Democracy is ill. It is under pressure from all sides. From suspicions of voter fraud, to frustration with a moribund two party system, there is an increasing sense that there is no point in voting.
Only too aware of that, Cardinal Vincent Nichols published a video on <em>X</em>, the platform formerly known as <em>Twitter</em>, this week to encourage Catholics to cast a vote. He reminded us that we have a duty as citizens to make sure we take the trouble to cast vote in the local and mayoral elections that are scheduled for this week.
In a personal and accessible way, he did an avuncular "face to camera" emphasising both the need to vote and a reminder – at last, thank God – to bring some ID to exercise our democratic rights and responsibility. (The press tell us that Boris Johnson tried and failed to bring the right ID, so perhaps the warning was necessary for some.)
The cardinal deserves praise. And yet, was it enough? It felt more like an admonition to take the rubbish out for the weekly collection when in fact the pressing need is to call 999 because the house is on fire.
Democracy is ill, and needs more than a get well card.
It was also a little underwhelming to be presented with the trope that in matters of casting a vote “if the young people can lead the way the old will follow”. The fact is that the young are not leading the way, won’t lead the way and arguably – in the light of the growing infantilism arising out of arrested development in the young, should not lead the way, in this (or indeed many matters).
The young don’t much bother to vote of course. And perhaps one might then argue that this made the cardinal’s intervention all the more welcome and important. He and we should do everything we can to extend the good health and functioning of our democracy. Though it’s not clear what the demographics of his followers on <em>X</em> are, it’s quite likely that the very young people who follow him on <em>X</em>, are those most persuaded of the need to exercise their civic responsibility. The rather unwelcome and slightly patronising “respect to the young” tone doesn’t tell the truth about the difficulties are democracy faces because the situation is also a little more complex than that.
One of the reasons that the Left are desperate to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16 is that they know that the young of all potential voters are the most likely to swallow wholesale the illusory propaganda that socialist utopianism can deliver fairer societies, instead of the prisons for political dissidents and death camps, as they largely did in the 20th century.
So a cautious reading of history and developmental psychology might make us a little wary about simply encouraging the young to vote for the sake of voting.
If we did encourage them to vote, should we not offer some adult wisdom, hard won from observation, analysis and experience over the decades?
Is no active responsibility required from those who have observed and weighed events, and done their best to learn the lessons of history and politics in our generation?
Has the cardinal no reservations about the ambitions of the more overtly anti-Christian progressive culture, sweeping not only the youth but the middle aged away in a torrent of secular, materialist and far-left political ideology?
Has the long trail of Catholics and evangelical Christians suspended, fired, vilified and demonised for their adherence to the Christian ethics of marriage, sexuality and the sacredness of the human person, defended by ADF and Christian Concern, not disturbed his political equanimity?
Have the deluge of news reports of what has happened to Catholic women standing silently on the pavements near abortion clinics not reached the episcopate? And when asked if what they were doing silently in their heads and hearts was praying, and they answered “yes” then being arrested as criminals accused of being guilty of thought crime?
A small group of mainly Catholic students at Manchester University created a student pro-life group to explore the ethics and politics of their response to the abortion industry. When they were mobbed by a violent threatening crowd who jostled pregnant women and howling anger and rage at the small group, there were few or no voices episcopal voices raised in protest to protect them and the exercise of their democratic rights under university charter and the civil law to meet as they had.
One by one Christian politicians have been picked off by the mainstream media. The most recent character assassination taking place this week. Kate Forbes, who has suddenly become a potential candidate to become First Minister of Scotland after the resignation of Humza Yousaf, became the target of a malicious and defamatory hit piece for her Christian convictions. If this had happened in the acerbic progressive columns of the <em>Guardian</em> one might have sighed sadly and just put up with the not unexpected bile and misrepresentation from the Left. But the platform that hosted the attack by a journalist called Kenny Farquharson was <em>The</em> <em>Times.</em>
The author threatened a return to “punitive Presbyterianism” if Ms Forbes were elected. This was as unlikely as it was malevolent and misleading. But no senior voices from the Church have been raised to call out the establishment for sponsoring an anti-Christian character assassination.
Over the Atlantic, wild-eyed progressives are hysterically warning that should Donald Trump win the majority of the votes America will sink into a “theocracy” and succumb to far-right Christian nationalism, another fictitious political bogey idea to terrify the children.
American campuses across the States have been closed down by violent activist students calling for a revolution from the Left.
Democracy is not well, in either the Unite Kingdom or the United States. And if the grown up has learned anything from the 20th century, there is no natural right it can rely on to ensure its survival.
Solzhenitsyn presented an urgent prophetic voice to the West when he wrote about the Bolsheviks who drove the Russian revolution: “They hated Russians, they hated Christians. Bolshevism created the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.”
This ignorance cannot be laid only at the door of the uncooperative media. The young, many of whom are leading the way in agitating for the ethnic cleansing of Israel as they chant “from the river to the sea”, knowing neither the name of the river or the sea in question, display another aspect of the ignorance that Solzhenitsyn warned about.
The cardinal has done both Church and society a favour in reminding us to vote. But in circumstances of such endemic ignorance, deception, confusion and apathy, some deeper diagnosis of the crisis facing the faith and our democracy may be called for.
