netherhall news may 2010
substance over style deciding who should govern
breaking taboos: religion & sexuality
contents in this issue 8 10 14 16 20 22
two great taboos s religion & sexuality catholic in the middle east s mass in dubai the mob should lay off s papal innocence next stop cambodia! s summer work camp 2010 totally open and honest s banking on the future mo ibrahim s the index of african governance
regular 3 editorial 6 director’s notes
Cover page: zubin mistry sifts through the hype to unearth the real substance of what politicians are saying (editorial page 3)
CONTENT EDITOR Zubin Mistry MANAGING EDITOR, DESIGN & SETTING Luke Wilkinson CONTRIBUTIONS AND ADVICE Peter Brown, Fr Joe Evans, Kevin Gouder, Simon Jared, Alvaro Tintore, Reuven Proenca, Jack Valero, Dominic Burbidge, Chima Okezue PHOTOGRAPHY Raffy Rodriguez, Fr Hennan 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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editorial zubin mistry looks beyond the headlines
O
ne of the great merits of the age of information overload is ridiculous headlines. There are numerous categories and a provisional inventory includes the following: The Priceless (‘County to pay $250,000 dollars to advertise lack of funds’) The Medium-Rare (‘Students Cook and Serve Grandparents’) The Beckettian (‘Ex-Minister Breaks Silence, Says Nothing’) The Timely (‘Utah Poison Control Center reminds everyone not to take poison’) The Social Scientific (‘Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after age 25’) The Miraculous (‘One-armed man applauds the kindness of strangers’) The Back-Pager (‘Shot Off Woman’s Leg Helps Nicklaus to 66’) And, of course, The is-the-Pope-and-do-bears-really (‘Federal Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons’)
We will come to a very peculiar sort, the Prime Minister’s Wife has Toes-and-Feet category, below. Back last year the Daily Mail ran a particularly ridiculous one. Now jibes against the Daily Mail are a customary piety for many people my age and I confess that I tend to be fairly dutiful in my observances. The piety becomes tedious, of course, when every other comedian on television makes similar professions of faith but the ensuing tedium ought not to distract from the fact that there is much to jibe about beyond the well-known though not entirely far-fetched stereotype, as the relevant chapter in journalist Nick Davies’ disquieting critique of modern media practices, Flat Earth News, demonstrates. We all know to be wary about what we read in the papers. Davies explains why we really ought to be wary and why things might be even worse than our habit of paying lip-service to ‘bias’ can permit us to see. Back to the headline. The headline in question was not, admittedly, as immediately wonderful as the others quoted above nor was it about the most urgent issue facing contemporary society. I’m afraid that those eagerly anticipating a tirade about Daily Mail hysteria on this or that – or, indeed, those relishing indignation at my regurgitation of the stereotype – will be disappointed. Sadly, the headline in question was about, well, football. But it was singularly, spectacularly short-sighted. Accompanied by a photograph of top players at the World Player of the Year event (and it’s curious how a single photograph can confirm everything you already knew about Lionel Messi’s endearing meekness and Cristiano Ronaldo’s not equally endearing sleekness), the headline ran: The best players of the world (and Xavi): Ronaldo crowned king of football
‘The most papabile cardinals of the world (and Joseph Ratzinger)’, or, ‘The most bespectacled peace-lovers of the world (and Gandhi)’, or, ‘The most charming jazz trumpeters of the world (and Louis Armstrong)’, or, ‘The most belaboured points in the world (and this one)’.
http://pgzero.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/louis-armstrong.jpg
“(and Xavi)”. These two words, this parenthetic slip just cannot be bettered. It’s as if the brackets fully insulate this clanger from satire. For those of you who aren’t all that into football, let me translate that. Comparable equivalents from years gone by might have been,
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Xavi has been called a genius, a kind of football legislator who lays down the law on the pitch, a conductor (as in the musical variety, while electrical would probably work too and bus probably wouldn’t). This might sound a little bit silly to anyone who’s not interested in football or even to anyone who is. But within the ludicrous, inflated world of the game, to anyone whose understanding of the game absorbs some rudimentary understanding of football being a supremely tactical teamgame (which is another way of saying someone who doesn’t drool over the undeniably gifted but consummately individualistic Ronaldo in a way that would make Pavlov’s dogs look like showpiece Pomeranians) Xavi is a master at his craft and it’s a mark of his mastery that he is relatively inconspicuous. He controls the game in a magnificently unshowy way. In the past month or two, I’ve had the privilege of watching my team humbled by a Barcelona team epitomised by Xavi and Messi, and I’d never appreciated humiliation so much before. Xavi completed more passes than the entire Arsenal team put together. That sounds like the kind of made-up factoid which circulates in the run-up to elections, but in this case it’s true. When it comes to football substance rather than style, you don’t get much more substantial than Xavi. Which, seamlessly and with great subtlety, brings us onto elections. In the 2009 World Player of the Year voting (fellow professionals are the enfranchised – or you and me are disenfranchised), Ronaldo was the winner and Xavi came fifth, and therein lies a lesson for the politically semi-literate like me. When it comes to politics, we rely on the equivalent of the endless stream of YouTube videos focussing on an inconsequential sequence of fourteen stepovers on the halfway line or, equally distortedly, on one moment of petulance. Likewise, for a lot of people who are more politically apathetic than they’d like to be, the election campaign becomes dangerously associated with such trifles as Gordon Brown’s recent gaffe or his wife’s toes than it does with more substantial questions. Brown’s gaffe, if you’re one of the few who’s not heard about it, consisted of having his words caught on a mike as he was whisked away from a meeting with potential voters in Rochdale. After speaking to one woman, he got into his car and was heard calling her a ‘bigoted woman’ and complaining that his aides had arranged the meeting, unaware that ubiquitous Sky microphones would pick up on it. A huge and, perhaps rightly, damaging gaffe. Yet, I’d wager that it’s exactly the sort of sentiment that every on-the-road politician has expressed at some point or other. It’s weirdly humanising precisely because it’s petty and slightly unpleasant. But the gaffe soon become a manufactured news event, with a frightening amount
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above: an example of when editors overlook glaring mistakes... (thankfully not an affliction netherhall news is prone to) below: as the election looms, the leaders of the three main parties go to great lengths to win our votes in what can seem like little more than a glorified popularity contest
“Cutting through all this nonsense (and the muchvaunted television debates can both help and hinder) is imperative for those suffering from election malaise, especially if we’re to parry charges of civic irresponsibility from our more politically motivated peers”
of legroom for those ‘You Decide’ segments which are the bane of modern news. In all of this frenzy, important questions (in this case, on immigration) get treated through an unedifying spectacle which is not entirely Brown’s fault. And in another election sideshow, Brown’s wife was altogether faultless. I used to think that contemporary leaders’ wives are thankfully not subject to the kind of scrutiny and defamation their historical counterparts have been. The wife of the late Roman emperor Justinian was the subject of all sorts of rumours far too unseemly to repeat here. But their unseemliness notwithstanding, they weren’t frivolously scattered across the internet in the way that the shocking news of Sarah Brown’s toes – toes misshapen, one imagines, from being forced into the ridiculous footwear etiquette demands of women in her milieu – was. What is true of Brown is also true of Cameron and Clegg. Cutting through all this nonsense – and the much-vaunted television debates can both help and hinder – is imperative for those suffering from election malaise, especially if we’re to parry charges of civic irresponsibility from our more politically motivated peers. It’s especially important given the relative shrinkage in the political spectrum I half-remember as a child. Where we once used to have a relatively clear choice between left and right, we now have a somewhat narrower band. If you’re like me, you’ve got but a week or so to find out what the three major parties plan to do about the matters dear to your heart, whether the state of immigration or toes. In keeping with the ludicrous discourse of politics in which we all indulge, it’s going to take a football analogy for me to offer my advice: forget Ronaldo and go for Xavi.
