Haven’t we seen this before somewhere?

Having a brief holiday, I thought I'd give my blog a miss for a week. Then I belatedly saw the Daily Mail's front page judgement on the appalling Philpott story.

I rarely get shocked by anything. In various life and work contexts I have seen and heard and read too much. And I can't bring myself to do 'mock shock'. But, this I do find shocking.

The Philpott story is dreadful. But, to use it shamelessly to categorise and damn people who receive from the welfare state is in itself shocking. Why? Because we have seen this sort of generalising categorisation before. I remember reading it in Der Stürmer. Even those who think the welfare reforms are right and justified should be worried about the language and approach of the Mail and the new direction it takes us in: generalised categorisation and vilification of certain groups of people.

Try this from the headline: 'Vile product of Welfare UK'. So, the welfare system produces utterly corrupt people – without distinction?

Or this: 'Man who bred 17 babies…' – as opposed to non-welfare recipients who 'have' children rather than 'breed' them? Animals breed…

Philpott's lifestyle is indefensible. His morality is damnable – although people not in receipt of welfare might also share some of his values. Yes, there are people who take welfare for a ride. Yes, the system needs reform – as does the system for rewarding the wealthy at the other end of the scale. But, something deeply corrupting is going on in our culture if the language of Osborne and the Daily Mail become common currency.

The Mail follows George Osborne's division of people between 'strivers' and 'skivers', shamelessly categorising people without for one minute questioning the basis for it – most welfare recipients work and work far too hard for the good of themselves or their families.

Do the Mail journalists take any responsibility for the remaining children of the Philpotts who, presumably, will now have to continue to live with the stigma generated by this reporting? Haven't they already suffered? But, the current onslaught against 'welfare' pays no attention to the children, making them suffer for the sins of the parents the children didn't choose. 'Suffer the little children', said Jesus; it looks like we read that wrongly and will make damned sure they suffer.

One day we shall be ashamed of this period in our history.

(Having written this, I then read the Guardian's intelligent and apposite editorial and Zoe Williams' excellent and pointed response to the Mail.)

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Sunday is coming…

… but you have to go though Friday first.

(In the absence of time to write anything fresh, here is the text of my March letter to the Diocese of Bradford.)

I read an article recently about how electronic communication is speeding up the world and making us more impatient. As the technology improves, so do connections run quicker and our tolerance of delay diminishes. I don’t know about you, but it sounds about right to me. It is hard to stop and wait and enjoy the gaps between words and activities.

I say this because Lent is leading us slowly towards an ending that will, in turn, become a new beginning. Lent beckons us to stop, to slow down, to force ourselves to step off the treadmill and make space for reflection and self-examination. Attentive consideration of God, the world and ‘us’ opens up the slow possibilities of repentance (literally, a change of mind), renewal and hopeful living. It is an invitation that is easy to decline – after all, it will involve us in walking with Jesus and his friends (and enemies) to the rubbish dump where a cross haunts the horizon, awaiting its terrorised victim.

I grew up in a church community where it seemed we tried to get from Good Friday to Easter Sunday as quickly as possible. We celebrated the cross as God’s victory… instead of learning to live the story of God’s apparent failure or absence. We just couldn’t stay there as the world falls apart; nor could we live through the sheer emptiness of loss, bereavement and world-ending fear that is Saturday: the dead Jesus in the tomb and the world collapsed. No, we want to get to resurrection and make it all happy again. We escape the painful darkness and embrace the brightness of resurrection day.

But, this is problematic. If we don’t stay with Good Friday and live with the appalling emptiness of Saturday, then Easter itself will be meaningless. We are not supposed to just entertain ourselves theologically with Easter; no, we are supposed to live it, experience it, cry through it, search through it, long through it for hopeful resolution. And when Sunday comes we are to be surprised, bewildered, shocked even.

As a church we are called not only to live the story in our worship and contemplation, but also to use it as a lens for looking attentively at our society and world. The massive increase in food banks, the enormous injustices that are enshrined in our economic systems, the poverty that destroys the lives of ordinary people: all these things (and others) represent for those afflicted by them a long ‘day’ of crucifixion – a slow death of potential, health, esteem, hope. There are people in every parish who might find themselves here.

Yet, the Christian community is not simply to shout at the darkness or rage against the sinfulness of such a situation. No, we are called to speak the truth about the things that corrupt, that nail godliness to a cross, that destroy hope and potential; and then we are called to offer a glimpse of what Walter Brueggemann calls ‘newness after loss’. This means enabling people to be surprised by Sunday when Friday and Saturday seem so endless.

