What do we have to celebrate this week?   | thearticle

Today marks another milestone on the roadmap out of the pandemic. Two households or six adults can meet outside, outdoor sport resumes and travel within the UK is permitted. Not much to

shout about? Maybe not, but Covid infections and deaths are still falling, while half the population will soon have been vaccinated. Britain is learning to walk the tightrope to freedom.

This week also marks two great religious festivals. For Jews, Pesach, or Passover, began last Saturday and ends this Sunday; for Christians, Holy Week began yesterday with Palm Sunday and

ends with Easter. These solemnities are, or should be, also occasions for hope and joy. Even those who lead wholly secular lives are still, however unconsciously, heirs to the epochal events

eternalised by these holy days (“holidays”).  Passover commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, the beginning of the Jewish process of liberation that ends in the Promised Land and the Temple.

As Michael Pinto-Duschinsky reminds us in his magnificent familial reflection, Passover has a universal significance for non-Jews too, because Jerusalem, the ultimate destination of the

Exodus, has both a geographical and a symbolic meaning. We may not all visit the holy city and place of pilgrimage for three world faiths, but we may all dream of building a new Jerusalem,

the shining city on a hill, in our own green and pleasant lands. This is a week to remember all that our Judaeo-Christian civilisation, which is to a great extent founded on the Bible, has

given us and what we, as a civilised society, owe in return. This is the primordial narrative of liberation. It is especially incumbent on Christians this week to recall that the Triduum,

the three days leading up to Easter, when the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus are commemorated, was for many centuries a time of fear for Jews in Europe. That was when pogroms

were most likely to take place, ignited by incendiary preaching that pinned the blame for the death of Christ on Jewish shoulders. In recent centuries the Gospels have been instrumental in

liberating slaves from Africa to America, but we should never forget their potential, too, for misinterpretation and harm. The redemption of sinful humanity by God through the sacrifice of

his only son — the essence of the Christian message — is reflected in the redemption of the Church from its own, often persecutory, past. Liberation from sin, which is ultimately

indistinguishable from other forms of liberation, demands the entirety of our efforts if it is to have any chance of success. Passover and Easter are both beacons of light in the darkness of

an endlessly suffering humanity. Across the world, we witness oppression on a daily basis. We feel helpless in the face of the pitiless slaughter of peaceful protesters, including children,

in Burma (Myanmar) by a military regime that denies not only democracy but common decency. Even more indifferent to international outrage is China, which is committing genocide against the

Uighurs — just as it has done against Tibetans for many decades — in spite of global protests.  We in Britain have a particular obligation towards the people of Hong Kong, who are slowly but

surely being stripped of their rights and freedoms by Beijing. To add insult to injury, the police force in the former colony are now being trained to goose step. The march originated in

the militaristic Prussia of Frederick the Great and, especially in Anglophone countries, is associated with Nazi Germany. As the Gospel narrative reminds us of how ruthless the Romans could

be in suppressing religious minorities who were seen as defying imperial authority, we should also recall the millions of Christians persecuted around the world today. Their suffering should

remind us of the hard-won religious freedom enjoyed by all who worship in the West. Yet this mutual toleration of different faiths should never be taken for granted, as the tight security

that surrounds every synagogue this week reminds us. Anti-Semitism remains the worm in the apple of Western civilisation. Freedom of speech embraces the right to insult all beliefs,

religious or secular, as long as it stops short of incitement to violence. Those who believe that Islam and its prophet should be above criticism are sometimes inclined to threaten violence

in retaliation. Such threats cannot be tolerated, any more than threats against Muslims, many of whom have come to the West precisely to escape the atmosphere of intolerance that still

prevails across much of the Islamic world. From Paris to West Yorkshire, Muslims live alongside non-Muslims in peace and prosperity, under the rule of secular law. The only danger to that

harmonious co-existence comes, not from teachers or satirists, but from radical Islamists who denounce the West and all its works. Like Christianity, and indeed all other faiths, Islam must

adapt to modernity or perish. Truth has nothing to fear from freedom. This week, therefore, we do have something to celebrate: not only our baby steps towards a post-pandemic world, but a

civilised society that preserves its own liberties and does what it can to enhance them elsewhere. The thought that families will soon be able to hug one another and share a meal together is

reason enough to give thanks. It is a fact of human nature that we only really appreciate freedom when we are temporarily deprived of it. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only

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