Imperial Dilemmas

It is an organization clothed in power. From its ranks comes a disproportionate share of the United States establishment – Presidents, cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, captains of industry, generals, professors, princes of the earth. Its real estate holdings are worth billions, its buildings are conspicuous in the choicest districts of great cities and small towns. Its art collection is beyond price. Its leaders sit in the councils of state, of war, of finance, and of culture, direct armies, order their global affairs to their liking; their counsel is sought, their word is heeded. It has been powerful for centuries, and owes its ultimate allegiance to the British Crown.

On the other side of the equation are the sworn enemies of this powerful entity. Emancipated, but only just, from discarded colonialism, they are black and brown, fighters for freedom in some of the most downtrodden and exploited backwaters of empires gone by. They are poor, desperately so, and still they feed the hungry, bless the lonely, comfort the lepers. And today, they have risen in revolt against the imperialist dominance of this metropolitan entity in defense of their own values and their own way of life. This revolt is complicated, because these black and brown defenders of their own culture depend on a constant stream of money from the American center to fund themselves. Indeed, they are willing to cut off the stream of money that keeps them in bondage to alien ideas perilous to their indigenous way of life.

The first organization is America's Episcopal Church, and its adversaries are the African provinces of the Anglican Communion. The former ordain and affirm women and homosexuals; the latter consider that practice an alien, imperial, white idea. They're now fighting to stop these alien ideas from having any role in their own churches; indeed, they want things to change in the Episcopal Church itself, not least because, having thrown off the shackles of imperialism, they see no room for the imposition on them of the culture and values of the metropolis by mere association with it. It is their own native, independent, African culture they wish to preserve, and that in turn has no room for acceptance of gays or for women in the priesthood. In this effort, they are aided by and allied with the most bigoted segments of the American right.

So you tell me who the good guys are.

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