May your Easter be blessed as we celebrate the resurrection light that confounds the darkness and opens up new hope for God’s world. Let us together light a candle of resurrection in protest at the mock powerfulness of the dark… and then go where the light shines in order to make an Easter difference in the places where God calls us to stay awhile.

 

Child poverty and the voice of bishops

It’s a weird world. I posted on 21 February stuff related to the concerns that prompted 43 Church of England bishops, backed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, to sign a letter to the press. Published today in the Sunday Telegraph, it has caused a bit of noise.

Clearly, the substance is not the issue, or it would have hit the headlines some time ago. It is the fact that a pile of bishops has signed it that makes it a story. And that’s good.

Let’s get one thing straight: this letter is not anti-government or anti-Cameron; it is pro-children.

And another thing: read some of the comment threads on this story on news websites and a repeated (outraged) question has to do with the competence of bishops to dare to voice concerns in this way. Who are they to speak? Well, (a) we are people who participate in civil society, (b) we also have a voice with others in the democratic process, (c) we have people in every community in the land and are probably closer to the ground than most politicians, (d) it is our responsibility to speak truth without fear or self-regard, (e) if we can make a voice heard, then we have a responsibility to do so, and (f) such questioning is just silly and simply distracts from the issue at hand.

Thirdly, the question of priorities remains unanswered: we can bail out banks to the tune of billions of pounds, but it’s the poor who have to pay? The government’s language has become increasingly and deliberately disingenuous, lumping people on welfare benefits into the category of ‘feckless scroungers’ who lie in bed watching other people go to work. Yet, they know that most people being hit by welfare cuts and the bedroom tax are low-paid working people. Why is this being done? (See the recent report The lies we tell ourselves – another intrusion by those pesky Christians who really should be silenced…)

Here’s the letter as published:

Dear editor,

Next week, Members of the House of Lords will debate the Welfare Benefit Up-rating Bill.

The Bill will mean that for each of the next three years, most financial support for families will increase by no more than 1%, regardless of how much prices rise.

This is a change that will have a deeply disproportionate impact on families with children, pushing 200,000 children into poverty. A third of all households will be affected by the Bill, but nearly nine out of ten families with children will be hit.

These are children and families from all walks of life. The Children’s Society calculates that a single parent with two children, working on an average wage as a nurse would lose £424 a year by 2015.

A couple with three children and one earner, on an average wage as a corporal in the British Army, would lose £552 a year by 2015.

However, the change will hit the poorest the hardest. About 60% of the savings from the uprating cap will come from the poorest third of households. Only 3% will come from the wealthiest third.

If prices rise faster than expected, children and families will no longer have any protection against this. This transfers the risk of high inflation rates from the Treasury to children and families.

This is simply unacceptable.

Children and families are already being hit hard by cuts to support including to Tax Credits, maternity benefits, and help with housing costs. They cannot afford this further hardship penalty.

We are calling on Members of the House of Lords to take action to protect children from the impact of this Bill.

 

Suffer the little children…

I think that when Jesus used the phrase he probably meant something different.

The British Parliament is currently debating what is sexily known as the Benefit Uprating Bill. Basically, this puts into law what the Chancellor announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement: to limit the rate at which most key benefits and tax credits are increased by just 1% for the next three years. This happens to be well below the expected rate of inflation.

Put to one side for a moment the conundrum that never gets addressed, viz why the rich need to be incentivised by keeping more wealth whilst the poor need to be incentivised by being made poorer. (This simply means that society pays for the consequences in other ways.) What this 'benefit uprating' means is:

• costs of living are expected to rise faster than support increases to cover these additional costs;
• based on average earnings for their profession, a single-parent primary school teacher, with two children stands to lose £424 a year by 2015. A nurse with two children could lose £424, and an army second lieutenant with three children could lose £552 a year. (Parents affected include an estimated 300,000 nurses and midwives, 150,000 primary school teachers and 40,000 armed forces personnel.)
• coming on top of a number of other wide-ranging cuts to benefits and tax credits for children and families, (for example, with the 1% cap coming on top of previously announced freezes) by 2015-16 Child Benefit will have increased by just 2% in the course of half a decade.

