Winchester lecture, 08 February 2006
Whoever said “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” was misinformed. Or perhaps they started the rumour in order to get away with offending other people. And just to make the point I’m asking every person in this room who has never been hurt by someone else’s words to leave me a £5 note with the retiring offering!
In this lecture, I want to look at the political language which has developed around race and religion. In a week when Europe has been traumatised by religious tension, I want to suggest that the notion of Respect, based on our common humanity, is more important than our tribal identities.
Language is an important distinguishing feature of what it means to be human. More than the manipulation of our consonants and vowels, it is the discourse of the human spirit. So what is said – or not said - becomes the currency of social engagement. As Elliot has helpfully reminded us, “language is our only reality.” [1] And this is why freedom of speech is so important to us. For of all our freedoms, speech is vital to our identity.
What we say about each other is important because freedom of speech is a gift of God.
But language can be elusive. For the words we use may come to define or determine what people think we think about them. And language regularly changes tone to fit political portraits of how people wish to describe us at a particular point in time.
In my own lifetime I have been a ‘coloured boy’, a ‘Black British’ an ‘Afro-Caribbean’, an ‘African-Caribbean’ and a ‘Black man.’ Not long ago an elderly ex-missionary woman patted my shoulder and told me she has a very nice ‘coloured friend’ in Jamaica and wondered if I knew him!
So what’s in a word? Everything. Yesterday’s language can ruin my reputation and people may judge what I do by what I have already said.
Given that language encapsulates all that we are as socio-cultural beings, words shared across cultural boundaries are fraught with difficulties. In the past, British people could stereotype others who lived elsewhere in the Commonwealth. We no longer have that luxury: as I often say, the Empire strikes back! We can no longer define people in their absence. Europe, once the sending Continent of the world has now become the great cultural repository.
Last week Trevor Morrow, a Presbyterian Bishop in the Republic of Ireland told us that his local congregation in Lucan is represented by every continent except the Antarctic. Apparently, they are praying for Eskimos. [2]
Currently 7.9% of the population is ‘minority ethnic’. Between 1991 and 2001 that ‘ethnic population’ grew by 53% from 3.0 to 4.6 million. Amongst this group the fastest growth is taking place within the Asian population – particularly the Indian and Pakistani groups. [3] The 2001 figures tell us that 35% of Londoners are ‘non white’. At the present rate of growth, the ‘non white’ population in Britain could be in the majority by 2100.
In all of this, language is a critical issue. British law has an admirable record of addressing the relationship between racial justice and public order in the Race Relations Act 1976, Lord Scarman’s Report following the unrests in Brixton and the Macpherson’s Report following the murder of Stephen Lawrence. But even more recently, the attempts to link language and motivation has been strengthened by the 1998 Public Order Act, and the amended Racial and Religious Hatred Bill which crept under the Government’s radar last week to be voted in by one vote.
But the controversy which followed this piece of legislation demonstrated more than anything else, the terrible difficulties of balancing freedom of speech, the protection of minorities – in effect Muslims who feel unprotected by existing laws based on race as opposed to religion - and the thorny dynamic between intention, incitement and offence. Who, we wondered, could be sure what ‘abusive and insulting’ language was? And what would be an agreed definition of ‘recklessness’?
In order to establish a universal language to detect, define and deal with racial injustice, (as indeed, in gender or age) language has been catalogued in the politicised ‘isms’ of our litigious age.
But there is a problem with the politicising of language. My own experience of anti-racist lobbies both in the Probation Service and Police Service is one of managing relationship between opposing groups. ‘Anti-racism’ – as indeed all the other antis – tend inevitably to set one community off against the other. Communities subjected to personal or institutional racism may come to define their very existence in polemic terms. They become survivors in a hostile environment. Creative energy can be spent in looking out for one’s self; defending one’s culture or race against the odds. People who defend their culture against other people’s culture are likely to end up in a default position which disallows the transition of cultural change which takes place on any normal cultural journey. In this embattled landscape, victims of injustice may find themselves prisoners of their own injustice. The fight against ‘racism’ is an important one but it is a precarious one and one which is very hard to measure. After 40 years of legislation against it I have met few anti-racist campaigners with a sense of achievement on this vital issue.
But the ‘anti’ position has another defect: it erects barriers of hostility and resentment in the very communities which need to change. Institutions and the individuals within them will always struggle with being described as ‘institutionally racist’ or ‘hideously white’ – even where it is palpably true or perhaps because it is palpably true. ‘Political correctness’ for the greater cause is not always easy to handle if you are on the receiving end. Whatever progress is made on this issue has been in short supply. The recent study into the racial attitudes in the Police Service found that despite ‘substantial and positive changes’ and a lessening of abusive and racist language amongst officers, racism still blights the service and changes in language was ‘largely cosmetic’.[4]
Just weeks before the terrible violence between Asian and black youths in Birmingham last October, Trevor Philips, Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, warned that Britain was ‘sleepwalking’ into racial tensions.[5] A point which Yasmin Alibhai-Brown underscored in the Independent. “Those who pronounce racism dead and buried reveal a contemptuous disregard for the truth of our lives as black and Asian citizens of Britain.”[6]
Not only has the politicisation of language created a ‘them’ and ‘us’ in race relations, ironically it appears to be feeding the insatiable appetite of fascist language and behaviour across the continent. Despite our real attempts to defeat the monster of racial disharmony all the signals are that British society and the Continent of Europe is becoming increasingly plagued by racial tensions. Anti-Semitism is as rife today as it was fifty years ago.
