- Black Lives Matter
The militarization of the police in the United States and elsewhere is a problem. I have never witnessed scenes like the ones referenced in this Washington Post article in the United States to this extent before and it is alarming. These scenes do not belong in a healthy mature democracy.
It is more reminiscent of when I was traveling through Israel and Palestine in 2006 as Israel was erecting the wall between Israel and Palestine. International protesters, Palestinians, and media, witnessing and protesting the Separation Wall between the two countries, were regularly fired upon by Israeli Military with rubber bullets, tear gas canisters and even on some occasions, real bullets. And I hear recently that Israel has been involved in training American police so that really makes me wonder what kind of model we are importing. As voters and citizens, we must challenge this model of policing. It is anti-democratic and authoritarian in nature. It is the abuse of power of the strong and powerful against a less powerful and marginalised people.
Let me say that I do not hate the police and I do not see them as one homogenous group of evil, bad guys. I have worked for the police here in the UK. Nor do I see the protestors as one homogenous group of good guys. The reality is far more complex. However, what dismays me is the examples of recent unprovoked attacks around the USA by the police on unarmed protestors and different members of the media. The police were never meant to become a paramilitary body. They derive their power to police from the consent of those whom they police. And when excess force like this is deemed necessary, we need to ask why and by whom and for what purpose.
I worked for the UK police force in Bedfordshire for almost two years. It gave me a unique insight into policing and a tremendous respect for the difficult job that the police do. It is a hard, demanding, and difficult job. I learned that most police are in it to make a difference in the world. They view it as a vocation. Most police care and they want to catch the bad guys and to protect the public. In the UK, they subscribe to the Peelian principles of consent. Sir Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, in 1822 and 1829, was responsible for establishing the first full-time professional and centrally-organized police force in England and Wales. From the Crime Prevention website.
The power of policing comes from the common consent of the public, not from using paramilitary techniques against unarmed protesters.
“The reforms introduced by Sir Robert Peel and the first Police Commissioners were based on a philosophy that the power of the police comes from the common consent of the public, as opposed to the power of the state.
The nine principles that underpin this philosophy were set out in the ‘General Instructions’ issued to every new police officer from 1829 onwards. The principles are still valid today and have shaped the approach that HMIC takes when assessing how well police forces are working for the public.
These principles are:
The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions
Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public
The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force
Police seek and preserve public favour not by pandering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it. “ https://thecrimepreventionwebsite.com/police-crime-prevention-service—a-short-history/744/the-peelian-principles/:
BLACK LIVES MATTER
So, I get it that blue lives matter. They do and I appreciate and care for the individual police, men and women, that I know personally. Black lives matter too, and we need to recognize the specificity of the circumstances and context in which these lives take place. It is not symmetrical. There is an asymmetry in the balance of power and access to power between black people and the police. Black people do not have as much power or might at their disposal as the blue lives who are armed to the back teeth. The police have far more power and therefore, have a far greater responsibility for how they wield it. They are meant to be public servants, not authoritarian enforcers. They are only effective to the extent that they have the consent of the policed. And that consent is rapidly wearing thin. Trust has been broken in the US by its police forces in too many instances. And the answer is not to pump up the volume and violence as many forces around the country have.
Take a knee instead
Rather, policing is to take a leaf out of the book from the Sheriff in Flint Michigan who marched along with the protesters, it is the example of the police who took a knee in sympathy with the protesters.
Florida Police taking a knee in solidarity. When police continue to indiscriminately kill black men, boys, women and girls, again and again, protest is warranted. The brutal public murder of George Floyd by one policeman as three others watched, was unwarranted and unconscionable. People are rightly angry. The man’s dying words were, “I can’t breathe.” Black people cannot breathe. Things cannot continue as they are.
It is beyond time to stop police brutality against black men and women and children and to call it out for what it is—racist to the core. It throws up into stark relief how the American system is racist and is skewed in favour of white lives, not black lives. Have you white people ever had to give your children the ‘talk’? Every black child gets the talk about how to be invisible to the police, to be polite and not make waves so that they do not call undo attention to themselves. But still they get shot for jogging innocently through neighbourhoods.
BLACK LIVES MATTER full stop.
We all have a responsibility to protect, nourish, and cherish human lives
And the police need to get a grip and we as Americans need to get a grip on our police. It is our responsibility to ask questions, to call them out and ask why militarizing the police is a necessary tactic. We need to question our government and our leaders and ask why the police around the country are being militarized. We need to question whose interests does this really serve? And we need to recognize this undue force will likely be used against us as well one day. It’s already being used against the media and protesters. What about our first amendment rights of free speech. Not even one of us is immune from these authoritarian abuses of power. And why, for God’s sake why do we care more about property and protecting property than we care about protecting, nourishing and cherishing human lives?
