Putting faces to names

I have spent the last few days in hospital recovering from an operation. This has offered some time for reflection that, i am sorry to say, is all too rare these days. I thought that a celebratory blog would be worthwhile in response, noting a few observations.

Firstly, i reiterate how proud i am to live in a country as diverse as the UK. Far from Nick Griffin’s suggestion that the white race that i am a part of has been the victim of a ‘holocaust’ at the hands of multiculturalism and immigration, i feel that our country is enriched and sustained by our welcoming of those from different cultures to our own. I wrote some time ago about the pride that i felt when i saw Monty Panesar (England’s first Sikh cricketer) take a wicket and explode in rapturous celebration. Even cricket, the most white, middle-class of British sports, was not beyond the liberating energy of those different to ourselves.
In further response to Griffin, the role that immigrants play in staffing the NHS is both vital and enormous. The NHS and the BBC are the two British institutions that most of us are most proud of: they are the envy of the world. To a great extent, both, but particularly the NHS, embodies and enacts that central tenet of Britishness, diversity and multiculturalism, that give me immense pride as a quietly patriotic, proud Englishman.

Secondly, the notion of diversity, especially in relation to Britain’s relation to the rest of the world in general, and Africa (where the majority of the nurses that care for me are from) in particular, was extended to discussions of faith and the current state of the Anglican Communion.

We often speak of how nice it is to “put a face to the name”. That is, to recognise in person someone that we have hitherto known about only in words, and particularly by the chief words that bear their identity: their name.

I have been rather good in recent times of expressing my dissatisfaction and disagreement with people by writing them off, homogenising the group from which they come, and then labelling this homogenous as a convenient and negatively-construed ‘other’, who expresses in a neat fashion some particularly facet of who i am not. The best examples of this occur, as usual, with religion, and with the African church’s apparent unwillingness to accept the West’s moves towards the incorporation of homosexuality into its cultural mainstream, and willingness to sanction the mistreatment (in some cases, to the point of death) of gay people living in their proximity. My attitude towards those operating with similar beliefs in the UK has often been to suggest that they “fuck off to Africa”, or something similar – at least that way they would only spoil the churches of a single continent, and leave the West to bask in its social and theological liberalism. The implicit process of writing people off, homogenising them, and then labelling them has certainly occurred here.

One nurse that cared for me in a particularly gentle manner was Grace, who comes from Nigeria. She is a woman true to her name, with a beaming smile, a piercing laugh, a soothing voice and gentle hands with which she conducts her work with great skill and professionalism. She goes to church in Ealing, and i suspect has a rather conservative social morality (or, for the sake of argument, i will assume so, aware of the risk of homogenising another person into a stereotype in the process). The more time that i spent with Grace, the less i felt able to talk again of African Christianity in a negative manner: despite my presumed differences in belief with Grace, i was struck by her warmth of spirit, her joy with being alive, the excitement with which she spoke about her children, and her very profession of nursing, of caring for the sick.

I think a few things on the back of this:

• How wrong it was of me to label and stereotype. These things close the mind rather than opening and enriching it, and prevent the possibility that one’s experience of the world can be changed by someone that you think you disagree with.

• How important it is that we affirm our ability to learn something from everyone in the world, whether or not we like or agree with them. Grace and I may disagree on some matters of doctrine – but if i let this cloud my engagement with her then i am poorer as a result, as i will not learn about the gifts of compassion, care, gentleness and peace.

• How important it is to expose oneself to, and make friends with, those with whom one disagrees. When speaking negatively of ‘Africans’ in the future i will not be without an image to place on this label. When we are aware that our use of a label requires us to include someone we know and respect within the bounds of those being labelled, it makes us think twice about using it in the first place. Increased exposure to gay people is well evidenced to liberalise people’s views of homosexuality: people put Gary’s, or Megan’s, or Phil’s face to the name of ‘homosexual’, and we realise that behind the label are simply people like us.

Overall, i feel rather ashamed of my (i hope, former) labelling of those conservative (label-alert!) Christians (and another one) who oppose the steps taken by countries in the West towards the equalisation of rights between heterosexual and homosexual people, and those commending similar steps within the Church. The diversity that i prize in the UK as a whole must surely be replicated across the Church domestic and global, even (or especially) when it is difficult to do so. One way of doing this is to meet those that one labels, and to learn from them. Once we have put faces to the names we use about them, our embrace of diversity can only flourish.