By Dwight Swanson

The Political Dance

The Editor has lived in Britain most of the past 29 years. Margaret Thatcher was already Prime Minister on my arrival, and I watched her subsequent election victories, as well as her fascinating denouement. I watched the grey Major years from other parts of the world, and returned to the UK just three months after the sweeping New Labour election victory that brought Tony Blair to power. As an American citizen I have not had a voice in any of these elections (taxation without representation all over again—don’t talk to me about tea parties!).

Thus, I have been an outside observer to both American and British politics throughout these three decades.


The day my family arrived in Manchester in the Summer of 1981, riots broke out. The two events were not connected. At the time, the media treated them as race riots. They were not. The reasons were economic.

I was returning to a church in inner Manchester that I had first seen in the early 70s, as a student. Back then, approaching the church by bus, my wife and I saw the brick rubble of whole city blocks (in American terms) of demolished houses. The lasting impression it left was of the devastation of cities in the blitz of World War II. This was ‘urban renewal’ in brutalist 60s fashion. All the housing stock, built in the 19th C, was condemned and knocked down so new low rent housing could be built. It was a positive response to urban decay, but a social disaster. The people in those houses were moved to a variety of locations across the city. Later, when the new houses were built a different variety of people were put into them. In one great social experiment, communities were destroyed and replaced by people with no connection to each other. Only now, forty years later, are these neighbourhoods regaining a sense of community. All largely thanks to the Marxist-leaning Manchester city council. (Yes, real socialists.)

The 80s, however, was Margaret Thatcher’s decade, and I observed first-hand the consequences of Thatcherism (so beloved by Ronald Reagan and Tony Blair). Local unemployment in our area was among the highest in the country, at about 25% - rising to 50% for under 35s. The industries that had made Manchester world-famous disappeared, leaving vast stretches of empty factories and derelict land. Manchester was a bleak and ugly place.

Thatcher’s hatred of left-wing councils, which governed all the main cities, took the form of cutting the central government funding for public services. Schools and hospitals lacked funds to maintain their buildings; salaries of nurses and teachers fell behind comparable incomes in private business. Schools sold their sports fields to property developers to maintain running costs; extra-curricular activities disappeared. Hospitals tried to keep the roofs of 19th C workhouses from leaking onto patients’ beds. Meanwhile, the financial centres of the City of London built taller buildings, and the young bankers dined on lobster and champagne with their bonuses.

I witnessed this social experiment by the woman who famously declared ‘There is no such thing as society’. A whole generation of young people in my parish had no chance to find employment, have grown up unemployable, and now their children—having never seen their parents work—are beginning to pass their experience on to a third generation. These are the ‘layabouts’ politicians created and now blame for the cost to the public purse.

My return residence in Britain coincides with the New Labour regime. Tony Blair represented the ejection of the socialist left-wing of the party, and the move to the centre, or ‘Third Way’ as he called it. Not a bad thing. Part of the ethos, nevertheless, was grounded in the post-war European social democratic tradition. This little-known aspect of European politics for Americans is important to understand. It is not ‘socialist’ in the Marxist/Leninist sense, but is what Western Europe did to reduce the appeal of that sort of socialism. It took the Marxist critique of society and addressed those issues which gave rise to two world wars and a cold war. It recognised the responsibility of the wealthy to the workers who provide them their wealth. But, all within strong democracies and market freedoms. It worked.

New Labour addressed the social inequities of the previous twenty years by pouring investment into public services. Schools were repaired and new ones built; modern, state of the art, hospitals were built. Salaries of public servants were raised to decent levels. In the 1980s my daughters went to a school made of WWII surplus material, meant to be a temporary measure. In the 2000s a new school was finally built. In the 80s my sister-in-law broke a leg while visiting us, and ended up in a Florence Nightingale ward—a work-house dormitory converted into a ward with beds lining the walls, divided only by curtains. In the 00s all trace of that era has disappeared.

Taxes rose to pay for this, but with the will of the electorate desperate for this to happen.

Then came the great bust of 2008, and the bail-out of the banks. And Gordon Brown, who was the nation’s treasurer throughout the period of growth, is given the blame by the Conservatives. And there is blame to be placed on him for the depth of the problem in the UK. But the Tories should not point the finger too readily, because the New Labour economic policy was to that of Margaret Thatcher, with increasing the role of private business in public services, and giving the market free reign. Thus, Conservative economic management has continued to govern the British economy. One can only imagine what a US Republican/UK Conservative coalition of international finance would have left us with!

Youth unemployment in our area is rising to 1980s levels again. Another lost generation looms.