- Mass shootings: Moving from a politics of hate to a politics of love
Last weekend, in the space of less than 24 hours there were two mass shootings, one in El Paso, Texas where the current death toll is 23, and one in Dayton, Ohio, where the current death toll is nine. Only a week before, three people were massacred in a mass shooting at the garlic festival in Gilroy, California.
Until now, I have not known what to say. Pundits have filled the airwaves with all kinds of rationales and have cast blame in many different directions. I’m not here to rehash these arguments as important as they are to the political debate that we need to conduct as a nation to keep these massacres from reoccurring. We do need to examine the complex factors that contribute to these issues.
What I have been wrestling with is how do we shift the debate from a politics of hate and fear to a politics of love and hope? Love seems like a rather feeble, namby pamby, unrealistic and idealistic response in the face of such pain and suffering. What does tough, meaty, transformative love look like in such horrible circumstances?
So often the immediate comment by those in power is it’s too soon to comment and there are pleas not to politicize these deaths. These shootings are already political the moment they occur. They take place in the public space. What we do and say about them, how we seek to end them, is political.
Who has the guns, why they have access to guns, why they think it’s acceptable to act on their hatred and fear and shoot human beings is a political issue. They may might feel dis-empowered for what ever reason and by taking up an assault rifle they feel powerful, they feel like their lives have meaning because they can make a splash in the world, they become famous. For some, like the El Paso shooter, they’re part of the larger cause of white supremacy and white nationalism which may create a sense of belonging and meaning . They have the power of God, the power to take a life. Why do they take such power upon themselves?
Whatever the reason, there is NO justification for taking the lives of one’s fellow human beings. Any ideology or religion predicated in violence and hate, is destructive. Islamic fundamentalism that glorifies killing the infidels as well as white nationalism that glorifies whites and advocates the destruction, rhetorical or actual of people who are not white, are two sides of the same coin.
Does love overlook and excuse the injustice? No, it does not. We have such a misconception of love in our culture. Love without action, without critical reflection, without making moral judgments about who has power and who doesn’t, without stopping people from continuing to abuse power, love without recognizing that we are all human beings deserving of life, dignity, a future, a hope, and respect, is not love.
Loving others who are not like us and who aren’t part of our natural community is hard. It is costly. Hating is easy and the cheap way out. There is no excuse. Others have suffered the way these shooters have suffered and they have not taken up guns and killed others. These shooters must be judged, punished and stopped. End of story.
Love means living in community with people who are not like us, who do not look like us, who are different. This is actually a very hard thing to do. Love means working for the flourishing of all, not just the few. Love may mean giving up your position of power and privilege and sense of entitlement so that others can also thrive and flourish.
A politics of love means loving one’s neighbor, a politics of love means becoming involved, a politics of love means not being silent, a politics of love means thinking critically about greed, hate, the abuse of power and privilege. It is part of what it means to be human.
Spiritual piety, thoughts and prayers, without actions and deeds to address the social injustice of these mass killings, whether one is a secular humanist or a devout christian, is not love. Faith without works, as the good book says, is dead. Any kind of spirituality that focuses only on the individual and individual piety at the expense of our social responsibility to our communities, our nation, and to the world in which we live, is dead.
We kid ourselves if we think we can survive in this world outside of our relationships with family, community, friends, nation and the world. We are born, dependent, into webs of relationships. We are social beings. We cannot survive on our own. We need each other. We have a responsibility to one another as well as to the well-being of the planet in which we live.
This kind of false piety is individualistic and narcissistic. It is the lifeboat mentality that as long as me and mine are okay then that’s good enough. Part of what it means to thrive and flourish is to love others as we love ourselves. If one person suffers, we all suffer. We should all be suffering with the communities and families that have lost loved ones in these shootings. We should be suffering with all of those who have lost people in mass shootings before that. Put yourself in the shoes of a family who has lost mother, father, grandparents, child? What would you do if you lost one of your dearest?
As human beings we are interconnected. We are born into communities. We have a social responsibility to one another. When asked are we are brother’s and sister’s keepers, the answer is yes. What does it mean to love our neighbor really? And who is our neighbor? In the parable of the Good Samaritan in the bible, the Samaritan, the despised, marginalized, the ‘black/brown’ person of the day, showed compassion for the suffering of the person beat up on the road. The supposedly holy ones just walked on by.
Are we going to walk on by and say nothing to see here in the face of the largest mass shooting of Latinix? Are we going to be silent or just merely offer them our thoughts and prayers? If one person suffers, we all suffer. We all need to examine our hearts and think about what action each one of us is going to take to stop this? And to ask, what is my own role in all of this? Am I contributing to the problem or to the solution? Note that to be silent is to be complicit. As the saying goes, evil flourishes when good people do nothing.
