Category: Current Affairs

Here is a news report from yesterday, headed,

UK Prostitute death: Four arrested

Police investigating the death of a prostitute whose body was found dumped in an alley in Hull have arrested four people. Two men, aged 30 and 28, and two women, aged 25 and 18, were being questioned in police stations in the Humberside area. The body of Hayley Morgan, 20, was found on Friday morning in Beverley Road. Red-haired Hayley, who also used the surname Marshall, was a chronic drug abuser who worked the Luke Street red light area of the city, near where she lived, police said.

Now here’s another wee item of news pushed to the bottom of the front page of todays Herald

Four men arrested over prostitute’s death

The arrests were made at dawn in Glasgow city centre and several premises are being searched, Strathclyde Police said. They followed raids on properties in Bridge Street near the city centre and Duke Street, in the east end. Apolice spokesman last night said, Four men aged 31, 34, 35 and 55 have been detained in connection with the death of Emma Caldwell. They are being interviewed. A number of premises are being searched in connection with the investigation. Miss Caldwell, 27, who had been working as a prostitute, disappeared from a hostel in Glasgow’s south side. An inquiry was launched in May 2005 after a dog walker discovered her body in woods near Roberton, Lanarkshire. Miss Caldwell became addicted to heroin after the death of her sister and turned to prostitution to feed her habit.

Can I also say that Hayley and Emma were human beings? These women, their worth, their dignity and their humanity are not defined by either their work or their habits. They are people, whose death diminishes all of us, whose ordeals were inflicted on them by other people, whose brutality mirrors something critically wrong at the heart of our society. Each woman, in her loneliness and desperation, found themselves victims of the latent violence and gratuitous cruelty of people whose behaviour and character raise much more telling questions about how we define humanity.

The point of all this. I was offended,and angry, that on TV, Radio and in the papers and news websites, the first thing to say about these two murder victims was that they were prostitutes. How they earned their living – or at least tried desperately to survive – is not irrelevant, but it is not DEFINING – I don’t need to know as the first fact about these two women, that they were prostitutes. I’m neither prudish nor embarrassed by the term – though I seethe at the exploitation and hopelessness that underlies and sustains it. But their names, tell me their names, and yes the tragedy that befell them, the loss of their lives, the waste of all other possibilities for their lives, how they died and how they lived. And yes, expose the moral turpitude of those who used, abused and murdered them – these are bleak stories of our time.

Lord have mercy. In your love, grant peace to Hayley and Emma.

I used to play football in the local park, in the red ash playfield, on the tarmac of the school playground, in the farmer’s field, even on proper football pitches – the worst that ever happened was skint knees, and later torn ligaments because of a bad tackle. That an 11 year old boy, playing football in a pub car park, is shot with a handgun and killed by another young man riding on a BMX renders all the usual inner mechanisms of moral response stuck. I’ve no idea what to think, or feel, or write – pain, anger, sorrow, revulsion, compassion, – an entire spectrum of human response to inhuman behaviour seems redundant.

But it wasn’t an inhuman person who did this – it was a young human being who acted out the ultimate violent fantasy of ending the life of another human being. As easy as the flick of a joystick – more fun than the limits of virtual violence – translating the familiar comic book violence of movie and computer game onto the streets where real people can die. The causal connection between a person’s preferred entertainment, and the patterns of their own behaviour is not established, researchers tell us. There is a lack of evidence-based documentation so we’re told.

There is a longstanding way of viewing reality called the Scottish Commonsense School. One of its assumptions is that we can trust the evidence of the common experience of people. Human experience of the real world whether moral, intellectual, emotional or volitional, is to be seriously considered as itself having evidential value. The desensitising of a young mind, by exposure to regular pre-packaged violence in a virtual environment, or the pumped up messages of music that celebrates violence, is not, on any common sense reflection, irrelevant to patterns of behaviour where inexplicable and lethal violence result in dead people – in the real world.

