#464: Is the Common Good the Enemy of Sovereignty—or Vice-Versa?

  A recent Harvard discovery suggests why this Sunday's French Presidential Elections French should interest Americans, and especially American Catholics.

"France for the French" vs. France, member of Europe

The French Election

Some observers have said the 2017 election for president of France is all about sovereignty, since Marine Le Pen wants to pull France out of the European Union and Emmanuel Macron wants to stay in the EU but reform it.

Le Pen’s supporters believe the EU Impinges on France's sovereignty as a nation; they want their country back, their money back, their borders closed, their industries protected, their immigrants expelled. They want “France for the French.”

Macron's supporters often do not actually support his politics or agenda, but they support France's continued membership in the EU. They know this means sacrificing some of the nation’s sovereignty: the Euro replaced the Franc, trade is subject to EU "free trade" regulations, the borders are open to anyone from the EU, even the traditional French license plates have been replaced by euro-style plates. But those prepared to vote for Macron believe that giving up some national sovereignty serves the common good of both the French people and Europe as a whole, especially in bringing peace to a chronically war-torn continent (see CrossCurrents # 463).

Catholic Social Teaching (CST) acknowledges the dilemma here. On the one hand, CST makes promoting the common good a top priority, which leaves little room for a self-serving agenda that ignores the effects on others. Pope Francis in particular has decried the “Exclusion” of others that occurs when policy is set to benefit some narrow part of any population.

On the other hand, CST also values “subsidiarity”—the principle of keeping decisions at the most local level possible, and solving problems by the participation of those closest to the problem.

The EU clearly aims to serve the common good of Europeans, but that means decisions get made, not at the local or regional or even national level, but at the international level which sometimes is far removed from the people affected. So common good and subsidiarity sometimes clash. How can this clash be addressed?

Some, like Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs, take a hard line view of sovereignty. He argues that internationalism of any kind cannot really achieve the common good: for him, the real common good comes only with national sovereignty:

“The only democratic institutions that we have are national institutions.  So if you get rid of the nation-state, what you’re really doing is getting rid of democracy.”

In other words, Krein considers that, to serve common good, all sovereignty must be national.  This is exactly what Le Pen is proposing in her campaign, and it is exactly what Macron is opposing.

Wednesday Night's Debate

But it strikes me that such a hard line is completely arbitrary and also completely contrary to our experience as Americans.  That’s why last week’s Harvard discovery is so interesting.

The Harvard Find

Two Harvard researchers, Danielle Allen and Emily Sneff, have recently reported the discovery of an early handwritten parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence--only the second such copy in existence.  They call it the “Sussex declaration” after the location of its discovery in England. 

The significance of the discovery is that this version is slightly different from the one in the national archives.  That original in 1775 reflected the practice of the Continental Congress of having state delegations sign official documents as a group, with state labels for each group.

But the Sussex declaration dates from the 1780s.  By then the War is over, and war debts have led to conflicts among the states, especially farming states vs. the coastal mercantile states.  Eventually these conflicts would lead to a constitutional convention, but already the clash was between federalists (who saw the new nation as a single united people) and anti-federalists (who saw it as a collection of states).  The issue here was whether sovereignty would belong to the nation as a whole, or whether each state would retain its own sovereignty. 

The Sussex Declaration

This newer version shows the balance shifting to the federalists. Allen points out the key difference:

“The Sussex Declaration scrambles the names so they are no longer grouped by state. It is the only version of the Declaration that does that…This is really a symbolic way of saying we are all one people.”

Of course, during the time between these two versions, the US was governed by the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1777 and ratified in 1781.  The guiding principle here was to preserve the independence and sovereignty of each state.  It legalized the Continental Congress, but gave that Congress very little power. There was no president, no judiciary, no executive agencies, no tax base--which meant no way to pay off the war debts.  Even the Congress had only one body, comprised of state delegations.

Shifting Sovereignty

The Articles of Confederation failed, because the national government lacked enough power to perform its essential duties.  This provoked a Constitutional Convention and eventually led to the U.S. Constitution which governs us today.  The essential difference is that the U.S. Constitution shifted much of our sovereignty from individual states to the nation as a whole.  But the shift involve major compromises, including a Congress split into two houses; Senate representing the states, and the House of Representatives representing the people by proportional vote.

In other words, US history is rooted in a compromise which recognized that sovereignty needed to be shared between the nation and its member states.  When Krein says that our only democratic institutions are national institutions, he is simply ignoring our own history.

What is happening in Europe follows a direct analogy to U.S. history.  If we think of France as a member state of the European Union, we can see that the issue of sovereignty, and the conflict over how much sovereignty France should sacrifice to the common good of Europe, is precisely the same issue as the argument over States’ rights vs. Federal power in the US.

From the point of Catholic Social Teaching, this means that American history can help show us how the tension between the common good and the principle of subsidiarity can be resolved.

We don’t need to look into the distant past to observe this history.  Recent events provided ample examples.  These show that debates over shifts in sovereignty reflect a tension that still exists in American Life.

Current Examples

1. Death Penalty. When Dhzokar Tsarnaev was tried for his role in the Boston marathon bombings, his trial took place in Massachusetts, which rejects the death penalty—and yet he received a death sentence, because his crime was determined to be a violation of Federal law.  Thus Massachusetts could not control the judicial process because the authority of the Federal government prevailed. The state does not enjoy absolute sovereignty

2. Sanctuary Cities. When Donald Trump attacks the notion of sanctuary cities, he is pitting the rule of local law enforcement in preserving public safety against the interests of the immigration authorities to locate and detain illegal immigrants.  Most states that have sanctuary cities are claiming that their law enforcement officials cannot be forced by the Federal government.

