The Citizens’ Assembly report ignores conscientious objection

At the end of June, Ms Justice Laffoy  presented her report on the Citizens’ Assembly meetings dedicated to the discussion of the 8th amendment. In spite of calls for the provision and regulation of conscientious objection to abortion, the report has made no recommendation about it.

The Citizens’ Assembly members voted for Article 40.3.3 to “be replaced with a constitutional provision that explicitly authorises the Oireachtas to legislate to address termination of pregnancy, any rights of the unborn, and any rights of the pregnant woman.” If this will happen it will be also necessary to regulate the right of conscientious objectors.

As one of the purposes of the Citizens’ Assembly was to make recommendations about what should be included in a possible new legislation, one wonders why it failed to address this fundamental issue, ignoring the suggestions and requests coming from Assembly members, private citizens, advocacy groups and professional bodies.

During the first weekend of the Citizens’ Assembly, in November, members were asked to identify topics that they believed to be important. The regulation of conscientious objection was one of the key points raised. Following their request, at the February meeting prof. Gerard Bury delivered a paper on the “Regulation of the medical profession and issues arising including conscientious objection”. Other speakers have occasionally referred to the same issue.

Some submissions from private citizens, advocacy groups and professional bodies have also dealt with this topic, suggesting different solutions to the regulation of conscientious objection. These submissions came both from the pro-life and the pro-choice sides. (See, for instance, the contributions of the Green Party, Amnesty International Ireland or the Irish Council for Civil Liberty.) Unfortunately, we know that the large majority of those submissions have been ignored by the Assembly and only a random selection have been offered to its members for reflection.

Freedom of conscience is recognised by art. 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved a resolution on the right of conscientious objection in lawful medical care stating that “No personal, hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion, the performance of a human miscarriage, or euthanasia or any act which could cause the death of a human foetus or embryo, for any reason”.

Note that the resolution refers not only to individuals but also to hospitals and institutions. This is precisely what is missing in the current legislation, which allows conscientious objection only to some healthcare professionals but not to entire hospitals and institutions. Any discussion on abortion inevitably has to address who can object to their performance and in what circumstances. The submissions have proposed different solutions. Why then there was no vote by Assembly members on conscientious objection? Why not even an ancillary recommendation about it?

Exclusivity no longer an essential element of marriage, Supreme Court decides

The recent ruling by the Supreme Court on a polygamous marriage means that exclusivity is no longer considered an essential element in marriage. So, marriage does not have to be exclusive under the new legal dispensation, it does not have to be the conjugal union of a man and a woman, it cannot be legally permanent and indissoluble, and it need not even be a sexual union, at any stage of the marriage. Little is therefore left of how we once understood marriage. Certainly, the Christian idea of marriage, mirrored to a large extent in most cultures, is dead and buried as a legal concept.
At stake in ‘H.A.H – v – S.A.A & ors’ was whether the polygamous marriages of a man entered into Lebanon could be recognised here. The Supreme Court ruled that the first marriage was valid but not the second marriage. However, in accepting the first marriage of the Lebanese man the court has also, perhaps inadvertently, treated exclusivity as a non-essential element of marriage. His first marriage was not intended to be to the exclusion of all others. He did not intend to be monogamous. His commitment wasn’t complete and exclusive as he was open to a possible second marriage.
Traditionally, in common law, the definition of marriage was based on the dictum of Sir James Wilde (later Lord Penzance) in the polygamy case Hyde v Hyde and Woodmansee (1866) “I conceive that marriage, as understood in Christendom, may for this purpose be defined as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others.”
To repeat, after the introduction of divorce in 1995, marriage is no longer indissoluble. After the 2015 referendum, conjugality is no longer an essential feature. Now, the concept of “to the exclusion of all others” isn’t an essential element either in contracting marriage.
Indeed, as mentioned, marriage need not ever be a sexual relationship of any kind. The Referendum Commission confirmed this in 2015 when it said under the changed definition of marriage, two heterosexual friends could marry if they wished.
In this polygamy case, the Attorney General correctly took the position that neither of the two marriages should be recognised on the ground that “Irish public policy is opposed to the attachment of legal consequence in this State to polygamous marriage”.
The Supreme Court declared otherwise. In fact, in her ruling on behalf of the court, Justice O’Malley also declared the Christian understanding of marriage to be essentially dead and buried in Irish law.
“The combination of the introduction of no-fault divorce and, in particular, the amendment of the Constitution providing for the introduction of same-sex marriage have resulted in a legal institution of marriage that cannot be described in terms of traditional Christian doctrine.  ….  In my view the defining characteristic of marriage as envisaged by the Constitution in this era is that it entails the voluntary entry into mutual personal and legal commitments on the basis of an equal partnership between two persons, both of whom possess capacity to enter into such commitments, in accordance with the requirements laid down by law”.
She is certainly correct to say civil marriage and religious marriage in Ireland no longer bear much resemblance to each other. Indeed, her own definition of marriage, given in the passage above, reads more like something from company law.
This is what we have turned marriage into in Ireland. Is this really what we intended?

