Article

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Morality

Politics

11 March 2024

6 min read

The moral sugar high of the protest vote

We shouldn’t give politicians bloody noses over insurmountable single issues.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

A winning candidate at an election address the audience from a lectern while the loosing candidates look on

The victorious candidate at the Rochdale by-election.

A cat was elected as a Member of Parliament. A cat. George Galloway - former Labour party MP and Rula Lenska’s former cat - has been elected as Member of Parliament for Rochdale. The unique circumstances of the by-election make this a less surprising result than one might think. The Labour Party disowned their candidate, the Tory Party hardly contested the seat, and the sheer number of inappropriate independents meant that a split-vote victory for Galloway was entirely foreseeable. One must also note Galloway’s many skills: as a campaigner, an orator, and a dirty-tactic by-election gadfly.

So…Rula Lenska’s cat did the unimaginable and won a seat in Parliament. How did the cat do this? He convinced people that they could vote for him to protest the current Parliamentary position on the Israel-Gaza War. In his victory speech, Galloway gave an ominous warning: “Keir Starmer…this is for Gaza.” He went on to intimate that his victory was due to the high proportion of Muslim voters in Rochdale; their disgust at the Labour Party’s response to the Israeli invasion of Gaza morphing into a wish to give Keir Starmer (‘one cheek of the same backside’ - Rishi Sunak being the other cheek) a bloody-nose. He warned that Starmer “…will pay a high price for…enabling, encouraging, and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine, in the Gaza strip.”

My fellow voters are intelligent enough to recognise that the single addition of George Galloway to the green benches will do almost nothing to affect change. They have voted so, the general consensus goes, simply to register their fury at the plight of ‘fellow Muslims’. I simply want to respond with a question. Is this moral?

People vote for all sorts of reasons. If we believe political scientists and pollsters, voters might care about many things, but will end up voting on the basis of one thing. Normally the economy. One’s own economic interest is a perfectly rational reason to vote for one party’s promises than another. There is a potential immediate impact on our lives and those of our family and friends. But Gaza?

Sociologists have spilt a tremendous amount of ink describing how human communities tend towards ‘tribal’ affection. We tend to feel more connected to those who are like us - in terms of geographic location, in terms of obvious racial characteristics, in terms of language and culture, of course religion. The notion that the Gazan War is a war on Muslims would be a natural driver for the Muslim community of Rochdale to vote ‘for’ their fellow Muslims.

On the other hand, in the world of modern ethics there has been a move to recognise that such tribal allegiance is ultimately meaningless - a call to see all human beings as equally worthy of our care and attention, especially irrespective of geography. Peter Singer famously presented the thought experiment of a drowning child - if we are willing to get our shoes wet and muddy to save a drowning child we walk by a shallow pond, why aren’t we willing to give up some of our wealth to alleviate the war-stricken poverty of a Gazan child many miles away?

The people of Rochdale must vote as their conscience requires. I simply worry that their conscience has taken on an impossible burden of care that they will struggle to sustain.

The words of Jesus seem to support such an ethic, which is always global in its vision. We are not only to love our neighbour as ourselves, we are to go out into all the world, evangelising the nations. From its beginning the Christian faith has preached that loving our neighbour means loving everyone. Everyone is a beloved child of God. Everyone is our neighbour. Surely a vote for Galloway, a vote of rage against the occupation of Gaza, is fundamentally moral - either on grounds of tribe, or rejection of tribe. Surely its Christian!

I’m not so sure.

I’m not so sure we fallen humans actually have the capacity to ‘care’ about the horrors that go on many, many miles away. Jesus tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves, but we barely have the emotional energy to love ourselves. We live in a society of such activity and distraction - with a seemingly concomitant rise in the incidence of hopelessness and depression - that I don’t think we can really give our moral and emotional energy to an event as distant and overwhelming as the plight of Gazan civilians. We can barely give it to our families. We can barely give it to ourselves. C S Lewis once wrote that the best way of eradicating suffering was people working away quietly at limited objectives: “I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”

