Living Wittily

Category: Current Affairs

  • Benedict XVI in London, Education, Dialogue and Freedom ( I )

    When Tony Blair famously said the priorities for a 21st Century economy were "Education. Education. Education", he said more than he meant, and New Labour delivered less than he promised. Long before him the Scottish Reformation Kirk aimed to have a school in every parish, an historic decision Pope Benedict XVI commended in his response to the Queen's welcome. Education remained closely related to the Church in its various expressions in the following centuries, Catholic, Established and Nonconformist, until from the mid 19th Century onwards the state increasingly took responsibility for universal education. The resources needed, and the economic implications of having an educated, skilled and trained population capable of competing in modern industrialised societies, made it increasingly necessary that Government rather than Voluntary Agencies should drive educational provision.

    Pope-08 Alongside state provision in Britain, the Catholic Church has had its own established network of faith schools. Education remains a primary goal of Catholic social policy and theology today, and involves massive commitments of resources worldwide. When Benedict spoke on Friday to several thousand young people at St Mary's University College he spoke of those things that make life good and make for human happiness. To be happy is to be a friend of God. To live well there must be good models, those whose lives are worthy of imitation. There is much in Benedict's public discourse, and in his message here in Britain, that reflects the profound thinking of his encyclicals Deus Caritas Est and Caritas in Veritate. To be friends of God is a description of a relationship in which love is the exchange of divine grace and human response. He spoke of God's love, and God's desire for happiness and holiness as essentials of a full humanity, and did so as one who has thought profoundly, and spoke simply.

    This is a Pope whose theological emphases decisively shape his public discourse, and he talks with ease and practised confidence about the love of God, but also about those cultural and intellectual trends that undermine and erode the humane goals of education as a humanly formative activity. To talk theologically, and with a heightened social conscience in a showpiece Catholic educational establishment, is to introduce a quite different level of discourse about the meaning, significance, purpose and practice of education. Whatever arguments there may be about the place of faith based schools in a pluralist culture, they provide an important corrective and in a democarcy a required alternative, to secularised education evacuated of religiously formative education.

    STMarys_college2_medium John Henry Newman's Idea of a University reads today like an impractical, unaffordable, unwanted and idealistic educational utopia. Unless of course you want to challenge the prevailing secular view that education is a process whose primary goal is economic growth and development, student employability and mass produced graduates. But I'm reluctant to concede the inevitable and final necessity for such educational reductionism, or that these are the only or best educational goals. It may indeed be inevitable that state funded education in our universities has to bend to the economic priorities, and available funding of the Government of the day. But there will still be, in my own view, a place for those institutions which exist to serve more humanising ends, including religious instruction, moral formation, humanising values, intellectual humility, and these explored within a faith tradition both itself open to critique and yet critically aware of alternative worldviews.

    Sachs Benedict has a similarly rich and humane view of the purpose of religious encounter between different faiths. Such meeting he said yesterday, is a necessary expression of human formation, cultural development and social interaction. Co-operation and dialogue engender mutual respect, and enable faith traditions to support each other in seeking freedom of worship. of conscience and of association. Nor should such co-operation and mutual understanding be selfish, but provide a platform from which faith groups can work for peace, mutual understanding and witness to the world. Living alongside each other and learning and growing in respect and knowledge of each other, provides a fertile soil for peace, justice and works of compassion to grow.

    Whatever else can be said about this Papal visit, each time Benedict has spoken he has been generous in spirit, rigorous in intellect and both warm and dignified in his responsiveness. And the issues he deals with are of common concern to all humanity – justice and peace, the foundation of moral standards, religious freedom and freedom of conscience, the nature of education, the relations of faith and reason, and of spirituality and secularity. This is a man of courage, conviction and adamantine firmness on dogma; he is also a man of intellectual power, pastoral passion for the global church and ranks as one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the past 50 years. Interesting that the current Pope and the current Archbishop of Canterbury are both regarded as scholar theologians of the first class, at a time when intellectual range and depth are discounted in the markets of contemporary communication culture.