Monogamy is under attack on different fronts

Last year the Constitutional Court of Colombia legalised same-sex marriages. Now three men in Medellin have gained legal recognition as a ‘polyamorous family’ unit with inheritance rights. The trio will hold a marriage ceremony and then go on honeymoon. Now that many people have decided that sexual complementarity is irrelevant to marriage, why should we allow only couples to marry? Why not three or more?
While the union of the three men in Columbia is not marriage as such legally speaking, it is legally recognised and this could easily be a step on the road to polyamorous marriages in some countries. Many fail to see how demands such as these follow logically from support for same-sex marriages.
Marriage, as understood everywhere in the world until very recently, is the union of a man and a woman. It is between two persons precisely because there are two sexes, each one complementary to the other. Both are necessary and sufficient for marriage.
Once the essential component of sexual complementary is removed from the definition of marriage there is no logical reason why it should be limited to only two individuals. The State has no right to privilege or impose one form of family structure or sexuality over another, claim polyamory advocates.
(As evidence of the still very small, but nonetheless growing demand for official recognition of polyamorous relationships see here and here. Note that these articles have appeared in mainstream, not fringe publications).
The Irish constitution, post-2015, specifies that marriage is between two people. For pragmatic reasons, those who drafted the new constitutional definition had to make it as acceptable as possible for the general public and so they excluded multi-partners unions. However, most if not all of the arguments used to support same-sex marriage can also be used to support polyamorous marriages, or at least legally recognised polyamorous unions, for same ‘love is love’, ‘how is this going to harm you?’, ‘equality for all’. But there is a more compelling reason than this: children.
Same-sex relationships are by definition infertile while polyamorous relationships including at least one man and one woman are fertile. Isn’t it in the interest of children born in polyamorous arrangements to have their parents in a recognised legal relationship? Or you can imagine a ‘throuple’ – yes, that’s the new word for three-partner relationships – where one woman and one man provide the egg and the sperm respectively, and a third woman carries the pregnancy. Why shouldn’t they all three be considered legal parents of the child and be united in one marriage?
Or you can have three women (see here) who have a child via sperm donation all wanting to be legally recognised as that child’s parents. Once we decide that the natural tie to one man and one woman (the mother and the father) is no longer important, why not accede to their demand? All these novel arrangements suit adults but the question is how they are beneficial to children. Isn’t it better for them to have their own mothers and fathers dedicated exclusively to them rather than to other spouses and offspring?
What is missing in polyamory is exclusivity. The husband doesn’t commit totally to the wife to the exclusion of all others, and vice versa. If marriage has to be, among other things, a sexual relationship, then it can only be consummated by no more and no less than a man and a woman. The conjugal act requires the two complementary sexes. No other act can in the same way unite three or more, no other act generates new life and has therefore the same relevance for society.
Being ‘one flesh’ with someone entails commitment through time (hence permanence) and at each time (hence exclusivity). Once sexual complementarity is removed, and we lose sight of the importance of the natural ties, there are no logical reasons why other essential elements such as exclusivity and monogamy should be kept.
(In my next blog I will discuss the recent ruling by the Irish Supreme Court on polygamous marriage, especially the argument that permitting such marriage would violate the principle of equality).

Official figures badly underestimate number of Down Syndrome abortions

We know that the number of Down Syndrome babies who are aborted annually in the UK is shockingly high, but it turns out that the figure given by the Department of Health in Britain is a gross underestimate. The Department of Health (DH) puts the figure at about 700, but the true total is more like 1,100.
This means that the total of 45 Irish women who had abortions in the UK because of a Down Syndrome diagnosis, according to the latest DH report, could be more like 70 or 80.
The 2016 abortion report from DH says that last year 706 babies were aborted because of Down Syndrome. The report itself notes the underestimation. Its own Introduction informs us that there is a large discrepancy between the figures it makes public, and the number reported by the National Down’s Syndrome Cytogenetic Register (NDSCR).
The Introduction states: “A matching exercise was carried out between the NDSCR data and Department of Health notifications for 2011, 2012 and 2013 data. Results from the matching [exercise] suggest that a Department of Health notification was made for about 54% of NDSCR records and that almost half of Ground E notifications are missing.”  (Ground E permits abortion where the baby has a physical or mental abnormality, including Down Syndrome).
Several studies have highlighted the high degree of under-reporting. A recent one from 2015 called ‘Accuracy of reporting abortions with Down syndrome in England and Wales: a data linkage study’, established that, “An estimated 2,240 abortions of fetuses with Down Syndrome occurred in 2011/12; NDSCR estimated 2208 and DH 1100.” Note that this study focuses on a two-year period.
The reasons for the under-reporting are explained in the study.
One is that the abortion might have been recorded under the wrong ground, usually C (physical and mental health of the mother) or as ground E but with no mention of Down Syndrome. Moreover, forms are not always completed or returned. Even when returned, they might not arrive on time for the annual record.
The Department of Health maintains that they have been working with clinics to rectify this under-reporting. “In December 2016 the Department of Health wrote to all Fetal Medicine Units, Antenatal Screening Midwives and administration staff reminding colleagues of doctors’ responsibility to submit HSA4 forms to the relevant Chief Medical Officer. The letter was jointly signed by the Department of Health, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Maternal and Fetal Health Medicine Society. However, despite some progress being made, it is likely there is still a significant undercount presented in the ground E notification tables in this publication, so overall figures related to ground E notifications should be treated with caution.”
For the same reasons, and as mentioned above, when we consider the figures about abortions of Down Syndrome babies performed on women with addresses from Ireland, it is more likely that the real number is not 45, as the report claims, but could be 70 or 80, a sobering thought.

PS.
There is also another reason why all data about legal abortions, not just those on ground E, are underestimated.
The annual reports are based on a snapshot of the records taken some weeks prior to publication. Notifications received after this cut-off date are processed but they are not included in future statistical releases. One of the reasons for this policy of not revising statistics is that “the revisions would be small in scale and therefore of little value“.
Interestingly, a significant number of those late notification are about ground E abortions.  “This number of late ground E forms is disproportional to the total number (around 10% of late forms were for ground E compared to 2% overall), which could be due to the increased awareness around likely under reporting of ground E forms. However, as the table below shows, the inclusion of this information would have resulted in little change in the percentage breakdowns by age group, gestation and grounds to one decimal place. “
Late received records are not included in the frozen dataset because the scale of the effect is not statistically relevant but this contributes to the underestimation of the precise number of Down syndrome babies aborted.

Post-the-nuns, will a pro-life or pro-choice ethic govern the St Vincent’s hospitals?

