Last week I took a trip down to Sudbury, Suffolk. A tiny little town sitting on the River Stour, smack bang on the border with Essex. Its a very quant little town with lots of Chocolate box houses. Well what’s special about Sudbury, well its where I spent my formative years, though I was born in Newcastle, making me a Geordie, I grew up and went to school in Sudbury.

I suppose that makes me an honouree Silly-Suffolk, Silly coming from the Angle word selige, which means holy, supposedly in reference to the many fine churches and the fact that the original patron saint of England, St Edmund came from Suffolk. Females from Suffolk are called Suffolk Fair-Maidens due to the supposed beauty of people born in the county, but don’t tell my baby sister or brother that, it might go to their head!

Sometimes I act like I hate Sudbury, its a quiet town with absolutely nothing to do, when I worked at Tesco there, we used to joke that on a weekend the only thing to do was to get so drunk you forgot everything so you would have something to do the next weekend! I do prefer the hustle and bustle of life in Newcastle, but sometimes I do yearn for the slower pace of life in Sudbury.

But there are a few good reasons to be proud to have lived in Sudbury, for one it was the birthplace of the great 18th century painter Thomas Gainsborough, and any child who goes to school in Sudbury will be intimately familiar with his paintings and indeed the house in which he was born! But that does give you an appreciation later in life for the sheet beauty of his works, today there is a statue of Sudbury’s greatest son stood in the middle of the market place.

Also originally the Woolsack in the House of lords was stuffed with wool from Sudbury because of the towns great wealth and influence, something it certainly doesn’t have today! After the original was damaged in World War II it was restuffed with wool from all of the nations of the Commonwealth to symbolise unity of the different nations of the Commonwealth, not a bad replacement by any means.

In the centre of Newcastle there is a great monument to Earl Grey, thanking him for the Great Reform act of 1835, which abolished the “Rotten Boroughs” and guess what, Sudbury was one of those Rotten Boroughs, though it wasn’t fully disenfranchised until 1844. In fact we were taught at school that Charles Dickens reported on the Sudbury election of 1835 for the Morning Chronicle, and it was the inspiration for the famous Eatanswill election in his novel Pickwick Papers.

One thing about Sudbury, which does make me very proud to have lived there is the fact that in 1841, Sudbury became the first parliamentary constituency to return a member from an ethnic minority. Sudbury elected the son of an Indian queen, David Dye Sombre, alas he didn’t take up his seat however as he was declared insane before he could, but the fact he was elected does make me proud to have lived there.

Have Fun

Michael

I feel that I have to comment on the massive furore over the recall to prison of Jon Venables. In 1993, Venables along with Robert Thompson, committed an act of extreme evil when they sadistically tortured and murdered two year old James Bulger, an appalling crime. The images of little James being led away by Venables and Thompson is etched on to the memory of society and it sickens many of us to this day.

His recall has given weight to the arguments made by some, that some people are so evil that they can never be rehabilitated and must be kept locked behind bars for ever, if not simply put to death. But we have to remember that Venables and Thompson were both just 10 when they committed this crime, and we put them on trial as adults. I am the same age as the pair and I can remember seeing on TV the bloodthirsty mobs banging on the prisoner transport vans, and looking back, I shudder.

Back in 1993 we convinced ourselves that Venables and Thompson were wrong, immutably evil, I remember someone saying that they weren’t even human. But the justice system didn’t abandon the pair, it tried to rehabilitate them through intensive psychotherapy, education and the establishing of strict boundaries.

I don’t think that either of the pair were/are evil, they both had bad upbringings, products of broken homes, they were violent, they bunked off school and shoplifted, there were also difficulties with their learning and behaviour at school. Of course that’s not to say broken homes are bad, we all know sometimes there are cases when parents are better off splitting, personally I always hope families stay together, old fashioned off me but thats how my parents raised me.

I remember back in 1993 some of the things that were reported in the press, about rabbits being tied to railway lines, pigeons having their heads sot off with airguns, charity collection boxes pilfered and of fellow pupils being assaulted by the pair. Some of that was possibly exaggerated, but who know.

