A celebration or a denial of humanity?

I trust you’ve enjoyed some time off over the Christmas period. Some of our extended family work in the NHS and so have had days or nights on duty; meanwhile my brother who’s a clergy person was working Christmas Day and was working again yesterday. When we had a meal with my siblings and partners on Thursday he told me he was going to preach about the Holy Innocents, the children under of two years and younger whose massacre King Herod ordered in a gruesome footnote to Matthew’s story of the first Christmas. I’ve no idea what he was going to say to encourage the good people of West Oxford.

However there is a topicality about the story – which maybe he will allude to. Because of course it’s thanks to an angelic tip-off that the Holy Family become refugees fleeing into Egypt. Sarah Teather of the Jesuit Refugee Service pointed out on Radio 4 yesterday morning how easy it is to sanitise the story. “…it might be easy to gloss over the surface of the story of the Flight to Egypt; to wrap it up in Christmas cheer and leap straight to the lucky escape of the Holy Family. [Rachel weeping for her children] calls us back – to the horror of Herod’s atrocity, to the open wound of forced exile and the enduring trauma of violence, which cannot be mended by cheap comfort.” 

According to the UN Refugee Agency there are currently 68.5 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, two million more than the population of the United Kingdom. I find it deeply troubling that 220 people since November have been so desperate to seek protection that they have risked their savings and their lives to cross the Channel in rubber dinghies – and we have dubbed it a “major incident” (presumably a euphemism for crisis) and we don’t mean it for them but for us. The Home Secretary has broken off his family holiday to “take charge”, the Junior Minister for Immigration has leapt into action and the MP for Dover has been joining in the hoo-hah. Comments have been dressed up in concern for the migrants’ safety and indignation transferred to the gangs who exploit them and set them off on the dangerous crossing. However it is clear, is it not, that what is fuelling this fire is an antipathy to people seeking safety and a new life in this country? There is little doubt that if one of these little boats had contained a homeless carpenter and his wife and baby child they would have been unwelcome here too.

How pathetic is a country as wealthy and populous as ours getting all hot under the collar about a few hundred folk asking for our help! In fact I think it’s worse. It’s a sign of nastily insular and selfish opinion formers who probably reflect the nation’s mood. It is profoundly at odds with the supposed Christian values which we, like Hungary, purport to espouse. Those values have been more faithfully reflected by the so-called “Stansted 15” who risked being locked up and incurring criminal charges for protecting 60 people who were being forcibly repatriated to countries where they believed their lives to be in danger.

 

©Kristian Boos

“Many will face persecution, harm or death when they arrive, or the widely documented violence and abuse from security contractors on these flights. 

“The Stansted action was the first time people protesting against the immigration system grounded a deportation flight in the UK. Several people due to be forced onto the flight were able to stay because of the action, which bought time to hear their applications” (Stansted 15 story). Incredibly the fifteen have been found guilty under a law which originated in terrorism legislation.

For Christmas my daughter gave me the dvd of The Greatest Showman, the musical about the impresario P.T.Barnum, whose circus of oddities brought him money and notoriety. From the start he is hounded by a prominent theatre critic named James Gordon Bennett, who will not concede that Barnum’s show is serious entertainment. For years there is nasty opposition to the “freaks” who provide the acts, which culminates in a brawl between the actors and the right-wing thugs who want them out of New York. The thugs set light to the theatre and Barnum is ruined. At this point Bennett appears and sits beside Barnum on the steps of the charred ruins.

James Gordon Bennett: I never liked your show. But I always thought the people did.

P. T. Barnum: They did. They do.

Bennett: Mind you, I wouldn’t call it art.

P. T. Barnum: Of course not.

Bennett: But… putting folks of all kinds on stage with you… all colours, shapes, sizes… presenting them as equals… Why, another critic might have even called it “a celebration of humanity.”

P. T. Barnum: I would’ve liked that.

Will this country remain a celebration of humanity, or will the purists and the thugs they persuade drive away the alien who seeks to sojourn here?

