“But what can I do?” This is often a rhetorical question for millions of people, for there is a deeply rooted conviction in many of us that individual efforts are futile. Those who believe differently are considered fools.
It is true that certain types of political regimes do all in their power to exclude people from decision-making at all levels. This political estrangement creates a great temptation, for even when individual efforts could change the situation in a positive way people are no longer ready for responsibility and don’t have ideas to offer.
This logic takes us further: if we can’t influence our society positively, we can’t influence it negatively either. Thus, even when we are personally involved in corruption, we don’t feel our responsibility. “Who are we to be responsible? We are nobodys.” It is our neighbour, the authorities, the system, who must be blamed. Shifting blame on someone or, even better something impersonal, is the root of the evil. Being a victim rather than a perpetrator always feels better. However when the role of helpless victim who is occasionally “compelled” by invincible evil forces to do nasty things becomes our second nature, it brings about dreadful consequences – and evil has no end.
But how can I believe that my personal choices matter in a wider world? All my experience seems to tell me that I am small, alone and disconnected. Or does it?
When I worked in one of Moscow’s universities, there was a period when the authorities were forcing different chairs and departments to merge together and form much bigger departments and chair positions with wider remits. I was a chairperson at a small department that taught foreign languages to science students. My department was merged, without our consent, with three other departments. The new chairperson launched a project that involved forcing students to buy certain textbooks and if they disobeyed they were threatened with expulsion. That was a direct violation of Russian educational law. There was also a lot of bullying of teachers into joining the project, and to many it seemed that there was no choice. Yet my colleagues and I refused to be drawn into any corrupt activities, and we were never directly punished for our resistance.
At the same time, being a part of an unstructured and absurdly big and corrupt body, with our voices subdued, thoroughly dispirited the teachers and some left the University for good. Those who remained longed to become an independent unit again.
One and a half years later the University got a new rector and a brief window opened where we could act more decisively. We wrote a letter to the new University authorities providing arguments why, for the sake of efficiency of language education, it was important to have a specialized department teaching languages to science students. Suddenly our arguments were heard and though there followed months of struggle we were finally restored to our previous status. We did not become an ideal department after that – but we became a way more motivated and a more creative collective which was able to start fruitful initiatives for the benefit of students.
It was a very local case which had no influence on any bigger issues in my country, but it convinced me and, I hope, some of my colleagues that sticking to the law and ethics in every situation is the only right thing to do, even if at the beginning it may seem hopeless. What is needed is trust that if one follows one’s inner voice, necessary help will be somehow or other provided – as happened with our small collective during our difficult journey.
Florence Nosley, an IofC ‘Elder’ from France, recently related her own story of a personal initiative that seems to me very encouraging. In May this year she was challenged by an unrest which started in New Caledonia - a place so faraway from France that ordinary people had seldom given much thought to it before. Even in the French media it only popped up in the news when things went wrong there. As to Florence herself, though she had always been concerned and worried about the situation, she could not imagine how she could help. ‘A questioning started in me,’ Florence says, ‘not only about New Caledonia, but about life in general and relationships between people.’ She wrote a few lines and sent them to some newspapers as ‘Readers’ Correspondence’. Her article was not proposing a ready solution, as many would be tempted to rush into, but suggested that instead of arguing and quarreling, shouldn’t all French ‘be talking about everyone moving to a better understanding of the situation?’ A universal solution to any crisis, Florence wrote, ‘could be the words “Listen, reflect, understand, learn, then (re)build”.’
To her surprise, her letter was published in two newspapers. Though she had no idea what reaction they provoked in readers, she felt encouraged to take one more step. After President Macron dissolved the Parliament and called early elections, Florence had a thought to send these lines to the ten newly elected MPs from her province and to the leaders of the different political parties in France. She got two responses from MPs which indicated that her words were heard and provided some food for thought in a few decision-makers.
Florence adds: ‘Even if it is complicated, even if we don't know where we go, I've taken a little step and I'm waiting for the next one — that's what we can do as ordinary people. Small steps like this one helps me no longer be a passive onlooker in these situations, but a part of the solution of problems behind them.’
Some might think writing letters is too weak – the situation in the world is so urgent that it requires a revolution, not letters.
But sometimes, written at a right moment, letters too may cause revolutions. Almost two years ago I was interviewing Sturla Johnson, a Norwegian doctor and MRA/IofC volunteer, for my film project. He told me the story - the full account is published on this website.
In a nutshell, Sturla read in the newspaper that the Norwegian authorities decided to give tax deductions on bribery to companies which had to pay people in India or in Africa to get necessary business contracts. ‘It really hit me,” he said. As Sturla had worked as an MRA volunteer for many years in African countries he knew the problem of corruption in Africa better than most. It was a serious issue which was not easy to deal with. But deliberate encouragement of bribery was too much, he thought. ‘I sat down and wrote a letter of protest to the Minister of Finance, the top authority over taxation in Norway, in which I said that this was absolutely unacceptable. And I had four friends sign the letter with me.’ As a result, Sturla was invited by Norwegian TV to take part in a panel discussion on corruption. The case came up in Parliament and soon became widely discussed all over the country. A few months later the Minister of Finance announced the end of tax deduction for bribes. Shortly after that it became an issue in the World Bank, which in turn gave rise to a chain reaction in many countries and international organisations. Later the World Bank, in its 1997 World Development Report, concluded that corruption blocks development in poor countries.
‘The first thing is to make the evil you spot an issue,’ adds Sturla. ‘And then come ideas how to design and stop it.’
In one of our conversations, Sturla’s cousin Jens Jonathan Wilhelmsen, another life-long MRA/IofC worker from Norway, remarked: ‘The country is moved by people – by one person, hundreds of people, thousands of people – but people. Somebody coined the phrase “The giant are the fellows”. It is people who decide the role the nation takes.’
Countries and continents are driven by inconspicuous, often unseen choices that each of us make every day, and it would be ‘inferior thinking’, as Frank Buchman called it in his ‘Visby Speech’, to believe that these choices are too small to have any relation to global issues. ‘Saving a crumbling civilization’ begins with my choice to write a letter or simply stick to the law when no one else does. We can’t know in advance what chain of events we may trigger by doing so, but we can identify the evil, listen to our inner voice, reflect over what we hear and try to address the issue honestly, using the means that are at hand. And then leave the revolution to God.
Elena Shvarts, Moscow
English