| The
“Goddess of Democracy” and the Future of Hong Kong
In the run-up to the handover
of Hong Kong to China in 1997, I have often been asked my views
on Hong Kong’s future. This article, written in 1991, was
my response.
The “Goddess of Democracy”
is an extraordinarily powerful political symbol — which continues
to live. For example, China fought, for two years, a plan to erect
a replica of the “Goddess of Democracy” at the University
of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Symbols can have extraordinary
power in human consciousness, as anyone familiar with Carl Gustav
Jung’s work with archetypes (a type of symbol) will know.
A symbol, according to my dictionary,
is “a material object representing something, often something
immaterial.” This definition is rather vague — a major
aspect of a symbol which, in part, gives it so much of its power.
However, “something immaterial” is usually an idea,
or set of ideas.
Symbols exist all around us —
politics and elsewhere. Take, for example, the swastika; or the
hammer and sickle. They are symbols; they elicit, in you, certain
reactions (but how many people can define exactly what they stand
for?). And depending on your own values, your reaction to each symbol
will be positive or negative.
Also, I suggest, your positive
or negative reaction will be automatic: that is emotional in nature.
As one example of the power of
a symbol, consider the white supremacist or separatist movement
in South Africa, led by Eugene Terre’blanche. The symbol they
chose, consciously or otherwise, bears a remarkable resemblance
to the Nazi swastika. Many people — including Hong Kong “analysts”
in the press — reacted emotionally to the similarity in the
symbols, without comparing expressed or implicit ideas, beyond the
obvious racism of both.
Or consider religious symbols:
The Cross of Christianity, with its theme of suffering; compared
to the message of the laughing Buddha. It’s easy to see how
people raised under these two symbols would come to have divergent
attitudes on life...the messages of a symbol don’t have to
be made explicit to be absorbed.
20th
century symbols
Symbols are all around us, even
in the more mundane area of brand names. Here, symbols are often
words or letters displayed in a particular design, like Coke, Coca-Cola,
or IBM. In fact, the alternate meaning of the word “symbol”
— according to my Random House Dictionary of the English Language
— is “a letter, figure, or a combination of letters
used to represent an object or idea, as in chemistry or astronomy.”
Or brand names.
Companies spend millions of dollars
each year on advertising, in an attempt to implant an emotionally-favorable
reaction within us to the sight of their brand-name image or logo.
The supposed trust that consumers have in a particular brand name
is very real and very valuable to the company: the decision to make
a purchase is often based, wholly or partly, on the emotional reaction
to a brand name. Take, for example, a small item of minor value
like batteries, where you really have no information to go on —
which one actually does last longer? I really don’t know...do
you? The higher price of the brand name battery is still an irrelevant
amount. The chances are you’ll pay a little more for the brand
name battery — especially if you’ve had the experience,
as I have, of finding some nondescript brand having leaked everywhere
and possibly damaged your expensive CD player. You’ll buy
the brand name battery to take better care of your equipment.
Symbols:
a focus for emotions
A “symbol” is “an
emotional concept.” More specifically, a symbol is a mental
focus for an emotional reaction to the idea or set of ideas behind
the symbol. Symbols — like archetypes — bypass consciousness
and straight to the emotions. Emotions are powerful and automatic
reactions to subconsciously-held values; and are thought by most
people to be the opposite to ideas, thoughts, or concepts that are
rationally and precisely defined, and intellectually held.
As such, a symbol lacks the intellectual
clarity — it can be many things to many people. Symbols are
often used in this way on purpose: Adolf Hitler vested his chosen
symbol of the swastika with its current meaning by his powerful,
hypnotic oratory.
Consider, now, the “Goddess
of Democracy” in the context of this definition. Remember,
this was a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Did the students in
Tiananmen square die for a piece of wood or papier mache? Of course
not. It was what that symbol represented that they died for —
the ideas and concepts behind it even though they didn’t really
understand what they were. I’ll return to this point in a
moment.
Were this ideas and concepts precisely
defined? No. Was the reaction of the world to the massacre on Tiananmen
square a rationally-considered response to the battle of ideas in
Peking? No — it was an emotional outpouring; a reaction, in
part, to seeing a western symbol being destroyed by tanks.
