15 October | 2002 | Subject Middle East & North Africa (MENA)
... In fact, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back … Soon or late, it is ideas … which are dangerous for good or evil.
The British economist John Maynard Keynes, arguably one of the most influential social scientists in the world, once depicted history in those challenging terms. Indeed, ideas have serious consequences in history, and sufficiently powerful ideas can bend the course of history in new and unimaginable directions. Yet, academics and opinion makers have grown accustomed to think of the engine of history as either politics - often understood as the quest for power, and itself perceived as the capacity to impose the autonomous will of one party upon another - or else as economics. As such, ideas and ideals, passionate visions and moral commitments, as much as the power of the human spirit, are ostensibly meant to be of interest only to philosophers - but not inevitably to politicians!
However, the ailing Czech playwright and thinker Vaclav Havel wrote once that ideas and ideals are the ‘power of the powerless’. In so doing, he drew close to Christian theology as manifested in the ministry of Jesus Christ since it is a profound Christocentric tenet that the Word through whom the world was created remains the centre of the world and its history. And since the Word has overcome the world (Jn16 :33), those who are conformed to the Word have a duty to speak out words of truth and address it to the world in power.
Indeed, where is the sheer power of ideas and ideals for peace? Why are the words of those who conform to the truth of the Word being muted in the midst of all the carnage being visited upon the Holy Land for over two years now? These are just a couple of the questioning thoughts that crossed my mind last week as I attended a colloquium on Conflict Prevention organised by a think-tank in London. As I heard Israeli and Palestinian men and women describing their own situation, and expressing their reactions to the latest bloody confrontations between unequal protagonists, I realised once again the degree of polarisation that has beset both peoples in this conflict. No matter how hard they tried to appear equable or inclusive on the podium, I could feel in those men and women a pool of negative emotions. Alienation, hatred, anger, bitterness, frustration, resignation, despondency, defiance, contempt, loss, indignity and doubt were swirling beneath the polite but hesitant veneer of academic debate or sound bites.
Is it possible that this land could have witnessed so much bloody violence in its history and not yet managed to come up with novel ideas or fresh ideals that carve an ethical egress for peace out of a seeming impasse? Is it also remotely conceivable that everyone has been talking about ‘peace’ for so long but practising ‘non-peace’ instead? Have politicians been nothing better than false prophets who misled the people by referring to peace at times when there was no peace - just like the biblical prophets Jeremiah and later Ezekiel in the Old Testament? Jeremiah said, “They act as if my people’s wounds were only scratches. ‘All is well’, they say, when all is not well” (Jr 6: vv13 -14). And Ezekiel also told a people whose nation was in crisis and weary of hearing bad news from their leaders all the time, “The prophets mislead my people by saying that all is well. All is certainly not well!” (Ez 13:10 [a]). Have we become totally bereft of ideas and ideals? Or are we so uninspired in both our tactical and strategic intents that we have rejected peace for the sake of our own designs, plots and schemes? Where are those men and women who are meant to produce quixotic ideas and ideals that dent - let alone bend - the course of history?
Let me start off by taking stock of a modest number of principles, lessons and reality checks impacting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after two years of bitter confrontations. Might they perhaps help point the way forward?
So, what can be done? What is the alternative? Who can take that moral lead? And what does our faith teach us?
In his Sermon on the Mount, as reported in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (beginning with chapters 5 and 6 respectively), Jesus articulated some quite radical views. He said that those who mourn shall be comforted, those who are peacemakers shall be called the children of God and those who hunger and thirst for justice shall be blessed. As such, the Church - in its larger sense as an assembly of believers rather than just the ordained clergy - cannot be inured or indifferent to injustice. To become peacemakers is not a discretionary addendum to the Gospel. Rather, it goes to the very heart of the Christian understanding of its mission and responsibilities.
But this does not mean that peacemaking promotes violence either. On the contrary, it promotes non-violent methods of resistance. Those who wish to have a better understanding of such methods of non-violent resistance need not only subscribe to the writings of the likes of Nehru Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. They can equally read modern-day adaptations of those moral teachings from the likes of Father Raed Abu Sahlieh, a Latin-rite Roman Catholic priest in Taybeh, who has faithfully advocated non-violent methods of resistance for years.
I wish to share with you today a few seminal ideas that could be transmuted into ideals and serve as a platform for future action. My thoughts are predicated on the recent writings of the theologian Leonardo Boff, the international jurist John Mudley, the political scientist Jean Dupuy and a host of non-violent activists, missionaries and journalists who know much more about the situation on the ground than they are willing - or able - to say in public.
Such hopes, articulated with increasing frequency by religious leaders such as the Latin-rite Patriarch Michel Sabbah or the Anglican and Lutheran Bishops Riah Abu El-Assal and Mounib Younan in the Holy Land, represent a challenge to all peacemakers across the world. But in the final analysis, the concept of ideas and ideals involves the strength of the human spirit and the steadfastness of human sovereignty. As George Weigel puts it, the fundamental human ‘sovereignty’ is not political but spiritual. The spiritual sovereignty of the human person expresses itself through the creativity of the individual and the culture of nations, giving rise to a distinctive form of power. That is the sovereignty believers are called to cherish, guard and ennoble, as they seek to build the foundations of a house of freedom capable of meeting the new challenges.
In the Holy Land, is it possible to discover this sense of human sovereignty that falls within the density of the human spirit and its relentless journey toward the transcendent? Can we unlock the key to an intractable conflict in this land? Where do we Christians - clergy and laity alike, in the Holy Land or all over the world - place ourselves?
My quotation from Maynard Keynes at the start of this article said, ‘Soon or late, it is ideas … which are dangerous for good or evil’. So my question today is whether we are strong, mature, wise and faith-centred enough to encourage ideas that are dangerous for good? Can we construct lofty ideas upon lofty ideals?
The Feast of our Lady Queen of Palestine falls on29 October2002 . It is perhaps high time that we use the symbolism of this feast to acknowledge that the peace of one is the peace of the other, whereas the deprivation of peace and justice for one is by transfusion the deprivation of peace and justice for the other.
© Dr Harry Hagopian | 2002 | 15 October