Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/astallybrass/)
As controversy continues over the undeclared Swiss bank accounts of leading French and German public figures, it is nice for us to be able to show that many Swiss share a concern for ethical standards and a longing for greater transparency and accountability. So the search for a better way is on. And perhaps part of the answer both for capitalism and democracy lies in the recognition of the fact that both are eternally perfectible systems.
And if the office, the function, is indeed important, as arguably both the papacy and the British crown and the Venezuelan state are, then surely they need office holders in good health? Should not term limits apply to all? So thank you, Benedict, for freeing all your successors from this chain of office, for offering them and yourself an honourable rest. Long may the world benefit from the prayers that you have promised to offer from your retirement.
It is right that we should be stirred by the deaths of 22 children and six adults. But what about the hundreds and thousands of young and not so young victims further away, and far from the reach of our media?
Tunisia has just held the first free elections of the Arab Spring, nine months after the fall of former President Zinedine el Abidine Ben Ali. There are also feverish meetings, summits galore in Brussels and elsewhere to save the Euro. Then there are the questions around Col Muammar Gaddafi’s death. I guess news in the US is headed by President Obama’s announcement that the last American soldiers will leave Iraq by the end of this year, drawing to a close an eight-year war that cost the lives of more than 4,400 US troops. Over 10,000 Iraqi troops and police, and well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians.
The dance of time: quick time, slow time; quick, quick, slow. I’m fascinated by the times of history. Evil usually takes time to prepare and to grow, but then often only instants, minutes to inflict, and then again a lifetime or more to heal. This seems to be part of the tragic of human nature and human existence. A massacre, rape, violence, horror in all its many forms…
There’s a lively debate among experts in the field of paleo-anthropology about intriguing signs of ‘compassion’ among our distant ancestors. Compassion: ‘A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.’ Based on old bones and burial sites, there seems to be some evidence not just respect for the dead, but respect for the living. Shanidar Cave is an archaeological site in the Zagros Mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan (in northern Iraq). It was excavated between 1957-1961 by Ralph Solecki and his team from Columbia University and yielded the first adult Neanderthal skeletons in Iraq, dating between 60-80,000 years ago.
We Europeans find a lot of news of the United States in our media. Many of us follow with interest, much puzzlement and relatively little understanding of the posturing, the insults, the exaggerations. Obama doesn’t look much like a socialist to us… But I was hurt the other day by the nameless Republican figure who sneered that Obama was trying to make the US more like Europe – but that Europe was 20 years behind. Behind what?
In many countries, the concern is to get away from Presidents for life, from power-hungry politicians changing constitutions to allow incumbents to have another term, bending the rules to stay in power. Here in Switzerland, the government ministers take it in turns to act as President. So probably a pretty shocking percentage of Swiss would not be able to tell who this year’s President is! The President’s responsibilities and powers mainly involve chairing the meetings of the coalition government that includes all the largest parties represented in Parliament, and welcoming foreign heads of state and dignitaries, who otherwise might find it hard to understand shaking hands with all seven of the wise men and women. And the world, which rightly shows little interest in the strange ways of a small country in the middle of Europe, has shown some interest in last month’s election of two new ministers being elected by the parliament, giving Switzerland for the first time a majority of women in the government.
I spend my summers, like many Swiss, up in the mountains. But my summer ‘chalet’ is a former Palace hotel, now an international conference centre, with hundreds of participants, from around the world (see: www.caux.ch). We enjoyed a magical evening of Klezmer music in the Caux theatre. It’s slightly amazing that after the almost total destruction of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe that gave birth to this musical idiom, this haunting, joyful, dancing, sad music is played and enjoyed by many. I’m not well-known for my dancing, but it is almost impossible NOT to dance to this music!
I guess I’m not alone in sometimes being mystified by myself and my reactions. I want to be a peace-maker – yet I sometimes lose my cool, and can provoke others to rage, without meaning to. I am part of an inter-faith committee in Geneva, Switzerland, the city where I live. We’ve built up some good friendships, relationships across divides – but the tensions in the world beyond our borders often touch us. Which is no big surprise.