CORACLE (Iona Community) Summer 2014
An Article by Murdoch MacKenzie
Born in Glasgow and now living in Edinburgh, Murdoch MacKenzie has worked ecumenically and internationally all his life. Entering the European Youth Campaign in 1957, he joined the Iona Community in 1965, was licensed as a minister by the Church of Scotland, ordained in the ecumenical Church of South India in 1967, worked ecumenically in Runcorn and Birmingham, became Ecumenical Moderator of the churches and inter-faith movement in Milton Keynes and more recently led the Fairtrade Movement in Argyll. Here he makes the case for nationalism of any kind to be understood as fundamentally opposed to the boundary-crossing love and unity as lived by Jesus.
IN DEPENDENCE
I am writing this at Pentecost, which this year coincides with the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and 100 days before the Scottish Referendum. Thus I am reminded of the fundamentals which have moulded who I am. At Pentecost they were all together in one place and understood (stood under) each other as they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. There was no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; all were one in Christ Jesus. In the upper room Jesus prayed that ‘they may all be one…so that the world may believe’.
Having lived through the Second World War, some years later while still at school in 1957, I wrote an essay on European Unity, winning a prize which was presented to me in Bruges in the College of Europe via which, with a dozen other young Europeans, I travelled throughout West Germany including the ruins of East and West Berlin. For many years as a member of the European Youth Campaign I worked for European Unity with my European friends with some of whom I am still closely in touch. I then studied at Hertford College in Oxford where in 1583 John Donne had studied and who, in 1624, wrote the famous words: ‘'No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee....”
I was reminded of these words recently when Anne and I were travelling by train in India and sharing the night accommodation with a family from Orissa. After an animated conversation about everything under the sun, a young woman in the family said: ‘In the end there is only one thing that matters. We are all human beings!’ That young woman was right! I also remember the late and much-lamented Rabbi Hugo Gryn saying that people in the world could be divided into two groups – ‘the harmonisers and the polarisers’. Personally I have always preferred to be a harmoniser and have more or less given my life to this, especially in ecumenical and interfaith work.
Not long ago we had Naim Ateek, one of the most distinguished Palestinians staying with us on his way to Iona. We had a long conversation about Internationalism as he asked me questions about Scottish nationalism. He declared himself to be an internationalist. Later I wrote and asked him to tell me as a Palestinian what he meant by internationalism. This was his reply:
IN DEPENDENCE
I am writing this at Pentecost, which this year coincides with the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and 100 days before the Scottish Referendum. Thus I am reminded of the fundamentals which have moulded who I am. At Pentecost they were all together in one place and understood (stood under) each other as they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. There was no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; all were one in Christ Jesus. In the upper room Jesus prayed that ‘they may all be one…so that the world may believe’.
Having lived through the Second World War, some years later while still at school in 1957, I wrote an essay on European Unity, winning a prize which was presented to me in Bruges in the College of Europe via which, with a dozen other young Europeans, I travelled throughout West Germany including the ruins of East and West Berlin. For many years as a member of the European Youth Campaign I worked for European Unity with my European friends with some of whom I am still closely in touch. I then studied at Hertford College in Oxford where in 1583 John Donne had studied and who, in 1624, wrote the famous words: ‘'No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee....”
I was reminded of these words recently when Anne and I were travelling by train in India and sharing the night accommodation with a family from Orissa. After an animated conversation about everything under the sun, a young woman in the family said: ‘In the end there is only one thing that matters. We are all human beings!’ That young woman was right! I also remember the late and much-lamented Rabbi Hugo Gryn saying that people in the world could be divided into two groups – ‘the harmonisers and the polarisers’. Personally I have always preferred to be a harmoniser and have more or less given my life to this, especially in ecumenical and interfaith work.
