Mind Space

Nazir-Ali's view of Britain

Over the weekend I struggled to write something on the shortcomings I see in Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali's article in the Sunday telegraph about the demise of Christian Britain and the rise of Islamic fundamentalist no-go areas. In particular I wanted to argue that Christians should celebrate and nurture the presence of all major faiths in this country, and suggest that Nazir-Ali's views seem grounded more in the persecuted churches of his native Pakistan than in Britain today.

Then I saw that the Church Times leader column has beaten me to it, and argued more cogently and concisely than I was able to. The link is free to access this week, but may require subscription afterwards.

Technorati tags: Nazir-Ali, no-go areas, fundamentalism multifaith

Bears of little brain

Waking up to to news that teacher Gillian Gibbons has been jailed in Sudan for allowing her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad, I'm sad that she has been treated so cruelly and foolishly. Whilst her action may have been unwise, it was certainly shouldn't be criminal in any reasonable legal system. I'm surprised that none of the reports I've read appear to be asking if the Sudan government is punishing Ms. Gibbons for what they perceive as the west's interference in Darfur.

This case will serve only to further the view that religion brings trouble whenever it enters the public sphere.

Technorati tags: Gillian Gibbons, Sudan

The Truth Isn't Sexy hits Ealing

 

The next TTIS pub crawl is in Ealing, and is being run in conjunction with Grace and the Chaplaincy at Thames Valley University.

Everyone is welcome. Come along and visit pubs in the area, asking the manager to take beer mats and posters raising awareness of sex trafficking.

We'll meet at Costa Coffee in Ealing at 11am on Saturday 17th November, and will finish by 2pm, with the option of going on to a local pub. Contact me for further info, or just come along.

Technorati tags: The Truth Isn't Sexy, sex trafficking, Ealing, campaigning

A Response from the BBC

A while ago I wrote an email to the BBC, to John Smith, the CEO of BBC Worldwide, asking them to consider withdrawing the guidebook to Burma, published by Lonely Planet, which the BBC had just acquired. The email garnered no response whatsoever, but Rebecca from Grace saw  my post on the subject, and also wrote an email. This is the response that she got from John Smith;

Dear Rebecca
Thank you for your enquiry about the Lonely Planet guide to Burma.

In our view, this guide provides objective information to help
travellers make informed decisions about whether or not to visit Burma and, should they decide to go, make informed choices on what they do when in the country. The first chapter of the guide presents objectively all the issues and includes the views of Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burma Campaign UK.

The guide also cites other sources of relevant information, such as Amnesty International. For travellers who decide to visit Burma, it provides information that will maximise their support for the local population and minimise the prospect of money going to the military regime. When travellers return, Lonely Planet encourages them to speak about their experiences and what they've seen.

Lonely Planet believes that its decision to publish a guide book to Burma does not of itself represent support or otherwise for the current regime. We respect your opinion, but have no plans to withdraw the guide.

Yours sincerely

John Smith
CEO, BBC Worldwide

A disappointing, if unsurprising, response. He fails to engage with the claims of the Burma Campaign and Aung San Suu Kyi that by visiting Burma a significant part of your money will inevitably go to the military regime.

Technorati tags: Burma, Myanmar, Lonely Planet, BBC Worldwide, campaign

The Truth Isn't sexy

I've spent a fair amount of time this week handing out beermats similar in style to the image above. Sometimes I was wearing a dog collar, and people expressed shock that a vicar should be distributing such material. The headline reads 'Natasha's been a naughty girls', and the text below says,

She tried to escape from her traffickers. Instead she was imprisoned, beaten and forced to have sex with up to forty men a day. Her pimp says he will kill her baby if she tries it again.

The truth isn't sexy.

It's a campaign against sex trafficking led by a small group of inspired volunteers from the UK emerging church network. On Saturday they oprganised a 'pub crawl' in Croydon, and I went along. Instead of drinking lots of beer, we offered campaign beer mats and posters to the managers of each of the pubs we stopped at. My group visited eleven pubs, and nine took beer mats. In the other two, the manager was out, and the staff didn't have the authority to take them. No-one refused point-blank.

I've just spent the last couple of days at the chaplaincy stand at the Freshers Fair at Thames Valley University in Ealing. As well as telling people about the  chaplaincy, I handed out TTIS beer mats, and got into a lot of conversations about sex trafficking. It got the message about sex trafficking out to a lot of students, and it was an effective piece of chaplaincy work as well; everyone knows that I'm the chaplain, and something of what I stand for.

 

The next pub crawl is in Ealing on Saturday 17th November, beginning at 11:30. It's being organised by The Truth Isn't Sexy in conjunction with Grace and the TVU Chaplaincy. I'll post more details on the blog when I have them. Everyone is welcome, provided you are old enough to enter a pub.

Technorati tags: The Truth Isn't Sexy, sex trafficking, prostitution, slavery

An Exercise for the Reader

To mark International Bloggers' Day for Burma, I invite you to compare and contrast two news reports.

First, from the BBC website;

Scores of monks are trying to leave Burma's main city, Rangoon, following the military's bloody crackdown on anti-government protests, reports say. Monks were seen at the railway station and bus drivers were reportedly refusing to take them, out of fear they would not be allowed petrol. Curfews and night-time police raids are continuing in Rangoon. Correspondents describe a climate of fear there. 

...

