FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 635 11 June 15 BRITISH VALUES

HOW BEST TO COMBAT TERRORISM AND 'EXTREMISM'? BY AFFIRMING BRITISH VALUES, THE GOVERNMENT CLAIMS BUT...WHAT ARE THEY?


‘English people consider themselves superior to foreigners’ wrote George Orwell. Fine. A superior people must have superior values. What might they be?

‘Freedom and tolerance’, proclaimed PM David Cameron. Freedom, eh? Shades of George W. Bush’s extolling a ‘freedom-loving people’. Playwright Harold Pinter quipped: ‘I’ve never heard of a freedom-hating people!’ Indeed. And foreigners may love liberty too. The idea that love of freedom should be unique or special to Brits is nonsense. Ever heard of a nation preferring slavery to freedom?

As to tolerance, like freedom, it is not absolute. It has limits. Brits do NOT tolerate racism, pedophilia, polygamy or homophobia. Nobody is free to propagate – or even to profess – those negative values. There is even a drive to make holocaust-denial illegal. So much for the glowing virtues of tolerance and liberty.

Gender equality is another proud candidate for UK virtues. Hhmmm…are you familiar with single-sex schools? How does it square with gender equality when boys and girls are taught separately? Many of course strive to abolish such segregating education, in equality’s name. Lesson: values can clash. A well-off dad wants to send his daughter to a private girls’ school. Does he violate equality? Should he then be forbidden to do so? But what about his freedom? Sounds un-British to violate it. Strictly speaking, freedom and equality are mutually incompatible values.

Democracy? Fairness? But what kind of democracy? One that gives a national party like UKIP one MP for nearly four million votes? Fair electoral system? Come off it!

‘The rule of law’. Impeccable principle. Who would desire to live in a lawless society? But what about unjust or iniquitous laws? What if the law is an ass? Suppose Parliament tomorrow passed a law permitting, or even compelling, infanticide, the killing of disabled infants. (Not so wild an idea: euthanasia is just round the corner and one distinguished Peer and moral philosopher argued that Alzheimer sufferers may have ‘a duty to die’.) Would it morally wrong to rebel against that law? Believing Christians already regard abortion as murder.

One value notably absent from the lists politicians plug is Christianity. Funny for a nation whose monarch is supreme governor of a Church by law established. Still, God is strictly off limits. Woe to the man who invokes him in the public arena! The Almighty last surfaced tangentially when PM John Major mentioned, quoting Orwell, ‘old maids cycling to Holy Communion’, along with warm beer, green suburbs, dog lovers and other cosy clichés. God however is a bit more than that. ‘We must obey God rather than men!’ St Peter and the other Apostles declared before the Jewish High Priest. Human laws can never override divine mandates. Beware: God is not mocked… Does that sound threatening? Hope so!

The matter of fundamental British values is not just academic or rhetorical. There is now a Counter-Terrorism and Security Act requiring all schools to prevent schoolchildren to be inveigled into terrorism. Fair enough. Would you want a spotty teenager to blow you up? The Act however links terrorism and ‘extremist ideas’. There’s the rub. Inciting people to kill innocent train travellers doubtless is a murderous idea. No one should be permitted to teach it. But what about pursuing a theocracy? Government by God. Pretty extreme. (Like in Iran? But they have elections!) You may hate it. Still, where is the violence? Does it hurt anyone to preach it? Would an opinionated schoolchild be demonized and subjected to sanctions if he advocated that in class debate? Why?

Nowhere does the wording of the Act mention Islam. Fine piece of English hypocrisy! Why not admit this legislation is aimed at Muslims? Like a gun pointed at their head. Islam will soon be the largest practiced religion in England. It has no self-doubt, it is strong and it grows. Muslim kids have not yet bought into liberal secularism. Therefore they considered a threat. Teachers will have to act like snoopers or enforcers of secular dogmas. Goodbye freedom of thought, freedom of expression and free speech!

Political hacks apart, how many Brits are aware of their values? My Facebook friend Dilly Hussain interviewed a random bunch of natives in Coven Garden. Replies ranged from vapid to banal. However, Michael Gove MP may have a point when he says that some qualities are better ‘demonstrated through action than described in the abstract’. Being unable to verbalize your values does not mean you don’t have them. The heroic RAF pilots in the Blitz who saved Britain from Hitler express some real, active values. Still, there is a contradiction. The same values were in action in the horrendous obliteration bombing of Dresden and other German civilian cities. Individual bravery does not guarantee justice or righteousness. Luftwaffe pilots were courageous, too…

Maybe the search for core British values is a will o’ the wisp. Still, I agree with George Orwell: the English feel superior to nasty aliens. Now, a superiority complex is bad. It needs treatment, as psychologists like Freud, Jung and Adler demonstrated. I care too much for the people of England to do nothing about it. So, the final chapter of the priest’s e-book, ‘The Dark Side of England’, available on Amazon Kindle, proposes a cure. Inspired by a French friend and disciple, Justine. It seems a crazy, outrageous, shocking therapy but…it may work. Who will give it a go?

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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