It is the impact on children that should cause us most concern as this is disproportionate. The Government’s own impact assessment suggests that around 30% of all households will be affected, but 87% of families with children will be affected, including 95% of single parent families. The Children's Society estimates that 11.5 million children are in families affected and notes that whilst the Bill will affect children and families from all walks of life, children in the poorest families will be affected the most. The government’s impact assessment shows that about 60% of the savings from the uprating cap will come from the poorest third of households. Only 3% will come from the wealthiest third.

No surprise, then, that the Children's Society and other concerned parties are urging a re-think – that benefits and tax credits paid on behalf of children should be removed from the scope of the Benefit Uprating Bill. This would mean removing benefits including Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit, and child additions within Universal Credit.

The demand from food banks is increasing alarmingly. Schools are increasingly reporting children beginning the day without having had anything to eat. As I said in response to a request from my local Bradford newspaper:

Child poverty does not just make life a little bit miserable for a child now; it affects the whole of their life, their physical growth, their education, aspiration and life opportunities. This is bad for children, families, schools and society. And it is a scandal in a so-called civilised society. We must ask serious questions about our priorities and government ministers must be made aware of the human consequences of policies made behind desks.

The figures for Bradford can be seen here. What statistics don't show is the complex of ways in which childhood poverty is destructive of so much and of so many. This isn't just about welfare or 'scroungers' – it impacts on all of us and needs some serious attention. Mahatma Gandhi was once asked on his arrival at Heathrow Airport what he thought of western civilisation; he responded: “I think it would be a very good idea.” If our civilisation is measured by our treatment of the most vulnerable in our society, then we have questions to ask about our priorities.

And, while this reality bites, the government is also thinking of changing the way child poverty is calculated. You can read the Church of England's response here, summarised in this statement by the Bishop of Leicester:

The real issue is committing to, and resourcing, an effective long-term strategy to tackle child poverty, rather than finding alternative ways of measuring it.

 

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Cutting edge

Yesterday an open letter from thirty church leaders in Yorkshire and Humberside was published. Addressed to the Prime Minister and copied to the Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, the letter aims to highlight concerns about the impact of welfare cuts in the part of England we serve. It was timed to preempt the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement due tomorrow.

The thing about church leaders is that we have people in every community, from every stratum of society, and of a huge diversity of origins and backgrounds. Perhaps we are unique in that respect. Our reach goes deep and wide – and the pictures we build are not fabricated according to ideology, prejudice or even theology.

The letter caught local headlines, but managed to omit reference to a crucial paragraph in which the potential for getting people off welfare and into work is applauded. However, we also have to maintain a concern for those who cannot work, cannot get work or who fall through all the nets. Churches (among others) are currently and quietly providing night shelters for homeless people, running food banks, caring for people (and families) whose life has been radically changed for the worse.

The letter adds the voice of thirty church leaders (on behalf of those who tell us their stories of grassroots experience) to others attempting to inform the Government how its proposals are impacting on people (in our case) who live outside London; welfare cuts are having an impact on people every day and the poorest are paying the highest. In Bradford we have 38,000 children living below the poverty line. We still see the poorest people getting poorer, while the richest people are getting richer – and that’s a scandal.

The letter, accompanying a study entitled Am I my Brother’s Keeper? A Christian Overview of Welfare Reform and Cuts in Public Spending (Churches Regional Commission for Yorkshire and the Humber), reads as follows:

As Church leaders in the North of England, we would like to express our concern over the way that cuts in public spending and reforms to the welfare system are beginning to play out in the communities we serve. We commend to you a policy paper written by the Churches Regional Commission for Yorkshire and the Humber, Am I My Brother’s Keeper, which offers an informed overview of welfare reform and cuts in public spending in the context of the values that have driven welfare since the inception of the Welfare State.

We are concerned that the ideology behind many cuts and reforms serves to undermine fundamental principles of mutual care that are basic to our vision of a good society. We are similarly disturbed that the political rhetoric that is increasingly used of benefits claimants, “scrounger” and “feckless” to name but two, stigmatises welfare in such a way that those who are in genuine need become reluctant to make claims, to the detriment of themselves, their families and the communities in which they live.

We express support for those aspects of Universal Credit which make a genuine attempt to address longer term problems within the welfare system that can act as a deterrent to work. Indeed, we agree that work is the best route out of poverty for many people. However, we would also wish to draw your attention to the need to ensure that full-employment remains a policy aim for the Government in support of a system that sees welfare as transitional assistance for those that are capable of work.

