UNITE AGAINST FASCISM
The British National Party has suggested that it espouses Christian values. Archbishop Rowan Williams’ exploration of the common ground between Christians and Moslems was ridiculed by the BNP as being instrumental in the ‘Islamification of Britain’.
In the face of this and other views widely held by political extremists how does the Christian respond?
In 1992 the composer Bernadette Farrell set to music a wonderful text by Shirley Erena Murray. Written for Racial Justice Sunday it is entitled ‘Community of Christ’ and we sang it at the end of this year’s Chrism Mass.
The first verse is a powerful invitation to be Christ in the world:
Community of Christ, who make the cross your own,
live out your creed and risk your life for God alone:
the God who wears your face, to whom all worlds belong,
whose children are of every race and every song.
© 1992 Shirley Erena Murray
The assertion in the song that God wears my face and yours is mind-blowing. Look around you, as you go about your daily business, at the variety in the face that God chooses to wear!
Scripture reminds us that we are all ‘made in the image of God’. The human race enfleshes God, and in the same way all things are created in God. ‘Emmanuel’ means what it says on the tin – God is with us! This is why we have respect for all created things, as well as for all humanity.
The BNP declaration of support only for indigenous British is to deny the in-dwelling of God in all regardless of skin colour, nationality, gender or status.
It was not for nationalistic reasons that a Scottish friend of mine once declared ‘God’s favourite colour is tartan!’ God designs and embraces difference, as the scene at Pentecost with all nations understanding each other confirms.
In Mark 7:24–30 we read that Jesus is pursued by a Syro-Phoenician woman seeking help for her child who suffers some mental disorder. Such is the depth of her faith that she harangues Jesus for a cure. However she is not Jewish and Jesus explains that he came only for the Jews. The woman will not take that lying down and lays into him with all manner of arguments. Under her persistence Jesus grows in his understanding
that his mission, primarily to the Jews, must be all-embracing, that he has come for all peoples.
This is a critical moment of realisation for Christ as he moves from one perspective to a wider vision: Jesus, Son of God, changes his mind!
Human beings hold opinions which are formed by their experience. When these opinions are challenged we can choose either to cling to our initial position or to allow this to be modified by the challenge.
Unless we are very unfortunate or blinkered we will readily encounter difference in other people. Sometimes the difference causes a gut reaction which might amount to fear. This may be a natural consequence, but the more we examine this reaction and the more we come to know the person of difference, the more positively we will change in our attitude towards her.
Part of what makes Christ both fully human and divine in the story is that he transcends the ordinarily human and changes his mind. We can all move to a change of mind if our hearts are not hardened and if we refuse to allow fear to dominate.
So what do we pray for those who advocate and represent such views as those espoused by the BNP, those who have betrayed the image of God in which they are made? We cannot believe that they are intrinsically evil, for God, who saw all creation as good, does not create evil. However what comes out of them might be considered evil. We pray that their hearts too may be open to change, and that they might, in the words of St Augustine, ‘give themselves back to God, the God who made them’.
All political extremists work on fear of the other. Hitler did this with the Jews
in times of economic depression in the 1930s and we are seeing similarly despicable attitudes in the present times of financial insecurity.
Fear stops you moving, stops you taking risks, narrows your outlook, directs you towards entrenchment and self-interest and thus makes you less human. We are communal beings and it is not good to be alone. No wonder that the most common saying of Christ and the angels of God is ‘Do not be afraid.’
A dominant characteristic of the Christian is hospitality. ‘See how these Christians love one another’ is not a soppy sentimental observation but one drawn from witnessing those who show love for all, an all-encompassing, unconditional love.
Thirty-seven times in the Bible we are reminded to welcome the stranger. And all the miracles of Jesus reflect his intention to bring the outsider into the heart of the community. Jesus realises that it is sometimes necessary to transform the outsider, to give sight to the blind, to cure the leper, to give life to Lazarus, to set prisoners free and to relate to and energise the woman at the well, but the return of these persons to a community which had previously regarded them as different, challenges fixed opinions and transforms not only the healed individual but also the community itself.
