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Roger Warren Evans
Roger Warren Evans
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You are in the company
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Roger Warren Evans |
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item0039E 698, 699 698 Easter Monday 21 April 2003
I had gone through a period
of Christian evangelism - in particular, during my National Service both in Bodmin and in Birmingham, when I got great opportunities to sing revivalist country-and-western songs,
with my faithful guitar - I even recall preaching a
doom-laden sermon in one remote Cornish chapel... But the time that
Cambridge came around, I was firmly humanist. It seemed to chime well
with all my fond memories of the Quakerism of my school-days, at
Leighton
Park School.
And that fusion of perception
has remained with me. I spent Easter Sunday morning at Quaker meeting
in Swansea, where I am a regular Attender. But I have no
faith or
belief in any supernatural being. I have no sense of
prayer or communication with
another sphere or dimension that is supernatural.
I have no belief in any after-life, any form of life after death.
I am intolerant of all ritual, and all priest-led ecclesiastical systems -
the simplicity of the Quaker meeting suits me well. I am simply captivated by the sheer
coherence of the world about me, and the seeming beneficence of the natural
order. I seek to probe that, get nearer to an understanding of that
coherence. Another dimension of my wonder is the passage of time, and
relationship between my fleeting life and the "eternity" of the cliffs about
me, here in Swansea - that is another dimension of this wondrous coherence.
I am astonished and constantly
challenged by the mere recognition that, when I cut my finger, a healing
process immediately sets in, naturally.
More generally, the forces of affection and concern, indeed the phenomenon
of altruism, seem to me to be far more extensive and more powerful than
would be the case, if the life force were merely neutral.
This is not a matter of the supernatural. For me, it is
a matter of observing and understanding the natural world, and its baffling
coherence. It is that immanent coherence
which is my constant subject of study and concern - which must resemble the
perceptions of a scientist. I also observe what
seem to me to be natural
propensities for good, for a peaceful and settled order of society, for the
rejection of war and conflict. I observe a myriad examples every day,
of good overcoming evil - and I am an optimist about the emergence of a
sustainable human order, capable of resolving its conflicts without war and
the deployment of aggressive force. In that context, I see the use of
military aggression against the people of Iraq as an evil, and a profound
wrong. We must now try to pick up the pieces, and to build again the
sinews of a consensual, and more peaceful, world order.
I acknowledge the force of
Darwinism and of natural selection, as an accurate description of how
physical life has evolved - and I see man's experimentation with political
and social forms as a further stage of the evolution of a stable world
order. All religious leaders have stressed the centrality of how
humans behave, both in relation to each other and their environment.
Current concerns with "sustainable development" relate closely to
traditional religious injunctions - favouring the simple life, generosity to
others, and loving thy neighbour.
Striving for "eternal life", so central a religious concept, has a profound
meaning for me - but a humanist significance, rather than a supernatural
one. It means the search for a world-wide human order, for a network
of human values, which will enable human beings to overcome the very
characteristics which have brought them species evolutionary success - high
intelligence, coupled with aggression, selfishness and acquisitiveness.
Those very characteristics now threaten the very survival of mankind itself,
as human beings turn upon each other, in successive outbreaks of aggressive
warfare. And the solution may turn out to look very like religion,
perhaps a network of religions...
699 Easter Monday 21 April 2003 These are dark and No sense of direction has emerged, since the "victory" of Baghdad. And that aimlessness, a political and moral aimlessness, is dangerous. While we are floundering around in dismay, the forces of evil (particularly the US Republicans) are busy digging in, entrenching their position. The truth is, that nobody can really believe the scale of the destruction wreaked, by the Coalition attack, upon the United Nations and the world's hopes for a consensual world order. We face a grim future, ordered unilaterally by a rogue state, the United States. But what are we do? In particular, what is a loyalist Labour member like me to do, determined not to abandon the Labour Party yet committed to working for a peaceful, consensual world order. These are my suggestions. REJECT all the neo-imperialist clap-trap which holds that "super-powers have always been like this", that the Romans and the Brits were just like today's Americans, and that is an inevitable part of international order. There are elements of truth in the parallels, of course - but the political circumstances have changed so radically that the comparisons are useless. There are no longer any new frontiers, as the world population rises from 6 billion towards 9 billion - careful and peaceful global management offers the only thinkable way ahead, not the perpetual interplay of aggression and counter-aggression now on offer from the United States. These "sophisticated" imperialist arguments must be rejected at every turn, and the case re-asserted for a more egalitarian, humane, consensual world order, effectively policed. DOCUMENT the illegality of the Iraq aggression - we should publish a compendium of all leading legal opinions on the war, dismantling its pretences of legality and good order. In concluding the proceedings and meekly "moving on", we must not mislead future generations into thinking that "victory" has somehow obliterated the wrongfulness of the initiating aggression - that would be the worst possible message to pass on to them. JOIN organisations that criticise the overweening authoritiarianism of this Labour Government, an authoritarianism evident in the characters of Tony Blair, David Blunkett and Jack Straw, interpenetrating both home and foreign policy and dragging down the good name of the Labour Party in the process - join LIBERTY and (if you are Labour Party member) also join the Socialist Civil Liberties Association. For my part, I have this week paid £20 to join the United Nations Association, just as a gesture of solidarity - to counter the mischievous and cynical "sophisticated" critique which contends that it is finished.
What do you think? Am I being paranoid? Drop me a line
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