From the Director: Politics

Craig G. Bartholomew

I like to compare politics to the plumbing in a house. Unless you are a plumber you ignore it until something goes wrong, and then you quickly discover how crucial plumbing is to a functioning house. We are not wrong generally to ignore the plumbing in our house. A house is there to be lived in and we do well to get on with that. Politics is all about public justice, and for those of us not in politics and who live in healthy democracies we rightly get on with our lives and our areas of work without constantly obsessing about politics.

However, just like plumbing, politics can go horribly wrong with devastating consequences, and thus, even as we go about our lives, we do well to remain alert to such possible misdirection. 2024 is the year of elections with sixty-four countries around the world scheduled to hold national elections. So many elections hold considerable potential for ferment and disarray. Indeed, as we look around the world, it is hard to be optimistic about politics internationally.

Since the dreadful attacks of October 7 last year, Israel’s war on Gaza continues unabated as a kind of domicide. As I explain in my preface to “A Letter to the Global Church about the Genocide in Gaza from the Middle East North Africa Peace and Reconciliation Network,” it is estimated that beyond the c. 40 000 identified deaths, up to about 186 000 may now have died in Gaza from this conflict. The dreadful situation in Gaza alerts us unequivocally to the fact that politics cannot be conceived of as only an internal, national matter, but also involves how nations relate to other nations. South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found that there was indeed a plausible case that genocide was taking place in Gaza.

One might have thought that such a ruling would have immediate effect, but alas, it turns out that international law only really matters to many Western nations when it sides with them. This bodes extremely badly for the future. As Michael Shipster explains in his article “Is the International Rules-Based Order Now Broken?”, the rules-based international order emerged after World War II in order to prevent and constrain conflict among nations. This year many celebrations took place here and in Europe and other countries to remember D-Day, the beginning of the end of World War II. In a separate article, Michael Shipster writes movingly about the brutal Battle of Kohima in 1944, in which his father was involved. That war generation is steadily diminishing and, alas, so too are our memories of the horror of war and the need for legal instruments to restrain it. For all their limitations, the United Nations, the ICJ and the ICC are crucial instruments of international law and order, and we subvert them at our peril. If anything, they need to be strengthened, so that decisions can be followed up with real consequences.

Perhaps the most worrying election this year is that in the USA. Contemporary politics in the US reads like a fantasy novel – you couldn’t make it up! – but the consequences for Americans and the world are serious. In the front of my cottage a small Ukrainian flag I put there at the outset of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine still flies, but it is faded and threadbare. The results of the US election will have major consequences for Ukraine, and thus for Europe, perhaps for NATO and thus the very architecture of the rules-based world order set in place after World War II.

How should we react to all this turmoil? Such turmoil is not new in history and we have weathered far worse storms before. However, such storms come at enormous cost, and we should avoid them if we can. Furthermore, in a globalised world a storm far away can have devastating consequences locally. Indeed, our neighbour that we are called to love may not only be next door but lying under rubble in Gaza. Thus, firstly, we need to become conscious of the epicentres of the turmoil and think hard about them. Soundbites, knee jerk reactions and media headlines or lack thereof are no help here. Take Gaza as an example. The UN Secretary-General was undoubtedly right that October 7 did not happen in a vacuum. If that is the case, then we need to know the historical, narrative context in which it occurred. Apart from this narrative we will be in no position to arrive at a proper view of the situation.

Secondly, we need, after careful consideration, to take what action we can to prod such epicentres of turmoil in the direction of justice and peace. That will certainly include prayer, but it will also involve action, writing to our MPs, joining action groups, etc. As Jesus said we are to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and that includes societal and international justice.

Thirdly, we need together to live the solution. When I was writing my Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today, I read Lewis Mumford’s massive tome The City in History. He describes well the demise of the Roman Empire. It had become bloated and over-extended; cruelty had become a form of entertainment. Where, asks Mumford, was the solution to be found? His answer is remarkable: it was already being lived quietly in the wings, in the monasteries. Their micro-solutions became the macro-solutions for Europe. Likewise, we need to chart the possible futures in the light of current trends and get on now with living the solutions until their time comes. We may well be living amidst “the encircling gloom,” but we are not without hope. There is a slain lamb on the throne of history, and injustice will never have the final word.

KLC is a research centre and not a policy think tank. Our job is to encourage hard thinking about public issues from a Christian perspective. In this edition of TBP, you will find a variety of perspectives from a variety of authors on a variety of political – and other – issues. Read closely, and you will see that they do not all agree with each other. This is as it should be – none of them express the “official” view of KLC, and we hope that they will provoke you to think hard for yourself about the issues they raise. There is much at stake.