HTR(5): a thought experiment
On the need for warrior-priests
This thought experiment is not original to me, but I can't now trace from whom I take it – it was one of the ecological writers (possibly the Story of B) – but applying it to the situation with Islam is down to me.
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Imagine four islands, each of which has an established human community. There are differences between the four islands in terms of culture and tradition but all are peaceful. The islands are tropical, there is enough food, and the human communities live in balance with their natural environment.
Now imagine that one of the communities develops in a violent direction. The reason as to why is not important, simply that one of the island communities shifts and fosters a culture that exalts violence, that affirms and rewards it. Let's call this 'the new culture'.
This island community, driven by the new culture, conquers first one other island, then a second. Within the last island that still follows 'the old culture' a debate takes place. Is it better to resist the new culture or to surrender? Those in favour of surrendering argue that it will lead to the least loss of life. Those who argue for fighting say that living in the new culture would be worse than death. Neither side has confidence of winning.
The problem is that, whichever way that this argument resolves, whether to fight or not to fight, the new culture wins out over the old. That is, either the last island is conquered by the new culture, in which case the new culture is fully embedded; or, the last island succeeds in resisting the new culture in which case the old culture has taken on the norms of violence. Where once there was peace, now there is only war.
How, then, can one resist violence, without becoming corrupted by it?
As I see it, the only potential path involves the maintenance of a border, a border that functions like the wall of a biological cell. The border preserves the inside of the cell in its existing life, and protects the cell from those organisms on the outside that would destroy it.
Rather as the rangers protected Hobbiton from the depradations of the wider world.
The sadness is that the creation of the border involves a cost to the cell, most especially a cost to those human beings who will have to staff the border, and bear the burden of becoming violent themselves in order to preserve the possibility of peace for others.
At the same time, however, those who are responsible for the border have also to seek the conversion of the new culture in a non-violent direction. As Gandhi put it: it is an article of faith for a satyagrahi that no human being is beyond the reach of truth. There would always need to be dialogue, conversation, perhaps even divine intervention. The triumph of the new culture, the success of violence, can only finally be overcome if that success is shown to be hollow (which is called the resurrection, and requires the cross).
In the meantime the border needs to be manned, that which is good needs to be protected, and the price needs to be paid.
Which makes me think of this magnificent scene:
“I am condemned to use the tools of my enemy...”
Of course, a version of this story could easily be told against the West as the source of violence, and it rather resembles the distinction between the dar al-Islam and the dar al-Harb...
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So I am pondering boundaries, and I am pondering the nature of the warrior, and above all the role of the priest as the watchman on the wall:
“And now again we exhort you, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you have in remembrance, into how high a dignity, and to how weighty an office and charge ye are called: that is to say, to be messengers, watchmen, and stewards of the Lord; to teach and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord's family; to seek for Christ's sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever.”