Resurrections and elections.

Resurrections and elections.

One week finished and another started, as it does, but life has changed. For Christians, it was Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Around the world, people celebrated the fact that Yeshua (Jesus) the Christ was resurrected from death. Of course, one can’t be resurrected without dying first and nothing is as evil as an unjust execution. A Jewish rabbi who preached the values of being humble, loving and speaking truth to power was killed by power but resurrected. A good lesson, if you care for my opinion.

Jews believe that he was just another Rabbi who preached the teachings of the prophets from the Bible, Muslims see him as a great prophet and Christians call him the son of God or even God, depending on their denomination. Other people look on and say, you who believe in him control most of the world’s wealth, let's see what you do with it. We celebrate Easter, eat our chocolate eggs and build walls to protect ourselves from those who threaten our wealth. Even the most miserable amongst us are protecting the wealth, just in case we will get our hands on some of it. One never knows.

In the beginning, Christianity was a grassroots movement challenging the established official powers by peaceful resistance. The Roman Empire ruling the world with its local loyal regimes could not squelch the movement which advocated taking care of the poor, helping the orphans and even suggested what we now call the feminist movement. There was also the Easter promise showing that you can kill the resisters just to find their ideas resurrected shortly after. The message got lost.

Smart Roman leaders made a political decision to convert the Empire to Christianity and shaped it to their liking. Negotiations took place, a compromise was achieved and we entered a new period in history believing in Christ while retaining serfs and lords monarchial system. Care of the poor, sharing and loving was left for the poor themselves to deal with. Hoarding wealth and fighting for power was a separate domain in the hands of a few. For a thousand years, the rulers controlled the armies and wealth while the peasants groaned and starved. There were many rebellions and revolutions but the majority of the world's population remained economically far below those in power. 

Over time Our society defined the main streams of politics as Left, and Right. The Right believes that if society is left to its own resources a natural law will force us to make things good. The wisest and strongest will prosper but will have to use those below them to achieve their goals so the wealth will spread around. The left is in favor of imposing laws and taxes and spreading the wealth. To them, this is necessary in order to avoid a rebellion by the disadvantaged.

 

Last week was also elections week in our Canadian Province of Alberta. The two central ideologies of our political system butted heads. Alberta is a landlocked province rich in oil but surrounded by people who object to the oil being delivered in pipelines over their territory. The oil that Alberta does sell is subjected to taxes called Transfer payments benefitting the rest of Canada. If Alberta will sell more oil Canada will have more money, but Canadians on both sides elect governments who oppose oil pipelines. The opposition disregards the economic benefits and is mostly concerned with the environmental impact of the use of oil. In their opinion, it is better to be poorer than risk damage to the home planet. Strangely the provinces who have no oil are economically as successful as Alberta. They manage to have some social programs that leave those in Alberta behind.

Alberta voted for a right-wing government which promised to force the other Canadians to allow the building of additional pipelines by restricting how much oil we will sell BC and by withholding transfer payments to Quebec and the other eastern provinces. Also, Alberta will collect less tax from the devalued oil we do manage to sell supposedly to encourage, more development of…oil. This will take money away from what is available for social programs for the average Albertans while oil companies will keep a bigger share of the pie, but remain unable to take more oil to markets.

The Godly person who initiated Christianity never wanted people to worship him, only preached that sharing and loving others is the way to salvation of humans. He was obedient to the rulers and wanted his followers to take care of the least amongst them. In his teachings, there is a strong sentiment against hoarding wealth and abusing the weak and the meek, saying that they will inherit the earth.

I look at last week and wonder how is that possible. The Christian society is the one most comfortable on earth and we are seriously divided amongst ourselves. There are a huge number of people who believe that we took their share of the earth’s wealth and are waiting for us to fail. Some are trying to move in with us and serve us but most are gaining strength somewhere else. In our own domain, only a few are doing very well while so many are scraping by, often glad to be out of extreme poverty.  Most of us know that our way of living, dependent on oil cannot last. Where are we going?

If you are a reader of this newspaper, you have been exposed to opposing opinions about possible solutions to our problems. I encourage you to take some time to talk about the most important issues that we face in the near future or even start debating through letters to the editor. Consider the old teachings and the latest conflicts. Make the last week useful instead of ignoring reality in favor of little pleasures that will not last if we don’t deal with big problems.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

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