I managed to wangle a few hours at the OccupyLSX protest camp at St Pauls Cathedral this week : I don't trust media reporting of things like this and thought it better to find out for myself. About 100 tents, I'd say, including the welcome/info tent, the multi-faith prayer tent, the first aid station, the kitchen tent, the coffee bar tent (all free food, by the way — guests and donations welcome), the Tent University for seminars, linked to the library ('Starbooks', opposite Starbucks). Photo album here.
I met all sorts : a retired theatre director, a supply teacher, an archaeologist between digs, American students, local workers popping in to help with the kitchen or whatever, visiting speakers, some seriously knowledgeable and professional activists and organisers, a few drifters and layabouts, and one complete nutcase from Merseyside in a smart suit. Oh, and a sharp-witted Irish street poet hanging around the fringe extracting money from people. I joined in a seminar led by some lovely young anarchists who'd never led anything like it before and weren't much good — but once people started challenging their ideas they revealed a much greater wisdom than first impressions gave. People were extremely interested in my Christian input, and Jesus was very highly thought of — the 'Big Man'. Then we had a pretty technical talk on Land Value Tax from a former Vice-Chair of the old Greater London Council, the notorious (to some) Dave Wetzel. There was a bit of street theatre, which had led a local bank branch to close its doors. "A bank closed by poetry" was the claim.
There was a full programme of events. A lot of effort was spent on making sure the camp remained harmonious, welcoming, safe and tidy, with notices up reminding people not to make a noise when prayers were being said in the Cathedral (whose staff, after the initial mishandling, maintain constant friendly contact). Inevitably the camp has attracted some of the very vulnerable, marginal people in London who've gone there because they find a welcome they don't find anywhere else. They were unsurprised, albeit disappointed, that the London Evening Standard had twisted this into a front page headline "Needle bins at St Paul's camp to beat junkie health hazard".
The twice-daily Assembly ('Church Meeting') where policies are thrashed out and occupiers are briefed about similar events happening worldwide, was a mixture of good discussion and tedious debate about admin and procedure. Sound familiar? I saw the 'elders' of the camp preparing for the meeting in Starbucks beforehand. They'd a lot on their plate : they've just planted a 'mission church' by occupying a large building in Hackney (left vacant by the multinational bank UBS for years) and turning it into a 'Bank of Ideas' (http://www.bankofideas.org.uk/welcome/) and community centre. Quite apart from the logistics of getting that running there were all the court hearings to prepare for.
At the heart of this are thoroughly organised, very inventive and creative people with determination and a passion for a better society. Like us, they can't describe the 'Kingdom of God' in all its details, but they know what is not'kingdom-like' and are trying to explore and model a different way.
My overall impression : "All the right questions, right spirit, right organisation. Living out a lot of the answers." All in all, just what I'd want the United Reformed Church to be, and in many ways, perhaps, what we are already in a very unobtrusive way. Except, perhaps, without the passion and spirit.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Thursday, 17 November 2011
the triumphal procession of the Fortnum & Mason 145
So, ten of the protestors that 'occupied' Fortnum & Mason to highlight the company's tax avoidance have been done for 'aggravated trespass' - a new law introduced in 2003. I'm not sure how entering a shop during opening hours and sitting down, and then leaving when requested (clearing up as you go) can be described as 'aggravated trespass'. Video footage taken at the time shows shoppers continuing to shop during the 'aggravated trespass', and a police inspector telling them that they will be allowed to go shortly provided they turn left out of the store so as to keep them separate from a more aggressive demonstration up the road. They were then 'kettled', all arrested, and many kept for 15 hours or more in the police station.
The understanding of the Atonement that is most powerful for me is that which Paul (if it is indeed Paul) describes in Colossians 2 : 14, 15 where Jesus's ignominious execution by the 'principalities and powers' is recast as those same powers being led as captives in Christ's triumphal procession - Roman imperial imagery turned on its head. What he describes as being 'nailed to a cross' we might describe as 'being outed' . . "now we can see The System as it really is, with all its injustice and ugliness exposed for all to see, and know that for all its pomp it cannot stand."
