I was intending to write this piece about an exciting project in Myanmar that the Global Neighbours Committee is about to begin supporting but on Wednesday last week I received an email from Oxfam.
Normally an outstanding but not always outspoken organisation, Oxfam stated that ‘the final red line has been crossed by Israel’ as a result of that country’s actions in Gaza.
On Friday listening to the news I heard UNICEF’s spokesperson James Elder, recently returned from Gaza, condemning the killing of over 400 people in the last month while queuing for food for their desperate families. People who were forced to travel to active conflict zones (where there are no medical facilities) as the only option to ward off starvation. Red is the colour of their blood.
The same news bulletin reported the actions of members of Palestine Action who had sprayed red paint onto two RAF planes as a non-violent protest against the co-operation between the UK and Israel in the war on Gaza. No one was hurt but nevertheless the action was immediately condemned by the Prime Minister and shortly after, plans to proscribe the group as a terrorist organisation were announced.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt, commenting on how evil is often accepted without dissent, pointed out that in certain circumstances many moral acts are illegal and many legal acts are a crime.
In his sermon last Sunday Richard Carter talked of ‘the red mist of destruction’ (violence) that is contrary to the heart of Christ’s teaching. Does the heart of Christ’s teaching point to those protesting in red the evils being carried out in our name or in our nation’s complicity in a modern genocide? We must think and judge for ourselves.
Jim Sikorski
