We don't need a messiah (and anyway, it isn't me)
Coincidence led to my being hailed as a prince of peace. But change will
come from our own hard work, not a deity
* [Raj Patel] <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/rajpatel>
*
* Raj Patel <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/rajpatel>
* guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/> , Sunday 11 April 2010
19.00 BST
* Article history
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/apr/11/religion-peace-social\
-justice-messiah#history-link-box>
Firstborn sons of British Asian families aren't so much raised as feted,
and as a child I became quite comfortable being a little prince. At
seven years old, I wanted the privileges of primogeniture to carry on
forever. When people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I
responded with the full spectrum of acceptable answers: Accountant!
Dentist! Quantity Surveyor! Secretly, though, I wanted to be full-time
royalty. From what I saw of the British monarchy and I have yet to
be disabused of this view it seemed that if you were born in the
right place and time, you could enjoy almost permanent adulation, free
money and long hours of indolence.
I mention this first because earlier this year a trickle, and then a
flood, of email asked whether I was, in fact a prince. Specifically,
people asked whether I was Maitreya
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitreya> The World Teacher a
prince of peace, the leader of a movement that might be able to save the
planet from itself. Others wrote to ask whether I was the antichrist,
the Prince of Darkness.
As the Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/apr/09/patel-not-messiah-naughty-bo\
y> reported, the deluge began after a number of coincidences seemed to
match me up with the man foretold by followers of a group called Share
International <http://www.share-international.org/> , founded by
Scottish mystic Benjamin Crème. I'd done little to earn the title of
Maitreya, though I admit some parallels between my life and that
described in the prophecy.
Have I lived in London? Yes. Am I interested in social justice and
sharing the world's resources? Indeed I am. Do I care about feeding the
world? Certainly. Was I on American television soon before Crème
announced the arrival of Maitreya? Sort of. On 12 January, I appeared on
a spoof rightwing talk show called the Colbert Report
<http://fxuk.com/shows/the-colbert-report> . I'd also been on BBC World,
CNN, Democracy Now and al-Jazeera before then, but it seems you can't be
a deity unless you do Comedy Central.
So what, according to Share International, does Maitreya do? Through a
doctrine of sharing, fraternity, social justice and co-operation, he
(and it does seem to be a he, not a she) brings humanity back from
economic and ecological collapse through new forms of spiritual
community. As it happens, I do think that sharing, fraternity, justice
and co-operation are terrific things. I also think that prioritising the
needs of the poor, hungry and oppressed is a non-negotiable part of a
sustainable future.
Unfortunately, I think that's where the resemblances end. It frustrates
me only a little less than it might disappoint those looking for
Maitreya that, in fact, I'm just an ordinary bloke. Not that my protests
of not-being-the-messiah have been heeded. I wrote a short piece on my
blog suggesting that, like the hero of Life of Brian
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/> , I was the victim of a case of
mistaken identity, and that "you've got to work it out for yourselves".
This didn't fly. I was reminded by my correspondents that the Maitreya
would deny divinity. And when I suggested that I wasn't the messiah,
"but a very naughty boy", others pointed out that this was exactly what
Lucifer would say.
Crème himself hasn't been able to help. He was recently interviewed
by Mick Brown, the author of The Spiritual Tourist
<http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Tourist-Personal-Odyssey-Through/dp/158\
234034X> , and Crème suggested that I wasn't the messiah but,
instead, more closely resembled "that chap who does the cricket on the
radio" possibly Jonathan Agnew
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/tms/6098364.stm> . But that
hasn't stopped the internet from churning out its particular brand of
speculation, and for the media to amplify the frenzy.
In part, I suspect the reason the story isn't going away the New
York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/us/09sfmetro.html?partner=rss&emc=rss\
> just ran a followup is because it fits a narrative in which
we're steeped from birth. From the Bible to Knight Rider to The Matrix,
the story's the same: in crappy times, a single person will emerge to
make all the difference and turn everything around. Although it makes
for great viewing, it makes for a bad society. Ultimately, tales about
messiahs are bedtime stories steeped in power. They're debilitating
soporifics, inducements to be passive as we wait for social change
because, some day, our prince will come.
Why wait, though? If the world is to transform, faith in politicians
offering hope and change is a recipe for disappointment. Ask almost
anyone who voted for Obama. Change happens through millions of acts of
rebellion and mutual aid, not through faith in one great leader. What's
depressing about this whole Maitreya thing is that it is a sign that
we've given up on ourselves, that we need to depend on The One rather
than finding the means to fix our own problems directly.
The thing is that there are millions of world teachers already. I've
been lucky enough to report what they're teaching: from former
petrol-pump attendants in South Africa to masked women in Mexico,
leaders are subjecting themselves to democratic control, and messing
with the boundaries of private property so that everyone gets to share
the world's resources. Their vision of the commons looks a lot like what
Maitreya might bring to Earth (and for which Elinor Ostrom
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1748208/> won the Nobel
prize in economics last year). And the good news is that it has been
here all along.
This, at least, is the world I'm keen to live in: one without princes
but with billions of world teachers, in which we live under neither God
nor Master. It's a recipe for change that makes for poor storytelling
but great politics.
The only problem is how to condense it so that someone can chisel it in
stone.