There are profound and disturbing changes taking place in the moral fabric of our culture. Now and again events such as Dunblane, the killing of Jamie Bulger, the knifing of Damilola Taylor, and….and….. You see, what was once unusual and unprecedented becomes a list, routine, a series of heinous crimes so that the word heinous becomes a regular adjective, its edge blunted by constant use.

Whatever else I might want to try to say or think, as a Christian, I instinctively consider two theological truths that underlie such happenings like theological bedrock –

1. Sin is a catastrophic reality in the human story and can always visit the inexplicable and unimaginable upon the innocent; and as evil it must never be explained away by finding more comfortable explanations in social determinism, psychological profiling or genetic programming. The killing of a boy playing football was an act of hellish indifference to the reality of a human life.

2. Redemption is that action of God, creative and costly, in which the suffering and death of Christ demonstrate the inexplicable and unimaginable mercy of God, on creatures capable of that same hellish indifference to human suffering and death. I believe in sin; I believe in redemption through Christ even more. As my theological mentor and hero James Denney never tired of asserting – sin is not the last reality of the universe – here it is, eternal love, bearing sin.

For this young boy, Rhys Jones, for his mother who held him as he died, and for all touched by this tragedy, I only offer words of perplexed intercession –Lord in your mercy.

This is Emily Miller, aged 25. The attempt by the Daily Mirror (Labour’s most loyal fleet street paper) to plant Ms Miller, an investigative journalist, deep in the Conservative Party Election Campaign office is comical, cyncical and morally problematic. Opinions of right or wrong are divided depending on the polictical colour of the commentator. What kind of ethics could sensibly be applied across the board to regulate investigative and undercover journalism, which by definition succeeds by deceit, stealth and ultimately betrayal of those whose trust has been won? Some of the most important exposures of corporate wrongdoing, animal cruelty, human trafficking, human rights abuses, public risks linked to commerical activity, were possible because resourceful and at times very courageous reporters, went undercover to film, report and expose. In these cases it would seem that the acts of deceit required were morally justified in order to expose and perhaps end a far greater evil.

But that is surely different from trying to infiltrate a political party, to access confidential information and expose private conversations, internal strategies, personal weaknesses of key individuals, as a way of undermining the credibility of a party preparing for election in a modern democracy. The democratic process itself is surely weakened by such party-biased activity. Those who think it is ok to do this, or attempt to, should at least ask the old Kantian question of whether they are prepared to universalise this behaviour – that is, is gaining employment and trust by deceit, in order to harm the election prospects of a legally established political party, a principle which can be morally countenanced in all situations?

I’m uneasy with answering that question too dogmatically- the British National Party stands for policies many people (and I’m at the front of the opposition queue here) would call extreme, dangerous, and would oppose on deep ethical, social, and for me also theological grounds. Much of what we know about the inner psyche of such an organistaion only comes to light when exposed in its unguarded moments, when it’s members feel safe to reveal and speak the truth of who and what its members are. But doesn’t that too influence the outcome of the democratic process by targeting unpopular parties to publicise them at their worst? Yes it does – and again I’m not sure I want to condemn such journalism as morally unacceptable.

But the Daily Mirror’s little ploy was nothing so morally courageous. If successful it would have been the equivalent of planting the best surveillance equipment possible at the centre of a mainstream political party, for the purposes of harming reputations, disabling leadership, discrediting stated intentions, stealing ideas, undermining strategies by publicising them, or internal hesitations about them. The Fleet Street editor on BBC news on Sunday morning, who thought it was a pity the young woman was ‘rumbled’, and praised the attempt, has no ethical qualms about such a tactic. But surely there is a difference between the journalist who infiltrates a racist organisation, or a dog-fighting culture, or the dangerous underworld of trafficking in vulnerable people, and a reporter whose intention is not to expose criminal behaviour in the interests of public safety and human compassion, but to weaken, undermine and inform on employers through systematic betrayal? Or am I naive?

