Second UU Principle:
"Can We Really Be a Just, Equitable, and Compassionate People?"

Margo McKenna - October 21, 2001

Most of you know that I grew up in the West African country of Nigeria.  This is a country made up of many different tribal groups, but the 4 largest are Ebo, Yourba, Housa, and Biafran.  My family arrived in Nigeria when I was 11 months old, in 1961.  It had been less than 1 year since the British had pulled out after 150 years of colonial rule.

According to my parents, who were Christian missionaries, during the colonial years, the British had brought stability to the warring tribes, educated the Ebo tribe in democratic principles, and pulled out of Nigeria with a Prime Minister and a Parliament in place. It was an African country with democracy and stability, and we were fortunate the British government had brought westernization to this uncultured civilization.

Growing up with a Yourba, Housa, and Biafran nanny, my sisters and I were exposed to an entirely different story than that of my parents.  The British had outlawed both Islam and Juju, which were practiced by the Yourba and Housa tribal groups.  They had executed many of the practitioners of Juju (better known to us as Voodoo or Santeria), as they believed it was satanic.  The Biafran, as a largely Jewish population, was left alone during British rule.  The Ebo tribe, which had been exposed to Christianity for many years before the arrival of the British, was the most westernized and open to British influence, and thus became the tribe that was educated by the British and placed in official positions within the British colony. 

From 1961 until 1970, the conditions in Nigeria deteriorated rapidly.  The Ebo quickly outlawed any other religion than Christianity, no other tribal group could participate in government, and the language, along with any other defining characteristic of tribal identification, was forbidden.  The Prime Minister and Parliament, all Ebo, quickly found themselves unable to stop the excesses of xenophobia by their own tribal members.  The Ebo tribe took over the democratically elected government by a military coup, instituted a secret police to brutally suppress the other tribal groups, and gave westerners, in particular missionaries, such as my family, honored status. 

Our three nannies, though of the 3 suppressed tribal groups, were treated disdainfully by the Ebo, but were tolerated as they worked for us.  They continued to practice their 3 different religious practices with my sisters and me, whenever my parents were away.  But, when my parents were home, we all attended church, and all 3 could sing the songs, quote the Bible, and say they had "converted" to Christianity.

In 1970, while on a yearly trip to the capital of Nigeria, Lagos, we faced the full rage of the other 3 tribal groups.  My family, both Christian and western, had our car discovered by an angry mob of Yourba, Housa, and Biafrans.  They looked for the people to whom it belonged, and had it not been for a Muslim Arab merchant, who risked his life to protect us and help us get out of Nigeria, we would have been murdered by that mob out of the streets of Lagos.  Many other westerners were killed.  My parents have shared that they believe our nannies were killed because they worked for Christians.

The thing I can remember most about that event is that I knew why the mob wanted to kill us.  I did not want to die, and I did not believe that murder of innocents was acceptable, but I knew why they wanted to kill us.  Many in that mob had watched family members tortured and killed in the name of westernization, or in the name of Christianity.  Many in that mob could no longer speak, dress, eat, or worship, as they had lived and believed, because of people like my family - white, western and Christian, who had told the Ebo that they were better than the Yourba, Housa, or Biafrans.  I have never been back to Nigeria, a piece of my heart remains there, but I cannot go back (unless I work for the Shell or British Petroleum), because I would risk death again.  I understand that, for that mob, my family's death would have been, in their eyes, justice and equity for the death of their families.

As we look at the second of our Unitarian Universalist principles this afternoon, I would like to examine how we live out the concept of: justice, equity, and compassion toward all humanity.  This principle is just a brief as the first principle, which we looked at last Sunday, and it is just as difficult to practice.  In fact, it is just as difficult to define.  What are our personal, and collective, beliefs and practices about what constitutes justice, equity, and compassion, in the face of current events?

Last week I spent the majority of our time speaking to the personal interaction within this congregation in living out the first UU principle, to honor the worth and dignity of every person.  This week I would like to spend the majority of my time on the larger issues of justice, equity, and compassion, in our society; and how we do that with our second principle. 

Now, before it looks like I am not concerned that we live out the second principle right here at Chalice, I would like to refer you back to the comments from last Sunday's sermon.  Many of the steps I shared with you, citing Dr. Edwin Friedman in Generation to Generation, are steps we can continue to take in interacting with one another right here at Chalice as we live out our second principle.  For those of you who were not here last week, I would be happy to get you a copy of the sermon so you may read how to live out our first, and second, principles with those here in this congregation.

Now, back to the issues of our second principle as lived out in the larger world.  The present events of our country, the future of our world, are the larger issues to which I would like to address my comments this afternoon, in light of the second principle.  I have chosen to do this because we are all facing issues, questions, and feelings, related to our realization that terrorism has come home to America.  How do we respond, what would we like to see our government do, and how can we process our many opinions on this and remain a united, though diverse, religious/philosophical community?