The Sisters of Charity have just announced that they are quitting their three Dublin hospitals. They say from now on the hospitals will be governed by “national and international best practice guidelines on medical ethics and the laws of the Republic of Ireland.” (What does this imply about what is happening now?)  This begs a very big question; what is the best kind of medical ethics? There is no medicine without ethics. Hospitals don’t need to be under church or religious influence but they cannot exist without an ethos.
Medicine has three main purposes: to prevent and cure diseases, and to take care of patients. It is not simply a science but also a practice inspired by ethical values. So, what is the difference with the other sciences? Take for instance mineralogy. It is the description of the chemical and physical properties of minerals. Medicine, instead, aims not simply at describing what a human body is but it is also based on the assumption that there is a natural order, which we call health, and the purpose of the medical practice is to keep or to restore this order. There is an intrinsic good (health) that we discover through science and we preserve and reestablish through practice.
For instance, anatomy and physiology tell us what is the proper function of the eyes, i.e. to see. This is not simply a description but it also contains a prescriptive element because the ideal eye is also the normative model that the doctor uses when she acts to keep the patient’s eyes healthy or to prevent their diseases.
This understanding of medicine doesn’t require a particular religious faith but it is nonetheless intrinsically ethical. It is inspired by a certain conception of the good (health) that we find in human nature through the correct use of reason. The principle of “do not harm”, which has guided health care since ancient times, has the form of an ethical imperative.
Not everything that happens (or might happen) in a hospital or a clinic is medicine, unless it aims at preventing and curing diseases, and also at the same time at taking care of patients. Not all interventions that alter our bodies surgically or chemically are medicine, even if a scientist (medical expert) might be involved. Getting your facial features surgically changed to look more like your music idol is not medicine. Killing the unborn because she was unplanned or is disabled is not medicine. Augmenting your muscles through drugs to win a weightlifting contest is not medicine. Removing a perfectly healthy organ to adjust your body to your perceived gender is not medicine. Facilitating suicide is not medicine.
In all these examples a certain level of scientific knowledge is necessary but they lack what makes medicine more than a science: the ethical value of health. They might involve someone who has a proper knowledge of the human body but his purpose, in these examples, is not to restore or preserve the good of the functioning body. They are instances of scientific techniques without good and true medical ethics.
There is a growing pressure by certain ideologies to transform medicine, which is necessarily led by an objective good that we call health, into the satisfying of the subjective requests and choices of the patient. If bodily autonomy (my body, my choice), rather than health, is the ultimate value then there is no reason why doctor should not amputate a healthy arm or leg, when requested, or administer a dangerous substance, for recreation or self-harm or death. Without the guiding principle of health, practitioners become simply the executors of someone else’s desires. Obviously, people can do what they want with their bodies but this is not medicine.
There is no good medicine without ethics. Hospitals don’t need to be under church or religious influence but they cannot exist without an ethos, without values. When their core value is not health – an intrinsic good indicated by human nature- they don’t serve medicine anymore but trends, ideologies, business.
To return to the question at the top of this article, what will be the governing ethos of the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group now that the nuns are quitting the three hospitals they founded and that come under this group? 

Anti-conscientious objection article in Irish Times very misleading

An article in The Irish Times this week presents Italy as an example of how granting doctors the right not to perform abortions can harm women.  However, the writer bases her case on some very erroneous information, never mind the substance of her argument.
Laura Fano Morrisey, an Italian pro-choice activist, begins her article with the story of Valentina Miluzzo who in 2016 died of sepsis after the doctor, for reasons of conscience, “refused to perform a termination following complication in her twin pregnancy.” This is totally untrue. He did perform an abortion and she died anyway. (See an Italian source here). Morrisey did not inform her readers of this fact.
Fano Morrisey failed to mention that two investigations carried out by the Minister of Health and by the public prosecutor established that the death of the woman was not due to the fact that the doctor was a conscientious objector. The first of the two twins was spontaneously miscarried while the second one was aborted by the same doctor who, in that particular circumstance, did not object to perform an abortion as the life of the mother was in imminent danger. So, an abortion was carried out but it didn’t prevent the death of the woman. Can this be blamed on conscientious objection? Obviously not. So Exhibit A in Fano Morrisey’s case against conscientious objection collapses.
Laura Fano Morrisey goes on to claim that the right to have an abortion “is often denied by the practical impossibility of finding a doctor and a facility what would provide one”.  While it is true that a big majority of Italian doctors will not perform abortions, there is no evidence that any woman has ever been denied an abortion because of conscientious objectors (leaving aside for the moment the fact that abortion is wrong in itself).
Then she mentions the story of a woman from Padua who had to visit 23 hospitals in three different regions before being able to have an abortion. This is also false. An inquest has established that she had an appointment for an abortion but then had an anxiety crisis and made 23 phone calls to around ten other hospitals to find out if she could have an abortion in one of those. (Italian source here) Eventually the abortion was performed as planned and according to the law that prescribes a time limit of 28 days from the first visit. In any event, in this particular region more than 5,000 abortions are performed every year so why would someone have to call so many hospitals to find a suitable one?
Before the inquest established the truth, this story had been used by Italian pro-choice activists to attack conscientious objectors, blaming them for the delay. The author of the Irish Times article should have known that.
Laura Fano Morrisey also claims that abortion doctors are “so overloaded with the number of surgeries that sometimes they cannot keep up”.  However, according to an official report presented by the Minister for Health in December 2016, the average number of abortions carried out by non-objecting doctors is 1.6 per week, in a working year of 44 weeks. Even in Molise, the Italian region mentioned in the article, the number of abortions per week per doctor is 4.7.  Hardly an overload.
In 1983 the average number was 3.3 all over Italy, which is more than twice the current value. The absolute number of non-objectors has not changed significantly since then (from 1607 to 1408, a 12% drop) while the number of abortions went down from 233,976 to 87,639 (- 62.5%). This means that the workload has constantly decreased. 
The percentage of objectors among doctors has increased but this does not affect the general provision of abortion.
Moreover, the official report notes that there is no correlation between the percentage of conscientious objectors and the waiting time for abortion. Which is to say that even in regions with a high number of objectors the waiting time can be high or low, depending on other circumstances. Molise, with the highest percentage of objectors, has a waiting time lower than the national average.  (See Table 21 of the report)
It is not true, as Laura Fano Morrisey says, that there are not enough doctors performing abortions. According to the Minister for Health, 11% of non-objecting doctors are employed in other areas, which means that the abortion service is already fully covered in their hospitals. 
The author of the article mentions a worrying trend in the increase of clandestine abortion, linking this to the growing number of objectors. Again, this claim, which is common among pro-choice campaigners, has no correspondence to reality.
Official data from the National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) estimates that ‘backyard’ abortions in Italy are decreasing even as the number of conscientious objectors is increasing. In 2012, it estimated that between 12,000 and 15,000 ‘unofficial’ abortions took place among Italian women. The estimate was 100,000 for 1983, 72,000 for 1990 and 43,500 for 1995.
If conscientious objection is the problem here, then why the big decrease in so-called ‘backyard’ abortions?
In her article, Laura Fano Morrisey takes aim at conscientious objection but badly misses the target. Upon close examination of the facts, her case collapses completely.