“Burning cars on the streets of Paris. Pitched battles between Asian and black people in Birmingham. Islamic terrorists planting bombs in the London rush hour. All at once more than a decade’s mixing of race and religion on the streets of Europe has exploded, and large questions are being asked about the relationship of ethnic minorities to our pluralist democracies. “[7]
My point is not to diminish the need for language which resists injustice. We need words which challenges our racial factionalism. But ‘anti’ language is failing us. Something far more productive is needed. In this regard I believe the more recent language of ‘diversity’ is more helpful. But even here, the language of diversity divorced from any underlying conviction about our common humanity is no more than a camouflage for our bitter disagreements. In the words of the LSE report, language becomes ‘largely cosmetic’.
Two years ago I spoke with a diversity training officer who happened to be a Christian. She was highly intolerant about racial injustice. If the truth be told she was also quite virulent about ‘sexism’ and transparently homophobic as a result of her Christian convictions. During the course of our conversation I asked if she felt that her Christian faith brought any added value to the subject of diversity. She struggled to find one. As a specialist in equality and diversity training she had no Christian narrative to bring to the dialogue.
I asked if she had ever thought about Respect based on our common createdness: our shared humanity as people made in God’s image. The thought had never crossed her mind. But there is no more profound or fundamental starting point for diversity than this: all of us share the same spiritual heritage, fallenness and potential hope.
We should have no reservations about such a construction on human relationships for it does nothing to undermine our cultural differences or marginalise our beliefs. No one had to be a follower of Freud to be taught Freud. And not so many follow him now.
Respect was the great slogan of the Abolitionist movement. When the slave asked, “Am I not a Man and a Brother?” it was not merely a question for Christians. It was a profoundly socio-political question based on a Christian worldview. Respect is an invitation to examine the deeper questions of causation. A biblical view of Respect will not settle for a common language about injustice which changes nothing in the soul of the community. Respect analyses our relationships at first cause and asks ‘How can I possibly abuse another person as God-like as myself?’
Rob Warner puts it well for us:
“Those who honour God must also show due respect to every human being, irrespective of race, gender, social status, abilities, money or power. All are made in the image of God, so to mistreat any person is to show disrespect for God. “[8]
The commonality which Respect builds will never be comfortable with the language of anti-relationships. It begins precisely where we should begin: black or Asian, Muslim, Hindu or Christian we are all peas in the same pod. Any injustice is wrong not because it is done to my culture, colour or creed but because it is done against my humanity and ultimately against God. Humanity is inseparable from culture, but Respect means that in this regard, my humanity is elevated above my culture, colour or creed. To make my colour or class more important than my humanness is a romantic notion we cannot afford. The only way to avoid Huntingdon’s ‘Clash of Civilisation’ is to appeal to the image of God within us and to put our common humanity above our politicised relationships.
Before going on to discuss Respect in relation to religion I want to recognise that the limitation of this lecture makes it difficult to deal in any detail with other important areas such as age, disability, gender or young people. I was fascinated, for example to over hear a debate with journalist Dominic Lawson in which argued forcefully for a return to the language of ‘disabled person’ as opposed to ‘people with learning disabilities’. His point was that ‘learning disability’ minimised the level of practical support needed for people with disabilities.[9] And in similar vein the relationship between what we say about young people and their subsequent behaviour may have a stronger correlation than we have recognised.[10]
Dr Jonathan Sacks’ Dignity of Difference was written as a direct response to Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilisation. As the Chief Rabbi has argued in so many places faith has a central role to play in building community. And nowhere else has the importance of words mattered as much as it has done in religion. Faithwords are critical for four reasons.
First, faith has prevailed against the failing experiment of secularisation. Faith is ‘a social fact’. [11] Secondly, faithwords form a conduit for deep convictions about right and wrong, life and death. Fiats and fatwas is the stuff of which religious intensity is made. But thirdly our faithwords are the instruments of our corporate consciousness as faith communities. We use them to define ourselves and to identify ourselves against other believing or unbelieving selves. And fourthly as we all know faithwords are culturally constructed and communicated. To be a Presbyterian is one thing: to be a Presbyterian in Scotland might be quite different from being a Presbyterian in Winchester. And to be a Hindu or Muslim is to be a religious as well as a cultural person.
Respect across traditions, cultures and histories has never been easy. In Britain we have over three decades of the Northern Ireland ‘situation’ to make the point. And the conflagration which has erupted from the re-publications of the Prophet Mohammed in Denmark is the most urgent test case to date. Both sides of the debate needed to take seriously the notion of Respect. So editors who recklessly attack a religion which has no iconography are guilty of disrespect, as are violent extremists.
