Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation
Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, University Chaplain
Readings: Micah 4:1-4; John 14:25-27
When the Armistice which ended the First World War took place on 11 November 1918, people found out in the newspapers. Front pages covered with jubilation the end of the war. In coming weeks cinema newsreels would carry images of cheering crowds who were celebrating the news. But there were no broadcasters who told the world the war to end all wars was over.
It was four years later, in 1922, that the British Broadcasting Company was formed, the BBC, 100 years ago this year, and began its radio service on 14 November – tomorrow is the centenary to the day of the first programmes. Five years after that, it became the British Broadcasting Corporation, and by the time of the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1939, more and more people in Britain had access to radio through a wireless in their home. And that wireless brought the war into their homes. The picture on the cover of the order of service shows people during the Second World War gathered around a fireplace, but listening to the wireless on the shelf on the right hand side. They could have heard on the BBC on 3 September 1939 the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announcing that this country was at war with Germany. Or on 18 June 1940 the new Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s speech hoping that history would see the war as the finest hour of the Empire and Commonwealth. The BBC became increasingly trusted through the war, although it’s now clear that, for the sake of the war effort, it sometimes broadcast news that it knew was not true, for example downplaying numbers of casualties.
The BBC has remained a consistent source of news of war and peace in our lifetimes. Here are some of my own memories.
Brian Hanrahan, on board the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, during the Falklands War in 1982: “I’m not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out, and I counted them all back.”
In 1991 and 92, I was living in Japan, and listened to the BBC World Service nightly on short-wave radio, including grim reports of the Yugoslav Wars including the bombing of Dubrovnik and siege of Sarajevo. (How distant that time seems – and in a world before internet how distant we felt when far from home.)
In April 1998, I was driving in Ireland with my sister, and remember clearly the announcement on Radio 4 of the Good Friday Agreement, paving the way to peace in Northern Ireland.
I was still in Ireland on September 11, 2001, and recall looking with Maya at images of the twin towers on the BBC News website, the first time I’d seen that page.
Since then, along with others I suspect, I remember BBC reporters John Simpson with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and Lyse Doucet amid shelling in Syria. Indeed when Lyse Doucet attended chapel on the day she received an honorary degree she was so grateful that we prayed for Syria.
Four years ago, on the centenary of the armistice, I remember the BBC broadcasting They shall not grow old, a beautiful and haunting film by Peter Jackson of archive footage of the First World War, and audio recollections of soldiers and others involved.
And of course, over the past year, you and I have seen Orla Guerin in a bomb shelter in Kiev, and Fergal Keane at the railway station as thousands fled the capital of Ukraine. It is impossible for us, away from the front line, to untangle our experience of war from the way it is broadcast.
Many news organisations report on conflict, diplomacy, war and peace. But nobody else has the motto of the BBC – Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation. The origins of the phrase are murky. It was probably suggested by Montague John Rendall, a member of the first Board of Governors, was adopted in 1927, but was dropped in the coat of arms in 1934. Instead it was replaced by the word Quaecunque, meaning Whatever – striking quite a contemporary note. However Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation seems to have been reinstated for the BBC Christmas card of 1948, and retained thereafter.
It’s an extraordinary motto for a broadcaster, foregrounding the spoken word, yes, but implying that the deepest purpose of the BBC is not entertainment or even information but the fostering of community, respect, understanding and all that is implied in that powerful word, Peace.
The sentence is unique to the BBC. But it draws on similar words from scripture, from Micah, which we heard the Principal read earlier: Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. This is a prophetic vision not of broadcasting, but of the broad world guided by goodness and justice, indeed by God. The scene is a court in which God sits on a throne. Representatives of other nations come – not only the Hebrews whose God Micah is depicting – and they bring their disputes and conflicts for judgment. And God gives them instruction and guidance which they absorb and follow, before departing to their own nations. The consequence is peace flowing from where God is.
In imagery which I suggest cannot be forgotten once heard, this peace is seen in weapons of violence being put beyond use; and not only that, converted into important tools for farming, for producing food, itself essential for a peaceful society. The vision concludes with each one under their vine, a landscape in which the plough and pruning-hook have been used. And, we are promised, “no-one shall make them afraid.” For over 2000 years, this is a vision which has lost nothing in importance – and in poignancy. For as a species we still learn war, as the people of Mariupol, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Kiev know all too well. And not only there, but Yemen, Ethiopia and dozens of other countries too.
Jesus, a Jew, knew of such words as Micah’s, and saw them fulfilled in his own person. My peace I give to you – but not as the world gives, not a peace imposed with powerful army in the barracks nearby. But a true peace of loving neighbour, loving enemy, caring for the ill and imprisoned, a peace of reconciliation.
Micah’s words, and Jesus’ too are ancient. And it’s a hundred years of a BBC speaking peace. And still we gather today in a time of peace and war, to remember those who gave their lives. Those whose names are inscribed here, in the apse, did so before broadcasting truly existed. But their sacrifice was no less real. And the pain to mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sweethearts and wives, lovers, friends and fellow-students and teachers is no less real. About 1000 students and graduates – men and women – served in the First World War alongside 50 staff members. 130 died in or as a direct result of action. In the Second World War, 2000 students, staff and alumni served, again with over 100 losing their lives, recorded in the Roll of Honour kept in the tabernacle behind the pulpit. The wreaths laid today, so many years later, are a remembrance of the soldiers, sailors and air force personnel who belonged to this University, laid on behalf of all who serve today and all in the University. The poppy wreaths are a token of our thanksgiving that we can be a university within a nation where no-one shall make us afraid.
But we do not only remember and give thanks. We continue to be inspired by that ancient vision of peace. In our pluralist society, we may not find it easy to believe that all the nations of the world will be guided in justice, wisdom and love by the creator and redeemer of the world. But perhaps that is all the more reason to pray, and do all we can to make such a vision as real as possible.
Some students will do that by entering active military service, for the defence of the nation, that we not be afraid.
Many more will choose other occupations: broadcasting for some, in the wireless technology of our age, speaking the truth in a world of rampant and deliberate deceit.
Some students are even now in Egypt at Cop 27, working to ensure we have a liveable world where ploughs and pruning-hooks can work fertile soil that there be abundant food for all.
There are countless further ways that our lives do and will honour those we remember today. May we all find our own way to speak peace, to share peace, to foster peace, and to live in a peaceable world.
END