The third party in Britain, the Liberal Democrats, have surprised everyone by becoming genuine contenders in this election. The Liberals were the leading party of government until the rise of the Labour party in the 1920s, and this successor party has never known any form of government at national level. The polls have them even-pegging with the Conservatives ahead of Labour. The nature of the electoral system means that they could have 1/3 of the electoral vote, but still have only a fraction of the number of seats in parliament of even a third-place Labour party. There is a great desire for change of government in the UK, but much less enthusiasm for seeing it return to the banker’s friends, the Tories. At the moment, the result is wide open.

On the record of government in my neighbourhood, there is no reason to trust that Cameron’s new Tory party is any different from the old one. A Labour government that acted less Tory would be preferable to the present one. Perhaps a coalition government would offer an opportunity for politics to pull politics out of its rut.

Who would I vote for if I had a vote? In the UK one votes for one’s local Member for Parliament, not for the Prime Minister. I know my MP, having brought issues to his attention on behalf of people in the church and community. He knows his community, always responds immediately to letters, and has brought positive results to our requests. He is a consummate politician in the positive sense, able to speak off the cuff for fifteen minutes on a subject without hesitation or repetition, and bring his peroration to close with a neat tie-in to his first sentence.

I would vote for him. He happens to be Labour.

By Dwight Swanson

The Vial Dolorosa Early Good Friday

The pilgrims’ map of Jerusalem on Good Friday is of narrow limestone-paved streets crowded with a cacophonous mixture of local Muslims and Jews and Christians from around the globe. They will walk the centuries old, worn stone pathways, stopping at each Station of the Cross. Many will weep; most will be in awe; few will leave unmoved.

The Via Dolorosa bears no physical relation to the path Jesus took from Pilate’s judgement hall to Golgotha. The Roman path which preceded the present Ottoman city, and now lies three meters below the Old City streets, ran from South to North, not East to West, from the Cardo of the Jewish Quarter and the Souk of the Muslim Quarter to the Damascus Gate. And that street lay atop the rubble of the destruction of the Jerusalem streets Jesus walked on that sad Friday, which more probably ran from the West, in what is now the Armenian Quarter, to the barren (not green) hill now subsumed inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter.

Jerusalem, Madaba Map, 6th C

These maps are not of utmost importance, other than the fact they take in every part of the Old City. The modern streets, with their throngs, offer sufficient backdrop to grasp the normal human chaos of festivals, and the absurd normality that accompanies events of greatest importance. It is the Gospel map which matters today, as Christians inhabit the sacred space of Jesus’ death within the walls of their churches. From the high ritual of the great cathedrals to the simple piety of believers gathered between simple borrowed walls, the truest story is retold of the unjust arrest, trial, and execution of a Galilean Jew in a remote corner of the world. The story is recited, re-enacted, and re-imagined. A particular death in the Judea of Roman history reverberates with urgency. And outside the walls where Christians are gathered, a world remains indifferent to momentous events.

Why? Because this death matters more than others. And his death is not the end, but the fulfilment, of the purposes of the God and Father of Jesus: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16); ‘Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:13).

By Dwight Swanson

There are many maps of Jerusalem. I have walked with the throng of pilgrims in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, waving my palm branch with thousands of Christians from around the world, following the path from Bethphage to Stephen’s Gate of the Old City.

We could not start in Bethany because of the Separation Wall. Today, Jesus would be fenced out of Jerusalem unless he took the detour to the security crossing that connects Jerusalem with the illegal settlement city of Ma’ale Adummim. We cross over the ridge of the Mount of Olives, beginning our descent by the Holy Land Hotel (formerly Seven Arches Hotel, birthplace of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation), down past the ever-expanding tombs of rich Jews who have paid well to be among the first to rise at the great resurrection, and Dominus Flevit—the chapel built to commemorate Jesus’ tears on looking over the city from this place.

This modern map, never far from the signs of contemporary conflict, is far different from the mental maps pilgrims bring. We come with pictures of the Holy Land painted on our minds by pastel drawings from Sunday School, felt figures of people in pyjamas set on brown and blue backgrounds devoid of vegetation. And the expectation of feeling the holiness of the place, just because this is where the Bible happened.
When the real gets in the way of the ideal, the result is either rejection of the real or disillusionment. Sometimes, revelation.

Today, in Longsight, our procession huddled under blustery Manchester skies and before the indifferent gaze of passers-by, holding (sometimes waving) palm crosses, as we entered the gates of the church, a la Psalm 118 (‘This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!’), singing ‘All glory, laud, and honour, to Thee Redeemer King!’, and manoeuvred our way to our seats. Our map of Jerusalem consisted of stolid late-Victorian houses standing coolly undisturbed, dogs walking their sleepy owners unheeding of us, and a breeze which could in no way be called balmy—all suggesting nothing in common with Jerusalem at all. Certainly not the one from 2000 years ago.