Contemporary Britain has a combustible combination of racial and religious tensions and invariably words are at the very centre of our difficulties. In the week when the amended Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was passed and two senior members of the British National Party were acquitted of incitement to violence and Islamic extremists advocated murder on our television sets, we are left with very clear evidence that something beyond the important constraints of the law is needed.
The tension between freedom of speech and press over against offence has never been more intensely debated across Europe. The insensitive provocations of the cartoons in the Danish press has met with a combination of legitimate protest from Muslims as well as the totally outrageous calls for a ‘day of anger’ and death threats from senior Imams and extremist mobs. The price of freedom has gone up.
Christian response is based on a recognition that historically, our hands are not clean. The link between religious conviction and outrageous behaviour is a part of our Christian story. Frankly with few exceptions we have been less than prophetic in the war of disrespect in Northern Ireland.
That aside, our task now is to ask how we respond to this urgent situation in a way which recognises that from within our Judeo-Christian worldview we might talk about the disrespect which has flared up between a secular press (which often hides behind legitimate freedoms in order to behave irresponsibly) and an uncompromising faith inhabiting a secular space as a minority group.
The disrespect by the Danish press has been informed I suspect by two impulses. One that religion - like everything else - is fair game: in a liberal democracy there is no such thing as sacred space. But also, I imagine, satirical language has given itself the freedom to raise serious questions on behalf of the whole community. In this instance the question behind the offensive drawings was this: ‘is there a relationship between violence, terrorism and Islam?’ There has to be space for such questions. But to have framed it in the language of religious heckling was grossly disrespectful to a faith which has no reference point for satirical comments about its founder, Prophet Mohammed.
The question for Islam is this: ‘How do you live as a minority in a culture where the language of religious heckling has become normal?’ And if one is unable to respect this reality how do you propose to change it? And indeed how willing are Muslims to go beyond the offence in order to hear the central question of Islam’s relationship with violence? And to what extent do words of violence actually vindicate the questions raised in the first place? How will Islam - a religion of peace - emerge from this controversy having shown as much respect as it has demanded?
Dr Sacks’ excellent work Dignity of Difference is anxious to avoid a universalism of absolutes which sweeps away differences and the particularity of truth to which all religions are entitled. [12] But I fear that any attempt to disabuse us of ideological absolutes is doomed to fail. Evangelicalism is no more likely to abandon its unique claims about Jesus than Muslims are likely to disclaim the Prophet Mohammed.
The task before us all is to learn how to respect –indeed to venerate – our common humanity above our exclusive religious claims. What we need is not a dismissal of absolute claims but the intellectual and cultural tools to make absolute our understanding of what it means to be a person and to find ways of saying so. Respect for another does not mean abandoning my own claims – however intolerant they may seem to an inclusive culture. For in respecting another, I respect his or her freedom to reject me and my values.
It is something God does every day on a regular basis.
The infant Church had a number of problems. As 1st century citizens they were a minority who endured a mixture of persecution and adulation. In that context Respect was an important word. The fledging world movement could have been mistaken as an exclusive and intolerant religious group. They had protected ‘love feasts’; strange baptismal rites; and a highly elevated view of their founder Jesus. In refusing to worship Caesar above him many of them gave their lives as martyrs. They were unmistakably proselytisers.
But they had three things to offer their world: hope, gentleness and respect. (1Peter 3:15,16) And this respect (phobia) was not a marketing strategy. It was borne of a very deep awareness that people deserved reverential fear. As W. Mundle explains, “The New Testament presents a tension between fear and love. In a paradoxical way, they go together.”[13]
This radical Respect is not the sole property of a Christian community. It is the basis on which unity in diversity is best sustained because people who respect each other so deeply quite literally will be afraid to hurt each other. And when they do, Respect will continue to temper human relationships working for justice with the belief that both the terrorist and the bus driver are made in God’s image. From this perspective we will be better disposed to find the words which do not hurt.
Rev. Joel Edwards
[1] Mark Elliott The Dynamics of Human Life 2001
[2] Trevor Morrow, Bible Readings Kingdom Come Belfast, January 2006
[3] National Statistics April 2001
[4] Alan Travis Guardian, LSE Mannheim Centre for Criminology, Racism still blights police despite post-Lawrence improvements 28th October 2005
[5] Trevor Philips the Monday Interview, Independent 31st October 2005
[6] Yasmin Alibhai-Brown The Evil that dare not speak its name Independent, 24 October 2005 [7] Paul Vallely What the French could learn from Moss side Independent 8th November 2005
[8] Rob Warner, Ten Commandment & the decline of the West Kingsway p. 60
[9] Today Radio 4 Friday 4th February 2006
[10] See Anti-social behaviour Joseph Rowntree Foundation June 2005 & Al Aynsley-Green, Treat children with Respect and you’ll get it straight back, Guardian Comment Thursday 16th June 2005
[11] Don Cupitt Only Human p138
[12] Dr Jonathan Sacks Dignity of Difference, 2004 p. 50
[13] W. Mundle in Colin Brown (ed) Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Paternoster) p.264