The Venables and Thompson of 1993 are products of not only their flawed upbringing but the social and economic deprivation, inadequate social service, failed schooling and cultural/spiritual poverty. Basically they were brought up in a moral vacuum.

The judge at the trial, Mr Justice Morland laid the moral responsibility squarely with the parents. He said a public debate about the parenting and family background of Thompson and Venables was required.

“In my judgement, the home background, upbringing, family circumstances, parental behaviour and relationships were needed in the public domain so that informed and worthwhile debate can take place for the public good in the case of grave crimes by young children.”

But I don’t really think we ever had that debate, we swept it all under the carpet, once again, reassuring ourselves that Venables and Thompson were a one-off, something so evil and repulsive that would never and could never be repeated.

We know that isn’t true given what happen with the two so called “devil boys” last year in Edlington, whose brutal attack on two innocent boys mirrored the horror of James Bulgers murder. Their upbringing was similar to Venables and Thompson, although not from a broken home, it was still as toxic and dreadful. I think we as a society need to have that debate about how we are bringing up our children, and we need to really ask ourselves are we giving them the necessary moral toolkit to be come good human beings. Maybe that’s a broad sweeping generalisation, as clearly not all children are like these boys, in fact most are perfectly pleasant. But many will agree with me that there seem to be more and more children on the street causing trouble than when we were that age, I am not a parent so I shouldn’t really be commenting, but its something I do wonder about.

Anyway back to Venables and Thompson who we tried our best to forget about once they were locked away, least we did until 2001, when the time came for the pair to be released.

From what’s available to the public, its clear that the two had for all intents and purposes been rehabilitated, they had come to terms with their crime, admitted responsibility and were extremely remorseful. From the few reports of the parole hearings, the young men that were released in 2001 were very much different people to the 10 year old boys that were locked away in 1993. They had been transformed from literate scallys into well educated young men, ready to become productive members of society. but rehabilitation is a long process, and they will have needed continuing support and monitoring, what they got I don’t know, so I can’t comment.

Either way I think it was the right thing to try and rehabilitate them, one life had been lost in this, if we could save two more than its worth it, these two children were worth saving, and the justice system worked so very hard to turn them from anti-social hooligans who had killed, in to productive members of society, that was an admirable goal, and one that hopefully will be repeated with the Edlington pair.

But I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it was for these two young boys to emerge into the world, at the same time they were released I moved back to Newcastle for University and was living on my own for the first time, for me that was hard, but for them the same time must have been extremely traumatic. Yes they had new identities, yes they benefited from a worldwide injunction against any the publication of any information about them. But they had to live with what they did everyday, to wake up, look in the mirror and see himself, a murderer, a child killer, public enemy number one, he had to go on carrying all that guilt and remorse, the baggage of a corrupted childhood, and the knowledge that no matter what he did, in the eyes of many he could never be redeemed.

That’s true punishment, thinking of some of the bad things I have done in my life fills me with guilt, but it can be nothing compared to what he must have felt every single day. Me I turned to God, he it seems turned to drink and drugs, and spiralled out of control, until finally he crossed the line and was recalled to prison.

They also lost everything about themselves, their background, their family, their accent, even the football team they supported, they had to live a lie every single day just to survive. The stress of living under a new identity must be enormous, for some like Mary Bell, its possible, but clearly for a person so emotionally ’broken’ as Venables, this has not been possible. 

This doesn’t mean that rehabilitation doesn’t work, but this is an extremely complex case with a lot of extenuating factors.

The media seem to be salivating at the prospect of revealing the identity of Venables, and society is going along with it. Whatever Venables has done wrong, whatever law he broke, he needs to face a fair and impartial trial. The only way to guarantee a fair trail. for Vebables and any possible victims is if he can face an unbiased jury and they only way that will happen is if he is tired as the 27 year old man he is now, not the 10 year old boy he was. We can have justice , or we can have revenge. We can’t have both.