That, I am sure, will be the effect of this abuse of power by the Met Police and the courts - it will rebound in the form of a generation radicalised, with any cosy illusions about the British State shattered. While senior government officials run off to Switzerland to do backhand deals with global companies to allow them to avoid paying billions of UK tax, while investment bankers rob a generation of its prospects and pay themselves obscene bonuses for doing so, while their political stooges run behind them collecting their ordure and tipping it on the heads of the poor and vulnerable, those who dare to shout that The System is broken and no longer fit for purpose are done for aggravated trespass. Now we see it : no more illusions.
It's true that I lost my illusions about the British State - and especially the Met Police - years ago. A generation ago, in fact. The war waged on the people the prime minister of the day called the 'Enemy Within', and the covert operations against peace activists, destroyed my faith in the beneficence of the State for good. But just because we see here power doing what power will always do - protect privilege, protect its own power, victimise the weak - doesn't mean that it doesn't still make me angry.
Donate to the appeal costs to keep that triumphal march rolling.
The understanding of the Atonement that is most powerful for me is that which Paul (if it is indeed Paul) describes in Colossians 2 : 14, 15 where Jesus's ignominious execution by the 'principalities and powers' is recast as those same powers being led as captives in Christ's triumphal procession - Roman imperial imagery turned on its head. What he describes as being 'nailed to a cross' we might describe as 'being outed' . . "now we can see The System as it really is, with all its injustice and ugliness exposed for all to see, and know that for all its pomp it cannot stand."
That, I am sure, will be the effect of this abuse of power by the Met Police and the courts - it will rebound in the form of a generation radicalised, with any cosy illusions about the British State shattered. While senior government officials run off to Switzerland to do backhand deals with global companies to allow them to avoid paying billions of UK tax, while investment bankers rob a generation of its prospects and pay themselves obscene bonuses for doing so, while their political stooges run behind them collecting their ordure and tipping it on the heads of the poor and vulnerable, those who dare to shout that The System is broken and no longer fit for purpose are done for aggravated trespass. Now we see it : no more illusions.
It's true that I lost my illusions about the British State - and especially the Met Police - years ago. A generation ago, in fact. The war waged on the people the prime minister of the day called the 'Enemy Within', and the covert operations against peace activists, destroyed my faith in the beneficence of the State for good. But just because we see here power doing what power will always do - protect privilege, protect its own power, victimise the weak - doesn't mean that it doesn't still make me angry.
Donate to the appeal costs to keep that triumphal march rolling.
Monday, 7 November 2011
three critiques of St Pauls
see http://www.faith-theology.com/2011/11/st-paul.html : three pithy quotes on the failure of St Pauls to seize the moment offered by the Occupy protest, and recognise it - as I might put it - as a visitation from God. Although originally intended primarily as a witness against the idolatry of global finance, 'Occupy' has in the process exposed the fundamental weakness of a form of Christian witness inextricably linked to power and privilege.
Mark 13 : 1 - 2 -- "As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
Mark 13 : 1 - 2 -- "As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
Thursday, 27 October 2011
thank you, Giles Fraser
letter posted today to Revd Dr Giles Fraser, until today a Canon of St Paul's Cathedral in London :
Dear Dr Fraser,
I write to express my appreciation of the stand you have taken over the protest mounted by the 'Occupy London Stock Exchange' at St Paul's, which is echoed by similar protests across the world.
Over the last thirty years we have seen another 'occupation' going on : a progressive 'occupation' of supposedly democratic structures by financial power. An 'occupation' very much more damaging to the 'health and safety' of vast numbers of people. I trace the start of this 'occupation' to Margaret Thatcher's prime ministership — a Prime Minister who believed that business people were the sort of people who knew best how to run things. As indeed they did : they ran things so well that they took much of our manufacturing industry overseas. The financiers took their place, but by the time this happened finance had gone truly global, breaking the human bonds that bound it such that powerful financial institutions could bring whole countries to their knees. These institutions have proved adept — with a little assistance from HMRC — at offshoring their profits to avoid tax responsibilities, accountable to no one save themselves.
