Arty highlights

A day off (apart from a meeting from 10am to 2pm regarding the process for appointing a new Dean of Bradford, followed by a trip to the best physiotherapist in the world ever…) and a moment to note the arty highlights of the last couple of weeks amid all the work stuff.

German friends sent me the new CD by a band called Silbermond. For English ears German rock is an acquired taste. Apart from Herbert Grönemeyer, who I once saw perform in Linz, Austria, not much gets me listening frequently. In a week I have listened to Silbermond's Himmel Auf a dozen times. A great female lead vocal is backed by a tight band and some effective guitar work. And the lyrics (which I have just read through) are sensitive, searching, sometimes poignant expressions of longing for depth in a superficial world. Try 'Wofür', for example. I love it.

I caught Kristina Train on the telly and loved her voice. Her new album is called Dark Black and deserves a wide hearing. Much of it seems to me to be stripped back in order to allow her voice to fill the space. Again, there is a poignant beauty to songs which are deceptively simple. And it brightens up after the opening track cheerfully declares: “Dark black is the colour of my life since you've been gone.” Lovely stuff.

Swiss friends staying with us recently left us a French DVD of a 2010 film called Little White Lies (Les petits mouchoirs). It is all about a group of friends who, when another friend is badly hurt in a road accident, discover how shallow their relationships actually are. What appears to be strong only conceals the realities each one is afraid to reveal, thereby putting a question mark over the reality of love, trust and friendship. It is funny, sad, entertaining… and features the excellent Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose, Inception) and Jean Dujardin (The Artist).

Books? Still reading Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies alongside Verstehen Sie das, Herr Schmidt? – a book of informal interviews with former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Loving both.

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The tribalism of others

The great thing about spending a week in Southwestern Virginia before the annual Council is that we got to meet a shed load of people and arrived at the Council already knowing many new friends. It also means that people trust me enough not to be perturbed when they come across something that surprises them.

Someone who heard me preach last Sunday morning at St Peter, Altavista, subsequently took a look at this blog. Down at the bottom were attachments – usually just the pictures I had embedded in the post. However, this one also seemed to have two (and I quote) “compromising pictures” attached. I have no idea what this means or where they came from. Furthermore, I can’t see them – but, clearly, others have. Funny old world… and now I am curious.

Anyway, the day began with a meeting with clergy and spouses from the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia. Four of us formed a panel: a retired bishop from Tanzania, exiled Bishop Andudu from Kadugli in Sudan, Angela Ifill who works with the office of the Presiding Bishop in New York City, and me. We each introduced ourselves, said a bit about our ministry, then were open to question.

Most of the questions focused on the situation in Sudan and Andudu was excellent. However, towards the end of the session someone asked about tribalism in Sudan and which elements of the conflict there have to do with race or religion. This led into a fascinating conversation about ‘tribalism’, during which I rehearsed the perceptive Helmut Schmidt encouragement to German politicians: don’t go into politics unless you speak at least two foreign languages to a competent level. Why not? Because in order to understand your own culture you need to look through the lens of another culture… and to do that you need to know something of that other culture’s language.

And how was that relevant to questions of tribalism in Sudan? Well, simply because, as I pointed out, tribalism is a human phenomenon and not an African one. A week in the USA (and Virginia in particular) makes it blindingly obvious to an outsider that even Americans are tribal. Mention the ‘recent unpleasantness’ (the Civil War to you and me) and you quickly see who is in which ‘tribe’. Loyal identification with one’s state also tells its own story. I also added that, as a good Brit, I know all about tribalism in the UK, in England and in any institution. (Although it was both undiplomatic and unnecessary for someone to ask if Liverpool fan’s attitude to Manchester United was another example…)

The point (which was followed up by a number of people afterwards) was that we easily identify the weaknesses, factionalisms and myopic loyalties of others whilst being unaware of our own. Something reminds me here of what someone once said about ‘planks and motes’…

But, being enabled to look at oneself through the lens of another is a complete gift and privilege. Being here in Roanoke offers not only an experience of another culture and another church, but also compels me to look though the eyes of interlocutors here at myself and my own culture. It isn’t always comfortable.

