Article

Comment

Trauma

9 May 2024

5 min read

Bitterness and weaponised words can’t soften scars

Finding peace for Daniel Anjorin, Salman Rushdie and Bishop Mar Mari.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

A man sits being interviewed and holds a hand to the side of his face, one lens of his glasses is tinted black.

Salman Rushdie discusses his attack.

BBC.

Knife crime around the world is unacceptably high, and with around 50,000 offences expected this year in the UK, it is sadly no surprise when we hear tragic news stories involving knives and sharp instruments. Recently, it was the terrible circumstances of the death of Daniel Anjorin that made the headlines. The gentle, much-loved, 14-year-old boy was on his way to school in East London when he, along with several others, was randomly attacked by a man with a sword. He died from his wounds shortly after being taken to hospital.

I happened to be in the middle of listening to Knife, a memoir by Salman Rushdie, when the news broke of that tragedy. It is another heart-rending story. Rushdie describes how, in 2022, during a speech he was giving about the need to protect writers, a man ran onto the stage and frantically stabbed him 15 times. Rushdie was airlifted to a hospital and survived the attack but lost an eye. Then began his difficult physical and emotional journey towards recovery, documented in the book he never wanted to write.

It was not the first time Rushdie had been the victim of aggression. In 1988, following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, the Iranian government called for Rushdie’s death by issuing a fatwa against him. His book was perceived to be blasphemous to the Islamic faith, and despite ten years of round-the-clock police protection in London, he faced several serious assassination attempts.

The fatwa was lifted in 1998, but twenty-four years later, Rushdie was clearly still not safe. He recounts the moment when he saw the man running at him in the darkness as he gave his lecture.

“My first thought when I saw this murderous shape rushing towards me was: So it is you. Here you are…. It struck me as anachronistic. This was my second thought: Why now? Really? It’s been so long. Why now after all these years? Surely the world had moved on, and that subject was closed. Yet here, approaching fast, was a sort of time traveller, a murderous ghost from the past.”

I can’t imagine how I would cope in his shoes. I have not had to experience the daily fear of assassination for decades as Rushdie has. In all my years of delivering speeches and sermons on stages around the world, I have never had cause to even contemplate the possibility of an attempt on my life. Nevertheless, I was surprised to hear in Rushdie’s voice, the words he chose to say to his attacker:

“If I think of you at all in the future it will be with a dismissive shrug. I don't forgive you. I don't not forgive you. You are simply irrelevant to me, and from now on, for the rest of your days, you will be irrelevant to everyone else. I'm glad I have my life and not yours and my life will go on.”

Rushdie admits that his words are his weapons – and he certainly uses them to good effect. They are sharp. They are designed to eviscerate. They are calculated to cause pain. They express derision towards his attacker. Part of me cheers him on: a defenceless man in his seventies who walked into a lecture hall expecting to give a speech to rapturous applause but left barely alive as the victim of a brutal frenzied attack. Like the plot of every action movie I have ever seen, the story seems to have a happy ending – the hero is saved, the bad guy is locked up and justice is seen to be done.

But there is another part of me that knows these Hollywood endings can’t be trusted. Those 27 seconds of violence have clearly left Rushdie reduced to spitting insults at a young man in prison. He claims his life now is “filled with love”, but sadly there is little evidence of it in the way he addresses the radicalised 24-year-old. Bitterness and weaponised words, however eloquent, can’t soften the scars, nor do they make the world a safer place.

Indeed, I have found it difficult to forgive the comparatively trivial experience of being metaphorically stabbed in the back.

I can’t help but compare Rushdie’s reaction with that of Bishop Mar Mari Emanuel. The day before Knife was published, the Iraqi-born bishop was preaching at his church in Sydney, Australia, when he too was attacked by a young man with a knife, and, like Rushdie, ended up losing an eye. The attack was an overt terrorist act against Bishop Mar Mari, a controversial figure who has spoken dismissively about the Islamic, Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities.

Despite the striking similarities between the two men’s terrible ordeals, the contrast in their response couldn’t be starker. Speaking just two weeks later at a Palm Sunday service, Bishop Emanuel affirmed that he had forgiven his teenage assailant:

‘I say to you, my dear, you are my son, and you will always be my son. I will always pray for you. I’ll always wish you nothing but the best. I pray that my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to enlighten your heart and enlighten your soul your entire being to realise, my dear, there is only one God who art in heaven…. the Lord knows it is coming from the bottom of my heart. I’ll always pray for you and for whoever was in this act. In the name of my Jesus, I forgive you. I love you, and I will always pray for you.”

Woven into the fabric of every form of Christianity is a commitment to love and forgiveness, clearly exemplified for us here by Bishop Mar Mari. His words resonated around the world this week as he returned to the pulpit where he was stabbed, bandage over one of his eyes, to speak out with kindness and compassion.