We have ended up with the sorry spectacle of our elected politicians running scared of the press and even more scared of the markets. For myself, I believe that we elect politicians (of which, in a humble way, I am one, as a Green member of Oxford City Council) to provide the ethical rules by which finance and business run. I'm not sure what else politicians are there for, really, apart perhaps from avoiding wars. Maybe I am naïve in believing that in fact it is in business's interest to have the playing field marked out and the rules defined and policed. An ungoverned financial sector (which is pretty much what we now have) was inevitably going to lead to mayhem; and it always was going to rebound hardest on the people at the bottom of the pile who (according to my understanding of the Hebrew scriptures) are precisely the people 'kings' are there to defend.
The penetration of financiers into the corridors of power is very deep. If some of the blogs I read are to be believed, their penetration into the corridors of power in the Church of England — and St Paul's Cathedral in particular — is also significant.
As a United Reformed Church minister, I have been brought up to believe in the separation of powers of Church and State. Perhaps the equivalent of this for our time needs to be the separation of powers of State and the New Religion of the great god Mammon whose temples rise to the sky around St Paul's, asserting their dominance.
When the 'Occupy' protest first began outside St Paul's I felt that this would be a crucial test of the Church's witness against the principalities and powers. We prayed for you at Temple Cowley URC that Sunday morning, as we reflected on the Gospel reading, "Render to Cæsar . . ." I prayed that the cathedral would stand the test, because its witness was not just its witness only, but on behalf of the whole ecumenical Church in these islands. (Most of those watching the protest from a distance have little sense of the distinctions between churches.) When, to my dismay, comments leaked out that St Paul's was concerned about its loss of revenue, I hoped that the Church of England would step up to the plate with its backing, and made a small donation myself. But it was an ominous sign. In recent days, it was becoming increasingly clear that the cathedral was going to 'revert to type' as a pillar of the Establishment, the church of kings and princes — confirming every stereotype and hampering the Christian mission for another generation.
Your resignation restores my hope that there is some Christian faith lurking in the Church, even in its most Establishment bastions . . . and even if those with that faith have to resign to prove it. I hope the brothers and sisters you leave behind will reflect hard on their priorities and 'decide this day whom they will serve'. And I wish you the very best for your own future.
Dear Dr Fraser,
I write to express my appreciation of the stand you have taken over the protest mounted by the 'Occupy London Stock Exchange' at St Paul's, which is echoed by similar protests across the world.
Over the last thirty years we have seen another 'occupation' going on : a progressive 'occupation' of supposedly democratic structures by financial power. An 'occupation' very much more damaging to the 'health and safety' of vast numbers of people. I trace the start of this 'occupation' to Margaret Thatcher's prime ministership — a Prime Minister who believed that business people were the sort of people who knew best how to run things. As indeed they did : they ran things so well that they took much of our manufacturing industry overseas. The financiers took their place, but by the time this happened finance had gone truly global, breaking the human bonds that bound it such that powerful financial institutions could bring whole countries to their knees. These institutions have proved adept — with a little assistance from HMRC — at offshoring their profits to avoid tax responsibilities, accountable to no one save themselves.
We have ended up with the sorry spectacle of our elected politicians running scared of the press and even more scared of the markets. For myself, I believe that we elect politicians (of which, in a humble way, I am one, as a Green member of Oxford City Council) to provide the ethical rules by which finance and business run. I'm not sure what else politicians are there for, really, apart perhaps from avoiding wars. Maybe I am naïve in believing that in fact it is in business's interest to have the playing field marked out and the rules defined and policed. An ungoverned financial sector (which is pretty much what we now have) was inevitably going to lead to mayhem; and it always was going to rebound hardest on the people at the bottom of the pile who (according to my understanding of the Hebrew scriptures) are precisely the people 'kings' are there to defend.
The penetration of financiers into the corridors of power is very deep. If some of the blogs I read are to be believed, their penetration into the corridors of power in the Church of England — and St Paul's Cathedral in particular — is also significant.
As a United Reformed Church minister, I have been brought up to believe in the separation of powers of Church and State. Perhaps the equivalent of this for our time needs to be the separation of powers of State and the New Religion of the great god Mammon whose temples rise to the sky around St Paul's, asserting their dominance.