Xavi votes for substance over style in action for Barcelona
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director’ s notes peter brown notes important dates for T
two former residents
wo dates, one just gone and one about to arrive, bring to mind two special former residents.
On Friday 9th April Chris Griffiths (09-2001) married Leticia Vilarrubias in Barcelona, Spain. A good number of former residents were in attendance and I would like to add my congratulations. It’s the conclusion of a chapter in a wonderful story. Chris was a rather special resident. He came to Netherhall in September 1999 aged 21, guitar in hand, to do a Masters degree in the History of Architecture at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He played Rosencrantz in that year’s Netherhall play Rosencrantz and Gildernstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. After completing his Masters, Chris was invited to work part- time at the Courtauld with John Newman, who was working on the Penguin update of Nikolaus Pevsner’s architectural guide to Chris’s native Shropshire. At the same time Chris became the bursar of Netherhall and those of us working in the neighbouring offices were introduced to all manner of music as he worked away in the bursar’s office. In mid 2001 Chris began complaining of stomach problems and feeling tired. He started experimenting to see if a change of diet would alleviate the problem but eventually the discomfort was such that he went to see his GP who in turn sent him for tests at the Royal Free Hospital. The test results showed that Chris had acute leukaemia. What followed were 9 or 10 months of intensive treatment when, at times, Chris’s life really did hang in the balance. As is usual in these cases the treatment caused Chris to lose all his hair but being stuck in a hospital for weeks on end also caused him to lose his appetite. The response from the staff at Lakefield to the latter problem was magnificent. Each evening they would prepare two special dinners and pack them in a box to be taken to Chris in hospital. Different residents would take the box and (wearing the white plastic apron and gloves to prevent spread of infection) have dinner with him. When he was neutropenic and particularly susceptible to infection, Chris’s father, a former army officer, would oversee the operation in military fashion. Throughout the whole episode, however, what struck all of us most was the tremendous faith which Chris demonstrated in the face of this crisis in his life. He was a wonderful example of how to accept serious illness as a Cross whilst at the same time doing all he could to overcome it. He prayed not just for his own recovery but also for the recovery of other leukaemia patients in the neighbouring wards. He got to know pretty well every health worker that went near him: consultants and cleaners alike. His faith in such adverse circumstances inspired all of us. Even his non-Christian consultant said that what brought him through was his faith, his family, his friends- and his guitar! http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00166/TTM145201CC385_166407a.jpg
below: John henry
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right: Chris and Leticia Griffiths on their wedding day in early april
“John’s life was one of constant self giving, professional excellence and enormous fun”
Chris emerged from the ordeal and is now the Principal Conservation Officer (Buildings at Risk) at Liverpool City Council. We all wish him and Leticia many years of happy married life. The 8th May 2010, is the third anniversary of the death of John Henry (director of Netherhall 1968-70). “Chief ” as we called him, was a remarkable man who, I’m quite sure, is already in Heaven. Something of his life can be found in any of the obituaries that were carried in each of the national daily papers (click here for an example). John is particularly special to those of us in Opus Dei in the UK because he was the first numerary layman of Opus Dei in this land to die. One frequently gets asked “so what does a numerary do?”. Since 2007 a shorthand answer I’ve often used has been “take a look at the life of this man ”. John’s life was one of constant self giving, professional excellence and enormous fun. He became a numerary aged 20 as a medical student at Kings College. When he died in 2007 St Thomas More Church was packed with hundreds of people whose lives he had touched living out his vocation to the full.
‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit’ John 12:24
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two great taboos dominic burbidge on doing god in britain and freedom of conscience on homosexuality
C
ontroversy abounds over Catholic and Muslim teaching on the question of homosexuality. It is at the same time both a pertinent and difficult topic, and I have never left a discussion on it amongst fellow students without feeling somewhat misunderstood (and with the strong suspicion that I’ve just lost at least 30 minutes of thesis writing time). But if we cannot discuss these topics openly, what has become of reasonable and free debate? This article does not attempt to give an argument as to why the Catholic and Muslim position on homosexuality is the correct one. Rather, it is to identify an area of controversy in British public opinion, and to make suggestions regarding the way speech on this topic is conducted. Democracy is as much about communication as it is about constitutions, and it is important that different opinions in the UK find a way of dialoguing differences with a spirit of respect and hospitality. Amongst believers and critics alike there is this peculiar conundrum: how can anyone committed to upholding a set of particular beliefs claim to show respect for all other beliefs? This is the question I would like to take up. It is commonly held that Catholics believe homosexuality is a sin. Somewhat surprisingly, this is not true. Homosexual sex is a sin, not ‘being homosexual’. This is the same in Islam, where homosexual sex is what is condemned. In Catholic teaching, it is the beauty of marriage – based on the complementarity between man and woman, their lifelong commitment and their openness to new life, which makes any alternative look poor. Furthermore, the commonly held view of sin is riddled with misunderstandings, captured, I think, by the phrases ‘naughty’ and ‘no-no’. ‘Naughty’ has itself taken on two meanings: first, it may be simple disobedience, as in ‘this child is naughty’; and, second, it may refer to sexual promiscuity, as in ‘he wants a naughty nightout’. The Freudian view of everyone needing to express themselves sexually whenever they feel the urge has made labelling something a ‘sin’ look like a nineteenth-century straightjacket.
Homosexual practices are stated to be sinful
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Homosexuals feel victimised
In contemporary Britain, ‘no-nos’ of disobedience include eating fatty foods, too much salt, anti-social behaviour and refusing to recycle. When it’s not seen as ‘naughty’, sin is placed in this category. Sin is a ‘no-no’, bad enough to deserve stigmatization, shame and (ineffectual) government attempts to reduce it but not much more. (This is perhaps why the labelling of homosexual acts as sinful leads to public shock.) But this is not sin. It is both a far more complex and a far more simple thing. An essentially theological notion, sin is an offence against God. So, for the statement ‘this thing is a sin’ to have any meaning at all, the most important thing is that one knows who God is. Offending God is a non-statement if one does not believe in God. Just as trying to stop someone eating fatty foods by saying that it offends the doorway does not work if the doorway has no feelings (which it doesn’t), so saying something is a sin means nothing to the atheist or agnostic. Thus sin is a theologically nuanced point of view. This being the case, can calling something a sin be tolerated? Stonewall, the UK’s leading homosexual advocacy group, defines ‘homophobia’ in its website as ‘the irrational hatred, intolerance, and fear of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people.’ Homophobia is the term commonly deployed to refer to intolerable opposition to homosexuality. In the same article, Stonewall explain its roots: The word homophobia was constructed by the heterosexual psychologist George Weinberg in the late 1960s. He used homophobia to label heterosexuals’ dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals as well as homosexuals’ internalised oppression. The word first appeared in print in 1969. Stonewall’s definition of homophobia limits itself to ‘irrational hatred’. Does this mean that rational hatred based on sexual orientation is respectable? More likely, the definition seems to imply that all homophobia is irrational; homosexuality, it claims,
Popularising of the term ‘homophobia’
It becomes acceptable to call Catholics and Muslims intolerant
http://thejournalistachronicle.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/homophobia-739571.jpg
“The Freudian view of everyone needing to express themselves sexually whenever they feel the urge has made labelling something a ‘sin’ look like a nineteenth-century straightjacket”
is a fact just as any physical difference is, so discrimination on grounds of sexuality is implicitly irrational. The diagram (bottom left) describes the dynamic at play. There is no easy solution to problems of misunderstanding. Indeed, all human conflict can to a large degree be blamed on a lack of communication. But a large part of the question of how a group’s thought interacts with another group’s thought rests on the level of respect for ‘non-governmental agreements’ (what I’d call ‘NGAs’), that is, manners of listening and patience that cannot be enforced by law. The words of John Fletcher Moulton, writing in 1924, beautifully sum up the point: To my mind the real greatness of a nation, its true civilisation, is measured by the extent of this land of obedience to the unenforceable. It measures the extent to which the nation trusts its citizens, and its existence and area testify to the way they behave in response to that trust. Mere obedience to Law does not measure the greatness of a nation. It can easily be obtained by a strong executive, and most easily of all from a timorous people. Nor is the license of behaviour which so often accompanies the absence of Law, and which is miscalled Liberty, a proof of greatness. The true test is the extent to which individuals composing the nation can be trusted to obey self-imposed law. Behind the Hobbesian war between licentious wolves and authoritarian states there lays a Lockeian assertion, ‘[t]hat All Men
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by Nature Are Equall’. Such basic equality makes itself apparent, primarily, when persons ‘recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another’, as Hegel claimed. In a popular book on manners in Britain, Lynne Truss captures the role played by NGAs adeptly by saying: ‘Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.’ Funnily enough, it is this same reciprocal recognition that lies at the heart of everyone who successfully convinces another of something. But this of course depends on what we mean by ‘convince’. To convince another does not mean to brainwash. Rather, it is a successful appeal to the other person’s rational capacity. When one person convinces another, a very strange thing happens: both people, in a sense, change their mind. The thoughts of both have had their applicability extended to the circumstances of the other person, such that the agreed principle or fact can no longer be said to be purely subjective. To the question, ‘how can anyone committed to upholding a set of particular beliefs claim to show respect for all other beliefs?’, the answer lies not in changing beliefs such that they accord with the liberal ‘norm’. Rather, the answer lies in a commitment to the reasonableness of every human person. All too often democratic discourse has involved the strict adherence to a particular liberal outlook, lest persons of committed illiberal opinion use the democratic platform to attract others to their cause. But such a view perilously rationalises away belief in the free-thinking and reasonable nature of every human person. As Michael Sandel recently claimed, in an article in the Guardian on citizen ethics: [W]e need a more robust and engaged civic life. In recent decades, we’ve come to assume that respecting our fellow citizens’ moral convictions means ignoring them, or conducting our public life without reference to them. But this stance of avoidance can make for a spurious respect. Often, it means suppressing moral disagreement rather than actually avoiding it. This can provoke backlash and resentment[...]Rather than avoid the various convictions that our fellow citizens bring to public life, we should attend to them more directly—sometimes by challenging and contesting them, sometimes by listening to and learning from them. There is no guarantee that public deliberation about hard moral questions will lead to agreement—or even to appreciation for the moral and religious views of others. It’s always possible that learning more will lead us to like them less. But we cannot know until we try. The origin of the word ‘religion’ is very much a matter of dispute, but it is interesting to note that Cicero derived the word from the Latin relegere (to treat carefully); he wrote in his de Natura deorum, ‘Those who carefully took in hand all things pertaining to the gods were called religiosi, from relegere.’ There should be room to do God in Britain, carefully but unashamedly. Contentious issues will never go away, and democracy recognises this. But we can change our minds on the reasonableness of faith. Former resident Dominic Burbidge (2005 - 2006) is an MPhil student in Comparative Government at St Antony’s College, Oxford.