It is right that that anonymity is to be maintained, the alternative is to hand justice to the lynch mob. And this wouldn’t be justice it would be vengeance, and they are not the same thing.

God Bless

Michael

This morning we got our first vegbox from Riverford Organic Veg delivered. Riverford up here in the North East are based on Home Farm near Northallerton, so while its not very local, its better than some other schemes we have seen and/or used, plus they don’t airfreight anything, so its not all that bad.

Anyway the local deliveryman, Ian, knocked on the door and introduced himself and gave a quick little bit of info about the veg, which was great. Then he realised that we have met before as we used the scheme about 3 years ago, but still it  was quite nice, and if I was brand new to the whole idea then it would have been perfect.

This weeks box was quite nice we got some lovely vine tomatoes, a bag of lettuce, carrots, celery, parsnips, leeks, onions and some sante potatoes. We also ordered some mushrooms as an extra.

The box itself, which is a small veg box, was £11.45 and the mushrooms were £1.49. Compared to the equivalent organic veg from Tesco, its about the same price, if we got a larger box it works out a bit cheaper. But there are only two of us, so we don’t need that much veg!

Now onto the contents, well its organic and fresh from the farm, well most of it, some has been shipped from abroad, but I will explain a little bit about that latter. Now where was I, ok so its organic and fresh from the farm, so its still covered in mud, its misshapen and all different sizes, everything the supermarkets have taught is to hate. Which means its good!

The carrots are less bright and orangey but they smell so good and feel nice and juicy, the leeks are as good as the prize winning ones grown by my farther-in-law, if not as big! Parsnips, not normally a veg I am that much in love with, look and smell absolutely beautiful.

The potatoes, look just brilliant, and will be lovely roasted, boiled, chipped etc, and I fear for how much I will cry when I cut into those onions.

Now I said some stuff comes from abroad, well this week we have a couple of items which have been shipped in, most obviously the tomatoes. These lovely vine tomatoes which you can see in the photo are from Spain, now some might be thinking, hey that’s not good, why not grow them here in hot houses to cut down on the carbon footprint. Well it has been shown that importing them by sea  from southern Europe is much less environmentally damaging than growing them in a hot house.

Now this isn’t true seasonally eating, but lets face it, in this country we have what’s called the hungry gap between April and May, when there isn’t a lot available and for many of us, the tomato has become a year round staple. If Riverford didn’t offer people tomatoes, then they would go to Tesco and buy hothouse grown tomatoes, which are more environmentally damaging. At least it better than nowt.

The other two imported veg are the lovely lettuce bag which has come from France and the crunchy celery from Italy.

All in all I am very satisfied with our first box, tonight’s tea is going to be baked parsnips and carrots with sausages, made with some of the parsnips, carrots and onions from Riverford and some sausages we have in the freezer which came from a lovely farm shop in Wooler up the road in Northumbria which Lindsay’s grandparents buy from.

Anyway, next week we are getting some eggs and milk as well, so we will see how that does, but based on the fact that they were pretty good a couple of years ago and the still high quality now, I think it looks good that we will keep using them.

Washing-up, what a pain. We don’t have a dishwasher, our kitchen is far too small, and given the extremely tiny size of our kitchen, we can’t leave dishes standing very long at all, we have to do them quite quickly. Although to be fair, I don’t do all that many, Lindsay says I do them very badly, so I am not allowed to do them!

Up until about 18 months ago we used the cheap supermarket own brand washing up liquid, and it was ok. But Lindsay was pestering me to try a more natural product, so we started buying the Tesco own brand “Green” washing-up liquid. Which isn’t too bad, bar the fact that lemon is a major ingredient, and guess what, I am allergic to lemons, and it gave me a bit of a rash, a good excuse to get out of doing the dishes, but nothing that Lindsay was happy with. So we needed to find an alternative, now we are pretty much restricted in where we can go to get stuff because we don’t drive, so we are really limited to Tesco. And besides as part of our Ethical living challenge we are reexamining everything we do, and what we use to do it.

