Peter James Cox SAID President
As Americans go to the polls today we look back.
The UK film director Roland Joffe’s 1986 film The Mission was a cinematic masterpiece.
This excellent movie was about Jesuit Missionaries in 18th century South America and their relationship with the Guarani people there – a relationship that was a microcosm for what “civilisation” means.
The Mission was based upon true events in the Peruvian Jungle in the 1750’s. The image of the cross falling over the waterfall became one of the most iconic in cinematic history.
The Mission received Best Picture at the 39th Palm d’Or film festival in Cannes.
In addition the film received best cinematography at the 59th Academy Awards and includes performances from emerging luminaries such as Aiden Quin, Robert de Nero and Liam Neeson. Therefore The Mission’s relatively poor showing at the 1986 international box office is curious.
As Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan surged to power in the West in the eighties economic times were good – so who really cared about a film about martyred missionaries? Postmodernity meant there was no longer a cultural tide to swim against or to flow with. Religious meta narratives were becoming less and less relevant in the West – easy money was being made and so who cared about religion?
At the height of the Soviet-Afghan war On March 8th 1983 in a speech delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals in America the US President Ronald Reagan characterised the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire.” In his speech, the 40th U.S. president referred to the Soviet Empire as “the focus of evil in the modern world”. The parallels between George Bush’s Axis of evil speech later in 2002 and Ronald Reagan’s Evil empire speech in 1983 are startling . Both were about America having a common enemy to fight.
As characterised by Joe Biden’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan, the aftermath of neoconservatism afforded great opportunities for self reflection in the West.
However, following Biden’s disastrous retreat right wing populist politicians like Donald Trump and Richie Sunak chose to hijack these opportunities instead.
Looking domestically rather than outward for a common enemy this time they found a scapegoat in the poorest of the poor – economic migrants and asylum seekers from the unjust world economic system, “The boat people.” The policies which resulted from such racist rhetoric were the consequence of a larger cultural phenomena – that of mere neanderthal tribalism
With its roots in tribalism in the absence of an external enemy the “them and us” mentality in the western zeitgeist had finally turned on itself.
In positive contrast in the religious world we have seen great strides towards Unity with the birth of the Human Fraternity document – also known as the Adu Dhabi declaration. Signed by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Al-Azhar on 4th of February 2019 in the United Arab Emirates
It was farcical to watch Donald Trump avoid looking directly into the camera when he was asked, “Do you believe in God?”
We must build bridges rather than walls.
Furthermore Greek philosophy also characterised politics as that which occurs whenever people come together.
Religion builds upon this and characterises the human person as that which meets God in prayer and God in each other. As the document on human fraternity testifies this is a commonality across all religious traditions.
With the advent of social media and echo chambers in American elections in which reason is discarded we are into a new era – beyond even postmodernism – whereby assaults against reason are as common as the “them and us” mentality that potentials such Donad Trump’s controversial running mate J.D. Vance unashamedly thrives upon.
Due to its basis in Maxist economic assertions about the nature of the human person we have seen the demise of what Ronald Reagan called the Evil Empire – global Sovietism.
In this post covid era in which people find difficulty in coming together for dialogue – when will the fulcrum swing similarly for the end of the Western Capitalist Empire?
Let us look instead towards the positive strides that have been made at the Abu Dhabi declaration on 4th of February 2019 in the United Arab Emirates.
Let us consider how people of different faiths and none can live peacefully. Let us advance a culture of mutual respect following the example of Pope Francis and Grand Imam Al Azhar.These are the true humble luminaries of our age.
Peter James Cox SAID President