Blame Culture and the inability to Lose

Whether it is World Cup Football (or any sporting event), politics or in religious circles, to lose or fail has become anathema. Mistrust is eating away at the very fabric and every corner of our lives. Consequently, a culture and ethos of “blaming”, “finger-pointing” and ”scape-goating” have taken over our lives. At least, large sections of media have degenerated into this, confusing sound analysis with finding scapegoats.


When problems occur, we quickly seek to locate someone or some group/thing to blame, other than ourselves. Just listen to the football pundits and politicians: it is a constant lashing out at the created scapegoats on whom we can displace our aggression. And usually the scape-goating and blaming increases when we are frustrated and need an out let for our anger. One thought that crossed my mind listening to all the British pundits on football analysing the poor showing of the national team, is why none of these experts even attempted to become a coach to the national team!


In our success driven world of economic progress and growth at any price (the recent meeting of the G20 confirms this), the majority of us end up living in fear of failure and “losing”. Whereas failing and losing could serve to create positive experiences, our penchant for “blaming” and the branding of “losing” as cardinal sin number one, have served to kill creativity and adventure. For the inability not to attempt anything daring, means that the less we fail the more we will be unable to have an opportunity to potentially succeed. Never giving ourselves a chance to fail means living a stagnant existence!


But what really lies behind our “blame culture”, the inability to trust and to lose? Part of our problem is that we are reaping the fruits of a rampant form of capitalism for all, motivated by greed and looking out only for ourselves, in an individualistic and money-grasping environment. The habit of crass individualism, together with more and more centralisation and State Control of much of our lives, all conspire to create habits of the “blame culture”. We end up believing that our lives are wholly controlled by outside forces and has nothing to do with the choices we make. Moreover, the mentality of refusing to take personal responsibility is further chained to the half-baked psychological notion of the victim mentality: 'I am a victim, therefore I am innocent.” All of these elements combine to make us immune to accepting responsibility. The responsibility is always someone else’s as we “wash our hands” of events around us.


Our sacred texts, with its diversity of narratives, have carefully documented this tendency of the human condition and they do offer insights into ways of exorcising such demons! We should spend more time re-reading them collectively.

© copyright June 29^th 2010

Penury, Tears of the Wounded, Restorative Justice

‘Never a dull moment’ is certainly the way I feel with our present economic meltdown, cutbacks, job-losses, severe pruning of government funding and spending etc. To add to the drama to our economic woes and despair is the tragic BP oil drilling disaster. Not even the present World Cup football will soothe the effects of the long reach of these events and our predicament. And the fact that England is yet to convince any of us that they are serious as a team does not help. I suppose that some of these richly paid footballers can be generous enough to bail out the UK government! I can just imagine all the doomsday prophets feasting on such as further evidence that the world is coming to end – judgment time is here. So watch out – street corner preachers will soon multiply, especially since the unemployment rate will continue to rise.


Perhaps, these doomsday prophets may not be far from the truth about one thing: judgment time is certainly in our midst. But more as something we have brought on ourselves through our greedy and irresponsible actions – whether it is the economics, the environment or obesity (among so many other ills). It is common-sense that we will be unable to sustain the kind of economic growth driving our lives. I thought my days of experiencing the structural adjustment programme in the Caribbean was over. But it seems to be following me. This is certainly a wake-up of call to our idiotic and unsustainable lifestyles. Would we change our habits and re-orient the way we live and order our economic life? Are we able to wake up from the illusion of living way above our means/needs and that which the planet can sustain?


The events cited above underscore that this is no longer something happening to developing country miles away: the events are unfolding right on our doorsteps. So far most of our talks are on cuts, blaming of the other, and how to stabilise and get out of this whirlpool or cesspool, only to return “back to business as usual”. Who is talking about a total re-orientation and changing of perspectives and if there are some doing so, who are listening? We are still locked into the language of prosperity and economic growth, rather than seeking to find alternatives to a system that has imploded and have us hanging over the precipice by the skin of our teeth.It seems to me that the toughness of the choice before us is not merely about cuts and short term inconveniences. For the sake of future generations - it has to be a long term one; otherwise our band-aiding strategies would merely serve to further implode, making beggars of all of us. This is more than down-sizing. It is more about right-sizing.


The two events highlighted in this piece should open our eyes to the fact that the disasters we have contributed to in developing countries have now come home to haunt us. The monsters we have created are here make us feel the pain. For many it has already been present here. The deep paths that tears have carved out on their faces tell the story: only we did not notice as our lives were largely comfortable. This is now changing, and the prospect of penury is now becoming a homeland battle - not one fought in someone else's garden. And this is where it is going to hurt. This will no longer be mere news items to watch on TV or as some virtual reality show in a distant place. The harsh realities are right here before us. It may be that we now need to turn to our impoverished neighbours for lessons on how to survive. Or it may just be that restorative justice has its own way of paying-back and equalising the imbalances we have created in our societies.

© copyright June 18^th 2010

Let Justice and Righteousness Flow

The press reports from Edinburgh 2010 may give the impression of excitement, cutting edge pronouncements, and a gathering of people afire with the Holy Spirit. For many, however, this has been a lukewarm experience, certainly a gathering where one could have sensed something false or unreal floating in the air, and an excursion for friends of the mission and ecumenical enterprise of rhetoric, money and power. Yes, there may have been a greater representation from the majority world, but it was “power” that called the shots and certainly the center of the economic-mission gravity remains fixed.

The nakedness and crassness of power and manipulation was evident from the engineered marginalisation and eventual “dismissing” of the director of the event, a convert from a former mission field. Those behind this move were so Christ-like that they proceeded to ban him from coming near to the place of the gathering (for which he gave three years of his commitment and that of his family to) and even the closing act of worship. The crucifixion of the director was well timed.

This act of crucifixion, with no explanation to those gathered, was carried out by Christians who claim to be witnessing to the name of Jesus. Indeed, the missionary mind-set is here to stay as it is still laregly undeconstructed. No wonder, the world is yet to believe and who can blame people for not believing what comes out of the mouth of forked tongues and hypocritical Christian religious people. This is not even to mention the violation of basic human rights. I dare say, the secular world would have behaved differently!

Moreover, this case of the silencing and removal of a Director who dared to stand up to, talk back and challenge the power base of a certain kind of white male missionary mentality also suggests that racism is alive. Sadly, the last bastion of white supremacy remains the church!

The bottom line is that much of the theology espoused by those with the money and power is still premised on arrogance and has little to do with grace. It seems as if the 1910 plea of Bishop Azariah for “friends” is yet to be realised: and to that we need to add justice and righteousness. Having now received a copy of the common call (from the Conference), I ask myself: would not the words of this document remain rhetoric, nice sounding and appropriate jargons and a contradiction, as a result of the way the director has and is being treated?

“That the world may believe”? Well, I think people can judge for themselves: but if Christian witness cannot be embodied and practiced in justice and righteousness – starting at home - then belief in the Jesus Way will remain a distant dream. Notwithstanding, a sign of resurrection and hope is that one Christian brother dared to stand up and expose the skewed intent of a machinery that claims to represent the way of Jesus.

© copyright June 7, 2010