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a catholic in t
reuven proenca on living as a c
the middle east
christian in dubai
O
n most Sunday evenings, I leave work and, like many other Catholics living in Dubai, head to Church. Standing at Mass and looking around at my fellow churchgoers I’m always struck by the sheer diversity. The congregation is truly universal, truly Catholic. In Dubai, where social classes rarely mix, it’s always heartening to see dozens of different nationalities from different walks of life congregating in worship and greeting each other during the Rite of Peace. Just before I moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in May 2008, one of the biggest concerns I had was about being able to practice my faith in my new home. Having grown up in Saudi Arabia where Catholics and other Christian denominations secretly attended mass and prayer meetings in homes and school gymnasiums, I thought I had reason to worry. When I got to Dubai, however, it was apparent that those fears were unfounded and that some countries in the Middle East have a unique approach to religious tolerance that has elements even the West can learn from. The UAE is an excellent example of this and is home to six Catholic churches, all of which operate under the protection of the country’s government. The country has a history of religious harmony and all the churches are built on land donated by rulers or Sheikhs of the individual emirates or states that make up the seven-state federation. Interestingly, many of the Sheikhs or their representatives even inaugurated the churches and the Church’s gratitude is often reflected in prayer during the Prayers of the Faithful. There are several thousand Catholics in Dubai and it’s always easy to spot them when driving through the city. They’re the ones with the Rosaries hanging from their cars’ rear view mirrors! Being Catholic isn’t very difficult in Dubai and is at times easier than it was in the UK. For example, television channels and the internet are filtered to ensure that content is in keeping with the country’s religious and cultural values. Abortion is a criminal offence and public displays of affection and drunkenness are both frowned upon by the law, which is based on Islamic Sharia principles. What’s more is that secularism hasn’t taken root in the Middle East and is unlikely to in the foreseeable future. Religion is still central to people’s lives, which is only fitting considering the region is the birthplace of all three of the world’s great monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. While politics and extremism have drawn the three apart they still have much in common. In fact, the similarities between Islamic and Christian values often make me wonder why the two religions don’t have stronger ties. I’ve also come to realise that many in the Arab world confuse Western ‘values’ for Christian ones. As a result, there are people who sadly believe that sexual promiscuity and drunkenness are inherently Christian traits. However, I’ve met a few Muslims who are very appreciative of Christians who go to church regularly and fast during Lent. Living in an environment where religiosity is more the rule than the exception, means that a Catholic is also far less likely to get the ‘oh-so-you’re-another-one-of-those-homophobic-anti-abortionright-wingers’ look when telling an acquaintance that he or she is heading to mass or is fasting for Lent. When I first moved here, a colleague of mine would actually accompany me to Church, something that would have been completely unheard of when I was living in London. Of course, there’s a flip side to it all. Conversions to religions other than Islam are banned by law. While not ideal, it is a small price to pay for being able to practice our faith. (continues overleaf )
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“The U.A.E. is home to six Catholic churches and h of religious harmony. all the churches are built on donated by rulers or Sheikhs of the individual em states that make up the seven-state federation”
The Catholic Church in th
The UAE is home to the Vicariate Ap rain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Un Yemen, an area of over 1.2 million squ in all these countries with the excepti practice of non-Islamic religions is for
The current superior of the vicariate i OFM Cap. It was established in 188 and changed to its present name in 18 Aden until 1973, when it was transfe Dhabi. Since 1916 it has been in the
Formerly part of the Vicariate Aposto tolic of Arabia was formed as a prefec 1875. It was made into a vicariate A Leo XIII as the Vicariate Apostolic of of June, 1889 the name was changed
St. Joseph’s church in Abu Dhabi, the Apostolic Vicariate of Arabia and the the church serves over 100,000 Catho put this into perspective, St. Joseph’s h in the UAE run from Friday to Saturd ing English, Arabic, Tagalog, Malayal
The emirate of Dubai has two church Francis of Assisi in Jebel Ali. St. Mary worshipers at each service but even sta day services. On occasions such as Ea over into two halls and the football an ing Catholic school watching the serv the larger Catholic churches in the U in nine different languages. The churc Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum of the U.A.E in 1966. He later inaugu
The St Francis of Assisi church in Je verse churches in the UAE. Masses ar French, Italian, Konkani, Korean, M log. The church also hosts services fo Catholic Church.
at 828m, the burj dubai is currently the tallest manmade structure on the face of the planet 12 netherhall news
Reuven Proença was at Netherhall dur MA in Public Communication and Pu University of Westminster.
has a history n land mirates or ”
he U.A.E.
postolic of Arabia, which covers Bahnited Arab Emirates, Somaliland and uare miles. There are Catholic parishes ion of Saudi Arabia, where the public rbidden.
is the Swiss born Bishop Paul Hinder 88 as the Apostolic Vicariate of Aden 889. The See of the jurisdiction was in erred to St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu care of the Capuchins of Florence.
olic of the Gallas, the Vicariate Aposcture by Pope Pius IX on January 21, Apostolic on April 25, 1888, by Pope Aden, located in Yemen. On the 28th to the Vicariate Apostolic of Arabia.
e capital of the UAE, is the seat of the e Vicar Apostolic. By some estimates olics from 100 different countries. To has 10 masses every Friday (weekends day) in five different languages includlam and Urdu.
