Demonstrating and demonising

Simon Keyes, Director of St Ethelburga's Centre writes....

In a few days time, St Ethelburga’s may well find itself at the epicentre of the demonstrations planned for April 1st (and 2nd), dubbed Fossil Fools Day. The administrative offices of the European Climate Exchange are a few doors away in Bishopsgate and Climate Camp intends to make sure we know where they live. Three other demonstrations marking “Financial Fools Day” are also mooted to converge on Bank, a few hundred metres away.

We’ve been reflecting what this means for St Ethelburga’s. Issues of environmental and financial mismanagement continually arise in our inter-religious dialogues. Our fragile relationship with nature and the ethics of global capitalism are powerful issues which unite serious-minded people across the boundaries of different faith traditions. I suspect a good number of the people who come to St Ethelburga’s share a belief that things are very wrong with the ways we (ab)use both the environment and money. But, by the same token, we also welcome many people who earn their living in the glass towers of the banking, insurance and trading companies that surround us.

Several people (some known to us, some not) have asked whether St Ethelburga’s might be a place of sanctuary or refreshment for the protesters. Meanwhile, a well-dressed visitor from the City of London Police called last week, politely offering help if things go “out of control”, and dropping dark hints about intelligence on the infiltration of the demonstration by “known trouble-makers”. Apparently St Ethelburga’s might be used to gain access to other buildings in the area. His card mentions counter-terrorism.

So what attitude should our Centre take to the demonstration? I have several guiding ideas in my mind.

1. Reconciliation is the (re-) building of relationships across divisions caused by conflict. St Ethelburga’s distinctive role is to be a broker and catalyst in enabling different world views to encounter each other constructively. This requires us to cultivate the trust of different parties to a dispute. To remain credible as facilitators we must practice detachment in issues of public controversy. How far this applies is an interesting question, but I think we should be generally cautious about taking sides in public in order to preserve our capacity to offer alternative forms of conversation between the antagonists. In this case, for instance, it seems important that we do not compromise any possible future role for St Ethelburga’s in bringing together, say, some of the demonstrators with people from the Exchange.

2. But it’s not just about striving for some kind of functional impartiality. I think St Ethelburga’s also stands for a specific type of discourse. We think there is value in listening to other positions and points of view, in being curious about how and why people think differently, in avoiding polarisation and being open to complexity and contradiction. We are interested in how you build relationships that don’t require agreement or like-mindedness. You can’t run a demonstration on such principles – you need certainty, passion and commitment (and I admire that).

3. Few can now deny that we are talking here about huge and pressing problems that concern us all. Sure, there are vested interests to be challenged, but with so much at stake shouldn’t we be investing in reconciliatory approaches which bring people together across divisions to co-create a better future? St Ethelburga’s has a role to play in demonstrating (yes!)how people of very different world views can not only co-exist but collaborate. In our many inter-religious gatherings in The Tent, we’ve seen how the common interests of all can be served by drawing deeply on diversity, valuing the wisdom and experience of different traditions not just as alternative social structures, but as interlocked parts of a mosaic that includes us all. If that works in the deeply divided world of faith, maybe it’s a helpful model for other struggles as well.

4. If we want to be peaceful in the handling of conflict, clearly we must reject violence in all forms – including, I would say, using strident, polarizing language which demonises and dehumanizes others. We damage ouselves by doing this. But where does this confidence to be peaceful come from? For many people this arises from the work of gaining inner experience through meditation, prayer, discernment – however you want to label that systematic use of silence to go deeper into who we really are and what we are called to be. I wonder what would happen if the demonstrators were to put down their banners and whistles and invite the police and City folk to share a half hour of silence, with some readings from Ramana Maharshi or the Book of Genesis?

You can see where this is leading. Does the demonstration offer St Ethelburga’s a way of putting its values into practice? Frankly, I don’t think it does. From my own days of street protests (“Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher!”) I know the comfort and camaradie of marching. I remember how good it felt to take sides and bask in the warm glow of being right. Being able to identify an opponent was part of the fun and made it all possible. But somehow it always fell short of what we hoped for. It’s not just that each action generates a reaction that neutralizes its force (and the City, of all institutions, knows how to close ranks). Maybe I was just on the wrong demos, but the protests lacked the capacity to surprise, to offer new insights, to change the way our opponents thought.

This week I’ve been reading Richard Rohr’s new book “Things Hidden”. He talks about our need to journey into the unfamiliar. He quotes Ionesco on the danger of “separation from astonishment”. We need astonishment now more than ever, but, some spectacular street theatre apart, I can’t see how this will arise from what I know of what is planned for Bishopsgate next week.

St Ethelburga’s cannot ignore what is going to happen outside its front door, but I don’t think joining in, in support of one side or another or both, is our calling. We will think further about how we will spend those two days - we’ll want to find a way of saying “take these issues seriously”, “don’t demonise”, “be peaceful”, “contemplate”. I am certainly interested in what other people think we might do, so email me.

When it’s over, St Ethelburga’s will get straight back to finding robust ways to bring people together to explore how traditional wisdom, new realities and London’s unique diversity can illuminate the multiple crises we face. We’re planning a new project in this area to start soon – so watch this space.