Jesus was the ultimate localist - God became incarnate as a unique individual, of a particular tribe, of a particular nation, in a particular time and place. Jesus taught an ethic of universal love and dignity and respect, but lived out in specific acts of service. He didn’t wash the feet of all Jerusalem - just his disciples. He didn’t heal all disease everywhere and forever - but he did restore sight to the few blind people he met. St Paul wrote individual letters to individual communities. Yes, he asked them to pray for him and each other, but otherwise told them to focus on their immediate needs and charity and holiness. The popularity of Jordan Peterson is largely based on the achievability of his slightly nebulous self-help worldview: make YOUR bed, keep YOUR back straight, look after YOUR family. Improve yourself first if you want to even begin improving the world. You’ll probably never manage to improve more than your village…maybe only your own household. That might be enough.

I don’t judge those who voted for Galloway as a Gaza-conflict protest. A new campaign, ‘The Muslim Vote’, has emerged to persuade Muslim voters to lend their support to candidates who commit to ‘Peace in Palestine’ – ceasefire, sanction Israel, and a state for the Palestinians. It is becoming clear that what appears to have happened in Rochdale may well happen in constituencies up and down the country. The idea of the ‘Muslim vote’, which Galloway was able to turn into electoral victory, is being given form and force. It is emotive and persuasive, and may well convince people who have no link to Gaza other than their Muslim faith. It is entirely possible that some of the voters have family and friends trapped in the siege. I empathise with their vote and weep for their sorrow.

I don’t judge those who voted for Galloway as a Gaza-conflict protest. I do, however, worry that many have taken upon themselves a fundamentally unwieldy ethic. Galloway is not a one-man parliamentary wrecking ball - whatever he says. The position of the Government will not be changed by his election. The resolve of the Israeli military is unlikely to be dinted by the UK Government, no matter what resolutions the House of Commons passes. The people of Rochdale must vote as their conscience requires. I simply worry that their conscience has taken on an impossible burden of care that they will struggle to sustain. Perhaps they would be more fulfilled and more effective if they cast their vote on the basis of what could be achieved for them in their community, in the immediate future.

We must pray for the people of Gaza, and we must not cease praying; but I would suggest that we must vote in the interests of the people of our own place, our own constituency. Giving the Labour Party a bloody nose over Gaza might be an immediate moral-sugar-high. Electing an MP who will actually work for the needs of the community in their particularity will certainly be less instantaneously thrilling - but maybe it is more moral.

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Grenfell disaster

Trauma

6 February 2025

6 min read

Grenfell: how long should we remember?

There are good and bad ways of remembering.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A white building wrap around a tower is topped by a green heart and the slogan: Grenfell Always In Our Heaets.

Grenfell Tower, Summer 2024.

Rc1959, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

For nearly eight years now, Grenfell Tower has remained standing as a reminder of one of the most painful days in recent British history. The news that the government intends to dismantle the remains of the Tower has split local opinion. Some of the bereaved and survivors suggest that the government has scarcely consulted them. For many, the building is a tomb, still containing the memory, if not the actual remains of their loved ones whose bodies could not be recovered. They understandably fear them being forgotten when the building no longer stands as a reminder. Last year I sat in on a gathering where bereaved families and survivors of the fire told their stories in the hearing of representatives of the companies who were responsible for the cladding which caused the fire to spread. The memories and emotions are still raw and unhealed.

On the other hand, many local residents would like it taken away, as its constant, looming presence is a painful reminder of that dark night. They also see the logic in bringing down a fatally damaged and increasingly dangerous structure that costs the taxpayer millions each year to keep from collapsing under its own weight.

The key issue at the heart of this debate is how we remember - especially, how we remember pain. In the rhetoric around Grenfell, as with many other tragedies, we often hear calls to ‘always remember’ and that we must ‘never forget’ the wrongs done which caused the deaths of those 72 people. The Grenfell Memorial Commission, which was charged with thinking about what memorial should stand on the site of the building in future, claimed as its aim to “make sure the Grenfell tragedy can never be forgotten.”

Such calls to ‘never forget’ are powerful. They seem a proper tribute to those who died, they ensure that those culpable are not let off too easily, and that justice is properly done. To blithely forget such horrendous evils seems an affront to justice, and a morally culpable act.