There is a ludicrously comical scene in Monty Python’s film Life of Brian in which Brian proclaims, ‘We are all individuals’, to which the crowd of thousands in one voice shouts, ‘Yes. We are all individuals.’ Then Brian adds, ‘We are not the same.’ And the crowd again as one replies, ‘No, we are not the same.’
Despite the humour there is great truth in the statement. We are not the same, as another of Bernadette Farrell’s songs indicates:
God made me as I am, part of creation’s plan.
No one else can ever be the part of God’s plan that’s me.
© 1995, 1999, Bernadette Farrell, OCP
Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, writes that there is no such thing as Jew or Greek, no such thing as slave or free, no such thing as male and female, for you are all one in Christ.
Recently at an interfaith gathering in Sheffield a friend put it differently: He said, ‘There are people from different nations and cultures, there are people who are imprisoned whilst others are free, there are differences of gender, BUT all are one in Christ.’
I found that useful, more or less saying the same thing, but with different nuance.
And this Jesus Christ, in whom all are one, is Son of the God who created, and continues to create, glorious diversity through which, with which and in which the limitless breadth of God might be glimpsed.
Continuing with Paul’s letter … ‘And if you belong to Christ, then you are the seed of Abraham,’ (you are Christ) ‘heirs to God’s promise.’
And God’s promise to be with us that we may all have abundant life, the common good, this is what prompts us to use our vote to bring about, not the pitting of community against community, but the reigning of God.
Amen. Alleluia!
Philip Jakob
Philip Jakob is a Member of the Iona Community.
REFLECTIONS ON WORKING WITH AN ASYLUM SEEKER:
MICHAEL'S STORY
This is part of Michael’s* story, told with his permission, but it is also part of my story. I work in the NHS in a therapeutic role. I also do unpaid counselling work for a counselling and training charity in a large inner city. Michael was referred here by his GP, who was very concerned about him. Michael was suicidal and self-harming. His moods swung between anger and rage and almost total withdrawl. A psychiatrist had seen him and said he was suffering from moderate to severe post-traumatic stress disorder and recommended therapeutic help. The charity administrators had assessed him and wanted him seen very quickly. I was approached and asked if I would work with him. I had worked therapeutically before with asylum seekers. I was aware of the personal impact it can have: a kind of vicarious trauma.
Michael is 30 years old. He was born in an African country which has a long history of civil war. He speaks his native language and also English. His mother died from illness when he was 6 years old. He lived with his father and a brother and sister until he was 14. He remembered the soldiers coming and killing his father and brother. His sister was raped, then murdered. He was tied up and taken away and raped by a number of soldiers. He was released, as is the pattern in this form of oppression: some victims are left alive to tell others what has happened. It is a form of control and breeds fear. (As a result of this brutal sexual assault he has developed a rectal prolapse which makes normal functions painful. At the time of counselling he was awaiting an operation. This caused him much anxiety, not least because he had no understanding of the concept of anaesthetics. Once I explained this to him he was much relieved.)
The next few years of his life saw him taken in by a farming family in a neighbouring country where he lived happily until the farmer’s children, as they grew older, turned against him, seeing him as a threat to their inheritance. At this point he felt unsafe and left to seek asylum. How did he feel about that? (In what follows, Michael’s words have been exactly quoted, following his use of English, which is not always standard.)
He came to escape a dangerous situation. He arrives – and is put in another unsafe place:
‘I seek asylum. I was put in detention, I was told – I call it prison – they said it was detention. I have never been in my life before.’
Michael’s anger in these words can be felt. He felt he was being treated like a criminal. He had never been in trouble with the authorities in his own country, except for his experience of the soldiers. Having his movements restricted in this way reminded him of the restrictions they had placed on him.