Military vehicles patrolled Rangoon's streets before dawn with loudspeakers blaring: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests."

One correspondent in Rangoon told the BBC that people in the country's former capital were angry and frightened.

The correspondent described how a middle-aged man in one of the city's tea shops whispered: "I really want change - but they have guns and we don't, so they'll always win."

Reports from Rangoon said around 25 more monks were arrested by security forces in a raid on a temple overnight.

[more]

 

And now, from the government-operated myanmar.com;

NAY PYI TAW, 26 Sept   The government has been striving day and night together with the people for the emergence of a peaceful, modern and developed discipline-flourishing democratic nation.

As the government has been endeavouring to ensure stability of State, community peace, the rule of law and national development that are the main requirements, the national races in all regions are practically enjoying the fruits of national peace and development.

However, saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and civil commotion. Hence, some members of the Sangha, anti-government groups and saboteurs were staging protest walks.

Some foreign broadcasting stations and destructionists have been issuing announcements, requests and leaflets as if the entire people were taking part in the protests participated by only some monks and people just to intensify the rowdy demonstrations.

The people who wish to earn their living in peace do not accept or take part in the protests. Thus, some saboteurs of the protest walks forcibly urged families of the homes all along their route, whether they know them or not, to provide alms and other requisites for monks.

Sometimes the only way to get people to love democracy and the rule of law is to seize power, and use force to beat it into them.

Governments across the world must continue to pressurise the Burmese regime to institute reforms and recognise human rights.

 

Technorati tags: Burma, Myanmar, propaganda, International Bloggers' Day for Burma

The best headline I've seen for ages...

...is on the front page of the BBC website. It reads;

Leapfrogging mayor injures woman dressed as tomato

Genius!

The article that the link points to has a slightly less humorous title, but it's still a great story.

Technorati tags: BBC News, headline, humour, leapfrogging mayor

Burma, Lonely Planet and the BBC

Last week, Simon Barrow of Ekklesia posted a link to The Dirty List, the Burma Campaign's list of companies with ties to Burma. The Campaign wants us to apply pressure on these companies to sever their ties, thus isolating the Myanmar regime, and closing revenue streams. On the list is Lonely Planet, the travel guide company, which publishes a guide to Myanmar (the regime's name for Burma, which the British government refuses to recognise). On their web site, the company provides a balanced list of reasons for and against going to Burma as a tourist. The article notes that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has asked tourists not to go to Burma, and that the government used forced labour to ready tourist-related sights and services.

Usually, I'm all for giving people informed choices, and allowing them to make their own decisions. In view of the violence of the past week, Aung San Suu Kyi's request is compelling, and the Myanmar guide should be withdrawn. However, the company's owners have been resistant to all such calls in the past.

Things moved on a bit yesterday, as BBC News announced that Lonely Planet has been acquired by BBC Worldwide. Now is an opportune time to apply a little pressure on the guide's new owners.

A little digging revealed that BBC Worldwide's Chief executive Officer is John Smith, and his email address is john.smith.01@bbc.co.uk. I'm going to send him an email. The purchase of Lonely Planet was approved by the BBC Trust, who review all of the BBC's commercial activities against four criteria, one of which is that activities must 'not jeopardise the good reputation of the BBC or the value of the BBC brand'. Putting the BBC brand on a guidebook to Myanmar isn't going to do much for the brand's value, or for the BBC's reputation.

Technorati tags: Burma, Myanmar, Lonely Planet, BBC worldwide, campaign

Johnston on Journalism

I have just read a piece that Alan Johnston wrote about journalism. He writes,

So much of the job is about trying to find the imagination within yourself to try to see, to really see, the world through the eyes of the people in the story.

Not just through the eyes of the Palestinian who has just had his home smashed. But also through the eyes of the three young Israelis in a tank who smashed it.

Why did they see that as a reasonable thing to do? What was going through their minds as their tank went through the house?

The full article is on the BBC News website here.

Technorati tags: Alan Johnston, journalism, empathy, reporting, radio, BBC, news, Gaza

Alan Johnston is Free!

I woke up an hour ago to the fantastic news that BBC reporter Alan Johnston has been freed after four months captivity in Gaza. He was held by a jihadi group called the Army of Islam. In an interview this morning he said that it was 'slightly surreal' not to be waking up in his cell room. He had access to a radio, and said that  the worldwide campaign for his release brought him hope and comfort.

Alan's composed, perceptive and incisive reporting has shed light on the worsening situation in Gaza over the three years of his tenure as the BBC's correspondent there. Characteristically, Johnston began his interview with Radio 4's Jim Naughtie this morning by saying that we need to get his experience in perspective; he had been in captivity for four months, but Terry Waite and John McCarthy endured four years. Later in the interview he noted that 50 journalists were killed in the Philippines last year. And he said this within a few short hours of being released.

Alan Johnston was the only western correspondent stationed in Gaza, and I fear that the lasting consequence of this kidnapping is that the people of Gaza will now be denied any significant, committed voice in the world media. The Army of Islam has shot itself in the foot, even if it has succeeded in drawing attention to itself. I'm going to leave the box on the top left corner of this page for a while yet (BBC permitting); Alan Johnson will need ongoing support and prayers as he comes to terms with the stress of his trauma, and Gaza is a place that urgently needs greater stability, and a new reporter of Alan's calibre.

Technorati tags: Alan Johnston, free, freedom, Gaza, BBC, news, Hamas