One further thought though. Supposing such a paper planted several of its reporters in various Christian churches, with the remit of establishing how genuinely we live the Gospel of reconciliation, live out the community of love rooted in the Triune Love of God, practice compassion for the poor,engage in prophetic critique of all that diminishes human life locally and globally? What would such a journalist be able to publish, to the embarrassment of the Name we honour, the one we follow and worship? Intriguing thought – undercover journalists seeing if these Christians are half as serious about the Kingdom of God as they want others to believe….and if so where’s the evidence? MMHHHMMM?

Just came across this news bulletin on the web. My heart is sad, at this tragedy, and also proud that these wonderful people were making such a difference.

Three nurses have died in a road accident in Mozambique after donating a week of their holiday to care for sick children in the impoverished country.

Helen Golder, 33, a nurse at the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust in London, and Liz Callan, 31, from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, both died at the scene of the accident on Saturday outside the Mozambique capital Maputo.

A third nurse, 32-year-old Susan Andrews, of Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, lost her fight for life on Tuesday after being flown to Johannesburg, South Africa, for treatment.

The women had just completed a week working for free providing intensive care for sick children in Maputo, on a mission led by heart surgeon Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub. They were on their way for a day trip to the Kruger National Park in South Africa when their bus was involved in an accident.

‘The righteous, though they die early, will be at rest…There was one who pleased God and was loved by Him…for I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me to drink, sick and you comforted me…..’ May they rest in the peace of God, and may their families be comforted.

  I confess to being puzzled, perplexed, bemused, bewildered as to how I should feel that Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister should be appointed (by whom? by the US???) to be a peace envoy in the Middle East. How does someone who has never fully explained a decision to go to war, has never expressed regret or conceded error of judgement in such a decision, has no unquestioned legal authority for such a catastrophic act of international fight-picking, did so under the influence of / in response to / in collaboration with, the American President and Administration, who now appoint him as a peace envoy – how does that work?????

What about goodwill, integrity, honesty, humility, understanding of the OTHER, as characteristics of the envoy? And shouldn’t those to whom such a person is sent, have some evidence that such an envoy is not coming to serve their own, or their own side’s interests? How do they trust, even talk to, a person who has shown no public independence of thought from the US view on Iraq, the Israeli hammering of the Lebanese and has done little more than speak shoulder shrugging platitudes about the Palestinian question? And who comes as a US messenger?

I am committed to peace – I’m prepared to support every initiative that might bring peace about, that offers an alternative to war. I will pray for all patient peace-makers, all persuasive peace-seekers, all political peace-envoys, all persistent peace-prayers. I believe that words and human relationships are always preferable to shock and awe – but I just wonder what the peoples of the Middle East make of a man who as Prime Minister declared war on the flimsiest of evidence, and has never conceded such, as the West’s best hope for ending the horrors of Iraq, Israel and Palestine? Sometimes the hardest part of following Jesus today, is knowing what to pray for in a world already scarily complex, made more ethically and politically complicated by dualities of language, action and motive. I genuinely don’t understand what is going on here.

The Lord’s Prayer helps though…..your Kingdom, come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven….and that means Iraq and all its people. 

Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy, Amen

Just watched Andrew Marr’s Modern Britain, last episode. From John Major to Tony Blair. 16 years of our life in this country reviewed with journalistic flair, incisive observation, studied impartiality (mostly), and intelligent commentary. And I found most of it depressing – the first Gulf war, black wednesday and the economic aftermath, the murder of Jamie Bulger, the Dunblane School massacre, the death of Diana, the twin towers, the war in Iraq, the death of David Kelly, the bloody aftermath still convulsing Iraq, bombs on London Underground, the increasing mistrust of politicians and other public figures as honesty, integrity and public accountability are eroded.