above: part of the dubai skyline
left: st francis of assisi church in jebel ali
below: bishop paul hinder, vicar apostolic of arabia, at st mary’s church in bur dubai
hes – St Mary’s in Bur Dubai and St. y’s is designed to accommodate 1,700 anding space is hard to come by at Friaster and Christmas, the faithful spill nd basketball courts at the neighbourvice projected on giant screens. One of UAE with nine priests, it hosts services ch is built on land donated by the late m, Vice President and Prime Minister urated the church in April 1967.
ebel Ali is easily one of the most dire held in English, Spanish, German, Malayalam, Sinhalese, Tamil and Tagaor members of the Malankara Syrian
ring the 2005-06 academic year on the ublic Relations programme at the
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O
n Sunday I ap where calmly menacingly I
But shouting down completely innocen
The three recent sto horrible cases of Mu the police were info Ratzinger’s departm of Murphy, who die
Suspension and def Rome. Suspension – has to take against abusive priest imme request for defrocki
the m the p
jack valer
The time Rome too rate procedure that the length of the de place after he was d
But wasn’t Ratzinge dealt with defrockin failed to suspend th have, as a result, res
Not only was Card Then, in 2001, Pop to forward to him a
He did this not to “ accomplished this b
Some try to make o it actually says is th found guilty. There
Pope Benedict is no vehemence, have be of this scourge. He
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ppeared on The Big Questions on BBC1 to discuss whether the pope should “resign”. It quickly descended into a heckling circus reasoned argument fell victim to unfocused outrage. Afterwards, two representatives of the Protest the Pope Coalition told me had “no right” to defend Benedict XVI’s record on abuse.
n the truth doesn’t make it go away. I don’t defend the pope because I think it is the duty of a good Catholic; I defend him because he is nt of the charges made against him, and because the media has merged with the mob and misreported the facts.
ories from the US cited by Richard Dawkins and his mob as “proving” that the pope should be arrested under international law – the urphy in Wisconsin, Teta and Trupia in Arizona, and now Kiesle in California – have this in common: the abuse took place in the 1970s; ormed and acted; the priest was suspended by his bishop; requests for dismissal from the clerical state (“defrocking”) were sent to Cardinal ment in the Vatican, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and some time later the priests were defrocked – except in the case ed during his trial.
frocking are two separate actions. The first can be done by a bishop, with immediate effect; the second is a lengthy process that involves – meaning a priest is no longer able to function as a priest – say mass, hear confession, act as chaplain etc – is the key action that a bishop an abusive priest to prevent him having contact with minors. If, in any of these “smoking gun” cases, the bishop failed to suspend an ediately, he did wrong. But such failure would have had nothing to do with Cardinal Ratzinger, whose only involvement was when a ing landed on his desk.
mob should lay off. pope is completely innocent
ro deconstructs recent accusations against benedict xvi
ok over each defrocking says nothing whatsoever about cover-up or collusion. It says only that defrocking was then a complex and elabotook too long. However, what prevented the abuse was not the defrocking but the suspension by the bishop. There is no link between efrocking process and the priest’s opportunity to abuse. In fact, in the case of Kiesle, most of the abuse for which he was convicted took defrocked, when his bishop had no more control over him.
er in charge while all this was going on? Didn’t it happen on his watch? No. From 1981 to 2001 he was in charge of a department that ng, but not with suspensions and penalties for paedophile priests, which were the responsibility of local bishops. A number of bishops he abusive priests, some of whom continued to abuse. That is the scandal. It has been exposed and dealt with, and a number of bishops signed. More important, guidelines are now in place to prevent it ever happening again.
dinal Ratzinger not complicit in these failures, he was the Vatican official who most clearly saw what was needed to tackle the problem. pe John Paul asked him to review the local churches’ handling of clerical abuse cases. Cardinal Ratzinger asked bishops around the world all cases where credible allegations had been made against priests.
“cover up” the crimes – which had been reported to the local police – but to ensure that the priests were more speedily dealt with. He by amending the procedure for defrocking to allow for a fast-track procedure that did not involve trials.
out that Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2001 letter orders a cover-up by insisting that parties observe secrecy under pain of excommunication. What hat confidentiality should be observed during church trials, to allow the victims to give evidence freely and to protect the accused until is nothing in that letter preventing victims reporting the case to the police, and the assumption is that they should.
ot responsible for cover-up, collusion, turning a blind eye, institutional idolatry or any of the other accusations that, with greater or lesser een hurled at the Catholic church during recent weeks. On the contrary, he is the one in the Vatican who has done most to rid the church is the one who has acted most consistently and energetically to improve the church’s handling of these cases. This is a guest article reproduced by kind permission of the author. It originally appeared in the Guardian on 15th April 2010
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next stop c
alvaro tintore explains th
S
ince 2002, which marked the house’s 50th anniversary, students from Netherhall have been spending part of their summer break helping poor and rural communities in three different continents. Over the last eight years, Netherhall residents and friends have built and financed the construction of over 50 latrines, three school blocks and one community centre; our small contribution to help those more in need. In the past, we have flown west to Nicaragua (2002-2006), south to South Africa (2007) and east to Thailand (2008-2009). This year again we will be flying east but even farther east than before. Last year, the project on the Thai-Burmese border was a big success. We managed to build another classroom block in a school for Burmese refugees. The school was located at the bottom of a valley surrounded by hills with maize plantations and a river. Everything there was genuine: the boys and girls of the school were cheerful and simple, and had no problem in entertaining themselves climbing trees, jumping to the river and playing football with balls made of old clothes. The three teachers of the school, despite their youth (one of them was under 18), commanded respect and authority, and were always helpful and grateful to our group. The headmaster himself became the cook for our group! In the less than three weeks we spent at St Peter’s school and in spite of the language barrier, we got to know and mingle not only with the schoolchildren and teachers but with the whole population of the tiny community of Pro Pa. It has never been easy to change the location of our social projects but this time it has been particularly difficult. However, the unstable political situation in Thailand and some changes in the NGO we were working in cooperation with have led us to look for a different location for our work camp. So where do we go from here? This is the question we have asked ourselves after recent events in Thailand. We were not short of NGOs asking us to get involved with many interesting projects. Unfortunately we can only help one project at a
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cambodia!
he reasons behind shifting camp
these photos were sent by fr hennan who runs the farming school and educational centre in cambodia which netherhall residents will be visiting this summer.