We are especially troubled by welfare reforms that time-limit benefits at a time when structural unemployment makes it impossible for many to get the jobs they need for themselves and their families.

We would also urge care in applying means-testing in an aggressive way that further polarizes the debate about welfare into one in which the independent and self-sufficient think of themselves as being in permanent support of the dependent and “feckless”. Our view of the good society as interdependent and of people as fundamentally of equal worth, makes it impossible to support that polarization.

We wish to confirm our support for:

• The Welfare State
  • As a mechanism for remedying the worst effects of laissez faire capitalism
  • As a way of addressing social inequality
  • As a safety net for those who are temporarily, or permanently, in need
• A system of taxation that encourages responsibility among the wealthy to share their good fortune with other members of the society to which they belong
• A work ethic which encourages all people towards employment and the duty to care for themselves and their own families in the first place, as they are able and when economic life permits
• Full-employment as a policy goal that allows the Welfare State to function properly

Finally, our experience in the North underlines the need to achieve a better balance in the UK economy between the South – and especially the South-East – and the North. This would enable people in northern communities to deploy and benefit from their skills and abilities and thus contribute to enhancing the productivity of the country as a whole.

 

Marriage, footie and chairs

I was sitting in a cafe waiting to do a radio gig and had the time to look back at the last couple of days’ news. Also scanned Twitter. Then thought about Harry Redknapp. That led me on to empires during the last few millennia. I know: weird.

The thing about Harry is that just a few months ago he was riding high. He won his tax court case, was a media star, was tipped by all the media and pundits as the only choice to replace Capello as England manager. Then Spurs dipped, Hodgson got England, Harry made demands, and yesterday he lost his job. And this morning’s media are even suggesting he is now finished in football.

Fickle old world, isn’t it? Yesterday’s media certainties are today’s embarrassing misjudgements. All this proves, of course, is that pundits and the commentariat should never be taken too seriously. They fill the page or the screen with today’s gobby ‘wisdom’, then, while others remember what they have said, they move on to the next one.

Empires come and go. That’s what history (and the Bible, actually) teaches us. What looks permanent today can be gone tomorrow. Like confidence in Spain’s economy or Holland’s Euro 2012 outlook. Anything said with confidence today should be taken with great scepticism – it might have changed by next week.

Interesting, then, that yesterday’s noise about the Church of England’s response to the government’s ludicrously inept consultation on gay marriage is followed this morning (apparently) by some vital stuff on church chairs. Despair is evident in the twittersphere about yet another example of C of E PR ineptitude. Maybe it is. But, just who decided to roll these two things together. How long has the ‘chairs’ item been in the diary can? Would it even have made it to the airwaves if we hadn’t had the earlier gay marriage stuff?

The other complaint is that while Iain Duncan Smith is doing his ‘poverty’ stuff, the Church is banging on about chairs and not poverty. OK, that’s how it looks. But, it’s a bit naive, even it does cause instant depression in many of us. The reality is that we spend most of our time tackling poverty at local, legislative and political levels – ‘church opposes poverty’ is not news.

What all this makes clear, however, is not that the substance of the church’s concerns is misguided or that the priorities are necessarily wrong. Rather, it just goes to prove that we are terrible at ‘spin’. The Church hasn’t exactly managed the news to its institutional advantage this week. Maybe it hasn’t tried…

Which brings us to the response to the Church of England’s response to the government’s consultation on ‘gay marriage’.

OK, picking out one statement about threats to the establishment (one paragraph out of something like twenty seven) offered the media the lead story and ensured it dominated the front pages. Actually, to my mind this is the least interesting or important or significant element of the statement. The Church’s response is not primarily about establishment or status – even if there might be consequences here. The Church’s concerns are primarily about what is usually called ‘the common good’.

Change our understanding of marriage and we are not doing something trivial or consequence-free. The Church cannot simply go with the flow of contemporary culture, blessing whatever is this era’s wisdom. Someone has to ask the hard questions and question the language and assumptions behind moves for social change. It might not be popular and it can be mishandled, but it has to be done.

The shoddy consultation (a) confuses ‘marriage’ with ‘wedding’, (b) assumes a lie – that British law distinguishes between ‘civil’ and ‘religious’ marriage, (c) fails to distinguish between ‘equality’ and ‘uniformity’, (d) fails to address why civil partnerships would continue for gay couples and not be open to heterosexuals – surely ‘unequal’ – if gay marriage comes in, and (e) clearly sees this ‘consultation’ as a mere preliminary to doing what it intends to do regardless of what the consultation throws up.

