Governance

BBC.co.uk

It is said that we get the governments we deserve. Perhaps this is unfair on those countries whose democracy is too thin and fragile (if it exists at all) to make this possible. But in the case of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the EU referendum vote begs certain questions in regard to the seriousness of the issue of governance and to the way we, the governed, do politics.

Our free society owes its existence to an evolving process which encompasses a punishing civil war which ended in the middle of the 17^th century and, when combined with the Industrial Revolution, led to a tumultuous process of social and political change. The conflict and the ensuing and ongoing political process (we have a constitution by convention) has brought about the democracy we now take for granted. Further and more recent resistance to tyranny and anarchy came with the sacrifices of our people in two world wars. Subsequent generations carry the memory of all of these sacrifices within their political DNA.

Sacrifice is not a particularly popular word these days, whatever context it is used in, because our society, and thereby the politicians who serve it, is essentially short-termist and narrowly self interested. Much that passes for good legislature is, on closer inspection, a response to the mood and interests of the moment, despite the fact that some of these policies could decide whether there will be a future for us at all. Think only of those related to the environment.  Similarly, the long term effects of this referendum on what is still the majority of the population (the under 65’s) are muted in the minds of voters who feel they have lost out, but have not thought about the significant good they receive from their membership with the European Union. They, at least, should have learned wisdom from having perhaps had first hand experience of the harsh and immediate effects of broken promises and lies typical of bad governance. The referendum is an abdication of responsibility for governance primarily by politicians, but also by the voting public.

If we get the governance we deserve, it suggests that the fault lies with all of us, politicians and electorate alike. We have dishonest and self interested politicians, some of whom are also weak and incompetent, serving (if that is what they are doing) a politically apathetic and individualistic public. These complement each other well. The ones who are being hoodwinked spur on those peddling delusion. It is almost a win-win situation, as has emerged in the run up to the referendum and in its outcome. Almost, but not quite. The lies are beginning to be revealed for what they are.

Good governance which stems from competent and visionary leadership might yet save the day. It almost certainly will for Scotland. But even if Scotland, through no fault of its leader, fails to somehow drag the rest of us with it to higher ground, it will have taught us something about the kind of leadership which brings good governance.

Words from the prophet Isaiah spring to mind ‘And the governance will be upon his shoulders’ (Isaiah 9:6). Those who govern carry the weight of the cross upon their shoulders. The cross is the example given to us in Jesus of the kind of governance which resists power, so that others can be empowered, or freed to ‘inhabit’ their full humanity. This has nothing to do with misplaced ideas of ‘sovereignty’.

There is a gentle, but strong, single mindedness about the way Nicola Sturgeon does politics, especially at the moment. It echoes the firmness of purpose with which Christ carried the cross. Even when he was physically too weak to bear it, his handing it over to another symbolized the strength we have when we relinquish control, or power, in the right way and for the right reasons. The referendum was an example of the consequences of relinquishing control in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. Contrary to what many were led to believe, its outcome has not empowered anyone.

It has fragmented us, revealing divisions which are far more deep rooted than many of us realise. They are the result of decades of a growing mistrust in the political system and in those who govern us, or who might yet govern us if we do not take responsibility for the system itself and for the way we think of ourselves in the world. In other words, if we do not take responsibility for carrying the cross of governance.

The cross of governance entails more than putting a mark on a ballot paper, especially if this is done merely as a ‘protest’ vote. As with a general election, there is a price to pay for such irresponsibility and for not thinking about the issues at stake beyond those which proceed from our own impatience, personal grudges or self interest. In all of these cases, we lay ourselves open to lies and misrepresentation. In the context of the referendum, one of these misrepresentations, and perhaps the most significant, has to do with who we think we really are. The referendum suggests that we either don’t know or can’t remember who we are. Some of those who voted ‘leave’ have appealed to the spirit of the 2^nd World War, as if ‘being governed by Germany’ (or anyone else), is really what our membership of the European Union is about.  

