THE CHURCH OF THE STATUS QUO
By Ian Hamilton
George Buchanan and John Knox are dead. So is the Church they founded. From the whited sepulchres of their pulpits the dull black crows drone on. Yet the moral questions of today are ignored. To them immorality is a boy and a girl in the back of her father’s car.
It has been left to a Roman Catholic to speak for us all. Cardinal Keith O’Brien has plagiarised my blog. He has used his position, a mitre higher than my own, to praise Scotland’s humane laws and to condemn the barbarism of the United States.
What has happened to that church which so arrogantly claims the name of the Land we live in? It does not speak for Scotland. Once its General Assembly condemned torture and then fell back in exhaustion. Oh brave, brave worshippers of one who was tortured to death!
But where is their praise for Kenny MacAskill? This is the greatest action this country has taken since it started to become itself again. By its mercy this country will be judged.
Where then are the silent young people of The Church of Scotland? They should be girding on the armour they sing about in their silly hymns. I will tell you where they are. They are hiding behind their pews in case they say something offensive to Unionist opinion. To them the Bible has no politics. They read a different bible from mine.
I have before me a letter dated 29th December 2006 from the minister of Prestwick Parish Church. In his parish the aeroplanes carrying the tortured are refuelled. He says he has information on the subject of rendition. Not even, the police to whom I reported him, not even waterboarding, would get that information from him. He keeps his secret still……………. if he has one.
The Christians keep no watch on Prestwick Airport. They have never demonstrated there. Ayr Presbytery has never condemned any action of the Americans. The barbarians, with whom we have a special relationship, keep nearly two and a half million of their people in prison, half of them are black. Add the rich and those who run the country. They too are jailed. They live in gated communities, too frightened to walk freely in the society they have created, and from the black craws comes not a croak.
I write with anger. I was brought up in the Church of Scotland. Once it had a voice. My father fulminated at the poverty he saw around him.
Now all it can produce is Gordon Brown. He gave the rich their millions and to the widow 85 pence.
Let he who has two coats give one to the poor. Let he who has two faces hide them both in shame.
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
These words come from a comment below.
The Rev Ian Galloway, as convener of the Church & Society Council was unequivocal in stating the Church’s position on the Megrahi release.
“This decision has sent a message to the world about what it is to be Scottish. We are defined as a nation by how we treat those who have chosen to hurt us. Do we choose mercy even when they did not choose mercy?
This was not about whether one man was guilty or innocent. Nor is it about whether he had a right to mercy but whether we as a nation, despite the continuing pain of many, are willing to be merciful.
I understand the deep anger and grief that still grips the souls of the victims’ families and I respect their views. But to them I would say that justice is not lost in acting in mercy. Instead our deepest humanity is expressed for the better. To choose mercy is the tough choice and today our nation met that challenge.
We have gained something significant as a nation by this decision. It is a defining moment for all of us.”
These noble words have appeared as a quotation in a comment to this piece. They express my own sentiments better than I could ever do myself.
Yet why, oh why does it take an attack on the Church in my obscure blog to bring them out of some thesauras where they had lain forgotten by all but a few.
They should be printed in some great typeface like Perpetua caps and hung in all of your churches. They should hang in every school.
Is there a better baptism for any new nation than an act of mercy? And these words are the very litany of the service.
August 10th, 2010 at 11:15 am
At the time when Mr Megrahi was sent back to libya the Church of Scotland released a statement supporting the action of the Mr MacKaskill and it was published in Church magazines up and down the country and may also have been read from the pulpit as well.
August 10th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Dear CWH,
Like you, I applaud the stance taken by the Church of Scotland last year.
Will the Kirk now go the extra mile and release a statement supporting the words of the Cardinal?
August 10th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
My friend Ian Hamilton is not being fair - why should he be, he asks - when he suggests that the Church of Scotland is silent on the topic of the release of al Megrahi. I am a great admirer mostly of Cardinal O’Brien and it was one of the proudest moments of my life when I marched down the High Street of Edinburgh to the official opening of our Scottish Parliament in the group with the Cardinal and the then Moderator of the Church of Scotland. I wish I had a pcture to show my grandchildren.
The Cardinal carries a high profile position within his church and he uses it with vigour and with courage. More power to his elbow! The Church of Scotland, as Ian well knows, has a very different structure and there are some who suggest that the Moderator rarely has time in a year of office to make any significant impact on social and political issues. It was Oliver Brown who remarked that the church had a Moderator when what it really needed was an Accelerator.
