Netherhall News April 2011

netherhall news april 2011

the times they are a-changing welcome to the revolution

contents Cover page: Egyptian posters instructing demonstrators on venues for protests, appropriate dressing, items to carry and what should be written on placards. Chima Okezue examines the ongoing revolutionary zeal which has gripped North Africa since the end of 2010 (‘The Times they are a-changing’, p.10).

CONTENT EDITOR Zubin Mistry MANAGING EDITOR, DESIGN & SETTING Luke Wilkinson CONTRIBUTIONS AND ADVICE Joao Bettencourt, Peter Brown, Dominic Burbidge, Fr Joseph Evans, Austen Ivereigh, Simon Jared, Chima Okezue, James Osborn, Andrei Serban, Man Chan Sui, Aaron Taylor, Andrea Usai, Giovanni Zaccaroni PHOTOGRAPHY Raffy Rodriguez, Simon Jared CIRCULATION Netherhall News is sent by e-mail to current and past residents of Netherhall House. It is also available at http://www.nh.netherhall.org.uk/ magazine/magazine.htm CONTACT US Would you like to be included in our mailing list, contribute to or express your opinion on Netherhall News? Write to: LUKE WILKINSON C/O NETHERHALL NEWS, NETHERHALL HOUSE, NUTLEY TERRACE, LONDON, NW3 5SA, U.K. or E-MAIL: alumni@nh.netherhall.org.uk DISCLAIMER All opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors concerned and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors of Netherhall News, of Netherhall House or of Opus Dei.

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regular features editorial

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director’s notes

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desert island discs

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filming theatre: creative responses to funding difficulties

thirst for freedom why civil society needs religion

Dr Austen Ivereigh (above) is co-founder of Catholic Voices, an organisation dedicated to forming Catholics to make the Church’s message heard in the public forum. His lecture, ‘Religious Freedom: Pope Benedict’s vision for a Fractured World’ was the 2011 University Catholic Lecture and was given at Newman House, Bloomsbury, London on 7 March.

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learning how to speak s interreligious dialogue british values s christian values labour of love s education in east africa jazzing up the airwaves citizenship s religion and secularism russia vs napoleon s dispelling the myths south sudan s post independence hard cases s making the law cinefile s biutiful netherhall news 3

editorial zubin mistry is moved by the story of the monks at Tibhirine

‘I

t’s like something comes alive inside of you’. With these words Brother Luc, an aged Trappist monk, answers a young woman’s question about falling in love. When asked if he has ever fallen in love, Brother Luc replies that he has, and not just once, before encountering a deeper love. What such an encounter meant to a group of monks lies at the heart of Xavier Beauvois’ extraordinary film, Of Gods and Men, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival last May. The film is based on the true story of the monks from the Cistercian monastery of Tibhirine in north Algeria, who were kidnapped and killed in 1996. Their murder came in the midst of a bloody civil war between Islamist guerrilla groups and a corrupt military regime. The conflict engulfed Algeria in the 1990s, during which 150,000-200,000 people were killed, many in horrific massacres of villages by guerrillas. The circumstances of the murder remain mysterious. In late March 1996, seven of the monks were kidnapped from the monastery in the middle of the night.

The Groupe Islamique Armé or Armed Islamic Group (GIA), soon demanded the release of their imprisoned founder in exchange for the monks’ lives. At the end of April the French Embassy received a recording of their voices. But, within a month, the monks had reportedly been killed by the GIA and the Algerian government located their heads on a roadside. The bodies have never been recovered. Their remains were buried in the cemetery of Tibhirine on 2nd June 1996.

The official story ran that the GIA was responsible for the monks’ murder. But this has been cast into serious doubt. In 2009, testimony by a former military attaché to the French Embassy revealed that he had been aware of information suggesting that the monks had been unintentionally killed in a helicopter attack by the Algerian army and, further, that French diplomats had deliberately kept this information secret. There have also been suggestions that Algerian secret service spies had infiltrated the GIA cell which kidnapped the monks.

Of Gods and Men does not show us the monks’ deaths. Beauvois steers clear of these circumstances, which remain uncertain, and the complicated politics of this lingering uncertainty. The issue of French-Algerian relations is largely and noticeably absent from Of Gods and Men. This remains a vexed issue. Another French film screened at Cannes last May, Hors-la-loi (Outside the Law), which tells the story of three brothers involved in Algeria’s struggle for independence from France after World War Two, garnered controversy partly for its depiction of a still disputed massacre from 1945. Hors-la-loi sparked off large protests in which members of the French National Front voiced their protest alongside harkis, Algerians who fought for France. But this absence is also borne

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of a very particular focus. Of Gods and Men concentrates not on the murder, but rather on the events leading up to the murder and the community’s complex response to these events: most importantly, it dramatises their fraught decision to stay in Algeria despite the increasing prospect of violence.

The Trappists’ live happily with their neighbours in the Muslim village that has grown around the monastery. The opening scene shows a young man inviting various monks to his brother’s khitan or circumcision ceremony, and later we see the monks dancing a syncopated jig during the villagers’ boisterous khitan celebrations.

Brother Luc (played by a wonderfully wry but tender Michael Lonsdale), aided by the oldest monk Brother Amédée (Jacques Herlin), runs a medical clinic for the villagers. In one scene, we see him drawing a sun and moon on a packet of pills so that an illiterate villager knows when to take his doses, while other monks write letters and fill out administrative forms on the villagers’ behalf. The monks’ lives are intimately intertwined with the village.

As one elderly lady puts it, ‘We are the birds, you are the branch’.

Beauvois sensually inducts us to the rhythms of life at Tibhirine.

Our ears become trained to the acoustics of the monastery. The ring of honey jars screwed shut for sale at the local market, the thud of firewood piled up, the scrape of scrubbed floors and the footsteps of monks walking along the snow in hushed contemplation. The soft light in chapel illuminates figures shuffling in ritual forms and the austere dimness of the cells drapes their prayers.

above: the monks of tibhirine resolve to stay at their monastery despite the danger to their lives, in xavier beauvois’ extraordinary film, of gods and men Large swathes of the film resemble sequences from Into Great Silence, a 2005 documentary about a Carthusian monastery, refracted through the lens of veteran Caroline Champetier’s grave and beautiful cinematography.

A sense of menace, however, slowly intrudes. The prior, Dom Christian de Cherge (Lambert Wilson), who is well-versed in the Quran, and the local imam discuss the escalating violence which is engulfing the country, stories of girls stabbed for not wearing the veil and imams murdered. A villager rushes up to the monastery to tell the monks of the news that Croatians involved in a construction project in the region have been brutally murdered.

It soon dawns on Christian and his fellow monks that their lives too are at risk.

Their predicament unfolds and escalates. In a breathtaking scene an armed group storms into the monastery on Christmas Eve, insisting on seeing the ‘local pope’. (The sequence faithfully recounts de Cherge’s written account of the night of 24th December 1993). A palpably frightened Christian introduces himself to the leader of the band, the man who oversaw the Croatians’ murder. He demands medical supplies for his wounded men in the mountains. Christian politely refuses, adding that they serve the village and that it is Christmas Eve. The emir apologises, explaining that he did not know, and leaves. Later, the same armed group return with a wounded man, to whom Luc tends. This raises tensions with the local military chief, suspicious of what he perceives as the monks’ refusal to take sides.

Over time, the monks discuss whether or not to stay. The Algerian authorities persistently urge the monks to leave and in a letter the Abbot General writes that the ‘order needs monks more than martyrs’. The villagers, by contrast, see the monks as their ‘protection’. The community is split. Some, like Luc and Christian, cannot envision leaving. Others, like the younger brother Michel, initially see staying as a form of suicide and question Christian’s early negligence of discussing the question as a community.

These moments of discussion and the unfolding circumstances are punctuated by the carefully paced depiction of their day-today life. Yet Of Gods and Men is utterly thrilling. It is also a deliberately and brilliantly emotional film. We spend a great deal of time peering into the monks’ strange, beautiful faces: Brother Amédée’s enigmatic expression, either a beatific smile or a more troubled sigh, and Brother Michel’s pained, contorted features as he nightly goes through the agony of doubting his vocation.

‘Remember love is eternal hope,’ consoles Christian, ‘love endures everything.’ One moment in the film, a moment which has split audiences, sees a harrowing last supper scene. Brother Luc takes it upon himself to play a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake on a battered tape recorder, instead of the customary spiritual reading, and for several minutes we see them around the table, smiling, affectionate, but also fearful.

It is for this raw and unashamed emotion, and a mild didacticism, that Of Gods and Men has been criticised. This is said to overwhelm the difficult questions which the film raises. The critic

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above: mantegna’s ‘lamentation over the dead christ’ Roger Ebert wrote, ‘I found myself resisting the film’s pull of easy emotion. There are fundamental questions here, and the film doesn’t engage them.’ On the issue of French-Algerian relations, and the undeniable fact that monks’ decision would, in part, be interpreted through this issue, the critics have a point.

But two important aspects of the film provide some scope for resisting the full force of these criticisms. First, in the simplest of terms, the film shows, rather than tells. The gradual evolution of the monks’ communal decision from initial and sharp divergences to a unanimous decision to stay is not depicted simply as a sequence of deliberations. The film covers, it should be remembered, several years. There are, of course, discussions of difficult questions: does staying compromise the necessarily unwilling aspect of martyrdom? Does it even compromise their vocation? Or would leaving enact a betrayal of the village and their commitment to their ‘house of peace’? But Beauvois simply tries to show what it might have meant, on their own terms, for the monks to stay. He does not try to show that their decision was the correct

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conclusion: he tries to render it intelligible, through the monks’ lived-out understanding of their community and deep connection to the surrounding village.

Second, though Beauvois unambiguously invites us to immerse ourselves in the monastery and to adore the monks, Of Gods and Men is not a triumphalistic narrative of martyrdom. If these are martyrs, they, in particular Christian, are plaintive, conflicted martyrs. They agonise, in part, over what their deaths will be taken to signify. Beauvois, it should be noted, has no religious affiliation. It is his stress on authenticity, deep immersion in monastic life and commitment to rendering the monks’ story intelligible that are significant. Towards the end of the film, we hear Christian narrate a letter – the words are lifted verbatim from de Cherge’s remarkable final testament, written with an awareness of imminent danger and instructed to be opened in the event of his death. It was opened and read on Pentecost in May 1996. In it, de Cherge wrote:

I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this.

I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called, the ‘grace of martyrdom’ to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he might be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.

top: the real monks of tibhirine. christian de cherge standing on the right middle: brothers amedee & luc played by jacques herlin & michael lonsdale bottom: Families whose relatives vanished during the civil war demand to know what happened to their loved ones during a recent demonstration in Algiers in December

I stumbled across a striking illustration of this concern on YouTube of all places. In the comments beneath a clip of the last supper scene, someone has written: ‘Rest in eternal peace with our heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. May Mohammad’s monsters burn in eternal hell.’ This anger at the murder, which spills over into an infernal prayer, runs counter to de Cherge’s written response to the prospect of his own death. He conscientiously rejected the ‘caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism fosters.’ Aware that his death will ‘appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic,’ he counters that his ‘avid curiosity will be set free’ when he is able to ‘immerse my gaze in that of the Father to contemplate with Him His children of Islam just as He sees them.’ De Cherge prayed for a moment of ‘spiritual clarity’ when the time came, to ‘forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down,’ a thought beautifully expressed in his final words: In this thank you, which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families...And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing: Yes, I want this thank you and this goodbye to be a ‘God-bless’ for you, too, because in God’s face I see yours. May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. AMEN ! INSHALLAH !

De Cherge also asked his family and friends to ‘associate my death with so many other equally violent ones which are forgotten through indifference or anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value.’ One such death, not mentioned in the film, was of an Algerian field-guard, Mohammed, whom de Cherge had befriended many years earlier. During a street altercation, Mohammed protected de Cherge from an aggressive group.

The next day, Mohammed had been murdered. This field-guard, de Cherge later wrote, ‘gave his life as did Christ.’ This Muslim was his brother as much as his fellow monks.

Beauvois’ film audaciously attempts to convey de Cherge’s gaze, his distinct way of seeing. At one point, Christian is taken to identify the battered corpse of the emir who broke into the monastery on Christmas Eve, a man who had overseen the brutal murder of the Croatians. For a moment, we see through Christian’s gaze.

The dead body is made to resemble Mantegna’s ‘Lamentation for the Dead Christ’, a jarring reminder of the paradox of Tibhirine: if the monks of Tibhirine were martyrs, their deaths bear witness to those other deaths, ‘forgotten through indifference or anonymity,’ the thousands of Algerians who lost their lives in these bloody years. To remember the monks’ deaths in isolation, or as a ‘triumph’, is to forget the witness of their lives and those of a people they loved.

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director’ s notes peter brown has been listening closely M

over the last few months

usic has played an important part in the life of Netherhall House for many years. This has a lot to do with the fantastic 130seat auditorium in the bowels of the House, which was built as part of the 1960’s development and which, since its upgrade a couple of years ago, is looking even more impressive. Since the 1990s, we have also had the added advantage that after a recital the audience is able to pour out of the auditorium and enjoy refreshments in the multi-purpose hall in the central area. (Apologies to alumni who lived here before 1994 and who have not visited since then. It is probably all very confusing.)

The latest event in the House’s musical calendar was a fabulous recital on 6th March by two residents, Oscar Alabau (cello) and Ricard Rovirosa (piano). They played Mendelssohn’s Variations concertantes for cello and piano, Gabriel Fauré’s Élégie for cello and piano,

above: ben schoeman in full swing Claude Debussy’s Sonata for cello and piano, Manuel de Falla’s Suite Populaire for cello and piano and finally Sergey Prokoviev’s Sonata for cello and piano. It was a wonderful evening, well supported by Netherhall residents and an impressive number of local residents.

