Taking a stance: sticking to one’s principles; speaking up
“Doing the right thing”, Janie Fitzpatrick, a Global Youth Voices Leader, Melbourne Office
“I had to do it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t speak up”: a rallying call to all those who speak out.
Every year Global Youth Voices in Melbourne chooses an outspoken, but threatened, public critic as their “hero”. We then run a campaign to build awareness and help their cause. As one of the leaders of Global Youth Voices in Melbourne, I had, this year, the rewarding task of choosing our hero, and turned to Brave Father Musala, a Ugandan priest. Father Musala recently raised the alarm about rampant sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Uganda; he was sacked and accused of being gay. Being gay is an offence in Uganda; and one that could, in the worst case scenario, lead to the death penalty.
Briefly, Father Musala wrote, last year, to the Archbishop of Kampala, Cyprian Lwanga, asking him to investigate sexual abuse and warning that the issue threatened to blow up in Uganda as it had in Europe. The Archbishop accused the priest of threatening the morality of the Church. Others said he was gay; his life was at risk.
Shocked by the fact that he could be so brutally crucified for his principles, we held a series of public seminars and other cultural events to raise money for his campaign for justice.
Recently, our very own Global Youth Theatre Group staged Bertolt Brecht’s play, Galileo, and dedicated two of their performances to the cause. Galileo of course is another victim of his genius and beliefs. The role was played by our local youth star, Mr John Hebden, who has also recently had an important breakthrough in the ABC new series, Bring them Home.
Hebden depicts Galileo as a friendly, unassuming, humble scientist despite the significance of his findings. He clearly downplays his challenge to authorities. Supporting Copernicus’s heliocentric theories, Galileo refuted Aristotle’s theory that placed earth, and hence man, in the centre of the universe.
At that time, these views were considered to be heretical; Giordono Bruno was burned at the stake and Galileo was heading for the same fate. The church authorities believed that if the peasants started talking about the “phases of Venus” they may even start to question the work of God. They may not see God as responsible for all miracles. (92) The authorities are also annoyed that Galileo writes his theories of astronomy in the “idiom of fishwives and merchants”. (92) If the workers talk about these theories they may start to question God’s authority.
Indeed, whether one sticks to one’s principles can be a very delicate matter when one’s life is under threat.
Faced with the threat of torture, Galileo recants his endorsement of Copernicus’ geocentric model of the universe. By his own admission, Galileo explains, “I recanted because I was afraid of physical pain”. “They showed me the instruments [of torture]”.
Whilst Galileo clearly appears a broken man on stage, he does salvage something of his reputation.
From our perspective, it is deceptively easy to view Galileo as a traitor to his own life’s work. However, most of us in his place would act in a similar way. When faced with danger or conflict, our primordial reaction is to flee. We possess a natural propensity to avert danger and are biologically conditioned to avoid threat. It has culminated in a reality such that self-preservation has become an intrinsic trait hardwired into the human psyche. Thereby, perhaps it is difficult to blame Galileo for his desire for self-preservation.
However, whilst our flight-fight mechanisms tend to place an emphasis on survival, there are individuals who still manage to act altruistically during life-threatening times. They prioritise their moral principles above all else, serving a as a reminder to humanity that dignity and hope are just as vital as physical survival.
Ironically, although Galileo sees his capitulation as a shameful betrayal, Andreas heralds his amazing deception as one of great worth to science and hence the human race.
It seems absurd these days that, as in the 1600s, the church could be so dogmatic with regards to certain principles. Recently a Catholic priest, Father Greg Reynolds, was excommunicated because of his support for gay parishioners and women priests. The church believes that “marriage is a faithful, exclusive and lifelong union between one man and one woman, joined as husband and wife in an intimate partnership of life and love,”. Recently, the Administrative Committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for constitutional amendment to protect the unique social and legal status of marriage.
A London-based psychoanalyst, Mr David Morgan, gave a talk at our Global Youth Voices Conference alongside Father Greg Reynolds. He refers to a process of “doubling” or “splitting” whereby individuals hold contradictory positions to separate different selves and different loyalty structures. Not unlike what George Orwell terms “double think” – the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts at once.
Mr Morgan pointed out that many priests or people in a position of authority and responsibility use “double think” to conveniently rationalise their cowardly and shameful tendency to compromise their principles. Thus it is possible to survive and not to survive; to be involved and a bystander at the same time: to think and not to think.
Whilst many powerful institutions use psychological processes such as reversal and projection to evade any sense of responsibility for wrong-doing, the discloser or whistleblower is made to feel that he or she is the wrongdoer, and as a result may sink into depression.
The problem with the whistleblower or principled defender is that such contradictions are too painful. German philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote of heroic individuals that there seems to be a compulsion to do the “right thing”. They cannot “double think”. It would be too painful. One of Mr Morgan’s patients said, “I had to do it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t speak up”.
I will never forget the plight of another brave campaigner for justice and human rights, whose final editorial in 2009 was called “the voice from the grave”. You see, the Sri Lankan journalist foreshadowed his own death. (Lasantha Wickrematunge)
“When finally I am killed it will be the Government that kills me, he wrote (referring to President Mahinda Rajapakse”. He hinted at the killers from within the ranks of Sri Lanka’s Government and detailed its flouting of democracy. Lasantha Wickrematunge was shot in the head in Colombo by two gunmen on a motorcycle. His paper, the Sunday Leader, took an impartial line on the vicious civil war between the Singalhese and the Tamil Tigers. He suffered three attacks before the final shooting. He said that the Tamil people were “deprived of all self respect” in the military occupation of Jaffna.
Let us hope this does not happen to Father Musala. Please join us in the fight. (Click www.globalyouthvoices/melbourne/campaign)
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