Atheist Ireland’s secular State would reduce freedom of religion to freedom of worship

Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland, has presented the usual litany of discrimination allegedly suffered by atheists and religious minorities in Ireland in an article for The Irish Times this week.  He calls a more secular state.  But what kind of secular State? The kind he wants would have almost no place for religion in public life. That would not respect true religious freedom.
Nugent lists various examples of discrimination, real and imagined, including even the innocuous one-minute item on RTE that shares practically nothing with the Angelus apart from its title.
Those issues mentioned in the article – denominational schools for example- have been addressed individually many times, including in the Iona blog, so I will concentrate on the ideological framework that lays behind Nugent’s comments.
In particular, I want to discuss two concepts that are often invoked, with a certain level of confusion, in these debates: the secular state, and the separation between church and state.
We often hear people invoking more separation between church and state in Ireland but are we very different, in this respect, when compared to other European countries?
Detlef Pollack is a distinguished German sociologist who has produced an index of church-state relations according to five criteria: the existence of a state church, theological seminaries in state universities, religious education in public schools, spiritual guidance in the military and in prisons, and tax privileges and financial support of the church by the state.
In a scale from 1 to 8 Ireland scores 5, in the middle. At the bottom of the scale we find France, with 2 points, while at the top (strong church/state links) there are Sweden and Norway, with 8 points, and Denmark and Germany with 7. (Note 1)  Nordic countries have kept a strong relationship between the established (or only recently disestablished) Lutheran church and the state.
Paradoxically these countries, with a long tradition of social democracy are often presented as a model by those who want a more secular state.  Still, in Ireland we have a higher degree of church-state separation when compared to them. It might be more accurate to call the Nordic countries secular societies as distinct from secular states. It should also be noted that church-state relations in these countries makes the Church very much subordinate to the State. So, what is a secular state? What model of secular state do Atheist Ireland want? Is it the one we really need?
It is interesting to note that the degree of church-separation has no statistically relevant correlation one way or the other with frequency of church attendance. Which is to say, a strong church-state relationship doesn’t imply strong or weak religiosity among the population.
Michael Nugent correctly notes that Ireland is changing fast and is becoming more secular but the ‘solution’ he offers is to push religion almost entirely out of public life and the public space. He would reduce freedom of religion to freedom of worship only. Individuals would be allowed to worship and practice according to their beliefs but the state would exercise a direct or indirect hegemony over every aspect of social life that lies outside the private sphere.
In contemporary Europe, laïcité (a strongly secular State with religion relegated to the margins) is not the prevailing model and even in France it has to face the challenges coming from the growing presence of non-Christian religions, particularly Islam.
The defenders of the laïcité model fail to recognize that between the private sphere and the public sphere, which they identify with the state, there is a whole spectrum of intermediate bodies, what it is generally called the civic society. They can be motivated not only by religious values, but also by political ideologies, common interests (sport, hobbies), etc.
It is a normal practice in all the European countries that those intermediate bodies receive state support in terms of funding, tax exemptions, special regulations. It is also a normal practice to favour one religion over the others because of its historical association with the nation. This is especially the case in historically Protestant countries.
In terms of funding bodies with a religious ethos, Ireland is not exception at all.
The radical model of the secularism (laïcité) understands the state as a monopolistic provider of services like education and health care, and only one ethos, its own, is allowed to receive public funds. (Even in France, by the way, church schools receive public funds). Other bodies are tolerated but are considered private.  This model promotes conformity rather than pluralism and choice.
The alternative to laïcité is a model inspired by religious freedom that does not relegate religion to the private sphere but recognises its value not just for the individuals involved but also for society as a whole. The work done by religious charities, associations, congregations, movements, is supported by the state on behalf of society. A diversity of values is not simply tolerated but appreciated.
So yes, let’s have a secular state by all means, but let it be a secular state that permits and appreciates and, in some cases (schools for example) facilitates religious beliefs and values. This is not the type of secular State Atheist Ireland supports, however. Their secular State would be a cold house for religious believers.