The Rev Ian Galloway, as convener of the Church & Society Council was unequivocal in stating the Church’s position on the Megrahi release.
“This decision has sent a message to the world about what it is to be Scottish. We are defined as a nation by how we treat those who have chosen to hurt us. Do we choose mercy even when they did not choose mercy?
This was not about whether one man was guilty or innocent. Nor is it about whether he had a right to mercy but whether we as a nation, despite the continuing pain of many, are willing to be merciful.
I understand the deep anger and grief that still grips the souls of the victims’ families and I respect their views. But to them I would say that justice is not lost in acting in mercy. Instead our deepest humanity is expressed for the better. To choose mercy is the tough choice and today our nation met that challenge.
We have gained something significant as a nation by this decision. It is a defining moment for all of us.”
That is a message I can report was vigorously preached from an Oban pulpit once again only last month and not in general but in very specific terms. I believe that it is in touch with Scottish opinion and it was supported at the time of the release by editorials in our broadsheets - a rare occasion of the actions of the Scottish Government gaining approval from that particular corner. Predictably most opposition politicians in Scotland sought then and some even yet look for political point scoring on this issue.
August 10th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
To Mr McCol and the lady from Edinburgh.
Maybe the Church of Scotland could re-iterate its message of support but the fact that I, as a non-church member, remembered that they had issued and circulated the statement says something about how powerful it was and continues to be. At the same time Archbishop Conti issued a personal statement of support.
August 10th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Thank you for this Mr Hamilton.
It is true the Catholic church has let us all down too often in the past thus praise is due when they stand up for what they consider right.
My local priest dos not hide his views mostly against labour and partly in support of the SNP. I am all for our ‘moral guardians’ expressing their views and offering leadership as they often have in the past. Now and again we get a Daniel mannix even if it means coping with a Paisley.
August 10th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Moral guardians - can morals be guarded by superstitions?
While I applaud the release of Megrahi, I fear the plaudits claimed on compassion may be related more to the pragmatism of repairing a flawed investigation and judicial process
August 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
I have put on the comment immediately above because I don’t believe in censorship.
If the commentator knew Kenny MacAskill as well as I do he would know that he is quite incapable of such a dishonest subterfuge.
Any system of justice has its flaws. Ours is run by people who try to be honest. Among them is sometimes a person incapable of dishonesty. One such is Kenny MacAskill.
Ian
August 11th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Ian Hamilton, I’m impressed. Good work.
It’s important to debate all viewpoints surrounding this issue, if not only for clarity of reasoning in debate, but also to venerate our feelings of moving toward indpendence is facilitated and justified.
This is our Scotland, not Westminster’s.
This is our cultural society we’ve had fro thousands of years, not an American newbe of some 230 years.
This is what we make, keep, and hand down to our children, not what Westminster and Washington gives us.
This is our Scotland.
I’m very heartened and proud of Rev’ Ian Galloway, Cardi’ Kieth O’Brien, and in deed all the other church ministers and parishoners support for Kenny MacAskill; when the news came through a year ago that MacAskill had released megrahi, I nearly fell off my seat. I knew immediately many many knives would be out for a bit o’ ‘damage’ from every possible angle.
Initially, the Scots peoples were fed Labour propaganda, and they ate it up. But then, as the attacks came from Westminster, Washington, Holyrrod, the local, the paper-shop, and just about every media outlet known to man, I began to see a turn in Scots attitudes; this was the Scots’ defense turning to fight, our archetypal ‘Wha’s Like Us’ was back in action.
We usually see it in our competitive games like the rugby, the fitba, or even with Murray in tennis, but it was back in full flow in every ordinary Scots in everyday life. From 3 weeks after the release, Scotland was together as one; this is why what kenny macAskill did was alos important. By doing the right thing, McAskill garvered all Scots together, in church, in the pub, at the tea table, even at work, and all the bickering from those Labour MSP’s in Holyrood couldn’t stop the rollercoaster from pulling us all together.
Good piece Ian, I actually enjoyed reading this one.
allymax
August 12th, 2010 at 7:19 am
Ian,
Your last few blogs seem, to me, to be ‘unsafe’. Maybe now is the time to seek a quieter life. No more minutmen, no more plagiarisation claims, no more resigned goverments exhortations - please.
