What Would They Do?

Posted by Verity on September 17, 2024 in Blog, Dame designate, History, Living today, Politics, Social welfare, society, Wishes | 4 comments

‘What would Jesus do?’ has been a question that the devout have asked themselves down the ages, using scripture to provide the answers and guide their ethics and behaviour. But you can’t help noticing that some professing themselves to be Christians don’t take this approach.

Head honcho of the Spanish Inquisition Torquemada, for one, cannot have posed himself this question, or he would surely have spotted that Jesus was not in the habit of executing His enemies. Far from it, He urged us to love them. (Some 2,000 ‘heretics’ were burned at the stake during Torquemada’s reign of terror.)  

In our own time, that great defender of the faith Donald Trump is similarly impervious to the example of Christ. Where in the New Testament is it writ that thou mayest grope and disrespect women?

But who can stand as an example for the staunchly secular? Red Molotov, purveyor of politically-themed merchandise, know – hence their ‘What would Clement do?’ mugs and T-shirts, bearing the portrait of Clement Attlee. Yes, the Clement Attlee who in the teeth of postwar austerity created the NHS, nationalised the railways, and gave us registered childminders and national parks, among many other things. Just saying, Reeves and co.

To this towering duo I’ve added a third man, even though he is fictitious: the eponymous hero of Susannah Clarke’s novel Piranesi. Here is someone who inexplicably finds himself alone (apart from intermittent visits from a patronising suit) in the most inhospitable circumstances, with no knowledge of how he came there. Yet he exists in a state of grace: every day is filled with joy, despite his struggle for survival. The austere beauty of his environment delights him; close attention to his surroundings enables him to fish and build a relationship with the birds that populate his world. Out of his own imagination he creates an ancestor cult that sustains him spiritually. The positive and generous fruits of his naivety give hope for a better version of ourselves.

It won’t have escaped your notice that these are all blokes – perhaps I should have called this blog Good Guys VI. Is the problem that there are simply too many women to point to, or, conversely, that we lack rounded information about so many of them? Thanks to their detractors, many high-profile women find their shortcomings aired to a far greater degree.

In the political arena, though she may lack Attlee’s high profile, look no further than trade unionist, peace campaigner and sometime mayor of Bermondsey Ada Salter, pioneer of ethical socialism. A world in which we asked ourselves ‘What would Ada do?’ would be a far better place.

There is another obvious candidate for a name to go in this question  – but lacking public office of any sort this woman is nameless. She is the woman who fosters dozens of children over the years yet always has time to listen over a cup of tea, whose house is always open, who cares not a fig for her appearance, whose generosity knows no bounds. If we can have monuments of unknown soldiers, how about one for her?