On March 26th alongside the sedate TUC anti-cuts protest in London anarchists also protested though in a more dynamic, confrontational fashion. Included in their version of protest was the deliberate targeting of banks, The Ritz and other sites that symbolise financial oppression, exploitation, exclusion and inequality for property damage.
The damage was symbolic protest, a physical cry of resistance, an expression of ‘the scream’ that Holloway refers to (in ‘Change the world without taking power’). No one imagined it would bring down capitalism it was, as protest often is, to do with symbolism and communication of ‘if only’.
As I thought about the protests, the smashing of a bank window, I realised that it was very similar to the acts of Jesus in clearing the temple. You know the incidents; they are recorded in all 4 gospels. Jesus deliberately, as an act of protest and resistance, carries out property damage at a site of financial exploitation. He temporarily disrupts the exploitative system associated with temple worship while knowing his actions wouldn’t bring it to an end. It was confrontational but he was angry that what should have been a place of prayer had been turned into a place of financial exploitation with inflated prices being charged for sacrificial animals and temple currency.
On the second occasion Jesus says “It is written ‘My house will be called a house of prayer’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers’” (NIV Mt 21:13). Some would dispute the comparison between 21st century anarchists and the 1st century Jesus emphasising that his actions were an expression of anger over the corruption of temple worship.
Both include anger at a system that was exploiting the poor, an anger that was the consequence of knowing what should be. The anarchists were expressing their hostility towards a corrupt system that causes misery, suffering and deprivation on a global scale, Jesus was expressing a more localised version of the same while including the added dimension of concern over spiritual corruption also. To paraphrase a famous question ‘What would Jesus smash?'
by Tim Foster
What would Jesus smash?
ReplyDeleteI doubt he would smash anything. I believe he looks back at his temple clearing with some regret. For once in his life he became angry and did not practice as he preached. Nobody is perfect, not even Jesus.
I'm sure Adam is right about Jesus not being perfect. However, I wonder if Jesus, in that instance, is a victim of poor reporting.
ReplyDeleteTo drive out animals is just how a herder gets them moving from A to B and is not violent. To turn over the tables is dramatic but it all depends on how it is done and how complete, symbolic, or threatening the action is as to whether it was violent.
I've been involved in nonviolent protests that have been reported too generally and read by neutral parties as though they were violent so I can imagine this happening.
As to what Jesus would smash? he'd smash a door down if people were trapped in a burning building and I'm pretty sure he'd smash a war plane's nose cone if he thought that was going to save innocent lives.
Keith
Perhaps the temple clearing was exaggerated by the authorities but I can imagine it happening. Jesus is allowed a moment of despair. The way we worship God and organize our civilization falls far short of God's ideal.
ReplyDeleteAs for activism I am somewhat skeptical of smashing a plane's nose cone. I cannot imagine Jesus breaking into a Roman military base and disabling a chariot with his carpentry tools. Also violence against property rarely ends there. It normally ends up transgressing into violence against humans. What if a sabotaged military vehicle was not repaired properly which unintentionally caused the death of its chariot driver or pilot? We only have to learn from other movements, such as Nelson Mandela's ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe, to see that acts of sabotage can fall from grace.
I believe the activism required is more subtle, yet more powerful than this. There are better ways to confront the state and militarism.
Personally, I've no problem with the idea that Jesus got things wrong - couldn't remember his 54 times table, forgot the birthday of his aunt Mabel, went to bed without doing the washing up, lost his bus ticket, etc. Indeed, as far as I am aware, the claim is that Jesus was without sin rather than unable to make mistakes. We're talking about someone who was fully-human, after all.
ReplyDeleteBut I struggle to think that the table-turning was not a deliberate act. Also it is hard to think that the act was much more than symbolic or that it could not be quickly returned to normal.
But then the next troubling question is whether we can take certain actions of Jesus as being the pattern for us, given he was God and we are not.
Would he break a shop window to make a point about globalisation? I doubt it.
I'm not sure about confrontation along the lines of property-smashing and anarchy. Anarchy, the way I view it, is about no authority, no individual having the right to exert any sort of power over another. Force, like smashing things, is certainly a technique that exerts power over. I don't see how smashing things and anarchy are reconcilable.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Jesus did certainly toss temple tables around, but I'm not sure that act qualified as vandalism and smashing property is vandalism.
I agree with those who think that Jesus would be unlikely to smash anything, except the door to rescue someone from a burning building, and even less to condone the smashing of anything by us, even of a fighter plane.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can't help having some admiration for people who are prepared to endanger their own lives and risk going to gaol in an attempt to stop wars, I don't believe that any violent act helps the cause for peace in the long term.
I think anyone who wants to be a peacemaker should model living peacefully; not by being a wimp, nor by being a doormat, but assertively and by trying to understand the other person's point of view in order to explore other ways of ensuring people can feel safe etc.
I think it would be good to have a movement for positive, peaceful living rather than against anything, even war or nuclear missiles.
We can never know if Jesus let his anger get the better of him that day in the temple, or if the overturning of the money changers' tables is a story someone made up, but he was only human, after all, and presumably he did something that worried the authorities enough to have him executed, although he may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I agree. I think, the worst ideology is christian ideology. The half of all Christianity ( traditions, rites and etc) is christian ideology, which occupy all consciousness of a man.
ReplyDelete'the half of all'? So are you saying there is a good half and a bad half of Christianity? What measure do you sue Igor?
ReplyDeleteThis is a bad half. Any ideology is always bad. Soviet or Christian. Ideology kills freedom. Freedom of thought. Those who say that Christianity has led to many wars (in the past) are partly right, because it was really religion has often been a source of war, but it was a religious ideology, not the true faith, which comes from God. The soviet ideology already is dead, but religious ideology lives and grows, such as Islamic terrorism.
ReplyDelete"Any ideology is always bad."
ReplyDeleteSurely that depends on what the ideology is. If the ideology is loving thy neighbour, pacifism and withdrawing support for violent governments (as per Christian anarchism) then I see no harm in it. In fact I can see only good.
You are understanding of ideology as mere set of ideas, but I mean the ideology in the spirit of Mannheim or Marx. It is political dimension. The ideology serves the authority. The ideology is the instrument of the control of human mind.
ReplyDeleteFair enough. "Ideology" is a word which has been used in a negative connotation for some years, just like "anarchist." Ideology does actually mean "a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions." However because historically ideologies are imposed from above, then they are seen as negative. I am talking of an ideology from below. It also has a political dimension. Not immediately, but if enough people follow the principles, it will.
ReplyDelete"I believe the activism required is more subtle, yet more powerful than this. There are better ways to confront the state and militarism."
ReplyDeleteThis was my comment at the start of this discussion. Just to complete my thought, the best way to undertake direct action against militarism is via War Tax Resistance.