Brian
August 12th, 2010 at 8:34 am
In response to all of the above comments.
So what do we do now?
I see a vast empty glen where nothing stirs.
I hear the roar of silence.
I feel no leadership.
But still I have hope.
August 12th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
The release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was possibly the single most profound political action I have witnessed in my time.
At a time when there is much to concern us about the present and future state of our society’s moral health, such a tough decision required to look way beyond the pressure and expediency and negativity of basic retribution, and draw on all that is positive and hopeful in our human values.
In achieving that, it had the power to give many of us new hope for the future of humanity, and its ability to exercise inspired wisdom in the face of creeping despair.
The decision was all the more admirable in that it was always going to be met with a tidal wave of knee-jerk ‘outrage’ and sanctimonious moralising from those who see no justice without reprisal, who crassly seize on any opportunity for political points-scoring, or who are simply devoid of any moral backbone.
A ‘compliant’ Scottish administration could never have produced such a decision, as so plainly demonstrated by the combined vote by our anglo-apologist parties to publicly ’shame’ the decision.
The quisling tabloids who scream in shrill headlines against Kenny MacAskill, and now Cardinal O’Brien for defending him, appear to have swallowed US propaganda hook-line-and sinker, as in their haste to sell cheap print pandering to the pro-American agenda, in blatant defiance of Scotland’s interests or accountability to our own people, they would render us a better service by packing up and returning south from whence they came.
Your final paragraph, above, sums it up perfectly, Ian.
As the words of another inspiring thinker put it - Let us work and live as if in the early days of a better nation.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
James, the secret is a velvet revolution; Westminster only needs the slightest of grievances to talk about crushing the mighty Scots.
This calls for highly tentative and tempered moves, slowly, and quietly, looking the other way as we travail past the sleeping monster.
August 12th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
To threaten censorship over the contents of my previous comment makes a claim to abhor the practice meaningless.
You defend the integrity of Kenny MacAskill based on your knowledge of him. I only know of him; however, and more to the point, where did I criticise him?
Does Megrahi have terminal cancer - Yes. Has MacAskill the power to release him on compassionate grounds - it appears so. Should MacAskill have released Megrahi -Yes.
In short due to the prognosis of the cancer MacAskill had no need to resort to subterfuge or dishonesty; so why would you assume my comments are aimed at him?.
That said I retract not one pixel of the accusation of Megrahi’s conviction being unsafe due to a flawed investigation and trial. Perhaps MacAskill with his greater armoury of knowledge felt the same and measured the scale of time between the wheels of justice, the politics of States and the life left to Megrahi. That would be to his credit.
However, if by doing so an injustice is allowed to lie then dishonesty and subterfuge are the tools of States and justice merely hones them - or is it good enough for justice in Scotland to be blinded by influence?
August 14th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
In supporting the Justice Secretary’s actions, may we also spare more thought for the Lockerbie victims and their families?
The words ‘Wisdom’, ‘Integrity’, ‘Justice’ and ‘Compassion’, as engraved on the Scottish Parliament Mace, must be guiding principles for us as a people, as well as for our elected leaders.
May these and other values guide the world in striving to assure that no such atrocities, perpetrated against the innocent, are witnessed again, anywhere.
August 15th, 2010 at 6:25 am
Brian, if you are looking for “safe” you are reading the wrong blog. The rest of us are here because Ian Hamilton provokes us to define and defend our views.
August 23rd, 2010 at 3:58 pm
I share this article, as I was pushed to write it after reading your own. It has been sent to my University’s student newspaper:
Megrahi, MacAskill and Morality: One Year On
Within the rumbling saga of Al Megrahi’s release, it is difficult to maintain a sense of context. The feat of the media to continually splurge sensationalist opinion on the matter has turned an important question of morality - of compassion and justice - into a series of political headlines. From Obama, Cameron and U.S. Senators, to Salmond, MacAskill and Jack Straw, there has been a war of words and personas. One year on from what was undoubtedly a controversial social moment; Al Megrahi’s release deserves a far better critique than the narrow politicised version played out between cameras, careerists and commentators. Consider what an act of compassion means for Scotland, 2010 and the future.
Megrahi’s case directly concerned the 270 deaths as a result of the bombing of Pan Am 103, the 270 counts of murder that Megrahi was convicted of. His release also concerned his own impending death as a result of terminal prostate cancer. There were questions over his original conviction and whether the influence of foreign Governments or BP’s desert dealings with Libya, held influence. Lastly, there was MacAskill’s decision- the walking of a type-rope between compassion and vengeance. The decision concerned life and death; innocence and guilt; mercy and violence. It also went far beyond Magrahi as a man.