3. Healthcare. The current struggle to repeal Obamacare involves the question of whether the U.S. government will continue to mandate coverage, or the states will have the option to seek alternative plans.  Obamacare relied on the sovereignty of the Federal government; the repeals are pushing for state sovereignty.

4. Border Wall. Donald Trump’s border wall involves the Federal government imposing construction in many border states that oppose a wall.  Here again, the common good becomes the rationale for overruling local decision-making.

5. Tribal Sovereignty. When the Wampanoag Tribe tries to establish a casino on Martha’s Vineyard, this pits the tribe as a sovereign nation vs. the power of the local community, and invokes both state and Federal power to resolve the issue.  In this case, the dispute is about sovereignty on four different levels.

6. Gay Marriage. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized gay marriage, exercising its own authority to regulate marriage on the state level.  But when the US Supreme Court imposed its Federal authority over state laws and regulations, gay marriage became legal across the US. 

7. “Romneycare.” Obamacare’s rules for health care were remarkably similar to the rules that already existed in Massachusetts under the program supported by a Republican Governor Mitt Romney. Romneycare reflected the state’s sovereignty, Obamacare reflected the federal government’s sovereignty

The Moral of the Story

In all of these cases, the question of sovereignty has been resolved on a case-by-case basis.  It is true that some people would prefer the Federal government to always impose its will over states, while others would prefer that states always get to decide all matters for themselves without any Federal interference.  But the vast majority of Americans accept a constant balancing act between two (or more) levels of legitimate authority.

Thus life in “these United States” involves a chronic but healthy tension between the sovereignty of the nation and the sovereignty of the states.  Neither sovereignty is absolute, so a Federal System like ours requires repeated negotiation to redefine the shifting limits of each sovereignty.

And that is exactly what Europe is going through today, especially if we think of each country as something like our states. 70 years after the Treaty of Rome established the idea of a united Europe, its federal system is still being formed.

The European Union has reached a moment much like the crisis caused by the Articles of Confederation.  In other words, its governing treaties are failing to provide the right mix of sovereignty between the European Union itself and the member states. 

It seems that, if Europe is to serve both the common good and honor the principle of subsidiarity, it will need to find ways to democratize its operations and reflect comment local and national interests and preferences rather than make all decisions by some remote process that does not reflect public will.

But the failure of the Articles of Confederation did not lead to the failure of the United States; it required instead a reformed federal system. Europe faces the same challenge, and France’s commitment to meeting that challenge (rather than quitting to protect its own sovereignty) will say much about Europe’s future prospects.

 © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2017

#430: 10 Reasons to Choose the Life Penalty

After several weeks of a trial to convict the Boston Marathon bomber who had already admitted his guilt, the question now is: will the jury choose life or death?

Martin Richards, the 8 year old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombing, went to school just a few hundred yards down the street from my house.  This week his killer’s trial has entered the penalty phase, when jurors will decide if Dzhohkar Tsarnaev will be sentenced to death or to life without the possibility of parole.

But just before the penalty phase began, the boy’s family publicly requested that the death penalty be set aside.  No one suffered more than the Richards.  Martin’s sister lost a leg, his mother suffered serious injuries, and his father was forced to make the soul-rending decision to leave his dying son in order to say his sister.  Their plea now is to be released from the further suffering the death penalty would bring.  Known as active Catholics in a heavily Catholic neighborhood, the Richards intended to speak only for themselves, yet they can also be seen as representing modern Catholicism’s increasing rejection of lethal violence.

The taking of human life has many forms, but none is more central to Christianity than the death penalty.  Jesus himself was a victim of capital punishment, and the instrument of his execution--the cross--has long become the “trademark” of his followers and their faith.  Indeed, we’ve become so accustomed to the cross, and even the crucifix, that we might be shocked to imagine, as one Bostonian suggested this week, walking into a church to find Jesus hanging from a noose or strapped to an electric chair.

Most of Jesus’ apostles were also killed by the authorities.  We call them martyrs, but they effectively spent their last days on death row.  The same is true for more than a few Christian saints even into the 21^st century, executed for their faith.  The image of Christians killed by ISIS is tragically fresh news. 

Sadly, Catholics had been not only victims of the death penalty, but agents of execution as well.  The Inquisition regularly tried and condemned “heretics” and “witches,” even if the actual killing was done by civil authorities.  And we should never forget that France’s patron saint, Joan of arc, was only canonized after being burned at the stake following the Church’s condemnation.  Over the centuries, then, the Church has been both the victim and the perpetrator of the death penalty. 

But recent years have brought a dramatic shift, as Catholic teaching has come to reject virtually every argument used to justify capital punishment.  That teaching has had its effect: fewer than half of U.S. Catholics support the death penalty, down from 70% a generation ago.

But it is still worth seeing why the Church now opposes virtually any use of the death penalty, even for cases as uniquely heinous as the Boston Marathon bombing.  In view of Pope Francis’ plea to build an encounter culture, these reasons might help us to encounter others at this very moment, when the death penalty is urgently debated.

