33 hours without sleep is too long, but I can never sleep on aircraft. On the delayed second leg from Istanbul to Astana I sat next to a very interesting Kazakh woman who teaches English at Almaty University and we talked for a long time. By the time we got to our hotel the day had begun and I didn’t dare sleep in case I wouldn’t wake up for my meetings.
But I spent the afternoon with a Kazakh friend who stayed with us for two months in Croydon a couple of years ago. We walked miles through Astana – the best way to see any city. But step off the kerb and you take your life in your hands! Traffic is heavy and it isn’t obvious whose rights to move have priority. But the weather was amazing. Because Astana is surrounded by a thousand miles of empty steppe, the horizon is very flat and the sky very big – which means that you can see the bad weather coming hours before it hits.
I have never seen such a sudden storm hit a place. The winds were so strong that fountains were turned off, trees were bent double and we had along coffee while we watched it pass. Not a great picture (taken through glass), but it gives a bit of an idea:
Back at the hotel I wrote my speech for tomorrow on The role of religious leaders in building peace based on tolerance, mutual respect and cooperation (which I will post later tomorrow once I have done it and know what I actually said…).
I then had a (for me, at least) really good interview with Jerome Taylor of the Independent who is here to cover the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. He had done his reading, knew his stuff, set the detail in a broad and informed hinterland and made the conversation at once enjoyable and informative for me. The main point for me was the importance of placing religious questions into the context set by wider geo-political and historico-cultural considerations: discussion of ‘religious’ questions makes no sense in isolation from the rest of the world.
It sounds obvious, but it is easily missed.
June 30, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Nick,
I can see why you describe your blog as a ‘Restless Bishop’. You certainly get around.
I think that what you are doing to reach out is the only way to move ahead. Meeting face to face and talking and discussing those issues which unit, as well as those which devide can only help understanding.
Several years ago, my TA unit visited Kazahkstan for a Partner for Peace exercise, I was not able to be with them unfortunately, but they seemed to have enjoyed the experience and working with a different army, in a different language was good training and liaison.
I look forward to reading the post of your speech.
June 30, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Thank you for making the time to keep us up-to-date-with your travels – look forward to reading more about your experiences at this conference.
July 1, 2009 at 7:12 pm
When Christians can worship as freely in Saudi Arabia as Muslims can in Europe, when Iranians can convert without fearing for their lives, when all Pakistanis enjoy equal protection of the laws – then maybe something will have been achieved.
Bud sadly I don’t see this happening for a long, long time – even the progress in human rights of the 1970s has been reversed in many places. And you won’t see Obama calling for a secular or nonreligious democracy in Iran.