Tendring Topics……..on line
A democratic choice?
Democracy; rule by the people; is such a wonderful idea and so obviously (to us) a very
desirable form of government. It is said
to have originated in ancient Greece ,
where every individual city claimed to be a democracy. They weren’t democratic
by our standards. It never even occurred to anyone that women should have a
vote, and there was a large slave population who were excluded from any role in
decision making, though they did all the hard work that made those city-states
habitable.
In
Europe, including of course the United
Kingdom , democracy as we know it today has a
fairly short history. Even the
Chartists, the ‘loony lefties’ of the 19th century only demanded
universal male suffrage*. It wasn’t
until the twentieth century (within my
lifetime!) that, in this country, all women over 21 had the same voting rights
as men. Most people alive today can
remember the voting age being reduced from 21 to 18 – and there are those
nowadays who campaign for the voting age to be further reduced to 16. There are also those (and I am among them!)
who believe that we should change our ‘first past the post’ voting system,
which makes it possible for a candidate to be elected even if his votes were
less than the total received by other candidates, to ‘proportional
representation’ by which the number of candidates elected is proportional to
the number of votes cast for his or her party.
That would mean that every vote would count, smaller parties would be
likely to get some representation in
parliament, and it would be impossible for a party to form a government despite
having a minority of votes in the country. This has happened in the past.
One
of the criticisms constantly levelled against the European Union is that it is
‘undemocratic’. Decisions are made by
the European Commission, the members of which haven’t been elected by anybody,
and by the Council of Ministers – all senior Ministers of the member states of
the EU. Well, they have all been elected
as MPs, but were elected to seniority only by members of their own party and
are members of the Council of Ministers simply by reason of their office –
hardly democratically put there by the European electorate.
There
is one European institution whose members are unquestionably democratically
elected – and that is the European Parliament.
It was more democratically elected than our Parliament in Westminster since a
system of proportional representation was used in the election. The UKs representatives pretty accurately
reflect changes in our national political thinking. The Lib.Dems. once a force to be reckoned
with, have all but disappeared; the
Ukippers (who want to see the end of the institution to which they have been
elected!) have increased in numbers and so have the members of the Green Party
– it’s true only from two to three but, of course, they’ll strengthen the voice
of other European Greens on relevant issues.
Now
comes the question of who is to be President of the all-powerful European
Commission. The largest single
political grouping in the European Parliament is that of the ‘Centre-Right’ – hardly the grouping that I’d normally be keen to support, but I’d have thought
they’d be just the lot that would appeal to David Cameron, George Osborne and
Co. Not on this occasion as it happens. The Centre-Right (and therefore the European
Parliament’s) preferred candidate is Mr Jean Claude Juncker. A former Prime
Minister of Luxemburg, Mr Juncker is ‘a federalist’ who believes that the
EU’s best way forward lies in closer political union. As such he is anathema to our Prime Minister Mr
Cameron who is hoping to achieve the reverse, a looser union. He is trying
hard, without much success, to gain support for his insistence that the
democratic way forward is to ignore the expressed opinion of the democratically
elected parliament, and to leave the appointment of the Commission’s President
to the Political Heads of the EU member states.
I
don’t think he’ll succeed but, if he does, I’m inclined think that his fellow top
politicians will make the same choice of Mr Juncker! And so they did - when those top politicians voted on 27th June. David Cameron found just one supporter. Europe's best future does lie in closer integration. If the UK doesn't think so it'll probably be better for Europe if we left the EU - but I think it will prove disastrous for us!
* It is interesting to note that all but one of the Chartists demands,
considered dangerously revolutionary during the 19th century, have
since been met without the dire consequences predicted. The one exception was the demand for annual
Parliaments. Thank goodness that wasn’t
met – who nowadays would want all the hassle, all the false promises and all
the lies of a General Election every year?
Almost, some Good News
It
isn’t very often that I have the opportunity to comment on a piece of
unequivocally good news. This isn’t because
plenty of good things, resulting from the kindness of good and compassionate
people, aren’t happening all around us every day. But it is the bad things, the cruel, selfish,
greedy and stupid actions of a minority of us that make the headlines. Never forget that It’s the exception that makes the news.
