'Going Global'

In the Iberian Peninsula the weather was still fine and hot, the land looking brown and parched, the sea out west calm, as I flew north on Saturday. Heavy white surf made its appearance on the coast of Galicia, and some scattered cloud. Flying on serenely above the weather, gale-force winds were whipping up the sea in that dodgy zone to the north of Spain, where two seas meet, and we even experienced some turbulence high above the clouds. Things settled down again as we approached Ireland, and although the cover was thicker over the land, the startling green landscape gleamed from Kinsale to Kerry's Reeks, as we came into land at Cork.

     Fiona was there to meet me, on our 51st wedding anniversary, and soon we were enjoying the peace of our island home together again. What a carry-on that decision to put the 'Anna M' on the concrete at Nazaré, in June last year, has turned out to entail! Yet it had to be done, and while it threatened to put an end to the whole Gannetswaysailing saga, I'm now hopeful it will prove merely the end of the beginning. We have become much more engaged in really doing something, in the challenge of putting our lives on a sustainable basis.

     This process of engagement is something that can only come about in its own time. I am tempted to think it a great pity that it did not kick in for me twenty years ago, but it turns out that my early 70s may be a very good time for it. Of course, the fact of having a pension, as long as the old body hangs in, frees one up a lot; and also in a sense one has more freedom in the mind. I had pretty well given up on having ambitions and plans for myself, which is a great way to be, genuinely throwing oneself on the will of God.  But He has a way of returning, with much interest, all the fruits of one's experience and indeed of one's care down the years. Now to apply them as best I can, in the serene awareness that I may well not be around to see much of what becomes of them!

     What hopes we have of something becoming of them are very much bound up with the European Union, primarily of course because of the funds we hope to access, but also in the light of the aspiration, still lacking in clarity and confidence, of developing an alternative to the kind of socio-political set-up propagated by the, dare I say, 'Neo-liberal nations of the Anglo-sphere'? I do not relish throwing such labels around, especially being aware that there are very many people in both Britain and the USA who would strongly wish to dis-associate themselves from such a one as this. The fact remains however that Europe, and especially Ireland, is very much subject to their economic and cultural hegemony, not to say 'neo-colonialism'. This largely accounts for my obsession with building up our relationships with our continental neighbours to the south.

     That neocolonialism is not without its advantages, I have to admit. God alone knows where Ireland would be at this stage without American and British multi-national companies and so on, economically speaking! In this interlinked world of ours, all economic activity depends on its context; however, that favoured by les Anglo-Saxons is showing every sign of exhaustion; for everyone's sake, not least their own, a new direction needs to be found. In Blighty one crowd seems to want to go in the general direction of Singapore, and the other of Cuba, while I suppose a majority know that they want something different, but have not the foggiest notions of what it might be.

     For them theological may very well be a term of abuse, which hardly helps them find that new way; they just don't realise that it is in terms of God that they might find the new language which they need so urgently, and in fairly simple terms actually. Take the work 'ecumenism'; high as it has been for years on theological agendas, rather few would think of it as I tend to myself, in terms of that vital reconciliation that is needed between the aspiration for individual responsibility, freedom and fulfilment on one hand, and the demands of sustainability and solidarity on the other. Broadly speaking the former comes more naturally to those of  a Protestant mindset, for whom salvation tends to be a transaction between the individual and God, and the latter to those of a Catholic one, who seek their place within the Body of Christ. Both are impoverished in this divided state; somehow they need to be reconciled, if our civilisation is to have any future.

     In practical terms of how people live, it helps a lot if we at least acknowledge with gratitude that God made us, and what's more did not just leave us to our own devices, without guidance. It's not that I cannot see my way to working with those who deny this, but I do take Jesus' advice on the matter, going on the basis of 'those who are not against us are with us'! Unfortunately there sometimes comes a parting of company; with Jesus, there can be no working just to make money, nor setting the pursuit of our own interests up as the main priority of our lives. We have to work on the basis of justice and the common good, while bearing in mind also William Blake's famous dictum, the 'the General Good is the Cry of the Scoundrel, Hypocrite and Liar'.

     Among the more absurd gambits of the Brexiteers is to make out that they stand for a 'global Britain'. In practice this seems to mean that they entertain the forlorn hope of squeezing a little more mileage out of the Imperial British heritage; Mrs May for example seems to think she is being generous in seeking to attract the brightest and best from impoverished countries  where they are desperately needed, so that apparently there are more Sudanese doctors in London than there are in the Sudan. However on the whole former subjects would rather bury the memory of Britannia's rule, would stay at home if the opportunities were there, and are much more likely to be impressed by a new British mind-set that is prepared to be a team player in Europe, and help the old continent rise to the world's needs. All of Europe's nations have their own lines of communication with the rest of the world, with their own possibilities, and those raised by sharing them are massive.

     Is Britain going to be able to do anything about global warming, or Syria or Palestine by itself? Is it going to help Europe find ways of doing so with this stupid Brexit? Where is the plan to create jobs in all those sun-baked countries, which could be developing energy farms in the deserts, using all that sunshine to produce electricity and so for instance water from the sea or hydrogen for powering fuel cells? This is where, if it is to succeed, the right balance needs to be struck between building on local culture and promoting development. The neo-liberal Anglosphere has failed dismally. Can old Europe still learn and do better?