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Notes

1. Motzkin G. and Fisher Y. (ed.), Religion and Democracy in Contemporary Europe, pp. 97-98.

Fintan O’Toole mocks ethos, but he has one too

Fintan O’Toole in his Irish Times column this week ridiculed the very idea of having an ethos and mocked Catholics for having one, but can anyone really live without an ethos?
O’Toole thinks that ‘ethos’ is a Latin word. He has either never read or has forgotten about Aristotle’s Ethics, one the foundational texts of western civilisation. In the second book of this remarkable work the Greek philosopher discusses the two meanings of ethos, i.e. character and habit, and shows how they are the root of ethics. (note 1)
What we do follows from what we are and good habits follow from a good character, according to Aristotle. In the same way, the repetition of bad actions becomes a bad habit, a vice.
Fintan O’Toole, in his article, laments that those who appeal to a religious ethos, in school for instance, have changed their attitudes through time. What is supposed to be, at least in his interpretation, solid and permanent is only arbitrary and contingent.
Had he read Aristotle, he would have learned that in practical matters we deal not only with unchanging general principles but also with particular situations. In practical deliberations the task of the wise person is precisely to translate general rules into specific right actions that necessarily take the whole context into consideration.
Something might be more (or less) tolerated today than in the past not because it has suddenly became right but because the context makes a higher ideal unachievable. (This is different from doing something that straight-forwardly contradicts your ethos, for example, opposing euthanasia yesterday and supporting it today as the Brothers of Charity in Belgium have just done).
“Jesus has apparently changed his mind”, write O’Toole in his mocking way. No, he has not but in different contexts his followers will come to different conclusions even if they appeal to the same unchanged values.
O’Toole derides Catholics for their flexibility with regard to their ethos in schools. Paradoxically, he would like them to be more rigid, less arbitrary, and suggests that ethos is a word that should have no place in public services at all. But is this possible?
Even democracy, which according to him should replace ethos in public discourse, has its own moral character. It is based on the normative principle that common deliberations should be achieved through wide consensus rather than on the will of just one or a few rulers. Democracy has an ethos because everything that is good, everything that is ethically relevant, must be based on some normative principles. But is majority opinion automatically right? And if it isn’t, what ethos do we judge it to be incorrect by?
The Irish Times, where Fintan O’Toole appears regularly, has its own principles among which we find, for example, “The promotion of a friendly society where the quality of life is enriched by the standards of its education, its art, its culture and its recreational facilities, and where the quality of spirit is instinct with Christian values, but free from all religious bias and discrimination” This is part of their ethos.
Ethos is a word for unchanging values in changing contexts. Without a moral character, persons and institutions are subjected to the arbitrary control of those who are in power at the time.
Ultimately, the questions is not if we can achieve any good without an ethos. We can’t. But rather, what values, what principles, what good should lead our evaluations? What ethos? Fintan O’Toole himself has an ethos, a governing principle, his newspaper has one, we all have one.

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Notes

1. In ancient Greek character (ἦθος ) and habit (ἔθος) are very similar words.

Like the Church, the United Nations is beset by scandals and cover-ups

The Catholic Church is rightly excoriated for its past failure to properly protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. Its moral authority has been severely damaged by these scandals. The United Nations is another organisation that is often placed on a pedestal. When a UN committee accuses Ireland of a human rights violation, we take it very seriously but the UN, like the Catholic Church, has been beset by scandal, including child abuse scandals and cover-ups.
Even if not well known to the general public, the list of scandals is long. There is the Oil-for-Food Programme, for example.  UN missions have been accused of forcing refugees to live in highly contaminated areas in Kosovo. In Haiti, they have caused a cholera epidemic that killed almost 10,000 people. Adequate and available sanitation measures could have prevented the cholera outbreak. These are only some examples.
Most seriously of all, allegations of sexual abuse, including the abuse of children by UN peacekeeping personnel, stretch back for decades but new revelations continue to emerge. Last week a long report from the Associated Press and also updates from the Code Blue campaign highlighted that abuses are currently taking place and they are not properly addressed.
The Associated Press conducted an investigation of United Nations missions and found nearly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and personnel, more that 300 of which involved children. “The AP interviewed alleged victims, current and former U.N. officials and investigators and sought answers from 23 countries on the number of peacekeepers who faced such allegations and, what if anything, was done to investigate. With rare exceptions, few nations responded to repeated requests, while the names of those found guilty are kept confidential, making accountability impossible to determine. Without agreement for widespread reform and accountability from the U.N.’s member states, solutions remain elusive. Here in Haiti, at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers exploited nine children in a sex ring from 2004 to 2007, according to an internal U.N. report obtained by the AP. In the wake of the report, 114 peacekeepers were sent home. None was ever imprisoned.”
Abusers were not prosecuted but simply moved somewhere else. Does it sound familiar? There are two main reasons for these systematic failings: UN staffs are covered by the equivalent of diplomatic immunity and UN peacekeeping troops only respond to their own countries. The UN has no legal jurisdiction over peacekeepers, even though it can at least try and ensure perpetrators are properly dealt with, something it often fails to do.
The Code Blue campaign was launched to address specifically sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeeping personnel. They are advocating for a new, independent special court mechanism, so that on-site, impartial criminal investigation and trials ensure justice. The system currently in place “permits almost all criminal perpetrators within peacekeeping missions to escape prosecution.”
In 1946, just after the foundation of the UN, the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations set out specific privileges and immunities for the UN and its staff. At that time this provision made perfect sense as the UN had a workforce of approximately 300 and served primarily as a diplomatic organisation. But today it has 44,000 staff around the world, and the most of the are not working in diplomacy. The Code Blue campaign highlighted that “specific crimes are not mentioned in the Convention and no exceptions to immunity are specifically provided. The Convention was intended to ensure that states could not use false charges or spurious prosecutions against UN staff as political weapons. It was never intended to serve as a shield behind which even the most egregious crimes, such as sexual exploitation and abuse, may be committed.  Today, anyone covered under the Convention is immune from any “legal process”. This means that they can neither be prosecuted for a crime, nor required to cooperate with an investigation, hand over evidence or testify in court, unless that immunity is waived by the Secretary-General.“
Occasionally some employee exposes UN scandals but whistleblowers are often punished. A famous case is Anders Kompass, the UN human rights official who in 2014 denounced child-rape by troops in Central Africa Republic. He was then unjustly suspended and put under investigation for leaking confidential information but an independent external review ascertained that the UN response to his findings was seriously flawed. The Swedish official left the United Nations and commented: “Ethical standards within the UN will not improve until those responsible for misconduct, rather than the organisation, are personally made to suffer for their actions. …..   Human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, corruption and exploitation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ongoing abuses by peacekeepers in a number of peace missions – the world only knows about them because someone broke the silence and leaked. This is quickly becoming a systemic response to the UN’s ethical failure. And yet the organisation reacts to these scandals by punishing those who try to hold an ethical stance, hiding the truth to the extent possible, and striving to tighten its control over information. Instead of creating a culture that welcomes whistleblowing as an opportunity to strengthen organisational values and standards, the UN promotes an atmosphere of fear and marginalises individuals seen as not toeing the line.”
These are considerations shared by many who have worked for the UN at different levels. For instance, Franz Baumann, who retired in 2015 as assistant secretary-general and special adviser on environment and peace operations, has produced a detailed analysis of the United Nations management, published on the Global Governance journal. He recounts some recent scandals as examples of systemic pathologies and comments: “Are the above examples atypical, isolated, random occurrences? More likely, they represent grave institutional flaws and are typical for an organization that is highly politicized, led indifferently, and managed poorly. Rhetoric trumps action and insufficient effort is made to comprehensively analyze risks, and put in place institutional frameworks that will prevent things from going off the rails.”
By rights, the public should know far more about these scandals, the UN should do far more about them, and UN committees should do more to ensure that their own house is put in order before they lecture other countries and organisations about their failings.

