Ronald Thwaites | Stick-ups and splash-downs

“How can you clasp your hands to pray when they are full of blood?”

This was the challenge posed by Pope Leo to his fellow Americans and their increasingly murderous government. Of course the same question of conscience applies to every human.

The State Department had called in Leo’s representative to brag that the US military could do anything, anywhere, and to blast the Catholic Church for daring to condemn the needless Iran war and the continuing genocide being carried out in Lebanon and Gaza.

God is reputedly fighting on the side of Israel and the United States. Many of us who preach the Christian gospel in the US and in Jamaica, take the side of Caiaphas and Pilate instead of Jesus and the repentant thief.

Benito Mussolini, the Italian Nazi, dismissed a Pope’s condemnation of World War Two invasion and slaughter by asking how many divisions of soldiers the Church commanded. For him, as for Hegseth, Trump and their local equivalents whose morals and statecraft are from the same cult, thy cry peace and victory while they deliver death.

Their might is their right and there is no law or constitution robust enough to restrain their pretentious power. The official justice system in Jamaica is muted even as jungle justice and street executions overtake recourse to the law and process of the courthouse.

Sadly, so-called Christian nationalists, no less brutal than Stalinist butchers or Muslim jihadists, many of them Catholics, support state-sponsored blood-letting, forget the sanctity of any life but their own as they distort the spirit of the Bible and ignore the certain eventual judgment which all of us will face.

Formation of conscience, the foundation of a society’s ethical core, is guided more by sleazy social media than by the sturdy moral principles of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Less than a half of our children attend Sabbath or Sunday schools. Regular schools are flaccid in teaching behaviour norms.

The covey of young bright carnival- bound chicks in the hair salon do not know the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. What will their children believe in? GDP growth alone is not the fuel of a good social order.

JUST LOOK AT US NOW

The peril of amorality is upon us even now. Consider the self-wounding treachery we have demonstrated regarding our Cuban benefactors and our cruelty to the Haitians. Respect due to Anglican Bishop Golding for his recent spirited defence of principle in our foreign policy. When expediency or cowardice is your God, there is no room for the scruples of conscience.

If we find oil and American capital wants it at their price, just as it was with bauxite and is now with Venezuelan and Gulf oil, without principled courage, we will grovel.

Compare the mentality, supported by millions of the materially privileged of the earth which can threaten that “a whole civilization will die tonight” at their hand with Leo’s cry: “ Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace”. Which will we choose to follow?

Will Jamaica quietly and convincingly continue our post-colonial stance of moral strength or slide into the follow-line Uncle Tom posture of our servile history? Are we teaching our children to have backbones or wishbones?

As I write, the astronauts returned successfully from their trip around the moon. What a wonderful endeavour. How much more virtuous would it be to have alleviated the hunger and preventable disease of more than a billion human beings on this earth whose life prospects have been robbed or blighted by the ravages of foreign-imposed climate change, the withdrawal of the “cup of cold water” of international aid and learned internal strife.

PIONEERS OF TOMORROW

Justice Anthony Kennedy, one of the wiser heads to have sat on the United States Supreme Court bench, was asked recently to identify the absent virtue most diminishing the ideals of his nation’s constitution. “Civility”, was his reply. This is the capacity to respect differing positions and to find grounds of accommodation towards a common good. It means much more than shallow politeness. It involves deep respect for others and a willingness to contend with and value their views and experiences. Civility is the antidote to self-centredness. It must be modelled and taught.

This is the purpose of the next presentation of ‘Pioneers of Tomorrow’, the successful lecture series for senior high school students at St George’s College on Tuesday April 21, at 2pm. Michelle Chong, director of Honey Bun Ltd and its Foundation, will speak. Far beyond the confines of any curriculum, students are exposed to rich examples of wholesome living by people just like who they can aspire to become.

One way to advance beyond the suffocating exam culture of this season and elevate young minds on the lip of their career and personal life choices is outings such as this lecture series has been. Schools should make sure their seniors attend and events like this should be institutionalized.

So far, appropriately, the lecture topics have centred around business success stories. I am suggesting that in the near future the topic of ‘Feminist ideals, women’s careers and motherhood’ be considered.

FACE FACTS

Given the official sanction of extra-judicial killings, face facts that the use of body-worn cameras is not going to happen. Evil unleashed in pursuit of real or imagined evil is unconstrained by conscience or morality until it confounds itself. What happened to Mussolini or Somoza and their kind eventually? Where is Duterte now?

Think through the reality that the two leaders who say they are the defenders of Western civilization are variously, a clearly deranged convicted felon and the other the subject of an international criminal arrest warrant.

Incivility, disrespect and saboteurs of productivity are mild descriptors of the road agencies and contractors who have created unrelieved chaos for nigh on a year in the Kingston 6 vicinity of Hope, Monroe and Mona Roads and Wellington Drive.

So too is the hurt meted out to countless needy Kingstonians by incapacitating the entire lay magistracy for over almost a month and continuing.

Why should individuals, agencies and institutions which are designed and well paid to facilitate fruitfulness, turn around and stick us up?

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.