And that was only the start. On Saturday May 7th Ben Schoeman will be giving a recital (http://www.benschoeman.com) and on Saturday 4th June Joao Bettencourt will also be playing for us (http://www.jbcamara.com/biography.html). Both are music students living in Netherhall. Any former resident living in London or who can get to Netherhall easily would be most welcome to attend any of these recitals. They start at 8pm. If you would like to be included on the recital mailing list, do let me know.

Netherhall music isn’t only classical. Obviously having six or seven classical music students living here means that that genre tends to dominate but we have also enjoyed more contemporary music this term. On February 6th, Netherhall hosted a fantastic evening of jazz and rock in the auditorium. The jazz was organised by David Quirke and his friends (David is a local guitarist who plays a gig for us once a term in exchange for parking in the Netherhall car park) and the rock was courtesy of a band called Holden (a local band who practice here in exchange for doing a gig a term for us).

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below: Nayan Pattni (1990-94)

top: everyone is friendly after the final whistle, but the netherhall team fought hard for their 2-0 victory over newman house fc. above left: One of the great showmen and musicians of Netherhall 1990’s was Gustavo Ron (1995-7). This is the link to his new Cafe www.cafeandtapas.co.uk Do drop in and see him if you are in the Regent Street area below: chema alamo (2001-2004) at his wedding in october

above right: Koo Woong Park (1998-9) with his wife Mi-Young Shin and two sons Jang-Ho and Sang Ho. Koo Woong finished his PhD in Economics at Essex University and is now a lecturer at the University of Incheon, Korea.

In February I wrote in this column that we had a very impressive line-up for the Lent term guest speaker series (see website).

Having studied a degree in history I found the talk by Dominic Lieven, head of LSE’s International history department, on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia fascinating. It was an outstanding, beautifully crafted talk that had me riveted. I was impressed too but for different reasons with the talk given by Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General. What impressed me was that Dominic was so at ease speaking to the residents. At 8.30pm when I suggested we close the session and allow him to go home, he insisted that he was in no rush and very happy to answer any questions the students had. We eventually finished at 9pm! To have a cabinet minister sitting with us in the lounge for an hour and a half, happily chatting away about the government, was quite something.

Congratulations are due to the Netherhall football team for their 2-0 victory over Newman House with goals from Geoffrey Lee and German Llano. To win a match without star player Alvaro Tintore was quite an achievement.

Congratulations too to Ed Tredger (2005-7) and wife Bernadette on the birth of their son Henry and to Chris Griffiths (2001-4) and wife Leticia on the birth of their son Peter Augustine. I hope both Henry and Peter will be living here in 18 or 19 years time!

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the times they are a-chang

chima okezue examines the revolutionary fervour sweeping acro

W

ith a population of just 10.4 million people, Tunisia is one of Africa’s smallest states and one of the best run. In the 2009 Ibrahim Index on African Governance, Tunisia was among the top ten successful countries. In terms of the availability of basic infrastructure and socio- economic development, Tunisia beats several democracies on the continent and is ranked second directly behind democratic Mauritius. Tunisia even outperformed Mauritius, which has the reputation of being Africa’s best run state, in education and health services. In fact, in May 2010, a report in the Financial Times identified Tunisia alongside South Africa, Algeria, Botswana, Egypt, Libya, Mauritius

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and Morocco as ‘African Lions’ because of their fast growth rates.

These countries have a collective GDP per capita of $10,000, a figure already higher than the average for the ‘BRIC’ nations.

However, all these impressive statistics on Tunisia masked the reality that wealth is not evenly distributed across the population. The agrarian rural parts of Tunisia were largely left behind by rapid socio-economic development. The educational system in Tunisia is great, but like in other relatively developed African nations, it churns out more highly educated people than the workforce can absorb. Tunisia’s 14.4% national unemployment rate is

nisia began in the poor rural town of Sidi Bouzid, the site of several World War II battles. On 17 December 2010, Mohammed Bouaziz, a street-side vegetable-seller went to the Office of the Sidi Bouzid Governor to complain about constant harassment from the police, who habitually seized his wares on the grounds that he lacked a license and then released them if a fine was paid.

On that particular day, Bouaziz had tried to pay the fine, but the policewoman who had seized the goods slapped him instead and allegedly insulted the memory of his late father. When the governor refused to give him an audience, he fetched a can of gasoline and set himself alight in front of the office. The next day, a peaceful demonstration convened to protest the way Bouaziz had been treated was violently disrupted by riot police who fired tear gas and engaged in baton-charges against the protesters. The harsh police actions failed to stop the protests. Gradually, the public demonstrations started spreading to affluent parts of country including cities and public anger felt over police harassment of a poor man rapidly escalated into anger against the 22-year old dictatorship of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali became President in November 1987 after staging the removal of his 84-year old autocratic predecessor Habib Bourguiba on ‘medical grounds’. Bourguiba had ruled Tunisia for 30 years, during which he developed the educational and health care systems of the country and introduced lots of social reforms such as women’s rights and a ban on polygamy. In 1975, he got his rubber-stamp parliament to declare him ‘President-forlife’ and was getting on fine until he appointed ex-military officer Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as his Prime Minister in October 1987.

ging

oss North Africa low by African standards, but it disproportionately affects young, university educated people. In rural areas, unemployment rates of 30% or more are not uncommon. Combined with rising food costs, scandalous opulence displayed publicly by the corrupt ruling elite and extreme political repression, Tunisia was actually a textbook case of a nation waiting to explode into social unrest.

However, the deceptive appearance of normalcy and stability under heavy repression meant that most political pundits failed to see the coming uprising.

The revolution that would topple the authoritarian system in Tu-

Ben Ali’s regime continued the progressive policies of his predecessor. He built up the economy and expanded the role of the private sector within it. Tunisia was transformed into one of the world’s top tourist destinations. Simultaneously, it transformed into an efficient police state where newspapers were vigorously censored and internet sites carrying negative information about the regime were regularly jammed. Secular and Islamist political opposition were ruthlessly suppressed, though the former was treated lightly compared to the latter. Secular parties were allowed to participate in sham elections which ruling party candidates won easily. In these stage-managed presidential elections, Ben Ali always won by landslide. In one such sham election, he won by 99.66% of the votes cast!

Attempts by Islamic radicals to seize power were thwarted at every turn, climaxing in the 2006 gun battles on the streets of Tunis between Ben Ali’s security forces and suspected terrorists. Ben Ali’s hard line anti-Islamist leanings endeared him to Western superpowers. USA held organized joint military exercises with the Tunisian armed forces while the French government and political elite developed deep political and business links with Ben Ali, his family and cronies. Despite strident condemnations of dictatorships elsewhere, the European Union offered Tunisia the status of an ‘advanced economic partner’ in 2009. Howls of disapproval from human rights organizations were ignored or dismissed with a wave of the hand. A year earlier, President Nicholas Sarkozy proposed a French-led ‘European Union-Mediterranean’ club in which Tunisia and other North African states would play a prominent role. German and Libyan opposition killed off the French initiative.

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While private sector participation was critical to the economic success of Tunisia, it was also a burning source of deep-seated resentment towards Ben Ali and his family, especially his flamboyant wife Leila Trabelsi whose relatives owned or controlled most private businesses in the country. When WikiLeaks exposed the US embassy cables, the Tunisian government worked roundthe-clock to jam internet websites bearing the report by the US Ambassador on the political situation in the country. Over 2000 websites carrying negative news about the Tunisian regime or quoting from US embassy cables became unavailable in the country. Despite the regime’s best efforts, tech-savvy Tunisians used internet proxies to access the embassy cable in which the US Ambassador praised Ben Ali as a ‘progressive’ and a Western ally before blasting his regime as sclerotic, corrupt and out of touch with ordinary people. The cable described rising anger over unemployment, corruption and repression as a threat to the longterm stability of the Ben Ali regime.

After the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouaziz, the dam of 22 years of accumulated public anger burst and the uprising began.

The regime responded with the use of live ammunition to disperse protesters and the telecom networks and internet services were closed down to prevent coordination of protest marches.

Meanwhile, Bouaziz’s extreme action sparked copy-cat incidents.

One unemployed Tunisian climbed up an electricity pylon and electrocuted himself, and a business man struggling to clear debt owed to the regime’s micro-credit scheme killed himself, setting off another round of violent protests. Despite police repression and curfews, the number of protesters on the streets grew geometrically. On December 29, the revolutionary fervour reached Tunis City, 200 km from Sidi Bouzid. Trade unionists, lawyers and teachers went on strike.

When repression failed to halt the protests, pacification was tried.

Several unpopular provincial governors, including that of Sidi Bouzid, were fired; the policewoman who slapped Mohammed Bouaziz hours before his self-immolation was suspended; and President Ben Ali, who hated peasants, found himself visiting one with life-threatening burns all over his body. Ben Ali had Bouaziz moved to a better equipped hospital in the capital city of Tunis and promised to fly him to France for top medical treatment.

Unfortunately, Bouaziz died before this could happen and the uprising went nationwide.

Ben Ali made further concessions. He would provide 300,000 jobs, eliminate political repression and leave public office after the expiry of his tenure in 2014. The protesters ignored him and the uprising continued. All universities and schools in the country were closed and a curfew declared in large swathes of the country.

Meanwhile, Tunisia’s Western allies, clearly caught unawares by the civil unrest, were unsure how to react to the crackdown. The governments of France and USA urged the Tunisian regime to exercise restraint in handling the protesters. Some Western politicians gave support to the regime, citing its anti-Islamist bent as justification. The former French Foreign Minister Michèle Jeanne Alliot-Marie even went as far as suggesting that French paratroopers should be sent to help the Ben Ali regime to restore civil order. Like many French politicians, Alliot-Marie had strong ties to the Tunisian regime and frequently enjoyed free holiday

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flights to Tunisia on aircraft owned by Aziz Miled, a crony of Ben Ali. In fact, she was on holiday there when the first set of protests broke out in Sidi Bouzid. She was later forced to resign when the media revealed that her parents had struck property deals with Miled.

Realising that all his conciliatory speeches had failed to make an impact, Ben Ali declared a ‘state of emergency’ in Tunisia on 14th January 2011. The military seized the airport and closed the country’s airspace. He pledged to hold elections within six months. The same day, he and his family unexpectedly got onto a plane and fled the country, heading initially for France. The French government refused asylum to the Ben Ali family as they had done 14 years earlier to another of its closest African allies, Mobutu Sese Seko of D.R. Congo. Ben Ali refuelled his plane in Italy and then headed for Saudi Arabia.

After acting as interim president for a day, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi transferred the role to parliamentary speaker, Fouad Mebazaa. Parliament formalized the exit of Ben Ali by declaring that his flight from the country was tantamount to resignation from public office. Major political and economic reforms were promised. Over 1000 political prisoners were released and several figures from the secular political opposition and civil society groups were appointed to government office. To by-pass a parliament dominated by cronies of Ben Ali, interim President Fouad Mebazaa obtained extraordinary powers to rule by decree.

33 members of the Ben Ali family were arrested for various offences as army units violently subdued policemen and presidential guards loyal to the ousted regime.

right: an egyptian soldier takes a flower from a protestor below: President Ben Ali visits Mohammed Bouaziz in hospital bottom: scenes of protest in tunisia

Despite the concessions of the interim government, protesters refused to leave the streets, demanding the removal of all public officials who served in the cabinet of Ben Ali. After unsuccessful police attempts to dislodge the protesters, Prime Minister Ghannouchi tried to appease them by sacking from the cabinet all ruling party officials except himself. With the loss of the popularity he once enjoyed as a technocrat, Ghannouchi announced his resignation. In further concessions to the protesters, the interim president legalised all political parties including the Islamist ones and dissolved Ben Ali’s brutal secret police agency. On 9 March 2011, a court in Tunis City declared the ruling party dissolved and ordered the liquidation of its assets. At the time of writing, Tunisia’s new rulers remain besieged by endless demands from citizens who still engage intermittently in street protests to drive home their message.

country in the Arab world and the second most populous country in Africa. Its economy is one of the most developed and diversified in Africa with tourism, agriculture, industry and services sectors contributing almost equally to the nation’s coffers. Like many nations in Africa, Egypt is a very young country. The median age is 20 years. Despite its economic successes, however, 40% of Egyptians live on just $2 per day. Unemployment in Egypt is very high and disproportionately affects educated people. Every year, 750,000 new graduates are released to chase after about 200,000 jobs.

The toppling of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power through mass protests inspired confidence and sent shockwaves across the Arab world, sparking off copy-cat revolts across North Africa and the Middle East nations of Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.

Unlike in Tunisia, there was some political space for dissenting opinions. Though the media generally practised self-censorship, they have been able to criticise the autocratic regime of President Hosni Mubarak without retribution, though there were limits, of course, to the amount of criticism that the regime could tolerate. Unlike many other autocratic Arab states, Egyptians did engage in street protests regularly to protest widespread corruption, political repression and sham elections, but these were always quelled violently by the police and agents of the feared State Security Investigation Service.

In contrast to the Tunisian uprising, the January 2011 mass uprising in Egypt did not really come as a surprise to many pundits.

Egypt, with an estimated population of 80 million, is the largest

Egyptians have always had a revolutionary streak within them.

In 1919, the arrest of Egyptian nationalists sparked a nationwide revolt against British colonial rule, which ultimately led to the

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left: instructions given out by the april 6 youth movement In 1978, Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union was supplanted by the neo-liberal National Democratic Party (NDP). Secular and Islamist political opposition figures were banged into jail and a sophisticated state intelligence system scrutinized the citizenry for signs of trouble. Reports of corruption and economic mismanagement dogged Sadat’s regime until his assassination in 1981 by an Islamist group for signing a peace treaty with Israel. Sadat was promptly replaced by his deputy, Air Chief Marshal Hosni Mubarak.