The
meaning of democracy
So let’s now be specific
about the meaning of these symbols, the “Goddess of Democracy”
and the Statue of Liberty. We are actually hazy about what democracy
is and means. We refer to western countries as democracies...this
is only partially true. According to the Greeks, the inevitable
result of democracy was tyranny. Why? Democracy means mob rule;
the rule of the majority. In ancient Greece, there were no restraints
on democracy, so democracy became the tyranny of the mob —
not even, necessarily, a majority.
When we call western countries
democracies, what we mean is countries with governments whose sphere
of authority is to some degree limited — either by traditions,
as in Britain, or formally by a constitution as in the United States
— and whose leaders are selected by the vote of majority.
A friend of mine was giving a talk
to a group of high school kids. One of the kids was heckling him,
especially on this subject of the meaning of democracy. With a sudden
inspiration he said, “You know, I don’t like your haircut.”
His hair was long and bedraggled, apparently. Gathering the impression
that he was rather unpopular with the other students, he asked his
audience who thought he needed a haircut. A large number of hands
went up. “Let’s vote on it,” he said. “Everyone
in favor of giving this guy a haircut, raise your hands.”
A majority of hands went up. Turning to the kid he said, “Now,
that’s democracy.”
Democracy
and tyranny
Democracy is a method of selecting
rulers — nothing more, nothing less. Without restraints on
the sphere of government, democracy inevitably leads to tyranny.
(Where there are restraints, democracy inevitably leads to erosion
of those restraints.) Freedom, political freedom, is the absence
of government restraints on the activities of the citizens. In a
free and sovereign state, democracy is merely the favored method
of selecting rulers — freedom of the individual is transferred
to the political realm. However, democracy is not necessary for
the existence of political and economic freedom. Hong Kong, for
example, was possibly the freest place on earth before the bureaucratic
empire-builders, following the appointment of Sir Murray (now Lord)
Maclehose as governor, arrived on the scene in the 1970s. It was
— until then — freedom by benign neglect.
So the “Goddess of Democracy”
stands for a method of selecting rulers — a method that just
happen to be used in countries that are also, by and large, free.
Democracy is no guarantee of freedom: Adolf Hitler, for example,
was democratically elected though he did, of course, remain in power
by means of a coup. Most former British colonies were democracies
— for one election.
Liberty
and the Republic
What, in contrast, does the Statue
of Liberty represent? The United States, when founded, was not a
democracy. It was a republic. Only the Lower House of Congress,
the House of Representative, was elected by popular vote. Senators
were appointed by the governments of the states. The President was
elected by an electoral college, only recently by popular vote.
The form of government represented by the Statue of Liberty, is
— or should I say was — a strictly limited form of government;
so limited that the method of selection of rulers was irrelevant
to most of the populace. Like Hong Kong 20 years ago.
The United States once stood for
political and economic freedom for the individual. Of course, it
was not perfect...the inscription on the Statue of Liberty should
have been amended to read, give me your poor, huddled masses —
so long as they’re not black, brown or yellow. But to the
rest of the world, the United States, if it is not seen to stand
for western imperialism is symbolized by the Statue of Liberty.
And it remains, of course, one of the freest countries on earth.
According to no less an authority
than George Bush, the United States now stands for democracy. Unfortunately,
today he is correct. And since America’s war with Iraq, it
stands for even less: the self-determination of nation-states, as
defined by their existing rulers. The United States has supported
dictators before: in Kuwait, however, I think this is the first
time it went to war to reinstate a monarchy. A feudal monarchy at
that.
The
hollow beacon of freedom
In other words, as a political
symbol the United States has become a hollow idol. For millions
of people around the world, it’s a beacon of freedom; but
in the war of ideas, in the fight against totalitarianism, what
does the government of the United States offer the world?...we should
be thankful that the power of the Statue of Liberty is greater than
the power of the US government.
In sending tanks into the Tiananmen
square, Deng Xiao-ping and his gerontocracy acted with perfect logic.
They, better than George Bush, better than the students, understood
perfectly what the “Goddess of Democracy” meant —
and meant for them. Perhaps they overreacted — I’m not
trying to excuse them, but merely to point out that what they did
should have been no surprise to anyone. The “Goddess of Democracy”
was a personal affront. It continues to be — witness China’s
two year battle to prevent a replica of the “Goddess of Democracy”
from being erected in Vancouver, at the University of British Columbia.
they called it: “an act of hostility towards China (meaning:
the government of China).” Is it not?
