When I was a teenager I enquired from my father whether something was illegal. I cannot remember what it was about but I do remember his answer and my reaction to it. He said that it was not illegal but unethical. I had no idea what he meant by unethical and just wanted to know if it would get me into trouble with the law. The answer was "no" and I did not bother to try and understand exactly what ethics was all about.
In my younger days my studies were in Science. I did not do much reading in Philosophy, of which Ethics is a branch. However, I had my own ideas as to what was right and wrong. C.S. Lewis argued that every human being has an innate sense of good and evil. My understanding of acceptable and objectional behaviour was obviously also influenced by the culture I was exposed to while growing up.
The New Atheists make all sorts of judgements on topics of a political nature, based on an ethic they have absorbed from the culture around them. They deny that this culture, largely shaped by the Judeo-Christian view of the world, is their source of ethics and morals. Many atheists subscribe to Christian ethics but do not like Christians or the Church. One of Gandhi's quotes is: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians". He also said: "It was the New Testament which really awakened me to the ... value of passive resistance."
The church of which I have been a member for more than 50 years used to be quite pietistic. That meant that, in contrast to the Anglican Church, our church abstained from making political statements. However, I clearly remember the time when our minister stated that he was not making a political statement when he referred to some of the human suffering the policy of apartheid gave rise to. Later on some churches declared apartheid a heresy.
In our culture Nazism is associated with evil and the Nazi flag has been banned in some countries. Flags can arouse very strong positive or negative feelings. The old South African flag is a good example of this phenomenon. The word "apartheid" has become associated with the worst kinds of atrocities imaginable, largely due to the machinations of the "Theater of the Absurd"*.
By a master stroke of propaganda the so-called Pro-Palestine lobby has managed to identify the state of Israel as an apartheid state. In South Africa the ANC insisted that apartheid could not be reformed; it had to be abolished. How do the Palestinians intend to abolish the Jewish state?
Article 13 of the Covenant of Hamas states, amongst others, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad" and article 31, "Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam"**. Unfortunately the experiences of Christians and Jews in Islamic countries do not support that statement.
I remember the time when Nicolas Bhengu came from the newly "liberated" Mozambique to speak at our church. The country was embroiled in a civil war from which many were fleeing into South Africa. A refugee gave him a shopping bag full of Mozambican money which was losing value by the day. Pastor Bhengu was urging us to use every opportunity to spread the Good News of Jesus before tumultuous times would make such an endeavour difficult. Our young men were doing military duty on the borders and in the townships but Bhengu warned us saying: "You cannot shoot the devil".
There is a similarity between the treatment received by pre-1994 South Africa and what is doled out to present day Israel from the UN. In the 1970s a preacher in one of our churches said we should not be too concerned about South Africa being in the spotlight at the United Nations. In the end, he said, Israel has to move centre stage in the affairs of the world.
"Prior to 1990, 147 Security Council resolutions dealt with Israel and its actions, which was more than twenty-three percent of the 646 resolutions issued during that time frame. South Africa was the second most popular Entity referred to in resolutions during the Cold War era, considered in seventy-six resolutions. Of the 646 resolutions of the period, ninety-two merely discussed the admission of new Members to the United Nations. Numerous others served merely house-keeping purposes."***
A statement which I believe every decent human being should be bold enough to agree with is the following: "The taking of hostages for political gain is a matter of ethics and a crime against humanity".
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*December 12, 1975 Daniel P. Moynihan, the chief American delegate, here, charged tonight in the General Assembly that the Assembly was “becoming a theater of the absurd” and attacked its adoption of reports “riddled with untruths.” (https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/12/archives/moynihan-attacks-colonialism-report-of-un-assembly.html)
**(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp)
***https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1268&context=jil
