We always think our way is best

The piece below is the Thinking Anew column in today's Irish Times.

By Michael Commane
The hostage-taking at the In Amenes gas facility in Algeria attracted the word’s media attention. While Western leaders blamed the attack on terrorists, there was an undertow among Western commentators that the rescue operation by the Algerian authorities was somewhat ham-fisted. It seemed as if far too many innocent lives were lost during the rescue operation.

However Tom Cloonan, a former Irish army officer and security expert has commented that the number of innocent lives lost in Algeria was proportionately less than the number of innocent people lost in the siege at the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. Mr Cloonan pointed out that, at the time, the Western world considered the London rescue operation to be an example of how such operations should be conducted.

His comments set me thinking about how we all surround ourselves with a world we think is right and good. And to confirm that idea, only this week at work, I heard a colleague say that her county in Ireland was the best place in the country. Of course she was half-joking. With last year’s All-Ireland victory it was understandable why she was tempted to say what she said. We all do that sort of thing. Could we survive at all if we did not have competition and rivalry?

However, when one group of people, when a society, a people, a country believe that they are better and do things better than others just because of who they are, surely we are entering very dangerous territory.

In tomorrow’s Gospel, Jesus tells his listeners that there is a universality about the Word of God and that people would be making a terrible mistake to think that they know which people God is going to favour.

At first, when he expressed ideas that they liked, and with which they agreed, he was the “flavour of the month”, but once he moved away from their stereotypical way of thinking, they wanted to take him out and throw him over the cliff.

Jesus sees exactly what is happening and says to them: “No prophet is honoured in his own country.” (Luke 4: 24)

We are bound and tempered by our surroundings, the schools we attend, the places where we work, the countries in which we live. It is the challenge of a lifetime never to become hostage to our surroundings or the times in which we live. The Dominican saint Thomas Aquinas suggests that when someone speaks we should be more concerned with what is said than the person saying it.

It has been one of the great spin-offs of modern travel that people get to experience other cultures in remote places and in doing so realise that the people living there are not demons. How many people spend time in far flung countries and come home so enthused with what they have seen and learned?

As a young man, for years I heard, read and saw on television that the people of Vietnam were capable of doing the most evil of things. They did but so too did their attackers. These days people come back from Vietnam singing the praises of the country and the charm of its people.

It’s dangerous to say we are special because we are Irish or British or American. We believe we are special because each one of us is unique. As Christians we believe that each one of us has been made in the image and likeness of God. We believe that the Word of God has universal meaning throughout history and is not exclusively bestowed on any one group or society.

Far too much wrong, far too much mayhem has been caused in the world in the false belief that ‘we’ are stronger and better and superior to ‘them’.

Those listening to Jesus grew indignant to what he was saying and their solution was “to throw him down the hill”. (Luke 4: 29)

Of course that is never the solution; it wasn’t then and isn’t now.