One thing each one of us can do is recognize, mourn and celebrate each individual who’s life was taken. Let’s focus on their stories, their contributions, the love they shared with family, friends and their communities. Let’s take time to see them, to acknowledge them and their lives.
Every human being that has lived and ever will live is unique and has their own story to tell, a story that fills the story book of humankind (Hannah Arendt). Each beautiful photograph and obituary of the ones who perished in these tragedies is a life to be mourned and to be celebrated. Hate would seek to dehumanize them, to wipe out their existence, to say they were unworthy of existence. Hate seeks to make them invisible so let’s make them visible. Let us make monuments of art, literature and song in their memories. Let’s celebrate their achievements, their families.
Here are some links to the stories of the El Paso victims to start
https://www.insider.com/el-paso-shooting-victims-walmart-2019-8
Here is a link to the stories and photos of the Dayton victims:
Here is a link to the stories and photos of the Gilroy victims
- Christmas Meditation: It is a wonderful Life
It’s a Wonderful Life is a classic Christmas movie. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched it over the decades. The first time I remember watching it was as a teenager.
The message is simple yet profound—how would the world have been different if George Bailey committed suicide in the face of potential financial ruin? It’s a question we all might ask ourselves. How would the world be different if we hadn’t been born or, in another twist, if we had not lived up to our full potential? The lesson from the film is that the world would be all the much a poorer and darker place if we had not existed and if we’d not lived well.
To be honest, I haven’t watched it in recent years. Its message has been too painful for me to bear. I felt like I’d lost my way and wasn’t doing much to make a difference in the world around me. A very long story, but the bottom line was I really wasn’t sure how to spend the last phase of my career, what my legacy would look like and or how to leave a legacy that was authentically what I had to give to the world.
The past year, however, has been one where I have intentionally sought to uncover and strengthen my voice, to find out what I had to uniquely contribute and offer to the world. To explore what is it that only I can do and say given my passions, experiences, strengths and talents. It has been a year of growth as I write my book, write blogs, develop my own coaching and consultancy business and work for Thrive Worldwide, a start up company that provides health and well-being services to humanitarian aid workers and missionaries, one day a week as the Director for Research and Impact.
My main task for Thrive this year has been to write a definition of what it means to thrive and flourish. This overlaps with the book that I am writing about flourishing, which includes a politics of love and hope where what it means to flourish is to be active in the world, making a difference, loving one’s neighbors as oneself, whomever and wherever they might be. Human beings of all different religions, genders, sexual preferences, nationalities, ethnicities, ages and social classes, are our neighbors. We all are human beings, unique, worthy of dignity and respect. There is only one of each of us, which makes us individually unique and diverse, yet we share our universal common humanity.
This humanity flies in the face of the inhumanity that we see so often on the news. The hate that pits us against them, the hate that robs refugees and asylum seekers of their humanity, that robs people that are a different race than us of their human dignity as they suffer violence and discrimination because of the color of their skin. All human beings long to have a future and a hope and long to have a better future for their children and children’s children to grow up in. Yet, on both sides of the Pond, our politics are deadlocked and full of hate and fear for those who are different to us.
It may be that you’ve had series of set-backs, you have bitter regrets about having wasted your life or large swathes of it until now. One of the central messages of Christmas, regardless of whether you are Christian, atheist, secularist or whether you ascribe to a different religion, is that there’s always hope, there’s always a new day, a new opportunity to turn your life around, to make a difference, to matter, to love, to be part of a community. Christmas is about having hope amid darkness, about having meaning and significance in the world, even a world that is torn apart by hate, division, injustice and poverty.
Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, another Christmas classic, captures this sentiment as well. Towards the end of his life, Scrooge is granted one more opportunity to turn his life. He has chosen work and money at the expense of family, friends and community. He is alone and even though he doesn’t realize it in the moment, he is isolated, lonely and bereft. He’s been given the gift of a visitation of three spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Future.
Christmas provides an opportunity for reflection. How are our lives going? Where are we at with our friends and family, our community? Scrooge wasn’t called to some big task, although some of us might be. He was called to love and be generous to the family and friends he’d neglected over the years in pursuit of financial gain. He came to the realization that money and material gain, status, and power were immaterial if he ended up alone and isolated from those around him. He was called to love through action, through generosity and compassion.
Are you lonely and isolated? Where are your potential communities? How can you reach out and love well? How can you be a light in the darkness, a beacon of hope in the darkness of the inhumanity that surrounds us. It only takes one candle to dent the darkness. Imagine you were given the gift Scrooge was, of his ghostly visitations. What is the ghost of Christmas past, present and future saying to you? What is your ‘onlyness’ in this world—-the thing only you can bring, that thing that if you don’t bring means the world, like in It’s a Wonderful Life, will be a darker place? It can be anything—nothing is too small or insignificant. What will be your next act of love?