I am deeply challenged by the bishop’s response. I have never experienced the physical pain and emotional trauma of a knife attack. Indeed, I have found it difficult to forgive the comparatively trivial experience of being metaphorically stabbed in the back. I know how hard it is, to be gracious to those who deliberately cause pain to me or to my family members through their actions. Like Rushdie, I sometimes I would like nothing more than to see them locked up, living a loveless, meaningless, irrelevant life. But this is not the Christian way. I follow Jesus who forgave the soldiers driving nails through his hands and feet, so I must strive to be compassionate to those who do us much lesser harm, as well as seek, in his name, to tackle the underlying causes for the greater dis-ease in society.

The issues that lead to knife crime are many and complex. They include poverty, fear of victimisation, gang culture, radicalisation, distrust of authorities, lack of education, experience of violence in childhood, and much more. Whatever we can do to tackle these problems, we do for the sake of love and peace in our world. Perhaps as we seek to overcome these things together, we can work towards a day when what happened to Daniel Anjorin on 30th April can never happen again.

Article

Comment

Politics

Virtues

27 September 2024

8 min read

The emerging frontier: renewing courage in geopolitics

Narcissistic moralising needs to stop, and we can learn from Churchill too.

Emerson Csorba and Gal Treger

Emerson writes on geopolitics. Gal is a tech investor.

Military personnel, wearing camoflague uniform crowd round a computer monitor.

U.S. Space Force guardians assess a threat.

U.S. Space Force.

In August 1939, the Polish poet Kazimierz Wierzyński reflected on a “Peaceful bliss which had become Europe’s chloroform.” Yet, then as now, crises shake us from moments of calm, especially when we abandon vigilance. We let our guards down, nonchalance replacing serious deliberation toward action.

A shroud of darkness has descended on the world over recent years, with new conflicts emerging just as – or perhaps because – democratic populations turn inward. These conflicts – whether the Russia-Ukraine War, the Israel-Gaza War, or the US-UK led battles in the Red Sea – demonstrate the courage of peoples sacrificing for their nations, families, histories, and traditions.

Yet, in much of the political West, narcissism – rather than courage – has become the focal point of our culture.

Christopher Lasch describes this narcissism in The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations as a conceit of the present. Lasch notes that we have become a consumer society focused on individual self-absorption that leads to present-focus, sense of isolation, and disconnection from history.

The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argues in The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil that narcissism is an attachment to “self-image,” which “distorts rational judgment.” Yet, Fromm later reflects “If the feeling which the Greek poet expressed in Antigone’s words, ‘There is nothing more wonderful than man,’ could become an experience shared by all, certainly a great step forward would have been taken.”

This wonder of man is in the freedom to act in a world that is yet to be determined.

This is a position of “deep faith.” It encourages full participation in the world, affirming the self through action, though always in relation to something much greater.

The philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich similarly states “this is just what participation means: being a part of something from which one is, at the same time, separate. Literally, participation means ‘taking part,’ in the sense of ‘sharing’ or ‘having in common.’” We play, as legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne once said, "For everyone that came before us, and everyone that will come after us."

If common history is needed as our foundation for current action in geopolitics, to what then might we turn?

We propose a refocusing and modern renewal of alliances underpinned by Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a project he initiated in the early 1930s as the threats of Nazism and Fascism had taken centre stage.

This refocusing reprioritises courage in geopolitics, maintaining the light amid descending darkness. It is badly needed given the modern tendency to look inward rather than to sources of value outside of the self.

This is a pathway to vigilance in anticipation of the thief in the night, who may arrive at an unexpected hour.

Churchill – recently demonised by influential conspiracy theorists – emphasises the common cultural and political heritage of the English-Speaking Peoples, including the rule of law, individual rights and parliamentary democracy, which shaped the modern world.

Churchill reminds us of the global influence of English-Speaking Peoples in spreading democratic ideals and governance structures across the world, believing that the global spread of these ideas was instrumental in shaping modern life. He underscores the unity of the English-Speaking Peoples in facing global challenges, particularly in the context of the World War he foresaw. And he viewed the cooperation between the UK, the US, and other Allied nations as crucial to the survival of freedom and democracy.

It is important, now as much as ever, that we remind ourselves of Churchill’s wise words, building on them to address with courage the challenges of our present times.

Specifically, we must adapt Churchill’s emphasis on the English-Speaking Peoples to a focus on nations working at the frontiers of Western civilisation to resist rising darkness which seeks to corrupt the good. Ones not necessarily actually speaking English too.

Building on these unique and complementary strengths, these agile nations united as upholders of the values of English-Speaking Peoples should reindustrialize, rearm, redraft and recommit to a common goal in a world of increasing geopolitical conflict.