I wouldn’t like that.

I am voting REMAIN

I'm a bit upset to find that my post in which I expressed my doubts about the EU has widely been taken as an indication that I was in favour of Brexit. It is true that I was leaning that way, but all in the end I said was that "I ha'e my doots". Since then I have clearly said that I am going to vote to Remain. That however has not had such wide circulation.

So I want to make my position quite clear. As the final days of the campaign have unfolded, the barely disguised racism and xenophobia of the Brexiteers has more than saddened me, appealing as it does to the basest tribal instincts in us. Moreover, although they talk about the fear tactics of the Remain campaign (with a modicum of justice), their scaremongering is even worse. As a Christian one of things that most saddens me is to hear other Christians implying that the middle-east refugee crisis is an Islamic plot to flood "Christian Europe" with Muslims, and thus imperil the Church in this country. The corollary of this that they would choose a religion-based immigration policy (similar to Donald Trump's "no Muslim" policy). It seems to me that this totally fails to see the fact that the refugees are not seeking to invade but to escape unimaginable destruction and suffering caused in part by so-called Christian powers. It seems to me utterly inhumane. It's also a failure of faith in  Christ's promise that not even the gates of hell would prevail against his Church.

That is to say nothing of the immorality of the Brexit cure-all for immigration, the quota system. This is based on a points system such as the one used in Australia, which is designed to limit entrance to those with skills that are needed here. Skills like doctors, nurses, teachers, for example. Sounds sensible - until you take the trouble to think of the consequences for the émigrés' nations. These will generally be poor and developing countries who have funded these professionals' training and who need their skills more than we do. In fact their development depends on such people far more than on aid. What the quota system does is contribute to increasing the rich/poor divide in the world. It is the epitome of unneighbourliness.

It is a pity, it seems to me, that we have not heard more of the positive reasons to remain, which I briefly alluded to previously. The best summary I have come across is this.

"We are convinced that working together is vital for our human family. Our vision is for a world where all people live in peace with the opportunity to thrive. We believe that Britain’s membership of the European Union is a key way we can help make that happen. Here are five reasons why:

1. Peace and security. The European Union was established in the aftermath of two world wars to build and maintain peace in Europe. In 70 years, it has made European war unimaginable by bringing together leaders in co-operation, not conflict. Against the borderless threat of terror, the people of Europe are stronger together. By remaining in the EU, Britain will not only continue to be a part of this project but help lead it.

2. Community. Through our membership of the EU, Britain belongs to a community that crosses national borders to work for our mutual benefit. A community that celebrates inclusion and diversity enriches all its members.

3. The environment. Climate change and air pollution do not stop at borders. Every nation needs to take action to tackle them and protect our environment worldwide. The EU has taken a strong lead through binding agreements that commit its members to specific action leading to lasting change. Our membership of the EU has the welfare of all humanity in its sights by protecting the planet that is our common home.

4. Human dignity and social justice. The EU was founded on a strong emphasis on the solidarity that promotes and protects human rights. By being part of the EU, many basic rights we now take for granted have been protected. The EU also stands up for justice for those outside the EU, for example in relation to international development and human trafficking, matters that can only be tackled with international cooperation.

5. Prosperity. Inside a free trade area with access to its markets, British businesses – small and large – are able to export goods and to prosper. Millions of jobs have been created, and hundreds of billions of pounds of investment have helped strengthen our economy." (from Christians for Europe)

That the future of the planet could be affected might seem far-fetched, and yet it is true that global warming knows no boundaries. A friend, Martin Hodson, who's a leader in environmental studies, wrote this, "I work a lot in this area, and the EU has been very good for the environment. We need to work together to tackle problems like climate change." 

I watched John Snow interviewing the war veteran, Franklin Medhurst, on Channel 4 last night. His message was clear. He wrote it in a moving letter to the Guardian. 