As Bishop Gerrard from Tanzania put it: “We don’t necessarily agree with each other on a host of issues, but we are friends… and that is why we are here.” That is maturity. We recognise our tribalisms, but our unity (as Christians and as human beings) transcends the identified and owned differences and prejudices.

And if this post is accompanied by ‘compromising pictures’, it has nothing to do with me.

 

 

Deplorable language

The Meissen Commission finished its five-year work period on Monday and our report will now be completed and published in due course. The new Commission will begin work in the new year, completing its work in 2016 – leading into Germany’s Reformation Year, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017.

In a podcast recorded at the German Embassy last Thursday evening I referred to the deplorable state of language teaching and learning in England. This was picked up by several newspapers and has gained some wider comment.

In fact, I wasn’t criticising teachers. Language teaching in our schools is heroic. But, many teachers feel they are fighting a losing battle against cultural and political forces that are rooted in an island mentality. We might understand the emphasis on science and technology in schools, but the relegation of language learning to a not-very-enthusiastically-encouraged poor option says much about the British understanding of identity, communication and business.

First, language learning is essential to a good and broad education. Simply to be able to read or listen in one’s own language is severely limiting to potential. As Helmut Schmidt wrote in his marvellous book Ausser Dienst, no politician should think of entering the Bundestag (Parliament) unless they speak at least two foreign languages to a competent degree. Why? Because, says Schmidt, you can’t understand your own culture unless you have looked at it through the eyes of another culture. And, to do that, you have to know something of the other language.

I said this to Ken Livingstone in a television studio last year and he laughed and said that we wouldn’t have any politicians in the UK. I thought that spoke volumes.

Second, we are disadvantaged in the business world with which we seem in this country to be obsessed. As I said in the podcast, business isn’t all done in English over the table; the real stuff goes on behind your back and if you can’t understand what they’re saying privately, you’re stuffed. It is appalling that we produce so few professional linguists, but – more seriously – we don’t produce ordinary business people who can cope with a foreign language.

Third, we Brits seem to find language learning too hard. Yet, we have Asian kids in our schools who move easily and unselfconsciously between two, three or four languages.

Fourth, we have a political class that is narrowly focused on an economic prejudice that concentrates on technique and technology as if they could stand independently of wider linguistic, communication or cultural factors. Language learning is being presented as less important than other studies, ignoring the importance not only of ‘knowing stuff’, but also ‘being able to communicate it’.

This isn’t special pleading by a one-time linguist. It stands for itself as an important cultural deficit in England. And, not only are we depriving our own children and young people of a vital dimension of human living, but also we are shrinking the cohort of potential language teachers for future generations.

It is serious and needs some intelligent attention.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Bradford

 

The moderation of rhetoric

One of the reasons time has been too short for decent blogging (or, for that matter, indecent blogging) is my having taken on too many speaking engagements which required proper preparation. One of them was a contribution to a multidisciplinary conference on The Rhetorics of Moderation at the University of Huddersfield last night. I had been invited to deliver a keynote address at the final conference of a three-year project initiated by the Universities of Nottingham, Edinburgh and Huddersfield.

The draft text (not quite as delivered) is available on the Bradford diocesan website. But I will try to sum up the key bits here and see what sort (if any) of response it gets.

When I (finally) agreed to do this gig I wasn’t sure what the title of the series really meant: ‘The Rhetorics of Moderation’. I initially wondered if it might be an academic conference on how to talk about exam invigilation – clearly misunderstanding both ‘rhetoric’ and ‘moderation’. But, I eventually offered the title The Moderation of Rhetoric, so I could bang on about ‘language’ again. As a non-academic it is always a little intimidating going into such a context, but everyone was kind and the conversation was, I thought, quite stimulating.