     

  • Benedict XVI in Scotland – openness of mind as part of the meaning of welcome.

    Benedict Cor ad cor loquitur – heart speaks to heart. The words are the motto chosen by John Henry Newman after his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church. (I'll do a post on Newman on Sunday). On the official website for the papal visit the motto is explained by pointing to Newman's conviction that truth comes from the centre of the person.The most important form of communication is that of heart to heart, rather than relying only on words spoken and heard, and sometimes misheard, and liable to misunderstanding.

    The controversies around the visit of Pope Benedict XVI are well enough known. I have views on most of them, and since they are likely to be misinformed, partial and unfair, because formed from media reports and slanted discussions, and about a tradition other than my own, I'm not for pontificating – allusion intended.

    I'd rather do what one of the Catholic priests suggested would be the most important response Benedict and the British public can make – openness. The openness of the Pope to hear the different voices that will speak – the voices of young people seeking meaning and direction in life; the voices of victims of abuse whose pain and suffering must be given voice, and a hearing, and a response that acknowledges and addresses such profound wrong; the voices of those who feel excluded, who seek change, who feel alienated from their church and defined out of its communion; the voices of those angered and frustrated at moral stances that seem to ignore human consequences for example in relation to HIV protection; and yet also the voices of those looking for stability, a strengthening and recovery of moral and spiritual values that enhance human culture and enable human flourishing. And these are mixed and contradictory voices, asking questions that arise from the deep places of the heart, or emerge from the complexities and challenges of a contemporary culture in flux conflcting with a church tradition seeking to keep the faith once for all delivered.

    But heart speaks to heart – and so when the Pope speaks he too has the right to be listened to. When other voices have spoken, and been heard, his voice must also be heard – and with openness of heart and mind. He has come to speak not only to the faithful of the Catholic Church, but as a major European voice, as a magisterial theologian and philosopher who is immensely learned in the Enlightenment philosophies of Western Europe, including Scottish philosophy, and in Catholic historical theology. While this is a state visit to this country, the Pope nevertheless is the head of a global faith tradition representing 1.1 billion people, and in his person he represents the pastoral care of the Roman Catholic Church for the faithful worldwide.

    393138987-church-insufficiently-vigilant-abuse So his visit to Britain is a significant occasion, and the message he brings should be heard with openness of heart – not uncritical enthusiasm, but because this Pope is incapable of mere ecclesial platitudes, morally anemic pronouncements or politically correct blandness, his words should be received with critical respect, and weighed with intellectual fairness. His words should be interpreted as coming from the heart of the Christian faith in its Catholic expression, and will be best understood if trouble is taken to be theologically informed about Catholic theology, spirituality, devotion and institutional history.

    And no, I'm not saying that is how everyone will hear him – public perceptions are often more shaped by populist rhetoric, dumbed down sound bytes, and image aided information flow. And that isn't Benedict's forte!. But informed critique and eschewing prejudiced caricature are indeed what I expect of those who claim to be intellectually engaged with the tradition Benedict XVI represents with such scholarly precision and intellectual candour. Whether as supporters or opponents, Catholics or non Catholics, those who want to be taken seriously as cultural commentators and serious reporters on matters of religious import and cultural significance, such as this papal visit, need to stop playing around with caricatures, uncritically perpetuating prejudiced opinion.

    For example blaming an entire church tradition for the evil actions of some, as if the Roman Catholic Church were the only large voluntary organisation or religious grouping where the problem of child abuse exists, and as if the guilt by association principle was unchallenged norm, legally secure and morally defensible. Like the overwhelming majority of Catholic people, priests and laity, I believe such actions are wicked, criminal and should be brought to justice. But in evaluating the Catholic Church as a whole, the sin of the tiny minority should never mean the eclipse of widespread goodness, nor the betrayal of trust by some, negate the faithful and costly devotion of all others. That happens when, for example, we overlook or detract from the immense good that has been and continues to be done by the Roman Catholic Church, in care for the poor, educational provision, and development and medical aid, and this on a global scale. 2sistine2 

