action to underpin the welfare of each citizen” is acknowledged. Their letter warns against “stirring up resentment against some identifiable ‘other’” and dehumanising social groups.
Health. The letter raises the issue of loneliness in society and states: If the care of severely disabled people, the terminally ill or people with dementia was shared in the context of a supportive network of friends, neighbours and allies, the fear of being a burden on others would not lead so many to undervalue their own life, even to the point of seeking to end it.
Immigration. Neighbourliness is a key theme, and the bishops say: There is a growing appetite to exploit grievances, find scapegoats and create barriers between people and nations.
Education. The bishops write that schools should try to model a community of communities. They add: The letter says that schools should try to ‘model a community of communities’ The purpose of education is not simply to prepare people to be economic units but to nurture their ability to flourish as themselves and to seek the flourishing of others.
Environment. The bishops write that they support policies that respect the natural environment: We belong together in a creation which should be cherished and not simply used and consumed.
Britain’s global role.The need for strong international allies is called for, and the bishops add: Without a grasp of the power and meaning of religion, it is impossible to understand the dynamics of global politics today. Yet, “our perceptions of cultural and political interdependence lag far behind”, according to the letter.
Defence and war. Military intervention by Britain is not always wrong, write the bishops, yet “support should not be offered blindly”.
International development. The bishops support overseas aid, and write: The government is to be commended for committing 0.7% of GDP to overseas aid when budgets have been so hard pressed. Their letter goes on: For any party to abandon or reduce this commitment would be globally irresponsible in pragmatic terms as well as indicating that the moral imperatives of mutuality and reconciliation counted for nothing.”
Threat from extremism and religiously inspired conflict. The Anglican leaders write that the constant threat to the stability of all nations is a reminder of “our interdependence”. [Abbrev.]
The Church of England has published a 52-page letter outlining its hopes for political parties to discern “a fresh moral vision of the kind of country we want to be” before the general election in May. In it, leading English bishops address themes such as the church’s duty to join the political debate in an increasingly consumerist society, welfare reform and Britain’s role in the world. Here is a breakdown of some of the key sections:
Who is my neighbour? In this section, the bishops outline the principal motivation for the church’s involvement in wider society. It explains that Christians believe that human beings are created in the image of God and states: “But we are not made in isolation. We belong together in a creation which should be cherished and not simply used and consumed.”
The bishops call for a “trajectory for a new kind of politics”. The letter states that its aim is to help church members consider how to negotiate “these dangerous times to build the kind of society which many people say they want”, something voters may feel is not offered by political parties.
The duty of the church to engage in political debate. The church has an obligation to engage with the political process, according to the letter, and the bishops write that Christians “share responsibility with all citizens to participate in the democratic structures of our nation”.
The bishops assert that the claim that religion and political life must be kept separate is “frequently disingenuous”, and allege that politicians and pundits are happy for the church to speak on political issues as long as the church agrees with their perspective.
Political neutrality. The authors reject the notion that the letter tells church members to “vote for this party or that party”, and write that if this is the perception “they have misunderstood it”. Anglicans do not have a single view, the bishops write, on which political party has the best mix of answers to the challenges voters face.
What should voters ask of candidates? The Anglican bishops write that this election provides the opportunity to “sow the seeds of a new politics” and encourage voters to support candidates and policies that demonstrate the following six values:
-Halting and reversing the accumulation of power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands, whether those of the state, corporations or individuals.
-Involving people at a deeper level in the decisions that affect them most.
-Recognising the distinctive communities, whether defined by geography, religion or culture, which make up the nation and enabling all to thrive and participate together.
-Treating the electorate as people with roots, commitments and traditions and addressing us all in terms of the common good and not just as self-interested consumers.
-Demonstrating that the weak, the dependent, the sick, the aged and the vulnerable are persons of equal value to everybody else.
-Offering the electorate a grown-up debate about Britain’s place in the world order and the possibilities and obligations that entails.
The UK’s political culture. The public feel detached from political life, according to the letter, and “all political parties struggle to communicate a convincing vision”. The bishops argue that it is time to move beyond “retail politics” and instead focus on the common good – that includes the participation of more people in developing a political vision.
The role of the state. The bishops write that different communities have different needs – and may choose different priorities. But they say there is a “chill factor” when law and regulation intrude too far into everyday life. The letter demands A richer justification for the state, a better account of the purposes of government, and a more serious way of talking about taxation. The role of the intermediary institution – for example housing associations and credit unions – is acknowledged, and the bishops write how such organisations are overlooked by policymakers, and so struggle to be influential.