When looking at what green washing-up liquids, we can get at Tesco we are pretty much limited to their own brand natural label or Ecover. Now I know that quite a number of people are unhappy with Ecover due to their testing on water fleas, and the fact that its made in Belgium, and thus requires transporting here to the UK, which obviously realses carbon.

Now frankly when it comes to the waterfleas, well they will be exposed to these products no matter what, so  I would rather they test the product on them to make sure that the products are safe for them, than for them to just release a product where it is unknown what effect this will have on the fleas. As long as the really nasty stuff has biodegraded before it gets back into the wild water system I am happy.

Now for the transport issue, well first of all Ecover is very concentrated, so we only need one squirt to do a sink full of dishes, so it should last longer than conventional washing up liquid. Secondly we are purchasing it in 1 lite bottles, so few bottles will have to be transported to supermarkets as you will not need to buy them so frequently. And thirdly the bottles are refillable, there are two health food shops in Newcastle where we can take along the bottle and pay to refill it, as opposed to simply throwing it away, although it is fully recyclable, but hey if we avoid making a new one, great!

Now I know people will bang on about Bio-D as being better, but they can’t be refilled and our council have said they don’t recycle the bottles, same issue for Ecover, but we can refill them. Some people do point out we can get Bio-D is available in big boxes from ethicalsuperstore.com, but our flat is very small and we simply don’t have the room to store it, so that rules that out. So for me Ecover wins hands down, despite the extra carbon released by its transport from Belgium, the carbon saved by not bring extra bottles here cause I can refill them more than makes up for it!

Anyway, might try my Nanas recipie for home made washing-up liquid at some point but for now, I will stick with Ecover and let you know how it goes!

God Bless

Michael

Sorry for no sooner update but things have been hectic. Anyway the Ethical Challenge is going quite well. This past month we have focused on our food, particularly as Fairtrade Fortnight is currently on, and I have been looking quite closely at Fairtrade from a Bahá’í Perspective lately. We even had a very successful Fairtrade Event at the Newcastle Bahá’í Centre this week, which I will blog about shortly.

For the past couple of years we have bought Fairtrade on and off, but quite recently we made a commitment to, where possible only buy Fairtrade. For tea, coffee and sugar this is easy, and we have already been doing this for some time anyway. But we have looked very closely at everything else, bananas, chocolate, cola and even our rubber gloves! All of these are products we can swap for something that is Fairtrade, many of which we are buying online from ethicalsuperstore.com, and they are based in Team Valley so low carbon on the transport.

You see most people involved in the manufacturing of cheap food get a raw deal. In some cases the economies of entire nations are affected: people are kept in poverty through the actions of western consumers. And if I am trying to live more ethically I really need to try and help stop that.

So our weekly shop now has more Fairtrade products in the basket, from spices to rice. Although we currently do have a lot of Ringtons tea in the cupboard, but this is because my Nana is always giving it to us, however, Traidcraft have their Fairtrade tea blended by Ringtons, and I can’t imagine that they would have anything to do with a non-ethical company, so I don’t feel too bad about having that in my cupboard.

I am also aware that eating too much meat is not so good for the environment, so we have also looked to eliminate some meat from our diet. We aren’t going veggie, I used to be and would love to again, but I have medical issues preventing me from becoming completely veggie. So fewer cows need to fart methane to keep me happy!!!

Fruit and veg is one area where we are badly failing, looking at what we buy, its often imported or grown in hot houses. So I have been looking at ordering a weekly veg box from Riverford Farm, who deliver organic veg boxes. So that’s starting once we return from a visit to Suffolk next week, so we will see how that goes.

So I will keep plodding on and let you know how its going.

God Bless

Michael

I am an Englishman, which means I have a built in love of tea, I am also a Baha’i, and if you haven’t noticed it,  Baha’is are “powered by tea”.

But I don’t just love tea, I adore tea, I love everything about tea, its smell, its taste, it colour etc. It is simply the greatest drink in all of creation!