This is the thing about Jerusalem maps—they seldom have much to do with the dirt and stones, and the people, of the place in Israel. I have seen many pilgrims come and go from Jerusalem, their mental maps intact. They have seen what they were looking for, and blocked out that which did not fit. And returned to their homes glowing with the joy of ‘walking where Jesus walked’. Like me, they simply passed by the inconvenient bits.

Today, however, Longsight mapped on to Jerusalem. Real streets heard hosannas from disciples of the King. The world around barely paused to recognise her Redeemer. But salvation came to Longsight.

By Dwight Swanson

Based on today's lectionary Gospel reading.

John 12:1-11

1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.

An observant Jew, Jesus arrives in Bethany from Galilee a week early to assure ritual purity for attendance at the festival. The village sits just over the last rise from Jericho, a twenty minute walk from Jerusalem, a hostel town for pilgrims. Jesus, with other pilgrims, comes to prepare himself for the coming Passover. In more than one way.

We are invited to prepare with him.

The story actually begins in Ch 11, where we are introduced to Lazarus, Mary and Martha. In that story, Lazarus is ill, and dies. Jesus hears of the illness, but rather than rushing to heal his friend, waits for him to die, because, he says, ‘this illness does not lead to death, rather it is for God’s glory’.

Lazarus, of course, dies. Jesus reports this plainly to his disciples when it occurs. ‘Lazarus is dead.’ Even though he had told them a day or two earlier that Lazarus would not die. (That is what it sounded like).
Jesus does not leave him in his stinking shroud. He calls him out of his tomb, saying, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, though they die, will live.’ That’s what he says to Martha, asking her to believe in him.

Martha, we are told, is the sister of Mary who now prepares the a dinner in Jesus’ honour, and serves Jesus personally.

We are introduced to Mary with foreshadowing: she is the one ‘who anointed the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair’.

The Fragrant Room

3Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

This is an act of extravagant and expensive love. Nard was a perfume imported from India, and 300 denarii amounts to a year’s wages for the common working man. (Half a litre of Chanel No 5, at a going rate £326, doesn’t begin to compare in value.) This spontaneous act come from the joy of resurrection, of a brother restored; of Jesus in the midst of the family gathering.

The room is filled with the fragrance of the gift.

The Fly in the Nard

4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

Now there is an insertion of foreboding. The story seems marred by the Judas narrative, a souring of the fragrance. A cash value is placed on the gift in the name of compassionate ministry. In the midst of celebration of life a shadow falls at the mention of the one who ‘was about to betray him’.

Jesus’ reply is full of Johannine irony. Irony is hard to spot in printed text, and detecting it requires more than a predilection for literary techniques to show it. What seals it here is recognition that Jesus is quoting Deut 15:11 – ‘There will always be poor people in the land’. This is a marker to listeners who know their Scriptures (which few Christians these days do) to recall the context of Deut 15.

The command begins in Deut 15:4, ‘There will never be any poor among you.’ It is a call to God’s people, blessed with riches, to assure that everyone in the nation is cared for, including foreigners (read it!). It is tempting to suggest that even Moses is being ironic, when he ends the section with the words Jesus cites. Even when he commanded it, Moses knew it would never be obeyed.

Even if we should read the quote as belonging within parentheses, it is useful to note the rest of the text Jesus quotes: ‘I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land”.’

Jesus’ words here are a rebuke that rings down the ages for those who excuse themselves from compassion for the poor on the basis of these words.

Preparation

Mary’s act of pouring costly perfume on Jesus is a celebration of life—of the fulfilment of the promise of resurrection. Jesus, preparing himself for the days ahead, calls it a preparation for burial. Judas reduces it all to monetary considerations.

The beauty of Mary’s extravagant action is in its affirmation of God’s power over death, which becomes a preparation for the death which brings resurrection.

Attention on Judas’ cleptomania, however, tends to obscure the power of Jesus’ rebuke of Judas and of all who separate their own spirituality from the life-giving purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection—he will die, not only for ‘my’ sins, but for the poor and needy neighbour.

On a day in which the US congress votes on health care for millions of their neighbours, it is not a little ironic that so many Christians stand in opposition.

By Dwight Swanson

It appears that Colorado Springs, Colorado, is applying market capitalism in pure form[link]. If you support government funding for any of these areas that are being cut, then you are a pinko communist. (Yes, you read it in an American newspaper!]

By Dwight Swanson

On 11 November, 1918, the guns fell silent on what had been the bloodiest war in human history. From November 1919 until today the moment that the guns stopped, on the 11th hour, has been the moment for everyone to stop and remember the cost in human lives, and to vow, ‘Never again!’ The horrors experienced led those who had experienced it to hope that by remembering the cost, it would have been ‘a war to end all wars’.