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time and we decided to help a small NGO in a rural part of Cambodia. Croap (Centre for Research on Optimal Agricultural Practices) is a farming school and educational centre located in the rural province of Pursat, Cambodia. From its inception Croap has provided educational and health programmes to the communities living in the area. As Fr Hernan, a Catholic missionary priest running the centre explains on his website: “Croap exist to help the poorest and among them, those living in the countryside.� Cambodia remains largely agrarian with 1 in 3 Cambodians living below the poverty line. The infrastructure is rudimentary and the country remains dependent on external donor funding for over a third of its expenditure. Cambodia has seen impressive growth rates of almost 10% since 2000. However, growth has
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been narrowly based (primarily in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, and in the garment, construction and tourism sectors) with modest linkages to the rest of the economy and this pattern has resulted in limited benefits to the 84% of the population who live in rural areas. Cambodian health is among the poorest in south-east Asia. Life expectancy is 57.4. 62% of young children and 47% of women are anemic and 36% of the children under 5 suffer from malnutrition*. (Source: Foreign and Commonwealth office website). This summer, a group of students from Netherhall will be heading to Cambodia to build and finance a small clinic. As this goes to press, students from LSE, University College London, Kings College London and Warwick University have expressed interest in helping with this project.
“croap exist to help the poorest, and among them, those living in the countryside”
We are planning to book the flights in the next few weeks but we are still open to more volunteers and donations to bring about this very exciting 2010 Netherhall Social Project. Some import data: Dates: 23rd August to the 13th September. We will be back in time for the Pope’s visit to England Project: Construction of a small clinic for the rural community of Croap Location: Pursat, Cambodia Interested? Email Alvaro Tintoré (secretary@nh.netherhall.org.uk) netherhall news 19
“It’s clear that we need to b let’s call that option one” simon jared reports
I
n the final scene of The Italian Job, Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) is lying flat on his stomach clawing for a pile of gold which is slowly sliding away from him, moments away from falling hundreds of feet down a cliff face. The end. Roll credits...
We do not see the money falling off the cliff in the 60’s British classic, and indeed that is not what happened in the 2008/2009 financial crisis. Somehow the modern-day Charlie managed to grab
But by now we all know what happened; it has been saturating media coverage for months. The real question is what next? This is what Mr Trust tried to explain, looking at the lessons which
the winnings of the Italian job teeter on a cliff edge.
Mr Trust with Eniola Leyimu, Peter Brown and Ali El Haj
http://blog.productionwizard.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/mail-coach.jpeg
On Monday 8th March Howard Trust explained to Netherhall residents how just 24 months ago, the world’s financial markets lay in quite a similar state. Money sliding away from the cool, confident men in charge and towards oblivion.
one is drinking champagne over piles of gold, speeding together through the Alps in a large and safe vehicle what happens? One tyre slips, the rest follows suit, the driver loses control and suddenly things are not so cosy. There is a standstill: the party stops, the money slides away, liquidity becomes stagnant. In the midst of the suspense the credits roll, lists of names appear in the press. Governments blame traders (yet give them money demanding a return), traders blame regulators (although some admit their role) and regulators wonder how they didn’t see it coming (although some say we told you so).
the gold and, by reclaiming it one brick at a time, is making a slow and arduous recovery. The point is that in both cases there is a moment of uncertainty, everyone panics as the ‘one in a thousand’ outcome occurs. The difference between real life and the film is that in real life there was more than one ‘one in a thousand’ occurrence. There were several, in quick succession. The story is a bit like this. The risks which had for so long been paying off start to go wrong. There is a general loss of confidence after questions are asked about the relationship between price and value. In the midst of the celebrations when every-
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have been learnt by the financial institutions. But more precisely by the people who make up those institutions. They are after all still human beings (despite what the press may say). Mr Trust explained that there genuinely has been a change amongst a large number of individuals. With dishonest risks no longer the zeitgeist, many bankers and indeed many of those whose personal finances have been more considerably dented are reflecting on true value. In financial markets where value no longer holds much sway some people have rediscovered it in their family life. But before letting a new rosy view of banking settle
be totally open and honest: http://kennedy121.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/banker300px.jpg
in resident’s minds, Mr Trust reminded us that ‘there’s no mercy in the financial markets’. It is still a fast-paced and brutal world where one major slip means the end. Now however people are more willing to do business, at least in the context of Schroders (the firm in which Mr Trust holds the position of General Council), with traders who show a more stable and balanced life. Mr Trust argued that there appears to be an increased awareness of human virtues in the financial industry. Honesty is becoming more important because people are more wary about who they trust. Integrity is more important because people need to show they are trustworthy. Humility is more im-
portant because people have to admit to the role they played in the crisis in order to gain the trust of others. Fortitude too is a must-have virtue in a cut-throat industry; one needs fortitude to stay in the battle. This is a very idealistic view of the financial sector, and before we start polishing the halos above bankers’ heads it is imperative to note that honesty, integrity, humility and trust are still only option one. Mr Trust did not explicitly say what option two is. But one cannot help but feel it involves taking to the road again, speeding through the Alps with champagne in one hand, gold in the other, and maybe this time slowing down slightly for the corners.