Not long ago we had Naim Ateek, one of the most distinguished Palestinians staying with us on his way to Iona. We had a long conversation about Internationalism as he asked me questions about Scottish nationalism. He declared himself to be an internationalist. Later I wrote and asked him to tell me as a Palestinian what he meant by internationalism. This was his reply:
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‘Dear Murdoch,
Sorry I could not get back to you quickly. I was busy with an interfaith program between Muslim and Christian clergy which we conducted in Galilee last weekend. On the question of internationalism, I have always felt that the world should slowly shed the narrow concept of nationalism and move towards a new world order where we adopt international concepts. I was very happy when the European Union was formed. It is still struggling but I believe the world should be moving in that direction. I believe the concept behind it is sound and has many advantages where we become more inter-dependent on each other and reduce the level of nationalist tensions that led people to war. I have written about this topic briefly in my last book when I discuss the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In fact, I always say that we must not be satisfied with two states, Israel and Palestine, living alongside each other, we must either create a confederation of states between them or even a federation of states by inviting Jordan and Lebanon to join. Obviously, I am not talking as a politician but as a person of faith that is concerned about building healthy communities that can address the problems that are dividing and killing us.’ |
Personally, I was brought up to believe that nationalism and patriotism were pernicious and usually led to war and conflict. In recent years nationalism rears its ugly head once again, with the True Finns, President Putin being praised for his patriotic nationalism, nationalist struggles in Crimea and Ukraine, not to mention Nuers and Dinkas in Sudan, Hindu Nationalism in India and Scottish Nationalism in the UK. I am Scottish to the core, a Glaswegian by birth, with deep roots in the Isle of Skye and in Torridon as well as in Aberdeen, and family trees stretching back over 200 years. In 1979 I voted YES to a Scottish Parliament and believe in further devolution towards a federation of states between Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. Since retiring back to Scotland in 2003 I have always voted for the SNP solely because of Trident.
In my 76 years I have lived 2 years in France and Switzerland, 12 years in India, 29 in Scotland and 33 in England. As far as poverty is concerned or, for that matter, the siting of nuclear weapons, I am just as much concerned for people living in India and England as in Scotland. Those suffering from the bedroom tax and other right-wing policies in inner city Birmingham, or the housing estates of Milton Keynes and Runcorn where I used to work, are still as dear to me as those in Glenrothes, Glasgow or Argyll. I am in daily contact with work at the grassroots in India. In a fragile world with many tensions Scottish nationalism simply encourages disintegration and negativism. Jesus said: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Our neighbours are the English, the Irish and the Welsh. If the saintly and deeply Christian Naim Ateek, who was born in sight of the Sea of Galilee, can contemplate a Federation including Jordan and Lebanon surely we Scottish people can love our neighbours as we love ourselves. Otherwise what is the Gospel all about?
So let us ‘think again’ and with the Good Samaritan cross boundaries and become harmonisers and not polarisers. Let us live in dependence on and with our neighbours. We cannot ever be independent because as John Donne so clearly said: ‘No person is an island.’ In my 2014 Housmans Peace Diary the entry for 18th September says: ‘On 18th September 1924 Mahatma Gandhi began a 21 day fast in a Muslim home, for Hindu-Muslim unity in India.’ On 18th September this year let us vote and pray for unity in the UK and in Europe and throughout the whole wide world and not tear the world apart.
Rabbie Burns summed all this up very well when he wrote in the last verse of A Man's a Man for A' That:
In my 76 years I have lived 2 years in France and Switzerland, 12 years in India, 29 in Scotland and 33 in England. As far as poverty is concerned or, for that matter, the siting of nuclear weapons, I am just as much concerned for people living in India and England as in Scotland. Those suffering from the bedroom tax and other right-wing policies in inner city Birmingham, or the housing estates of Milton Keynes and Runcorn where I used to work, are still as dear to me as those in Glenrothes, Glasgow or Argyll. I am in daily contact with work at the grassroots in India. In a fragile world with many tensions Scottish nationalism simply encourages disintegration and negativism. Jesus said: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Our neighbours are the English, the Irish and the Welsh. If the saintly and deeply Christian Naim Ateek, who was born in sight of the Sea of Galilee, can contemplate a Federation including Jordan and Lebanon surely we Scottish people can love our neighbours as we love ourselves. Otherwise what is the Gospel all about?
So let us ‘think again’ and with the Good Samaritan cross boundaries and become harmonisers and not polarisers. Let us live in dependence on and with our neighbours. We cannot ever be independent because as John Donne so clearly said: ‘No person is an island.’ In my 2014 Housmans Peace Diary the entry for 18th September says: ‘On 18th September 1924 Mahatma Gandhi began a 21 day fast in a Muslim home, for Hindu-Muslim unity in India.’ On 18th September this year let us vote and pray for unity in the UK and in Europe and throughout the whole wide world and not tear the world apart.
Rabbie Burns summed all this up very well when he wrote in the last verse of A Man's a Man for A' That:
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Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that), That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth, Shall bear the gree, an' a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, It's comin yet for a' that, That Man to Man, the world o'er, Shall brothers be for a' that. |