But tea is more that just Typhoo, Clipper or Ringtons, its more than just the tea we get in tea bags, there are some wonderful varieties of tea out there, and all of them are wonderful, but what are these varieties of tea and where do they come from.

Well all tea comes from a plant called Camellia Sinensis, or the tea shrub. The tea shrub is native to south Asia, and is today cultivated across the world in tropical and subtropical climates. But it can be grown as far north as Cornwall, where the Tregothnan Estate produce a tea that is very similar to Darjeeling, though given its niche nature is extremely expensive.

Anyway, so that’s the plant, and from this single plant which is the same the world over, we can produce four very different categories of tea, white, green, oolong and red/black tea. Basically in a picked tea leaf there are two important constituents which are normally separated from each other by the structure of the tea plants cells. These are polyphenols and and enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, and if they come into contact the polyphenols are oxidised changing the colours and flavours of the tea leaf, eventually into black tea. This process is referred to as fermentation (it isn’t really a fermentation so don’t worry about that), and the production of the different types of tea is about controlling the fermentation.

So lets have a look at the different types of tea in a little detail:-

White Tea

White tea is the simplest form of tea, originally it was only produced in the Fujian province of China, but today is also made in India and Sir Lanka. The youngest leaves and shoots, still covered in soft white hairs are plucked allowed to naturally dry before being baked gently. They are not rolled or broken so the cells remain intact and no fermentation takes place at all. The flavour is mild, mellow and a bit fruity. A lovely tea with lots of anti-oxidants, which I am told prevent ageing. Its also the most expensive type of tea and can sometimes be quite difficult to get a hold of in a normal supermarket.

Green Tea

Green tea is made from fully matured tea leaves, once the leaves are picked they are heated or steamed. This denatures the polyphenol oxidase preventing fermentation. Once that is done the leaves can be pressed rolled and twisted, and they keep their natural flavours, then they are baked. Green tea tends to have a naturally sweet grassy taste, and is known to have many health benefits due to the unoxidised polyphenols, as well as high levels of carotene and vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, C, D.

Oolong Tea

Oolong, or Wu Long, which means Black Dragon, is a tea which many here in the UK, don’t know anything about, so there is something almost mysterious about them, but in China they are some of the most highly prized teas. They are a halfway stage between green and black tea and it is made by bruising the mature green leaves slightly, breaking the structure of the cells, allowing some oxidation and a change in the flavours of the tea.

Partway through the oxidation process the leaves are baked to stop the process, when this is done determines if its a dark or light oolong. The resulting tea is more complex and darker than green tea, it combines the different health benefits of green and black tea. The flavours are very intense and flowery, it is very akin to green tea but without the grassy vegetal notes, I sometimes find it to be almost woody in taste.

Back Tea

The most familiar type of tea to us here in the UK, made by rolling or crushing the leaves, rupturing the cells and allowing them to fully oxidise. The leaves change from a bright green to orange, and finally reddish-brown in colour and a new flavour develops.

These flavours can vary widely, depending on the green leaves, the rolling or crushing process and the length of time the leaves are allowed to oxidise. This process is stopped by oven-drying the tea. All of the vegetal qualities of the leaf are gone and replaced with a depth of character unparalleled in the world of food.

There are a couple of other different types of tea, such as yellow tea and pu erh for example, but those four are the bulk of the tea that is produced today.

So why am I talking about tea I hear you ask, well its simple, all these different types of tea, all come from the same source, the Camellia Sinensis, in fact you could produce all these different types of tea from the same plant if you were so inclined.

And that really speaks to me about both humanity and religion, they both come from the same source,the only difference is where they were “grown” and the conditions of that place, otherwise they are identical. As a Bahá’í this concept is central to my life.

We Bahá’ís believe that all religions are in fact one single unfold religion, being brought to us through the process of progressive revelation:-

“If we investigate the religions to discover the principles underlying their foundations we will find they agree, for the fundamental reality of them is one and not multiple. By this means the religionists of the world will reach their point of unity and reconciliation. They will ascertain the truth that the purpose of religion is the acquisition of praiseworthy virtues, betterment of morals, spiritual development of mankind, the real life and divine bestowals.”