‘They ask me questions. I told them, and then they say “It’s not correct”. They don’t believe it … they ask me more questions, they say it’s going to be secret … I try to believe it. Then after a few months I went to sign. I was given a telephone to speak to my embassy … “You told me my words going to be secret, now leads to me talking to my embassy … you frighten me again”.’
He was not only frightened by the officers, he was being re-traumatised by being asked to recount experiences he wanted to forget.
‘When I came here the immigration system was making me remember things I wanted to forget.’
His avoidance of these questions would be taken as suspicious by the officers.
It is not surprising that he became very withdrawn and would breakdown in tears for no immediate reason, for example, in a computer class which was full to capacity.
‘So I just have to go to the art class. Then I said to the lady, “Just teach me how to paint.” When it was time to leave there was a man that encourage me. I don’t know his name but he will know that he was the one that came to me. He said to me, “How long have you been doing it?” I said, “This is my first time. That is why it’s crap. That’s why I left it there.” He said, “No take it,” so he allow me back to the class to collect my painting. So that what inspires me, and I go from there and all this inspirations start on me.’
Painting was to be an important activity in his life. He would use it when he couldn’t sleep. He would paint how he felt.
Michael, reflecting on his time in detention, said:
‘Then after three months and three weeks I was released to somebody. I didn't even know the person they released me to. They said I cannot work, I cannot do nothing, I cannot receive house, I cannot receive anything to support myself.’
For Michael, as for other asylum seekers, there are restrictions, therefore, they have little control over their lives. They cannot work, receive benefits or local authority housing. They rely on charitable support for food, clothing, and pocket money. For Michael, as for many others, this presents an additional, secondary stress – they cannot provide for themselves. This conflicts with a culturally determined role of a man who is the provider. It was made more difficult for Michael because the provider for him was a woman. He depended on her for everything. This was something, he acknowledged, that he was sharing with me because he did not want to upset her. He was very distressed when talking about this.
He is now moved to a big city he has never been in before, to a strange house and people. He is on a daily basis reminded that his future is uncertain. What is for most of us a simple act of receiving letters through the post became for Michael something to be feared. Every time a letter came through the door he was in touch with feeling that this could be the one to say he had to go home. This affected his mood:
‘I am a little depressed when I think: are they going to give me my papers to stay or are they going to take me home?’
The Home Office did send him letters about other aspects:
‘The Home Office would send me letters to remind me at any time I could go, it’s very panicking. It’s very, very panicking.’
He was feeling trapped.
He felt it very deeply that he could not work to support himself:
‘This is how I feel. They ask somebody who is not disabled not to work. They ask me not to work, not to have benefit. My paintings I cannot sell it.’
The Home Office is one factor in his life but there is another. His partner is a local person whom he met through a charity, and their relationship developed. His mood lifted when he spoke of her. She was clearly concerned about him. She had arranged for him to see the psychiatrist. When therapeutic help was recommended he had no concept of counselling. It was explained to him. He recounts his own understanding after it had been explained to him:
‘What are they doing there? They will just listen to you, then you will tell them your feelings, what is disturbing in your heart, then they can listen and give you advice. Not what I want.’
Michael’s partner did not give up on trying to persuade him to go for counselling. She explained to Michael how she was experiencing him as angry, depressed, unhappy and wanting to kill himself. ‘Counselling is good,’ she had said. He finally agreed to be referred by his GP.
At our first meeting Michael seemed very low in mood. He described himself as feeling heavy in his heart and his head. He seemed burdened and lifeless. He made attempts to be polite but it seemed a big effort for him. Suddenly he would let out a whimper and break down in tears.
I quickly established that Michael had no experience of counselling. It seemed important to say something about how I worked and what it might be like. I mentioned two things. One, that I was trying to create a quiet safe place in the counselling room in which he could talk. Secondly, that what he said to me was confidential and would not be repeated outside. I thought it important to emphasise that I had no contact with the Immigration Service or the Home Office. I did mention the exceptions to confidentiality regarding matters of personal safety and harm, etc. However, Michael immediately picked up on it being confidential. He nodded with approval.
