SHEEPDOGS AND SHEEP

Sheep do not like sheepdogs.
 
I imagine this is true, to the extent that sheep have such awareness.
 
The film 'Babe' amusingly portrays sheep as afraid of sheepdogs, calling them 'wolf', as a generic term for any predator.
 
Thus was their race memory demonstrated - for dogs, we are told, evolved from wolves over 100,000 years ago.
 
Sheep are stupid and panic easily. Once, when out walking, I entered a large field enclosing a flock of sheep.
 
Allow me to set the scene. The track I was following divided the field: roughly seven-eighths of the pasture was on my left, the much smaller one-eighths area being on my right. The bulk of the flock were grazing in the left and larger section.
 
Suddenly one ewe looked up, saw me, panicked, and ran across the track to my right. Others followed, and to my amused bemusement the entire flock crammed themselves in to the one-eighths area, huddled together.
 
Had I been a true predator, an easy slaughter could have then begun, as they had no room to run: no place to go.
 
Sheep are stupid and panic easily. Untended they get themselves tangled, stranded on crags, separated from their flock, and unless dipped are prone to infections and several nasty diseases.
 
They are, with the exception of the ram, nearly defenceless and in the West, they have to be driven.
 
I used to think that Jesus expressed a low view of humanity when he drew on Old Testament imagery and called us, his followers, 'sheep.'
 
Yet however intelligent and gifted we are as individuals, it seems this metaphor is apt. As human beings, as his followers, we exhibit more similarities to sheep than we care to admit, and these are magnified when we are in groups.
 
Our flocks are tended by various agencies, in particular the police and the Armed Forces. And our relationship with these men and women is as ambivalent as that between sheep and sheepdog.
 
One factor may be the deep-seated suspicion of soldiers ever since Cromwell. Widespread opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be another. Sometimes the 'civvie' detects more than a whiff of contempt on the part of the men and women in uniform.
 
There is also a strong anti-authoritarian streak in many of us: we dislike reminders of our own subjection to authority. A rash of tales of abuse of power by sheepdogs - police excesses, military brutality - might be another cause of our malaise.
 
But I want to suggest that a deeper root of our ambivalence is that sheep don't like sheepdogs because they are different.
 
Sheepdogs have a relationship with power and are licensed by the shepherds to use violence.
 
Most sheep run and scatter when threatened. There are some rams among us, but by and large, we run in every direction, in any direction, when attacked.
 
We then expect the services to come and sort it all out.
 
So they do, and we are - on occasion - duly grateful. But then we realise that they are living among us, and we feel uncomfortable, because there is that leanness, that meanness about them, which reminds us that they are other.
 
We ask the impossible of them. 'Protect us,' we cry, 'and train and become whatever is necessary for that role. But,' we then contrarily demand, 'sheathe your claws, submit to our sheep culture, and forget and eschew your violence! You are to lock it away, and only release it when we say.'
 
The message of the sheep is that they want the sheepdog's services, but they do not want them! And often the sheep cavil at the sheepdogs' methods, subjecting them to scrutiny and strong criticism.
 
It amazes me how patient the sheepdogs are with such bleating sheep.
 
Sheep want to be protected by their own kind - but their own kind cannot do the job.
 
Enter the sheepdog, and the sheep instantly feel uncomfortable- it's the smell, the tang of risk, adventure, danger.
 
And for its part, the sheepdog has seen sheep suffer and even savage other sheep, and carries the mark of such experiences.
 
Sheep hate to be reminded of their powerlessness, their vulnerability, their own violence, and above all, their mortality.
 
Armed police and the military remind sheep of all these, and when not actively deployed, are to be kept out of sight and out of mind.
 
If we had no sheepdogs, the wolves, both outside and those hiding inside the flock in sheep's clothing, would get us. As it is, we often find out, usually too late, that our own shepherds are predators!
 
Our lack of honour and appreciation for sheepdogs is immoral and shows us to be ingrates. However, on a deeper level, it shows that we have no relationship, no proper understanding of the violence that lies inside us.
 
It transpires that sheep can be cruel, sheep can attack other sheep, sheep are not the innocents we pretend we are.
 
To honour the sheepdog requires sheep to recognise the violence inside, its potential, its risk, and even its rewards. Denial is no solution.
 
Learning about our violence, recognising it, channelling it and applauding those who master it, might restore some measure of mutuality and relationship between sheep and sheep dog.
 
Even though I think they are misguided, even though I think the conflict is immoral, honour to our men and women in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. They risk and sometimes lay down their lives for causes that are unworthy of their sacrifice.
 
Even though I know of police corruption, abuse of power and frequent infringement of civil liberties, respect to those who often put their lives on the line for us sheep.
 
It is said that Romans chapter 13 establishes, even with the pagan government of St Paul's time, that force may be used for the maintenance of good order.
 
And if sheep don't like it, they had better consider leaving for another flock, or themselves becoming sheepdogs! Almost anything is better than the other common reaction, which is to themselves become wolves, and in their turn prey upon the flock.
 
This entire topic is, as the reader will have observed, riddled with ambiguities.
 
Here's a final one.
 
When and where may sheep legitimately turn on a sheepdog who is an agent of a persecuting and totalitarian state?
 
Address this question to the Jews during the Holocaust, the Tutsi and Hutu moderates caught in the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian and Karen victims of the ethnic 'cleansing' of former Yugoslavia and Myanmar.
 
Ask the Christian martyrs of the Neronian persecution and of the recent pogroms in Orissa, India.
 
Seek a response from the oppressed of the former USSR, and don't overlook those who, over the centuries, were oppressed in the name of Christ by so-called Christian states and nations.
 
I don't know the answer. I don't even know if there is an answer! Do you?