    Likewise, European civilisation is still heavily mortgaged to the historic contribution of the Catholic church. Consider the richly textured diversity of spiritual traditions which flow like a mighty river gathering from its many tributaries; or weigh the worth to human fulfillment of the great religious music, architecture and art of Europe, as human creativity fused with religious devotion to produce some of the greatest masterpieces to grace the eyes and ears of generations. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is just one outflowing of art inspired by Christian faith, expressing in beauty and image the truths that lie at the heart, not only of the Roman Catholic Christian tradition, but of the worldwide Christian communion centred on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

    This post is written before the Bellahouston Mass. I'll blog on that tomorrow, as one who remembers the John Paul II event in 1982, and that remarkable rendering of Our God reigns. How can you not rejoice that thousands of people will be singing Isaiah's good news hymn in a park in Glasgow, in the sunshine, and sensing in themselves the reawakening of a faith and devotion too easily trapped in the tedium of the consumer converyor belt, or exhausted by contemporary anxieties and excesses. And I'm looking forward to hearing the new James MacMillan Mass, words and music made accessible for congregational singing.

  • “An Explanation of Everything” – Atheism and Insects Victorian Style

    ButterflyI suppose the argument from design is unlikely to persuade many in the contemporary intellectual climate created by militant atheism, or perhaps atheistic fundamentalism is the better term. The idea (with a long and respected history) is that there are some things that seem so wonderful they plausibly suggest design and designer rather than random occurrence. And that includes the known and acknowledged unknown marvel of a universe like the one we inhabit. I'm waiting for the new book of Hubble space images. While waiting I'm reading other stuff – as I do. Came across the following paragraph from an 1843 pamphlet Instructions for Collecting, Rearing and Preserving British and Foreign Insects. No author indicated. It is the argument from design innocent of the arguments that raged 20 years later on the publication of the Origin of Species. It is so quaintly naive in its assumptions that it is worth reading, if only to recover a sense of that lost innocence that can look and wonder, and give value to that ability to recognise beauty, intricacy and diversity as at least clues to a universe in which meaning is not ruled out as a prior assumption.

    The contemplation of the works of the Creator is the highest delight of the rational mind. In them we read, as in a volume fraught with endless wonders, the unlimited power and goodness of that Being who, in the formation of atoms, and of worlds, has alike displayed unfathomable Wisdom. There are few objects in Nature which raise the mind to a higher degree of admiration, than the Insect creation. Their immense numbers – endless variety of form – astonishing metamorphoses – exceeding beauty – the amazing minuteness of some, and the wonderful organization of others, far exceeding that of the higher animals – all tend to prove an Almighty artificer, and inspire astonishment and awe. 

     That paragraph is likely to inspire quite other responses in Dawkins. Hitchens, Hawking and others. And yes, it no longer sounds self evident. But I wonder if in our intellectual lust for dominance we may have lost the intellectual moderation that comes from wonder, astonishment and awe. Intellectual power without intellectual humility can become intellectual hubris. Whether or not – the above paragraph is a reminder that this wonderful universe is to be gazed at as well as analysed, and thus understood at a deeper level than 'an explanation of everything'.

  • Jimmy Reid – the best Scottish MP we never had.


    Reid Over the past forty years,     Jimmy Reid has been one of Scotland's most important voices. That voice first came to prominence in the early 1970's during the standoff between the Conservative Heath Government and the workers at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. And that's when I first heard it, and have listened to it ever since with critical affection. I was young, I had already been a shop steward and local representative for the Transport and General Workers' Union while working at Mayfield Brickwork. So when he stood before the massed union meeting and laid down the rules of engagement, I remember the electrifying impact of the Scottish language being used in the vernacular, with rhetorical power and moral force. "There will be no hooliganism; there will be no vandalism; there will be nae bevvying. The world is watching…and it's our responsibility to conduct ourselves responsibly and with dignity and with maturity." And they did.