Under Mubarak, the pace of liberal economic reforms started

by Sadat was accelerated and Egypt’s economy grew at an average rate of 5% annually. Privatisation of state-owned companies, general economic liberalization and deregulation helped Egypt by attracting massive foreign investment, but also had the detrimental effect of facilitating the establishment of a crony capitalist system in which a narrow elite class of businessmen linked to the ruling NDP monopolized various sectors of the economy.

Large segments of the Egyptian population were locked out from the benefits of the nation’s economic growth. This bred tensions between the government and the people. The regime reacted to these tensions by establishing a fully modernized police state kitted out with modern weaponry and up-to-date public surveillance equipment.

independence of the North African country in 1922. However, the failure of the British to stop meddling in Egyptian affairs led to a second revolution in the form of a 1952 military coup that toppled King Farouk I. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of the Free Officers Movement that deposed the pro-British puppet King, declared Egypt a republic. He served in various capacities in the revolutionary military regime of General Mohammd Naguib. In 1954, Nasser became President of Egypt. Despite his repression of political opposition, Nasser was popular for his fierce anti-imperialism throughout the Middle East and Africa, where he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). In fact, Nasser was so popular that when his resignation was televised following Israel’s humiliating defeat of Egypt during the Six Day War of 1967, tens of thousands of Egyptians and Arabs in other nations hit the streets to demonstrate against his decision. Nasser subsequently retracted his resignation.

Nasser’s death in 1970 marked the beginning of the end of Egypt as a bulwark against imperialism and the grand patron of Arab unity and pan-Africanism. It also marked the beginning of disaffection between ordinary Egyptians and the government.

Nasser’s successors, both military strongmen, worked hard to reverse his populist policies. His successor, Lieutenant-Colonel Anwar Sadat dropped the anti-imperialist policy, rolled back the socialist economic system, established good relations with Israel and struck military alliances with Western superpowers. In 1977, Anwar Sadat— under the instruction of the International Monetary Fund— cancelled Nasser-era food subsidies for poor people, sparking a massive revolt that was savagely put down by the Egyptian army at the cost of 79 lives and 800 wounded.

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Like other pro-Western dictators, Mubarak cultivated friendships with Western superpowers by positioning himself as the ultimate bulwark against Islamic extremism. His deep involvement in the 1978 Camp David Accords that established the peace treaty with Israel endeared him to powerful Western nations such as the United States which gives billions of dollars in military aid to Egypt annually.

Despite the existence of laws prohibiting street demonstrations and non-governmental political activities, brave Egyptians still came out onto the streets to demonstrate against sham elections where the ruling NDP candidates win most seats in the largely rubber-stamp parliament and rigged presidential polls in which Mubarak inevitably won by landslide. The rigging of the 2005 presidential elections by Mubarak led to a protest march by over 10,000 people. The grassroots organizer of that march was an illegal pressure group called ‘Kefaya !’, which was formed in 2004 to encourage Hosni Mubarak to leave office and prevent his son Gamal Mubarak from inheriting presidential power when his father retires. There were other brave underground groups such as the April 6 Youth Movement whose members used Facebook for organizing and coordinating protest marches. Similar protests were seen after the rigging of the 2010 multi-party parliamentary elections. Despite heavy repression of demonstrations, incarceration of ring-leaders and internet jamming by the Egyptian state, these groups largely made up of young university-educated people, continued to exist and function. They would eventually play a key role in the planning and execution of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution that toppled the Mubarak regime.

The first day of peaceful protests took place on National Police Day, a public holiday commemorating the deaths of 50 Egyptian policemen and many more injured when they were fired upon by

British troops stationed in King Farouk-ruled Egypt on 25 January 1952. The bloody massacre sparked riots that later culminated in the military coup that brought Nasser to power. On 25 January 2011, Egyptians of all religious and socio-economic backgrounds hit the streets of major cities such as Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and Mansoura not to celebrate National Police Day, but to protest against police brutality. In Cairo, thousands went to the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, which controls the security services, to protest. As usual, the police violently dispersed the protesters.

But the protesters were determined to stand their ground after seeing the rewards of persistence in the Tunisian uprising. The number of protesters increased from a few thousand to over three million. Shadowy pressure groups run by educated youngsters emerged from the woodwork to distribute leaflets and advise people on venues of new demonstrations via online social networking sites and telephone. The government identified some of these shadowy groups as ‘Kefaya!’, ‘April 6 Youth Movement’ and ‘WeAre-All-Kaled-Saeed’ (a movement named after a 28-year old man murdered by the police in 2010) and went after their known leaders. The internet and telephones were jammed by government agencies. However the peaceful protests continued.

In Cairo, over two million people converged at a major public town square called Tahrir Square. For days, the police tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the protesters from the streets of Egypt using tear gas, batons, water cannons and finally live bullets. The Mubarak regime blamed imaginary external forces for the civil unrest while the people demanded the end to dictatorship, corruption and the repressive laws. To convince the peaceful protesters that their behaviour would cause chaos, the government withdrew policemen from the streets, opened and set fire to several jails to encourage hardened criminals to escape. The ensuing breakdown of law and order including widespread looting generally failed to disrupt the marches and was eventually brought under control when army troopers were deployed to the streets to fill the vacuum left by the police. Unlike the police, the troops did not act violently against the protesters.

Four days after the protests, Mubarak addressed Egyptians in a televised broadcast offering concessions similar to those of the deposed Ben Ali of Tunisia. He declared that he was sacking his cabinet and forming a new government. The concessions failed to move the protesters camping in Tahrir Square. Nothing other than his resignation was acceptable to them. A week after the eruption of the uprising, pro-Mubarak thugs arrived at the public square to attack the protesters. The thugs were allegedly drawn from the ranks of tourist guides angry that the protests were hurting the tourism business on which they depended for their livelihood. The military stepped in to prevent clashes between the thugs and the protesters.

Mubarak sacked his largely civilian cabinet and appointed his military intelligence chief General Omar Suleiman as Vice-President and former air force chief Air Marshal Ahmed Shafik as Prime Minister. He reiterated that he would not resign, but would transfer the day to day running of the country to his newly appointed officials. He promised to oversee significant political reforms before retiring at the expiry of his term in September 2011.

This was rejected by the protesters, the secular political opposition and the banned Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which had given up violence as a means of gaining political power following its brutal repression by Nasser’s government in the 1960s.

Despite its reputation as one of the most organized and politically savvy groups in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood did not plan or play a major role in the protests. In fact, it is paranoia that the group may be behind the protests or may capitalize on them to seize power that initially kept Western nations from calling on their ally Mubarak to leave power. In a TV interview, US Vice President Joe Biden praised Mubarak and denied that the octogenarian ruler was a dictator. Western nations only changed their tune when it became obvious that Mubarak was finished politically. They urged the autocrat to quit office and allow what they called ‘an orderly transition to democracy’—— a euphemism for a managed post-Mubarak electoral process that would lead to the emergence of political leaders pliant to Western interests.

Western countries wanted Mubarak to leave so that his pro-Israeli Vice-President Omar Suleiman would take control of the transition process. Mubarak rejected the idea of leaving power before the expiry of his Presidential term in office. The protesters made it clear that they wanted everybody serving in the regime to leave with Mubarak. On 10 February 2011, Mubarak made a defiant speech on state TV refusing to resign before the expiry of his presidential tenure. However the following day, his Vice-President, Omar Suleiman unexpectedly announced the resignation of Mubarak and the transfer of state authority to the supreme military council headed by General Mohammed Tantawi. The first action of the supreme military council was to suspend the Egyptian constitution which favoured the ruling National Democratic Party and then dissolve Mubarak’s rubber-stamp parliament. At the time of Mubarak’s resignation, an estimated 300 protesters were reported dead and over 6000 were injured.

At the time of writing, 77% of Egyptians had voted in a referendum to approve constitutional amendments made by a committee of independent experts drawn from various political and civil society groups, some of which were previously banned. Egypt’s public prosecutor has since recommended the prosecution of Mubarak and several of his public officials for corruption, embezzlement and the carnage inflicted on the protesters when he was still in office. Political prisoners have been released and several political parties unbanned. Egyptians have high hopes that their country will move successfully to genuine democracy now that national elections have been set for September 2011.

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thirst for freedom without religious freedom, argues Austen Ivereigh, civil society & a healthy pluralism cannot flourish

R

eligious freedom is the foundation of all other freedoms. Without it civil society breaks down. It defends the rights of both believers and unbelievers. But it is threatened today by ‘aggressive secularism’ on the one hand and religious fundamentalism on the other. So argued the journalist and campaigner Dr Austen Ivereigh at a major lecture attended by numerous Netherhall House residents in early March. We give below a version of his lecture edited and abridged by Dr Ivereigh himself.

The big point Pope Benedict XVI makes in his 2011 New Year’s message, ‘Religious Freedom: the path to peace’ is that religious freedom is much more than the right freely to worship and to believe, or to choose between this or that religion. It is much more deeply the freedom to respond to the truth of our nature as created for God and for life with God; there lies the origin of our moral freedom, which is expressed in our capacity to order our choices in accordance with the truth. It is the foundation stone of society. He says: ‘The transcendent dignity of the person is an essential value of Judaeo-Christian wisdom, yet thanks to the use of reason, it can be recognized by all. This dignity, understood as a capacity to transcend one’s own materiality and seek truth, must be acknowledged as a universal good, indispensable for the building of a society directed to human fulfilment. Respect for essential elements of human dignity such as the right to life and the right to religious freedom, is a condition for the moral legitimacy of every social and legal norm.’

In other words, the respect for religious freedom (along with the right to life and other essentials) is what make laws good; it follows that the undermining of religious freedom (along with the right to life) in some way unseats other rights and freedoms. The right to faith – which involves lots of people transcending their materiality and seeking God – comes in here. It’s a communal endeavour.

You don’t need to think long about this to realise that faith quickly seeks expression in the public square: in the energy and desire for social change, in great campaigns and social movements, in education and welfare and laws and so on. You can’t put a lid on this. And nor would you want to. The fruit of religious freedom is a healthy society organised in such a way as to maximise the free interplay of competing or differing visions of the good, which flow from the activities and beliefs of people of faith – whether that faith is religious or secular in inspiration. Respect for religious freedom leads to a vibrant society.

I understood the difference between freedom of worship and the freedom to manifest belief when in 2003 I went to Cuba to do a story about the Church there for The Tablet. The Government said there was complete freedom of worship on the island; and there was. You could go to Mass, say prayers, read the Bible. But as soon as you stepped outside the church and wanted to act, suddenly the

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environment chilled. Pastoral letters, Catholic magazines, processions, charitable projects – all these were considered ‘political’ and therefore subject to state control. Religious freedom begins with the state knowing its limits, which is the essential principle of secularity. And secularity is the basis for freedom.

monopoly on any of these; but as even secular critics like Jurgen Habermas will concede, believers are far more likely to be involved than non-believers. There is a ‘religious edge’ to the civic virtues, as the Archbishop of Westminster said in a recent lecture at the LSE.

Religious freedom, in short, is the core value or principle underlying all our other freedoms. Religious freedom is not just about rights for believers; it’s about rights for non-believers too. At the heart of secularity is the notion that belief cannot be coerced and that the search for God must be free. Our core human rights inhere on the basis of our humanity (we would say they are Godcreated), not on the basis of any other form of allegiance.

To put it simply, as the Pope does: ‘religion is a positive driving force for the building of civil and political society’. That’s also putting it modestly. Try and imagine civic and political society in western history without the engine of faith. The fact is, people set up, work for and give their lives to these organisations because

So far, you might think, the concept of religious freedom doesn’t add very much to the tenets of secular humanism: religion cannot be imposed or coerced; freedom of conscience is the building block of a free democratic society. But religious freedom begins to depart from secular humanism in that it is not just freedom from, but also freedom to. And here we introduce a key idea which is core to Catholic social thought but largely absent from western political thinking since at least the Enlightenment: the civil society principle, or subsidiarity, which is key to Pope Pius XI’s 1931 encyclical Quadragessimo Anno and reappears, one might say with a vengeance, in Pope Benedict’s 2007 encyclical Caritas in veritate. It is the principle animated by religious freedom.

So dominant have the state and market become in contemporary western society that we sometimes have to explain away civil society as that part of society which does not directly involve the state and the market – quite hard, when you think about it. Caritas in veritate defines civil society rather nicely as where relationships are defined not by contract but by gift and reciprocity. The market involves relationships of self-interest: things are exchanged for a value; when you work, you are contracted to do x and y in return for x and y payment; hopefully they’re nice people you work for, and they’ll ask you how your weekend was, but if you don’t deliver it’ll be the end of your contract. Similarly, what ties you to the state are legal contracts: you pay your taxes, and receive public services; you have certain rights and responsibilities. The law is faceless, and seeks to treat you the same as the next person. These are all contractual relationships.

Civil society relationships are different. What brings you into relationship are common values, institutions, and ties of gift and reciprocity. Now the broad range of faith-inspired civil society organisations does not exist merely to serve the interests and needs of those who share that faith. Most Catholic organisations serve people of all backgrounds and beliefs. Yet they are inspired by a particular set of beliefs – what we call the Catholic ethos (just as other organisations have a Jewish ethos, or a Methodist ethos).

That idea of ethos – a subculture, if you like - is the principle of civil society, and why it is so clearly linked to religious freedom: because it depends on the freedom to preserve that ethos, which allows the deepening of the relationships of gift and reciprocity.