The Vatican, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the U.S. bishops collectively, and many bishops of individual states have gone on record opposing the death penalty.  They have joined together in a growing consensus about why the death penalty is wrong.  Drawing on their views, here are 10 good reasons:

1. Playing God.  Catholics believe the power over life and death belongs to God alone.  Murderers usurp that power for themselves, which is the most profound reason for calling murder evil.  And executioners, no matter how good their intentions, usurp God’s power as well.

2. Cycle of violence.  Catholics are supposed to believe that violence is not the greatest power on earth.  We believe, in fact, that love can conquer violence.  But answering violent acts that take human life by taking another human life means we give in to the power of violence and thereby perpetuate it.

3. No deterrent.  There is no evidence that executing people reduces crime.  In fact, states that execute have higher crime rates than states that don’t.  And European countries, all of whom ban executions, have much lower crime rates than the U.S.

4. Expensive and inefficient.  It cost several times more to implement a death sentence than it does to impose life without parole.  Years or decades of appeals often mean criminals eventually die on death row anyway before they can be executed.

In the specific case of the Marathon bomber, the killer’s lawyers publicly stated that, had the federal government taken capital punishment off the table, Tsarnaev would have pleaded guilty, thus avoiding any trial at all, and would already be out of sight, serving a life sentence without parole. Thus the trial was only needed for one thing: to secure a death penalty. That means that this week’s penalty phase—as well as the entire trial before--are but one wasteful part of the unnecessary price we pay by insisting on the death penalty.

5. Prolongs victims’ sufferings.  Execution is not magic.  It will not bring back the dead, or make their families suffer less.  On the contrary, the death penalty keeps a case alive far longer than the disappearing act of a life sentence.  This is precisely why the Richards family fears the anguish they will undergo after a death sentence.  The Boston Globe’s Kevin Cullen, who has listed all the terrorists already waiting on death row since 1993, predicts Tsarnaev’s death sentence would never actually be carried out.

6. Racism.  In U.S. history as well as today, minorities are disproportionately targeted by the death penalty.  In part, this reflects the difficulty poor people have obtaining effective counsel.  The result: a double standard by which better-off criminals are likely to evade the death sentence. Thus, while African-Americans make up only slightly more than 10% of the American population, they constitute more than 40% of those on death row.

7. Innocence. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 152 people sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973. An increasing number of these were exonerated when DNA evidence proved they were innocent. On average, these people spent 11.2 years on death row before being released!

No human institution will ever be perfect, so we must always be prepared to identify and correct our errors. But once a person is executed, it is too late to correct that mistake! How many innocent have been executed before they could be exonerated? How many innocent deaths are justified by our desire to kill the guilty? 

8. Cruel and unusual?  Cruel and unusual punishment is prohibited by the U.S.  Constitution, but those words have yet to be clearly defined.  Yet every attempt to invent a more “humane” form of execution ends up in grotesque suffering, mistakes, and mishaps.  The result is the irony of people shocked to learn that a state might return to firing squads because lethal injections have proved so difficult to implement.  As the rest of the world leaves the death penalty behind, the American practice of it appears even more to be cruel and unusual. 

Some argue that while in general the death penalty is wrong, in the specific case of the Marathon bomber it is uniquely justified.  But of course that simply makes the penalty that much more unusual, and no less cruel. 

9. Last resort.  In its attempts to promote a “seamless garment of life,” the Catholic Church now teaches that the death penalty must be regarded as a last resort--to be used only when there is no other way to protect society from a criminal.  But the high security prison in Colorado to which the U.S. has already sent convicted terrorists means that any threat is removed, and any further suffering is prevented.  In practice, then, the Church’s teaching of a last resort faces us with the truth that there may be no situations where there is no other alternative.  Clearly, in this case, as in virtually every other case, life without parole is an available option.  Those seeking death face the burden of explaining why the alternative cannot be justified.

10. It is bad for us.  Virtually all advanced democracies have eliminated to the death penalty--except the U.S.  By now, moving beyond executions is the world’s mark of a truly civilized country.  Given the alternatives, capital punishment serves only one real purpose: revenge. And the world now regards revenge as a relic of a more primitive culture.  In short, the presence of the death penalty in our society separates us from the truly civilized world. Thus resorting to the death penalty appeals to the worst instincts in our nature, and makes us less as a people. 

Listen to the joint statement of Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downs, newlyweds who each lost limbs in the Boston Marathon bombing, as they describe the spiritual challenge before us all:

In our darkest moments and deepest sadness, we think of inflicting the same types of harm on him.  We wish that he could feel the searing pain and terror that for beautiful souls felt before their death, as well as the harsh reality of discovering mutilated or missing legs.  If there is any one who deserves the ultimate punishment, it is the defendant.  However, we must overcome the impulse for vengeance.  

By overcoming that impulse for vengeance, by    rising above those dark instincts and choosing life, we become more—we become a better people.  And still justice is done.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#426: Getting Beyond Terror

It’s high time for some sanity and realism about terror

Barely 21 months after the Marathon bombers made “Boston Strong” a household phrase, we now have “Je Suis Charlie.” Amid a deluge of strong emotions and sloppy thinking, I offer some reflections on points that I believe we must resolve, lest our lives become permanently unhinged by “terrorism.”