"It is helpful to be old, for in my lifetime I have seen world population increase threefold; a stable seasonal climate become wildly unstable with drought, forest fires and floods; the pollution by humanity of the planet’s earth, air and waters to a stage where all life is threatened; and violence become a permanent, continuous tragedy in a world of great uncertainty.

The only stable community in this universal upheaval has been the European Union, formed from the wreckage of a continent for which I and millions of others fought six years of war. I write as a former airman, having flown well over 2,000 hours against three despotic enemy nations. That victory for the democracies has given Europe 70 years of peace and security in a widely unstable world. The “leave” chancers are campaigning to abandon this steady progress, citing values false or irrelevant, while they have no plan of what to do after jumping ship.

If the nation should fall for this deceit I can only conclude that the lives of my comrades – Irish, Scots, Welsh and English – were lost in vain. They will be rattling their bones, wherever in the world they fell, at the loss of the beliefs for which they fought.

Britain in Europe will enhance progress to higher values in the greater world; Britain out means a return to the early-20th-century chaos of warring states against each other.

I am 96. I remember how far we have come. I know what we stand to lose.
Franklin Medhurst, DFC (RAF 1939-46)
Carlton, County Durham"

It seems to me tragic that so many are now wishing the break-up of the union that rose from the ashes of two dreadful wars and has been the basis for peace and stability since then. I know it is dressed up in jingoistic language, like taking back control and Britain being great again. But actually it is such a little vision. As the great poet said, "No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." The fact is that Europe needs us - and we need Europe. It's not that the EU is perfect. No one on either side of the Channel believes that. So we need to be a part of it in order to be part of the discussions which will contribute to its reform and improvement, for our neighbours' and for our own sake. We will be better remaining together. 

Hence I shall be voting that we Remain.

Migration panic

Oh for goodness’ sake! When will our politicians and pressmen stop frantically whipping up this pernicious xenophobia which apparently lurks like a virus just beneath the skin of us little Britons? Scarcely a day passes when the spectre of an island overrun with scarcely human “foreigners” is conjured up by the three main party leaders, like Macbeth’s witches, with Nigel Farage like a malign Hecate pulling the strings, abetted by the oh-so reasonable Sir (no less) Andrew Green of the avowedly “non-political” Migration Watch.

Ken Clarke, one of the few Tory ministers with guts enough to resist the populist tide, asserting that immigrants had made Britain “far more exciting and healthier”, had No 10 Downing Street (presumably his nibs himself) quickly ticking him off, and at the same Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) and Rachel Reeves (one of Labour’s rising stars) denouncing the supposed epidemic of benefit immigration. Our Ken had it about right when he said, “The idea that you can have some fundamental debate that somehow stops all these foreigners coming here is rather typical rightwing, nationalist escapism, I think.”

Mt Kenya from Chogoria

What a sad day it is when we have reached the point of closing what used to be known as our bowels of mercy because of someone’s skin-colour or language or preferences in food – and country of origin! Continually closing your bowels leads to constipation. I was reminded watching Simon Reeve’s The Tea Trail on BBC last night, traveling through Kenya from Mombasa to Kericho, of my gap year which I spent on the east side of Mount Kenya. It was within very few years of the end of the Mau Mau internments – about which I remember one of my fellow-teachers had family experience. He and many in that part of Kenya would have had good reason to hate an Englishman like me. And yet he was consistently kind and friendly to me, and wherever I went I was welcomed with the utmost hospitality. If one of the teachers' cars came a cropper on the potholed murrain roads, there was no lack of willing hands to rescue us. It’s a sobering fact that “Great Britain” is now less hospitable than the former colony, which we once sought to civilise. Our policy-makers now are seeking to make conditions on access to medical help or social care for the alien and sojourner. We consider such things our right and ours alone. We seem to have lost any humanity we once possessed, and become introspectively constipated. 

Keep administering the laxative of common sense, Mr Clarke, and common humanity. As Charles Kingsley put it, "Do as you would be done by."