The sharing of expertise and overall close collaboration between these agile nations can facilitate rapid preparation for conflict at any moment, proactively addressing Wierzyński's dangerous “peaceful bliss.”

In other words, this is a pathway to vigilance in anticipation of the thief in the night, who may arrive at an unexpected hour.

Renewed partnership is necessary between these nations. There is a need for these nations to re-assert their historical courage, underpinned by vital modern capabilities.

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Alongside the United States as the focal point, these nations are Canada on the Arctic frontier; the United Kingdom as a Northern frontier; Poland as the Eastern frontier; Israel as the Southeastern frontier towards the Eurasian landmass, and Australia, with its recent experiences confronting neighbour China, on the Far East frontier.

Each of these nations serves as a regional center of power and influence: Canada in the Arctic and Atlantic; the US into the Caribbean and broader Latin America; Israel in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords and North Africa; Poland into Central and Eastern Europe, and Australia in the Indo-Pacific. Each of these nations possesses vital agility, given their small geographical sizes or populations.

These frontier nations respond to United States CIA Director William Burns’ 2023 Ditchley Lecture, in which he focused on “[hedging middle power countries who] see little benefit and lots of risk in monogamous geopolitical relationships. Instead, we’re likely to see more countries pursue more open relationships than we were accustomed to over several post-Cold War decades of unipolarity.” The focus here is courage with a long-term view, building a frontier-focused alliance rather than seeking relations based on short-term material interest only.

In this frontier model, it is currently Israel demonstrating the courage to uphold the values captured in Churchill’s account of the English-Speaking Peoples. Hamas’ brutal October 7th attack was predicated on the notion that over the last decades, Israel transformed into a consumer society, focused on short-term economic incentives and leisure pursuits. Israel provides technology and experience in fighting modern wars of various types, as well as persistence and proactiveness that other nations must quickly recover.

Canada is historically a frontier nation of courage, reflected for instance in its contributions to WWI and WWII victories, as well as in the often-quiet contributions that Canadians make to peacekeeping efforts across the globe. But Canada can take bolder action, given its strategic Northern location and proximity to the Arctic, with its vast natural resources including critical minerals supply and its vast freshwater reserves. It can become a more influential global player amid trade wars, helping reduce dependence on Chinese resources.

The United Kingdom’s combination of common law, property rights, financial markets and freedom of the press are important strengths. As Nigel Biggar finds in his Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, the UK has historically championed free markets generating economic opportunities for diverse peoples; established peace where internal strife previously existed, protected the rural poor from wicked landlords, and provided civil service and judiciary systems to reduce corruption.

Poland, as noted by Radoslaw Sikorski in a recent speech, shares with the United Kingdom “the same strategic vision. It is based on the fundamental assumption that international law is the guardian of peace and stability.” Poland also “consistently supports close, comprehensive cooperation between the UK and the EU’s security and defence frameworks” with continued focus on strengthening its military capabilities. And, of course, Poland is keenly aware of the threat of war which which is ever-present on its border.

Australia has, over the last decade, demonstrated evident success in facing the threat of China on its doorstep, this ever-present threat producing a group of leaders across government, private and media sectors that are as sharp, worldly and realist in nature as any in the Commonwealth.

Renewed partnership is necessary between these nations. There is a need for these nations to re-assert their historical courage, underpinned by vital modern capabilities. C.S. Lewis, in his famous Screwtape Letters, shows that “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.” Each of these frontier nations has historically demonstrated success in the face of testing.

Our focus cannot be narcissistic moralising – too often the case in today’s geopolitics – which is the product of the serpent’s advice in the Garden of Eden, in which our eyes will be opened as we “become as gods knowing good and evil.” We must not allow others to twist our sense of history, such that we begin to exalt ourselves in the present moment rather than adopting attitudes of service, sacrifice and worship of that which is unfathomably greater and farther-reaching.

Instead, it must be – as we have seen with Churchill, and as described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his incredible commentary on the story of the Garden of Eden, to act.

As Bonhoeffer writes, “If the Holy Scripture insists with such great urgency on doing, that is because it wishes to take away from man every possibility of self-justification before God on the basis of his own knowledge of good and evil… The error of the Pharisees, therefore, did not lie in their extremely strict insistence on the necessity for action, but rather in their failure to act. ‘They say, and do not do it.’”

The frontier model we propose facilitates such action, prepared with the necessary capabilities and coordination for the considerable challenges before us.

We must remember that to participate in the world with deep faith – courage – has been and always will be the basis for human freedom.

Indeed, this is the task of the nations: united by the common heritage of English-Speaking Peoples, acting with faith in the good, always at the frontier.