Mammon,
Jehovah and the Witness of Armageddon
By Kent Barker
I fear I may have been a bit rude.
I mean, once I knew who they were I virtually slammed the door in their
face. It’s true I was in a bit of a
hurry. But what I wish I had found time
to say was this: “Look how would you feel if I turned up at your house on a
Saturday morning and tried to persuade you that your beliefs were wrong and
there was no God, or supreme being, or single deity, and no Jesus Christ and no
heaven or hell? In fact, in short, you
ought to convert to Humanism or Atheism pronto.”
A friend pointed out, they’d probably actually engage in the debate
and keep me arguing for ages. But my
general point holds good. Surely it’s a
tad arrogant for them to think that their ‘beliefs’ are better than mine and that
they have a duty to persuade me to adopt their view? It’s the proselytising
nature of so many religions that causes half the problems and has led to
religious wars down the ages. Arguably
it’s what’s behind the current rise of militant Islam. (Though before we rush to condemn, perhaps we
should remove the mote from our own eye and remember the nine Crusades
Christians launched on Islam between 1095 and 1272).
Of course the strife is not only between different religions, but
often between branches of the same religion.
Catholics and Protestants down the ages and still evident in Northern
Ireland. And what about the poor Cathars? A couple of weeks in the Languedoc and you
realise just how brutal the Roman Catholic armies of the early 13th
century could be. Not content with
subjugating Muslims in the ‘Holy’ land they rampaged round southern France
maiming and slaughtering families and entire villages for no other reason that
they followed different branch of Christianity.
Anyway I didn’t have that conversation with the Jehovah’s Witnesses at
my door and, instead, rushed off to Hastings with my anti-TTIP petition and
posters and leaflets to try to persuade the good citizens that they were in
error if they believed that the proposed transatlantic trade agreement was a
good thing.
What depressed, if not entirely surprised, me was that so
few people had even heard of TTIP. Come
on, put up your own hand up if you know that it stands for the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership. Mind
you if you didn’t know about it, it’s not unduly surprising– that’s the way
they want it. TTIP is a series of trade
negotiations being carried out, mostly in secret, between the EU and US designed
to hugely reduce regulatory barriers to trade for big business. Things like
food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations health
provision and the sovereign powers of individual nations.
So I harangued Saturday morning
shoppers about the dangers of deregulation that TTIP would bring in. I told them how I was convinced it could end
effective food labeling, and allow the use of Neonicotinoids
which would kill the bees and that the government wouldn’t be able to do
anything about it because the pharmaceutical corporations would be able to sue them
if they stood in the way of their profits.
But as I handed leaflets to people quietly lunching al
fresco in George Street I did see some parallels with that couple who’d knocked
at my door earlier in the day. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that destruction at Armageddon is
imminent, and that the establishment of God's kingdom over the earth is the
only solution for problems faced by humanity.
TTIP opponents believe that it could effectively lead to the
destruction of democracy by the multi-nationals. As Lee Willams pointed out in
the Independent recently: “One of the main aims
of TTIP is the introduction of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which
allow companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss
of profits. In effect it means unelected transnational corporations can dictate
the policies of democratically elected governments.”
One of the results of TTIP would be to open up public
health, education and water services to free competition. But that would mean that US companies could
effectively take over – and privatise – cherished European institutions like
the NHS. And there would be nothing the Government could do about it without the
risk of being sued.
After witnessing the recent rapaciousness of the Banking
sector, is it entirely fanciful to argue that TTIP, the multi-national corporations
and and the forces of capitalism are the very things that are leading us to
destruction? Perhaps we could do with
something like an Armageddon to beat them back and establish a new world order
based on people rather than profit. But
I am not sure I’m prepared to give up my Saturday mornings to knock on doors to
proselytise these beliefs.
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