Terrorism, Magrahi’s offence, is symbolic of our age. Terror, and the unabating war upon it, is the ultimate fear. It was an international event linking American politics with our own, aired tensions with the Libyan and Iranian Governments and engulfed the Scottish legal system within Britain’s worst terrorist act. Lockerbie now transcends Magrahi.
Therefore, when Kenny MacAskill faced this moral type-rope, he was dealing not only with Magrahi’s fate, but providing a verdict on the most controversial of international affairs. He did so as Scotland’s Justice Secretary. It was a rare moment for a Scottish judgment in relation to world terror. 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq: the only Scottish input was Gordon Brown’s compliance to the response. MacAskill’s religious deliverance on Magrahi was strikingly different: “Mr Al Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power”, he said. Since the 20th of August 2009, his decision has received criticism – which is understandable from the families involved. This was a man convicted of terror and mass murder – a “heinous crime” in MacAskill’s words. And such a man was set free to enjoy the life and world he took from others; a terrorist granted tolerance and compassion.
This is difficult. Yet compassion is part of Scottish justice. The majority of compassionate release cases are accepted. For anyone to spend their dying months – however long they have left – with their family is a sign of genuine compassion. It is what we would wish for ourselves and our family members. To prevent this would be vindictive, to see his past guilt as too great to grant him any dying reprieve. What greater challenge to our values can there be than the case of Megrahi, when the scale of anger and condemnation was greatest. If we are willing to change the culture of our justice system in tough conditions it is no system of justice at all. Our justice is to uphold a higher standard of justice than of those we imprison; to show mercy to the weakest of men, the most hated, is the greatest sign of moral strength: that is our culture. Indeed perhaps the reason for such outcry across the water is down to a certain culture, a moral mistranslation than is lost across the Atlantic, where murder is often met with murder.
Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien rightly described American society - where over 1000 state executions have taken place in the last 35 years - as having a “culture of vengeance”. However credible the calls for Kenneth McAskill to explain his decision, what is in greater need of justification is the international climate of war, violence and conflict which relates the U.S., the U.K., Libya and Iran in the first place. The Afgan and Iraq invasions, as well as Iranian responses in the Middle East are utterly vengeful. Within this environment, acts of compassion by any Government have been rare. MacAskill’s decision stood contrary to all such fears generated since 9/11.
The responsibly for these crimes can often be traced to previous events, a cycle of violence that is rarely outside the realms of Government. Lockerbie, like most terrorist violence, did not take place within a vacuum. It was not the action of a single, evil man. Evidence linked the event to the Libyan and Iranian Governments. Media reports in the past year strain to highlight new anger towards MacAskill, yet they fail to document the long series of atrocities that pre-dated and are linked to Lockerbie. The American military’s destruction of Iran Air Flight 655 in the previous July – resulting in the death of 290 passengers – is left unmentioned; nor is the timing of Lockerbie - a year on from the Iran-Iraq war, where billions of American dollars were spent on supporting Suddam Hussein’s regime. The link to Iran is part of a cycle of violence, one of venegance and retribution.
Out with this context, it is easy to classify such actions as those of the evil, the dirty foreign nations who despise freedom and all our holy Western values. It is simple to join the media narrative and the phrases of Presidential speeches that attack the actions of others from a moral plateau, with the effortless assumption that we can hold no blame. What is challenging is to take a position of criticism, separate from flag and country, and simply ask ‘How did this begin?’, ‘How does this end?’
If America says Al Quieda only understands violence; and Islamic Jihadists say the same about Israel and the U.S., when do the bombs stop falling or the attacks end? Those killed by bombing in Afghanistan – be they of Coalition, Taliban or Iranian origin – all feel the same anger and hatred and desire for retribution. The Taliban and Bin Ladin, who the American Government funded and armed against the Russians, became a threat in themselves. 9/11 was the collateral damage of the Cold War. The Coalition in Afghanistan represents the fourth invasion by British soldiers in the past 170 years. The fourth. Will there be a fifth?
It seems like a strategy that is helpless and endless. The idea that force, if sustained for long enough, creates an explosion of security and peace, is unfounded. Eventually conflict ends in failure or political compromise – in a consensus based upon compassion.
