OF CABBAGES AND KINGS | There’s Nothing ‘Christian’ About Spewing Hate For Asylum Seekers | Farrukh Dhondy

“The certainties of Time

Not the gambles of Chance;

Age doesn’t erode

The human urge to dance.

The promise of being close

Not a blessing from above

Is the motive of all loving

The prize of human love.”

From Ek Ek Dodo Na Raha, by Bachchoo

I grew up in Poona, India, with a reverence for Jesus Christ. Passing my pre-teens and then my teenage years in an Anglican school, singing hymns and listening to quotations from the Bible and loafing around with lads from the Jesuit school, the idea that ethical codes belonged to Christianity took hold.

Yes, there was indeed my family’s absolute and jolly adherence to Zoroastrianism and its simple tenets of “Humata, Hukta, Huvareshta” – good thoughts, good words, good deeds! These were ever-present as ethical commandments, but somehow Jesus’ words were, albeit subliminally, for me and very many of my Indian generation, the compelling, conscious, moral injunctions.

Growing up in India, one couldn’t not know about dharma and karma, but the understanding of these came woven into myths and epic stories like the Ramayan and the Mahabharata and philosophy. Yes, the imposition of caste and the accompanying convictions about a human hierarchy, which stooped to “untouchability”, were not implicitly attractive, but then neither were the books of Leviticus and his rules for punishing adulteresses, for instance. Jesus subsequently contradicted him. Same book, different inspirations.

And for us, interpretations of the Gita were supreme but they appealed as deep philosophy rather than ethical mandate.

In Britain, at university, apart from the choir of King’s College, Christianity didn’t play any role in my thoughts. Though I lived through the tenure of several Archbishops of Canterbury, Christianity and politics have never seemed entwined, as say they are in the United States. Or as the religions of India, Pakistan, Iran and the Middle East are with their predominance over political belief, behaviour and national disposition. If anything, British Christianity seemed on the side of the liberals rather than a rally for the Right.

Things move on. The Far Right in Britain, in the person of a fellow whose assumed name is Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) is attempting to co-opt Christianity, and loyalty to it, into his doctrines of nationalistic hatred.

Two months ago, he called a rally to attack the idea that Britain should welcome asylum-seekers. Half a million people answered his call. They carried the English flag of St. George and a significant number carried crosses and symbols of Christianity.

Robinson is a convicted felon and has been a guest of Her Late Majesty in one of her restricted facilities. He claims that he found Christ while in jail. Of course -- and bears found paying public lavatories in the jungle!

He then called a “Christmas Carol” gathering in London’s Westminster last week, perhaps thinking that deluded followers would turn up in their thousands, even trumping his earlier rally?

Gentle reader, no such things happened. According to the police estimate, fewer than a thousand people turned up at his carol singing stunt.

Triumph of reason? Triumph of British common sense?

We don’t yet know why his anti-immigrant followers didn’t answer the call.

Poor disappointed Tommy undoubtedly planned this as a “Christian” follow-up to his “Unite Britain” rally. He probably thought, seeing the Christian icons flourishing there, that this next gathering would be the second stone in the foundation of an ultra-nationalist movement -- or even what in India is known as a “vote-bank” for ultra parties such as Nigel Farage’s Reform.

Last year, when Elon Musk asked Farage to endorse or embrace Tommy Robinson and his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim statements, Farage cautiously refused. He was signalling to potential “Reformers” that, however much he agreed with Tommy, he was not going to commit himself to endorsing a much-reviled, convicted agitator.

Has Tommy’s supposed conversion to publicly-celebrated Christianity changed Farage’s stance? The failure of the carol singing rally will certainly give “Fuhrer” Nigel a bit of a pause. Should he denounce Tommy’s Christian stunt? He knows that they are both on the same side and Reform undoubtedly benefits from Robinson’s “Christian” clowning. But will this failure convince Nigel that the Christian lobby is not ready to join Reform?

It's crystal clear that Tommy’s embrace of Christian insignia is a nationalist statement of vicious antagonism to Islam as he and his followers have variously accused Muslims of bringing terror and violence to the country and vociferously advocated their expulsion from it -- calling it “repatriation” of course.

Gentle reader, if for a moment I’d believed that Tommy’s carol congregation was publicly dedicated to the teachings of Jesus Christ and to “love thy neighbour” -- welcoming asylum-seekers and members of all religions -- I would have been there, vociferously singing Silent Night!

I somehow felt that that was about as likely as the Pope converting to Zoroastrianism, so I stayed away.

Even before the failure of the carol rally, Tommy’s profession of leading a Christian movement has been widely denounced by Christian leaders for the fraud it is.

A slew of Anglican bishops (have I got the right collective noun?) have spoken to the media not quite welcoming him into the fold.

Let us then call upon Jesus to judge Tommy for taking the name of the Lord in vain. Then forgiving him and miraculously making him a real convert to Christ and every word of his gospel. Jai Shambho!