    Two tributes, one by Tony Benn and one by a worker who was an apprentice in 1971,  sum up Jimmy Reid – "classic self-educated working class intellectual of moral principle", and "a leader you could like, who was on your side and who had the big ideas." It's hard to over-estimate the impact of this working class intellectual, who was the equal in intelligence and ethical passion of any of the more elitist figures with whom he argued and bargained in the struggle to save jobs, livelihood and communities. Because it was Jimmy Reid who understood long before the Thatcher government's attack on the mining industry, that long established local industry is the cohesive that makes community possible. And he understood the corrosive effect of unemployment on human dignity and morale, and the hopelessness felt by workers who heard in the clang of shut factory gates, the slamming shut of their own and their families' life opportunities.


    Beethoven A few years after the UCS dispute, Jimmy Reid was on a TV programme which explored the influences and circumstances that had shaped his world-view. Asked about his favourite piece of music, this self educated working class shop steward chose the final choral movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Why? Because it celebrated the joy of human existence, presented a vision of humanity living in harmony, and by the use of human voices co-operating with an orchestra, showed the radical connectedness of human aspirations with human industry. As a working class lad myself, that was my first introduction to Beethoven's symphonies – so even then, Reid was expanding the minds of those who heard him.

    Asked then about what made him such a passionate union member he referred to his brief stint as a 16 year old in a stockbroker's office. There he saw figures that showed wealthy people making more money in a single share transaction, than his own father could have earned several lifetimes over. I suspect today he would be accused of the politics of envy – but then the prophet Amos might have been accused of the same, and his response echoed the values and vision of Reid's political passion – "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream."


    Yellowstone Memorial Day 2008 147 Of the obituaries so far written, The Guardian is not uncritical but is fair, admiring, and acknowledges the passing of a great man. Few individuals in the political or trade union arena have, over the last century "    raised so many spirits, challenged so many assumptions or offered more vivid glimpses of a different social order." I hope someone takes on the significant task of writing an intellectual and social biography of Jimmy Reid. Communist, Labour, SNP – it's quite a cluster of political rosettes – but each move was principled and each cost him friendships and alliances. The title of his book describes what he loathed most – power without principles. He embodied Scottish working class culture at its best – a man with self-admitted faults, but a great man, a leader whose ethical principle and rhetorical power galvanised an industry and gave working people a respected and effective voice. He has been a background presence in my grown-up life, and his death marks the end of an era in Scottish trade union and political history. 

    Two examples of that respected and passionate voice –

    "From the very depth of my being, I challenge the
    right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to
    tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable."

    And on the permissive society

    "When any society permits 1 million people to be unemployed, then yes, I am against such a permissive society."

  • Dr Karen Woo – an Afghan tragedy.

    Dr WooDr Karen Woo was a wonderful human being. Like millions of others in this country I never heard of her until yesterday's news that she had been murdered by members of the Taliban. Founder of a medical aid charity, and clearly a woman of courage, compassion and generosity, her death leaves the world a much poorer place, and takes away from the Afghan people one of their most precious and essential helps – those who offer their skill, energy, time and professionalism for the care of ordinary Afghans. In remote villages as well as targeted cities, the Afghan people are caught in the vice-jaws of ideological conflict, and their suffering is immense, hard to report, and often brutal, summary and sudden.

    The justification for her killing? She was, it was claimed, "an American spy" and "preaching Christianity". The hollow cynicism of such a claim, or the blind hatred and prejudice that formulates such an obscene rationale, exposes the nature of propaganda, ideology, media-controlled news flow, and above all the way we all invest our own perceptions with overwhelming certainty that we see clearly and we see truly. But whatever the perception and perspective, and whatever the truth claims – erroneous or accurate, there is no justification whatsoever for the execution of a young doctor and her colleagues.