Some 16 million people died, and another 21 million were wounded, in that war—37 million people. In the destruction, nearly 7 million civilians were killed. (Information on casualties for WWI and WWII is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org)
The remembering did not have its desired effect then, as perhaps even now. Only thirty years later the Second World War began. No one knows just how many died—estimates vary between 50 and 78 million, perhaps up to 52 million of them civilians.

[How can we fathom such numbers of dead? We have become numbed to the deaths of others. An American study recently reported that ‘the average child will watch 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school. By age eighteen, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders.’ British viewing figures may be lower, but Britain is the gaming capital of the world, and games such as Grand Theft Auto and Modern Warfare probably make the American number of simulated deaths witnessed pale into insignificance beside the more exciting prospect of killing virtual people in true Rambo fashion.]

How can we gain perspective on how many real people died? Imagine the entire population of the UK being wiped out over the period of six years. (more)

By Dwight Swanson

Crackdown on Drugs

The War on Terror is nearing its ninth year, with neither indication that an end to this war is possible, nor any way of knowing whether the expenditure in bombs and lives has had any effect whatsoever on the intentions of those who use the methods of ‘terror’.

The news this week of the US ‘crackdown’ on the Mexican drug cartel, La Familia, offers a fitting comparison to the nebulous war declared by George W Bush. It was another Republican president, Richard Nixon, who declared a ‘War on Drugs’ in 1969 (this date from that impeccable source, Wikipedia, fits with the Editor’s memory). This ‘war’ is still being fought forty years later.

It is being fought in Mexico, Columbia, and Afghanistan, to name but a few places. Immense resources are dedicated to the battles by Western nations to try to stop the flow of the drugs that reach our streets and decimate succeeding generations of youth. This does not include the cost in lives of innocent people at every stage of production and consumption—the producing countries enduring drip-feed wars between drug-lords, militias, and governments, each seeking leverage for more power, all terrorising the local populations; the consuming countries enduring the crime perpetrated by the addicts, and the gang violence that goes with selling of the drugs, which still does not compare to the loss of lives, break-up of families, rehab and medical costs, and, not least, the lost potential of thousands of people’s lives.

One phrase of the news report of the US crackdown, which took place across 19 states, and cities from Seattle to Boston, stood out. According to this report, 80% of the drugs produces or trafficked through Mexico go to the US, ‘to feed the insatiable appetite for illegal drugs’.

One more battle in the War on Drugs. Who is winning? Who is winning the War on Terror?

Meanwhile the Church worries about creeping socialism, homosexual marriages, and woman bishops, while bored young people stand on the street corners of cities and towns across the country with nothing better to do than sink into chemical induced forgetfulness, and over-bonused financial wizards and over-paid celebrity ‘heroes’ snort cocaine.

Neither war can be won. Terror and drug-use, alike, are symptoms of the ills of our society. Until we address the causes, we will make no progress against the symptoms.

The causes of each are not wholly unrelated. Each might be seen as expressions from those marginalised by societies which value personal comfort without thought to the cost of that comfort—cost to the societies from whom the wealth is taken; cost to the societies who live in comfort, but are empty at the centre.

By Dwight Swanson

Over the past week the Asian Pacific has born the brunt of disasters of nature. The tsunami in Samoa and the earthquake in Indonesia followed hard on the devastating typhoon that hit Manila. The nature of 24-hour news coverage—endless repetition of the non-news until major events occur, then saturation coverage until the next event—with its short attention span, means the Manila disaster was quickly forgotten. Tsanumis are fascinating; earthquakes give opportunity for Western rescue teams to rush off to save lives. Flooding offers neither.

Having lived for some time in Manila, and having experienced one ‘super typhoon’, this story is not only more personal, it offers opportunity to offer a local perspective on the clean-up. These countries cannot handle such over-whelming disasters alone, but they do not simply stand around waiting for salvation.

The seminary campus where I taught for two years sits on two hills divided by a normally lazy and languid stream, above the city of Manila in the suburb of Taytay. The Guardian published pictures from the neighbourhood:

The swollen creek inundated the seminary chapel:

The squatter community next door was less fortunate, lying lower to the water. Two children perished. The campus became a refuge for nearly 300 people, as the students and faculty opened all buildings for people house them, cooked meals, and donated dry clothing. One student with medical training treated minor injuries for 150 people. Each family was given a ‘Crisis Care Kit’.

When the water retreated, the students set to clearing the knee-deep mud from the chapel, and then worshipped together.

After three days, the government was able to relocate the refugees to temporary housing. How long that lasts, is to early to know. But it is certain the students will be involved in helping the displaced to rebuild when they are able to return. Hopefully, the squatters will be able to build on safer ground, with more substantial housing. That is the next stage of the story—and another matter in its own right.