Response to Prof. Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Christianity and the Future of Christian Democracy. Salting politics with compassion Prof.dr. Theo de Wit Thank you first of all, Professor, for your rich lecture. I have three points that I would like to react on: 1. An author who writes and talks about salting and salty politics, referring to Matthew 5 ( You are the salt of the earth ) is provoking the listener to be alert on salty elements or suggestions in the words of the speaker himself. Let us take the adjective salty in the broad sense of spicy, pittig or pikant in Dutch, tasty, but also controversial, intended or unintended critical or polemical, then what the Germans call Unzeitgemäß, tegendraads in Dutch, and further perhaps also future-oriented and prophetic. I found several of such salty elements in the lecture of prof. Hirsch Ballin; for this moment, I mention four of them, of course, taking full responsibility a) The text is not a piece of apologetics when it treats Christiandemocratic politics, Christianity and the history of this religion in general; on the contrary. Hirsch Ballin does not hesitate to share with us his critical and self-critical reflections. For example, often he warns against the temptation of monopolizing values like respect and compassion; Christian democratic politics, we hear, is not society s unique ethical guide; nor is being a Christian a priori the best or even the only way to arrive at the humanistic view of man and society the author is defending. Several times, we are invited to the humble acknowledgement that people acting on behalf of the churches often have trampled on the personalist principle and the principle of solidary humanism; till the time of the 1
Enlightenment - the author quotes here Jonathan Israel s critical observation, virtually all churches explicitly sanctioned ancient régime s basic institutions on a daily basis. There are other examples. b) Salty and critical is also what he tells us about migration in our urbanized and globalizing societies. He makes the correct observation that the causes of migration cannot simply be separated between justified and good and dubious and bad and with this observation he is attacking a few decades of migration politics in our country where we get used to endless discussions about true and false migrants, the last category polemically called fortune-seekers, gelukszoekers, in Dutch, as if that is a criminal act. Hirsch Ballin describes most of these people probably much more accurate as people who make tremendous efforts in the interest of their children s future. c) Salty is also his diagnosis of the growing presence of marketing managers and media-advisors instead of thinkers in our political culture: their short-term biases, the transformation of politicians in leaders who no longer know what they stand for and in political pleasers etc. d) Salty, controversial and perhaps prophetic is, finally, what Hirsch Ballin says about the political identity of his own Christian Democratic Party, the Christen Democratisch Appèl. (CDA) For him it is no longer evident that his party must stick to his Christian name, to Christian symbols and to certain rituals at his meetings. I would not oppose such changes under all circumstances, he says, changes that can result in the abandonment of this name etc. But he added to this: I would not recommend such a change under the present conditions, especially the condition of media-centric politics. Here is my first question: under which circumstances would he be a 2
supporter of the transformation of his political party into a secular identity and name, given the fact that e media-centric political culture is probably here to stay? 2. For my second point I will focus on the famous dilemma of the German lawyer Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde, quoted by Hirsch Ballin in a footnote: The free, secular state has conditions that he himself cannot guarantee. Der freiheitliche sakularisierte Staat lebt von Voraussetzungen, die er selbst nicht garantieren kann. That is to say, a free state is dependent on certain convictions, on a certain pietas, as the Romans would say, first of all the pietas of mutual respect, that cannot be object of obligation or legal enforcement; if a state succumbs to the temptation of the production or enforcement of these convictions, he loses his character as a free state. This is, indeed, a severe dilemma, especially because a majority can easily discriminate against an outvoted minority, as Hirsch Ballin writes. And I would add: minorities and groups who feel disrespected and unsafe in a state will protest or even revolt against such a state, which will again provoke repression, the obligation of certain convictions or at least some sort of political correctness the free state is thereby undermining itself. In the last ten years we had, in our society and in Dutch politics, signals of this dangerous or destructive dynamic. When we demand from newcomers total assimilation, to choose for the Netherlands, volledig voor Nederland kiezen, as several politicians explicitly do, then, I think, politics is transgressing the limits of a free state, because the state gets more and more in a position to try to create convictions or even to oblige and enforce them. I would like to ask Professor Hirsch Ballin, where he himself identifies the point where the state loses his character as a free state. 3