We Should Define Terms.  Are “terror” and “terrorism” really helpful terms?  Too often, they are self-serving labels that mean merely “violence we do not like.” These terms can apply to so many events that we can end up wondering what they all have in common.  Think of  the lynchings of blacks across the United States 1900-1955, attacks by Zionists in mid-1940s Palestine, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing, the school attacks at Newtown and Columbine, the IRA in Northern Ireland from 1969 to the Good Friday accords, the Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhof, and Munich Olympic attackers in the 1970s, the death squads in El Salvador and the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s, the bombers of New York (1993), and Paris (1995 and 1996), the 9/11 attacks, the sarin gas attacks in Japan, U.S. drone attacks in Yemen and Pakistan, Boko Haram abductions and massacres, et cetera, et cetera. 

If we’re going to use these terms, we should define them consistently. But we seldom do.

Ends and means.  For me, terrorism is a tactic that uses violence to generate fear to gain some goal. So the goal (whenever it is) is the end, and terror tactics are the means.  Often those goals are claimed to be high-minded political or religious causes (whether it is the surrender of Japan on the establishment of Sharia law) which are “supposed” to justify the terror tactics.

But Catholicism has long taught that the ends never justify the means.  This clarifies our notion of terrorism, since we object to the means of terror regardless of the goals.  We don’t care if the attackers are capitalist or communist, Christian or Jew or Muslim.  We don’t care if they seek a classless society or the end of World War II or peace or freedom or justice or heaven on earth.  We only care that their tactics are evil.

Equal Opportunity Tactics.  This also means that anyone can be guilty of terrorism.  It can be a deranged individual like Timothy McVeigh, it can be radicalized brothers like the Tsarnaevs in Boston or the Kouachis in Paris.  It can be a tribe, a cell, a movement, a radical organization, a quasi-military militia, a political or religious party, or even a government.

By their tactics you shall know them, whether you regard them as friend or foe, good guys or bad guys. Trying to distinguish between “terrorists” and “freedom fighters” who use the same tactics—as if there is “good” terrorism and “bad” terrorism--only leads us to a double standard.

Double Standards. Even the Paris killings reflect this problem of double standards.

Few people support absolute free speech with no limits, and this can lead to a double standard. In the name of free speech, blasphemy is allowed in France, so Charlie Hebdo is honored and protected.  But “hate speech” is not allowed, so the UPI reported that:

Fifty-four people were arrested Wednesday after the French government ordered a crackdown on hate speech and the glorification of terrorism.

And the International Business Times detailed the government’s rationale:

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira said hate speech has to be fought with the "utmost vigor," urging prosecutors to act quickly against those who condone terrorism or carry out racist or anti-Semitic acts. Prime Minister Manuel Valls added that freedom of speech should not be confused with anti-Semitism, racism and Holocaust denial. 

Of course, this just heightens the hostility between Muslims and Jews (who appear to receive special treatment--it seems even Charlie Hebdo had avoided satirizing Jews). 

In fact, most “free speech” champions make exceptions that create a double standard. It is a crime in many European countries to deny the Holocaust. It is a crime in the U.S. to commit “hate speech” against gays, blacks, Jews. These exceptions to free speech reflect the history of these countries. But they are still double standards. To prohibit these forms of speech while allowing blasphemy (an offense which reflects the history of OTHER countries) is at best inconsistent and at worst hypocritical. And when such hypocrisy enables blasphemy that offends even moderates, that only undermines their moderation and makes us riper targets for fanatics willing to use terror tactics.

And there is a third double standard. It focuses on threats to the West but overlooks attacks elsewhere, as if only western lives matter.  The same week when 17 Parisians were killed, Time Magazine reported that Boko Haram “murdered up to 2,000 civilians” in Baga, Nigeria, and a few a days later “used a 10-year old girl as a suicide bomber to kill at least 16 people at a market.”  It goes without saying which tragedy commanded more attention.

Granted, we took the Paris attacks as attacks on western values that are “sacred” to us--but are we surprised if the southern hemisphere concludes that we care less about their lives?  And do we really believe that sending that message helps us fight such violence?

Blaming Religion Honors the Terrorists.  I am increasingly weary of media references to “jihadists” and “radical Islamists” etc.  Yes, these people claim to act in the name of Islam--but why do we honor their claim?  It is a false claim, and it provides them cover to rationalize their atrocities to others. At the same time, it pits people of different faiths against each other.

Thus Pope Francis has urged all religious leaders to denounce any such violence, saying “To kill in the name of God is an aberration”:

For the sake of peace, religious beliefs must never be allowed to be abused in the cause of violence and war. We must be clear and unequivocal in challenging our communities to live fully the tenets of peace and coexistence found in each religion, and to denounce acts of violence when they are committed.…

I express my hope that religious, political and intellectual leaders, especially those of the Muslim community, will condemn all fundamentalist and extremist interpretations of religion which attempt to justify such acts of violence.

Thus it is not just the violence we condemn, but also the hijacking of religion itself. No terrorists represent authentic Islam. This was made crystal clear by Malek Merabet, as the brother of Ahmed Merabet, one of the police officers killed in Paris:

Islam is a religion of peace, love and sharing. It's not about terrorism, it's not about madness…My brother was a Muslim and he was killed by people pretending to be Muslims. They are terrorists – that's it…Don’t tar everyone with the same brush; don't burn mosques – or synagogues. It won't bring our dead back and it won't appease the families.

