 English translation of a short talk I delivered at a Prayers for Peace meeting in Germany this evening: As many of you will know, Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister, civil rights leader and peace activist in the USA. He believed passionately that Jesus Christ provides us with an ethical vision for human relationships characterised by love, justice and peace. He also believed that Mahatma Gandhi in India provided us with a blueprint for how to outwork this in practice at national and international levels. At the heart of Martin Luther King’s approach, like that of Gandhi before him, was the principle of nonviolence. This was very different to passivity, acceptance or inaction. It called for active and determined resistance against oppression, injustice and war. At the same time, it sought to win over the other side and not to defeat them. This means that we should only use peaceful methods and should never retaliate. We can see how this idea is rooted deeply in Biblical teaching. For instance (as we looked at recently), Jesus tells us to love our enemies. Paul tells us that if our enemies are hungry, to feed them and if they are thirsty, to give them something to drink. He tells us to overcome evil with good and that, by treating our enemies in the same way that God treats us – with love, compassion and forgiveness – it may evoke a change of heart. It’s a stark contrast to so much of what we see in the world today. For instance, social media often polarises opinions and very quickly divides the world into ‘us’ – those who are like us and agree with us – and ‘them’ – those who aren’t and don’t. We may believe we are good and right, and those on the other side are bad and wrong. Once we begin to see the world in this way, it’s only a short step until we start to regard others as the ‘enemy’. We see the same happening on the world stage too. Nations and geopolitical power blocs are asserting themselves against others, and the ‘others’ are rapidly strengthening their stances in response. This is leading to increasingly aggressive posturing, self-interested trade wars and the most expensive and terrifying arms race we have seen since the height of the cold war. It’s the absolute opposite of what Jesus calls us to do. When mutual grievances, resentments and pain become entrenched over time – such as those between Israel and Palestine, USA and Iran or Russia and Ukraine – it gets harder and harder for each side to imagine the other side’s experience and point of view – and harder still to feel any sense of empathy for them. Each blames the other for their own suffering and sees the other as the enemy that must pay the price, or be destroyed. Martin Luther King saw this in his own personal struggle as a black person. At first, he viewed white people as the enemy but began to realise that to see and treat someone in this way diminishes our own humanity as well as theirs. So, he chose nonviolence instead, believing that white people needed to be released from the dehumanising effects of oppression as well as black people. He prayed for ‘strength to love’. As we pray this evening for people caught up in conflict and war, I hope we can pray with compassion for people on all sides – that they will be released from all hate, hurt and revenge. It’s not easy…yet I believe God can do far more than we can ask or imagine. Let us pray for ourselves too, to find the strength to forgive anyone who has caused us stress, anxiety or pain – even when reconciliation feels impossible. As Martin Luther King so insightfully observed, ‘Our own liberation is bound up with theirs.’
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 ‘Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.’ (Franz Kafka) It felt painful to find myself nodding in agreement with some of the things J.D. Vance said at the Munich Security Conference last week. Painful to hear such a stinging critique of freedom of expression from a representative of a President that publicly and shamelessly hunts down his own opponents. Painful to hear the announcement of what sounded like the heralding of a potential ending of a special relationship (ironic, perhaps, on Valentines Day). Painful to see the shock and surprise of European leaders caught so off guard by such an entirely predictable US stance. Painful most of all, however, was the reality and truth in Vance's assertion that the biggest threat to Western democracy isn’t foreign aggression from outside, but the erosion of free speech from within. The UK is leading the charge in policing thought, with others in Europe following close behind. Although some of the finer details in Vance’s speech were to be rightly challenged by fact-checking, the thrust of his argument calls for careful and urgent consideration; not the defensive denials we witnessed from hurt leaders wringing their hands, as if misunderstood. [Are you concerned about defending free speech? See: Free Speech Union; Alumni for Free Speech]  ‘It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.’ (Aung San Suu Kyi) I ran a 3-day workshop in the Philippines for students who were about to graduate from a university for the poor. As we talked about their role and career aspirations for the future, I invited them to do role-plays that would, I thought, enable them to prepare for interviews and increase their chances of success. They smiled, albeit kindly, at my naivety. In role play after role play, with typical Filipino creativity and playfulness, the students depicted scenarios in which getting a job had nothing to do with personal merit and everything to do with whom the applicant knows or is connected to, and what level of contribution for expenses (bribe) the applicant is willing and able to pay to those conducting the interviews and making the appointment decisions. I felt astonished and depressed. Endemic corruption saps the life and energy out of people and societies and deprives them of so much talent and potential. I was intrigued to explore this further so asked the students how much money they would need to pay to get a job. They responded that such forms of corruption are culturally-coded euphemistically so that, in effect, everyone knows