Role of the family. The letter says: ‘We are most human when we know ourselves to be dependent on others.’ The letter explains: We are most human when we know ourselves to be dependent on others. That is something we first learn in families, if we are fortunate enough to experience the blessings of family life. And it adds: “Families are not only for children.”
The economy. The bishops write that the UK faces a banking and housing crisis. The letter urges economics to be understood as a moral discipline and claims that the UK economy has an excessive emphasis on competition and resembles social Darwinism. It states how: Consumption, rather than production, has come to define us, and individualism has tended to estrange people from one another.
Poverty and inequality. The bishops say that material inequality has widened and in practical terms back a living wage. The letter states:
The Biblical tradition is not only ‘biased to the poor’, as often noted, but warns constantly against too much power falling into too few hands. When it does, human sympathies are strained to breaking point.
Unemployment. The letter says that it is good news that UK unemployment has not risen as high as was predicted. It adds: ‘Worklessness has long been acknowledged as corrosive of human dignity and sense of identity.’
Welfare reform. The bishops write in strong terms that political life would be enhanced if “state-sponsored action to underpin the welfare of each citizen” is acknowledged. Their letter warns against “stirring up resentment against some identifiable ‘other’” and dehumanising social groups.
Health. The letter raises the issue of loneliness in society and states: If the care of severely disabled people, the terminally ill or people with dementia was shared in the context of a supportive network of friends, neighbours and allies, the fear of being a burden on others would not lead so many to undervalue their own life, even to the point of seeking to end it.
Immigration. Neighbourliness is a key theme, and the bishops say: There is a growing appetite to exploit grievances, find scapegoats and create barriers between people and nations.
Education. The bishops write that schools should try to model a community of communities. They add: The letter says that schools should try to ‘model a community of communities’ The purpose of education is not simply to prepare people to be economic units but to nurture their ability to flourish as themselves and to seek the flourishing of others.
Environment. The bishops write that they support policies that respect the natural environment: We belong together in a creation which should be cherished and not simply used and consumed.
Britain’s global role.The need for strong international allies is called for, and the bishops add: Without a grasp of the power and meaning of religion, it is impossible to understand the dynamics of global politics today. Yet, “our perceptions of cultural and political interdependence lag far behind”, according to the letter.
Defence and war. Military intervention by Britain is not always wrong, write the bishops, yet “support should not be offered blindly”.
International development. The bishops support overseas aid, and write: The government is to be commended for committing 0.7% of GDP to overseas aid when budgets have been so hard pressed. Their letter goes on: For any party to abandon or reduce this commitment would be globally irresponsible in pragmatic terms as well as indicating that the moral imperatives of mutuality and reconciliation counted for nothing.”
Threat from extremism and religiously inspired conflict. The Anglican leaders write that the constant threat to the stability of all nations is a reminder of “our interdependence”. [Abbrev.]
Mohammed Emwazi, a very ordinary monster
Suzanne Moore Guardian/UK 2 March 2015
We can stop contributing to Isis’s propaganda efforts and refuse to promote Emwazi as a celebrity jihadi or icon of evil. Mohammed Emwazi is ‘an awkward young man wearing a baseball cap that is too big for his head’.
I am not going to call Mohammed Emwazi by his cuddly nickname as the BBC headlines continue to do for some strange reason. I do not want to see any more pictures of him in his murder outfit brandishing a knife. I do not want to read any more details that seek to explain what turned him into a serial killer. He looks ill at ease in a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap. All the self-assurance of the feared executioner disappears when he is unmasked. Let’s keep it that way.
Abu Ayman, an Islamic State defector, has said of Emwazi that “Isis play him like a piano. He’s a celebrity to attract our Muslim brothers in Europe. But some think he is showing off: they think he’s being used by Isis.” Indeed. But none of this could happen if Isis weren’t playing the global media like a piano. If we did not fixate both on his own image of himself in the murder videos or we didn’t grab on to the smallest details of his life to try to make sense of his barbarity. It is a futile task and one that reminds me of how serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Peter Sutcliffe become notorious, while their victims remain nameless and forgotten. It is a bang on the head, a lonely childhood, some kind of dislocation, mother issues, father issues, a persecution complex, increasing paranoia. Such pathologies have always existed.