I believe it is about something far more significant for our times. It is about facing our political responsibilities as a once Christian nation. Somewhere in our political DNA lies our identification with the Cross of Christ. Somewhere lies our memory of having walked the walk to Golgotha with him, in wars and depressions, in struggles for justice, in compassion for the refugee. These are the things which bind us to one another. They are also the things which bind us to our European neighbours. Thank you, Nicola Sturgeon, for reminding us of this fact.

The Sound of Silence

Source: turmarion.wordpress.com

Ignorance is not bliss. Neither should ignorance be confused with not knowing the facts due to lack of available information. There is plenty of information to be had about most things in this data driven age. Ignorance is more about not feeling confident when it comes to telling the difference between objective information and information which is partial, if not a downright lie.

In the context of world politics, and in the politics of the Church, duplicity is so commonplace that it is almost impossible to tell the difference between truth and a lie. This kind of ignorance leads to  ultimate collective political suicide which begins as political apathy. Why should the governed bother to do anything? Why imagine new and better ways of governance in politics, and why ask ourselves what it means to live and be the Body of Christ in the Church for God’s people? At the end of the day, it is so much easier to let the ‘experts’ get on with the job.

As a result of this passivity, cover-ups, the wholesale disregard of the interests of ordinary people and the self protection of the powerful, gives rise to a cartel mentality which is rife in both Church and world. But politicians, as well as those who manage the Church (rather than offering visionary and pastoral leadership), exist to serve people – God’s people. Serving people is therefore the most awe inspiring and humbling work anyone in Church or government could undertake. In the case of the Church, apathy and decline occur when management obscures this specific call to love and care for God’s people. As a result, the Church’s management system no longer knows what or who it is there for, and hence how to properly exercise its power. So it ends by loving and serving itself. This constitutes idolatry.

In the case of politics at home and abroad, when people feel that their strongly held views, even if profoundly misguided, are not heard, they will respond like pins to a magnet to those who appear to champion them, even if their champions are peddling lies. The rest will retreat into apathy, leaving the field wide open to the likes of Donald Trump and to varying degrees of neo-fascist enthusiasms dressed up as serious politics in the UK and in Europe. Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson are both extremely intelligent people, irrespective of the buffoon and pub-frequenting personas they try to project. This is what makes them dangerous.

As we approach Thursday’s generation defining referendum, all of this duplicity, and the manipulative power games which go with it, heightens the fevered mood of uncertainty and division in this country and in the EU itself. But in the midst of it all, and in the most tragic circumstance, silence prevails for a day. Parliament is recalled to honour the violent passing of a young and gifted politician who showed in her short time in government what it means to love the people she served and to do so faithfully and with integrity. Uncomplicated goodness and truth are rarely visible in politics.

Following the news of Jo Cox’s murder, there is a brief, if partial, moratorium on the referendum campaign. There is silence. It is the silence in which truth is spoken and heard. It is also the silence of peace. Silence and peace speak of God and, if allowed to, will lodge in the inner consciousness of every person. God’s silence does not simply invite us to listen and wait for instructions as to how we should vote on Thursday. Thursday’s vote is of relatively little significance in the context of eternity. What is significant is the peace and prosperity of nations and peoples as desired by God. 

The 14^th century Christian solitary, Julian of Norwich, was known to have said of a hazelnut, as she held it in her hand, “It is all that is made”. If she were to do this today, she would be telling us that emptiness and silence reveal the truth and integrity of all that is made in and through the loving purposes of God. We are a small, but infinitely loved part of ‘all that is made’. So this unexpected silence, or the memory of it, invites every person, however they conceive of the idea of God, including those who have no such concept, to enter into deep silence, and allow it to enter them, so that they can bear it into the noise and duplicity of the times in which we live.