Does anyone seriously think the church – or any sentient body – should just ignore all this and roll over?

Yes, it looks like the Church is being a bit flouncy or scaremongering in relation to its status, but the substantial critique of the government’s assumptions, language and process also need a response. I look forward to it – it has to be a bit more intelligent and less emotively woolly than the tangent the response has led us on so far.

The Church in Wales has also responded similarly and with great frustration about the same issues. I haven’t yet caught up with any response to this.

This one will run and run. The best hope is that we get some answers to the substantial questions while continuing strongly to affirm committed relationships of any sort – for the common good.

(On the footie question, my UEFA 2012 fantasy team – Purple Haze in the Spain Sucks league – is doing OK. But, in the context of poverty issues, Cameron at the Leveson Inquiry, questions around marriage – but not church chairs – it doesn’t really matter.)

 

Bullish Pope

The agenda here in Wittenberg means that I only catch odd snatches of the Pope in the UK. I also don’t have time to review all the commentary. But, I think I can say this: thank God that the Pope’s visit clears some space for some clear thinking to be expressed.

The Pope is German. He doesn’t show much emotion, yet his feeble voice hides an intellectual rigour that repays attention. It is too easy to write him off (from a secular point of view) because of all the stuff ‘we’ disagree with. In one sense, such sneery dismissal is simply a form of distraction therapy – it makes us feel OK about not actually engaging intellectually with what he has to say and why he says it. The Archbishop of Canterbury often evokes the same response. None of what he said was new, but he made the most of the space cleared for such talk.

In his speech at Westminster Hall he drew a straight line between Christian theology/ethics and the assumptions we now take for granted about the importance of (for example) the rule of law. This thinking did not emerge from a vacuum. This is not to make a ‘truth claim’ for Christianity, but to stake a claim for historical factuality.

He then went on to make a strong prophetic demand to a culture that values banks above people:

The inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global financial crisis. There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world.

Just as “every economic decision has a moral consequence” (Caritas in Veritate, 37), so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore… The central question at issue, then, is this: Where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found?

This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilisation. Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation…

In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalisation of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere…

In recent years it has been encouraging to witness the positive signs of a worldwide growth in solidarity towards the poor.

But to turn this solidarity into effective action calls for fresh thinking that will improve life conditions in many important areas, such as food production, clean water, job creation, education, support to families, especially migrants, and basic healthcare.

Where human lives are concerned, time is always short: yet the world has witnessed the vast resources that governments can draw upon to rescue financial institutions deemed ‘too big to fail’.

Surely the integral human development of the world’s peoples is no less important: Here is an enterprise, worthy of the world’s attention, that is truly ‘too big to fail’.

There you have it: the rule of law, foundations for ethical thinking that is not merely pragmatic, economic justice… all rooted in a clearly thought-through philosophical and theological anthropology.

We might not always like the logic of where his dispassionate thinking takes him, but at least he has the confidence to use his brain in a rigorous way. It is probably too much to hope that his critics will apply the same intellectual and philosophical rigour to their opposition.

However, if they do, the conversation should at least become interesting.

 

To lead or be led? (Winnipeg 3)

The G8 Religious Leaders Summit began this morning, but with three introductory addresses.

Dr Lloyd Axworthy runs the University of Winnipeg, but is a former Foreign Minister of Canada. He spoke about the need for religious leaders to have a common witness in matters of human concern (I think).

Justice Murray Sinclair has been chairing the recent Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission which wrestled with the historic abuse and injustices instigated against the indigenous (aboriginal) communities of Canada. He rooted our thinking in the more local (Canadian) experience of (a) state legal oppression of indigenous people and (b) the loss of credibility of churches for most indigenous people. Interestingly (and contentiously, given the language involved), he observed that the greatest oppressors of the indigenous communities are now what he called ‘fundamentalist aborigines’ – those who ‘converted’ away from their indigenous roots and now evangelise their fellows.

However, the third speaker was the most powerful and arresting. Senator Lt. General Romeo Dallaire (Retd) is famous for having been given command of UN forces in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. In a serious, passionate and informed presentation, he questioned whether politicians are now offering leadership in the world or merely reacting to crises. He stated that leadership by crisis management does not offer leadership in shaping the future.