Consider Northern Ireland or South Africa. There was a choice: to fuel the same conflict, to extend the joint suffering or to compromise; to abandon the pretence of offense and defense and create a lasting solution. For Republicans and Unionists to meet was the most challenging of political decisions for Northern Ireland; to allow amnesty to perpetrators of apartheid was a huge social challenge to South Africa; and many will question whether negotiations with the Taliban can ever take place - but they have already begun. Like in Lockerbie, these cases were emotive struggles which destroyed families and communities, yet a decision of compassion is poignant when compared to the acts of vengeance which preceded it. These reconciliations said far more for each nations’ collective future than the years of division and blame.
That is not to say that MacAskill’s compassion holds the answer to the world’s problems. Magrahi was one, dying man. Terrorism and conflict across the world is a different danger. However, if Scotland’s message is one of reconciliation, then I join with Nelson Mandela and not Washington’s NeoCons in welcoming that.
Yet there still is anger over Lockerbie. It seems strange in a world of such violence that we save strong condemnation for an act which sets a man free. He is still alive, yes. He showed his victims no compassion and their families never shared final moments together, that is true. Yet if we wish to find solutions to violent problems in the coming years, the answers shall not be found in vengeance and retribution. Watching saltires flutter in the wind upon Magrahi’s return was difficult; yet, one year on, I’d rather it flew beside an act of mercy than any act of aggression.
September 8th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
How easy it is to talk of compassion if your family was not directly affected by the bombing of Pan Am 103. So easy to set a man free and talk of giving him his last moments with his family when he didn’t kill someone you love. Are you all kidding me? Do you think for one solitary moment that if the situation was reversed that his country/leaders/family would set free a convicted killer of hundred’s of people? Really? Do you? I didn’t think so. I read all this hogwash and it sickens me. I read this blog to get a different view of Scottish politics …and what do I find? Anti-American rhetoric mixed with doses of Scottish nationalism. Sickens me. I always wondered what side of the fence I fell on (being as I am half American and half-Scottish). Now I know, thank you for clearing my mind. Have any of you ever lived a day in your life in the US? Or do you just read the liberal propaganda BS that the newspapers/TV feed to you. You throw out the racism card. So easy to do to incite anger and get readers to come over to your way of thinking. Do you really think that blacks end up in prison and do nothing to cause it? Black men ending up in prison has to do with their dysfunction within the black community, not becoming educated, living up to stereotypes and blaming the white man for what is happening to them now (by the way, I am making BROAD statements in case anyone thinks I am being a racist). Please don’t comment on something you obviously know nothing about. Alas, we learned our barbarian (as you termed it) ways of capital punishment from the best (remember, lest you have forgotten, the barbarian ways of your isle).
One more thing, don’t ever ever ever EVER talk about what your country has sacrificed in this current war or any war since WWII. I don’t think the amount of money spent or lives taking part in or lives lost comes anywhere close to what the US has done. Again, so easy to stand on the “lets all hate on the US” soapbox. Jealous much?? BUT when someone needs money, be it for their own war, natural disaster, etc….who comes a begging with open hands wanting the all mighty dollar???????????? So funny, yet sad, that the last poster said ” if Scotland’s message is one of reconciliation, then I join with Nelson Mandela and not Washington’s NeoCons in welcoming that”. Really? You sure about that? We will just all sit back and wait for terrorism to come to your front door and us Americans will just sit back and watch.
Oh, and all these big words/ideas/beliefs that your readers use…while impressive to the causal observer, get out of Tellytubby land and join the real world, with real solutions to real problems. Not the letting out of a convicted terrorist as some sort of convulated way of showing that Scotland is a compassionate, forward thinking, powerful country. Makes me cringe because your country became the laughing stock and punch line of many a joke!!!!
September 24th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Missed this blog for a while and when I came back I read the last posting with a heavy heart. Imagine encountering Scottish nationalism here ? Fegs!
In an open forum you are bound to read opinions that are contrary to your own. What do you expect?
Compassion is not divisible or conditional nor does it seek reward.
I can only suggest that Wendy makes some effort to read the opinions and of the actions of Dr Jim Swire, someone who lost a dear daughter at Lockerbie but has never allowed that fact to cloud his judgement or his objectivity on the subject.
As a willing subscriber to what she would doubtless term liberal propaganda BS I apologise to nobody.
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