Week 23 2013

Tendring Topics……..on line

Syria – again!

            It was a fortnight ago, on 14^th May, that I published in my weekly blog the following paragraph relating to the civil war raging in Syria:

             Britain is becoming steadily more and more involved.  It started highly commendably with humanitarian aid.  Our intervention in Libya began, you’ll recall, with the very moderate ‘enforcement of a no-fly zone’.   In Syria we have progressed to non-lethal military aid.  What next I wonder – supplying the rebels with weapons?   That would surely be almost as daft as the idea, currently held by some in the USA, that the best way to end gun crime is to make sure that all ‘the good guys’ are armed to the teeth!   The only winners in that particular arms race will be the arms manufacturers and dealers.

Those words are proving painfully prophetic.  Britain and France, with the USA cheering us on from the sidelines, have persuaded their fellow EU members to lift the embargo on the supply of arms to ’moderate elements’ in the motley array of forces in rebellion against the government of President Assad..   This, so it is said, will persuade the Syrian Government to come prepared to negotiate to the International Conference planned to take place shortly.  The British Government has not yet decided whether or not to consult parliament before actually to taking this step.  As with the disastrous decision to join the USA in the invasion of Iraq, they’ll probably wait until they are sure that they have bullied or bribed enough MPs into assuring an affirmative vote.

            Probably Iraq government representatives will attend an international conference, prepared to compromise – but will the insurgency?   Reports make it clear that they are far from a united front.   While the ‘moderate elements’ that Mr Haig is eager to supply with arms may be ready to negotiate a reasonable settlement, the extremists are unlikely be satisfied with anything less than the unconditional surrender of the government, and probably ‘President Saddat’s head on a platter’.  

            What’s more, if by some miracle, President Saddat’s government were to be peacefully replaced by the kind of secular, tolerant, liberal government that ‘the west’ would like to see, those very substantial extreme elements would immediately seek to undermine it, using the terrorist methods in which they have become experts – and in which we have encouraged them.

            This has already happened, in Afghanistan.  In the 1980s the British and American Governments covertly assisted the ‘gallant mojihadin’ to fight and win a guerrilla war against the occupying Soviet forces, only to produce a Frankenstein monster in the Taliban and Al Qaida to whom the liberal and democratic attitudes of ‘the west’ were, if anything, rather more offensive than the ideology of the Soviets.   The extremists are likely to prove victorious because, being absolutely certain that God is on their side, they have no qualms whatsoever about shedding either other people’s blood or their own in pursuit of their ends.

              An even greater danger today is that the conflict in Syria will evolve into a proxy world war with Russia, Iran and Shia Muslims everywhere, supporting the Assad regime and Britain, France, the USA, Israel, and such ‘freedom loving’ regimes as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar arming the rebels.  There is a real danger that from such a confrontation a third world war, with nuclear weapons could - possibly accidentally - be triggered.

            Surely the world’s political leaders have more sense than to allow that to happen.    But have they?

The Press ………and the Politicians

          Recently I heard on the radio a heated debate as to whether or not it was reasonable to demand that members of the Police Force or other public servants should be required to declare any friendships or other relationships that they had with journalists.   It does seem very intrusive but when one considers recent occasions on which information that should have been kept secret has been leaked – sometimes accidentally and sometimes corruptly – to the press, it isn’t wholly unreasonable.

             Much more serious to my mind is a problem to which I can see no obvious answer and which wasn’t seriously addressed in the Leveson Enquiry. That is the way in which government policies may be swayed by close friendships between top politicians and newspaper owners or senior executives who have the power to sway public opinion, and thus influence the result of parliamentary and local elections.  Mrs Thatcher used Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times (or did he use her?)  in their mutual struggle against British Trade Unions.   Tony Blair created New Labour and robbed the Labour Party of its soul, to gain favourable headlines in The Sun.  David Cameron and senior members of his government had a far too friendly relationship both with Rupert Murdoch, and with at least two of his top executives.

            There was, of course, no formal agreement.  That was unnecessary.  Good friends obviously try to help each other.  What could be more natural?   I have no doubt that had it not been for the phone hacking and police-bribing scandals (about which, of course, Rupert Murdoch was blissfully ignorant) full ownership of BSkyB would have gone to Rupert Murdoch’s News International ‘on the nod’.

            Incidentally, two of News International’s senior executives have been arrested, charged and released on police bail, on the serious charge of ‘perverting the course of justice’.  I hope that those cases haven’t been ‘kicked into the long grass’ and are destined to be dropped for ‘lack of evidence’ or because ‘pursuing them wouldn’t be in the national interest’.

            No, I don’t know the answer to this problem. I do know though that it is quite wrong for control of a powerful means of influencing public opinion to be in the hands of one or two extremely wealthy individuals, especially individuals who are not citizens of the UK and owe no loyalty to our customs, our traditions – and our Queen. This, rather than venting their Europhobia, is a matter that should concern UKIP if they are genuinely worried about the UK’s independenc.  I understand though that Nigel Farage recently had a cosy lunch with Rupert Murdoch!  The leader of UKIP is clearly very selective in his choice of ‘threats to UK Independence’.

 Try to please everybody……..

          …….and you’re very likely to end up pleasing nobody. It seems that the Chaplaincy team at Colchester Hospital managed to achieve that result in their organisation of this year’s annual memorial service for the parents of miscarried or stillborn children, or of children who died within the first year of their lives.

St James' Church, Clacton-on-Sea (interior)

      For many years this service has been held in St James’s Church of England Church very near to Clacton Hospital.  This year though, the organisers had thought that the venue should be changed so that bereaved parents of any faith or none could be accommodated – and they decided that the venue should be in the hospital restaurant.  Rev David Flower, principal chaplain, is reported as saying, ‘What we wanted was to make the service more inclusive and thought that being in a building other than a church would be helpful to some people.  There was one family that came that would not have done if it had been held in a church’.  It seems though that many other families didn’t come who would have come to a church.  Only seven families were there and most of them were anything but pleased.  One complained that, ‘it was held in the hospital restaurant amongst cups and saucers.  Behind us, the tea urn was going and candles for parents to light were presented on a meat tray covered with foil……..I thought it would be in the chapel but when we got there we were told it would be in the canteen – we were disgusted’.

            My wife and I were fortunate in never having a miscarriage, stillbirth or child death in infancy.  However many years ago – it was while I was contributing a weekly Tendring Topics (in print) for the Coastal Express - I was asked to attend one of these services and write an account of it.  I recall that I was deeply impressed.  The service was well-attended and there were bereaved mums and dads on their own as well as families.  Votive candles were in proper holders and the service was conducted with great sensitivity.  There were prayers and hymns and it was suggested that those present should attempt to visualise their lost children. I do not recall anything specifically Christian about the service.  Its theme was that those lost children were in the care of a loving Father-God, perhaps with an implication that eventually, beyond the bounds of time and space, they and their parents would be re-united.  I would have thought that that was a theme that would have been acceptable to followers of any faith with a loving father-like God central to its worship.  I don’t see how any kind of service can help atheists with their loss.  There is no materialist compensation for bereavement, nor any such comfort for the bereaved.

It is a service that demands an ‘atmosphere’ that is difficult to define or describe but that most of us can experience.  St James’ Church has that atmosphere. Roman Catholic and Non-conformist churches, Quaker Meeting Houses, synagogues, mosques and temples may also have it.  Hospital restaurants definitely do not!  I am glad for the bereaved that next year the service  will again be held in St. James’ Church.