    And those who live, whether by Christian or Muslim faith and ethics, will immediately, because instinctively, draw the same conclusion. This was an evil act. This is not the will of God according to the Scriptures of either faith tradition. There are few perceptions and perspectives more dangerous than those fueled by a religious tradition distorted into a rationale for killing those who are other – and whose otherness is itself reason for enmity, hatred, violence and death. The great tragedy of the last decade has been the hardened polarisation and then the dangerous collision of the extreme edges of two faith traditions which have so much in common, and also so much on which they differ. And the great tragedy for the Afghan people is that their country has become the place where, by proxy, ideological conflict is localised, and given a context within which military conflict can be deployed. Thus drones and smart-bombs, IED's and suicide bombs, become the grotesque exchanges and communications that constitute conversation between those who see the other as hated threat. And one of the millions of footnotes in this narrative of religious unholy war and terminal political enmity, is the very personal tragedy of a young gifted woman doctor, summarily executed by those for whom hate is a fundamental virtue – which is about as wrong as any human being can get.

    I recently read a novel about St Francis of Assisi – and his role as peacemaker between Christian crusaders and the Islamic peoples. And while there is tragic irony in the popularity of his prayer 'Lord make me an instrument of thy peace…." in a decade of such violent non-peace, that prayer should, along with the Lord's Prayer, be part of the daily liturgy of responsible Christians. I remain convinced, by Scripture and by the call of the Living Christ to the Church which is his body in the world, that the ministry of reconciliation, the mission of peacemaking, the discipleship of those who follow the Prince of Peace, is not to march triumphantly under a cross, but to stagger under the weight of the cross of a world's suffering as those who follow after Christ crucified, discovering, ever more profoundly, the meaning of the cross as the defining intersection of Divine Love and human sin, and that cross as the second-last word from God the peacemaker. Because the final word of the Christian gospel is "Christ is Risen!", and it is the Living Christ who carries on that same redemptive conciliation in our hate-shattered world, and through the ministry of his Body, the Church.

  • Formula One Racing, Human Values and the Black Hole in Sporting Ethics.


    Tnstrafe I don't watch Formula 1 racing. Watching around 20 high octane, high performance, super turbo charged, high speed, precisely engineered, aggression driven egos, is not my idea of a relaxing, exciting, or even interesting Sunday afternoons. Quite apart from the environmental and eco-unfriendly consequences for the planet. What's the carbon footprint for one of these races anyway?

    But yesterday while enduring a few minutes of the German Grand Prix, I became aware (again) of the ethical black hole that is contemporary multi-billion professional sport. Two cars from the same team are in front. We hear the radio instruction / information to the first placed driver that his team mate in second has the faster car, and incidentally has the best chance of the two of challenging for the championship. Note the ambiguity – information / instruction. There is no doubt whatsoever (as the post race judgement confirms) that the rules were broken and Ferrari were cheating.

    But then we were treated to the moral wisdom of Michael Schumacher saying he would do the same. The only reason for being there is to win and you do all you can to win. Including cheating. Other ex-drivers also upheld win any way you can as the prime moral imperative. Eddie Jordan who knows the business inside out, was incensed. And how refreshing to hear unambiguous anger at blatant cheating being passed off as legitimate tactic! In 2006 Schumacher's own benefiting from exactly the same scenario caused the new rules to be written. That these rules clearly prohibit instructions from management to drivers to concede position in the interests of the team, are supposed to preserve the integrity of the race.

    What was obvious yesterday was that there is a dark side to integrity, an anti-ethic, a moral obligation to ignore the ethical and regulatory framework that defines the parameters of the sport. Cheating isn't bad; it is to be redefined as hunger for winning, loyalty to the team, commitment that is absolute, not to upholding the virtues of the sport, but to being first even if it requires the negation of all sportsmanship. Thus a new virtue displaces all the other virtues and values that make sport as spectacle and genuine human activity meaningful. And the judgement of a £100,000 fine imposed on Ferrari is the equivalent of a premier league footballer on £100,000 per week having to pay a fine of £1000 for moving the goalposts or breaking an opponents leg – thereby nobly upholding the moral imperative to win any way you can.