When the 'Occupy' protest first began outside St Paul's I felt that this would be a crucial test of the Church's witness against the principalities and powers. We prayed for you at Temple Cowley URC that Sunday morning, as we reflected on the Gospel reading, "Render to Cæsar . . ." I prayed that the cathedral would stand the test, because its witness was not just its witness only, but on behalf of the whole ecumenical Church in these islands. (Most of those watching the protest from a distance have little sense of the distinctions between churches.) When, to my dismay, comments leaked out that St Paul's was concerned about its loss of revenue, I hoped that the Church of England would step up to the plate with its backing, and made a small donation myself. But it was an ominous sign. In recent days, it was becoming increasingly clear that the cathedral was going to 'revert to type' as a pillar of the Establishment, the church of kings and princes — confirming every stereotype and hampering the Christian mission for another generation.
Your resignation restores my hope that there is some Christian faith lurking in the Church, even in its most Establishment bastions . . . and even if those with that faith have to resign to prove it. I hope the brothers and sisters you leave behind will reflect hard on their priorities and 'decide this day whom they will serve'. And I wish you the very best for your own future.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
a letter to the Bahraini ambassador
posted Saturday :
Her Excellency Mrs. Alice Thomas Samaan
Bahrain Embassy - London
30 Belgrave Square
LONDON, SW1X 8QB
Dear Mrs Samaan,
You will be all too aware, as are many in this country, of the 15 year sentences passed against a number of doctors and nurses in Bahrain for treating casualties of disturbances earlier this year. I believe that their appeal commences tomorrow (Sunday).
I imagine that as Bahraini ambassador in the UK you must be deeply embarrassed by this treatment of medical staff for doing what every doctor in the world knows is a doctor's primary responsibility, regardless of circumstances. The fact that, it seems, your country's government and legal profession seem unaware of this basic promise speaks volumes about their understanding of what it means either to be a nation or to be a human being, let alone a doctor. I can just imagine how many people will want to serve in Bahrain's hospitals now . . . I hope that other countries' hospitals will gain from Bahrain's loss.
I cannot imagine that there is anything in the moral code of any of the world's main religions that would consider the treatment of casualties a punishable offence. I am sure that there is no such teaching anywhere in Islam, and there is certainly nothing of this in my own Christian tradition. Even if the people they treated had been enemy soldiers at war with Bahrain, the Geneva Conventions would require the wounds of enemy combatants to be treated by Bahrain's doctors. I need to make this clear, because the claims of some in your government that the injured were effectively enemy combatants is utterly irrelevant, even if it were true (which I don't know). Is Bahrain not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions?
It is true that those conventions have been sorely breached by US and British forces in Iraq and elsewhere, but you will be aware that this led to an outcry of embarrassment from the public and disciplinary action against those responsible — although that disciplinary action did not, in my view, go nearly far or high enough. It is the responsibility of those in the highest positions to make clear what standards are applying. Any suggestion that abuse of prisoners will not be dealt with immediately and robustly creates conditions lower down the chain of command where abuse is almost guaranteed to happen. That is why it is particularly alarming to see a government not only tolerating brutal treatment of its own people, but even penalising those who do their duty to the wounded.
I have to say that, inevitably, this is a sign of the beginning of the end for any state, because it has started to cease functioning as a state. Instead it is starting to function as an élite at war with its own people. Its days are inevitably numbered because it cannot last. The end may come swiftly, or after many years of misery and brutality, but come it will.
I did not know much about Bahrain before, although I have passed through briefly en route for India. The little I now know about it is that it is a state that is beginning to fail, cut off from the world and living by values that reflect no understanding of what makes a nation's life worth living, and no respect for individual human life — even the human life of its own citizens.
I hope you will speak into the closed world of your country's rulers and at least tell them what an embarrassing position they are putting you in. In your position, I would be resigning, I think : I couldn't bear the humiliation. But maybe it is not too late to prevent the inevitable decline into a failed state, if you can persuade your rulers to overturn these bizarre convictions.
Yours sincerely,
Her Excellency Mrs. Alice Thomas Samaan
Bahrain Embassy - London
30 Belgrave Square
LONDON, SW1X 8QB
Dear Mrs Samaan,
You will be all too aware, as are many in this country, of the 15 year sentences passed against a number of doctors and nurses in Bahrain for treating casualties of disturbances earlier this year. I believe that their appeal commences tomorrow (Sunday).