As he recounted his story, his first and most immediate concern was the way he had been treated by the immigration authorities on arrival in the UK. As he spoke his speech became faster and there was growing strong emotion behind his words. He was angry. It seemed that this experience was uppermost in his mind rather than what had happened to him back home.
I found myself becoming tense as Michael recounted his experience. I was in touch with anger, both his and my own. I managed to hold it in during the session. I did have a strong feeling of wanting to fix things for him. After many of these sessions, I was totally exhausted. I found myself thinking that I was ashamed of my country for the way he was treated.
In other sessions we had together his mood was very different. He described the best Christmas of his life with his partner’s family. He felt really accepted. In another session, Michael tells me with great delight that his partner is expecting their baby. He speaks of wanting to do better for his child than his parents did for him. It is clear that this news has lightened his mood. He is thinking of a future with a family of his own and he speaks of his responsibilities. Later on, after the child is born, he tells me of the joy of being a father. Yet he is also able to reflect on the further dilemma this places on him. He sees that if he is deported he will be making a problem for them both as well as for himself. It might have been better if he had remained single.
‘Thinking ahead when I was just alone I was thinking if I am not going to stay, okay I can handle my life … but now I have a son … I want to protect … to show human beings how to be one, to love one another, but to stop, to look for peace.’
He is expressing the pain of not being able to provide for his family and perhaps not see his son grow up.
‘Do the Home Office really understand?’
Michael’s remarkable awareness is not just for himself but for others in similar circumstances. He records how he feels in some words he wrote and brought to a counselling session:
I wish I never been born into this precious world, full of sorrows, too much confusion of being a human that knows not where his coming from neither where he is going. I feel sometimes many are left behind and many have been forgotten and fade away, as if they never exist in my life once before. I think about myself as one of those who are nobody, no reason to live as human, but trying to move life around to be normal person like others, but home wasn’t home and outside home wasn’t outside home. That’s my feeling. What can I do when crying, no one can hear me, talking and they listen but not understand. Moving from one place to another yet no one see you exist as normal human.
He reflects on the mixture of feelings, and how it made him feel towards others.
‘You see other human beings. You hate them, but you don’t know why you are hating them … is just because of what you see they want to do to you.’
‘I could just kill somebody … I would pay dearly for it.’
Michael is very honest about his feelings but they are in his control. Each time he had contact from the Home Office, these feelings came back; feelings he seems to have internalised and which affect how he feels about himself.
‘What is wrong with me, there is something that is panicking me. That is trying to catch me, which I don’t want.’
‘It was such an ordeal that I was thinking to end my life.’
‘I really wanted to kill myself at that time.’
As counselling progressed Michael learnt and used some resources, such as a breathing method for anxiety, and a body relaxation exercise for visualising a special place, which he called freedom. These helped him not only cope with his strong feelings but also experience newer more pleasant feelings.
‘A special place which I bring out of my mind which I like to do, you know. A special place that is peaceful. No aggressive or fighting or hitting or bad things, you know. So, obviously I loose my mind to let it happen.’
Michael brought some of his paintings to our sessions for many weeks. They became a kind of language we used to explore his inner life. One he showed me he had painted on Christmas Day whilst in detention. It was dark, brooding, the forms and shapes were difficult to see and it was unclear what was happening in this painting. He said that was how he felt at that time. Another painting, he had completed after starting counselling. This was full of bright colours. There was what looked like an African scene: a man in a small boat on a river surrounded by lush green trees and shrubs. A strong yellow sun shone down and put the figure into silhouette. Michael used this to explain how his mood was changing. He could think with some good feelings about his homeland.
‘It is from my heart.’
