Law abiding young citizens

I wonder what goes through the mind of the busy mum with a car full of young children and toddlers as she, desperately, looks for a lawful town-centre parking space so that she can pop into in the Fort Street Market to get some much needed groceries to feed that lot without having to drag the whole bunch with her?

Finally, unable to find anything reasonably close, she chooses to park on a double yellow line and rush into the shop leaving her children unattended in the car.

And, thus, folks, she teaches those young children, by example, that it’s perfectly acceptable to break the law to avoid personal inconvenience.

It may seem small, it may seem unimportant but it’s precisely by that kind of behaviour that young children grow up with the view that it’s alright to break the law if the alternative – obeying the law – is less advantageous. 

Driving manners, driving behaviour, in general, are hereditary. If, when you were a kid, your mum or dad drove while drinking coffee, applying make-up, reading the newspaper or petting the dog, loose in the front seat, then the chances are that you will, too.

If they exceeded the speed limit or overtook dangerously it’s probable that you do, too. If they do not licence their car or renew their driving licence, or worse, insure it, their children will not understand why they have to.

If you don’t know why the police believe, like I do, that criminal behaviour is acquired learning – not genetic, not caused by social conditions, or the Government, - acquired by following the example of our parents then you need to go to some classes on criminology.

Let us all stop teaching our children that it is ever acceptable to break the law – any law. Please.

And another thing…!

The Gospel of Judas

The article in this newspaper, a couple of weeks back, about the discovery of the Gospel of Judas in Egypt raises all of the usual questions as to why the Christian church, in general, absolutely refuses not only to recognise the Gnostic gospels, those of Thomas and Mary Magdalene for example, but seeks positively to reject the idea that they contain anything of importance for the understanding of the Christian faith.

I suppose I can understand the reaction of the early Roman church to these alternative gospels. After all early Christianity grew up on the Pauline version of the history and vision of Christ as portrayed in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Catholic church derives its asserted authority on earth from that very Pauline view of things.

Suddenly to be obliged to have a total rethink about the core concepts of Jesus and Christianity because of the discovery of some new texts was altogether too much for the new Roman church to bear.

It might have ended up losing its divine authority. So it suppressed the existence of the Gnostic gospels and often killed the heretics who even mentioned them.

But today there is no need to deny the value of these recently unearthed texts just because they show us a different view of what was meant by Christianity.

They even show us that there were many different forms of Christianity each with their own variations on a theme. Was Jesus married? Did He have children? Did he die on the cross?

Did Judas betray him or was it a set up job between Jesus and Judas? Yes, of course, such ideas strike at the very authority of established Christian churches which follow a strict Pauline view of apocryphal Gospels. But if the idea of challenging that tradition had been rejected we would not have even a Protestant church on earth.

I ask – does it really matter?

I assess the value of a belief system, not by the genealogy of its preachers, not whether Jesus was, in fact, the Son of God or just a great healer, visionary and prophet, but by the quality of its teachings. It is the message of Christianity which gives the faith its true authority, not the status of its founders.

It is the teaching of tolerance, love or charity, treating others as we would wish to be treated and above all forgiveness which are the true values of the Christian church not the ancestral provenance of those who established it.

And to satisfy the insistence of Mr. Samuel Rose – those are the values which I hold dear whether you wish to call them Christian values, or Caymanian values or simply the humanist values which will guarantee peace on earth.

And another thing…!

Make Hay while the sun shines

Another RGR from Ms. Hay. I’m not sure that I have enough reformist zeal to go around educating our readers but I sure will point out what the value of education can mean to our young people as they become our future leaders. Despite the strictures of Lady Bracknell, it means everything pure and simple.

If you want to rise to become one of our political leaders you have to know about economics, British constitutional history, political history, law, the English language and sociology, to name but a few subjects a knowledge of which we are entitled to demand from our Government Ministers.

However, if we see “education” as simply being a minimum grounding in the three Rs then we miss the whole point of learning and of scholarship.

I am probably in an educational minority but it all starts with books. Get our youngest children to open books and enjoy what they contain. Get them to want to open a book and devour what the words tell them.

I acquired my love of reading and writing from my mother whose hunger for the written word was insatiable.

Even now at the age of 91 she still tries to read a new book every week on the basis, she once told me, that she wanted to learn something new every day because as she put it – “where I am presently headed I am not sure how good the public library will be.”

And another thing…!

I say

No completely correct answers to last week’s quiz. Many replies confused the gerund with a participle verb. “I will go fishing” is not a gerund. “Fishing is a good sport” is.

This week see if you can remember from which great works of literature come the following first lines.

They might be novels or poems and in either case I want the author or poet’s name and the title of the work.

1. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
2. All happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.
3. Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy.
4. Call me Ishmael.
5. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish.

Usual replies to the_major@weststartv.com. Usual reward. I repeat again and again and again that I cannot reply to every email I get sent however much you think it deserves one nor can I respond to it in this column however much you think your email justifies it. Just don’t take it personally if I don’t answer your email.

And another thing…!

*Stephen Hall-Jones is a Barrister & Attorney in the Cayman Islands.