CHRISTIAN CONTRADICTIONS AND THE WORLD REVOLUTION Letters To My Son André Kehoe First published in Ireland 1991 by Glendale Publishing Ltd. © 1991 André Kehoe British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Kehoe, André Christian contradictions and the world revolution 1. Christianity related to Science and Politics I. Title ISBN 0—907606—87—3 ISBN 0—907606—88—1 pbk Origination by Wendy A. Commins, The Curragh, Co. Kildare Printed in Ireland by Colour Books Ltd., Dublin Any background information on this book, or it's dissemination, which readers might require may be obtained from: [email protected] 2 PREFACE What's gone wrong with our world? Wars, threats of war and catastrophe; wellbeing, wealth and prosperity; forty thousand children dying every day from want in the midst of world abundance; rising unemployement where there is so much to be done; military expenditures in the West alone of a million dollars a minute while governments are unable to implement essential education and social reforms; the rich getting richer and the poor, poorer; leading economists predicting the worst crash of all timeleading to the likelihood of what Galbraith has referred to as 'total economic disaster'; the family disintegrating and divorce rampant; drink, drugs and suicide on the increase; pollution threatening our health, the rape of the earth threatening its resources, the spreading contagion of violence threatening life everywhere... Here, André Kehoe, now living in France, someone from the inside, speaking from the experience of over twenty years as a principal administrator with the OECD in Paris, the FAO in Rome, the United Nations Development Programme in Africa and working on consultant missions elsewhere with UNESCO and the World Bank, diagnoses the problems in depth and indicates what the ordinary man and woman can do, right now, to rectify the rapidly deteriorating situation before it turns to tragic drama for our children. For there is a contrasting scenario to the disastrous one adopted by the Western Establishment, to provide the rising generation with the greatest opportunity mankind has ever known for exciting activity and an exciting future. As in the case of a doctor faced with a desperately diseased condition, however, the cure cannot be undertaken without detailed examination and diagnosis of the disease, the process to which the author here invites the reader in a radical and well-documented study combining personal experience with extensive research and scholarship. It is a book or perhaps more accurately a bombshell that is certain to stir intense controversy in political, business, religious and intelligentsia circles around the world and possibly trigger a – hopefully, peaceful – world revolution. It is also required reading for those between eighteen and thirty who are mystified by the modern world and where is headed. "A formidable and visionary work which I hope... is widely read." Tony Benn, MP. 3 CONTENTS 1 - INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................6 2 - THE GATHERING STORM .........................................................................................................11 3 - RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM............................................................................38 4 - THE LUST FOR POWER .............................................................................................................51 5 - ESCALATING THE ARMS RACE...............................................................................................65 6 - THE TIMEBOMB ABUILDING...................................................................................................98 7 - A CASE STUDY.........................................................................................................................117 8 - PSYCHIC AND RELATED SOURCES OF VIOLENCE ............................................................144 9 - THE ORIGINAL REVOLUTION................................................................................................155 10 - WHAT WENT WRONG? ...........................................................................................................174 11 - A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS...............................................................................180 12 - THEOCRACY AND TYRANNY................................................................................................186 13 - TOWARDS THE TURN OF THE TIDE......................................................................................191 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................204 4 Note To avoid tiresome repetition of ‘he/she’, ‘her/him’, etc., the formerly general practice has been adopted of using ‘he’, ‘his’, ‘him’ to signify the human person irrespective of gender. 5 1 - INTRODUCTION La Cerisaie-sur-Eure France 15 November My dear Ciarán, Since your telegram announcing your safe arrival in the United States, the long delay before receiving any further word caused your mother and me some disappointment. Not having a proper address, we were unable to contact you. We now understand that you could not afford the cost of a telephone call and are pleased to hear that you are beginning to earn some money giving French tuition. We were relieved to have your long letter together with the programme of study and chapter outlines for your political science doctoral dissertation, Christian Contradictions and the World Revolution. You are casting an ambitious line but it is an appropriate extrapolation from your years of study in the Sorbonne. I hope I shall be able to rise to your invitation ‘to provide a challenging letter’ on each chapter, and for my part I look forward to your throwing down the gauntlet — with your admirable capacity for sustained argument — in stimulating letters from your side. To cross swords with you now in writing will add a new dimension to former discussions here at the fireside in La Cerisaie hallowed by the ghost of Malcolm Lowry. Your mother will keep you posted on personal and family matters, leaving Paterfamilias free to concentrate on your subject matter. I shall allow myself the liberty of meandering and raising live hares rather than flogging dead horses, even if it means risking an occasional slip into the shaky-bog of error. In your own writing remember that being occasionally inconsistent may be a mark of creative vitality (provided your examiners are not too dumb to understand that). And no matter how much scholarship you invest in your synthesis, it cannot be more than itself a provisional thesis subject to attack and the formulation of its antithesis and new synthesis. This is the only way human thought can progress. But the more watertight you make your theory, the greater the effort that will be required to produce a counter-theory and the better the latter can be. I shall also bear in mind your request for reading references from my bookshelves. Since your tutor has told you that arrangements can be made for publishing your work if it is good enough, you have an added incentive, since writing is one of your ambitions. But bear in mind that although Omar’s words do not primarily apply to writing they include that too: The moving finger writes; and having writ Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. Be careful with words. Otherwise, they will do your thinking for you. Waking people up is more important than giving them recipes. We must have men who can stand up, not auto- matons cut down, in Padraig Pearse’s words, to Procrustean measure, passive consumers subdued by The System, reduced to football and the media, and cars for toys. These are the lambs that will be led to the slaughter. So be provocative. A measure of creative chaos will be useful. Confuse the issues by scattering them through the text, forcing the reader to knit the strands together, digest the material and form his own synthesis: Use your French irony and satire. Develop the Chestertonian art of paradox, which obliges the recipient to make an about-turn, retrace his steps and try to find his way again. The West will either be animated by such persistent knocking as would waken Duncan, like the Yeatsian ghost of Roger Casement that is still banging on the door, and be turned back from the path of self-destruction which Soren Kirkegaard saw it embarked upon, or else it will be aroused, too late, by the muffled thunder of approaching hoofbeats. There are now signs that the staggering overt and covert power of the United States may be on the wane. Since, however, you are studying in the United States and will be drawing heavily on that country in your work and since the European Community seems to be going down the same road on which the US gave the leadership that 6 set the example to the world, our correspondence will perhaps concern that country more than others. But let me say once and for all: — that the United States has not been the sole source of badness in the world; — that it was Europe (including Czarist Russia) that blazed the trail in imperialism and exploitation and continues it today with renewed vigour; — that a clear distinction must be made between the US (and Western) Establishment of high financiers, big business and arms merchants, with their spokesmen in politics and the media, and the great American people