Miseria e ragioni del populismo

Se c’è un tema che tiene banco sul mercato della politica è quello del populismo. Dopo la sbornia delle elezioni Usa, ora anche la Francia è in piena fibrillazione per le imminenti presidenziali (tra venti giorni il primo turno elettorale).
Sul giornale elettronico «Causeur» è apparsa una densa analisi del «momento populista» firmata dall’eclettico romanziere Jean-Paul Brighelli. Nel suo articolo Brighelli prende le mosse dall’ultimo saggio del controverso pensatore Alain de Benoist, intitolato appunto “Le Moment populiste”.
In un passato nemmeno troppo lontano, ricorda Brighelli, il termine «populismo» veniva associato al «poujadismo», il movimento qualunquista, antifiscale e piccolo borghese nato negli anni ‘50 su iniziativa del sindacalista Pierre Poujade (1920-2003). Il populismo di Poujade era essenzialmente la traduzione politica di quello che oggi chiameremmo «consumerismo»: una sorta di partito-sindacato del cittadino medio che si prefiggeva di dare voce alla rivolta dell’«uomo qualunque» (la forma assunta dal populismo in Italia col movimento capeggiato dal giornalista Guglielmo Giannini) contro la fiscalità arbitraria dello «stato vampiro», la prepotenza dei cartelli e la corruzione della politica.
Ma oggi c’è in gioco qualcosa di più della semplice difesa del commercio di burro, uova e formaggi. Sì, perché da almeno dodici anni – è questa la tesi di Benoist – è sorto un populismo new style, in cui la sfiducia nei partiti tradizionali nasce da ragioni più radicali delle rivendicazioni dei piccoli commercianti. Questo populismo del nuovo millennio nasce come reazione al potere di una oligarchia che ha omologato la destra e la sinistra dell’arco elettorale.
In Francia, sostiene Benoist, l’atto di nascita di questa nuova oligarchia – una élite trasnazionale, europea, andata a sovrapporsi alle vecchie élite nazionali – deve essere considerato il referendum sulla Costituzione europea del 2005, dove la vittoria del «no» venne confiscata dal fronte unito della destra e della sinistra. La «Frexit», che avrebbe mandato all’aria il progetto di una costituzione europea (ad affossarla sarebbe bastata la mancata ratificazione di uno degli stati membri), fu aggirata dai governi europei che si affrettarono a far votare una brutta copia dei trattati di Maastricht e di Roma. Nasce così nel 2007 il trattato di Lisbona, che neutralizza il referendum francese.
Il voto antisistema del 2005 era nell’aria già durante le elezioni politiche del 2002. Se sommiamo infatti il 16,86% di Jean-Marie Le Pen, già poujadista della prima ora, al 2,34% di Bruno Mégretm al 4,23% di Jean Saint-Josse e al 5,33% de Jean-Pierre Chevènement, abbiamo circa un 30% di voti andati a movimenti politici estranei al monopolio dei due partiti tradizionali che da più di quarant’anni governano la Francia.
È all’incirca in quello stesso periodo che cominciano a circolare espressioni come UMPS, un neologismo – coniato pare proprio da Le Pen – che intendono alludere all’intercambiabilità dei due maggiori partiti francesi: l’UMP (Unione per un movimento popolare, ora diventato il partito dei Repubblicani) e il PS, cioè il Partito socialista. Un po’ come accade in Italia con Renzusconi.
«La destra ha abbandonato la nazione, la sinistra ha abbandonato il popolo», afferma Benoist. Ciò che più preoccupa è il fatto che la nuova oligarchia nata dalle ceneri della «vecchia politica» sembra voler mettere in pratica il suggerimento di un celebre poema di Brecht, “Die Lösung” («la soluzione»):
«Dopo la rivolta del 17 giugno
il segretario dell’Unione degli scrittori
fece distribuire nella Stalinallee dei volantini
sui quali si poteva leggere che il popolo
si era giocata la fiducia del governo
e la poteva riconquistare soltanto
raddoppiando il lavoro. Non sarebbe
più semplice, allora, che il governo
sciogliesse il popolo e ne eleggesse un altro?»
Appare chiaro che il popolismo di nuova marca nasce dall’assenza di alternative. Poco a che fare, se non marginalmente, con Pojuade o Giannini. E poco a che vedere anche col revanscismo degli anni Trenta e la sua assillante ricerca di capri espiatori (il Trattato di Versailles, gli ebrei, i massoni, ecc.) che avrebbe alimentato lo stato d’animo propizio alla mistica nazionalsocialista del «salvatore».
Con ogni evidenza, è al populismo come messianismo politico che ha fatto riferimento papa Francesco nella sua intervista al settimanale tedesco «Die Zeit», dove riecheggia l’antica polemica antinazista di uno dei pensatori più amati dal pontefice argentico, vale a dire Romano Guardini.
Il nuovo populismo del XXI secolo è piuttosto un prodotto della «postdemocrazia». Secondo Colin Crouch, il sociologo che ha coniato il termine, la postdemocrazia è una degenerazione della democrazia nella quale «anche se le elezioni continuano a svolgersi e condizionare i governi, il dibattito culturale è uno spettacolo saldamente controllato, condotto da gruppi rivali di professionisti esperti nelle tecniche di persuasione e si esercita su un numero ristretto di questioni selezionate da questi gruppi. La massa dei cittadini svolge un ruolo passivo, acquiescente, persino apatico, limitandosi a reagire ai segnali che riceve. A parte lo spettacolo della lotta elettorale, la politica viene decisa in privato dall’interazione tra i governi eletti e le élite che rappresentano quasi esclusivamente interessi economici».
Nella postdemocrazia si restringono gli spazi della partecipazione attiva da parte della cittadinanza. Ogni potere (economico, politico, mediatico) è confiscato da una sussiegosa minoranza di «eletti» che non perde occasione di manifestare il proprio disprezzo per la «common decency» tanto cara a George Orwell (e rilanciata ai tempi nostri dal pensatore anti-liberale Jean-Claude Michéa).