My basic point – developing Helmut Schmidt’s argument (in Außer Dienst) that in order to understand your own culture you have to look at it through the lens of a different culture… and you can only do that if you understand something of the other language – was simple: language shapes both thought and behaviour. Therefore, language (or rhetoric) is not neutral. As  put it in my introduction:

So, my simple contention here is that language matters – that before reflecting on the ‘rhetorics of moderation’, we need to pay attention to the moderation of rhetoric and the ways in which we use language in our common human discourses in a complicated globalised world.

It is essential for good public discourse that interlocutors learn the language of ‘the other’ in order (a) to understand, (b) to know how to respond, (c) to see how this response will be heard and understood by ‘the other’, and (d) to keep the conversation going. This point is helpfully addressed by Rowan Williams in his brilliant book on Dostoyevsky where he writes about the corruption of language. Here are a couple of quotes from the Introduction to the book:

The novels [of Dostoyevsky] ask us, in effect, whether we can imagine a human community of language and feeling in which, even if we were incapable of fully realizing it, we knew what was due to each other; whether we could imagine living in the consciousness of a solidity or depth in each other which no amount of failure, suffering or desolation could eradicate.

[Dostoyevsky as narrator] sees language itself as the indisputable marker of freedom: confronted with what seeks to close down exchange or conflict, we discover that we can always say more… When we have nothing with which to engage, we stop speaking and stop developing.

Williams goes on to tie language and freedom to a responsive experience of ‘otherness’ and he challenges the Hegelian ‘freedom of the void’ – that is, as Williams puts it:

…the dream of a liberty completely without constraint from any other, human, subhuman or divine; because it has no “other”, it can also have no content. But this means that the hunger for such freedom can only manifest itself in destruction, flinging itself against existing limits… …the Dostoevskian novel is… an exercise in resisting the demonic and rescuing language.

So, Williams takes from Dostoyevsky the notion that language is not neutral, that human beings use language to close down or open up relationship, that language is the key to and fundamental expression of freedom… and that when we reach the end of ‘having something more to say’, we have constrained genuine freedom and closed down the possibility of development or coexistence. (Perhaps this also explains his approach to those contentious issues in the Anglican Communion where people want to close down conversation and force a conclusion that saves them from the pain of engaging with ‘the other’.)

I took from this that “we might derive the imperative (for human flourishing in a good society) of human beings and human communities learning the languages of ‘the other’, not as a virtuous end in itself, or even an altruistic means of keeping a relationship going, (or even for knowing which beer to order on holiday), but as a non-negotiable and essential feature of human freedom and dignity. We have to be multilingual (in the sense of paying attention to and learning to understand what is both being said and what is being heard) in order to survive, but also in order to thrive and enable ‘the other’ to thrive in a way that guarantees mutual flourishing. In other words, language at the very least provides the space in which relationship and responsibility can grow.”

I went on to illustrate (from personal experience of media, social media and interfaith dialogue) the importance of getting the language right. It won’t come as any surprise to readers of this blog that my unease with some of our media language got a run-around again. Not only do I think a strong democracy demands a strong, informed, intelligent and independent press, but I also think that those who hold the rest of us to account should themselves be held to account for the professionalism (or lack of it) with which they operate.

Finding people who have learned how to think about how to think – or how we know that we know what we know (epistemology, if you want the posh word) – is clearly becoming more rare. It is trivial engagement in creating conflict that drives the media agenda. Of course there are exceptions to this, but it is hard to pretend that democracy is served by what we are currently served up. The point is, however, that those who use language to persuade, influence and inform also need to be held to account for how they manipulate the powerful tool at their disposal.

My fear here is that the crass diminution of encouragement of and support for arts, humanities and social sciences in both school and university means that not only are we creating a culture that values mechanics, but doesn’t do ‘deep’ thinking. Not only are we in danger of depriving the current generation, but we are cutting off the expertise and enthusiasms we need for a future generation of teachers. We can lose in one generation what will take several generations (at least) to recover. To see the arts and humanities as ‘unproductive’ in terms of balance sheet bottom lines is more than myopic; it is dangerously and narrowly stupid.