Acting
in anger
When people act in anger they’re
often spontaneously truer to their deepest values than when they’ve
had time to think about the issues. Consider China’s two reactions
to the promulgation of the Bill of Rights here in Hong Kong. Their
immediate (spontaneous) reaction was to say: “we’ll
change it after 1997.” Their delayed (considered) reaction
was: don’t’ worry about it — Hong Kong’s
going to be unchanged for 50 years (or words to that effect).
Here, we have two clearly conflicting
messages: only one can be right. Many people will, of course, choose
to believe the message they want to hear.
But can a leopard change its spots?
Or to paraphrase Deng Xiao-ping: if a black cat is better at catching
rats than a red cat, can it suddenly turn into a white cat? Only
with a paint job — or a snow job. Which is exactly what Deng
is trying on us. But it’s purely cosmetic.
Deng Xiao-ping has blood on his
hands — long before Tiananmen square. He hasn’t changed
his nature and he hasn’t changed his values. Why should he?
They’ve worked for him.
After
Deng dies . . . ?
Everyone is waiting for Deng to
die — but what will his successors do? There were several
generations between Stalin and Gorbachev, and Gorbachev is hardly
a resounding success. A civil war in China may not be the best thing
for Hong Kong — on the other hand, you could argue that, then,
Hong Kong might be left alone for a while. What we can forecast
is that the people who succeed Deng Xiao-ping will be people who’ve
been selected because they share very similar values. This is especially
true now, after Tiananmen...the “Goddess of Democracy”
caused Deng to throw out potential reformers such as Zhao Zi-yang
for the reason that they could not be trusted, when push came to
shove, to follow the hard line. The people in Peking now most likely
to rule after Deng are those who can.
The “Goddess of Democracy”
inspired a stunning reaction from the normally mute, apolitical
people of Hong Kong. A million Hong Kong citizens (one-sixth of
the entire population!) came out into the streets to demonstrate
in favor of the students — and against Deng Xiao-ping. Now,
there was no question of the Hong Kong government using tanks. For
a start, they haven’t got any...but were their reactions any
different in principle — that is, did their actions display
a radically different set of values? — to the reactions of
the blood-stained dictatorship in Peking? Consider the sequence
of events.
A papier mache replica of the “Goddess
of Democracy” was on display in Victoria Park for a few weeks
after the massacre. The Hong Kong government gave permission for
this replica to be displayed with what can only be described as
reluctance. There was a proposal that this replica be moved to a
permanent site; as I recall, the government’s reaction was,
in part, that no suitable site could be found. This is an example
of bureaucratic obstructionism.
The Hong Kong government also wanted
the “Goddess of Democracy” to go away. But it waited
for the public’s high level of emotion to cool down, and then
it could make the “Goddess of Democracy” disappear.
Just recently, a replica of the
“Goddess of Democracy” from a ship of the same name
owned by a Taiwanese businessman, was going to be brought to Hong
Kong in time for the second anniversary of the massacre. It’s
importation was delayed until it was too late to matter because,
according to the government, they suspected drug smuggling and the
matter had to be investigated.
Implementing
China’s values
in Hong Kong
On the fundamental level of principle,
the rulers of Hong Kong reacted in the same way as Deng Xiao-ping.
I’m not suggesting Hong Kong’s bureaucrats actually
share Deng Xiao-ping’s values: their value system is, in a
sense, worse, in that they have no values at all. Their actions
are determined not by moral principles but by a pragmatic issue:
how China will react to whatever they do. They are eternally in
the “kowtow” position with regard to China — whether
there’s any need to kowtow or not. The result, of course,
is that to keep China’s favor, they need to implement China’s
values.
Let’s take another example:
a new airport for Hong Kong to replace the already overcrowded Kai
Tak. Construction should have begun years ago.
The government of Hong Kong sought
China’s assent or consent to its new airport proposal. That
they decided to do so — an automatic reaction for someone
in the kowtow position — meant that they conceded the last
word to China in advance. China objected, ostensibly on the size
of the financial liability the post-1997 regime would inherit. The
issue was finally resolved only by officially giving China a say
in each stage of the project.
The
goose or the eggs?
Here, by the way is another issue
that should, surely, put paid to the idea that China doesn’t
want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. China’s
rulers don’t care about Hong Kong. If they’re willing
to send tanks into Tiananmen square to kill their own defenseless
citizens, why should they give a damn about Hong Kong or its people?
