“I want more than tolerance”

For Jide Ehizele, just getting along is not good enough. We have to strive to form real communities if we are to overcome what he sees as the great threat to our national life, ‘urban nihilism’.

Jide Ehizele writes for various national publications in Britain, including The New Statesman, The Spectator, the Daily Telegraph, UnHerd, and not least Adamah Media. He focuses particularly on issues of community, identity and belonging. In this interview he explains his vision and how Britain could be a more united and integrated society.

You write a lot about belonging in British society and what this means and also about the nature of community, this latter very much forged by your experience of your church’s life in Lewisham, the London suburb where you were raised and still live. Why do you think these questions, belonging and community, matter so much to you?

As you said, I grew up in Lewisham in the late 1990s and early 2000s, where there was, and still is in many ways, a very diverse but also integrated community. The corner shop was run by Indians, there was a Turkish-Cypriot dry cleaner (who was a secular Muslim), East African Somalis (who practise a more overt form of Islam) lived a few roads away, and then there was my own Nigerian background. And more.

So, here were all these people navigating life, forming a community, managing to get on, and that led me to ask myself: what do we mean by community? Do we all have the same idea of community? It is inevitable in that context that you start asking what does belonging mean.

This was intensified by being a child of Nigerian parents but with most of my relatives in Nigeria. So, even in my close family, I couldn’t say I was surrounded by a direct extended community. Not having such a homogenous community around naturally led me to ask questions. 

What did you draw from your Nigerian parents and your upbringing within a Nigerian family in Britain? What can the African mindset offer Britain?

I think above all the sacramental worldview. 

For Nigerians, and for most Africans, there is no such thing as the secular. 

The sense of God is everywhere in their lives; God is no way excluded. Everything you do can honour God and is part of your relationship with him. Nothing is ‘random’. Indeed, this word is foreign to the Nigerian mindset because they see everything as an expression of divine providence. 

But with that comes a sense of self-worth, which I see is so much lacking in the secularised West. Africans are taught: don’t speak too negatively about yourself, trust that God is with you. Indeed, language matters because the tongue is powerful. It can be self-fulfilling. Negative speech about oneself is almost a form of blasphemy. Speak honourably about ourselves and others. 

Generally Africans are not born into societies with strong public institutions and so with one’s upbringing comes a certain resilience. Africans also value education highly because of the dignity they feel education can provide. But they view education differently from the West. Here education is framed through primarily social mobility. In Nigeria it is also framed as dignity, to empower you to achieve what God wants from you, his calling for you.

A number of your articles examine whether Britain still is a pluralistic, open society. Is Britain as tolerant as it makes out? And if not, what do we need to do to return to a better situation? Indeed, is this even possible?

The question ‘is Britain tolerant?’ is very relative. In general it is a tolerant society. We do quite well as a pluralistic and multicultural society, much better than many other countries. We generally give space to people to be who they are. 

But increasingly, I am finding that Britain is not as tolerant as it makes out. 

I want more than tolerance. Tolerance doesn’t necessarily guarantee relationship. We can co-exist but not share a life together. 

We say we want a shared life but sometimes the discourse around race and religion indicates we haven’t developed the relational skills which enable us to really have that shared life. 

Sometimes we present an image of Britain that doesn’t quite exist. On the surface it looks like a diverse and pluralistic society. Yes, we all have rights. But sometimes it’s merely getting on. We could do better.

Is this possible? First, we need at least to have the imagination to see what this might look like. And here moral formation is crucial to develop qualities of attentiveness, patience, consideration, and a worldview which actually prioritises the common good. 

What is British identity? Is it worth defending anyway? And is it not actually enhanced by the arrival of immigrant groups which add to the tapestry of British life? Just to give a silly example: we eat a lot better now thanks to all the immigrants who have come to this land.

British identity as we know it was formed as a political concept to unite the nation and the empire. But this was also because of the Christian worldview underpinning it, knowing that we are all one in Christ, and are baptised into him and into a community. 

The Christian notion of love is the foundation of this. Tolerance is merely a diluted form of Christian charity. Christian love leads us to welcome all and to embrace differences as long as fundamental moral values are accepted, such as the importance of ethics, honesty, integrity. But today these values are ever less accepted – on both left and right – and this is what most threatens British identity.

Is British identity worth defending? The Christian aspect of it certainly is, what is essential to this identity. That underpinning of love and openness to all beyond boundaries and barriers of class, ethnicity, sex, as we see at the very beginning of the early church in first century Palestine. 

The fact that people can become British doesn’t erase the history of the Isles. 

Allowing someone to be British does not dilute what Britishness is. 

Yes, genealogy matters but let’s not make it an idol. Indeed, the very nature of the Christianity which formed Britain has always involved an openness to all and the contribution they can make to national life, the possibility of them becoming co-inheritors, knowing that this does not dilute the inheritance. This demands something from both the host and guest.

You seem to love urban life but are not blind to its limitations. In some of your articles, you talk of urban nihilism. What do you mean by this?

Urban nihilism isn’t merely about decadent behaviour in cities. Nor is it simply anti-social behaviour because everybody can sometimes behave badly. Rather, it’s about the loss of a sense of meaning within a nihilistic moral-cultural atmosphere, resulting in a breakdown of relationships that pushes the human to one side. The human person is no longer the priority. Instead people seek status, money or pleasure.

Urban nihilism causes people to relegate their fellow human beings and relationships to a lower status. People lose a sense of meaning and therefore seek lesser goods to try to fill their emptiness but by doing so they fail to recognise the dignity of others.

Your church life matters a lot to you, as a place of faith, values and community. Can you explain this more. How can a Christian community contribute to its local area without being accused of proselytism or imposing its views on others. Does evangelism go against the ‘live and let live’ spirit of Britain?

When people think of the word ‘evangelism’ they think immediately of the US where evangelism is very in your face and sometimes carries an oppressive tone. Yes, as Christians, we believe we are called to share our faith with others, but this doesn’t have to lead to a confrontational approach. Yet neither does it involve shying away from expressing our faith. 

What I’ve noticed is that people are attracted to those who radiate peace, joy and trust in God. It’s about being present in community and being ready to share what gives us our peace, joy and resilience. It’s something you do just by loving others and being present in your community and then people naturally want to know more, what we have that they don’t have.

You are an Anglican. Surely Anglicanism is profoundly tied to English society. You have written somewhere: “The Christian vision does not place nation at the center.” But surely that is what Anglicanism, the Church of England, does?

In one of my blog essays, I actually explain why I identify more as an Anglican than as British. My own family experience (four generations) has been that Anglicanism is much more than Britain. I have experienced Anglicanism in a very Nigerian way. For example, one great Nigerian churchman in the 19^th century, Bishop Ajayi Crowther, translated the Bible into Yoruba and this has nourished the faith of millions. So for me, while I am very grateful to Anglicanism for bringing me the gospel, it is much more than just the Church of England.

What are you working on now? What are your plans for your future? What do you still want to achieve through your work?

I am starting to understand writing as a vocation and I think that starts with understanding who I am trying to glorify in this project, ultimately God, and how my work can fit into a wider mission and how I – along with others – can help to shape society for the good in testing times. 

Writing is one medium to aim at this but there might be other ways, for example through interviews and talks. I am processing all this as someone who is part of the Church, within the Church’s aim of being salt and light, where we can promote flourishing which truly puts the human being at the centre.

I am trying to help overcome urban nihilism as this concept diagnoses what has gone wrong with modernity. So, firstly, I need to explore more this notion to understand and explain better what has gone wrong. But above all I want to propose solutions which can help lead to a more flourishing society where relationships matter, are fostered, and are taken seriously.