My conclusion was not very startling:

If we take social cohesion seriously, we must pay attention to the language we use. Our rhetoric needs to be moderated, challenged, thought through. This is not pedantry or a form of distraction therapy; language shapes behaviour and shapes the lens through which different people see differently the different worlds within which we live. The diminution of attention to language – now seen in the paucity of language teaching and learning, the demotion of arts and humanities, does not augur well for having good public moderators of rhetoric in the decades to come. But the task will not go away.

It is worth considering that I delivered this address (and discussed questions arising from it in a stimulating Q & A session afterwards) immediately after visiting a Church of England primary school. The school serves one of the most challenging and deprived communities in Bradford and is outstanding in all respects. Contrary to the sloppy reporting in the media about ‘faith schools’ – either ignorant of or deliberately disregarding of the distinction between ‘faith schools’ and ‘church schools’ – this school works wonders for families, local communities and commands the determined loyalty of staff and governors. The headteacher told me she didn’t want moderately interested or interesting teachers or visitors to the school; she wants people who are passionate about what they do, how they think and what they believe. This school would be an inconvenient embarrassement to those who wish to pretend that church schools are divisive, privileged, sectarian or damaging.

Here again, the language is crucial.

 

Learning history

I don’t know why I should be so pleased, but the exit of both France and Italy from the World Cup is strangely cheering. No idea why – I like the French and the Italians. Maybe it is just the confounding of expectations or hubris that warms the English heart. Unless we are next, of course.

But, with a quarter-final battle with Germany ahead on Sunday, we can look ahead with depression to the singing by the English of such poetic epics as “Two World Wars and one World Cup, na na na na na…” There is something weird about the British obsession with the Second World War – as if it was the last ‘competition’ we won. A selective Hollywood-backed romantic remembering doesn’t help, but the problem goes deeper than that.

My younger son has just graduated (I hope…) in History and Politics at the University of Liverpool. Before he got there he seemed to exploit the preoccupation of every History syllabus at every school level with options to study Hitler and Stalin. Ask any reasonably educated kid in England about German history or culture and most will know little or nothing before 1933 (plus, maybe, the origins of fascism from 1918) – and certainly little or nothing after 1945.

OK, it isn’t hard to see the attraction of focusing on the dramatic, the catastrophic and the uniquely enormous human cost of Hitler’s adventures, but it has its dangers. Germany’s post-war history has been equally interesting and evokes admiration at the overcoming of cataclysmic defeat and humiliation. Yes, there are people who will never forgive the Germans and who will resent their reconstruction and reunification; but, Germany’s post-war division and subsequent reunification present important and instructive material for understanding the modern world (which is, I suppose, partly the point of studying history in the first place). Not least, the reconciliation in Europe led by French moves towards Germany is a story rarely told and little appreciated.

Helmut Schmidt addresses from a German perspective the problem of focusing too much on 1933-1945. In his wonderful book Ausser Dienst: Eine Bilanz, he gives specific attention to the problem of modern German history in a chapter headed Die schwerste Hypothek (in a section on the lessons of history titled Es gab nicht nur die Nazi-Zeit). Having briefly and lucidly described what it was like to be German in the post-war years (individually and collectively trying to understand and cope with both individual and collective guilt), he writes about the paralysis and fear of change that characterised the German psyche:

The more we limit our historical consciousness to the Nazi period, the failure of the Weimar experiment in democracy, Hitler’s instigation of the Second World War (with its catastrophic consequences), and the more we concentrate on the Holocaust and the other crimes of the Nazi era, the more strongly we Germans react with nervousness and even fear to changes.

He goes on to illustrate his point, observing that post-war Germans always feared ‘the return of fascism’. He then goes on to say:

I doubt that it is right or sensible to focus school and university teaching on the Nazi era; on the contrary, I think this sort of education is actually harmful. Concentration on the twelve year Nazi dictatorship leads to neglect of other periods of German history. Above all, however, it conveys the impression – however unintended –  to our young people that prior to and subsequent to the Nazis everything was relatively unproblematic here. In fact, the ideological ground was laid a long time before 1933. For generations education had messed up: particularly education about the value and freedom of the individual person, about humanity and about democracy.