Linking terror to Islam only increases Islamophobia, and at the same time it alienates more Muslims.  Using such terms helps the terrorists and hurts the efforts of genuine Muslims to make peace with western, secular culture. Blaming Islam is doing just what the terrorists want.

In fact, blaming Islam for terrorism, combined with our “free speech” double standard, only convinces others that we really are the enemy.

Of course, to overcome this temptation to blame religions, we must heed Francis’ answer when challenged about visiting a Buddhist temple:

The Protestants when I was a child, in that time, 70 years ago, all the Protestants were going to hell, all of them. That’s what was said. Do you know what was the first experience I had of ecumenism?...When I was four or five years old walking down the street with my grandmother, I saw two women from the Salvation Army, wearing those old-style hats, and I asked my grandmother, “Tell me, are they sisters (nuns)?” My Grandmother said “No, they are Protestant but they’re good (people).” It was the first time that I heard a person speaking well of people of another religion. At that time in the catechesis they told us that they all went to hell. I believe the Church has grown a lot in its consciousness (understanding) and in its respect (for other religions), as I said in the interreligious encounter in Colombo the other day, when we read what the Second Vatican Council about the other religions, and the values in other religions. The Church has grown a lot in these years and in respect. There have been dark periods in the history of the Church too, and we have to say that with shame. We’re all on a path of conversion, which is a grace; always from sin to grace. This inter-religiosity as brothers, respecting each other always is a grace.

No More “War On Terror.”  This unfortunate phrase has caused two problems.  First, it created a “crusading” climate that accepts too many evil tactics in a worthy cause: invasion based on lies, torture, rendition, imprisonment without charges, killing without due process, restrictions on Americans’ privacy and freedom.  Second, it deluded us into thinking that we could “win” this war--that the right strategy would bring “victory” and “end” terror. That we could kill the “last terrorist” and enjoy “victory.”

The brutal fact is that human history reveals an unending supply of people willing to employ evil tactics--even to kill the innocent--to gain their goals.  One cannot kill all the terrorists and end terrorism because one cannot uproot from human nature its potential for evil. The “last terrorist” does not exist.

Such people are criminals, and our criminal justice systems must be our main defense.  Most terrorists collaborate, and collaborating to commit crime is conspiracy, and conspiracy itself as a crime before any shot is fired, any bomb is wired, any plane is hijacked.  The best strategy against terror is the same strategy long used against organized crime: investigate, infiltrate, incriminate for conspiracy, prosecute, and punish. 

This is precisely how French Police followed up the Paris attacks, arresting four suspects believed linked to one of the gunmen involved in the attacks. They appeared before an antiterrorism judge on charges of “terrorist conspiracy to commit crimes against people.”

But the bottom line is: we will always have terrorists.  Terrorism is nothing new, and no matter how old it gets, it is not dying out. Terrorism, like poverty, will always be with us. 

But this fact points to our real hope.

The Long Term Fix.  Nearly all terror attacks of the last century reflect the attackers’ resentment for perceived injustice.  That resentment has nearly always been fueled by poverty.  Arguably, terrorism and poverty go hand in hand: the more poverty, the more terrorism--and the less poverty, the less terror.

This premise cries out for urgent consideration.  For it implies that the trillions we spend on military invasions are futile--and worse, they preclude our chance to spend such resources on reducing poverty.  If the links between terror attacks and poverty are compelling--and I believe they are (just look at profiles of suicide bombers)--then attacking poverty becomes our number one weapon, our number one hope, against terrorism.

The Prospects? These reflections do not leave me optimistic.  I fear we will continue to define “terrorism” sloppily, continue to follow hypocritical double standards, continue to blame religions and alienate others, continue to criticize people’s goals instead of condemning their tactics, continue to condemn radical parties while exempting governments, continue to pretend we can “wage war” to end terrorism, and continue to waste both money and lives in that futile pursuit.  We will continue to praise “our warriors” who “protect us.”  And we will continue blindly blundering along with strategies and tactics that will guarantee that our situation, already unmistakably worse since 9/11 due to such blundering, will deteriorate even further.

That is, it will continue to worsen unless we begin to heed the voice of reason.  But who speaks that voice today? And who is listening?

   © Bernard   F. Swain PhD 2015

#390 Revisited: The Blasts Heard ’Round the World

On the anniversary of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, I am re-posting the blog I wrote the day after. It remains my most-read posting.

Initial reflections  on the day after the bombs went off...

      Patriots day is perhaps the quintessential American holiday, even though (or perhaps because) it is celebrated only in Massachusetts.  It marks simultaneously the beginning of the end of Britain’s occupation of the American Colonies and the birth, in rebellion and blood, of a new country. 

The iconic images surrounding Patriots Day are familiar to all Americans.  “One if by land, two if by sea.” “The midnight ride of Paul Revere.” “The British are coming!  The British are coming!” The shot heard round the world.  The Minutemen. Lexington and Concord.

And so each year, just after dawn, the Redcoats arrive again at Lexington Green to be confronted once more by the local Minutemen.  A shot rings out, and a skirmish ensues.  Men on both sides fall, and the colonial militia is driven back, and the Redcoats proceed toward Concord.  But along the way the British troops are terrorized by the rebels harassing them along their route and sniping at them from behind trees and rocks.  Meanwhile tourists follow the rebels, clicking photos of the reenactment.  Local churches offer pancake breakfasts for the visitors.