3. The third and last point is, for me, the most fundamental and most intriguing aspect of the lecture of Ernst Hirsch Ballin. When one does a bit close reading of this text, you discover a specific and I would say also very salty element in his definition of Christianity. Christianity, we read, has essentially to do with being aware, being prepared to be held responsible for your deeds and your omissions when confronted by the existence and the needs of the other (18). Christianity, that means the con-scientia of a yardstick, a yardstick that is not temporal, he adds. In a text of a Jewish mystical Marxist, Walter Benjamin, you can read that for the Jews, every second is the small portal, which the messiah can enter. 1 No room here for ideologies of progress who can tranquillize us. Or: in another metaphor in the text of Hirsch Ballin: every human being needs a mirror, a clear visible evidence of what someone looks like and what needs to be brushed up (18). So - I translate now taking responsibility on myself a judgment is waiting, no, the judgment is always there, the possible and actual judgment of the other in his or her needs and existence. There are always other people (Er zijn altijd anderen), is the beautiful title of an interesting book of an experienced politician from our green party, Herman Meijer. 2 The other, also the political other, is always other than we can imagine, he or she can even disclose to be a big surprise, yes, to be my enemy. And indeed, this being aware is not a privilege of Christians or Christian democrats; it may even be that they don t live it, don t practice it anymore, that non-christians or atheist people take over the baton. These people are, in Hirsch Ballin s theological perspective, the salt of the earth in the sense of the bible, significant persons, he writes, regardless of party membership (and formal religious membership, I would add). And that is, he writes, 1 Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, Suhrkamp 1978, I, 704. 2 Herman Meyer, Er zijn altijd anderen, Skandalon, 2009 4
the only thing that will count in the end the eschatological end, I suppose. To elaborate on this point: a society that is faithful to the Jewish and Christian heritage is a society that cherishes and keeps alive this being aware. The mass belief in a last judgment by a punishing or wrathful God may be privatized or even dead and buried, as long as this awareness is alive, the presence of a living God is assured. So, in the end, we do not need a party with a Christian name what we need is the vitality of this awareness. The rest is esthetics, but not irrelevant because democratic politics is not only ethics but esthetics, style and representation also, as my colleague Frank Ankersmit explained very well in his book Aesthetic Politics. 3 Politics is not simply applied ethics; to be honest, I miss this aspect of politics a little bit in Hirsch Ballins text. My question: did I summarize the core of Professor Hirsch Ballin s theological-political identity well? If I did, perhaps in this identity we can also find the source of his courageous opposition against populist tendencies in our political landscape. Populist politicians are collecting anger and resentment against the other, identifying the other as obstacle of our happiness, of our full emancipation, our rights, of our freedom, and framing and identifying a we as victims of the presence of the other. They generate a society of constant mutual culpabilization and victimization, and - Hirsch Ballin did foresee this very well a few years ago that cannot end well. But that is the reason we must, together with the ethical also defend the esthetic dimension of our democracy. Populism, the Dutch sociologist Willem Schinkel wrote, constantly wants to unmask, make visible: away with the backroom politics, transparency! Away 3 Frank Ankersmit, Aesthetic Politics. Political Philosophy Beyond Fact and Value, Stanford University Press, California, 1996. 5
with the mask of political correctness, the people must just as in communism - be one with its representation. But, Schinkel asks, when the demos or Volk is identical with its representation, what is it else than something that sees only himself in the mirror, and sees that it is good. 4 The other, according to Hirsch Ballin s our mirror, as we saw then, is dead, or, in a religious vocabulary: God is dead. 4 Willem Schinkel, Voorbij de linkse biecht. Bij een boek van Herman Meijer (zie voetnoot 2) in: De Helling. 6