Compassion, the Charter, and some examples.

By Ken Russell in Articles

Ken provides some examples of Compassion -- or lack of it.

Being described by the 45,000-plus people around the planet who have so far signed it in its internet format as the "best idea that humanity ever had," I committed myself a few weeks ago to use this column to promote THE CHARTER FOR COMPASSION. The Charter itself appears elsewhere on this website.

The Charter began as an idea promoted by former Catholic nun, and now celebrated British theologian and author Karen Armstrong. The idea took shape when selected for the Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) prize, 2008, and unveiled before a large audience in Washington DC on Nov 12, 2009. Armstrong says, "All the great traditions are saying the same thing in much the same way, despite their surface differences." They each have in common an emphasis on the transcendent importance of compassion, as epitomized in the so-called Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

On the day I write this I have become signatory No. 45465, following the example of at least 1000 prominent religious leaders from the three great Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
So much for introduction. This column was set up to make CONNECTIONS, and with that in mind I cite 4 unrelated examples from a very wide perspective where COMPASSION, or the lack of it, was decisive, in its human impact.

-- 40 YEARS AGO. Perhaps you listened to the recent hour-long Kim Hill interview on Radio NZ with Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame. It was magnetic, reviving memories of a history changing drama from the Vietnam war years. The revelations of Ellsberg, former US Marine come investigative journalist with the NY Times and Washington Post, showed up President Richard Nixon and his administration as having systematically lied to the American people about the war and his knowledge of the Watergate break-in. As a result, Nixon was impeached and left office in shame. All that is a matter of record. What Ellsberg did with Hill was provide the perspective of some 40 years from those events, and some insights into the man who must rate as one of the best known, and most successful whistle-blowers of all time. So why is the Ellsberg testimony cited here? Simply for the reason that Ellsberg himself made the observation that from the Nixon tapes the people caught a glimpse of the sheer malice of the man elected to the presidency, his utter disdain for the Vietnamese people, in his view totally expendable gooks, and his cynical denigration of every world view but his own. Seized by order of the Supreme Court those tapes were a moral indictment of the soul of the presidency, the total lack of compassion or sympathy for the millions of innocent asian civilians caught in the net of a violent conspiracy over power and influence. The question is whether the Nixon legacy of such malevolence to people of other cultures passed with him? Sadly, subsequent decades have suggested otherwise.

-- LAST WEEK The administration of world cricket is said to be in crisis following the rejection of the nomination of former Australian PM John Howard as Vice President of the ICC, stepping stone to his being President one year later. Australia, England and New Zealand, who sponsored his nomination are said to be indignant, and Howard himself, pugnacious as ever, is refusing to back down. The Howard nomination was given a blanket rejection by all the Asian/African nations, themselves the real power of cricket today - India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, West Indies, South Africa. And why? Because Howard in his long reign as the face of Australia consistently demonstrated the opposite of compassion. He opposed anti apartheid boycotts, he dealt ruthlessly with boat people fleeing oppressive regimes, he supported America in Iraq, and he was heartless in refusing to apologise to the 'stolen generation' in his own land. What goes around comes around. Neither Australian Cricket, nor Mr Howard himself, should wonder that those who have suffered the rough end of oppression and intolerance invoke bitter memories of bullying and intolerance and respond accordingly. If nothing else as East and West continue to face each other across the global divide, can we realistically hope for western leaders more in tune with the softer, more compassionate heart of the great Eastern bloc?

-- CLOSER TO HOME. An elderly parishioner, for whom I have the highest regard, has allowed me the privilege of visiting his wife in the safe haven of her secure rest home. She suffers alzheimer's. On the occasion of a pastoral visit, he shared his observations on the care offered to his loved one. The staff of the home, he said, are a virtual united nations, women, mainly, of mixed ethnicity, some of longer and some of shorter tenure, some trained and some not for the exacting care required. But his conclusion was what interested me. It is those of asian race, regardless of all other factors including religion, who offer the compassion, the tenderness, the patience, he covets for his wife and others in the home.

-- FROM SOUTH AFRICA, ITS CUP RUNNETH OVER. The Washington Post of June 10 carried an article by Rev Peter Storey, former Methodist Bishop in South Africa, veteran of 38 years of ministry during the anti apartheid struggle and since. He is a committed peacemaker who helped select the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and now a professor at Duke Divinity School. With Karen Armstrong he was one of the architects of the Charter for Compassion. Writing as a South African he relates the Charter to the conflicting influences currently in his homeland - on one hand the stimulus and inspiration of hosting the World Cup, the opening up of South Africa to the highest ideals of multinational sport; and on the other, the huge pressures of an unemployment rate of 25%, four million Zimbabweans who have fled Mugabe, and a blundering xenophobic President Zuma, flaunting his Zulu tribalism. Out of the midst of all of these he tells his American readers of the launch of the Charter of Compassion plaque in Cape Town by Archbiship Desmond Tutu just before the World Cup got under way. It is a moving article. The full version is on the Charter website. I close with Peter Storey's powerful anecdote from WW2. He tells of Dutch Rabbi Awraham Soeterdorp, a babe in arms when his Jewish family was loaded on to a train headed for the Nazi death camps. His mother pleaded with an SS Officer to let her give her child to a Gentile woman standing by, and inexplicably, he permitted it. "I am alive because for a moment, an SS Officer's heart was touched by looking into the face of a Jewish baby," he said. "There is compassion somewhere in everyone. We must awaken it."
Yes, indeed!
-- Ken Russell.

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish weekly bulletin, July 11, 2010.