Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

Spiritual uplifting

In the Middle Ages, smart operators in Christian lands could always find 
buyers for old bones (especially if the bones actually "were" human) by 
claiming that they were part of the remains ("relics") of whatever saint 
was currently fashionable in that neighbourhood.

Old nails and slivers of wood were similarly passed off as parts of the 
"true cross". Those were uninformed and gullible times and suckers were 
plentiful.

Today, of course, it's different. In the 21st century we are long gone from 
the days when the bones of dead saints were paraded around for the 
religious edification of the faithful.

Actually, sadly, we're not. Right now, the bones of a French Carmelite nun 
who died in 1897 at the age of 24, are being toured around Australia for 
the glory of God and the Catholic Church.

As Archbishop Francis Carroll, Chairman of the Australian Bishops 
Conference defends the tour with a statement that would not have been out 
of place during the Crusades: "Relics are an instrument that focuses our 
attention on the saints and, through them, on God".

But there is one aspect of the affair that is uniquely modern: the tour of 
the nun's bones, called the "Pilgrimage of the Relics of St Thores of 
Lisieux" is sponsored by Qantas "and a clutch of funeral directors". How 
macabre can you get?

The website for the tour of St Thorese's "relics" says admiringly: "For 
Dorothy Day [founder of the Catholic Worker], the concrete nature of 
Thorese's teachings swept away abstract elements of Marxist theory to allow 
her to place her own work for reform and social justice in the context of a 
rich spirituality."

Those pesky "abstract elements of Marxist theory" that Day was able to junk 
in favour of a "rich spirituality" would have explained the reality of the 
society in which she struggled for social justice and why it would "only" 
be achieved completely by changing the social system itself.

But who needs that kind of theoretical guidance when you can have the 
Virgin Mary pop out of a statue and make everything well, as supposedly 
happened to Thorese?

Indeed, the life of this unfortunate young nun is a sad commentary on the 
ignorance of provincial French life in the late 19th century and on 
religious hysteria and obsession among backward schoolgirls in a stifling, 
oppressive milieu.

Marxism, with its confidence in the innate goodness of humanity and in the 
willingness of human beings to help one another to fulfil their potential 
and enrich the lives of others, cannot have a "rich spirituality", can it?

Marxism-Leninism has brought hope to the downtrodden of the Earth. It has 
brought countless numbers of people in all parts of the world into struggle 
not for their own narrow self interest but for the happiness and well being 
of their fellow men and women.

But how can that compare with magical statues, sacred bones and miraculous 
visions?

Despite the best efforts of tyrants and exploiters, of corporations and 
gangsters to defame it and destroy them, those "abstract elements of 
Marxist theory" have survived and persisted, because they accord with 
reality and with the desires and hopes of the great mass of the human race.

I think that's pretty damn spiritual. It certainly uplifts my spirit.

* * *

Bad elements

The "freedom" that the student dissidents in Tiananmen square shouted 
for so loudly was the freedom to become capitalists with no restraint from 
Party or State. Most of the leading dissidents of that time now live in the 
US (where else?) and are the subject of a new book Bad Elements.

The book is by Ian Buruma, a former journalist for the very capitalist Far 
East Economic Review (FEER), published in Hong Kong by none other than 
the Dow Jones Corporation (creators of the Dow Jones index of stock market 
prices).

In their January 31 issue FEER reviewed the book by their former 
colleague. They were generally approving but not exactly glowing, actually 
describing the first third as "dreary".

"It does not help", writes FEER, "that many of his subjects live on 
anonymous streets in Torrance, Los Angeles, Flushing, and elsewhere in 
unremarkably suburban America".

This section includes an update on one of the leaders of the Tiananmen 
demonstration, Chai Ling, "the so-called chief commander of the square. The 
then 23-year-old student appeared in newscasts world-wide for days, 
exhorting demonstrators through a bull-horn to stay the course."

Tellingly, the next sentence gives the game away: "A decade later, she had 
graduated from Harvard Business School, and is now the CEO of a computer 
software company in Cambridge, Massachusetts."

How terribly logical and appropriate. Even more logical is the fact that 
"financial backing [for Ms Ling's company] comes from Reebok and 
Microsoft". Of course.

Bob Hawke may have wept for the "pro-democracy demonstrators" of Tiananmen 
Square, but Ms Ling does not have a high opinion of the experience. True, 
she uses her role in it in her company's publicity, but otherwise she 
dismisses it as "All that old stuff, all that garbage".

But she is still a woman with a vision, a dream. Now it is apparently "to 
become rich enough to buy China and 'fix it'(sic)".

If you conclude that she has departed from reality you just might be right. 
China would definitely seem to be better off without her.