Election times and false prophets -

Election times and false prophets

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Election times are almost with us. Beware of “millennial cargo cult” politicians! Why the strange language? Well, it aptly describes a dangerous type of politician and political policy.

Millenarian cults are social movements common throughout history. They proclaim for devoted believers the destructive end of one era and the dramatic coming of another more perfect world.

These movements flourish during periods of social, economic and political chaos. Visions of the Nazi new world order or the Marxist classless society are particularly tragic examples of millenarian movements.

Less well-known are the past and present “cargo cult” movements in Melanesia (i.e. Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu), in the South Pacific. They also are millenarian movements. It is claimed that specified ritual actions and bizarre practices will suddenly and spectacularly bring their adherents a life of bountiful material goods (called locally “cargo”) under messianic leadership. Trust the leaders. Ancestors will come from the skies in planes and boats carrying all kinds of Western goods. The “cargo” message of the messianic leaders is: repudiate the past by dramatically destroying crops and houses as the pre-condition for the coming of the “new heaven” of prosperity. Then sit and wait for the ancestors. When the rituals fail there is great despondency, but new leaders emerge claiming that their predecessors did not have the “right rituals”. So the cycle of destruction and hollow promises of impressive prosperity begin all over again.

Surely, readers will say, this cannot apply to New Zealand. After all, we are reasonable people. Think again. We have our own modern millenarian cargo cults, especially at election times. For example, the way in which healthcare reforms have been promoted in quite recent times by politicians at election times have sadly followed the “cargo cult” pattern.

Think back to the 1980s. Proposed healthcare reforms were presented in a populist style. People were enthusiastically assured that the “cargo” of better choice, more efficiency, and updated services would arrive. But there were preconditions. Previous political leaders and the wisdom of the founders of our universal healthcare had to be demonised. Politicians promised that if hospitals were conducted as businesses they would be more efficient and profitable at the same time. That is, healthcare had to be measured in money terms. So, for example, locally elected boards had to be destroyed with lightning speed.

You know the results. We voted for the “reforms”. The neo-liberal reforms were introduced into the national healthcare system with incredible speed. The consequences? The promised “heaven” never materialised. Chaos in our much-loved health system intensified.

So in the 1990s local control had to be reintroduced, while the lives of thousands of people had been negatively and needlessly affected by the ideologically led reforms. In England, also, today neo-liberal “cargo-cult reform” continues to follow “reform” with breath-taking speed. In the National Health Service since the mid-1980s there has been some significant form of organizational disruption almost annually, due to policy decisions emanating from Whitehall, with the latest dramatic proposed re-structuring in 2010. Each so-called reform promises “heaven-on-earth” to citizens in the healthcare services. Present structures are speedily destroyed, previous politicians are condemned for having foolish policies. The result – rarely is there any improvement in services. In fact, chaos intensifies. The pattern is the same in Australia.

What is the lesson? Beware of politicians who promise immediate and dramatic benefits if they are elected. Beware of politicians who simplistically condemn anything good done by their opposition parties.

There is a German saying that “the wise person has a long ear and a short tongue.” How true! Look for the politician who is prepared to listen, respects the dignity of human life. Do not trust the politician who offers dramatically quick benefits and has no regard for true human values of the past and the necessity of sound planning and sustained hard work. Jesus Christ so wisely warned: “Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep but underneath are ravenous wolves. You will be able to tell them by their fruits…I repeat, you will be able to tell them by their fruits” (Matt 7:15-16, 20).

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Gerald A. Arbuckle, sm, an anthropologist, is the author of Violence, Society, and the Church which further discusses the above theme.