May Green Action Comment

We have just passed Easter and now enter Rogation tide. Both are community festivals when people traditionally celebrate to share values and hopes together as part of the common good before God. Festivals affirm common unity. But what has happened to the public sphere? Has it been totally destroyed in the privatisation of life that has swamped our society since the late 1970s? Why is it that individualism and selfishness are so rampant and pervasive in 2013?

As we have just experienced local government elections again, it is clear that most politicians appeal to human self-interest and personal gain. There is a playing on the fears of people that what they already have will be lost, combined with a push to obtain yet more acquisitions in the quest for personal happiness.

We have political structures that foster vested interests and short-term goals and forsake the bigger picture and the needs of future generations. Most of the representatives we elect seem to serve hidden interests and unclear motives.

The difficulty our democracy faces, it seems to me, is that it is not democratic enough. We need to move from a representative system that creates elites to a more participative society where we can become more involved in taking our own community decisions. Yet this needs to be done not from a self-protective parochial perspective, but from the viewpoint of a global village – that how we live here influences lives elsewhere and this needs to be shaped by generosity and solidarity, not by fear or greed.

Let’s have more opportunities to make informed choices. Elections are limited. What about more referenda, community councils in urban areas, people’s forums, budgets for innovation and progressive thinking, good ideas clubs, locally formed energy and food plans, etc? The social media are already opening up new forms of participation; we have consumer voices (more women and men shop than vote) that could be enhanced; calling people to account is gradually becoming more widespread.

Ultimately in a democracy our politicians should be judged not only by specific policies but by how they have made society more democratic, egalitarian and fair for all. At the moment they are falling significantly short and we face a large democratic deficit.

Rogation is about planting the seeds for the future. It includes the old tradition of beating the bounds when the commons were reclaimed from private ownership. Temporary fences were trampled to bring the land back into use for the public good. Seeds were swopped and the community worked together for the benefit of all, not just a select few.

This is radical – a call to return to our shared rootedness. The poet Longfellow once commented that we pass on two gifts to our children – one is wings and the other is roots. So let us seek to build communities where we have both anchors and sails, and our leaders enable us all to flourish in a movement not of private gain but of public caring and sharing…

This article first appeared in Devon Churches Green Action News, May 2013