As the Pope puts it, ‘religious freedom proceeds from the personal sphere and is achieved in relationship with others’. And what flows from people entering into relationship with God and each other is, essentially, the engine of civil society: marriage, family, association, schools, charities, and so on. Believers don’t have a

above: jurgen habermas, a prominent philosopher of secularism their faith inspires them; feeling grateful for the gifts of God, being people of compassion and sensitive to the needs of the world, and often fired by a strong sense of social justice and civic commitment, they establish schools, homeless shelters, child welfare charities, adoption agencies, hospices and countless other projects and institutes. These institutions in turn spawn associations, lobbies, groups, ideas, campaigns … This activity, this idealism, this energy – this people giving of themselves in service of others – is the by-product of religious freedom.

Without the freedom to witness to the values of the Gospel and the teachings of the Catholic Church – what is usually described as a ‘Catholic ethos’ – these organisations would shrivel and die, or become empty shells, to the detriment of everyone. When Government talks about the ‘Big Society’, by which it means a vigorous civil society, it is recognising the importance of civil society in making life meaningful; it is recognising that inspiration and motivation play a huge part in this. But the corollary of the Big Society is religious freedom. You can’t have the fruits without the roots. And that’s where I think there is a contradiction, which is gradually revealing itself, within the Big Society project.

I’ll come back to that in a minute.

But first I want to underline the brilliance and originality of the Pope’s 1st January address, which lies in the way he shows that religious fundamentalism and secularism are really mirror images of each other. In the Pope’s words, they both ‘represent extreme forms of a rejection of legitimate pluralism and the principle of secularity’.

At the Synod for the Middle East in Rome, which I was covering last October for America Magazine, I saw how vital it is for the Christians of the region. The bishops were effectively urging the

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Church to take a stand in the Middle East for what they called ‘positive secularity’. Just a month before, in September, the Pope had been here, speaking against aggressive secularism and in defence of the freedom of religion; now, at the Synod, the Pope was invoking the same secularity against religious fundamentalists.

The key principle here is in part 8 of the Pope’s speech. The religious dimension of society is not a creation of the state; it precedes, antecedes, is outside the sphere of the state. Therefore, ‘Whenever the legal system at any level, national or international, allows or tolerates religious or antireligious fanaticism, it fails in its mission, which is to protect and promote justice and the rights of all’.

Secularity implies a proper distinction - not divorce – of spheres: between religious and temporal. The opposite of secularity is theocracy; but theocracy does not have to be religious. You can have a secularist theocracy; it usually goes by the name of totalitarianism. Cuba and China are examples. In China, there is an ‘official’ Catholic Church, in which the bishops are appointed by the government. The Chinese state regards the Vatican’s attempt to appoint its own bishops as interference in state sovereignty. In Cuba, when bishops criticise the government they are arrested for making political speeches. These are states which regard the whole of the public sphere as the proper province of the state. What is outside the state, what is at odds with state doctrine, is regarded as illegitimate. That is why totalitarian states – Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini eventually, China, Cuba, Venezuela under Chavez – always clash with the Church, and seek to suppress it, because the very existence of the Church contradicts the totalitarian ambition.

The secularism which increasingly pervades the states of Europe is not, obviously, of this totalitarian kind. The state is not above the law, and is therefore circumscribed. Yet it is alarming how fast down that road Europe is now travelling -- paradoxically, in the name of tolerance. A new kind of secularist theocracy is emerging, the enthronement of a particular narrative, which claims itself to be tolerant because based on reason, and therefore cannot accept that it could be intolerant; indeed, must label all who disagree with it intolerant, thereby disqualifying them from contributing to the discussion.

What this new intolerance, or aggressive secularism, has in common with the totalitarian states of China and Cuba, or with the regime of the ayatollahs in Iran, is that it cannot see that it is autocratic; it cannot conceive of any good outside itself. The same blindness in secularist humanism is everywhere apparent. I sometimes write pieces for the Guardian Comment is Free belief section, one of the few places of genuine dialogue between believers and non-believers; and it quickly becomes clear from many of the comments that science has solved the question of truth, that all religion is brainwashing, and any attempt to oppose, for example, same-sex adoption or gay marriage are obviously and unquestionably the ravings of a homophobic bigot. To question the notion that same-sex relationships are equally ‘valid’, same-sex adoption just as good for a child as adoption by a mother and father, is to appear to our critics to be like white South Africans defending apartheid. And so afraid are governments of these same accusations that time after time these principles have been enthroned as a new ideology of the state.

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“Religious freedom, is the core value underlying all our other freedoms. Religious freedom is not just about rights for believers; it’s about rights for non-believers too.”

Now, the difficulty with the state having an official doctrine on, say, sexuality, is that it very quickly expects all those organisations subject to the law and in receipt of public money to sign up to this doctrine. In this way, the state acts on society, shaping it in its image. But what happens when it meets civil society organisations which disagree? A flashpoint occurred in 2006 over the 13 Catholic adoption agencies, much loved and valued organisations of civil society, many of them founded in the nineteenth century, which served anybody regardless of faith while nonetheless driven by a strong ethos informed by their faith. That faith told them what would anyway still be regarded as common sense by most people: that the best place for a child was with a man and a woman. But suddenly they weren’t allowed to believe this. The agencies were told that they must now conform to anti-discrimination laws which make it illegal to refuse a same-sex couple the right to adopt. The agencies, as you know, closed or secularised, and a Rubicon was crossed. It was a traumatic and defining moment in modern Church-state relations, and helped to define the agenda for the papal visit.

Was it necessary for the agencies to close in order to enable gay couples to access adoption services? No: there were hundreds of other agencies they could resort to, and did. Were the rights of anyone harmed or affected by the adoption agencies holding to their belief that a child’s best interests were best safeguarded by traditional marriage? No. Was it a question that the law must treat everyone the same and there can be no exemptions? Of course not: such exemptions are made all the time; the law treats different groups differently. So what was at stake? A principle – a mor-

al, religious, philosophical principle. The agency had to conform to the view that same-sex unions were as valid as heterosexual ones. A theological principle was at stake; and the agencies were proclaiming heresy. There hadn’t been a single complaint from anyone that they had been discriminated against by the agencies.

They were sacrificed for the sake of state orthodoxy.

What was most worrying about the adoption agencies affair was the lack of value placed on those organisations by the Government ministers who pushed through the new regulations. One member of cabinet who had argued for an exemption told me they just had no idea what made a religious organisation tick.

At the heart of the state was a huge ignorance about what makes civil society function, an unwillingness to balance rights and priorities, a tone deafness to religious freedom, one that reflected a narrow account of society as consisting of nothing more than the state and atomised individuals. Civil society is not valued because religious freedom is not valued; and religious freedom is not valued because people fail to see the connection between faith and society; they think only of freedom of worship.

What is lost by this gradual shrinking of religious freedom? I would say two vital building blocks of our democratic society.

The first is civil society itself, which requires religious freedom to breathe. The second is pluralism. The adoption agencies affair exposed a concept of the state inimical to authentic democracy. In a society which values pluralism, it is not the state’s task to impose an ideological narrative. Society is a community of communities, in which the state’s task is to regulate the relationships between them, to administer the playing field, if you like, allowing different narratives of the good to compete. But in the secular liberal conception of the state, there is no such thing as civil society; there is really nothing between the individual and the state and the market. Politics is about capturing the state and imposing a particular narrative. With the SORs (sexual orientation regulations), Parliament was telling the Church that it must accept the relativist principle that same-sex marriage is as good as traditional marriage, and that this principle trumps their freedom to advocate otherwise. This, of course, is theocracy – a secular theocracy; a dictatorship of relativism. It is no less theocratic or statist than the British state only admitting one form of marriage, that performed by the Church of England; or when Catholic religious education was made obligatory on all Spaniards by the Franco regime.

How ironic, given the accusations against the Church in history, that in modern Britain it should be the Catholic Church that stands, along with other Churches, as the lone advocates of core liberal, democratic and pluralist principles. It fell to Pope Benedict to tell Parliament, in his speech at Westminster Hall, what Parliamentarians should not need to be told by a Pope or anyone else: that ‘religious bodies – including institutions linked to the Catholic Church – need to be free to act in accordance with their own principles and specific convictions based upon the faith and the official teaching of the Church. In this way, such basic rights as religious freedom, freedom of conscience and freedom of association are guaranteed.’

Having made that case – and I believe it passionately – it’s important to acknowledge, as the Pope does in his new year’s speech,

that religious freedom is not an unlimited right: not every claim to be acting according to a religious belief is acceptable; nor is it necessarily religious; which is why Pope Benedict says the exercise of religious freedom must be determined in each situation by political prudence.

The burning political issue, it seems to me, is about the communal or corporate dimension of faith, and the freedom of religious organisations to preserve their ethos through their own selection criteria, for example; and their freedom to witness to their beliefs through service of society. The Church is not opposed to equality; how can it be? But laws designed to protect minorities from the negative consequences of the laws designed for the majority is a very different matter from developing laws designed to impose or implement the views of the minority. Governments must take care not to introduce a hierarchy of rights in which one community is unfairly favoured over the other. It must be even-handed.

And it must protect, as European and international laws demand, the freedom to manifest belief, only restricting such manifestations when the common good or public order demand it.

The problem with ‘aggressive secularism’ is that it only recognises the freedoms of conscience and worship, not religion; and in so far as religion enters the public square, secularism believes that it should be chased away in the interests of tolerance and freedom.

That is why I want to suggest that there is increasingly a divide opening up, in Europe, between, on the one hand, the pluralists, who are religious or agnostics sensitive to religious freedom, recognising in that freedom their own; and on the other hand the statists, who want the state to shape society in the image of its secular individualist humanist doctrines.

Now the irony is that, in reality, this kind of secularism is increasingly old-fashioned. Where only ten or 15 years ago, people spoke of the triumph of secularism, now there is talk of the ‘return of religion’. God is Back, runs the title of a book by the editor of The Economist, John Micklethwait. There is an increasing awareness that there cannot be democratic pluralism without a recognition of religion in the public square -- precisely what Pope Benedict called for in Westminster Hall. This recognition has coincided, as I said at the start, with a crisis in the narratives of market and state. If Thatcherism was about expanding and modernising the market, New Labour was about expanding and modernising the state. Now, interestingly, we have a Government that is looking to civil society. The state is bankrupt, and cannot expand. The market has failed to deliver greater equality and social change.

Perhaps it is time to look to civil society.

I think the Big Society agenda is very exciting – possibly the biggest idea to come to British politics in a very long time. And it doesn’t bother me that it involves shrinking the state; the state has become far too powerful, and far too absorbent. But it does bother me that the state is shrinking before civil society is invigorated. The key point is that civil society cannot be restored or expanded without at the same time recognising religious freedom. Ultimately, therefore, the UK, like other European states, will find itself increasingly needing to choose. Secular liberalism is antithetical to pluralism, just as theocracy is opposed to religious freedom. If the Big Society is not about those adoption agencies being allowed to receive public funds, what is it about?

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filming theatre L

ondon is a superb place to live if you enjoy culture. From the cinemas of Leicester Square to the nearby National Gallery, the street shows in Covent Garden, the concerts in the Brixton Academy, or the cultural powerhouse of the Southbank Centre, the Capital has it all. But there is one thing London does better than perhaps any other city in the world: the theatre.

Since the 16th Century the theatre has thrived in London, quickly becoming an important part of the capital’s cultural identity largely thanks to a man called William Shakespeare. Shakespeare and his acting company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men (and later the King’s Men), were pioneers in transforming theatre into a profitable entertainment industry. They lasted as one company for 78 years, where the next most long-lived company only lasted for 40, and they were financially very successful. Shakespeare and his company have influenced the way the theatre industry works almost as much as his plays have influenced almost all playwriting in the Western world since.

This year the theatre industry in London has taken a huge blow.

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simon jared considers a n challenges the theatre fac

In Shakespeare’s day the aristocracy were patrons of individual acting groups, supplying funds when needed. In recent history the government has taken over the role of supplying funds to the theatre through the Arts Council. Under Blair’s Labour government the theatre thrived and became a cultural institution to be proud of. Labour greatly supported the idea that the Arts should be affordable and accessible to all, and thus they were generous with funding. In the wake of the financial crisis the current government has had to slash funding to the Arts as part of the nationwide spending cuts.

So where does the theatre go for much needed financial support now? The National Theatre, perhaps the most successful theatre in London, is a pioneer in this area. It has managed to secure charitable funding from the private sector, and recently it has been even more creative in the search for extra money. This has come in the form of the ‘NT Live’ series. An invention that’s barely two years old, ‘NT Live’ is an initiative wherein the National Theatre broadcasts a performance of a play live across a growing number of cinema screens worldwide; from London to New York

Of course he gave the same performance on the night of the cinema screening as on every other night in the Donmar Warehouse.

The camera was even able to zoom in at times and focus on his characteristic baby-face. For an audience who had not seen the play at the theatre this may have been beneficial, especially when he was delivering monologues which showed him as an ageing king battling against his loss of power and his impending senility.

But this also meant that the camera was in charge of directing the viewer’s attention. One of the beauties of the theatre is that one can concentrate on whatever aspect of the play one wants.

Whether one looks at the actor’s face, or his movements or even the set, one is still watching the play.

One of the defining moments of King Lear in the Donmar Warehouse was the famous tempest scene which contains Lear’s ‘blow winds’ soliloquy. The lighting and sound during the tempest were overwhelming. The auditorium was subsumed in darkness with bright flashes of lightning seeping through cracks in the rear wall, transforming Lear into a shadow. You could feel the explosive rumble of the storm and the bright white light seemed as if it was about to smash through the rear wall of the auditorium and onto the stage. As Ron Cook’s Fool tried to call Lear he was drowned out by the sound of vicious winds and thunder. Just as the audience thought Lear’s ‘blow winds’ soliloquy was going to be drowned out by the same clamour, the noise died down to a distant rumble. This allowed Jacobi to recite the monologue in a whisper: suddenly the audience was transported from an exterior storm into Lear’s own mind and the tempest of his personal, human experience.

novel response to the ces in the 21st century to New Zealand. The most recent of these broadcastings was King Lear directed by Michael Grandage and starring Sir Derek Jacobi.