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S
udanese telecoms tycoon and philanthropist, Dr. Mo Ibrahim, is one of Africa’s most successful businessmen and the chairman of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which awards prizes to retired African Presidents who have served their country well. More importantly, the foundation publishes the Ibrahim Index of African Governance—an annual progress report on each of the continent’s 53 nations. The index is prepared from raw data collected by academic researchers based in universities across Africa. Some information sourced from international organizations like the World Bank, WHO and several UN agencies are also used. The 2007 and 2008 Ibrahim indices were prepared under the guidance of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government while the 2009 Ibrahim index was prepared by African and Western academics hired directly by the Foundation. Mo Ibrahim was born in Sudan and came to the UK in 1974 to do a Master’s degree in electrical engineering. He followed this up with a PhD in mobile telecommunications at the University of Birmingham and taught there for a while before he was headhunted by British Telecom (BT) in 1983. As technical director of BT’s then embryonic mobile telecoms subsidiary, Cellnet, Ibrahim faced several frustrations because of the company’s failure to grasp the potential of the new cellular phone technology. He quit BT after six years when he realised that his robust campaign for increased funding to Cellnet (now Telefonica-O2 Ltd) was never going to be accepted by the company’s skeptical management. He set up Mobile Systems International (MSI) to provide consultancy and software applications to wireless service operators. The company was sold in 2000 to Marconi Corporation for $916 million. His most successful business venture was CELTEL, the company he set up in 1998 to provide mobile phone services to Africa which at the time had only two million suscribers. The failure of big Western telecoms companies to invest in Africa due to negative stereotypes about the continent left cellular services almost entirely in the hands of African entrepreneurs (See September 2007 article). These entrepreneurs sparked the telecoms revolution that swept the continent as the world entered the 21st century. Today, the continent, which has the world’s fastest growing market for mobile telecoms now has a total of 300 million cell phone suscribers compared to North America’s 277 million suscribers. The successes of these African mobile telecom operators have since caused Western, Chinese and Gulf Arab firms to scramble for market share in the continent, especially in Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. At the time when its African shareholders started to push for its sale, CELTEL had 20 million suscribers in more than 14 African nations. The company was sold in May 2005 to MTC of Kuwait for a staggering $3.5 billion. A year after the sale, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation was established to promote good governance in Africa. The board of the Foundation includes international personalities such as ex-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Lord Cairns of Charities Aid Foundation, ex-OAU secretary Salim Ahmed Salim and Mary Robinson, the former Irish president who ran the Office of UN Human Rights from 1997 to 2002. It is this board that nominates the independent committee that assesses retired African leaders— only ones who were democratically elected— in order to select the one whose performance in office is deemed to be outstanding. The selected leader is awarded the Ibrahim Prize for African leadership, an award of $500,000 per annum for ten years and $200,000 per annum for life thereafter. The awardee is also provided with an op-
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tional facility—a further $200,000 annually— for funding good causes of his/her choosing. The decision to institute the Ibrahim Prize, which in monetary terms is worth more than the Nobel prize, has been criticised by many people, both in the West and in Africa. Many critics questioned the idea of ‘bribing’ an African leader for doing exactly what he was elected to do. The critics point out that in oil-rich nations such as Nigeria, the Mo Ibrahim Prize cannot act as an incentive for good governance since its value is a ‘pittance’ compared to the billion-dollar treasuries available to corrupt government officials. Mo Ibrahim in several interviews has offered a reasonable and stout defence of the monetary award. Apart from reminding all critics that the money on offer was his, he explained that retired African leaders who served their nations honestly did not have the same opportunities to make money like their retired Western counterparts who can go on lucrative lecture tours, sign book contracts or get offers of non-executive directorships in companies. He explained that African leaders near the expiration of their term in office were often faced with three choices: relative poverty in retirement, term extension to remain in power or massive corruption to raise money for retirement. Like many critics, I remain skeptical about the Ibrahim prize. However, Mo Ibrahim is right on the issue of opportunities available to retired Western leaders but not to their African counterparts. It has been reported that since his retirement from office, former US President Bill Clinton has earned over $40 million from
mo ibrahim and t chima okezue explains the best
speeches and $30 million from the two books he has written. In 2007, it was reported that retired UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was making between ÂŁ500,000 and ÂŁ1 million from speech-making.
categories: (a) Safety & Security; (b) Sustainable Economic Development; (c) Human Development; (d) Rule of Law & Transparency and (e) Democratic participation & Human Rights.
So far only two African leaders have been judged worthy of the prize. In 2007, retired president Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique became the first recipient of the price for pulling his ex-Marxist country out of starvation and the USA and apartheid South African sponsored civil war, ushering in peace, multi-party democracy and economic growth. The 2008 award went to former president of Botswana for building a highly effective health care program for HIV/ AIDS sufferers in his well-run nation.
The first index on African governance released in 2007 covered all 48 nations in the sub-Saharan region. The North African nations, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, were excluded. The 2007 index which is based on data collected in 2005 ranked Mauritius first for being the best governed sub-Saharan nation. Somalia, which has little or no governance, came last. The nine top nations directly behind Mauritius, in descending order, were Seychelles, Botswana, Cape Verde, South Africa, Gabon, Namibia, Ghana, Senegal and Sao Tome & Principe. In the 2008 Ibrahim index, based on 2006 data, 31 of the 48 nations surveyed showed improvements by recording higher scores than in the 2007 index. With few exceptions, the overall ranking order of all the nations surveyed in 2008 remained almost consistent with that of 2007. Liberia and Burundi showed the greatest improvements by moving up five places in the 2008 index compared to the 2007 index. The former moved from 43rd to the 38th position while the latter moved from 40th to 35th position.