Baha’i Faith, Abdu’l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 15

If you look at the different religions, you will see that at the very heart of them they have a set of universal laws that remain unchanged no matter what the religion, as well as laws which are appropriate to the age and region in which that religion arose. A good example of a universal law is what we Bahá’ís refer to as the Golden Rule, her it is from the major faiths.

“Never do to others what would pain thyself.”

Hinduism, Mahabharata 5:1517

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Christianity, Matthew 7:12

“Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.”

Baha’i Faith, Baha’u'llah, Tablets of Baha’u'llah, p. 71

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

Buddhism, Udana-Varga, 5:18

“No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

Islam, Sunnab

“That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.”

Zoroastrianism, Dadistan-i-Dinik, 94:5

“What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the entire law; the rest is commentary.”

Judaism, Talmud, showboat Shabbat

So you can see what I mean by them being one and the same.

The Bahá’ís also believe that all the peoples of the earth are identical in that they are made in the image of God, not the physical image, God doesn’t have a form, or at least not one that we could possibly understand anyway, but in the image of His Spirit. The reason that we are different is best told by this quote from the Writings:-

“…difference of race and color is like the variegated beauty of flowers in a garden. If you enter a garden, you will see yellow, white, blue, red flowers in profusion and beauty — each radiant within itself and although different from the others, lending its own charm to them. Racial difference in the human kingdom is similar. If all the flowers in a garden were of the same color, the effect would be monotonous and wearying to the eye.”

Baha’i Faith, Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 68

This bit from the Islamic Quran pretty much sums up how we view the peoples of the earth

“No difference canst thou see in the creation of the God of mercy.”

Islam, Qur’an 67:3

So that is why I was talking about tea, its a wonderful metaphor for both religion and mankind, because you see we Bahá’ís look for Unity in Diversity, or Uni(Tea) in Diversi(Tea)!!!

God Bless

Michael

I have been informed that Typhoo is responding to Traidcrafts and the WIs Make it Fair campaign and become the first of the UKs big five tea producers to go Fairtrade.

Fantastic news in my opinion, hopefully its a 100% offering across their range rather than a specialist range, but in my opinion it would give it a real march on its rivals, and hopefully it will open up many many more people to Fairtrade. If this is true, then hopefully the other four of the big five (PG Tips, Tetleys, Twinnings and Yorkshire) will follow suit.

Ok fair enough PG Tips, Yorkshire and with their everyday tea, Twinings, have all began to start using Rainforest Alliance Certified (RFA) tea, PG Tips plan to be 100% RFA by the end of this year, and Twinings everyday brand will be 100% RFA by as late 2015!!!

RFA itself is ok, but it concentrates on the environmental side which is admirable, but neglects the workers, also while Fairtrade places the responsibility on the company making the final product, RFA places all the emphasis on the farmers, so they have to shell out the cash to get certified. Also some products that have the RFA seal are only 30% certified, which is the case with Galaxy chocolate, which also has palm oil in it, hardly good for the rain forest.

Anyway to sum up, if  Typhoo goes Fairtrade, then great, hopefully fewer people will buy Tetleys, sorry tastes  horrible and the owners Tata Tea are not at all interested in trade justice or ethical trade.

Watch this space.

Michael

Sunrise & Sunset Times for Newcastle upon Tyne

At Latitude 55°00′N, Longitude 1°36′W
For the year 166 BE (2010 CE)

Last night I was lucky enough to have been invited to attend the inaugural City of Peace lecture at Newcastle’s Civic Centre.

Just to remind you what is City of Peace, its an intuitive to:-

• Encourage communities, individuals and organisations in Newcastle upon Tyne to get to know each other better
• Safegaurd vulnerable people and groups and give support where needed
• Bring about greater integration, but also respect for difference
• Reduce inequalities and promote social justice
• Tackle prejudice, create a positive and safe environment, reduce tensions and promote good citizenship.

