Weekly Reflection – Civility

19 July 2024

‘Whatever our disagreements in this campaign, he is a decent, public-spirited man, who I respect.’

‘We also recognise the dedication and hard work [of his] leadership.’

On the morning of 5th July, the General Election results became clear.  Power was taken from one set of politicians and given to another.  As the dust settles, it’s a good moment to remember that, whatever our views about the specific people or parties who won or lost, these two sentences give us all pause for thought and cause for hope.  They came from the Downing Street speeches of the winning and losing leaders.  It doesn’t actually matter which one said which; the key point is that both the incoming prime ministers behaved in a civil way, acknowledge each other’s efforts and achievements with respect.

Being civil is really important.  ‘Civil’ can sometimes just mean courteous or polite; and goodness knows we could all benefit from more courtesy.  And it’s connected with something deeper; ‘civil’ goes back to the Latin and French words for ‘citizen’, and gets us thinking about what kind of behaviours we need to make our society work.  One really hopeful thing to emerge from the transition between governments this month was the moderate and thoughtful language from leading politicians.  They recognised that although they might disagree (perhaps very strongly) with their opponents, they were still part of the same community and still owed each other a certain kind of respect.

Shared citizenship needs to be recognised in shared civility for a democratic society flourish.  As one re-elected MP said, it’s a great gift to live in a country where our leaders are chosen ‘not by bombs or bullets but by thousands of people peacefully placing crosses in boxes on bits of paper.’  But on 6th January 2021 and again last week in the United States, we saw the horrific consequences of people attempting to intervene in the democratic process with behaviour that wasn’t just discourteous but violent and murderous.  It’s a sobering reminder of how easy it is for harsh words to turn into dangerous actions.  We must all make a bigger effort to live civilly with everyone in our community – even, especially, those we disagree with the most.

With prayers and best wishes,

Philip

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