By Fr J.C. Pieris –

When I read the UNHRC report on Palestinian children killed by the thousands in Gaza, (Over 21,000!) I forwarded it to my private list and also to the list of NPP MPs. I also made a comment thus:

“… and we mollycoddle the Israelis in Arugambay (soldiers on vacation) because our people are sent there to work. It is true we need every dollar even from the devil because of our post Rajapaksa bankruptcy situation. Yet remember, every dollar coming from Israel is cursed and blood-stained, blood of Palestinian children. And we pay the price; the price is our humanity. For every genocidal act, committed by the serial killers of Israel on the Palestinians, violates my dignity as a human being.”

A few days later, like a riposte to it, our President AKD said in one of his speeches, that the government has a duty to protect tourists and Israeli tourists too. Then I received a book titled “The vision of Catholic Social Thought – The virtue of solidarity and the praxis of human rights.” By Meghan J. Clark. Fortress Press, Minneapolis. I think the content in that book is meant not only for Catholics but for every woman and man of good will. So here we go.

By the way, the other day I read that some Israeli tourists threw their guide into the sea, calling it a joke and reminding the government that it has a greater duty to protect its citizens like tour guides.

The theological base

We Catholics believe in One Creator God and also, we declare that He is a Trinity (Father Son and Spirit) The Bible tells us that God created humans in His image. In the image of the One God every human being is equal in dignity and invaluable. (Abraham Lincoln calls it, in the Gettysburg address, the foundation of democracy.) Human rights are based on that truth. But we are also created in the image of the Trinity, the ideal of solidarity. Humans are created in the image of Trinitarian solidarity. Solidarity is not a right but a virtue for it cannot be imposed and punished if one defaulted. One extreme of which is the individualistic neo-liberal capitalism and the other extreme is the faceless collectivism. The Catholic human solidarity is the middle path as found in the teachings of Jesus and their development for centuries. It is a virtue to be learned, convinced, accepted and practiced. It is a mutual sharing in brotherhood and responsibility without losing one’s individual, personal identity.

Human Rights

Universal declaration of Human Rights as propounded by the UN after WW II is clear and convincing. Wikipedia defines them thus “Human rights are fundamental entitlements that belong to every person simply by virtue of being human. They do not depend on your nationality, race, gender, religion, or social status, and they cannot be bought, sold, or taken away.”

However there has been questionings of these rights in African Asian countries. What does it mean to have human rights to a starving man or men enslaved by human traffickers and bought and sold? Or are these rights valid only for well to do countries? They seem to be more Western than Universal. Don’t nations have rights too? The right to be free, independent, sovereign and conduct commercial, cultural and other activities with all other countries without any hindrance and sanctions? There is a plethora of examples to the contrary like Venezuela, Iran and Cuba.

These issues are still to be clarified and answered. But I want to talk about human solidarity as understood by the Catholic Church.

Human Solidarity

A good place to start with is the old definition of solidarity in the Oxford Dictionary which is holding together, mutual dependence, community of interests, feelings and action.

Holding together

What holds humanity together? It is solidarity that holds humanity together not so much human rights. John Donne, a Catholic when it was illegal to be a Catholic in England, made “solidarity” the binding cement of humanity.

John Donne (1572–1631)

For Whom the Bell Tolls

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

“Each man’s death diminishes me. For I am involved in mankind.” Solidarity is one of the main teachings of Jesus: “What you do to the least of my brothers you do to me.” But if the cruel death of thousands of innocent Palestinian children, killed by the serial pedicide barbarian slaughterers of Israel does not affect me I must be a stone or a block of wood. If Sri Lankans are not stones or blocks of wood they must feel some responsibility for those innocent children. For our workers release the Israelis from farm work to go and slaughter children in Gaza. But we are like the three monkeys who see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing and do nothing. Disgraceful!

Mutual dependence

No country in this globalized world today can survive alone. Interdependence is an essential component of planetary human solidarity. However powerful a country is it will need either oil or rare earths or simply mundane things like soya and medicines.

But we in Sri Lanka need practically everything. And we are such a helpless and a poor country, so cash-strapped that we have to hang our heads and allow the Israeli barbarians to walk all over us and yet smile like the tour guide who was thrown into the sea. It is not interdependence it is some other shameful thing.

I do not know what our ambassador in Palestine tells them. I do not know how our diplomats face the Palestinian ambassador here. We were brought to this sorry situation by our own so-called leaders. The supreme court named and shamed them. We opened our eyes and finally saw the truth, thanks to the Aragalaya. We got our real independence at the Aragalaya not on the fourth of February 1948. When will we raise our heads in real freedom and dignity on equal terms with other countries?

Community of interests, feelings and action

It is time for nations to stop unnecessary antogonisms of ideologies and competition for domination. Greed is another unnecessary vice of nations. I remember Bush Sr say at a UN COP meeting in Rio de Janeiro that American way of life is non-negotiable. (To hell with Climate Change – I complete Bush’s sentence.) As Arnold Toybbee said in his last book I think, that the world is like a ship without a rudder with the sailors cutting up the ship to feed the fire for the steam engine. How long can the ship last?

Humanity must become a community of common interests like saving the planet. And it must also become a community of similar feelings of compassion, brotherhood and responsibility. Though all the countries, except US, Israel and some tiny nations, voted in favor of Palestine, there is no action. Only talk no walk. Regarding the Palestinian issue UN and Sri Lanka are failures.

The Catholic vision of Human Solidarity

It has been put in seven points by Marie Vianney Bilgrien thus:

1. Interdependence is a fact and solidarity emerged through the consciousness of that actuality.

2. Solidarity is based on the reality of our human equality and dignity.

3. Solidarity works for the common good of all,

4. Solidarity must be practiced with an awareness of the poor.

5. Solidarity must be a firm and persevering determination.

6. Solidarity is not just a virtue of individual persons, but also of groups and nations.

7. Compassion, empathy and mercy move solidarity into action and help sustain the disposition.

Catholic social teaching on human solidarity is not exclusive to Catholics as all religions advocate human unity and universal brotherhood. But as Pope Francis clearly teaches in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti that is what is lacking. The phrase means “All brothers” in Italian and comes from the Admonitions of St. Francis of Assisi.

Pope Francis wrote the letter during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the crisis revealed a breakdown in global solidarity and a rise in self-centered nationalism.

As a nation recovering from bankruptcy, humiliation and loss of self-respect, we need to regain not only our economy but also our dignity and our traditional compassion for all as Lord Buddha taught us to wish for and act accordingly: “Siyalu satvayo nidukwetwa, niroghiwetwa, suwapathwetwa ……”