Easy to blame one person, and the truth is, there is much for which accountability is required but of whom, and by whom? Perhaps one of the most revealing comments was that the religious experience we all now share is ‘buying stuff’. And yes, shopping mall’s could double as temples; their piped music representing the proffered harmony of souls yet again satisfied; the logos are secular icons and our credit / debit cards our offering. The concept that gathers together the phenomenon of our contemporary culture is globalisation, the consumer empire that provides security at the price of our freedom, a world wide web of cyber cash in which we are all enmeshed.

I watch a programme like Modern Britain and think thoughts like some of these being written here, and I wonder if the church of Jesus Christ has a clue – if I have a clue – 

how to be faithful in our following of Jesus, how to know the difference between relevance that can diminish the Gospel by accommodation, and faithfulness that can make the Gospel seem inimical to modern culture

how to stand firmly with those who are victims of global power plays, how to make a difference about world poverty, how to express with effective action prophetic dissociation, ‘not in my name’

how to pray – to give thanks for God’s creation in a world so messed up by us, how to pray for orphanages of starving children tied to beds in Baghdad while their food and clothes are sold on the black market, how to not let such outrages corrode and poison the sources of hope, optimism, joy and peaceable friendships.

All of which is a bit melancholic – not sure I’m comfortable with the idea that being at times melancholic is a suspect Christian mood. Hope is not the denial of the bad stuff, but defiant trust that the bad stuff isn’t the way it has to be…or will always be. In the meantime a prayer:

Save us from weak resignation

to the evils we deplore

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage

for the living of this hour, Amen and Amen.

‘Living wittily in the tangle of our minds’ sometimes means thinking in an uncomplicated way about important events and human happenstance. I think a mother of two boys, killed in a car crash abroad, is an important event, and the most tragically life changing event so far in the life of her two sons. I am uncomplicated enough in my thinking, and in my not always successful attempts to be a compassionate and wise human being, to respect the grief, the privacy and the loss of all involved.

Why should that change when the person killed was Diana Princess of Wales? Channel Four intends to screen previously unseen photographs of the interior of the car, of Diana receiving oxygen in the immediate aftermath, and to broadcast previously inaccessible testimony from photographers. This is wrong, cynical, voyeuristic and deeply exploitative. Which is bad enough. But my uncomplicated take on these things isn’t to be taken as stupidity. Does Channel Four think that the following is in any sense a professional or moral justification, or that it comes anywhere near socially responsible Huh?

"there is a genuine public interest in the events that followed the crash…."(Sorry, but where is the distinction between public interest and ghoulsih voyeurism? And if by public interest, is meant the more ethically important issue of serving the public good, what good is it going to do me to see a dying mother struggling for life – or to see the mangled mess inside the car where a human being was fatally injured? PUBLIC INTEREST???).

"We don’t think the pictures are intrusive, and we have thought very carefully about the sensitivities of the families involved" (Sorry, but what other car crash victims would also be fair game for widespread broadcast on our TV screens? And thinking very carefully does not necessarily imply that you have concluded very sensitively, wisely, responsibly or even humanely!!!)

"Appropriate action has been taken to avoid any unwarranted intrusion in the privacy of the family."(Appropriate action – like what? And what is warranted intrusion, and who decides? A company already compelled to apologise for its mishandling of racist material expects me to believe it actually cares more about avoiding unwarranted intrusion, than it does about the human tragedy that lies at the centre of this whole tangled mess)

So – the above quotes are Channel Four’s "justification". How does one respond to such a litany of inanities? How do we stop semantic gymnasts from offering – non-justifications as if they were convincing, reasoned and cogent points which any sensible, mature adult can swallow with their cornflakes? Maybe by adopting the uncomplicated response of the young boy, whose perception was clear, and who was innocently unaffected by spin and illusion, and who pointed out bluntly that the Emperor had no clothes on. Channel Four’s contrived "justification" is the identical scenario – naked hypocrisy patronising the crowd by parading its see through gear!