Christian convictions

I cannot help poking fun at the annual attempts of evangelical wowsers to organize a ‘Christian rock festival’. Despite a decade of disasters which include, for example, regularly calling the emergency services out to rescue godbothering dimwits on midnight sea-swims, outwardly they have faith that, maybe, this year - at last - all will be well, some kids might turn up and all the finances will not be outgoings.
But I had to laugh, then shake my head, yet again when in their latest missive (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=37557), poker-faced, the organisers claim that:
“Because it is a youth event run by the local churches, all of the artists are asked to sign up to a code of conduct which includes respecting the festival's no alcohol or drugs policy by showing up sober, avoiding inappropriate language or subjects and trying to provide a good role model for the youth.”
I laugh because since the festival first began the volunteers, over the years, seem to have included some fairly unsavoury characters – thankfully mostly long gone, though only twice due to actual criminal convictions here or elsewhere that I know of.
For example, at an early festival one ‘artist’ was a convicted Loyalist paramilitary, also with a separate string of firearms offences, who gained early release by ‘finding God’ and going into the business, with considerable help from the government grants then available to anyone purporting to run a ‘bridge building’ scheme in Northern Ireland.
He later founded an extreme ‘right to life’ group, aping the tactics of US Christian militia, which made a series of serious threats to UK nurses and doctors. That in turn led to more convictions for supporters of the group.
At the time of his Manx appearance, this ‘artist’ was officially bound not to leave Northern Ireland by the terms of his early release order. Knowing of such court orders from my time in Northern Ireland, I happened to ask various police officers not long after how he had been allowed to visit.
I could get no explanation of this obvious omission, despite prior advertising of his appearance and a system of Special Branch checks at the time under the Prevention of Terrorism Act which meant names of any convicted terrorists showed up as soon as their air or ferry tickets were booked. At the time Coleraine police were also investigating an attempt to burn down a family planning clinic, which deed the ‘militant’ wing of his organisation had openly boasted it was involved in.
And things get even more bizarre, because one of his other ‘good deeds’ was an ‘anti-drug’ lecture to Victoria Road Prison inmates. Back then several prison officers would have been former H Block guards who ‘relocated’ to the island as part of a deal between the Manx Department of Home Affairs and the Northern Ireland equivalent, saving the former a fortune training local prison officers and the latter an even bigger fortune in security arrangements which, at the time, were expected to be necessary for not just the serving years but the lifetimes of any police or prison officer.
Not, in short, a gentleman one would choose as a role model for any child, and not one whose government hosts could have failed to know his true character.
I hope recent and current guests and volunteers have less criminal tendencies, but can no longer be bothered to check each year. The only mystery to me is that the annual farce is repeated, but I cannot be bothered to solve that either, only to point, laugh, and be somewhere else when it is perpetuated.

ICAHK shows us the way, even when in poor English

I haven’t been looking at the excellent International Campaign Against Honour Killings site as regularly as I should, so almost missed a revealing report there this week.
A Delhi court came down hard on the police for launching a massive hunt for the Police Commissioner’s dog yet failing dismally to protect local women – often from their own families.
The criticism came up as the court heard a case concerning a man sent to jail for eloping with a girl after her parents alleged she was raped. It seems police are often acting on such complaints, which tend to stem from families unhappy that a girl freely chooses her partner, yet are failing dismally to investigate honour killings carried out by families.
You can read more at http://www.stophonourkillings.com/?q=node/4708 . Try not to be put off by the sometimes clumsy English translations on this site, by the way, because that never lessens the importance or impact. In fact, it should probably put us to shame because folk are trying to report this stuff on their own communities, while we fail to even look in ours.
For example, as I quickly discovered a couple of years back when trying to contribute to the Manx government's pseudo-attempt to create a better homelessness database, the real extent of homophobia, racism or violence against women on the Isle of Man will never be known as long as those compiling the figures have an interest in protecting some of the worst offenders. That is, bigots in key places within certain government departments or the religious right organisations who otherwise employ them and control other agencies which might help - from homelessness to fostering to bail to prisoner rehabilitation and prisoner family support to the local women's refuge. All, in my experience, hiding the real nature and extent of the problem, and all with skeletons in the closet.