Schmidt is not saying that the horrors of the Nazi era shouldn’t be taught, but that they shouldn’t be taught in isolation from other parts of German history. If we are to understand the Germany of today and tomorrow, we must do so with reference to more than just Hitler.

What this really says, therefore, is that any History syllabus must be rigorously tested in order to demonstrate that it is truly about helping students understand and not simply reinforcing some convenient stereotype or prejudice about other people. For this reason the Meissen English Committee of the Church of England (which I chair in conjunction with the German Committee chaired by the Bishop of Braunschweig, Dr Friedrich Weber) is looking at doing some research into the teaching of German history in English schools.

Our concern is not, however, simply about history – it is about the desperate drop in language learning in England, especially German. How is it possible that in today’s world the learning of foreign languages is so dismissed and undervalued in Britain? The only conclusion I can come to is twofold: (a) that we are so arrogant as to assume that everyone else will speak English, and (b) that we do not understand Schmidt’s point that we cannot know our own culture unless we see it through the eyes of a different culture… which means knowing something of the other language.

It’s a bit like our football: we keep hoping that England is the best team in the world… and are always disappointed to find that our pride actually lies in a romanticised past which we are unable to surrender to contemporary reality.

I filmed an interview today for the German TV channel ARD. As usual, the Germans spoke perfect English. Most German fans watching tomorrow’s game will understand everything the English sing. The same will not be true of English supporters. And that is not a cause of pride – whoever wins.

 

Do I agree with Nick?

I guess it depends which Nick we are talking about…

Well, Nick Clegg has changed British politics for ever (according to the newspapers). It’s a bit ironic that the Tories are calling for ‘a change’, but obviously didn’t expect the people to be offered a real change. And, while we are at it, how did they come up with such a contentless slogan – Vote for Change – as if change of itself was a good thing? I always thought that change for the sake of change was unwise.

Meanwhile Labour have sunk into third place, yet Brown is playing the ‘Don’t Change – it’s too risky’ card at the same time as saying that lots of things require urgent and radical change… such as politics and the economy.

But both parties seem to be missing the mark in attacking the Liberal Democrats on the basis of their policies when what is evident is that post-debate Cleggmania has caught a mood – one in which people might prefer a risk and a change just to get away from the old ‘slagging off the opposition’ politics. (I also wonder if it is wise for the politicians to use the language of fear on people who have been living through the banking collapse, a prolonged recession, the threat of climate change and now a nuisance volcano stopping air travel… and yet are still here. Has the elctorate been ‘feared out’ and is now responding to the offer of some positive ‘hope’?)

I have to admit a respect for Clegg, but for an unusual (and probably unpopular) reason. I have written before about Helmut Schmidt‘s belief that no politician should enter Parliament if they don’t speak at least two foreign languages. The 91 year old former German Bundeskanzler says this in his wonderful book Ausser Dienst. His point is that we can only really understand our own culture if we first have looked at it through the lens of another culture. In an earlier post I wrote:

To learn a language is to enter beneath the surface of a people, their history and their culture. It is necessary to learn a language in order to understand how relatively limited is your own culture and understanding of the world.

Nick Clegg speaks fluent Spanish and – apparently – several other languages. This inevitably gives him a cultural and intellectual ‘hinterland’ which will make him more interesting than those who only know English (as a language) and Britain (as a place to live). As Brown becomes more gravely authoritative and Cameron sounds more shrill and hectoring, Clegg might just want to express some breadth and depth.

I know that correlations don’t make for explanations, but I do wonder if Clegg might just offer what people want – just as the other leaders are looking and sounding ‘old’.

Mind you, I still haven’t decided which way I will vote on 6 May. I know which ways I will not be voting. But an election that made me yawn at the beginning has now come alive. And it is possible that the real bonus of a potentially higher turnout than was originally feared will be the marginalisation of the extremist parties (who do well when moderate voters stay at home).