Ma che cosa è esattamente la «common decency»? È semplicemente un sinonimo di «senso comune», vale a dire quella forma di conoscenza «volgare» (cioè popolare) che ci dice – in maniera intuitiva e spontanea, anche grezza se vogliamo, ma non per questo inautentica – come dovrebbero andare le cose in una società a misura d’uomo. C’è una soglia minima di civiltà sotto la quale la società diventa «indecente». Una soglia che viene abbattuta nel momento stesso in cui il desiderio individuale diventa la misura di tutte le cose. Allora le solidarietà naturali che si esprimono nella «decenza comune» vengono aggredite con ferocia.
Gli esempi di questa brutale aggressione si moltiplicano sotto i nostri occhi ormai a cadenza giornaliera. L’indecenza trionfa quando gli esseri umani diventano oggetti di compravendita (con l’utero in affitto), di manipolazione (con la manipolazione genetica), di scarto (con l’eutanasia e l’aborto) o di consumo (con la prostituzione). La stessa sorte tocca alle attività fondamentali dell’uomo: col lavoro che diventa merce (con la precarizzazione indotta dalla «voucherizzazione» del lavoro), con la scuola che diventa luogo di indottrinamento e non di trasmissione dei saperi essenziali (attraverso l’educazione di «genere» che si accompagna a un «insegnamento dell’ignoranza» sempre più preoccupante). E si potrebbe continuare all’infinito.
Nella misura in cui avanza l’indecenza si realizza la consunzione del paesaggio morale (oltre che economico e sociale) del nostro mondo, con un degrado sempre più tangibile. E la responsabilità di una simile degenerazione va imputata in primo luogo alla dissoluzione dei costumi patrocinata dalla nuova oligarchia al potere.
Il popolo sta male ma fatica a capire la causa del suo male. Percepisce, istintivamente, l’opacità della politica. Ma dopo decenni di dittatura del desiderio è debole la coscienza delle cause del male, che si annidano nell’ideologia del godimento illimitato diffusa dalle élite per trasformare il «popolo» in «massa», cioè in «materiale sociale» da plasmare agevolmente in conformità ai desiderata dei potentati economici. Non basta il cattivo umore della pancia se ad essere malato è il cuore.
Il peccato originale sta nei presupposti stessi dell’ideologia liberale dominante: il materialismo e l’indvidualismo. Come ha mostrato Michel Schooyans, dal liberalismo discende anche la «cultura della paura», il tipico prodotto di una mentalità egoista ossessionata dal timore di perdere il proprio benessere economico. Così il popolo in via di massificazione pensa di salvarsi chiudendosi in se stesso e respingendo tutto ciò che potrebbe minacciare la sua «roba».
È sul terreno della paura per la perdita delle sicurezze materiali che fioriscono le «identità armate» e la ricerca di un «sovrano» al quale hobbesianamente sottomettersi. Inutile dire che le «strategie della paura» sono la specialità dei partiti oggi detti appunto «sovranisti», che offrono sicurezza agitando capri espiatori (in particolare demonizzando gli immigrati) con discorsi tribunizi.
Ma come osserva Fabio Torriero, l’«identitarismo» di partiti come la Lega poggia su una idea di identità che «è e resta negativa, esclude, è egoista, nega, è filo-etnica, parla alla pancia, è l’identità-fortezza (invece l’identità è amore, apertura, polis)». Al tempo stesso «il suo programma e le sue ricette, entrando nel dettaglio, non vanno a colpire le centrali ideologiche, all’origine delle storture moderne della società europea ed italiana; in alcuni casi, addirittura, sono assolutamente coerenti col capitalismo liberale europeo (legalizzazione della prostituzione, tassazione liberalizzata etc)».
La risposta della Lega pertanto rischia di essere la risposta securitaria, militarizzata e «cattivista» di quel sistema malato che il partito di Salvini solo a parole (o settorialmente) dice di combattere.
È proprio il negativismo dei partiti identitari l’indice della loro appartenenza al sistema. Lo spiega sempre Crouch. In democrazia la cittadinanza vive di due momenti: un momento positivo e uno negativo.
La cittadinanza nell’accezione positiva prevede la partecipazione attiva dei cittadini attraverso dei corpi intermedi. Nascono così quegli organismi sociali con interessi e identità collettive ben definiti, i soli in grado di avanzare autonomamente richieste al sistema politico. Oltre a questo c’è anche un momento negativo dell’attivismo democratico: il momento della protesta e dell’accusa, dove la condotta dei politici è sottoposta a un esame critico da parte della cittadinanza.
Questa differenza tra cittadinanza attiva e passiva si traduce in due differenti concezioni dei diritti dei cittadini. Così i diritti positivi tendono a enfatizzare la capacità dei cittadini di partecipare alla vita politica: il diritto di voto, il diritto di associarsi e organizzarsi, il diritto di essere informati correttamente, ecc. I diritti negativi invece proteggono l’individuo dagli altri, in particolare dallo Stato: il diritto di proprietà, il diritto alla sicurezza, il diritto di citare in giudizio, e così via.
Una democrazia sana ha bisogno di entrambi i momenti, giacché la cittadinanza necessita tanto di partecipazione quanto di protezione. Il discorso populista tende invece ad esasperare il momento negativo della cittadinanza (la retorica securitaria, anti-casta, anti-immigrazione) alimentando così uno spirito di aggressione nei confronti della classe politica. Il problema è che questo approccio negativo, a ben vedere, condivide con l’oligarchia dominante l’idea che la politica sia sostanzialmente una faccenda elitaria. Il momento populista si rivela così complementare a quello oligarchico.