I have been fortunate enough to see both the original production in the Donmar Warehouse (a small but internationally renowned theatre in Covent Garden) and the ‘NT Live’ version broadcast from the National Theatre.

So, is seeing a play in the cinema the same? In a word, no. But why? The Donmar Warehouse was transformed for the performance of King Lear. The set, made up of whitewashed boards, extended all the way around the auditorium encapsulating the audience and actors in the same intimate space. This, with the simple and rugged costumes, prevented the brilliant text from being lost in a sea of spectacle. In the cinema there was no set, there were no whitewashed boards surrounding the audience, there was no intimate space, just a large white screen. In the theatre Jacobi’s performance was powerful because it manipulated the stage space; it was harrowingly honest and at times even childlike. In the cinema, the ‘stage space’ was a flat screen.

The same scene in the cinema screening was still excellently acted.

But the lights are contained within the screen, the noise not nearly as deafening. In the theatre I was on the edge of my seat, feeling the full force of this sensory attack. But in the cinema I was sitting back and enjoying the spectacle from a distance. In truth the stage effects which blow you away in the theatre look underwhelming on a cinema screen. They were nothing when compared to a film designed for the big screen. This, really, was the main problem: you cannot help but compare a screening of a play to a screening of a film when you are in a cinema. The cinema has its own rules and its own conventions.

A performance on a screen is always going to appear distanced even when it is a live broadcast. At a theatre you can reach out and touch a performer (though you would probably be asked to leave if you did). If an actor lights a cigarette on-stage you can smell the smoke. The actor can control the set, even the whole auditorium. Shakespeare wrote King Lear for a theatre and he was very aware of the theatre space when he wrote it. The text is full of metatheatrical lines which are lost if the audience is not in a theatre. So while cinema screenings may be a great way to make money they detract from the whole dramatic experience of the theatre. It is still a good play on the screen but it is no longer a piece of theatre. The unfortunate truth, however, is that the theatre is now and always has been a commercial enterprise and thus I fear ‘NT Live’ will survive at least into the immediate future. I only hope it will serve to promote the theatre industry and not transform it for the worse.

Simon Jared is in his final year of English with Film Studies at King’s College London

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learning how to speak fr. joseph evans reflects upon the means and ends of authentic interreligious dialogue and why it is so necessary today In mid-March I participated in an ‘interfaith forum’ at King’s College London. I had been invited to attend as the institution’s Catholic chaplain and I joined a panel including the President of the Union of Jewish Students, a representative from the National Union of Students (NUS) and the director of a body called the Muslim Debate Initiative. In a positive and interesting discussion consensus was reached on a number of issues, including the need to stand united to defend the role of faith in contemporary society.

Two things particularly struck me from the event: first, just how keen and committed the NUS was to inter-religious dialogue.

When I was a student in the 80s, the NUS (and student unions in general) seemed decidedly cold to God. They were the radicals and faith was the establishment ballast they were trying to throw out. Now faith has become radicalised and it is the NUS which is seeking a moderating role to maintain harmony in Britain’s universities. Indeed, the union now has an officer specifically dedicated to promoting inter-religious dialogue.

While it seemed a shame that it had required secular bodies like the NUS and the King’s College London Student Union (KCLSU) to bring religious groups together for this discussion, it occurred to me that in the Christological fisticuffs of the early centuries it was the Roman emperors who had forced the feuding factions to meet to resolve their disputes. Sometimes – as with the ecological question – the signs of the times are initially more clearly perceived outside the confines of the visible Church and we are forced to catch up to join the debate.

The second thing which struck me was a comment from a committee member of King’s Interfaith Society as to just how much money is available for such initiatives. Bodies are queuing up to fund dialogue between religions. Imperial Rome seems ready to put its money where its mouth is.

But for many of these funders the issue is about fear. The BBC recently reported a government review due out in May which is expected to call on universities to provide more pastoral support for – or control over? – their students in order to counteract campus extremism. Inter-religious dialogue for so many secular bodies is one among various means to avoid potential trouble. We Catholics may have needed a bit of secular nudging to engage with other religions but, as has often been the case, having finally arrived we have the resources to go deeper. For us, dialogue with other believers is not to dodge disaster, it is to seek truth.

With this end in view I would like to offer a few pointers as to how such dialogue could be conducted if it really is to make a

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positive contribution to understanding between religions in our land.

First of all, and seeking rhetorical effect, I would like to suggest that such dialogue involves being hard not soft. First of all, it needs hard thinking: woolly thought and loose intellectual processes do not serve the cause of religious dialogue. Ideas like ‘It does not matter what you believe’ or ‘all religions are basically the same’ do not promote understanding among them above all because such ideas are so patently false. Examples from history abound to show clearly that what people believe matters very much indeed: it matters a lot whether you love and forgive your enemies or feel an obligation to wipe them out. And anyone with an ounce of sense realizes that all beliefs are so obviously not the same. Indeed, they are often completely contradictory. When rigorous standards of thought and logic are demanded in every other sphere of knowledge, why should they be abandoned when it comes to thinking about religion? Let’s think hard and straight, not abandon thought.

With hard thinking comes the need for hard study. So much of religious dialogue is conducted in ignorance, with very little knowledge about the doctrines of other religions and even – alas, frequently – very little idea about those of one’s own. This leads to crass syncretism and the betrayal of both religions involved in the exchange. Religious dialogue without study and real knowledge is the sharing of ignorance not truth.

Then comes hard prayer. As Pope Benedict said in an meeting with leaders of other religions during his September 2010 visit to Britain, we need ‘to realize more and more that the initiative lies not with us, but with the Lord: it is not so much we who are seeking him, but rather he who is seeking us’. Praying with each other is problematic even among followers of the three Abrahamic religions. And no monotheist would feel comfortable praying to one of the many Hindu divinities, considering them either human inventions, perhaps demonic or at best very confused representations of the unique Deity. But we can certainly pray for our brothers and sisters of other faiths and implore the divine Lord to open our hearts to greater unity and to each other.

Then comes hard loving. Dialogue with other believers requires overcoming prejudices and cultural barriers and appreciating the dignity of the other person, whatever his or her creed. It also requires the positive effort to value so many elements of truth and goodness in that person’s belief. Who cannot fail to be touched by the warmth of welcome and hospitality which is so much a part of Islamic civilisation? Religious dialogue requires loving and letting oneself be loved.

Nor should dialogue between religions dodge hard issues. By this I mean not only complex theological questions but also practical problems and injustices which can occur on both sides. Hence the Pope was right in his September address to raise – albeit delicately – the issue of religious freedom which in some countries is quite simply not respected. The extreme anti-blasphemy laws in Pakistan are a case in point. Past grievances also need to be addressed to seek present healing. Nor is it just a question of Christians expressing our concerns to other religions as if we had no need to put our own house in order. Muslims understandably ask how Europe has become so decadent and to what extent this is a reflection on the Christian faith which forged the continent. The effort to respond to this concern could lead Christians to constructive consideration of our faith’s continuing role in Western society.

Let it be clearly said, however, that there can be no room for hard language and even less for hard hearts.

One of the ideas Pope Benedict most frequently insists on is the need to defend the reality of truth, ever more challenged in our relativistic world. There is no such thing as objective truth, it is claimed, just ‘your truth’ and ‘my truth’. While it is correct that different issues can be seen from different angles and there certainly are different sides to any one truth, the abandonment of truth does not serve the cause of religious dialogue or any cause at all. The Pope made this point specifically about politics in his

most recent book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week. Abandoning a sense of objective truth and morality in the sphere of politics leaves us open to exploitation by lobbies and those in power: if there is no fixed truth, then the tyrant decides what is true, with the consequent oppression of his people. When it comes to religious questions, the claim that everything is true – apart from offending common sense – ultimately means that nothing is true, as nothing can be affirmed with certainty, it is all a matter of opinion. If everything anyone believes is considered of equal value, logic breaks down because religious doctrines so often flatly contradict each other. If we experience error and delusion every day of our lives, does that same falsehood and insanity suddenly become true if you give it the title of ‘religion’? What if the Flat Earth Society declared itself a religion? Would its claims then become true? When all is said and done, true faith is not subjective.

It refers to a given – a revealed – truth.

Religious dialogue depends on a sense of objective truth, that truth is possible. Even if ‘faith claims’– i.e. the claims to truth most religions necessarily and licitly make – contradict each other (Christians believe that Jesus is fully God; Muslims most certainly do not), then at least we can speak on the basis of a shared notion of truth. The notion of truth brings with it, of course, the possibility – or the reality – of error. One of us is mistaken. The mistake may be fundamental or a question of nuance. We can handle that because we accept truth is possible. Now let’s seek it together.

The reality of these faith claims necessarily requires jolting the sensibility of others. When a Muslim affirms that Jesus Christ is not God, I feel a jolt, even if he then tries to water down his statement by saying how much he and Islam respect Jesus. It’s like trying to say one has great respect for Mozart while at the same time denying that he composed music. You’re missing something fundamental about the man. I would imagine Muslims and Jews would feel an equal jolt when they hear Christians proclaim that Jesus is divine. The very notion offends their profoundest convictions. Such jolts are necessary and even salutary. I would think less of a Muslim who tried to water down, out of a relativistic sense of politeness, Islam’s conviction that Mohammed is God’s greatest prophet and that Jesus, not divine, is secondary to him.

above: john paul II and the dalai lama gather in assisi, italy with (below) other heads of faith for the 1986 world day of prayer

Obviously we should not proclaim our beliefs against others.

Aggressively affirming them is not helpful but if one considers one has the truth one should state it clearly – though politely – without fear of offending. Nor should the other take offence.

Receiving jolts is good, it shakes us to thought and action, and the ability to take them is part of mature rationality. The suppression of difference and the freedom to express it, in the name of either political correctness or religious fundamentalism, is harmful to social debate and assumes people are too childish to cope with the exchange of ideas and values. For example, taking offence at a crucifix on a public wall or a veil worn by another is not an expression of freedom but of immaturity.

When people are well informed, inter-religious dialogue can lead to new insights on both sides of the exchange. Going back to our Hindu deities: without the slightest concession to polytheism or obliging Hindus to renounce what is most noble in their religion, deeper dialogue could help Hindus understand better how unity is a necessary aspect of divinity and Christians could discern a

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below: pope benedict xvi greets chief rabbi jonathan sacks

genuine search for God’s divine mystery in some forms of polytheistic cult, without naively taking for granted this is always the case. Some depictions of fertility goddesses, for example, might express more man’s lust than a spiritual quest.

Or in discussions about Jesus and Mohammed, Christians could help their Muslim brothers perceive the many ways divine power and life bursts through into the created order and that God lowering Himself to take on our humanity is not a lessening of His transcendence but a manifestation of it. Likewise, a proper understanding of the figure of Mohammed would be greatly helped by a better understanding of the nature of prophetism and how God speaks through men in contingent historical circumstances, benefitting too from the insights of Muslim scholars on this question.

Having said this, prudential reasons might recommend starting such dialogue in a less full-frontal manner than by going straight to the key differences which divide religions. It is instructive that a major Catholic-Muslim meeting in November 2008 – in the wake of the Regensburg controversy – chose to focus on the relatively gentle topic of love of God and love of neighbor and how this is seen in the two communities. With prudence, of course, goes patience. Like good wine understanding between religions matures over years, with a determination to overcome all setbacks along the way.

Interfaith dialogue that is truly rational and respectful necessarily leads us to reflect on our own faith, also to discover what is imperfect in our practice of it. An important point that the then Joseph Ratzinger made in his outstanding work Truth and Tolerance is that all religions need to strive to attain what is most pure and overcome what is defective in themselves. Every creed is threatened by laxness or fanaticism, heresy and divisions, false myths or scepticism, and should be in a constant state of reform to maintain its great ideals. There are degenerate forms of religion: some

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manifestations of Catholicism, for example, can tend to superstition; Protestantism can tend either to narrow-minded rigidity or to liberal disbelief; Islam can tend to fanaticism and a failure to value freedom. People engaged in inter-religious dialogue should also seek to be catalysts in encouraging their own co-religionists to seek this reform. If each religion really strove to reform itself understanding between them would be so much easier to achieve.

Sometimes faith schools are presented as an obstacle to interreligious dialogue on the grounds that by locking their students into one belief system they close them to others (and – the real concern – to the secularist one). Surely, the arguments go, young people should be educated in all creeds, presented on an equal basis. Experience shows that this merely leads to indifference and ignorance. Religion becomes mere sociology. A man or woman on shifting sand cannot support any one. If we are to reach out to others with a firm and loving embrace, we need to stand on firm ground ourselves. From the experience of our own profound faith in God we can appreciate better the beliefs of others. Dialogue of any form begins with a clear sense of one’s own identity.

My own experience as Netherhall House chaplain very much bears this out. As most readers know, each year we take over 90 students, all studying at one of the colleges or universities in London. They come from a wide range of countries and, more to the point, a wide range of religious backgrounds. While some 50-60 per cent of them each year are Catholics, the rest are Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs or even atheists. It is an enormous joy and enrichment to find oneself at table each day with students from such a range of beliefs (it goes without saying that special diets are provided to respect their belief requirements). The hall is manifestly Catholic in its ethos, with daily Mass and Rosary and other formative activities for those who want, but nothing is obligatory and some students may never set foot in our house chapel. Young people of other creeds learn to live with, respect

and love Catholics, and we learn to love and respect them. From our lived faith we all learn to value others. At the same time precisely as a fruit of the atmosphere of freedom in the hall, some residents – on average about one a year – do choose to embrace the Catholic faith.