Yet must we always remember the hurts and pains of the past? Can we imagine a future where such memories fade into the distance and no longer cast their painful shadow over our lives?

Whether and when Grenfell Tower comes down, is yet to be determined. Yet only when we keep in mind the destination of the journey of healing can we make good decisions...

Theologian Miroslav Volf asks all these questions in his book The End of Memory. He describes good and bad ways of remembering. We can remember to cherish the dead, to learn lessons for the future, to ensure justice is done. Yet we can also remember to nurse grievances, to cling onto grudges, to imagine horrible pain inflicted on those who wronged us. Memories of wrongs done to us can imprison and define us purely as victims, never in control, always subject to the actions for others, with no agency of our own.

Volf’s Christian faith tells him that the human race is beckoned towards a new world, in the full presence of God, of what he calls ‘final reconciliation’. It is a place where we will be captivated by a vision of the beauty and goodness of God, a vision that we only dimly glimpse in this world. He asks the question: in such a world, will we remember all the wrongs done to us? Can we imagine still clinging onto the memory of the sins and crimes that others inflicted on us? Even if that were in principle possible, would we remember all the harm done to us? And the harm we did to others? If not, which sins would we remember? Which ones would we forget? Would not such memories blight the joy that such a world would surely offer?

Reflecting on his own youthful and painful memories of interrogation in communist Yugoslavia, and other tragedies such as the 9/11attacks, Volf imagines getting to the point where we don't forget the terrible things that others have done to us, but when we actively don't remember them. They still occupy a place in our minds but are instead relegated to a corner of our consciousness, under our control, no longer rearing their ugly and painful heads when triggered by other events. Such an ability not to remember, he suggests, is a good thing:

"Non-remembrance of wrongs suffered is the gift God will give to those who have been wronged."

At the same time, Volf is careful not to imagine getting to this point too easily. Wrongdoers cannot for a moment insist that those they have wronged forget their misdeeds. Such non-remembrance can only happen when truth has been told, sins punished, and justice done. Yet when all that has taken place, that ‘final reconciliation’, Volf imagines, might even embrace the unimaginable - an ultimate reconciliation between the wronged and the wrongdoers.

Is it possible to imagine children whose parents were killed because of the negligence and culpable cheating of contractors who knowingly put unsafe cladding on Grenfell Tower, ever being reconciled to and even embracing the perpetrators? Volf suggests we can, while recognising that this can only happen when the crime has been identified, fully recognised, repented of profoundly, forgiveness offered and accepted and the appropriate penalty paid.

While such a process remains incomplete, the obligation to remember remains, and reconciliation cannot yet take place. But true healing from such hurts is not to be forever dominated by them, defined by them, or to live in constant enmity and resentment because of them. It is, instead, to gain the strength and ability not to remember them, not to be defined by them, and even - possibly, perhaps - to find reconciliation with their perpetrators.

The Grenfell Public Inquiry that reported last year was an important step for the bereaved and survivors. It was not the end of the journey. Far from it. The process of enacting justice through prosecution of the guilty lies ahead. But as an exercise in truth-telling, in giving perpetrators the opportunity to own up and confess their guilt, in a truthful recognition of what went wrong, it was a vital step towards the possibility of reaching that stage when the memory of Grenfell no longer defines its victims. It opens up the possibility at some point in the future, where they might be in control of their memories rather than their memories controlling them.

The Danish Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote that we humans need to learn both “the art of forgetting” and “the art of remembering”. To know when and how to do one and when to do the other is the gift of God and an art of true wisdom.

Whether and when Grenfell Tower comes down, is yet to be determined. Yet only when we keep in mind the destination of the journey of healing can we make good decisions about such fraught and emotionally charged issues. The Tower cannot remain as it is - everyone acknowledges that . Yet it's hard for many to think about its disappearance without knowing what will replace it. Which is why plans to demolish the Tower must go hand in hand with the plans for the lasting Memorial that will stand on the site. Yet that can only happen if it serves the goal of being able truthfully to remember no longer the pain and injustice of the past.

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