Forward! (and Backward?)

Which way are we going? And do we know?

The world is changing, there is no denying that. My Canadian prime minister Mark Carney delivered a now famous speech in Davos Switzerland that declared the change in uncompromising terms. He called it “a rupture.” The world order established at Breton Woods after world war two, characterized by cooperation and mutual trade, has ended.

The illusion of mutual care was always that, because powerful interests always overrode the common good for their own benefit. The rich have always sought their own advantage over the poor. The larger nations have dominated the smaller ones. But it was always moderated by the rules and justified by the rule breakers. The hungry could appeal to the rule based order, and could call for mercy and the generosity of those with plenty, and scraps would be given.

But now, the rules seem to have been discarded. Millions have lost health care. Millions more have lost access to life saving medicines and food. Starvation is no longer seen as an inhuman offense to the richest of all. The greed of the richest has been baptized by the might of the most violent and all restraints are being cast off. The mask of humanity has been thrown in the trash can of history and set alight. The smaller countries are being plundered and crushed by the great powers. Middle powers are no longer considered worthy allies and are suffering threats to their sovereignty and ability to feed themselves. The plundering is open and unashamed and utterly shameless.

Middle powers, Prime Minister Carney said, must work together and stand together if they are to survive in this new and unrestrained world of naked power and unbridled greed. But if we do gather together our resources and cooperate, we can thrive together and resist the billionaire class, the modern robber barons and their political purchases.

There is nothing new in this. Nothing. In the time of Jesus of Nazareth, there was an empire of power, glory and unbridled greed. Rome ruled the known world and crushed all dissent. None could resist the might of the Roman legions. It was a well oiled and severely disciplined military monster that leveled any and all opposition with no mercy and with unmatched brutality. Rebellions were met with savage murderous force and devastating efficiency. No country, no movement could resist such power, such organized and precisely structured command and control. Along the Northern border there were skirmishes with “barbarian hordes” that we now see as dim hints of the eventual overthrow at the end of their time in history.

But there was also something new percolating. In a small, almost insignificant backwater, a place mostly useful as a corridor to places with greater wealth. In the Levant, in specifically Israel, there was something new. It first was used in the late first century B.C.E. by frustrated and desperate religious people. The mighty emperor declared that statues to his royal and divine person should be put in all places of worship so that he and his Roman authority could be properly recognized. Pontius Pilate tried to do this but a huge crowd of the Jewish people declared they would rather die than see the temple desecrated. Non violent resistance won the day and an exception was declared. Thus began a new strategy for fighting an asymmetrical war against a mighty, practically all-powerful, foe.

Mahatma Gandhi was inspired by this movement. Jesus seems to have been also. Gandhi admired greatly the teachings of Jesus. Far more so than the supposed Christians who were jailing, oppressing, and killing the people of India. Gandhi said he admired and really liked Jesus, but not so much the Christians. India wanted their freedom and independence from the colonizers. So instead of trying to overcome the power of the mighty British army and navy with all their guns and discipline, they used non-violent resistance. And they overcame.

Might is not always able to prevail. United people in large numbers have tools other than violence. Strikes can overthrow regimes and corporations if the people are unified. No billionaire can do the work of all their companies. The workers produce the wealth, the owners merely skim the cream and profit off of the labor of those who do the work. The rich owners will always use strike breakers and undermine labour movements. They will find agents to infiltrate and try to divide. These are well researched and practiced skills of manipulation. But if they are smart, the owners of the factories and such will try to treat their workers well.

When the profits are shared to at least assure a good life for those at the bottom, the system is relatively stable. But the greater the greed, the more the tower totters. As wealth concentrates at the top, and as those at the bottom see the obscene displays of gold plated waste, patience grows thin and hunger overcomes fear. The richest and best dressed, the fattest and most pampered, make the best decorations on the walls of the revolution. But the more violent the revolution, the more suffering there is for everyone.

The way of non-violent resistance is still new. It dates only to the first century, in a human history of one or two hundred thousand years. People have been smart for a very long time and have tried a lot of things over the many many millennia. This seems to be a new thing. Jesus taught it. The church seems to have forgotten it for a few hundred years, especially during the horrors of the inquisition and of the crusades. Some want to take us back to those dark ages. But there is nothing of Jesus in such a path. That way was rejected in the desert when Jesus turned his back on satanic power.

So now what? Forward with Jesus? Or backward to another dollar store Caesar? They are a dime a dozen in history. The current crop seem particularly shabby, gaudy, tasteless and crude. But just because a mob boss is horrible at being good, does not mean they are stupid or unskilled in evil. One may be smart, deeply corrupt, evil to the core, and at the same time utterly incompetent at being a decent or respectable human being. As people who claim to be followers of Jesus, we have a choice. Do we listen to his teachings about care for “the least of these?” Do we see his face in the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick and imprisoned? Do we reach out our hands to those who are the ones who bear his image?

Or do we join the parade of shame, slavishly doing the will of yet another criminal grifter, greedily and selfishly raping the world and laughing at how easy it is to get the stupid people to do his will? History is watching. Which way will we go?