He cited George Bush’s ‘New World Order’ and changed it to a ‘New World Disorder’ in which the sheer complexity of a world undergoing technological (and other) revolution is being reacted to by politicians who are overwhelmed by panic and finding it difficult to live with ambiguity. For example, he wanted to know what were the criteria for deciding to send 400 UN troops to Rwanda in 1994 while allocating 67,000 to the former Yugoslavia: who set the priorities and according to which criteria?

The lack of an answer to that question represents the most serious challenge to the ability of politicians to lead: which world view (rooted in which assumptions and according to which moral base?) will be thought through and owned by those making decisions to shape the future rather than simply keep reacting to events/crises? Dallaire thinks that our political masters are waiting for citizens to give them the authority to lead.

This raises the most fundamental questions facing us all. It is not enough to make policy without doing the hard work of working through and owning the philosophical (or theological) assumptions/world view that will subsequently and consequently direct and shape specific policies that take a long-term view of the future and are not simply shaped to ensure electoral success in the short term.

Dallaire put it bluntly: are all human beings human or are others more human than others?

This was a very humane articulation of Justice Murray Sinclair’s conclusion that four fundamental questions need to be addressed by all peoples and communities:

1. Where have we come from?
2. Where do we go after here (that is, after death)?
3. Why are we here (ethics)?
4. Who am I / are we? (identity)

The implication offered here is that religious leaders might have to drive this sort of thinking in order to hold political leaders to a more informed account in a complex world that allows those political leaders little time for thinking, learning or reflecting before either reacting … or shaping the future.

These speakers were followed by Dr Andre Karamaga (General Secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches) – who asked for Africa to be partners in alleviation of poverty rather than simply recipients of others’ aid:

Don’t speak of doing it for us, but with us.

He was followed by Jim Wallis from Washington who stressed the need for a vision to drive politics and the rest of us. He noted that our faith traditions began not as institutions, but as movements – and that the difference is in the capacity of the latter for sacrifice. He called for religious leaders to “announce the impossible and then work to make it happen”.

And here lies the fundamental problem for conferences such as this one: despite the challenges by Dallaire and Wallis, responses from the delegates resorted to “telling the politicians that poverty is unacceptable”. I will be arguing later that statements like that need to be read through the eyes of those who will receive them – and I can’t see any politician responding with anything constructive. It is like being told that we must support human beings in staying alive: no one will disagree with the sentiment, but it doesn’t help the decision-makers to know any more clearly how this should be done in a complex world of competing priorities and expectations.

Sitting here, it is hard not to hear successive contributions as worthy recitations of what we all already know (for example, about environmental disasters, the power of capital and the global problems of blind materialism). If we are to make any impact, we will have to be sharper and more savvy than this about the intended audience and the language of our discourse.

 

Religion and football: being heard (Winnipeg 2)

Winnipeg is mosquito heaven. One problem that comes with losing your hair is that is gives the mozzies a more expansive feeding ground. My head now looks like I’ve done five rounds with Mike Tyson. Yesterday it rained and now the sun has come out – which will bring the little bugs out in force. I’m trying not to take it personally, but, today I think I’m going to stick my head in a bucket of chemicals…

The summit of religious leaders began yesterday afternoon with a welcoming ceremony by some indigenous (First Nation) Anishnabe Nation people who lit a fire in a tent, spoke, sang and used drums to ‘send the word out’. This was preceded by two introductory speeches, the clearest coming from a man with authority.

Dr Alberto Quattrucci is here from the St Egidio Community in Rome. This is a remarkable communitywhich cares for poor, disabled and marginalised people – a visit there while we were in Rome last year for a communications conference made a huge impression on our group. Alberto is not only impressive, but is also a very nice man. He spoke quietly, firmly and with humility. He made the point simply that

the struggle against poverty means solidarity with poor people… Transformed structures do not change hearts; transformed hearts change structures.

This raises an important question about conferences such as this: what do we want/expect to achieve? Yes, we can add a voice and make a case for a different way of living in the world and running the world’s economies; but how is the making of that case likely to impact on the politicians who will gather for the G8/G20?

This question is one I will need to push at this gathering over the next two days. If we are to follow the process through France in 2011, the USA in 2012 and host a similar conference in 2013 in the UK, we will have to have a better and clearer idea of how we might achieve what we want to achieve (or think is worth achieving). Simply to make a statement – however powerful or worthy – is redundant unless it is heard and understood by the intended audience.

Given that the G8/G20 summit is always a photo-opportunity for the political leaders – the work has already been done and dusted long before they get there – it feels a bit late delivering a statement to a charade when the business was completed before we got there.