The Meaning of Unity

Groucho Marx was once heard to say something along the lines of “Why would I want to join a club that would admit someone like me?” Many of us share a little of this reticence when it comes to joining things, although we may not express it quite so candidly. The question may even be inverted, so as to disguise its true meaning. Then, it acquires a sort of codex: “I have enough trouble meeting my own needs, so why should I involve myself in the needs of others? How would I benefit from joining their club?” We all, as individuals and as a society, wonder what’s in it for us when it comes to joining things.

There are two underlying problems with this approach to sociality, the one affecting the individual and the other society itself. The selfish individual always ends up alone, and a society disintegrates, morally, spiritually and financially, when its survival depends on mean spiritedness stemming from a fundamental tendency to distrust those it does not understand and to believe that it can manage quite well without them.

As our own society ages, we are feeling the financial, as well as the social, effects of a growing number of individuals who find themselves alone in old age because they have not worked well at their relationships earlier in life. Many of them did not believe they needed to. There are also plenty of statistics pointing to the longer term effects of a disintegrating and increasingly xenophobic society. These have been used to persuade the disenchanted and cynical to reach back to a mythic past when everyone looked more or less the same, knew their place and supposedly upheld the same ‘values’, along with the often cruel social constraints which went with them. They are seldom reminded that it was also a society emerging from the second of two Eurocentric wars.

When it comes to the way we vote on the 23^rd of June, to dream of a future built on selfishness, myth and fear is to build on quicksand. To opt out of taking responsibility for a shared European future, a future whose foundations were laid in the rubble of the second world war, is to build on the sands of despair. To give up on the peace and prosperity which we have created over the past seventy years alongside our European neighbours, is to court the kind of fragmentation otherwise known as ‘meltdown’. Added to this, if Brexit gets its way, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will inevitably experience further political meltdown with possibly dire consequences for all of our lives. The peace and relative prosperity which we have known since the end of the last time Europe went into meltdown, in the form of the second of two world wars, will only be maintained through a collective will to make the EU work. Those of us who vote ‘remain’ are voicing that will.

Christian teaching brings much wisdom to the question of how we vote on Europe, and how we go about rebuilding a fragile but precious kingdom, so that it can withstand future meltdown. The Gospel suggests that the kingdom’s fragility, and the fragility of Europe as a Kingdom modelled on the Kingdom of heaven, is in fact its strength. It can bend to God’s Spirit, if the political system allows it. When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom he is not talking about the sovereignty of any one nation, however that is interpreted in the context of the times. He is not talking about systems either. He is talking about peoples and the kind of faith it takes to believe that it is possible for peoples to work together for the common good.

We have rather lost sight of the idea of the common good, and we often lose faith in a God who wills it. As a result, our politics have become selfish, and those who wield political power do so in a selfish and often arbitrary manner. Promises are broken and policies change to suit party and individual group interests, so it is not surprising that those who promise autonomy and freedom from bureaucracies and systems created by others gain in political popularity. They appeal to those who feel disenfranchised. It seems that is the only kind of ‘freedom’ on offer. Since we have largely forgotten how to relate to God, how to pray, the proponents of this pseudo freedom are on to a winning ticket. Added to this, the general thinness of our spiritual life makes it even more difficult to know who to believe and where to turn when it comes to engaging with this historic vote.

But this year has seen some visionary leadership which may help all of us to vote with greater confidence when it comes to staying in Europe. As a result of Archbishop Justin Welby’s #Thykingdomcome initiative, our nation has been praying that God’s Kingdom may come about on earth in accordance with His will. At the moment we are also praying that the European Cup Final will be played out in the same spirit (A Prayer for #EURO2016) . There is a profound connection between the unity of purpose which many of us yearn for in the context of the future of the European Union and the unity of purpose which drives healthy sport and competition. The ‘beautiful game’ lends energy and drive to an underlying unity of purpose among all its players. It is fuelled by the same divine energy which builds the loving sociality that all peoples depend on for survival. The future of Europe, and the future of the peoples of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, depends on that unity of purpose and on the energy which shapes and drives it.