What I have just described could be called a ‘dialogue of life’ and was referred to by Pope Benedict in his September address. It involves, he said, ‘simply living alongside one another and learning from one another in such a way as to grow in mutual knowledge and respect’. For most of us this is in fact the principal form of inter-religious dialogue we can engage in. Few people have sufficient knowledge to discuss theological differences between religions but we can all treat our Buddhist or Hindu neighbor lovingly or welcome the needy immigrant, whatever his or her creed.

As the Pope explained, this should be complemented by the ‘dialogue of action’, the ‘’side to side’ dimension of our cooperation, which complements the ‘face to face’ aspect of our continuing dialogue’. Here, the opportunities for joint action are endless.

The Pope gave a few examples: ‘promoting integral development, working for peace, justice and the stewardship of creation (…) exploring together how to defend human life at every stage’ and fighting to defend the role of faith in society. We can offer the world a higher, noble form of living based on virtue, defend a common vision of marriage as a lasting commitment between man and woman, offer an explanation as to the meaning of life – that ‘why?’ which science can never answer – and remind our fellow men and women of ‘the possibility and the imperative of moral conversion’. And, of course, in pride of place come joint initiatives of love of neighbour, uniting efforts and resources to help those in need of whatever creed. The more we love together the more we will love each other.

And all this thanks to that KCLSU-NUS promoted meeting in mid-March, which brings me to a sort of conclusion. While there is still gold in the pot for inter-religious activities, I think it is right and fitting to avail ourselves of it. There are far worse uses of money. But we must also be careful of the strings which might be attached to such funding. If secular bodies want believers to talk, it must be on our (the believers’) terms not theirs. As in the days of ancient Rome, the secular arm is generally theologically illiterate and has its own agenda. While it wants religious harmony it is not so keen on religions rocking the secular boat. If such groups are to meet we must be allowed the freedom to discuss ideas and offer social solutions which the funders might not be too keen on.

An obvious example is the question of homosexual practice. But if secular society truly values the role and voice of believers then it must tolerate those believers affirming the illicitness of such activity. Put simply, if it wants us to talk then it must be prepared for us to say things it does not like.

In this article I have suggested some ways in which inter-religious dialogue could be conducted. But to work out the means we need to know the end. In other words, we also need to ask ourselves what we want from such dialogue. I would suggest that we should not want too much. Dialogue should lead all believers to deepen and purify their beliefs, giving them a stronger rational basis, by discussing them and contrasting them with the beliefs of others.

We can certainly learn from the devotion and religious sense we

see in other believers. Then, such dialogue should help us to live together peaceably, to overcome misunderstandings and prejudice, to love each other more, and to work together to build a society in which faith is valued and allowed to make its contribution to the common good. Beyond this is to ask more from such dialogue than it can reasonably give.

The dangers of engaging in religious dialogue are many: for example confusion, syncretism and relativism. Christians must be very careful not to water down our essential proclamation that Jesus is God made man and humanity’s unique Saviour. Christ’s divinity is the fundamental truth not just one belief among others. But the dangers of not engaging in such dialogue are potentially far greater. Without this dialogue some religions, deprived of the oxygen of intellectual debate and its stress on the role of

“Like good wine understanding between religions matures over years, with a determination to overcome all setbacks along the way. Interfaith dialogue that is truly rational and respectful necessarily leads us to reflect on our own faith, also to discover what is imperfect in our practice of it” reason, fall ever more into fundamentalism. In the West religions retreat into ghettos and, divided, are conquered; faith is pushed ever more into a corner; society becomes more secular, and – reacting against this – religious extremism grows, further damaging the voice and role of religious belief in the modern world.

I mentioned earlier how Catholics have sometimes have to play catch up to insights coming from outside. That comment needs nuancing. No-one can forget the daring, indeed controversial, inter-religious meeting promoted by Pope John Paul II in Assisi in 1986. Pope Benedict XVI has announced that another such meeting will talk place, again at Assisi, next October on the 25th anniversary of the previous one. Let us pray for its fruits. This meeting is even more significant given that at the time the then Joseph Ratzinger, as Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, voiced serious reservations over the event.

While it seems the role of Prefects is to be cautious, that of Popes is to go ahead and break new ground. Now Benedict seems determined to put into practice those words which he said, referring specifically to Judaism but which could be understood of other religions too, when he visited Israel last year: ‘We must each do all we can to learn the language of the other’.

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british values and the christian church The values we hold so dear, writes aaron taylor, ‘O

ur society is now pluralistic and largely secular . . . We sit as secular judges serving a multi-cultural community of many faiths . . . the laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity, in whatever form’. Those who follow the news may recognise these disembodied affirmations as quotations from a recent Crown Court ruling in the much-publicised case of Owen and Eunice Johns – Christian foster carers who were turned down by their local council after refusing to promote the idea that homosexual behaviour is morally acceptable to children in their care.

The idea that ‘the laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity’, however, would not find a defender in The Rt. Hon Dominic Grieve, Her Majesty’s Attorney General, who came to talk to Netherhall residents on Thursday 10th March on the subject of The Christian Church and British Values.

In his talk he reminded us that, unlike secular France whose State is built on a social contract between the government and the

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are underpinned by Christianity

citizenry, British law is made by the Queen-in-Parliament-underGod. The establishment of the Christian faith as the religion of State is not, he argued, simply decoration, but ought to provide a moral framework for the relation of the State to citizens. We are also in danger, he suggested, of underestimating the importance that religion in general, and specifically Christianity, still has for many people in our ‘multicultural’ and ‘secular’ society, to use the words of those Judges. He pointed out that, despite the sharp decline in Church attendance, 72% of the British population described themselves as Christian in the 2001 census. After the talk, the Attorney General generously gave us a lot of his time to answer our questions, more than one of which focused on this perceived erosion of the ability of Christians to manifest their faith in public which is graphically illustrated by the Johns’ case.

Whilst refusing to be drawn on some points, there was, he said, a danger of the government over-regulating social life, a process which would need to be watched closely.

Mr. Grieve spoke out forcefully for the place of Christianity

in public life, and specifically for the constitutional role of the Church of England. Our constitution, he argued, is ‘suffused’ with Christianity, and it is a benchmark of our national tradition that faith and action have always gone hand in hand. Unlike some European countries, in which confessionally ‘Christian’ parties have stood on the political right, whilst the left-wing has often been associated with atheism, Mr. Grieve pointed out that until very recently all British political parties took the Christian religion for granted. Whilst Labour and the Liberals tended to be composed of non-conformist Protestants and Irish Catholics, Tories were usually Anglicans (he recalled that the Church of England was often dubbed ‘the Tory party at prayer’) or recusant Catholics. Trying to put faith into action has historically been neither the province of the ‘right’ nor the ‘left’, but something common to all political parties in the UK. He spoke of the money given by religious people to charity, time spent volunteering for good causes, and the part that devoutly religious men such as William Wilberforce and Cardinal Manning have played in building the social fabric of Britain, praising the British tradition of ‘harnessing Christianity to change society for the better’, and encouraging those of us who are Christians to do the same.

Despite the increasing marginalisation of Christianity, he argued, we still have many opportunities to bring our Christian values to bear on social life, and should see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.

Mr. Grieve opened his talk by recounting his warm memories of hearing Pope Benedict’s historic address in Westminster Hall, during which the Holy Father spoke of our ‘national instinct for moderation’, and noted that many of the values which we hold dear, such as ‘freedom of speech, freedom of political affiliation and respect for the rule of law’, have much in common with Catholic social teaching.

above: the church of england has a constitutional role in a british public life that is ‘suffused with christianity’ left: william wilberforce, the famous abolitionist, found his motivation for seeking social justice in a deep faith below: mr grieve in the netherhall lounge. (l-r) peter brown, mr grieve, father joseph evans, pablo hinojo

Building on Mr. Grieve’s call for us to bring our Christian principles to bear on public life, I would suggest we need to say more about the dependence of these deeply cherished values of ours on the Christian faith, and question the ability of these values to endure without the faith which has been their historic support.

One current example, though taken from outside of Britain, might be the recent Italian crucifix case in the European Court of Human Rights, in which an atheist argued that the presence of a crucifix on a school wall violated her right to educate her children according to her own philosophical convictions. Fortunately, the Court’s verdict, issued in late March, was in favour of the right of Italian schools to display crucifixes, an important victory for religious freedom.

the basis of Christian philosophical principles that an atheist in Europe has appealed against the presence of Christian symbols in public places.

The irony is that the origins of the recognition of the right of parents to educate their children in accord with their own convictions – regardless of whether these are right or wrong – can be seen in a medieval theological dispute over the question of whether the children of non-Christians could be forcibly baptized. The opinion of Thomas Aquinas, that this would be a violation of natural justice since the parents ‘would lose the rights of parental authority over their children’, eventually prevailed amongst medieval canonists, who laid the foundations of modern legal philosophy. Thanks to this, in Britain and throughout Europe we recognise the rights of all parents to educate their children in accord with their own convictions, and – ironically – it is on

We tend to take basic rights like these for granted, but outside of Christendom, they are not always recognised – I think, for example, of some Islamic and Communist states. In order to explain this, we either need to say that Muslims and Communists cannot grasp basic moral norms, which is untrue and unfair, or we are forced to consider that perhaps so many of the values we take for granted are not simple ‘common sense’, but reflections of the Christian faith which forged our culture over the centuries. Britain, and the rest of Europe, cannot go on using Christian principles of justice and equality to undermine the faith from which they sprang, and then expect the principles to hold firm nonetheless. A house divided against itself does not stand for long.

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Labour of Love: Education in East Africa Dominic James Burbidge met a Netherhall alumnus who’s been at the heart of Kenyan education for half a century

M

wanza, second largest city of Tanzania. Nicknamed Rock City with good reason. As my bus rattled through the north of the country, the expanse of Lake Victoria to my right, dizzying obelisks somehow balance one on top of the other.

Years of erosion has reduced the soil around them, yet even without their crutches they stand defiant. Across from one of these overweight ballerinas was the school I was to visit.

For education is a big thing in East Africa, conveying the hope of the people. The introductory rite into the larger world of opportunity. For Professor David Sperling, Netherhall alumnus, previous Principal of Strathmore and current senior lecturer of the University, education has been his labour of love for over half a century. His journey, he explained to me when I met him in Nairobi, has seen ups and downs.

Straight ahead, a man mixing cement and then passing the filled pallet to his co-worker. They throw it one to another, up and up the scaffolding until it reaches the uppermost floor of the secondary school’s main block. This is Nyakahoja Secondary School: a school for girls being built by East African nuns. They do not have enough money to finish but know it will come somehow.

The school will start before the complex is finished anyway, such is the need. And who cares if the authorities complain? The school is being built on their own farm anyway.

How did you come to be here?

The other side of Lake Victoria: Kenya. Kisumu, third biggest city of the country. A fishing city crippled by AIDs and abandoned by the government. Residents praise the new constitution voted for last year, which they hope will guarantee some devolution of government funds away from Nairobi. There I meet with a friend called William and take a car that feels older than the tarmac road beneath it. We hit an unseen road bump at speed and after the smash I realise that everything that could have dropped off the car had already fallen off years ago.

To left and right, farmers ploughing furiously to pre-empt the rain that gathers overhead. William’s work is different. He visits schools in the Siaya region to meet with the AIDs orphans sponsored by the NGO Teach A Child. He meets the students, encourages them, gives them books and calculators recently sent from Nairobi, and speaks with their teachers about their progress.

Nairobi, the heart of the nation. Across a well-kept sports field, Kenyans gather. Rows of seats stretch out beneath the shade of enormous trees; in the foreground, a beautifully arrayed altar. This is the 50th anniversary Mass of Strathmore, a school and university that continues to expand at an electrifying rate.

Founded by members of Opus Dei, Strathmore has grown from the same seeds from which Netherhall grew, nourished by Kenya’s desire for education.

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Well, I came to Kenya to teach, and I came specifically to work in setting up the sixth form college of Strathmore. You already had a group of members of Opus Dei who were in Kenya, who were planning the college. One key person who had taught at the Royal Technical College put together the Strathmore Educational Trust. Then they needed people to actually come and teach in Strathmore. So I came specifically to work in Strathmore College and to be there as the Principle.

Now at that time, the British government was paying all our salaries, so I was actually interviewed by the Director of Education here in Kenya because I was appointed under the Overseas Appointment Board in London. Strathmore got help right from the beginning from the colonial government, capital as well as paying all the salaries. I originally had a two year contract and then it was renewed, and then independence came and of course I stayed on.

So I think this gives you the formal, administrative dimension of why I came. The personal dimension was that I was asked by St Josemaría if I would like to go and work in Kenya, to do my professional work, leaving me completely free to come or not.

There was a coincidence here because the work of Opus Dei was beginning in Kenya. People of Opus Dei who were already in Kenya had formulated a plan to start a college of some kind. So the implication was that if I came I would be able to work in the college, helping.

So I came, was interviewed and accepted. I took over the position of Principal. The college hadn’t started: we had to get the teachers, we had to get the finance, we had to interview the students. Prebeginnings, you might say. I came in July, 1960.

For those who don’t know how it works, how is it that you are now teaching in a university, if you came to teach in a school?

above left: Strathmore’s crest bares the lion of Kenya and the rose of Opus Dei. The three hearts represent the three races of Kenya which, when Strathmore started in 1961, were segregated in the colonial system of education. Strathmore was the first school to include all three. above right: One of the flagship buildings of the Strathmore University phase 3 expansion is nearing completion. below: Professor david Sperling (right) was awarded the title Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear by President Kibaki of Kenya in 2007 for his service to the nation It works this way. I taught A-Levels at sixth form (we were a sixth form college, no Form 1 to 4). Then, in 1981, the Education Commission, chaired by a North American, recommended to the government that Kenya adopt the North American system. Big mistake, but it was adopted. The minute that was adopted, the Kenyan government announced they were phasing out Forms 5 and 6. We now have a North American system with eight years primary, four years secondary and a four year degree. The same total number of years but arranged in a different way.