This means that we have to face the challenge in future: do we want profile concurrent with the politicians’ event or do we want to influence the agreements they come to before they get here? I side with the wish for effectiveness in influencing the content and process (by doing our work earlier, pulling together fewer people, keeping statements tight and light, getting effective media traction and maximising the impact whilst minimising the work involved).

Today we get down to business with a focus on ‘Extreme Poverty’ in relation to economics, peace & security and climate change. Some impressive speakers will focus our thoughts. I’ll report later on content and process.

Back to the other world, yesterday saw an interview with CBC about the World Cup. I gather the press in the UK and elsewhere have picked up on my latest World Cup prayers – some even recognising humour where they spot it. One Slovenian website has picked it up and made a comment which looks funny, but I can only work out a little of what it says (not the crucial bits).

Today France will probably get their flight tickets back to Paris. England will prepare for tomorrow’s showdown in the light of the severest UK budget cuts since the Second World War. If anyone can tell me what the Slovenian piece says (even if it is rude – I am getting used to that), I would be grateful!

 

Memory recall (Winnipeg 1)

I’m beginning to get superstitious. A soon as I leave the country the goals start going in in South Africa. Portugal have just banged seven past North Korea who will now have to go home and face the pleasure of their unenlightened dictator. I’ll still be away for England’s decider against Slovenia, so will just have to keep praying my latest prayers from Canada.

I can’t remember the last time I woke up to see seven goals go in during a World Cup. But there are lots of things I can’t remember. And I am clearly not alone in having rather limited powers of recall. Governments clearly have the same experience.

I arrived in Winnipeg with a colleague yesterday (or is it today?) afternoon and we got straight down to work. A tradition has grown up during the last five years whereby religious (usually Christian) leaders in the host country of the G8 summit also arrange a prior summit of world religious leaders. The purpose is basically (a) to bring the religious traditions together and offer a united voice in favour of the poor people of the world, (b) to offer a deeper/wider moral perspective on political, economic and social decisions by our political leaders, and (c) to remind the same leaders of the commitments they have made in the past.

The G8/G20 are meeting in Toronto, but the religious leaders are meeting in Winnipeg. Why not in the same place? Have you tried moving around the city where the G8/G20 meet? Anyway, Winnipeg has a history of religious diversity (and struggle) that makes it the right place to be – apart from the mosquitoes, that is…

On 9 June the Guardian reported that the draft G8 Summit communique had dropped any reference to the Gleneagles pledge to Africa – to double aid to the poorest countries by 2010. That would have amounted to an extra £17 billion ($25bn) each year as part of a £50bn increase in financial assistance. Last year’s summit in Italy concluded:

G8 countries reiterated their commitments, including those made at Gleneagles and more recently at the G20 London summit, to support African efforts towards promoting development good governance and achieving the millennium development goals [the UN targets for addressing world poverty by 2015].

At the Winnipeg summit, starting this evening, global religious leaders (with me representing the Archbishop of Canterbury) will be doing three things and working to make their voice heard by the politicians:

• uniting their voices in favour of the world’s poor by working on a statement to be presented to the Muskoka summit on Thursday
• reminding the politicians of the commitments they have already made and holding them to account
• articulating the moral conscience of the politicians’ summit, thus putting political and economic debates/decisions in a wider moral and spiritual context against which their value can be weighed.

Of course, people are going to argue that this is whistling in the wind – that the financial crash and the fragile predicament of some leading economies have changed everything, thus rendering earlier ‘altruistic’ redundant. It is an understandable argument and carries some practical, realistic force.

But, it ignores the fact that in a global recession it is the poorest who always suffer the most (and not just relatively). The poorest, believing in many cases that they have been lied to or unjustly ignored, do not tend to stick to democratic niceties in trying to change their circumstances. The ‘rich’ countries will pay an even heavier long-term price if they do not continue to stick to their pledges to help end poverty.

As is often the case, the moral argument is often supported by what appears to be a purely pragmatic one: it continues to make good economic and political sense to do everything possible to meet previous G8 commitments and serve a longer-term economic, social and security end.

In a few hours we will start to debate these issues from diverse perspectives at the University of Winnipeg. No doubt the final statement (which is too wordy and worthy) will be edited to give it more punch and purchase; but the Canadians have done a superb job in pulling it all together and giving us a good start in combining our words and convictions.