So Michael comes for counselling and describes his experience of being in counselling.
‘They are very genuine. And the way they listen to you, it’s like you stay so much close to your God or so much close to what you believe. They look at your eyes and give you some little guidelines which relaxes you to think nicely of your life.’
He then reflects on his own inner experience of being in this relationship.
‘There was something inside me that makes me say that to him, because the moment I was speaking to him, I speak with all my heart, which I never speak to many people. I tell you what is really going on in my life and I was free to tell you. Sometimes I don’t want to say to somebody, but I will say to you.’
Michael eventually shared two very difficult memories. I used a special method for dealing with trauma, Eye Movement and Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), to target them. It is intended to stop people reliving past experiences.
He reflects on this process:
‘He did the hands, and then he teach me to close my eyes and relax all my body. Actually I can see it depends on every individual, if I really want to do it. That is why I … how can I put it – a result and it is good.’
‘That was the most special aspect … I forgive myself now because that what hurt me most.’
He asked, ‘Is this magic?’ Magic in his culture has a distinct meaning. I reassured him by reminding him of what we had done together. Later he reflects on it:
‘I can feel it like ‘ahhhh’ – it was relief. I was relieved. I can’t any more remember the bad things.’
He realised that for counselling to work he needed to trust me as his counsellor. What helped him to trust was his feeling understood. He compares this with other relationships:
‘It was very hard for me to trust somebody when I came – I told him
“I don’t trust nobody”.’
‘But the moment I came to counselling and the person I met was the person that you cannot hide your feelings, to let him know and to help you, and someone that understands somebody’s feelings.’
He then describes what this relationship felt like.
‘That is what the person that is in pain, close to, because if you fought me I will run, if you scare me I will run away, but you didn’t do something to scare me. You did something to cover me like, I can’t explain it, it’s just like you cover me with a wing and give me shelter inside … a warm shelter. Then I am … makes me to express all my feelings.’
Michael feels understood; this helps him in understanding both himself and other people. He feels able now to face and accept what is inside him.
‘Counselling help me understand myself. It is you that will find the truth inside you and it is you will find the aggressive inside you, that will hurt you.’
‘I know there are things that you cannot change … so not to be worrying about it. But if we can understand ourselves – best of all understand yourself before looking at other people then you will deal with them better.’
‘I was very, very happy and I was keen to understand and make me know the difference between human beings and the difference between good and bad human beings.’
Working with Michael was challenging not least because of the context of two cultures. I tried to be sensitive to his culture whilst respecting my own. It was important to learn to be with Michael rather than to act on the Western diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, at least at the beginning.
In Western models of biomedicine and psychiatry the approach to illness and distress has psychological concepts which are often presented as though they are applicable universally. The assumption is that this is the definitive understanding. This approach has its limitations and I felt the need for a humble, respectful understanding which places the political, social and cultural as central. There is a danger of medicalising what are normal reactions to abnormal experiences. I did not use Western methods until we had worked together for some six months and together we agreed the need for specific help with memories which continued to be intrusive.
It is difficult to generalise about African culture. It seems that for Michael his culture’s understanding of people places a high value on the spiritual and material in interpersonal relationships between men and women. Self-knowledge is acquired through symbol and rhythm. The implication of this for me as his counsellor was to recognise the importance of the knowledge that Michael had within him. Facial expression and gaze, eye contact and gestures became especially important. I noted his specific reference to my face and eyes, my gaze. I was also aware of the value he placed on my involvement in practical issues, e.g. teaching him relaxation methods and writing reports about him for others at his request, to assist his asylum application.
I learnt that a specific task for me as Michael’s counsellor was that of witnessing. Giving him time and space, listening to his felt experience as he recounted the story, without judgement or need to interpret or be helpful. He needed to feel understood and believed, telling his own story in his own way.