At that point I had no interest in teaching Form 1, so I went to do my PhD – which is why I stayed in Netherhall. I was doing my PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) from the fall of 1984 until 1988, although I only spent one full academic year in SOAS and then came back to Africa to do fieldwork, taking visits to the UK to see my supervisor. SOAS required one year in residence so I stayed in Netherhall that year, from October 1984 up until May 1985.

When I finished my PhD in the end of 1988, I joined the University of Nairobi because I didn’t want to teach Form 1 and there was no sixth form in Strathmore; it had now become a secondary school with additional accountancy training. The A-level had disappeared and Strathmore College had focused on accountancy.

I worked at the governance level of the Strathmore Educational

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Difficult to explain to an American? Even though there was this conscious move towards an American system?

Yes, there was the move, but that was a disaster! We had fantastic forms 5 and 6; we had something like 250 schools in Kenya that had developed excellent form 5 and 6 classes. It was a tragedy for the Kenyan educational system. Just crazy. Daniel Arap Moi was President and he didn’t really know what he was doing. In fact, the director of education was a very close friend of mine and, literally, I had lunch with him a day after the announcement was made by the ministry to change to the North American system.

The director of education told me he had told the president that we need at least a year to study the implications of this – the financial implications, the educational implications. But it was a political decision: the president just said no, we are going to do it. He never took any professional advice from the education commission or anybody. This was Moi rising to be a real dictator.

The financial implications turned out to be disastrous: the one year in university cost more than the two years in A-Level. We’re still trying to recover from it.

There are a number of people who pass through Netherhall and who attend SOAS. How was your time in SOAS and what did you take from Netherhall?

Having completed that year in SOAS in residence – attending all the weekly African history seminars and all the stuff you have to do – I came back to do fieldwork in Kenya. When I would go back to London to see my supervisor I would stay in Netherhall.

above: Teresian Sisters of Tanzania check the building plans at the site of the Nyakahoja Secondary School for girls I don’t think I can praise the system in Netherhall enough. Just Trust and at a certain point I became the Chairman of the Gov- extraordinary – even from the point of view of other Kenyans erning Council of Strathmore College, though I was teaching at I know who have gone there. You are moving into a commuthe University of Nairobi. So I kept a link with Strathmore at the nity which is very British in many ways but at the same time combined with the commonwealth ethos. One of my closest level of trusteeship and governance. friends – and that friendship came out of the one year I stayed Then we developed plans to begin university undergraduate in Netherhall – was Ben Thomas, who was from southern India courses in April 2001. So as soon as that plan was approved, and had come to do some medical studies. The interaction with and we had negotiated with the Commission of Higher Educa- the people from the different countries there is an experience, tion and got approval for it, I decided to leave the University of and is combined with a very British environment. So Netherhall Nairobi to come back to Strathmore, so to speak, to teach the has got its cricket team, it’s got its Peter Brown: it’s all very British and yet combined with this openness to other cultures and undergraduate students who were enrolling in April 2001. peoples.

I was now employed by Strathmore College. Beginning to teach degrees, I couldn’t be the chairman of the council of the institu- You really feel at home, right from the first moment. You appretion which employed me! So I resigned as chairman and came ciate that you’re accepted as a non-Brit but you’ve got a culture to work in Strathmore College in this campus. But it was a long that’s accepted, whether it’s Ghanaian, Kenyan, Indian, Hong process because it was a five year accreditation process, so we Kong, you name it. This, for me, is supporting the idea of the couldn’t change the name to Strathmore University until we got commonwealth as a reality. It’s not just the commonwealth the charter in 2006. But this is how I kept my link with Strath- games once a year, it’s a reality. There’s a common denominator more through the years, at different capacities and levels, finally there that binds the people. coming back to teach here.

Netherhall: let’s call it a microcosm of the world of the commonThis is a new campus. The land was given by the Kenyan govern- wealth, together with a social environment that makes you feel ment; the buildings funded with the help of a European Union very much at home. grant. You’ll understand it just like that, but try to explain the process to an American! ‘What is this Sixth Form thing?’ ‘Ac- Strathmore University is currently undergoing an enourmous ‘Phase 3’ expansion. In support the project, a 50th anniversary raffle is becreditation?’ ing held. To buy a ticket, please email the author at dominic.burbidge@politics.ox.ac.uk

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jazzing the place up João Bettencourt contemplates an alternative career path thanks to an inspiring guest speaker.

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n 21st March, something very important happened to Netherhall’s Guest Speaker series. The residents of Netherhall House are very much used to listening to a fantastic entourage of politicians, historians, economists, sociologists, anthropologists and a lot of other ‘ists’. Quite possibly (and knowing how most of the British university system works), we learn more from these talks than from our classes in college.

However, the talk I am referring to was, for me, a wonderful benchmark. On 21st March, Richard Wheatly, Chief Executive of the radio broadcaster Jazz FM, came to Netherhall. Not only is Mr. Wheatly a great speaker, full of creativity and wit, he is also a person of immensely rich experience in the world of jazz, radio and music broadcasting in general. Mr. Wheatley explained how his professional life had evolved since taking over the Jazz FM brand in the 1990s. He not only rescued it from a slow and painful death, but also transformed it into the big brand name it is today.

(l-r) peter brown, richard wheatly, João Bettencourt, antonio Mr. Wheatley’s account enlightened me, especially on the basics of how this very specific business works. Personally, I could hardly imagine that the survival and expansion of a jazz radio station is so dependent on effective marketing strategies such as public advertising, the use of the so called ‘smartphone apps’ as a crucial tool to expand audiences and, even, the conquering of the Chi-

nese market. If my career as a concert pianist goes to shambles, I will certainly remember this memorable evening when I try to set up my own classical music radio station.

João Bettencourt’s plans for his own classical music station are happily still on hold.

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citizenship, religion & secularism Is secularism the best way to achieve peaceful coexistence in modern democratic societies, ask Andrea Usai and Giovanni Zaccaroni

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enerally speaking, the word ‘secular’ denotes something which is detached from religion. According to political scientists and legal scholars secularism means the separation of powers between the Church and the State. To put it another way, secularism is considered to be a ‘neutral’ approach towards religion. But does secularism lead to real impartiality towards religious belief or rather, in practice, to hostility?

For instance, is the French State right to prevent Muslim women from wearing the veil in public places? Or is the State in general allowed to forbid the display of the crucifix or other Christian symbols in public spaces? An eagerness to raise and tackle questions like these brought Professor James Arthur, Head of the School of Education at Birmingham University, to Netherhall on 16th March.

It is quite wrong, Professor Arthur argued, to think of secularism as the ‘sacred cow’ of a truly neutral approach to the relationships between different cultures and religions. The different beliefs and traditions of people are not, he stressed, harmful to the State, and many fundamental aspects of our modern societies and cultures have religious roots.

As a case in point, Professor Arthur used the modern concept of citizenship which, he argued, owes a great deal to biblical and Christian traditions. For example, in the classic work City of God, St Augustine distinguishes between two separate kinds of citizenships: the divine one and the civic one. The former is linked to something supernatural, God’s action in human history, whilst the latter is linked to the role played by the individual in society.

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But these two ways of looking at citizenship are not separated.

From the religious commitment to love God comes the general commitment to love one’s neighbour. Moreover, quoting the religious scholar Brian Gates, Professor Arthur pointed out that ‘citizenship depends upon beliefs and values, and these are both religious and moral. Therefore, citizenship education which pays scant attention to the process and content of both moral and religious believing is likely to stumble, for therein lie the springs of active participation’. In other words, for many people it is their religious faith which motivates their civic action. Deny them the practice of their faith in public life and you will greatly impede their social engagement. The whole of society loses out.

What is now clear is that, at a time when national states seem to be losing their own identities because of the secularization process and the end of the ideologies which afflicted the twentieth century, religion can take a new role in promoting social cohesion.

That is to say, religion could play an even more important role than secular citizenship does.

Professor Arthur also challenged the notion that democracy requires a ‘neutral’, secularist approach to religion. The simple fact is that secularism is not neutral. Contemporary atheists often try to present themselves as the moderate middle point between different extremes. But in fact their position is an extreme itself, representing a rejection of faith at the opposite end of the scale from faith extremists. The real middle ground is the willingness to discuss and debate rationally – as believers or disbelievers. The fact that believers are often excluded from committees and panels on account of their belief while humanists (atheists) are included as ‘moderates’ is, said Professor Arthur, a gross injustice.

Contemplating the attempt to remove religion from the public sphere, one realizes that the ‘neutral approach’ which secularism is believed to represent is simply untrue. How can what is going on in Europe be considered a ‘neutral approach’ when religious symbols have to be removed from the ‘public wall’? This is not a ‘neutral’ approach, it is an aggressive one. What secularism is trying to do, in an underhand way, is to put forward a new ideology.

However, even if secularism is not a ‘fair’ approach as it leads to bias against religious beliefs and believers themselves, religion itself can sometimes, especially in the Islamic world, be a threat to a truly and sincerely ‘neutral’ approach. In theocratic systems like that of Iran it is religion which poses the principle threat to real neutrality.

Be that as it may, it seems quite easy to demonstrate that a secularist approach is not ‘the truth’ but just one of the many positions which can be held in the face of what is a real religious dilemma.

It could be argued that it is secularism which is aggressive and not neutral. On the other hand we must acknowledge that the aim of religion is not to compete with or take over the State but to bring positive values to the public sphere. The State and religious believers should be aware that they can learn a lot from each other.

Andrea Usai and Giovanni Zaccaroni are studying Masters in Law at King’s College London. Giovanni is a Netherhall resident and Andrea a frequent visitor.

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I

n 1812 Napoleon marched on Russia. This is a historical fact.

That it was Napoleon’s obsessive ambition that essentially led to his defeat is a fiction, originally created by Tolstoy in War and Peace, argued Professor Dominic Lieven, Head of the department of International History at LSE, in a compelling talk on 1st February.

Of course, Professor Lieven’s view brings many long-standing public opinions into contention. But his talk, an overview of his recent book Russia versus Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814, was firmly grounded in fact and a sound knowledge.

Professor Lieven approached the history of the conflict from two different perspectives, the ‘God’s eye view’ and the ‘worm’s eye view’, both of which are equally important and complementary.

Writing history from a ‘God’s eye view’ is perhaps the more popular and more frequently taken approach. It is essentially an overview which looks at the whole picture from an objective gaze taking into consideration all the major events of the conflict. The ‘worm’s eye view’, by contrast, entails a focus on the minute details, such as which calibre rifles each side used. In the perspective of minute detail, even the most obscure and pedantic statistic is a relevant fact. Professor Lieven explained that this is not a popular approach mostly because many historians find the data uncovered irrelevant in the great scheme of things and too dull to spend time discovering.

“The horse was the weapon of shock, pursuit, reconnaissance, transport and mobile firepower”

above: napoleon’s horse, marengo, now stuffed and enjoying early retirement in a french museum below: (l-r) philipp wirtz, aymeric mellet, peter brown, professor lieven, pablo hinojo

But it was this rummaging in the records from a ‘worm’s eye view’ that gave Professor Lieven an insight into the war that had been previously almost entirely overlooked. The hero of the war was not a man, but an animal. More accurately, the heroes were many animals. The real heroes, Lieven argued, were the horses. Napoleon’s loss of horses in 1812 was more significant than his loss of men. Napoleon could and did replace men during the conflicts of 1812 and 1813. But he could not replace his horses.

In a world without automobiles or aircraft, the horse was everything. The horse, Professor Lieven explained quoting from his book, was ‘the weapon of shock, pursuit, reconnaissance, transport and mobile firepower.’ The Russians were far more effective with their horse-breeding than the French. So when Napoleon had lost nearly all his cavalry by the Spring 1813 campaign and the Russians had not, Napoleon was essentially out-horsed. This was one of the decisive factors of his declaration of a two month summer armistice, which was a major factor in his ultimate defeat.

But it was not all guns and horses. Intelligence was also key. Professor Lieven argued that ‘one key reason why Russia defeated Napoleon was that its leaders out-thought him.’ Napoleon failed to understand Russian society to the same extent that Alexander understood the French. Alexander I and his Field Marshall Barclay de Tolly were fully expecting Napoleon to march on Moscow.

They knew this not only because they had studied their enemy from afar but also because they had studied him from within his own organisation. The Russian intelligence network was highly sophisticated and the French were lax with security. Professor Lieven explained that there were not only spies but also many Frenchmen within Napoleon’s army who were willing to give information to Russia. When Russia had this information it was

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easy to decipher as the French worked entirely in the French language. This may seem obvious, but the Russian Generals communicated in many different languages, even, in one case, in Latvian.

Alexander also knew how to present the war to his people. First, the Russian soldiers were close-knit and largely isolated from civilian society, which gave them an astounding loyalty to one another. Yet, second, the Tsar presented the conflict as, in Lieven’s words, a ‘people’s war’.

In fact, it is this image that has lived on and has been most damaging to an accurate portrayal of the truth of Russia’s conflict with Napoleon. Lieven explained that the Communist governments of more recent Russian history were keen to promote, as Leo Tolstoy had, the image of a ‘people’s war’. They, for obvious political reasons, were not keen to promote the brilliance of the Tsarist campaigns of 1812-1814, which led to a substantial Russian victory.

This point was perhaps the most harrowing of all: how history, in the public eye at least, can be shaped to such a great extent by the ideologies of ruling forces.