Le élite comprimono gli spazi della partecipazione popolare, i populisti se ne disinteressano. Ma senza propiziare la partecipazione attiva dei cittadini alla vita politica (momento positivo) non si esce dal quadro della postdemocrazia. Per questo la retorica protestataria, sempre «anti« e «contro» qualcuno, non offre un’alternativa credibile alla deriva postdemocratica.
La retorica del «vaffa», che porta solo a catalizzare gli umori acidi della massa in un coagulo senza prospettive, merita a pieno titolo l’appellativo di anti-politica. È la stessa logica degli «sciami digitali» della rete, che non rappresentano alcuna forza politica anti-sistema, essendo composti da individui solitari, soli davanti allo schermo, che si sfogano con ferocia inaudita contro altri singoli individui senza mai organizzarsi come alternativa al sistema politico. In questo senso grillini, salviniani e meloniani sono intercambiabili. Il M5S cavalca il malumore popolare ma sul piano dei costumi propone rimedi che aggraverebbero ancora di più la malattia anziché sanarla.
Tutti oggi – Berlusconi, Renzi, Grillo, Salvini, Meloni – si presentano come «rottamatori della vecchia politica». Tutti sono populisti, tutti si appellano alla pancia del popolo. Ma tutti hanno da dargli solo del cibo avariato. In Francia non va diversamente. Oltre a Marine Le Pen, anche il candidato di estrema sinistra, il socialista (e massone) Jean-Luc Mélenchon si serve di slogan populisti («la forza del popolo», «l’era del popolo»).
Il limite dei cosiddetti «leader populisti», anche di successo come Donald Trump, è l’incapacità di rappresentare una vera alternativa sistemica. È dello stesso avviso William Cavanaugh, critico della civiltà dei consumi che insegna teologia politica alla DePaul University di Chicago. Intervistato dalla rivista «Limite», Cavanaugh ha spiegato la vittoria di Trump con la debolezza della candidatura di Hilary Clinton, che ha pagato a caro prezzo l’elitismo del suo partito.
«Avendo progressivamente abbandonato la difesa dei lavoratori per difendere un «progressismo dei costumi», il partito democratico ha perduto la propria base», spiega Cavanaugh. «La gente comune, già indebolita sul piano sociale, è stata destabilizzata moralmente dalla campagna democratica sui diritti delle minoranze sessuali e sulla sacralizzazione del diritto ad abortire». È così che Trump per molti americani ha finito per rappresentare «un’alternativa credibile all’indecenza delle élite, troppo slegate dalla morale comune. La sua vittoria non si spiega unicamente con l’ascesa di un sentimento nazionalista dovuto alla paura dell’islam e dell’immigrazione, ma anche con un forte sentimento di insicurezza morale».
La vittoria di Trump perciò è fondamentalmente ambigua. Se da un lato rappresenta un segno di vitalità della «common decency», dall’altro è espressione della cultura della paura di marca individualista. «Se il populismo – prosegue Cavanaugh – designa uno stile demagogico fondata sull’eccesso anti-establishment e anti-immigrati, senza alcun dubbio Trump è anche il candidato che meglio ha realizzato il miracolo del «populismo miliardario», o meglio quello che ha mostrato che questa contraddizione è solo apparente».
Anche il trumpismo appare una alternativa “interna” al sistema, perché «il populismo, in fondo, non fa altro che portare a conclusione la logica dell’individualismo. Anche se si riferisce al popolo, è il sintomo di corpo sociale lacerato, atomizzato. Un leader populista non si rivolge mai a un popolo ma alle passioni degli individui isolati dal resto della società. Il suo successo discende precisamente dal sentimento che non c’è più il popolo, non c’è più una comunità politica vissuta. In una società individualista, in cui l’esperienza collettiva della politica non è più possibile, sempre più il populismo diventa la regola: la volontà dell’individuo esasperato e isolato si si congiunge, senza mediazione, alla volontà del leader carismatico, cioè la volontà dell’individuo che ha avuto successo».
Il populismo e l’elitarismo sono simili a due gemelli eterozigoti che condividono lo stesso patrimonio genetico e pur odiandosi non possono fare a meno l’uno dell’altro. Ognuno dei due perciò combatte e al tempo stesso alimenta l’altro in una spirale apparentemente senza fine.
Qual è allora la vera alternativa ai guasti della postdemocrazia? La troviamo nelle parole di un critico dei populismi come papa Francesco. Nel suo recente discorsi ai capi di stato dell’Europa in occasione del 60° anniversario della firma del Trattato di Roma il Papa ha fornito una diagnosi convincente del fenomeno populista. I populismi, ha detto Francesco, «fioriscono proprio sull’egoismo, che chiude in un cerchio ristretto e soffocante e che non consente di superare la limitatezza dei propri pensieri e “guardare oltre”». Ma l’armonia di un corpo sociale non può poggiare sull’egoismo e sulla paura. I popoli torneranno a “sentire cum Europa” nella misura in cui il vecchio continente saprà riscoprire uno spirito di comunione, l’esatta antitesi dell’individualismo egoistico. Le sue parole d’ordine dovranno essere solidarietà (la capacità di ciascun membro del corpo sociale di solidarizzare con l’altro o col tutto) e sussidiarietà (la capacità di partecipazione attiva della cittadinanza).
Papa Bergoglio ha richiamato anche il sistema politico alle proprie responsabilità, esortandolo a servire il bene comune e non gli interessi egoistici. Soltanto così avremo una «leadership ideale, che eviti di far leva sulle emozioni per guadagnare consenso, ma piuttosto elabori, in uno spirito di solidarietà e sussidiarietà, politiche che facciano crescere tutta quanta l’Unione in uno sviluppo armonico, così che chi riesce a correre più in fretta possa tendere la mano a chi va più piano e chi fa più fatica sia teso a raggiungere chi è in testa».

Emiliano Fumaneri

La Croce Quotidiano  04/04/2017

http://www.lacrocequotidiano.it/articolo/2017/04/04/politica/miseria-e-ragioni-del-populismo