Again using the “Goddess
of Democracy” as a lens, we can see the real values of the
Peking regime. Deng Xiao-ping hoped to import western technology
without also importing the ideas that made that technology possible
— the ideas of freedom. The “Goddess of Democracy”
illustrates dramatically the impossibility of that vain hope. To
protect his values, his only resort is oppression — and the
price of that oppression, in whatever terms you like to measure
it, economically or socially, will be borne by the people of China,
not by the rulers in Peking.
Let’s turn the old saw about
the size of the Chinese market around. You know — if you could
sell a box of matches to every Chinese, you’d be very wealthy.
No western businessman has yet succeeded. The rulers in Peking have:
anytime they want, they can take one dollar or the equivalent from
every citizen — and do you think they don’t?
It’s often said that all
Chinese people have a sense of history, of the long and magnificent
traditions of China’s civilization. I think there’s
one incident that’s foremost in the Peking ruler’s minds:
that the revolution of 1911, which overthrew the dynasty, began
in Canton province. To those who wish to protect the values of the
communist regime, the fact that Hong Kong, with its freewheeling
western style, is just a stone’s throw from Canton, is the
gravest threat.
Britain
and the kowtow
There’s one player I’ve
forgotten to mention — Britain. No doubt, Mrs. Thatcher expressed
outrage at the massacre. I don’t recall but she’s good
at that. But consider this: who is ultimately responsible for the
government of Hong Kong? The government of Britain. I’ve already
noted that the Hong Kong government assumes the kowtow position
whenever China is mentioned: how can we conclude anything except
that this position is fully and completely endorsed by the government
of Britain? Whether consciously or by default, what’s the
difference?
This is also dramatized by the
airport issue: British Prime Minister John Major assumed the kowtow
position alongside Hong Kong’s governor Sir David Wilson when
they announced, together, that a new airport for Hong Kong would
“probably be postponed indefinitely.” At least, that’s
how I saw the photograph of them, side-by-side, on the front page
of The South China Morning Post [June 26th, 1991]. The British lion
has lost its roar, at least in the face of the Chinese dragon.
Like the government of Hong Kong,
the government of Britain does not share Deng Xiao-ping’s
value system (we’ll assume that for the sake of argument).
Rather, their attitude towards Hong Kong is determined pragmatically
by a different priority or value: that of the Sino-British relations.
If the freedom of the people of Hong Kong is to be sacrificed on
the “altar” of Sino-British relations, well, that’s
tough.
Britain’s
legacy of blood
Britain’s legacy to its former
colonies is not a pretty one. It’s easy to call a demagogue
like Idi Amin an aberration — even though he learnt his craft
at Sandhurst (Britain’s West Point). What’s little appreciated
is that the relative freedom enjoyed in British colonies before
independence was not due to British laws — passed on, intact,
to the ex-colonies’ new rulers — but to the gentlemanly
restraint (or “benign neglect”) with which the British
had administered those laws.
For example: prior to and during
the brief period of Indira Gandhi’s dictatorship of India,
she jailed her opponents without trial. The law she used was the
law the British had passed so they could jail Mahatma Gandhi!
China’s promise to leave
Hong Kong unchanged for 50 years should not be comforting...as Commissar
of Hong Kong in 1997, I could turn Hong Kong into a totalitarian
state without changing one single law. I’d simply continue
to do what the Hong Kong government does — as it did, for
example, in delaying the importation of the statue of the “Goddess
of Democracy.” That is, use existing laws for political ends...with
much greater tenacity and purpose.
Don’t think it can’t
be done. Everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was entirely legal
according to the constitution of the Weimar Republic. That includes
sending Jews and others to the gas chamber. How, when there were
certain rights written in that constitution to protect individuals?
Hitler just changed the interpretation. For example, he redefined
the words “human beings” so that Jews and anyone else
he didn’t like were no longer included in that definition.
Of course, it helped him that nobody was ever going to challenge
his reinterpretation.
Freedom
and the
Commissar of Hong Kong
Let’s say I’m commissar
of Hong Kong, and I don’t like something The South China Morning
Post has published in today’s issue. All Hong Kong property
is subject to zoning laws, so by edict I rezone the Post’s
building in Quarry Bay residential. It is no longer legal to use
that site for industry — including, unfortunately, the printing
of a newspaper.
No doubt, there are many ways the
Post could challenge that ruling. I used this example in a “role-play”
demonstration shortly after the Joint Declaration was announced.