    And what about the savage erosion of the fundamental sporting ethic of excellence, fairness, honesty, admiration for achievement and genuine endeavour? If win any way you can were universalised as an ethic what would that do to business and the markets – well, we know the answer to that. Or apply such egotistic nonsense to community life, the fabric of social relationships, international and foreign policy, and the world becomes a bleak, unstructured free for all. In an age of globalised technology, instant and pervasive viewing of high profile sporting events, and an idolatry of power, competition, and mega-scale corporate interests, the moral imperative of win any way you can, rapidly corrodes virtues and dispositions essential to human community. Professional sport fueled by greed driven lust for victory, then becomes a social menace, a shop windowing of unprincipled egos, an arena in which we display not what is good, humanising and life-enhancing, but the very patterns of behaviour that if universalised would consign us to a world where goodness, truth and beauty take their place in the lower league places of human aspiration.


    F 1 CRASH The picture shows Alonso contemplating his recked car. He was the one given the drive through yesterday. Wonder if the same picture doubles as Alonso contemplating the wrecked image of a sport whose moral engine has blown, and whose ethical wheels are smashed beyond repair.

    The latest news on all this can be read here.

  • The Ethics of Sport – a proposed new degree programme?

    There is an entire subject area devoted to sport in University education these days. Sport psychology, commercial and marketing of sports management and events, sport in relation to health, sport and celebrity, sport as an expression of cultural values and social norms, even a spirituality of sport.

    Is there a course somewhere, even a wee certificate or diploma, on the ethics of sport? You know, even a foundation module on why cheating is wrong. Or a more advanced one on why doing your best is good enough, but enhancing performance with banned substances is not good enough. And maybe an honours course on the way money influences loyalty, challenges integrity, and tempts towards a greed more powerful than the valid motivation to excel.


    1-b8bcd36a-6f17-403d-9098-8b4fe4b8b862 I've no idea what the explanation is of the events surrounding the world number one snooker player John Higgins, and the allegations of bribery apparently captured on camera by undercover reporters. I do know that there is now so much money in sport that it attracts malign influences from political pressures, to media manufactured scandals to the presence and interests of organised crime. And the media which thrives on celebrity, scandal, gossip both benign and malicious, has its own code of practice which might struggle to be described as an ethic of journalism – more a set of guidelines that shows where the baleful and sordid crosses the line into the territory of litigation, libel, and legally enforced apology.

    Quite apart from the mess snooker finds itself in on the weekend of its showpiece world final, there is an undoubted problem in professional sport. Too much money and too few responsible role models; too much emphasis on excellence of performance sustained and improved, and not enough on moral maturity and social responsibility. The gym in our culture bears little relation to the gymnasium of the good life, the training of mind, motive and conscience to ensure that whatever else we excel at, we can demonstrate a capacity for fairness, appreciation of the skills of others, a balance between self-confidence in our ability and arrogant admiration of our own brilliance.


    7127CDBCCF I have a friend who has spent a lifetime in sport, managing and coaching young lives, pouring into his sport both the experience and skills that help players grow, and the instillation of values, goals and character formation that enables players to see beyond the game, and to prepare for the much more important performance of a life well lived. He is of course in a minority; but perhaps his success is in the number of ex-players whose contribution to our communities goes well beyond their ability in a game, a sport, an industry. At its best, sport can integrate those drives that enable us to compete fairly, to strive for excellence, to value the other as person, to acknowledge good achievements whether ours or not, and to recognise that with success comes responsibility.

    The irony is that for sport to survive it needs finance. Some sports are awash with money, even if most of it is borrowed under burdens of debt that at some point will crush its bearers. To handle money honestly, to recognise when money is tainted, to learn to walk away from money when the cost is a mortgaged conscience, to live wisely as a rich person, is not an economic problem. It's an ethical one. Wonder which University will be the first to offer a course on sporting ethics? Or is there one out there already but with too few recruits?

  • Should members of the BNP be allowed to teach in our schools? No!

    Maurice-Smith-former-insp-001 The link at the end of this post is to the recent report by Maurice Smith (pictured) that says the prohibition on teachers being members of the BNP would be "a disproportionate response", a "very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut." Right.

    The report also suggests there is no causal connection between being a member of a political party, holding certain political views, and the influence a teacher has in a classroom. Oh, and just to be clear, a teacher's politics has no place in the classroom. Right.