Will this revolution be televised?

Here’s an interesting question…
Why would a post on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' website section be closed to public comment in less than 24 hours, and with only seven comments?
If you read the post at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/04/bbc-religion-ethics you might take it for a nonsensical bit of religious opportunism, but no more.
Andrew Graystone, who admits to being the Director of the Churches Media Council, argues that "Religious programming must be bold". He seems to have been given a chance to reply to a far superior Sunny Hyndal post of late April which suggested the CMC was lobbying for the BBC to restrict head of religious programming applications to professed Christians.
So far, so uncontroversial. But surely the Grauniad wouldn’t pull the comments plug so fast just to stop readers commenting how dull and unconvincing Graystone is.
I really do not know, though being a trainspotter who actually wonders who takes BBC religious programming decisions I sussed out Graystone a long time ago. I found, amongst other commitments, he also runs a website for the Evangelical Alliance and even works as a BBC producer.
In fact, if you were friendless and stuck in front of the TV over Easter 2008 you could have seen one of his worst efforts. He produced a totally pointless BBC crucifixion feature film, which was heavily publicised for weeks beforehand, avoided like the plague by most of the population and sank without trace. Possibly the worst case ever for an increase in BBC religious programming hours.
Which makes you wonder how on earth he ever managed to be in a position to ‘advise’ the BBC as an ‘independent’ representative of Christian opinion, while simultaneously working for both the Beeb and a group which thinks UK Christians should be prepared to violently overthrow the state if they can’t keep their privileges any other way.
Ah, so you thought the Evangelical Alliance is just a respectable, if batty, religious organisation?
Then who said: "If, as most Christians accept, they should be politically involved in democratic processes, many believe this may, where necessary, take the form of active resistance to the state. This may encompass disobedience to law, civil disobedience, involving selective, non-violent resistance or, ultimately, violent revolution."
The answer may be found in a Daily Telegraph article published in November 2006. You can read it in full at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533302/Christians-ask-if-force-is-needed-to-protect-their-religious-values.html . You may never want the EA's loudest and most obnoxious spokesman, Joel Edwards, to be let into any public gathering again without being frisked.

Just Stop it!

The monthly round-up from International Campaign Against Honour Killings arrived today.
It was depressing, and the Pope is a Catholic…
Apart from the now well publicised case of the 13 year old stoned to death in Somalia after reporting her own rape, there were statistics on the number of known honour killings in Pakistan so far this year (225), a 17 year old killed after her uncle set his dogs on her, then shot her with a tribal judge’s approval - passed off as an honour killing, but probably a land dispute between brothers. Just for ‘balance’ there’s also a report of the Egyptian Christian who killed his daughter, her husband and their child in a fit of rage because she married a Muslim.
On the brighter side there are attempts to change the Syrian penal code which allows shorter sentences for honour killing. No prizes for guessing who is objecting to that.
The bulletin had a link to a new site for the Global Campaign To Stop Killing and Stoning Women (http://www.stop-stoning.org/), which seems to have replaced the old International Campaign Against Stoning. In turn this has links to numerous campaigns to stop religiously motivated violence against women around the world – all good stuff.
While I’m on the subject of religious violence against women, I should also mention the FGM National Clinical Group site at http://www.fgmnationalgroup.org/ .
Another worthy cause, and from what I can see not getting anything like the public funds thrown at religious bigots to ‘aid interfaith dialogue’. If you have a quid or two to spare, maybe looking for a workplace charity appeal that tackles a genuine problem ,not some fluffy bunny kids swimming with dolphins crap, give the site a look.
Maybe it’s because I’m a dad with a daughter just four years younger than the poor kid burnt alive for wearing lipstick, but this stuff gets to me more than almost anything else these days. I cannot imagine how any parent can kill their young daughter, or bear having her murdered by fundamentalist scum with no apparent link to humanity. But then, I can’t even imagine why any self-respecting parent could be happy knowing evangelicals are allowed into schools, spreading their anti-human virus to impressionable kids.
It has to stop. WE have to stop it.