Schools and most workplaces are closed, so baseball fans leave home early for the annual 11:00 Red Sox game.  With luck, the Red Sox will win and the game will end early enough for the Fenway faithful to stream into Kenmore Square in plenty of time to watch the runners passing by.

More than 20,000 of those runners begin their day early far from Boston in the small New England Town of Hopkinton.  They’ve come from all over the world, and the runners with numbers have qualified for Boston by running other marathons with impressive times.  For many years, Boston was the only non-Olympic marathon that required runners to qualify this way.  It is, after all, the oldest annual marathon in the world. It was a sacred tradition here long before marathon running became popular.

More than 200,000 fans line the streets along the 26-mile route from Hopkinton to Boston. Boston’s quarter-million college kids take Patriots day as an annual rite of spring, cheering on the runners while partying outside for the first time since football season.

Patriots Day is the day Boston’s cityscape finally returns to vibrant life after the relative quiet of the long cold New England winter. It is the day Bostonians remember why they are blessed to live here.

Given all this, the crowds along the entire length of the marathon course are unrivaled for numbers, enthusiasm, and hospitality. The day I observed the 100^th running with my youngest son, we joined hundreds of thousands of spectators cheering for passing runners for five hours until we had clapped our hands raw and yelled our voices hoarse. For participants, Patriots Day is the day Boston opens its arms to the world and offers a running experience no other marathon can match.

But Patriots Day 2013 was unlike any other.  In Lexington and Concord, the battle reenactments were long finished. The winners of the wheelchair races had finished; the women’s and the men’s winners (both from Africa) had already earned their victories, the Red Sox had already won a walk-off 10^th inning victory, and the mass of “weekend warrior” runners were approaching the finish line flanked by the world flags lining Boylston Street.

And then at 2:50 the bombs created a new kind of Boston massacre.  These truly were blasts heard ’round the world, since the heavy media presence guaranteed that the images and sounds of explosions would achieve global reach within minutes. It is hard to imagine a more symbolically-rich venue to attack. 

As of this writing, there’s no public information about who did this or why.  But as shock gives way to outrage, two difficult truths are worth keeping in mind.

First, while the victims were innocents (including a family from my own Dorchester neighborhood) we should not project their innocence onto ourselves as a collective nation. It is tempting to pretend that such villainy is only for “others,” that we are only the victims and never the perpetrators of violence, and that America never attacks innocent victims. This is, unfortunately, just not true.

In fact, American has proved especially prone to using revenge as a pretext for killing innocents. After Pearl Harbor took nearly 2000 American lives, Harry Truman thought the Japanese got their just deserts when our atom bombs killed more than 100,000, mostly civilians—and most Americans agreed. When 9/11 killed nearly 3,000, Many Americans accepted the death of more than 150,000 Iraqis (mostly women and children) as just vengeance. We Americans are proven masters of overwhelming retaliation. Perhaps some of us are proud of that, but we cannot pretend we do not have blood on our hands.

Even now our country inflicts suffering on innocent victims. Some even make the case that American violence is the evil twin of the Boston bombing: http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/the-boston-marathon-and-u-s-drone-attacks-a-tale-of-two-terrorisms/ . So while our outrage is certainly justified, we do well to avoid becoming self-righteous about our place in a violent world.

Second, while the perpetrators of the marathon bombing must be caught and punished, we should resist thinking that destroying all evil-doers will solve the problem of terror and violence in our world.

For Christians, this is an impossible dream. We believe we belong to a fallen humanity, a race who by nature can never completely purge evil from our midst. We can never destroy all the bad guys, for there will always be more of them in the next generation.

This means that true security only comes when we learn how to deal with evil even while knowing we cannot eradicate it.

This is, of course, what Jesus meant by his terrifying saying “Love your enemies.” He and his followers believed—and still believe—that evil and violence are NOT the strongest powers in our world, that retaliation is not the ultimate solution, and that there exists a love that can conquer hate.

For us, this poses a simple but tough challenge. Either Christianity is right, that love is ultimately stronger than violence, or else it is wrong. Either Gandhi and King and Jesus were right, that we must love our enemies, or they were wrong. But what we cannot doubt is that stamping out all evil people is a silly, naïve, and dangerous dream.

Martin Richard, 8, killed in the bombing

Bostonians are already acting to “retaliate” with love. The stunningly rapid and effective action of the first responders (some of them mere bystanders) seems to have reduced the death toll to unthinkably low numbers. The heroic marathon-like services of those working Boston's emergency rooms and operating theaters likewise minimized death and suffering. The flood of blood donors to Boston blood banks, and the widespread offers of housing and hospitality reflected the depth of Bostonians' care for the victims.

Some people have decided to join the ranks of the 8500 marathon volunteers in 2014. Some have vowed to run again. Some will host visitors. Some will simple turn out to observe, determined that next year’s crowd will outdo 2013.

Maybe someone will even propose making Patriots Day a national holiday.

After all, this is the city where the Revolution began. We know there are villains in the world, and we know it took force to expel the occupiers before. We are determined not to be occupied by villains again, and not to be driven by terror, but to live as we should, as a joyful and peaceful people, and thus deprive the villains of their victory.

And when we prove that no one can defeat the courageous hope and generous spirit of Boston, that message will be heard ’round the world.

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#391: The Finish Line

With the 2014 Boston Marathon less than 4 weeks away, the  finish Line has just been repainted on Boston's Boylston Street. So I am re-posting my blog about how last year's bombing transformed that iconic image.