    Now when I use the word right, I don't mean I agree; and it is not used as explicit (or implicit) moral approval. Actually just to be clear – I am using it with a full measure of West of Scotland irony reinforced by well informed scpeticism, as in the phrase, "Aye right"!

    Let's not play silly word games by which we are meant to think that politics and political opinion, political conviction, political judgement, political values are all reducible to private ways of viewing the world. Or that such inner orientations of thought, moral judgement, political vision and social organisation never impinge on how we actually relate to the world and the people in it. Politics if taken half seriously, and a member of a political party should be assumed to take their party's policies and manifesto seriously, politics is the way we describe and work towards the way we would wish the world to be.

    And if a person's politics are about a racially based approach to social structures, a narrow definition of nationalism, a resistance to multi-cultural presence, an insistence on Britishness (whatever that is) as critierion of welcome, then there is overwhelming likelihood that such political views will indeed influence the way those people relate to other people. A BNP member who is a teacher in a multi-ethnic school, in a multicultural society, with several asylum seeking children in the class, is not going to pretend, surely, that policies of exclusion which he or she upholds as conviction, somehow do not exist in the day to day dealings with a socially, culturally and racially diverse class. Sorry – I don't believe such convictional conjuring tricks are possible – and if they were they would be even more dangerous for their two faced janus-like deception.

    A-viewer-watches-Nick-Gri-001 Quite apart from all the above, education is not politically neutral, and teachers are not politically colourless. A teacher is entrusted with tasks of social education, humane learning, instilling values of civic responsibility, enabling and encouraging relationships of co-operative working, mutual respect and preparation for a life of responsible contribution to our society. I simply don't accept that such a vision of educational purpose is compatible with BNP policies and manifesto statements. And because I believe members of the BNP sincerely hold the convictions and values of their Party manifesto, there can be no congruence between political views and a social vision so wildly out of line with the values of an educational system whose underlying assumptions are inclusive, mutually respectful of cultural difference, and embedded in a civic code that does not diminish the humanity or value of other people on such dangerous grounds as race, ethnic origin, faith tradition, or that morally (and rationally) dubious benchmark of Britishness.

    Photo_011307_001 Lest I haven't made myself clear; as a follower of Jesus Christ, a lover of people in God's name, a citizen who recognises the rights and worth of others who come to live amongst us and who believes in a society that is just and compassionate, I think the report is wrong. Membership of the BNP should indeed disqualify someone from teaching in our schools. Maurice Smith the former Chief Inspector of Schools is simply wrong in his conclusions. Worse still, he has produced a report lacking in moral seriousness, for which he has substituted risibly strident rhetoric that makes little reference to the realities of teaching, the ethic of education, nor the responsibility that comes with living in a democracy, of discerning with care the fundamental obligations and human values that ensure real freedoms.

    http://news.aol.co.uk/racism-report-backs-teacher-freedom/article/20100312012850152666193?icid=mai

  • Susan Boyle dreamed a dream – bless her!

    OK. So after all the hullaballoo earlier this year about Susan Boyle, the pros and cons of Britain's Got Talent, the ambiguous roles of three millionaire judges, and the impact of instantaneous celebrity status on a modest Scottish woman who seemed to be unravelling before ruthlessly voyeuristic cameras; the album is out, is selling in millions, and the woman herself much more self possessed and a pleasure to watch and hear.

    I watched the repeated documentary the other morning, in which she did indeed sing with Elaine Paige – who was encouraging, supportive without a hint of patronising. We bought the CD for Christmas. And yes it's good. She has a voice that is versatile though I don't like the arrangement of several of the songs – Daydream Believer was never a slow croon.