I imagine that as Bahraini ambassador in the UK you must be deeply embarrassed by this treatment of medical staff for doing what every doctor in the world knows is a doctor's primary responsibility, regardless of circumstances. The fact that, it seems, your country's government and legal profession seem unaware of this basic promise speaks volumes about their understanding of what it means either to be a nation or to be a human being, let alone a doctor. I can just imagine how many people will want to serve in Bahrain's hospitals now . . . I hope that other countries' hospitals will gain from Bahrain's loss.
I cannot imagine that there is anything in the moral code of any of the world's main religions that would consider the treatment of casualties a punishable offence. I am sure that there is no such teaching anywhere in Islam, and there is certainly nothing of this in my own Christian tradition. Even if the people they treated had been enemy soldiers at war with Bahrain, the Geneva Conventions would require the wounds of enemy combatants to be treated by Bahrain's doctors. I need to make this clear, because the claims of some in your government that the injured were effectively enemy combatants is utterly irrelevant, even if it were true (which I don't know). Is Bahrain not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions?
It is true that those conventions have been sorely breached by US and British forces in Iraq and elsewhere, but you will be aware that this led to an outcry of embarrassment from the public and disciplinary action against those responsible — although that disciplinary action did not, in my view, go nearly far or high enough. It is the responsibility of those in the highest positions to make clear what standards are applying. Any suggestion that abuse of prisoners will not be dealt with immediately and robustly creates conditions lower down the chain of command where abuse is almost guaranteed to happen. That is why it is particularly alarming to see a government not only tolerating brutal treatment of its own people, but even penalising those who do their duty to the wounded.
I have to say that, inevitably, this is a sign of the beginning of the end for any state, because it has started to cease functioning as a state. Instead it is starting to function as an élite at war with its own people. Its days are inevitably numbered because it cannot last. The end may come swiftly, or after many years of misery and brutality, but come it will.
I did not know much about Bahrain before, although I have passed through briefly en route for India. The little I now know about it is that it is a state that is beginning to fail, cut off from the world and living by values that reflect no understanding of what makes a nation's life worth living, and no respect for individual human life — even the human life of its own citizens.
I hope you will speak into the closed world of your country's rulers and at least tell them what an embarrassing position they are putting you in. In your position, I would be resigning, I think : I couldn't bear the humiliation. But maybe it is not too late to prevent the inevitable decline into a failed state, if you can persuade your rulers to overturn these bizarre convictions.
Yours sincerely,
Thursday, 20 October 2011
video clips on bible books
. . . an intriguing collection of short videos from theology staff at the University of Nottingham, one for each book of the Bible.
http://www.bibledex.com/index.html
http://www.bibledex.com/index.html
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Self-esteem and violence
In my post Atrocity and 'Humanity' below I reflected on the Norwegian mass-killer Breivik and referred to ". . a profoundly low self-esteem, coupled with an inflated ego". I remember at the time pondering on this strange coupling of two apparently conflicting characteristics.
There was an interview with Stephen Pinker on Radio 4 this morning. He has a new book coming out, The Better Angels of our Nature in which, apparently, he suggests that the human race is becoming progressively less violent, and tries to find out what we're doing right. I have to admit that, given the appallingly violent history of the last century in terms of the sheer numbers of human beings killed by their fellow human beings this seems a strange starting point.
But in the interview there was a brief discussion about self-esteem. He said that the theory that violent behaviour can be caused by low self-esteem has never had any real factual analysis behind it, and that the opposite is in fact true. It is caused by having too much self-esteem.
I must admit, that rings more true; but the implications - for example, for penal policy - are a bit disquieting.
There was an interview with Stephen Pinker on Radio 4 this morning. He has a new book coming out, The Better Angels of our Nature in which, apparently, he suggests that the human race is becoming progressively less violent, and tries to find out what we're doing right. I have to admit that, given the appallingly violent history of the last century in terms of the sheer numbers of human beings killed by their fellow human beings this seems a strange starting point.
But in the interview there was a brief discussion about self-esteem. He said that the theory that violent behaviour can be caused by low self-esteem has never had any real factual analysis behind it, and that the opposite is in fact true. It is caused by having too much self-esteem.
I must admit, that rings more true; but the implications - for example, for penal policy - are a bit disquieting.
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