Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Official Report 1225KB pdf

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, for which our leader is the Rev Maurice Callaghan, the parish priest at St John the Baptist church in Port Glasgow.

Years ago, I read a short story about a city called Omelas. Omelas was a fabled place—beautiful, peaceful and prosperous—and all its citizens were happy and fulfilled. However, in a basement beneath one of the public buildings, in a cramped, filthy, windowless room, there was a small stunted child who might have been 10 years old but looked about six. The child was sat in its own dirt and kept hungry. It was always alone and no one ever spoke to it. Sometimes, people came into the room and the child was kicked to its feet. The child had not always been in the room but, although it cried and screamed, and sometimes said, “I will be good,” nobody replied and the door was again locked.

The people of Omelas all knew that the child was there, and they know that it had to be there. A sort of contract existed in which every child in the city between the ages of eight and 12 was taken into the room to see the child. It was explained to the children that everything good in the city—the happiness, beauty and prosperity—depended on the child being kept in those conditions in that room. The youngsters were, of course, very upset when they heard that, but the vast majority learned to live with it. However, every so often, one of the youngsters did not go home. They left the city and did not go back—they walked away from Omelas.

The contract of Omelas is not just a fable; it is the reality of the world. Pictures show it better than words. Pictures such as that of a dead, drowned Syrian toddler in the arms of a Greek soldier, because Europe’s borders have become a deadly barrier; of a burnt-out tower block in a wealthy London borough, because cost competes with safety when refurbishing poor people’s homes; and of seas full of plastic, melting ice caps, starving polar bears and deadly droughts because we need our lifestyles.

My good at the expense of others’ misery: that is the contract of Omelas. Certainly, Omelas is more of a mindset than a place. Good religion, good politics and good humanity have always seen that. It is all connected. The kingdom of God in me connects to the kingdom of God, the Buddha nature and the conscience in you. Everyone and everything—it all matters or it is all diminished. Discount one child or one polar bear and we are back in Omelas.