Simon Jared is in his final year of English with Film Studies at King’s College London

russia vs. napoleon simon jared is illuminated by a revisionist history of Napoleon’s march on Russia

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south sudan: post-independence simon jared learns of the challenges, threats and hopes involved in becoming a new nation

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udan is a country with 571 different ethnic groups many of which have different languages. It is often depicted as an Arabic country but this is inaccurate as 90% of the population are Sudanese African and only 10% are Arabic. Roughly 60% of the estimated 44 million population is Muslim (but these statistics are contentious). The rest are largely Christian or follow indigenous traditions. As Major General Malual Ayom Dor, Director of Military Production of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), explained to Netherhall residents on Thursday 17th March, Sudan is a country of divisions.

There is one major division, however, and that is between the North and South. Southern Sudan is mostly Christian, Northern Sudan mostly Muslim. Sudan gained independence from the British in 1956 and since then has spent a total of 39 years in civil war. This is mostly due to tensions between the North and South, the latter fighting for its independence. But in 2005 the last conflict (which had lasted 23 years) ended. In 2005 negotiations took place between the warring sides. They reached a comprehensive peace agreement promising that in 2011 Southern Sudan could have a referendum for independence (see ‘Sudan on the Brink of

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War’, Netherhall News December 2010). This took place in January of this year with a resounding 98.83% of the population of Southern Sudan voting for independence.

So on 9th July this year the country will become two nations, The Republic of Sudan and Southern Sudan. Although there are many reasons for the civil war, Major General Malual Ayom Dor explained that the overriding reason was that the Muslim majority wanted to impose Sharia law on the whole country. This was of course resisted by the non-Muslim populations. Obviously in a nation that has spent so many years in its recent history at war there will be difficulties.

First, there is almost no infrastructure: for example, there are no tarmac roads and few schools. Second, there is a problem with ‘demobilisation’: the country has a population of around 10 million and an army of 150,000 people. The new nation’s leaders are trying to reduce this but there is no alternative employment yet.

There is a lot of uncertainty about the future for Southern Sudan but they do have reasons to hope.

hard cases man chan siu has a supreme lesson in law-making

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above: Lord Collins (red tie) in netherhall

ow do judges make their decisions, particularly in hard cases where the law is unsettled and has no precedent? This was one of the fascinating issues which a Supreme Court judge discussed in a question and answer session at Netherhall in early February. Lord Collins, who was one of the first judges to be appointed to the new Supreme Court, fielded a whole series of questions about the English legal system, the European Court of Justice and a landmark ruling by the international court.

Lord Collins was especially stimulating in his response to my question on how judges come to a decision. In particular, in the event of ‘hard cases’, where and how do judges find justification for their judgment? English law, as Lord Collins explained, operates the system of common law. This means that it is developed by judges through decisions of the courts along with statutes legislated by Parliament.

Decisions of similar facts are treated alike. Decisions made by a higher court bind the lower courts. Hence, it is a system of precedents.

Questions arise as to what happens when there is no legal precedent in place for there is always the possibility of a vacuum in precedents when novel cases occur. (For instance, there are not yet any legal mechanisms or precedents on cyber warfare.) In dealing with the question, Lord Collins drew attention to the three following points: First, the judge must be aware of his or her duty to seek justice. ‘The problem,’ Lord Collins said, ‘is that there is no legal precedent to follow upon…. It is therefore the duty of every judge to ensure the outcome of every [hard] case is just.’

This comes as no surprise. For we find his Lordship’s thinking is embedded in a number of judgments throughout English case law.

In particular, Lord Browne-Wilkinson in X v Bedfordshire CC deHope can be found in the abundance of natural resources the clared that ‘remedying the wrongs… [has the] first claim on the country has. It produces about a million barrels of oil a day. But loyalty of law’. this has its own political issues: the oilfields are all in the borderlands with the North. In order to stop any conflict, they have Second, although there may be an absence of rules, judges should prematurely agreed to rent the drilling infrastructure from the study the entire legal corpus to see which general principles it North, whilst retaining the oil produced. There are NGOs help- reflects or what rights it supports. ing to solve the ‘veteran problem’ supplying aid to the tens of thousands of civil war veterans who dwell throughout the coun- A general principle concerning criminal law illustrates Lord Coltry. lins’ point. The primary goal of criminal law is not only to punish wrongdoers, but also to protect society as a whole. And hence Although Southern Sudan does receive aid it is not well managed. where a hard case arises in the area of criminal law, judges should International aid largely comes in the form of consultancy but make their judgments in the light of these two principles.

Major General Malual Ayom Dor explained that they are receiving a lot of different information from many different countries. Third, judges may sometimes find the answer to hard cases not in The country is also trying to encourage the international com- a particular decision of a court but rather in a sense of approprimunity to invest instead of simply giving charitable donations as ateness in society. this would be of far greater help to a nation so underdeveloped.

An example that reflects Lord Collins’ point can be found in the Southern Sudan has the natural resources. Besides oil it also has case of R v R. In R v R, the House of Lords acknowledged that our fertile farmlands. One of the greatest prospects for the future, society has changed its views on women’s rights and has rejected however, appears to be its relationship with China. The Major the traditional view that a husband cannot rape a wife.

General explained that China is a more attractive international partner than Western powers because it has the capacity for very We should not assume, though, that Lord Collins’ approach to rapid production. In ordering arms, for example, China can guar- hard cases always provides a neat solution in every situation preantee delivery almost immediately whereas a country like the UK cisely because hard cases concern facts which are outside the scope can take months or even years. They are already using Chinese of current law. The best we can do is to accommodate hard cases technology for oil abstraction and soon it is likely that China will by providing a general framework according to which judges can give more aid to a country with great geopolitical potential. navigate. For this reason, the struggle to deliver justice in hard cases will be an ongoing challenge.

Simon Jared is in his final year of English with Film Studies at King’s Man Chun Siu is on the one year Legal Practice Course at the College College London of Law, in London

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cine-file

The latest Inarritu film, Biutiful, is just that, writes Andrei Serban

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lejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is known for his unique style of filmmaking. Beyond the complex hyperlink structures he brought us in Amores Perros, 21 Grams and culminating with Babel, the Mexican director’s films are realistic in their representation of interacting human relations in an interconnected world, where one’s actions and experience can easily have a profound effect on others in a separate corner of the world. Many directors have tried reproducing this after Babel, including Clint Eastwood in his latest film, Hereafter. But as much as I appreciate Eastwood as both filmmaker and actor, I fail to see any other director with the motivation, passion and humanity Inarritu invests in all his films. David Lynch once said that a good director makes movies not only with his mind but also with his heart. This is so evident in Inarritu’s film that the viewer has no choice but to identify with the characters and completely forget for the whole duration of his films that the unfolding story is fiction.

Biutiful, his latest film starring Academy Award winner Javier Bardem, differs from the Mexican director’s trademark hyperlink structure and the ensemble cast focussed narrative he usually makes use of. This film is actually centred on one character, Bardem’s tormented individual, who is an underground businessman and troubled father. He tries to ensure a good future for his children, reunite with his old love and make right all the flawed decisions he has taken in his career, all as his own death draws near. While so many mainstream films treat their characters like walking plot conveniences who just drive the narrative forward and delight an audience which could not care less about their fate, Biutiful is centred on its characters exclusively, with the spectacle, narrative, message and style relying on them and not the other way around.

One might have imagined that such a clichéd story could never be enough to keep anyone interested in a two and a half hour film, but that is wrong! You do not go to this film for the story or for a good show, or just for a plot unfolding before your eyes while you remain passive and distant from what’s happening onscreen. This is something that needs to be lived and experienced.

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However, if one were to rationalize it, the film does have deeper symbolism and meanings than other previous Inarritu films.

Firstly, the symbol of the owl is important. Apart from acknowledging the clear references to Goya’s ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’ (below left), one must pay attention to how this materializes in the outcome at the end. Keeping in mind the symbol of the owl, and of birds (strong emphasis on the word bird and its associations of flying) you will be pleasantly surprised in the end.

This of course connected to another significant symbol – fish.

This has an astrological significance in the film, making references throughout the entire plot to the current so-called Age of Pisces, but all evoked at the level of human relations and inner suffering, detached from any mystical, religious or metaphysical interpretation. Notice how and when fish are shown in the contexts in which they usually come up in normal conversations. Look for representations of fish and, again, you will be pleasantly surprised and intellectually satisfied in the end.

“This is about the real everyday people of the city, with their struggles, pain and challenges, for whom everything is just biutiful, with all the notions and feelings this word conveys”

Lastly, why is the title misspelled? Why Biutiful and why beauty in general since the films deals with themes of suffering, death and loss? This is evident in the interviews Inarritu gave at the London Film Festivals, briefly explaining the significance of the misspelling. It’s worth pointing out that this film tries to present another side of Barcelona. A true, undistorted representation of Barcelona, beyond the Sagrada Familia, picture-perfect touristorientated idyllic visions of it found in so many other mainstream films set in Barcelona. If you are expecting a cinematic experience similar to Vicky Christina Barcelona or a tourist gaze most mainstream viewers are so used to, then you will be greatly disappointed. This is not a propaganda film just made to attract more tourists. This is about the real everyday people of the city, with their struggles, pain and challenges, for whom everything is just biutiful, with all the notions and feelings this word conveys, as well as its falsity and hypocrisy, trying to point out feelings of happiness not associated with it otherwise.

If these reasons did not convince you to give Biutiful a chance, then it’s also worth mentioning that it made cinematic history by becoming the first Spanish-language film produced without any support from the Hollywood studio system and without any American intervention to receive an Oscar nomination for best actor in a leading role. Nominated for best foreign language film, it has been labelled as a Mexican film, although the only thing Mexican in both the diegesis (which means the actual onscreen content and fictional setting of the film) and the process of production is Inarritu himself, everything and everyone else being Spanish. This film cannot be pigeon-holed by country, genre, style or time of production. It is simply an Inarritu film, with a brilliant Bardem in its leading role giving the best performance of his career so far. It’s not hyperlink, it does not present a complex story structure, it is not a Babel or even a Pulp Fiction. It is simply Biutiful.

Andrei Serban, from Romania, is a second year student of film studies at King’s College. This is his first year in Netherhall.

become a contributor...

if you’ve got an idea for an article, we’d love to hear from you! It could be a comment piece on a current affairs topic, or a suggestion for a regular, themed column (like andrei’s film reviews) on sport, music, politics, philosophy, economics, history etc. get your thinking caps on, and then get in touch: lwlukewilkinson@gmail.com netherhall news 39

desert island discs

james osborn relates curious facts about netherhall residents gleaned from sunday evening interviews Desert Island Discs continues to entertain the House every Sunday evening. Based on the well-known BBC Radio 4 show, residents are interviewed about their lives and also asked to select three pieces of music to play. Finally, the interviewee has the choice of a book along with the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Arnold Samson-Mwanjali was interviewed by Vincent Karyadinata. Aged 17, Arnold is the youngest resident of the House. He studies electronic engineering at the University of Westminster. Arnold revealed that he likes ‘challenges’ and that his biggest challenge is leaving Netherhall library! His music choices included ‘Torture’ by the Jacksons and a Paul Simon track. In an unusual feature of Desert Island Discs, Arnold also showed us footage of him doing some Wushu martial arts training, which surprised and amused all the residents present.

an interview with vincent karyadinata is not something for the faint-hearted blue green yellow red! juan sosa rocks out guitar hero style

Juan Sosa was interrogated by Raffy Rodriguez. He is originally from El Salvador, and had a connection to Netherhall prior to moving in as his father had lived here too. Although he enjoys living in England, he is not a fan of the fickle English weather. He is, however, a fan of the guitar, and was inspired to play the guitar by the Guitar Hero video game. It followed quite naturally from this that his choice of luxury item on the desert island would be a guitar. When asked to pick two of his heroes, in good Real Madrid tradition, Juan picked Raul and Zinedine Zidane.

There then followed one of the stand-out interviews of Desert Island Discs this year. The ‘soul of Seoul’, Travis Kim, was questioned by Vincent Karyadinata.

Travis revealed that he likes watches, and that he regards a city with a population of under a million people as being ‘too small’ – not surprising perhaps given that he is one of the over ten million people who come from Seoul. The interview was a riot of laughter and spontaneous applause, and surely a second interview with Travis should be commissioned!

daniel olabarri, also known as ‘the doc’, has a penchant for time-travel... perfect for match-fixing! the soul of seoul!

Daniel Olabarri is another Real Madrid fan who was grilled by Juan Pablo Luna.

Daniel was born in Pamplona but lives in Madrid as one of 11 siblings. When asked which event in history he would like to explore with the use of a time machine, Daniel chose the discovery of America by Columbus. He studies law and business and is completing a year’s study in England. His choice of book for the desert island was a crime novel, and his luxury item would be a photograph of his family.

ricard got more than he bargained for when he asked what anaesthesia was

In a much calmer interview, Marc Vives was cross-examined by Ricard Rovirosa.

Mark is from a town near Barcelona and is a medic specialising in anaesthetics.

He studied at the University of Navarre and is doing a specialist qualification in London. In opposition to Daniel and Juan, Mark supports Barcelona.

Raffy Rodriguez also probed Joseph Arizpe. Joseph is originally from San Antonio, Texas but moved to Dallas when he was but two years old and can still remember moving. He went to college in the ‘zombie capital of the world’, Pittsburgh. He is completing a neuroscience PhD, which may or may not be of use in a zombie apocalypse, and his luxury item for the desert island would be a water filter.

James Osborn is in his second year studying Theology at King’s College London. He is currently applying for his Netherhall green card and indefinite leave to remain.Yikes!

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you won’t find joseph arixpe dead without his zombie water filter: essential for life on a desert island!