    51KqVfqwQ5L._SL160_AA115_ But the overwhelming sense I had as I listened to the Cd, and watching the Documentary, was of a woman who had shown immense courage in ever going to those auditions at all. And then seeing it through, right through to a final in which she came second and ran out of places to hide. But there she is. Doing what she dreamed of doing. I don't buy into the "dream it and it will happen" approach to life. I've known too many people whose dreams just didn't happen for them. But unfulfilled dreams have never been a reason to stop dreaming; nor to depsise what we have, who we are and what is still possible. Still less to knock someone else whose dream has come true

    I salute this brave woman. She should be made Scot of the Year. Her talent, her personality, her vulnerability and her sheer guts, her self effacing sense of who she is, make her the best kind of ambassador for Scotland, a country that too often blaws its own bagpipes while simultaneously letting the air out of the air bladder. Nobody can predict what will now happen for her and to her – but I wish her well, and have nothing but admiration for the way she has taken hold of her life, and walked into a different future.

    We all know reality TV cans its audience responses and plays on viewers' mixture of gullibility and cynicism. The wide road that leads to exploitation is too easily taken. But now and again someone transcends the polyfoam programming. I for one will never foget that first night when she sang "I dreamed a dream" – that kind of moment transforms viewer voyeurism into a much more wholesome human solidarity, rooted in recognition of significance, beauty and the sheer triumph of immediate human gift over mediating technology.  

  • Barack Obama and the Political Incorrectness of the Nobel Peace Prize

    Obama-nobel-prize-speech-864 The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama was a serious misjudgement. So was its acceptance, compounded by an acceptance speech that required considerable semantic redefinition and conceptual conjuring. This masterclass in rhetorical agility sets unhelpful precedents in a world where truth and language are already too vulnerable to the distorting pressures of political market forces.

    The award of the Nobel Peace prize to one whose political and personal contribution to date is by his own embarrassed admission "slight", put Obama in an impossible political and moral position. In the space of nine days Presdient Obama committed another 30,000 troops to "the war against terror" and received the Nobel Peace Prize. The incongruity of being a Peace Prize recipient and a Commander in Chief of tens of thousands of troops on foreign soil and sand, is so bizarre that it required an acceptance speech defending just war, and insisting, as most protagonists do, that their war is indeed just, and is an essential prerequisite for peace.

    Noble-peace-prize Which raises for me the most significant moral consequence of Obama's acceptance speech. Obama claims to stand in the succession of Martin Luther King not only as recipient of the Nobel Peace prize, but as one whose appointment was made possible by MLK and the non-violent stance of the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. But says Obama, armed and violent conflict will not be eradicated in our lifetime, and as a Head of State he must not be guided only by the example of Luther King and Ghandi. I agree. But in that case the wise and morally defensible position would be to decline the Nobel Peace Prize as that which cannot be reconciled with his duties as Head of State, and which he has sworn on oath to make his priority. But of course how could a US President do that?

    Nevertheless, to accept it is to want the best of both worlds, the prestige and power of a Commander in Chief of a nation at war, and the moral authority of one whose life work is seen as a major contribution to peace in our time and in our world. It is not possible to be both, at one and the same time; not in any way that makes moral sense. It is dangerous to melt down key concepts in a debate and remint them in the more flexible plastic currency that enables political leaders to purchase the truth that suits already agreed agendas.

    I admire Obama, but not uncritically. He is I believe a man of moral stature, but who lives in a world that requires ethical fluidity and political expediency. That is the price of power, and the personal cost is felt at the level of the moral. Whatever the political pressures on him to engage in this piece of theatre, his collusion cannot but diminish his own moral authority and the credibility of a Peace Prize that seems to 03_03_olso have become fatally politicised.

    And that is a shame. For we need more than ever a globally recognised prize for those like Martin Luther King, and in our time Shirin Ebadi of Iran, (pictured here) Recently she and her family have been further victimised by the Iranian regime – including the nonsense of announcing the confiscation of her Peace prize!. As if!

    People like Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King and Shirin Ebadi represent achievements not only in a different league from Obama, but in a different moral category. They have risked personal safety and borne real hardship for the sake of peace, and they represent a way of being that is in direct contradiction to state sponsored military inytervention. And as for the Nobel nominating committee, it would surely have been a more ethically secure nomination to award the Peace Prize some years later, and for evidence of real achievements in peacemaking, than to celebrate the recipient of a premature prize based on (as yet) unrealised expectations, and while that candidate commands an army engaged with other countries, including the UK, in armed conflict abroad.