An additional note: since I first posted this, the World Series Champion Red Sox paraded through Boston in November. When they reached the Finish Line, they stopped and placed their trophy on the line with a "Boston Strong" shirt draped over it. Now there are plans for a permanent memorial near the site.

     During the entire week following the Boston Marathon attack, the phrase that stuck in my mind was “the finish line”--for so many reasons.

For Bostonians, the Marathon Finish Line on Boylston Street has now become sacred ground--perhaps it is even becoming a sacred symbol, value, or idea.

Of course, the finish line has always been where the race ends, where the victors are crowned with laurels, where some arrive with arms raised in triumph while others stagger across or even collapsed onto it.   

But for all, since 1897, it has denoted the gold standard of running, since for most runners at Boston the aim is not to win but rather to finish the planet’s most prestigious road race.  Crossing that line is a personal victory for all of them.

But now that finish line has been transformed. It means more than before. One churchgoer returning to one of the Copley Square churches closed off as part of the crime scene said, “Now it’s a starting line too.”

From now on, the finish line is also where the bombs went off.  Future runners will finish only by passing the two spots where three people died and more than 200 others bled.  And very likely the finish line will soon have a memorial to the victims attacked on April 15, 2013.

     For Christians, of course, the symbolic power of the finish line is nothing new, since the Apostle Paul long ago employed the image of athletic achievement to describe his own life as his and approached:

“I have fought the good fight, I have run the good race, I have kept the faith:”--2 Timothy 4:7

And Paul himself was echoing the way the prophet Isaiah viewed life’s need for strength and endurance:

“But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”--Isaiah 40:31

The stress in both images is not on competition, but on accomplishment, not on winning the race but on finishing the course, not on the contest but on the journey and its destination.

Later Christians built on these images to establish a long tradition of seeing our life as a journey.  This view evolved from seeing life as a race to the image of a pilgrimage which follows its path to its end—but the idea of the race to the finish line was never lost. 

No doubt part of the popularity of the Boston marathon lies in its power to evoke our life’s long struggle to endure all trials and overcome all obstacles until we finally arrive at our natural end.

Sometimes someone’s life actually fits this image.  When my father died last year at 94, my wife said, “He died at the end of his life”--a life that really was a long, fully lived journey to its natural finish (see CrossCurrents #370, “A Quietly Heroic Life”).

But this is not always so.  As Boston 2013 showed and life teaches, the finish line can be moved. 

Runners still on the Boston course after the bombing were stopped short of 26.2 miles.  Yet they were awarded medals for finishing, which meant that for some the finish line was Kenmore square, for others Commonwealth Ave., for others someplace further back along the course.  The finish line moved, caught them unawares, and suddenly ended their races.

The same is true in life, since for some of us the finish line of life arrives well before anyone expects.

I have already written about the child whose life was more like a sprint than the marathon, ending only eight short weeks after his birth (see CrossCurrents #378, “Precious Child”).

As I drafted this piece, another young Boston University student died in a house fire, the 11th BU student to be killed (counting the marathon victim) in the last 12 months.

And on Wednesday, April 17—two days after the bombs and 24 hours before the suspects’ images became public—another runner reached his early finish line.  Our close friends’ son Matthew Shea had suffered leg pains while running high school track; these led to a 10-year-long effort to outrun the cancer infecting his body.  Through several remissions and relapses he not only persevered but filled his life with more acts of courage, generosity, and love than many people achieve in three times his lifespan. He died at 27 knowing, as did his loved ones, that he had run the good race with steadfast hope no matter how fast his finish line was approaching.

In reality, the same is true for all of us.

We are all alike in living our lives as a journey that (for most) is more like a marathon than a sprint.  But we are all unique in that, while we all run the same race of life, each of us runs a personal race on a different personal course.  For each of us, the finish line is different.  For each of us, the finish line is a moving target.  For each of us, its final location cannot be known.  

We may pace ourselves like marathoners, looking forward to careers and vacations and children growing and marriages and grandchildren and retirement. But that is like saving enough energy to get over Heartbreak Hill and still have enough left for the last few miles to the official end of the race. The fact is that our own personal finish line may not be at the end of the official course (called “life expectancy”). For each of us, the finish line may be just round the next corner.

Yet we run on, filling our lives with as much joy and love and hope and courage as we can before our finish line arrives—and trying always to be prepared for it.

For those who died on April 15, 2013, the marathon’s finish line was their unexpected finish.  For the injured, it was a turning point; their lives are changed forever.  And for all of us, it was the reminder that none of us controls the course we run.

Six days after the Boston bombings, the London Marathon was held amid heightened security.  The runners wore black memorial ribbons and made their intentions clear: they are determined to make a show of strength in the face of violence at Boston 2014. 

So next year we can expect more runners, more wheelchair racers, more midnight cyclists, more volunteers and spectators and memorial honors.  The 118^th running of the Boston marathon may well surpass the record numbers of the 100^th running.

And for all those hundreds of thousands along the course in whatever capacity, as well as the millions watching on TV and Internet, that famous and now sacred finish line on Boylston Street will mean more than ever, especially at 2:50 PM.

Perhaps there will be some special moment of commemoration.  Perhaps the church bells will toll.  And if they do, all of us will know they toll not only for those who died, not only for those injured or traumatized, but for all of us who each day, all our lives, run toward life’s certain, sacred, but unknown finish line.