Now though there is a ready made ideology in which these traits can be exploited to make individuals feel special instead of ordinary, part of a bigger cause instead of being utterly alienated and now infamous for much longer than 15 minutes. The need to locate radicalisation in one place: a mosque, a school, a university is futile. We have enough evidence to show that there is no one route, nor is it the poorest or those without opportunity who are attracted to extremist ideology. They can be polite graduates, or high-achieving schoolgirls.
Yet ideological grooming operates much as sexual grooming does: the promise of the association with powerful people who will give you attention and make life’s confusions vanish. Someone out there sees that you are very special; you will be taken care of. It offers escape from complexity. Severing heads from bodies will make you more famous than being a diligent IT worker.
So isn’t our responsibility to stop adding to this “fame”? To see Emwazi actually as a man who is not in charge but someone who has been used. To see him is to see that he is not actually even that interesting. His unmasking has involved the unmasking of Cage which was utterly necessary. Inevitably it has unmasked all kinds of fearful questions about the signs to look out for and how we stop such radicalisation. As the internet seems such a determining factor in all of this, there is no simple answer here.
We could, though, stop contributing to Isis’s own propaganda efforts and refuse to promote Emwazi as a celebrity jihadi or an icon of evil. Instead, we could ask what motivated some of his victims to become aid workers and journalists in one of the most dangerous places in the world. What kind of person does that? These are extraordinary people. Emwazi, on the other hand, is a very ordinary monster, an awkward young man wearing a baseball cap that is too big for his head.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/02/mohammed-emwazi-isis-propaganda-jihadi
We can stop contributing to Isis’s propaganda efforts and refuse to promote Emwazi as a celebrity jihadi or icon of evil. Mohammed Emwazi is ‘an awkward young man wearing a baseball cap that is too big for his head’.
I am not going to call Mohammed Emwazi by his cuddly nickname as the BBC headlines continue to do for some strange reason. I do not want to see any more pictures of him in his murder outfit brandishing a knife. I do not want to read any more details that seek to explain what turned him into a serial killer. He looks ill at ease in a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap. All the self-assurance of the feared executioner disappears when he is unmasked. Let’s keep it that way.
Abu Ayman, an Islamic State defector, has said of Emwazi that “Isis play him like a piano. He’s a celebrity to attract our Muslim brothers in Europe. But some think he is showing off: they think he’s being used by Isis.” Indeed. But none of this could happen if Isis weren’t playing the global media like a piano. If we did not fixate both on his own image of himself in the murder videos or we didn’t grab on to the smallest details of his life to try to make sense of his barbarity. It is a futile task and one that reminds me of how serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Peter Sutcliffe become notorious, while their victims remain nameless and forgotten. It is a bang on the head, a lonely childhood, some kind of dislocation, mother issues, father issues, a persecution complex, increasing paranoia. Such pathologies have always existed.
Now though there is a ready made ideology in which these traits can be exploited to make individuals feel special instead of ordinary, part of a bigger cause instead of being utterly alienated and now infamous for much longer than 15 minutes. The need to locate radicalisation in one place: a mosque, a school, a university is futile. We have enough evidence to show that there is no one route, nor is it the poorest or those without opportunity who are attracted to extremist ideology. They can be polite graduates, or high-achieving schoolgirls.
Yet ideological grooming operates much as sexual grooming does: the promise of the association with powerful people who will give you attention and make life’s confusions vanish. Someone out there sees that you are very special; you will be taken care of. It offers escape from complexity. Severing heads from bodies will make you more famous than being a diligent IT worker.
So isn’t our responsibility to stop adding to this “fame”? To see Emwazi actually as a man who is not in charge but someone who has been used. To see him is to see that he is not actually even that interesting. His unmasking has involved the unmasking of Cage which was utterly necessary. Inevitably it has unmasked all kinds of fearful questions about the signs to look out for and how we stop such radicalisation. As the internet seems such a determining factor in all of this, there is no simple answer here.
We could, though, stop contributing to Isis’s own propaganda efforts and refuse to promote Emwazi as a celebrity jihadi or an icon of evil. Instead, we could ask what motivated some of his victims to become aid workers and journalists in one of the most dangerous places in the world. What kind of person does that? These are extraordinary people. Emwazi, on the other hand, is a very ordinary monster, an awkward young man wearing a baseball cap that is too big for his head.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/02/mohammed-emwazi-isis-propaganda-jihadi
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