This is not an easy thing to do. But it is an important part of a healing experience, as Michael finds his own voice again and a sense of himself, realising he has some choices, limited though they may be at times. It is recognition, too, that trauma is not just something that happens within an individual. It is something which happens between people. Relationships are traumatised. The formation of new relationships, with love, understanding, acceptance and trust, create hope for himself and in humanity.
For me this can be exhausting at times. After many a session, as I left to go home, I often had a sense that what I thought was important in my own life suddenly seemed less important or even trivial.
Michael’s reflections on the impact counselling had on him are both moving and humbling. He has taught me much about what it means to be emotionally open as a counsellor. I am not quite the same person as a result.
‘A counsellor is just to make your brain calm down and think positively. If not you will always be in that position in that mess of thinking bad things all the time. That is the thing I see different here. So, if you go to counselling then you can be able to put your brain down to listen to them because it is going to make things better. Because when you are alone you don’t have the time to reason by yourself although your mind is to destroy, to do bad things, somebody is watching me now, I found nice with counselling.’
Michael does not now feel alone with his problems. He feels cared for. This helped him handle his self-harming behaviour and suicidal thoughts. These all eventually disappeared.
‘I really wanted to kill myself. That’s the point. It didn’t happen because of you.’
He feels much more in control of himself and able to think about his future, which he realises is in his hands despite the restrictions on his life.
‘I now believe that it is me, that is really, that is making us to be what we are.’
Michael’s partner was in contact with the agency by letter and telephone requesting reports for him. She comments that Michael is improving: less angry, less withdrawn, finding he can cope with his feelings, and easier to be with.
Michael’s emerging self-awareness shows in his reflection on counselling, and what he wishes for others:
‘If you go to counselling look at your hearts, you really want to go to counselling, you really want to change? That is the question. Because if someone does really want to change, you can change it … And you can do it, because I did it.’
‘By coming here I totally changed the way I think about everything’
‘You know by yourself that you are changing, people will see it in you.’
Michael knows that he cannot change the uncertainty about his future, but he has learnt a way to manage it.
‘That is something I cannot change which I know through counselling that makes me kick that aside, not to bother me. Because if you continue bothering for what you cannot change then it will destroy you more.’
Perhaps the biggest indication of change is found in the painting which Michael gave to me. The upper background is dark, but with streaks of light. Central is a red human heart. It has two white wings behind it as though they are holding it up. Below is a green field surrounded by a green hedge. Behind it all there is a beam of sunlight, yellow and orange. It illuminates the background. Around the heart is a black chain covering it three ways, with a black lock holding the three chains together. But in each of the three chains there is a break. The chain is clearly broken. On the back of the painting he has written:
‘Peace of Mind and passage! Without peace of mind, life is meaningless and world’s worthless. But when there’s peace of mind then you can see that life is precious and the world’s beautiful.’
I am so grateful to Michael for sharing a part of his life with me and allowing his story to be told.
John Prysor-Jones
John Prysor-Jones is a Specialist Psychotherapist in the NHS in Wales and does unpaid counselling for an inner-city counselling and training charity. He is an Anglican Priest and an Associate of the Iona Community.
* Not his real name
WE MUST CALL THEM TO ACCOUNT
At the time of the G20 Summit in London, I thought of this reflection by Margaret Legum, written not long before her death in 2007. The last paragraph has lodged itself in my mind:
'So economists are more powerful than they think. They must begin to take
responsibility for the implications of the policies they advocate. Like the physicists who invented the nuclear bomb, they tend to wash their hands of the consequences of their discipline. We must call them to account.' (Ed.)
We Must Call Them to Account:
www.iona.org.uk/media/margaret_legum.pdf (306kb)
From Gathered and Scattered, Wild Goose Publications
http://www.ionabooks.com/9781905010349-Gathered-and-Scattered.html?keyword=gathered+and
Margaret Legum was an economist and a Member of the Iona Community.
A photo of Jesus taken during the G20 Summit in London.
From the BBC News website © Unknown