 

Toilet tissue politics

When I was working as a Russian linguist during the Cold war, the joke was that most Russians valued Pravda not for its news coverage, but because it served as good toilet paper during the endless shortages of the real thing. This value was enhanced by the prominence in each edition of a large photograph of the current glorious leader set amid his latest interminable speech. It might have been a joke to us, but it was actually true.

I was reminded of this while reading an interview with Helmut Schmidt (again… I can’t shake the man off). Asked about his experience of hunger during the war years, he says (roughly translated):

Yes, God knows I experienced hunger. It was during the war in Russia, but then particularly during the post-war years – the worst being a prisoner of war. The English had nothing to eat – they hadn’t reckoned on such huge numbers of prisoners of war. The only thing they had was loo paper. But, because we got nothing to eat, we didn’t need the paper.

I’m not quite sure how this relates to politics, but I have a feeling it does.

This week we have been subjected to the shameful farce about Lord Ashcroft and the evasion of Tory leaders in addressing legitimate questions from a legitimately concerned public and media. (‘Legitimate’ because Lord Ashcroft stands accused of buying the electorate in marginal seats by pouring money into the Conservative campaigns there.)

Then we had Gordon Brown appearing before the Chilcot Inquiry and dancing delicately between past loyalties and future power. No one will be satisfied with him whatever he says – and it comes as little surprise that the public seems to be voicing a hunger for some truth-telling in the face of an over-abundance of irrelevant or seemingly self-serving verbiage.

I wanted to reach for the tissue while listening to the various responses to the return of Jon Venables to prison, having breached the terms of his release on licence.I remain puzzled as to (a) why the public needs to know what he has now done, (b) how the public will benefit from such knowledge and (c) why we assume that such knowledge will contribute to the common good of society. I hear the scream for blood very clearly and I recognise the voyeurism that we both gorge on and get fed. But, I have heard no reasonable account of why we should know anything other than that the processes of law are being followed in the interests of society and Venables. (I understand the response of his mother, but are we to be consistent and let every victim of every crime shape the future of the criminal involved? Think through the consequences…)

So, I am not sure we are getting fed very well. But we are certainly getting through a lot of paper.

 

Education, language and failure

Meeting Archbishop Elias Chacour again last week at his home in Haifa, I was reminded about his ability to speak eleven languages. He frequently questions those people who claim to be unable (or unwilling) to learn the language of someone else. His main reason is that the inability to speak (or at least understand) more than your own native language imprisons you from the richness of seeing through other eyes and thinking through other minds. It is diminishing. In Israel-Palestine it becomes a matter of life and death.

This is not new. I have written before about Helmut Schmidt‘s call to (German) politicians to have at least two foreign languages in their skill bank. When I mentioned this to Ken Livingstone (former Mayor of London) in a television studio in December, he laughed and said that we would have no politicians in Parliament if this was enforced. This is funny – but it is also disastrous.

I studied German and French at the University of Bradford from 1976-1980. Bradford was leading the way in a degree that put heavy emphasis on the spoken language, translation and interpreting. But it was made clear to new students on day one that there is no point being able to speak a language if you have nothing to say in it. It was an excellent and demanding course and one I was not very good at: unlike some of my colleagues, I was never a natural linguist and had to work hard at it, often with not much confidence.

Yesterday I discovered that the University of Bradford has discontinued both its undergraduate courses in Modern Languages and its postgraduate course in Interpreting and Translating. The reason? Not enough young people are learning foreign languages or wanting to study them at university level. To make matters worse, I was told recently that the EU in Brussels is now having to employ non-native English linguists as interpreters (you always work into your own language) because of the lack of suitably qualified linguists from the UK.

This is dire, short-sighted and in need of serious challenge. Even being pragmatic about it, the inability of British people to speak foreign languages already disadvantages them in a globalising economy. Yet, successive governments have put little emphasis on language-learning and now relegate it to the ‘not-very-important’ slot in the curriculum.

Contrast this with the remarkable address given by JK Rowling to academics, parents and graduating students at Harvard in which she addresses ‘failure’ and ‘imagination’ in an example of excellent communication, superb writing and intelligent reflection.

