Ian BoyneWE HAVE a knack in Jamaica for turning every potential solution into a problem. Against the background of unacceptably high levels of corruption, abuse of public funds, a rapid decline in standards of decency and general moral decay, a proposal to involve the clergy on state boards should be greeted with a chorus of approval.
Instead, we have spent the entire week catastrophising and devising conspiracy theories about the Talibanisation of the Jamaican state, with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller being a kind of female Ayatollah ready to impose Christian Sharia on the nation, and fatwas on those who would dare to disobey. No doubt Prime Minister Simpson Miller would have thought she would have been applauded by the country's elite and the chattering classes (she certainly is by the masses) for seeking to send a significant signal that she was serious about probity and accountability.
MORAL WISDOM
She is not naïve enough to believe that the clergy is the exclusive repository of moral wisdom or the sole guardians of public morality. She is not unaware of the many scandals in the Christian Church both here and abroad, and she must know that there are rascals among the clergy, too. But, it was not unreasonable for her to expect that commentators and others who take an interest in public discourse should see from her proposal to put pastors on state boards that she was making an important symbolic move to indicate a direction, a process, and not a destination. But, alas, it has turned out that she expected too much of those who influence public debate in the country.
Wilmot Perkins began his usual sermon on Monday morning by intoning in solemn terms about the danger of the Prime Minister's proposal. Orville Taylor on Radio Jamaica was adding his screams on the issue. Meanwhile, the Observer, not to be left out, warned in an editorial on Tuesday that "The Prime Minister, we submit, is treading on dangerous ground."
GOVERNANCE WITH RELIGION
The Gleaner was more restrained and sober in its editorial on the same day, but still felt it necessary to make the non sequitur point that "The Prime Minister needs to be careful how closely she aligns governance with religion".
Others have gone back into history to dig up atrocities committed by Christians and Muslims in their Holy Wars, attempts at forced conversions and campaigns against infidels and dissidents. Indeed, countless millions have died because of religious bigotry, hatred and persecution: an undeniable fact of history.
Besides, to this very day we see the terrors of religious extremism and barbarism in the actions of Islamic states and Islamists, and not so long ago we nessed Catholic and Protestant Christians killing one another in Northern Ireland. In addition, being so strongly influenced by the United States, we cannot help importing their own internal debate over the separation of church and state into our discussion of the Simpson Miller proposal. It's a storm in a teacup and much ado about nothing. Let's rationally and dispassionately examine the issue.
First, the concept of the separation of church and state does not mean, in its original articulation, that religion should have no influence in the public square. What it meant and ought to mean is that sectarianism, the elevation of one religion over others and the promotion of state religions, should be forbidden, for this usually involves discrimination and even persecution against secularists and people of other religious faiths.
The Puritans who fled England to establish the New Jerusalem in the United States were fleeing religious persecution and tyranny there. They worked to set up not a state with no religious influence but one which did not have a state religion and which respected freedom of conscience for every human being. There is absolutely no suggestion or indication from Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller that she intends to elevate her Pentecostal-type flavour over other religious expressions.
Indeed, she made her call for Pastors on boards at a Seventh - day Adventist church. And on that same day she gave audience to the spiritual Leader of the Nation of Islam, the Hon Louis Farrakhan. The following day she worshipped with the Pentecostals but on Monday morning she had the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston say prayers at Cabinet meeting. In her searing-in speech she called on Jamaicans to join for prayer those who worship on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You can't be more inclusive than that-for those three days cover all the religions which hold meetings in Jamaica, including the Bahais, the Hindus and the Muslims.
What we should fear is if we had any indication that she was elevating as public policy the sectarian views of any group or even imposing peculiarly Christian dogmas on the society. We have absolutely no indication that.
It is not as though the Prime Minister is going to ban carnival and Fully-Loaded on Sundays, mandate that the plazas start locking on Sundays and decree that all the go-go(exotic) clubs be closed. This will remain in a pluralistic society.
The church is the major institution in what can be called the moral sector. Because of the pressing need to emphasise enabling values and attitudes, the Prime Minister is by the symbolic action of having pastors on boards saying that ethical issues must form part of the decision-making process, just as technical and economic issues are critical.
People ask what technical or board-specific skills the Pastors would have to warrant their being on those boards. They bring a moral sensitivity and an ethical grounding to the discussion of public policy. Because of our general ignorance of philosophy, we assume that the technical, economic and business issues are value and philosophically-neutral. This is nonsense. The view that issues should only be discussed from a technical, economic and narrowly operational way is itself reflecting of a philosophical stance and is not ideologically-neutral. It masquerades as commonsensical, but the truth is, as the postmodernist philosophers insist there is no "view from nowhere", no Archimedean point. As Foucault says, we must unmask this power game disguised as unquestionable truth.
Of course, the Pastor is not the arbiter of morality and probity. You don't have to believe in God or go to church to be ethical and to be a person of probity. Boards should, as a rule, have only people of integrity and rectitude. Pastors should not have to be added for that dimension. But we have become carried away with the literalism of the issue, ignoring the powerful symbolic point which is being made by the proposed appointment of pastors. We are missing the forest for the trees, as we are wont to do in Jamaica.
Let's approach the issue another way: What is the potential harm or danger in the prime Minister's proposal? That religion would have too much influence on the state? You mean one pastor will necessarily turn a whole board into sectarian directions, overturning the civil liberties of the nation? Question: Is the appointment more likely to do more harm than good? Or is it not more likely to have a generally positive effect on public policy?
The PM has said she will involve other religions not just Christianity. But the fact is that aside from Rastafarianism all the other non-Christian religions in Jamaica are not even a blip on the radar. I say that as a journalist who has been covering religion since the 1970s.
Besides, the world religions share certain universalistic values. Indeed, they share common values with even secular humanists. What the Prime Minister is proposing is that public morality -- not specifically Christian morality-is protected by having the majority group in the moral sector in Jamaica included in public policy making. This is admirable and should be supported by all sections of the society, including agnostics and atheists. (Happily, the agnostic Anthony Abrahams has given some excellent arguments in favour of the Prime Minister's proposal).
There are certain public goods which religion can facilitate and the Prime Minister has sagaciously enlisted the majority religion to do so. Excellent.
I myself am thoroughly opposed to religious people's exercising power. Too many religious people are bigoted, prejudiced, close-minded, anti-intellectual, narrow and obscurantist. I would bitterly oppose any Christian party running on a Fundamentalist, Born again platform. These people who are taking direct commands from God can justify all manner of atrocities and evil in the name of God. Remember, in their theodicy God does not need any justification for any action He takes and if they are speaking for God neither do they! I prefer to live in a secular state rather than a Christian, Islamic or any religious state. I cherish the freedoms bequeathed by the Enlightenment.
But what Portia Simpson Miller is proposing does nothing to threaten separation of church and state or pluralism. She is simply seeing to strengthen our economic and social foundations by strengthening the influence of the moral sector. She wants to ensure that public policy is driven by larger ethical concerns, not narrow operational issues. I understand the fears of some of the objectors. But they are imposing somebody's else debate and "issues" on us.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. E-mail him at ianboyne1@yahoo.com
