Following a higher authority

...and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Acts Ch.2 v 17

Some of us were hesitant at so public a witness, so vocal a display of our perhaps tentative Christianity. But anyway – we stood around the banner “Leeds Christians against war on Iraq” and began the Litany of Resistance on Leeds City Art Gallery steps, with the song I will rock my heart till the walls come down. Strong voices around me gave me heart to sing out, to speak out the prayers. This was powerful stuff in its force and humility. From the politics of hypocrisy... from the avarice of imperialism ... from the filth.. profanity.. madness.. blasphemy of war: deliver us. Guide our feet into the way of peace. Oh, that it could be so. That it may be so. It may seem itself profane that this witness against the demonic waste of war and of preparation for war filled me with joy. But it did. Joy and tears. This opportunity with others to make a physical, public declaration made me feel profoundly joyful. Authentic, somehow.

People passed, some quickly, some more slowly, others sat and watched and listened. Some one shrieked, as she ran past, that we were communists. They will call us communists and subversives. Who knows what difference it made? Maybe something stirred. Maybe we were written off as just another breed of fanatics. But for me, just to do it, was what mattered. To take that step on to the street. To come out. From the violence of apathy.. the despair of fatalism: deliver us.

At 5.00 p.m. we went with our banner to join the Stop the War demonstration outside YTV. Now I really was nervous, glad to see familiar faces again. Oddly surprised that it was dark, the brightest spots the police officers’ fluorescent jackets. Alongside the chants, we begin again our songs and our litany, facing the rush hour traffic up and down Kirkstall Road, singing and praying before the impassive faces of the police. He came down to bring peace. He came down to bring love. Across the road, a police officer films us. “Why?” “It’s called evidence gathering”. Another photographer, said to be from a right wing racist group, also gathers evidence. Let us resist and confront evil everywhere we find it: with the help of God’s grace. Drivers hoot their support, a man cycles repeatedly up and down our stretch of road, smiling, ringing his bell. A bus driver slows to a standstill opposite us, opens his door, switches on his light and gives us the thumbs up. Another driver yells at a young girl holding a placard “drop a bomb on the lot of them!” From the cancer of hatred... from the idolatry of national security... from the addiction of control: deliver us.

A few demonstrators run into the road and are hauled back by police, who then ask us politely to move back on to the grass. For the men and women in battle: forgive us, for we know not what we do. All the time we sing, Jesu tawa pano – Jesus, we are here.

After a while, a large group begins to move towards the pelican crossing up the road. I feel afraid. I remember other times, other places. On those fleeing in terror: have mercy. A van full of barking police dogs draws up on to the grass. The mounted officers re-group. I remember other times, other places and I am afraid. So I stay back, stay with the banner. Later I learn that Ray, with others has been arrested for obstructing the highway, by calmly, persistently making his protest in the hallowed tradition of simply sitting down in the road. Obedience to God comes before obedience to human authority: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.

Are we on the TV then? Ten seconds on Calendar. A few lines in Friday’s Independent. How many protesters? Three hundred, they say. Is that all? Yet around every one, a cloud of invisible others, all those who cannot be there or who choose to make their protest differently. So I am there for them too, those I know and those I don’t know. The other night, I heard Roy Bailey, veteran singer of songs in the historic tradition of radicalism and resistance, assure his audience “You are in the majority you know. I have the privilege to travel all over the world and I can tell you, there are millions of you. It just needs to be mobilised.”

I am not at war. Not in my name. With the waging of war: we will not comply. With the legalisation of genocide: we will not comply.

And I realise, once more, that it is not enough to stand in a demonstration. I need to get to know the enemy – the evil structures that set us against each other. I need to learn about the Middle East conflict, pragmatic arguments as well as moral conviction. I need to know about globalisation and the economics of imperialism and how they affect my sisters and brothers in Indonesia, Thailand, Africa, Latin America. I need to keep this always before me. I need to face all this and weep, for them and for my part in it all, in benefiting from their oppression. On their poverty and slavery rests my good life. And knowing all this, allow it to change me.

The singing goes on. In the road. In the police van. In the prison cell. The singing will never be done. La lutta continua. We shall not be silenced.
With God’s unending faithfulness
We will work to build the beloved community.