 

Leadership and real moral issues

The great German weekly newspaper Die Zeit leads this week with two articles placed side by side. The first has to do with the current problems between the governing coalition partners and the apparent lack of leadership from the Bundeskanzlerin, Angela Merkel; the second is about the hidden power of Google. At first I wondered why they had been put together on the front page, but then I began to understand.

There is a bit of a crisis in Germany over how the Schwarz-Gelb (conservative-liberal) coalition can hold together. They are arguing about everything and a crisis summit is about to take place. However, the real pressure is on Angela Merkel who has remained remarkably quiet and ‘absent’ in recent weeks while the arguments raged around her. It is her leadership style that is now in question.

Merkel’s ‘reserved’ style was welcome after Germany’s electorate had grown fed up of years of endless conflict and controversy. But, as the world around has changed in the last couple of years, this style of leadership has (according to some commentators) led to a vacuum in orientation or leadership of the governing class. What was appropriate in the last Great Coalition is proving inadequate in the new coalition in which the two small parties (CSU and FDP) are at odds with each other and are not being brought to book.

Furthermore, Merkel’s style was helpful in her other role as leader of her party, the CDU. She faces the same problem as David Cameron in the UK: how do you modernise a conservative party without alienating your reactionary core and still remain electable as a coherent party? Quietly-quietly served her well in the last government, but it is coming apart now.

Obviously more could be said about this, but I want to move on. Leadership is a tough matter at the best of times and any leader knows how fickle the ‘led’ can be: waving in support one minute and calling for your head the next. Short-term memories on the part of the electorate do not always lead to good policy-making by those in charge. But Merkel’s plight (which Die Zeit partly attributes to her hands-off approach to the detailed negotiations of the coalition terms) highlights a problem for good leadership anywhere: how to recognise that a different style is now needed and to gauge whether or not I am equipped to offer it.

I have written about this in relation to the Archbishop of Canterbury, so won’t repeat it here. But, leadership is a lonely business, especially when trying to lead at the same time as ‘read the runes’ of the wider mood.

And how does this connect with Google? Well, the article about Google articulates a widespread concern in Germany (Der Spiegel ran it as its cover story last week) that Google knows too much about us all and that this is dangerous. This debate has been running in the UK, too, but it is set against a historical backdrop in Germany that gives it a particular significance if not poignancy. (Interestingly, Spiegel is also suspicious about Google’s weak challenge to the Chinese…)

The link between the two articles (in my mind, at least) is this: how do leaders identify the really important issues that demand their attention? Helmut Schmidt has this week noted the return of the bonus culture amongst bankers and said that the seeds of the next financial crisis have been sown in thsi one because we understand more, but refuse to face the need for radical change. So, the financial crisis is up their with bankers’ bonuses. Then there are the economic and ecological challenges to our world and our societies. There is no end to the list of demanding ‘issues’ – and, as I have observed elsewhere, leaders are regarded as ‘leading’ only when they are shouting loudly what ‘I’ want to hear them say.

While Merkel and other government leaders (including in the UK) find all sorts of issues to concern them and dominate their agendas, there is one that seems to draw attention only from sections of the media and interest groups: the surveillance culture. Even the Church preoccupies itself with a limited list of ‘moral issues’ - sex is always at the top despite Jesus saying little about it; money is much lower down although Jesus said loads about it – while ignoring the tough ones that are more hidden.

Well, I want to stand with the editors of Die Zeit (whether they intended the link or not) and put a challenge to government (and other) leaders to take seriously developments in our surveillance society and put it higher up the list of ‘moral issues’ that demand attention. In the hands of a benign government there might be little to lose from being ‘watched’; but the potential for misuse of information is enormous even in such a society as ours.

So, how about some leadership in relation to the UK government’s will to retain email and mobile information, to collect and retain DNA samples from everybody imaginable, to photograph people in London over 300 times a day from ubiquitous cameras, and to retain as much information on everybody in as compact a manner as possible? Given the interconnectedness of the modern digital world and the propensity of human beings to misuse power in the interests of power, this is a debate that needs to be had now.