The first time, I had a gweilo (i.e., Caucasian) friend primed to
act as the lawyer. He advised his “client” to fight
this ruling. At 3am the next morning, representatives of the ICAC
[Independent Commission Against Corruption — a special (effectively
secret) police body with extraordinary powers] knocked on his door
and spirited him away. The ICAC can hold anyone for 48 hours without
charging them and without habeas corpus available to the prisoner
— as Commissar of Hong Kong I don’t need a new law when
there’s already one on the books. Then, of course, he simply
disappeared from view — as Commissar I don’t have to
obey the law — and there was suddenly one more “Vietnamese
refugee” in the Whitehead concentration camp. I mean —
Whitehead detention center. Everything’s already in place
— except the gas chambers.
After that, the Post was unable
to find another lawyer to represent it on this issue.
The second time I did this demonstration
— to a group of MBA graduates from Hong Kong University, all
of them local Hong Kong Chinese — the lawyer who volunteered
to participate in the role play gave this spontaneous reaction:
“I’d advise my client to look into the possibilities
of residential real estate.” The kowtow position is not confined
to Hong Kong’s British rulers.
The newly-passed Bill of Rights
is irrelevant — if no one is willing or able to fight for
their rights.
“Fight
or flight”?
The majority of Hong Kong’s
people have chosen “flight” rather than “fight”
— an entirely rational decision in my view. Around half of
Hong Kong’s people either fled or have a parent who fled the
communist regime. They know what to expect. And when the Hong Kong
government takes the same attitude — and the people are politically
powerless — what else can you expect?
Who, in Hong Kong, is fighting
for the principles embodied in the Statue of Liberty? No one. The
closest approximation is rising politician Martin Lee who as a lawyer,
emphasizes the importance of the “rule of law.” However,
“the rule of law,” of itself, is about implementation
of laws rather than the content of those laws. And there is another
problem, far more serious in my view: that come 1997 there are unlikely
to be enough qualified judges to maintain the British-style legal
system in Hong Kong. Few Hong Kong Chinese lawyers wish to sit on
the bench, partly because they get paid a hell of a lot less than
they can make in private practice; and partly because they’re
justifiably afraid of what might happen to a judge whose job it
is to enforce the law, and so make rulings that China will inevitably
dislike.
As someone who was one involved
in the rough and tumble of Australian politics, I can only describe
politics in Hong Kong as amateur hour. This is not necessarily a
bad thing — professional politicians are certainly a greater
curse on society than amateurs. But if you study the actions of
those people pushing themselves forward into Hong Kong’s growing
political life, I think you’ll easily see that the overwhelming
majority of them are transparently jockeying for Peking’s
favor as a promise of things-to-come post-1997. This naturally accompanies
the kowtow position.
The attitude of Hong Kong’s
business leaders is perhaps, best exposed in the suggestion of shipping
magnate Sir Y. Pao: that Hong Kong should be run like a corporation
— with, himself as chairman. Most other members of Hong Kong’s
business elite differ on one major point: who should be chairman
of the board. My reaction: I’d like to be able to trade this
stock so I can sell it short.
Voting
with your feet
Significant numbers of Hong Kong
people are taking the political equivalent of selling short: voting
with their feet. Indeed, projecting the current rate of emigration
into the future, by about 1994 or 1995 there’ll be no accountants
or lawyers or other professionals left in Hong Kong. More seriously,
emigration from Hong Kong is leaking away the city’s very
energy: middle management and small businessmen — the entrepreneurs,
the would be Li Ka-shings who, unlike Hong Kong’s richest
man [who escaped from China, penniless], do not have sufficient
wealth to protect themselves except by taking their business with
them. These are the people who make Hong Kong the dynamic place
it is. So, by 1997 the very nature of Hong Kong will have changed,
before China takes over.
Ironically, China was the pace-setter
in making a peaceful change from communism to capitalism: China
set the example that, I believe, the countries of eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union itself should follow. Deng Xiao-ping himself
initiated a process of change that caused, in the late ’70s
and 1980s, the fastest rate of economic growth in China’s
history. He made this possible (rather than “achieved it”)
not by central planning but by its exact opposite: getting the government
out of the way at the “micro” level, the level of the
individual.
Perestroika bought political freedom
in advance of economic freedom. It brought democracy to parts of
Russia and eastern Europe. But it has yet to produce significant
economic change — because it has not brought economic freedom.
