His death paved way for the New World Order

Apr 01, 2018 Eye on Guyana with Lincoln Lewis, Features / Columnists

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By Lincoln lewis

Today the world, moreso the Christian community, marks this solemn day of Easter Sunday. According to religious account, on this day Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead.

Persons will go to their house of worship and listen to sermons outlining the life of Christ and the ultimate sacrifice He paid to bring redemption to mankind. His teachings, life, death on a stake/cross – albeit through the predicted betrayal of a closed ally – and what we often take away from these experiences are that He gave new meaning to our lives by the standards He set for us to treat with self and others.

Growing up in a strong religious family and community, going to Church was a must, and being an altar boy, an expectation. These environments inculcated in me the sense and importance of equality and treating each other with respect. Likewise, I was taught to expect and demand of others to treat me no less. As I grew older, the meanings of Sunday School hymns like “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight…” became clearer, and in no small measure shaped my activism through the trade union movement.

Careful study of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions (1919), United Nations (UN) Declarations (1948), regional charters and agenda, notes the prevailing influence of the principle of equality in diversity. For instance, the 1st Article of the UN Declaration of Human Rights expressly states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and shall act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” The word “shall”, as against may, speaks to responsibility and duty as against per chance or personal feeling.

This article acknowledges the reasonableness or capacity of man in acting towards each other with conscience. Conscience acknowledges expectation of treating others the way we’d like to be treated. It’s instructive to note that even the convicted murderer on the day of sentencing would plea for mercy, even as he failed to visit such upon the one whose right to life he deprived.

For the ILO, its mission is to “promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection and strengthen dialogue on work-related issues” through a tripartite structure that gives equal voice to Government, Employer and Trade Union as Social Partners.

Attendance to universal tenets, including constitution and laws, that outline acceptable treatment, also have within mechanisms to respect and protect diversity, the weak, indigent and vulnerable from being exploited by the other, mighty or brutish.  The inability or refusal to apply conscience or reason in treating with fellowman not only puts society in retrogressive mode, but suppresses man’s capacity and human development.

When Christ walked on this earth, His sermons proclaiming a Good Life on earth and in the hereafter were based on executing acts and actions that give due regard to the importance of how we treat self and others on earth, and the structures we put in place to bring about and secure the principles of equality, justice and fair play He espoused. Equality is threatened or non-existent in the absence of justice and fair play.

Where there’s discrimination against any individual or group, the presence of violence, deprivation and injustice, and systems are not put in place to address these or where systems exist and are trampled on, equality or acting with reason and conscience is threatened. Conversely, when we stand up, agitate, and advocate to ensure respect for, or the institutionalisation of these values, we are acting with reason and conscience, demonstrating regard for the brotherhood of man.

The essence of Christianity, even in the midst of worldly possession or the craving for -though nothing is inherently wrong with this – must not come at the expense of the principle that gave rise to the promulgation and propagation of the belief and its teachings.

Justice can never prevail where might is right or the laws enshrined to protect the freedoms and rights of all are deemed only applicable to some.  Man has to be more than the essence of material acquisition that comes at the expense of exploiting the vulnerable, trampling the institutions of state and government, and raping the resources of the people.

Christians talk about righteous indignation. Christ demonstrated it several times, notable when He overturned the tables and benches of the moneychangers and dove sellers, and drove them out of the temple. If this is truly premised on Christ’s teachings then such will be demonstrated when there is wavering from the hymns sang even before we could understand, the lessons taught in Sunday School, and the stories recounted in the Holy Bible of the remarkable conduct of a man whose short presence graced the earth yet shaped it in immeasurable forms.

He has given us a New World Order and it behooves followers and respecters of His faith to not only talk the talk but walk the walk, for His was a life of leadership by example.

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