Last year much was made about the fact that no African leader was considered worthy of the Ibrahim Prize. Only a few media organizations have bothered to go beyond sensational reporting to examine progress made across continent last year as published in the annual Ibrahim Index of African Governance. This annual index, as far as I am concerned, is more important than a prize awarded to any single individual. A careful examination of the 2007, 2008 and 2009 indices would reveal the complex picture of governance in Africa often obscured by the one-dimensional negative stereotyping of the continent in the Western media. The Financial Times of London, in my opinion, remains a notable exception in this regard. In preparing the index, 58 measurable parameters are applied to each African nation. These parameters can be broadly grouped into five
The 2009 Ibrahim index was prepared by a mixture of African and Western experts with data from 2007 and 2008 (where available). As expected, the small island nations were once again on top of the index in terms of overall score: Mauritius, Cape Verde Islands
the index of african governance tool for rebranding a continent and Seychelles occupy the 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions, respectively. The three top performing island countries are followed by Botswana (4th), South Africa (5th), Namibia (6th), Ghana (7th), Tunisia (8th), Lesotho (9th), Sao Tome & Principe (10th) and Egypt (11th). Some of the readers might notice that Gabon which occupied the 6th place in the 2007 index and 8th place in 2008 index is nowhere to be found among the top 10 nations in the 2009 index. In fact it occupies the 21st place on this index. Some readers may find it curious that the more economically developed North African nations are lagging behind many of their less-developed Sub-Saharan peers on the index. All these can be attributed to long-running debates within the Mo Ibrahim Foundation on whether it was fair or unfair for totalitarian nations that fail in human rights, rule of law and governmental transparency to manage nonetheless to be among the top 10 nations in the Ibrahim index because of their excellent infrastructure, educational systems and health care services. In previous years, many media commentators have criticized what they perceived as the paradoxical ranking of oil-rich Gabon: a totalitarian central African nation that scored very high in the 2007 and 2008 Ibrahim indices because the extremely corrupt dictator that ran it for 42 years was benign enough to provide good infrastructure and passable educational & health care systems for his citizens. For the 2009 Ibrahim index, it was finally decided that in order to prevent totalitarian nations such as Libya and Egypt from rubbing
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shoulders with democracies such as Mauritius and Botswana, the number of measurable parameters used to assess each nation would be expanded and some of them amended to place more emphasis on human rights, rule of law and transparency. These parameters were then rejigged into four main governance categories. Despite these changes, at least one totalitarian state, Tunisia, still managed to be among the top 10 nations in the index in terms of overall aggregate score. Breaking down the index into the four governance categories reveals important nuances which indicate that the mantra of democracy and zero corruption equals prosperity can sometimes be simplistic as illustrated by some examples. When assessed on aggregate scores from all four categories, Tunisia and Tanzania are in 8th and 12th positions respectively. This is in spite of the fact that the latter is a democracy while the former is a totalitarian state ruled by a corrupt dictator who came to power in 1987 after he had his predecessor removed on ‘medical grounds’. The key to understanding why Tunisia trumps Tanzania is in the disaggregated scores recorded for each nation in the individual governance categories. Under the Participation & Human Rights category, which measures the democratic culture of a nation, Tanzania scored 67.55%, coming 9th of 53 nations on the index while Tunisia with a score of 41.12% occupies the 35th place. In what can be termed a complete turnaround under the Sustainable Economic Opportunity category, which measures the infrastructural and socio- economic development of a nation, Tunisia beats several democracies on the continent to come 2nd on the index, directly behind Mauritius. Tanzania occupies 14th place on the index. Under the Human Development category, which assesses facilities available for education and health services in a nation, Tunisia is in 2nd place behind Seychelles. Tanzania is ranked 18th on the index.
North Africa with average aggregate score of 57.7% is ranked 2nd in the index. With the sole exception of Tunisia, none of the five North African states appeared among the top 10 nations in the index. From disaggregated scores of individual governance indicators, countries in this region perform very well under the Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development categories and perform poorly in the remaining categories that deal with human rights, official corruption and democratic culture.
“The decision to institute the Ibrahim Prize, which in monetary terms is worth more than the Nobel prize, has been criticised by many people, both in the West and in Africa” West Africa is ranked 3rd on the index with an average aggregate score of 51.7%. The star performer in this region of 16 nations is Cape Verde Islands with an above-average score of 78%. Out of the 53 African nations, this Island country is ranked 1st in terms of Safety & Rule of Law, 2nd in terms of Participation & Human Rights, 4th in terms of Sustainable Economic Opportunity and 5th in terms of Human Development. Ghana with an above-average cumulative score of 65.96% is the second best performer in the region. West African countries with belowaverage aggregate scores include Nigeria, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast and Togo. Only Cape Verde and Ghana are among the top 10 African nations in the index.
East Africa is ranked 4th in the Ibrahim index with average score of 46.9%. None of the 8 countries in this region appears among the top 10 African nations in the index. Tanzania with aggregate In terms of overall aggregate score in all four categories, totalitar- score of 59.24% is best performing nation in the region. Kenya ian Libya is in 23rd place while democratic Ghana occupies the is the region’s second best performer with a cumulative score of 7th place. But under the Sustainable Economic Opportunities 53.74%. Uganda follows Kenya in the 3rd position with score category, Libya jumps into 11th place while Ghana slides down of 53.57%. The below-average performers in descending order to 21st place. Under the Participation & Human Rights catego- are Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia. ry, the Libyan State, which censors local media and jails political opponents, scores 20.26% and is ranked 50th out of 53. Ghana, Central Africa is ranked last in the index with an average score with its open civil society and vibrant free press, scores 75.23% of 40.2%. None of the 10 countries in the region are among and is in 4th place in the index. Under Human Development the top 10 African nations. The best performer in the region category, Libya with a high score of 83.33% ranks 3rd on the in- is Gabon with an above-average aggregate score of 53.92%. It dex behind Seychelles (1st) and Tunisia (2nd), thereby trumping is also the only the Central African nation that performs above high-flying democracies such as Mauritius, Cape Verde, South the average score of 51.2% for the whole continent. The several Africa and Botswana. Under the Safety & Rule of Law category, of the worst performing nations in Africa hail from this region. which assesses independence and competence of the judiciary, Examples of these include Democratic Republic of Congo, personal safety, national security and official corruption levels Chad, Central Africa Republic, Congo Republic and Equatorial in a country, Ghana is ranked 6th on the index with score of Guinea. 71.25% while Libya is in 33rd place with score of 52.59%. On the whole, the Ibrahim Index of African Governance and On a region-by-region basis, Southern Africa with an average the African Leadership Prize has been hailed as a tool for reaggregate score of 58.1%, is ranked 1st on the Ibrahim index. branding the continent. Dr. Mo Ibrahim—who describes the Mauritius, Seychelles, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and annual index as the ‘most comprehensive, objective and quanLesotho, which are among the top 10 countries in the index, tifiable method of measuring governance quality in the contiall hail from this region. In terms of aggregate scores, the below- nent’— has expressed hope that it will spur debate among ordiaverage performers in the region, in descending order, are Zam- nary Africans about how their various nations are governed. He bia, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Comoros Islands, Angola also believes that interested investors and development partners and Zimbabwe. find the index very useful in understanding the state of affairs in individual African nations.
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