And that will be our shining moment to show that Boston has found new strength, and will not grow weary.

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013

#391: The Finish Line

During the entire week following the Boston Marathon attack, the phrase that stuck in my mind was “the finish line”--for so many reasons.

For Bostonians, the Marathon Finish Line on Boylston Street has now become sacred ground--perhaps it is even becoming a sacred symbol, value, or idea.

Of course, the finish line has always been where the race ends, where the victors are crowned with laurels, where some arrive with arms raised in triumph while others stagger across or even collapsed onto it.   

But for all, since 1897, it has denoted the gold standard of running, since for most runners at Boston the aim is not to win but rather to finish the planet’s most prestigious road race.  Crossing that line is a personal victory for all of them.

But now that finish line has been transformed. It means more than before. One churchgoer returning to one of the Copley Square churches closed off as part of the crime scene said, “Now it’s a starting line too.”

From now on, the finish line is also where the bombs went off.  Future runners will finish only by passing the two spots where three people died and more than 200 others bled.  And very likely the finish line will soon have a memorial to the victims attacked on April 15, 2013.

     For Christians, of course, the symbolic power of the finish line is nothing new, since the Apostle Paul long ago employed the image of athletic achievement to describe his own life as his and approached:

“I have fought the good fight, I have run the good race, I have kept the faith:”--2 Timothy 4:7

And Paul himself was echoing the way the prophet Isaiah viewed life’s need for strength and endurance:

“But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”--Isaiah 40:31

The stress in both images is not on competition, but on accomplishment, not on winning the race but on finishing the course, not on the contest but on the journey and its destination.

Later Christians built on these images to establish a long tradition of seeing our life as a journey.  This view evolved from seeing life as a race to the image of a pilgrimage which follows its path to its end—but the idea of the race to the finish line was never lost. 

No doubt part of the popularity of the Boston marathon lies in its power to evoke our life’s long struggle to endure all trials and overcome all obstacles until we finally arrive at our natural end.

Sometimes someone’s life actually fits this image.  When my father died last year at 94, my wife said, “He died at the end of his life”--a life that really was a long, fully lived journey to its natural finish (see CrossCurrents #370, “A Quietly Heroic Life”).

But this is not always so.  As Boston 2013 showed and life teaches, the finish line can be moved. 

Runners still on the Boston course after the bombing were stopped short of 26.2 miles.  Yet they were awarded medals for finishing, which meant that for some the finish line was Kenmore square, for others Commonwealth Ave., for others someplace further back along the course.  The finish line moved, caught them unawares, and suddenly ended their races.

The same is true in life, since for some of us the finish line of life arrives well before anyone expects.

I have already written about the child whose life was more like a sprint than the marathon, ending only eight short weeks after his birth (see CrossCurrents #378, “Precious Child”).

As I drafted this piece, another young Boston University student died in a house fire, the 11th BU student to be killed (counting the marathon victim) in the last 12 months.

And on Wednesday, April 17—two days after the bombs and 24 hours before the suspects’ images became public—another runner reached his early finish line.  Our close friends’ son Matthew Shea had suffered leg pains while running high school track; these led to a 10-year-long effort to outrun the cancer infecting his body.  Through several remissions and relapses he not only persevered but filled his life with more acts of courage, generosity, and love than many people achieve in three times his lifespan. He died at 27 knowing, as did his loved ones, that he had run the good race with steadfast hope no matter how fast his finish line was approaching.

In reality, the same is true for all of us.

We are all alike in living our lives as a journey that (for most) is more like a marathon than a sprint.  But we are all unique in that, while we all run the same race of life, each of us runs a personal race on a different personal course.  For each of us, the finish line is different.  For each of us, the finish line is a moving target.  For each of us, its final location cannot be known.  

We may pace ourselves like marathoners, looking forward to careers and vacations and children growing and marriages and grandchildren and retirement. But that is like saving enough energy to get over Heartbreak Hill and still have enough left for the last few miles to the official end of the race. The fact is that our own personal finish line may not be at the end of the official course (called “life expectancy”). For each of us, the finish line may be just round the next corner.

Yet we run on, filling our lives with as much joy and love and hope and courage as we can before our finish line arrives—and trying always to be prepared for it.

For those who died on April 15, 2013, the marathon’s finish line was their unexpected finish.  For the injured, it was a turning point; their lives are changed forever.  And for all of us, it was the reminder that none of us controls the course we run.

Six days after the Boston bombings, the London Marathon was held amid heightened security.  The runners wore black memorial ribbons and made their intentions clear: they are determined to make a show of strength in the face of violence at Boston 2014. 

So next year we can expect more runners, more wheelchair racers, more midnight cyclists, more volunteers and spectators and memorial honors.  The 118^th running of the Boston marathon may well surpass the record numbers of the 100^th running.

And for all those hundreds of thousands along the course in whatever capacity, as well as the millions watching on TV and Internet, that famous and now sacred finish line on Boylston Street will mean more than ever, especially at 2:50 PM.

Perhaps there will be some special moment of commemoration.  Perhaps the church bells will toll.  And if they do, all of us will know they toll not only for those who died, not only for those injured or traumatized, but for all of us who each day, all our lives, run toward life’s certain, sacred, but unknown finish line.

And that will be our shining moment to show that Boston has found new strength, and will not grow weary.

  © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013