Solidarity

It’s time to talk about racism.

Racism sucks. It’s absolutely unequivocally evil, and thinking about it makes me extremely angry. It also makes me painfully sad.

The tragic fact of the matter is that people are regularly killed for the colour of their skin. George Floyd is the latest name, but he is anything but alone in suffering this injustice. There is deep rooted cultural and systematic racism at work, and it needs to be tackled head on.

I wish that George Floyd’s death was shocking because it was unprecedented. I wish that this was an American problem and not a global problem. I wish that racism wasn’t real.

I am mixed race and have experienced racism, but, thank God, not to the level others I know have. A stranger at a train station shouted in my ear as he walked past “I think they should let all the jihadis in!” It’s fine that he thought I’m Muslim, but that he would call me a terrorist, that he would hate and fear me, fills me with rage years later. Don’t believe anyone who says Islamophobia isn’t racism. There have been other minor incidents too, but I’ll leave them.

When the police kill an innocent man, there must be a great cry of righteous indignation from all of society. If there is not, then your nation is already dead. When injustice doesn’t make you angry, you are no longer alive. Only Jesus can save you, resurrecting your anger. There is an anger which is holy, and this is it.

So we choose to join those crying out for justice. We choose to weep with those that weep. It’s our issue, because they’re our people, because all people are our people. ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ We are one society, and your problems are mine, and my problems are yours.

So get angry and go, do what you can. Join a protest, raise your voice, educate yourself, see if there’s any hint of racism in yourself and root it out, donate to a charity that’s fighting the fight, call out prejudice, pray to God. Do what you can. Right now, this is what love looks like.

God bless you 🙏🏽

Why lord?

‘Many of you have asked the Lord – why lord? And to each of you, to your heart, Christ responds with his heart from the cross. I have no more words for you. Let us look to Christ. He is the lord. He understands us because he underwent all the trials that we, that you, have experienced. And beside the cross was his Mother. We are like a little child in the moments when we have so much pain and no longer understand anything. All we can do is grab hold of her hand firmly and say “Mommy”  – like a child does when it is afraid. It is perhaps the only words we can say in difficult times – “Mommy”.’

-Pope Francis

(from the his mass for the typhoon survivors at Tacloban, in the Philippines. Here’s the full thing)

Thoughts on cynicism, hope and freedom in anarchism and Christianity

Many people (at least where I’m from) have a strong belief in humanity’s bad side. I share this belief, but I think our response to it is more important.
I doubt I know a single person who believes that the government is good. ‘Power corrupts’ is almost universally accepted. Yet, very few have any hope to save it. Evil is accepted. Only the anarchists have faith in defeating this evil. They accept the cynicism to power, and meet it with a hope of a better world.
Likewise, practically everyone agrees humans have evil in them. Call it what you will, mistakes, a bad side, foolishness, selfishness; we know it’s there and bad. Most accept it, and live on, believing it cannot be changed. Christians have faith in the defeat of this evil. Christians accept the cynics belief in humanity’s evil, and meet it with the hope of God’s complete redemption.

Having, then, such hope, we use much freedom of speech,
2Corinthians 3:12

Hope is a crucial part, to being free in the conditions of bondage. Our enemies surround us, but we fight on, because we have hope in better things to come.

The strange thing is, we can easily show people that they are in bondage, but most do not want to be free. Their bodies have moulded themselves into their chains, and to be without them is uncomfortable or even painful. How do you persuade a person to desire freedom (from human oppression and slavery to sin)?
I say, we must live out freedom as much as we can. If it is as desirable as we say it is, they will see it in us, and pursue it relentlessly.

God bless you.