what game is being played without anyone explicitly admitting it. For instance, if a student were to be invited to an interview at 2.00pm, it means they will need to pay 20k pesos. If at 4.00pm, then 40k pesos. If they don’t turn up with the required cash, or are not connected to a suitable sponsor, they will be offered a post-rationalisation (excuse) for their apparent failure. This encounter was certainly an eye-opener for me. We moved on to look at other ways in which corruption manifests itself in societies around the world; e.g. in payment of financial incentives (backhanders) to secure specific political policies, judicial outcomes or commercial contracts. Media manipulation, attacks on press freedom, silencing of political opponents, undermining of democratic structures and civil society, monopolisation of markets: all undermine social and economic accountability and opportunity. The biggest challenge when corruption becomes thoroughly pervasive is where and to whom to go to address it. Speaking truth to ourselves can be hard enough to endure. Speaking truth to power can lead to alienation…or to a bullet.  ‘I raise up my voice – not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.’ (Malala Yousafzai) I once had a secret meeting with the political wing of a revolutionary group from Central America, in a dark basement flat in London. But my story doesn’t start there. This was my moment. As I flicked through the pages of a UK newspaper, an article leapt out at me about the brutal civil war in El Salvador. I don’t think I’d heard of El Salvador before yet it reminded me of accounts I had read of horrific atrocities committed by the Nazis in WW2. I couldn’t change that terrible history but I could do something now. I quickly did some research then set to work straight away, creating flyers and posters and circulating and sticking them up anywhere I could think of, hoping to raise awareness and to spur others into action too. I talked incessantly to family, friends and colleagues about what was happening in El Salvador. Most responded with a bemused look: ‘Why get so wound up about a situation on the opposite side of the world and over which we have no control anyway?’ That didn’t deter me. It was my time to speak. I heard of a demonstration for El Salvador in London so I went there with a friend, both wearing our anti-war combat jackets. On arrival, we were approached by the organisers and invited to carry a banner. To our surprise, they asked us to march at the very front, directly behind a row of children who were carrying a banner too. Some 20,000 people assembled behind us. We raised our voices in safety – while human rights activists in El Salvador were having their throats cut and their bodies dumped onto the streets. Driven increasingly by vicarious trauma, I joined the El Salvador Committee for Human Rights, a team of 3 activists based in a small room, armed only with a manual typewriter. I had the privilege of volunteering alongside a humble legend, Mike Gatehouse, who had previously been captured and held by the military in Chile during the violent coup that had overthrown its democratically-elected government. My role now was to hitch-hike around the UK, encouraging and resourcing local activist groups to amplify their voice. As I look back, I realise that I didn’t have sufficient personal resilience to handle the stress, and I came close to burnout. My efforts were driven more by pain, empathy and instinct than by strategy and I’ve learned, since, the critical value of supervision. Yet Greenpeace’s profound slogan expressed our motivations too: ‘The optimism of the action is better than the pessimism of the thought.’ There are situations in which we have to act, not because we have any guarantee of success, but because somebody has to speak. [See also: Revolution; Protest; Words; Smoke; Nika; I did try] 'Machine Gun Preacher', powerful film. The cinema was almost empty but the drama that unfolded on screen immediately filled the room. I felt traumatised, moved, challenged, inspired. The emotional turmoil was provoked by the images, voices, stories played out in the film. It challenged my comfortable existence, my fluctuating passion, my feint-hearted commitment. It confronted me with a raw Christianity based on instinctive action, not theological beliefs or stances. It disputed reliance on peaceful means to overcome systematic, brutal violence.
It rekindled a flame I felt as a new Christian. The desire to scream, punch, kick against violence and injustice in the world. I was involved in human rights work, facing and feeling the trauma, the unending pain, of people suffering abuse and oppression in Central America. I became ‘moderate’ in order to cope. The passion, anger and despair became all consuming. It exhausted and damaged me. My friends found me obsessed by the cause. I lost touch with those around me. Our normal, everyday lives felt pallid, collusive, meaningless, unreal. I burned with ferocious passion, stoked the flames higher and higher, but eventually burned out. It was a crash and burn of a painful kind. I started to experience physical shakes, couldn’t think straight, felt continual trauma as if bleeding inside. It was a very dark and sobering period. I cut off, switched off. I worked at a safe distance, didn’t think too hard. I forgot how it is to feel, to really feel, to feel so strongly and passionately that it drives me to determined action, to radical action, to give my life to bring about change. I felt safer, calmer, self-protected. And herein lies the challenge that Machine Gun Preacher speaks to so powerfully. How to face injustice squarely, stand alongside those in pain, feel empathy that spurs into action, maintain perspective, accept realistic limits yet value our own distinctive contribution. It’s something about hearing God’s call: what he is calling us to and what he isn’t. It’s about staring hard in the face of overwhelming injustice and yet knowing our own boundaries, his boundaries, in order to focus well on what he has called us to do, and to trust the rest to him. |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! 
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