I really thought though that this week I'd be able to comment on the unquestionably good news that Meriem Ibrahim about whom I wrote the week before last, had been freed by North Sudan's Court of Appeal. She would, I thought, shortly be going home with her American husband, her toddler son, and her new baby daughter, born in a prison cell. You'll recall that she had been sentenced to be flogged and hanged after being wrongly convicted of adultery and apostasy.The report of her home-going was too good to be true. She was released, rejoined her family and was at Khartoum.Airport en route for the USA, when she was re-arrested for attempting to travel on a false passport and is currently, I believe, languishing in a police cell.
It appears that she had only a South Sudanese passport. It was surely the sort of problem that, given good will, could have been solved within hours - but the good will wasn't there. The Sudanese Police? Religious Authorities? were no doubt angry that their chosen victim had escaped from their clutches. They might not be able to flog and hang her but they could prevent her going home.
Meriem mustn't be forgotten. The governments, and the thousands of those who petitioned for her release, must keep up the pressure until this latter-day Christian martyr is free to go home with her family.
The WAR CRY!
It appears that she had only a South Sudanese passport. It was surely the sort of problem that, given good will, could have been solved within hours - but the good will wasn't there. The Sudanese Police? Religious Authorities? were no doubt angry that their chosen victim had escaped from their clutches. They might not be able to flog and hang her but they could prevent her going home.
Meriem mustn't be forgotten. The governments, and the thousands of those who petitioned for her release, must keep up the pressure until this latter-day Christian martyr is free to go home with her family.
The WAR CRY!
Have you ever had a
copy of ‘The War Cry’ thrust at you
in the street by an eager individual wearing Salvation Army uniform. If so, it’s quite possible that you fumbled
in pockets or handbag for some small change and took the proffered magazine,
quite intending to deposit it in a litter bin at the earliest
opportunity.
If
you did that recently, you made a sad mistake.
Today’s War Cry is an
attractive, ecumenical and very readable journal far removed from the fundamentalist,
evangelical and sectarian publication I remember from the distant past. I have the 14th June issue in
front of me. The cover is a ‘still’ from
a recently released historical film ‘Belle’
while inside, on page 3, is a review of the film that left me eager to see it! There’s also a
well-written article about ‘People Trafficking’ a modern scourge with which the Salvation Army is particularly concerned, in which young people (particularly
young girls seeking a better life) are tricked into what amounts to modern
slavery
Nor is today’s War Cry narrowly sectarian.
There’s a news story about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent visit to
Nigeria in which he prayed
with Nigeria ’s President and
expressed his sympathy and concern about the recent terrorist attacks to which Nigeria has
been subjected. There’s also news of the
Methodist Church of Sierre Leone’s campaign against Ebola, a deadly infectious
disease that has recently reached theirea from Guinea .
The
Salvation Army has been active in the provision and management of Food Banks
(our local Clacton-on-Sea Food Bank is run by them) and War Cry reports on the findings on this subject of Oxfam and
Christian-based groups ‘Church Action on Poverty’ and the Trussell Trust.
Food
Banks and food aid charities gave more than 20 million meals to the needy last
year and there was a 54 percent increase in the number of people seeking food
help. It was pointed out that food
prices rose by 43.5 percent in the eight years prior to July 2013 and during
the same period household energy prices rose by 37 percent. Meanwhile, ‘low and stagnant wages and insecure and zero-hour contracts mean that
for many low-income households the income is less every month than their essential
outgoings’
It
was good to see that the Salvation Army continues its success in finding people
who had lost touch with their relatives.
During May 2014 The Salvation Army’s Tracing Service found 121 such
people. Over the course of the month the
service concluded 134 cases, with a 90 percent success rate.
Note to Blog readers. I have a problem with sending and receiving emails and my laptop will be with a computer specialist till Monday at the earliest. I am therefore publishing this blog two days early. I hope to be back to normal next week. Ernest Hall
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