 

Age shall not wither them

I spent last night as part of a transient multinational and multilingual community that seemed to be a metaphor for the modern world.

Fearful of missing a flight because of worrying weather forecasts, I got to Stansted Airport in the evening and waited there for ten hours. There were a lot of us there and people got on with sleeping, chatting, avoiding, drinking and reading along with a group of people they will probably never encounter again. We glanced off each other for several hours and then dispersed around the globe, engaging in different relationships and networks in every place imaginable. There were some nice people – and some worth avoiding. Which is probably what some were thinking of me…

In the event, everything went smoothly and I eventually arrived in the south of Germany (Bodensee) around lunchtime. Having settled in to the apartment (being generously loaned to me by friends), I switched on the telly to get listening to some German and up popped Helmut Schmidt.

Schmidt was 91 years old in December and was being interviewed by two Swiss journalists. He was in a wheelchair and chain-smoked throughout the interview, coughing as if about to expire at any moment – as he has done for the last 80-odd years. What caught my attention in this interesting interview was his observations on two matters:

a. Asked what were the most threatening issues facing humanity today, he mentioned ‘global warming’, but then went on at length about the ‘over-population of the earth’. He bemoaned the decline in European populations and commented that the world’s population has grown by over 400% in the last century whereas the surface of the earth has not increased to contain them. (And we have to remember that the last century saw ‘Progress’ lead to the deaths in war and genocide of 100 million (?) people.) Asked whether migration should be encouraged to help make Europe work and pay for the care of its increasingly elderly people, he unhesitatingly declined, claiming this was to fiddle with symptoms without tackling the main and findamental problem of over-population.

I might have read too much into his considered responses, but it occurred to me that ‘climate change’ is becoming the easier debate in which to engage. The changing weather systems make it easy to talk about climate change (whatever we attribute it to in the end) and comment/debate is to be found everywhere: in the pub, in every newspaper and magazine, at scientific conferences and in religious/theological pronouncements.

However, and by comparison, there is an almost deafening silence about population control. Why?

Maybe it is because it is simply too difficult. As soon as anyone begins to think aloud about population issues, we are plunged into dangerous territory in which monsters such as eugenics, racism, cultural imperialism and other horrors raise their terrifying heads. How do we go about even thinking about encouraging some people to have fewer children and others to have more – in order to keep a balance across the world?

If you think this is just a simple matter of persuasion, then let me know what response you get from the Pope when you suggest to him that condoms might not only cut down the incidence of AIDS in Africa and elsewhere, but also encourage responsible birth control. The issues are immensely complicated and even a mature discussion about such matters is almost impossible in the public arena (let alone the Church) because of the real fear of what ‘ism’-accusations will come your way.

One conundrum is this: if we encourage restricted population growth in Europe, the number of Europeans will drop in relation to the ever-expanding numbers of Africans and Asians. So, the desire to keep an ‘ethnic’ balance (by encouraging white Europeans – in particular – to breed) will contribute to the further over-population of the earth and generate even more problems of human sustainability. And that’s just a starter for ten…

The complexity of this one leads me to Schmidt’s second observation:

(b) Age might bring wisdom to some people, but it is bringing senility to many more. This is one more of the weird contradictions of modern life: we can abort babies older than others we keep alive (using technological medical advances) and we keep people alive for longer than perhaps their body/mind can sustain meaningful life. Technology drives and morality follows behind, trying desperately to make sense of it all.

Schmidt was making the point that over-population of the world as a whole accompanies under-population in Europe (particularly) – where the existing population is ageing and declining without a following generation capable of sustaining their lifestyle, material comfort and mental health.

To use President Obama’s phrase when he spoke of the recent failure of the US intelligence community to contain a potential plane bomber, we are just not joining the dots between these unprecedented human challenges: population, migration, technology and ethics.

Age has not withered Helmut Schmidt. He still has that uncanny knack of clever old people to speak clearly and without sentiment, knowing his days are numbered, but unafraid to name the issues.