Justice, equity, and compassion toward humanity; these are concepts that feel alien, even antiquated, in light of our current "war on terrorism."  If we were honest with ourselves, even some who consider ourselves pacifists would like to catch and do horrible things to the people who committed, and may be continuing to commit, acts of terrorism.  As a nation, we are angry, we are frightened, and we want the "heightened state of security" that fills our lives - from the airport to the mail to the government offices - to stop.  We would all love to go back to the way it was before Sept. 11; but since we can't, we vow that we will not let terrorism ruin our own lives, we wave a flag to show we are not beaten, we listen to the radio waiting for more news of anthrax exposures, and we want justice.

But what do we mean by justice?  Who defines justice?  And who should punish those who are being served justice?  Do we mean justice through our American legal system, or the UN Tribunal of The Hague, or our declaration of war on the Taliban?  Do we mean the justice of giving to the terrorists what they gave to us - fire in the skies? And tied in with justice, in this second principle, is the twin concept of equity.  How do we act in an equitable manner?  Do we act equitably with the terrorists using our law of "innocent until proven guilty?"  Do we act equitably by punishing terrorists with the same end they brought to those in New York and Washington?  Does justice and equity mean we believe "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth?"  Does justice and equity mean we destroy the known criminal in order to maintain a just and equitable world?  Does justice and equity demand we destroy all known individuals and groups that threaten justice and equity for others?

These are not questions I can answer for you.  But, they are questions I am asking myself, and they are questions we should be asking as a nation.  I do know that I feel frustrated at the words of our nation's leaders when they speak about "stamping out evil," or that we are "fighting against an evil that can be defeated."  It is not that I believe Osama bin Laden cannot be defeated, nor is it that I believe he is not evil, only that evil has always existed, it currently exists in places and persons other than Osama bin Laden, and will continue to exist as long as humanity exists.  I fear that our desire for what we refer to as "justice" is moving beyond the scope of our capability to bring about, no matter how just the cause.  We may be able to "bring to justice" the group "Al Qaeda," or the leadership of the Taliban, or even the person of Osama bin Laden, but I do not believe we will remove evil from the earth, even in the name of justice. 

And once again we are back to the question of whose justice?  And justice meted out by whom?  What is appropriate justice? And where do we draw the line; after Osama bin Laden, after Al Qaeda, after Hazballuh, after Hammas, after the Irish Republican Army, after the Serbs in Bosnia, after the Somalian chieftains, after Pinochet, after the U.S. Government in wake of the Tallahassee experiments on African American men?  I do not ask these questions to be inflammatory; I really want to know.  And I believe that we, as thinking and reasoned people, should want to know. 

When people die, when they die by the hands, choices, and practices, of others, we are rightfully angry.  We have a right to be angry about the events that have enveloped our nation in the past month.  We also need to remember that many people in the history of the world have died - unjustly; we need to remember that many people continue to die today- unjustly; and that the death of each person, the world over, who dies unjustly, should not occur in vain, or without justice.  This is the core of our second principle, and, I believe, the challenge for us sitting here this afternoon. 

So, I ask again, who defines what is justice for these untold deaths?  Who will bring justice for these senseless losses of life?  What person, what community, what society, what country, will rise up against the violence perpetrated by people who have chosen to allow evil, rather than good, permeate their being and destroy those around them?  Where is justice and equity for all who have lost their lives to people who bring terror, death and destruction? 

We cannot sit here this afternoon and think about justice and equity only for those who died on Sept. 11.  We are called as human beings, as practitioners of morality and ethics, as UU's who honor our 2nd principle, to push ourselves beyond the pat answers of either those who choose to use the word "justice" to justify vengeance, or those who choose to use the word "pacifism" without the recognition that there are those who would destroy until our world is empty.  To the first group, we are called to say, as did Mahatma Ghandi, "If we choose an eye for an eye, we will all soon be blind."  To the second group, we are called to say, as did Malcolm X, "We sometimes must kill the one who is evil in order to save the many who are innocent."

I believe we are a community who chooses to gather for reasons greater than "to see our friends."  I believe we are a community who gathers to wrestle with diverse opinions, diverse experiences, diverse emotions, diverse thoughts, diverse beliefs, and diverse practices.  We desire to stretch ourselves beyond being in community with those who are like us; rather, we gather to be with those who are hold opinions different than us.  We choose to move beyond our human tendency to gravitate toward those people, activities, writings, and communities, which reinforce our biases.  We are in this Unitarian Universalist community because we do not want to discount the opinions, practices, and personhood, of those with whom we may disagree.  We hunger to move beyond fixed viewpoints, and to expand, rather than shrink, our vision. 

We believe we can live out of our 2nd principle in spite of our differences, and we can finish the words of this principle, to work toward compassion, as well as justice and equity, in our world.    We can best do this by not confusing vengeance with justice.  By acknowledging the danger of allowing our differing opinions about what constitutes justice and equity to threaten our sense of community.  It would be too easy for us to argue about who of us is "right" when it comes to how America should handle the war on terrorism.  As the President of the UUA, Dr. Bill Sinkford said, "Can we remember that one our greatest gifts as UU's is our ability to live in a pluralistic society and community?  Can we be moderate in our 'principled stands' on what we should be doing during our present US crisis?  Can we just think together, feel together, and be together, as Unitarian Universalist communities?"