The result, in the Soviet Union, is socialism at the level of the
republics instead of nationally, with the potential for civil war
that that entails.
By allowing individuals to set
up a shop on their own account, and then allowing them to employ
others, Deng Xiao-ping unleashed a torrent of human energy and an
explosion of wealth. Thousands then hundreds of thousands of small
business grew in China, with some people becoming very rich in the
process. Of course, with economic freedom came the demand for political
freedom — and the “Goddess of Democracy.”
When political freedom comes to
China — as it eventually will — there will be thousands,
if not hundreds of thousands of experienced entrepreneurs, ready
and able to take over state-run industries and make them profitable.
China’s final transition from communism to capitalism will
be relatively fast and painless. Capitalism is growing in China,
even without political freedom.
In Russia, the process is happening
in reverse, also with chaotic results. There, people are seeking
“macro” solutions: for example, attempting to privatize
state industries when there are no capital markets. And no entrepreneurial
managers. It is pointless to seek advice from Wall Street experts,
or the Fed, as Russia has done, when what’s necessary is thousands
of home-grown entrepreneurs. And they can only flower when restrictions
on the individual are removed — when the government just gets
out of the way.
Another example from recent history
is West Germany. In 1949, Konrad Adenaur lifted all price controls
and similar restrictions on individual enterprise. In a matter of
months, British soldiers were going home with suitcases packed full
of foodstuffs and similar items in abundance in Germany but in continued
short supply in socialist Britain.
I realize I’m painting a
very pessimistic picture. It’s often easier to see all the
risks in any course of action than the benefits — and when
all those risks are highlighted together, the future can seem very
bleak indeed. At the same time, the bleakness of the “worst
possible future” is a consequence of the number of risks there
are. Only by facing reality can you hope succeed there — anything
else is fantasy.
Can
Hong Kong’s freedoms
be assured?
And by focusing on the reality,
we can find the only mechanism that will provide some surety of
Hong Kong remaining free after 1997: to replace, in Hong Kong, the
symbol of the “Goddess of Democracy” with the symbol
of the Statue of Liberty.
Hong Kong’s political future
is established. It is probably beyond the power of any agency to
change — bar China itself. But what is within Hong Kong’s
power? And within the power of its people to change? To change the
laws a potential Commissar of Hong Kong can use to turn Hong Kong
into a police state. They can be abolished now — if enough
people in Hong Kong demand it.
But understand what is likely to
happen. The majority of people may agree in principle that such
laws should be repealed — but when it comes to individual
laws, many voices will be raised in favor of keeping this or that
specific one. For example, the censorship of movies — essential,
we will be told, to protect the morals of the young. Whenever such
considerations take precedence over freedom, it is the freedom to
see any movies that is in danger of being lost.
Examples of such short-sightedness
are easy to find. Around the time the Joint Declaration on Hong
Kong’s future was announced, the Archbishop of Hong Kong and
Macau returned from Peking with a message that religious freedom
would be protected after 1997. Of course, he was naive enough to
believe what he wanted to hear. But he also failed to understand
that religious freedom is merely a subset of freedom of thought,
and without freedom of thought religious freedom is not guaranteed.
Unfortunately, as I said, no one
in Hong Kong is fighting for liberty. And while the process is straightforward
— the abolition of all laws restricting freedom — we
can be sure, that were such movement to arise, Hong Kong’s
bureaucrats will fight tooth and nail to keep every single restriction
on the books.
The
Pope and capitalism
In conclusion, I’d like to
point to the most promising indicator, in my mind, that freedom
and capitalism will eventually triumph all around the world. I’m
not referring to the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, but
to Pope John Paul’s recent encyclical, almost unreservedly
endorsing capitalism as the preferred social system for the benefit
of mankind.
The Catholic Church is almost 2,000
years old; possibly the longest-lived institution in human history.
It rose to prominence by becoming the state religion of the Roman
Empire, adopting, in the process, “pagan” Roman festivals
like Christmas (the celebration of the “rebirth of the sun”
— i.e., the shortest day of the year). The Catholic Church
came to prominence, and remained prominent, and thrived, by being
ideologically flexible.
I interpret Pope John Paul’s
encyclical in two ways: as a recognition of reality, long overdue;
and as the surest indication of which way the winds of history are
blowing.
Copyright
© 1983 by Mark Tier |