<em>(© Mazur/cbcew.org.uk)</em>
Democracy is ill. It is under pressure from all sides. From suspicions of voter fraud, to frustration with a moribund two party system, there is an increasing sense that there is no point in voting.
Only too aware of that, Cardinal Vincent Nichols published a video on <em>X</em>, the platform formerly known as <em>Twitter</em>, this week to encourage Catholics to cast a vote. He reminded us that we have a duty as citizens to make sure we take the trouble to cast vote in the local and mayoral elections that are scheduled for this week.
In a personal and accessible way, he did an avuncular "face to camera" emphasising both the need to vote and a reminder – at last, thank God – to bring some ID to exercise our democratic rights and responsibility. (The press tell us that Boris Johnson tried and failed to bring the right ID, so perhaps the warning was necessary for some.)
The cardinal deserves praise. And yet, was it enough? It felt more like an admonition to take the rubbish out for the weekly collection when in fact the pressing need is to call 999 because the house is on fire.
Democracy is ill, and needs more than a get well card.
It was also a little underwhelming to be presented with the trope that in matters of casting a vote “if the young people can lead the way the old will follow”. The fact is that the young are not leading the way, won’t lead the way and arguably – in the light of the growing infantilism arising out of arrested development in the young, should not lead the way, in this (or indeed many matters).
The young don’t much bother to vote of course. And perhaps one might then argue that this made the cardinal’s intervention all the more welcome and important. He and we should do everything we can to extend the good health and functioning of our democracy. Though it’s not clear what the demographics of his followers on <em>X</em> are, it’s quite likely that the very young people who follow him on <em>X</em>, are those most persuaded of the need to exercise their civic responsibility. The rather unwelcome and slightly patronising “respect to the young” tone doesn’t tell the truth about the difficulties are democracy faces because the situation is also a little more complex than that.
One of the reasons that the Left are desperate to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16 is that they know that the young of all potential voters are the most likely to swallow wholesale the illusory propaganda that socialist utopianism can deliver fairer societies, instead of the prisons for political dissidents and death camps, as they largely did in the 20th century.
So a cautious reading of history and developmental psychology might make us a little wary about simply encouraging the young to vote for the sake of voting.
If we did encourage them to vote, should we not offer some adult wisdom, hard won from observation, analysis and experience over the decades?
Is no active responsibility required from those who have observed and weighed events, and done their best to learn the lessons of history and politics in our generation?
Has the cardinal no reservations about the ambitions of the more overtly anti-Christian progressive culture, sweeping not only the youth but the middle aged away in a torrent of secular, materialist and far-left political ideology?
Has the long trail of Catholics and evangelical Christians suspended, fired, vilified and demonised for their adherence to the Christian ethics of marriage, sexuality and the sacredness of the human person, defended by ADF and Christian Concern, not disturbed his political equanimity?
Have the deluge of news reports of what has happened to Catholic women standing silently on the pavements near abortion clinics not reached the episcopate? And when asked if what they were doing silently in their heads and hearts was praying, and they answered “yes” then being arrested as criminals accused of being guilty of thought crime?
A small group of mainly Catholic students at Manchester University created a student pro-life group to explore the ethics and politics of their response to the abortion industry. When they were mobbed by a violent threatening crowd who jostled pregnant women and howling anger and rage at the small group, there were few or no voices episcopal voices raised in protest to protect them and the exercise of their democratic rights under university charter and the civil law to meet as they had.
One by one Christian politicians have been picked off by the mainstream media. The most recent character assassination taking place this week. Kate Forbes, who has suddenly become a potential candidate to become First Minister of Scotland after the resignation of Humza Yousaf, became the target of a malicious and defamatory hit piece for her Christian convictions. If this had happened in the acerbic progressive columns of the <em>Guardian</em> one might have sighed sadly and just put up with the not unexpected bile and misrepresentation from the Left. But the platform that hosted the attack by a journalist called Kenny Farquharson was <em>The</em> <em>Times.</em>
The author threatened a return to “punitive Presbyterianism” if Ms Forbes were elected. This was as unlikely as it was malevolent and misleading. But no senior voices from the Church have been raised to call out the establishment for sponsoring an anti-Christian character assassination.
Over the Atlantic, wild-eyed progressives are hysterically warning that should Donald Trump win the majority of the votes America will sink into a “theocracy” and succumb to far-right Christian nationalism, another fictitious political bogey idea to terrify the children.
American campuses across the States have been closed down by violent activist students calling for a revolution from the Left.
Democracy is not well, in either the Unite Kingdom or the United States. And if the grown up has learned anything from the 20th century, there is no natural right it can rely on to ensure its survival.
Solzhenitsyn presented an urgent prophetic voice to the West when he wrote about the Bolsheviks who drove the Russian revolution: “They hated Russians, they hated Christians. Bolshevism created the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.”
This ignorance cannot be laid only at the door of the uncooperative media. The young, many of whom are leading the way in agitating for the ethnic cleansing of Israel as they chant “from the river to the sea”, knowing neither the name of the river or the sea in question, display another aspect of the ignorance that Solzhenitsyn warned about.
The cardinal has done both Church and society a favour in reminding us to vote. But in circumstances of such endemic ignorance, deception, confusion and apathy, some deeper diagnosis of the crisis facing the faith and our democracy may be called for.
<em>(© Mazur/cbcew.org.uk)</em>