Some very noble aims and as a city we doing our best to move closer to them every day.

Anyway back to the lecture. We were blessed to have the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend John Sentamu, basically the head of the Church of England in the North. His lecture was on the theme of “Gracious Magnanimity versus Tolerance”, a most thought-provoking topic.

The Archbishop was introduced by the Lord Mayor, and was given the honour of being named an honorary Geordie, to which he could only say “Whey-Aye Man”.

He started by explaining how tolerance is seen as part of what makes Britain, Britain, but he argued that tolerance was actually a negative quality, resulting in narrow-mindedness and oppression.

He used the example of brothels in France which are referred to as ‘maisons de tolérance’or Houses of tolerance. He stated his belief that tolerance is putting up with something that is different and that we don’t particullarily like, and instead argued that we should gravitate more towards the quality of Gracious Magnanimity, or meeting people halfway as he put it. He said that:-

“We are more likely to hear the language of people asserting their rights, waving the terms of the contract under someone’s nose and getting in first. Yet it is these positive virtues of gracious magnanimity which I believe could help us to transform our country today.

Aristotle also discussed gracious-magnanimity in the Nicomachean Ethics. He says that gracious-magnanimity (epieikeia) is that which is just and sometimes that which is better than justice (Eth. Nic. V. 10.6).

It corrects the law when the law is deficient because of its generality. And he compares the person who is graciously magnanimous (epieikes) with the person who is immoderate (akribodikaios.)

The person who is immoderate is the person who stands up for the last title deeds of their legal rights; but the person who is graciously magnanimous knows that there are times when a thing may be legally completely justified and yet morally completely wrong.

A person has the quality of gracious-magnanimity if they know when not to apply the strict letter of the law, when to relax justice and introduce mercy.

Similarly I would say, a graciously-magnanimous Church has a responsibility to both affirm moral standards and to ensure that its rules don’t seem rigorous to the point of inhumanity. That should also be true of all civic authorities. That should be true of all of us.”

He then moved on to an interesting and moving example of this quality from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa a woman was at the hearing about her son’s murder. The police officer who had ordered the brutal killing was there, shamefacedly hearing read out the details of what he and his colleagues had done. At the end the room was quiet. The chair of the commission, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, asked the woman if she had anything to say to the man who had killed her son.

She responded:

“I am very full of sorrow. So I am asking you now – come with me to the place where he died, pick up in your hands some of the dust of the place where his body lay, and feel in your soul what it is to have lost so much. And then I will ask you one thing more. When you have felt my sadness, I want you to do this. I have so much love, and without my son, that love has nowhere to go. So I am asking you – from now on, you be my son, and I will love you in his place.”

She went on to say –

“I can say this – I can only do this, because Jesus loved me and gave himself up for me.””

I have to say that story was very touching and extremely powerful, the room drew a gasp at this and several members of the audience, including the Lord Mayor were brought to tears.

Its a nice sentiment and a fantastic quality and one I think is worth striving towards. He finished by wishing us luck in the City of Peace inituative and that Newcastle United will flourish, which recived a massive round of applause!

My prayer for Newcastle in the months and years ahead is that you may hold fast to this vision, that you work with humility, good humour and imagination together to build-up your common life. May God bless you, Newcastle and may the fortunes of Newcastle United ever flourish.

I was also fortunate enough to meet him just prior to the lecture, and I have to say his is a charming chap, and I found him to have some extremely interesting insights to the way the UK and indeed the world is today.

I was most interested by his comments, which he later expanded upon in his lecture, about groups such as the National Secular Society, who expect those of us who hold religious views to keep them entirely private. It fits in my thoughts on hats, which I will explain another day. Anyway he said that how can we expect people to simply put their religious beliefs away in a box when they are in the public domain. The truth of the matter is that someone’s religious beliefs is a core part of their identity and without it, that person loses something.

And the experience of the religious, dealing with organisations like the National Secular Society, are exactly what Gracious Magnanimity can help us to address. We can meet half way and allow us all to happily get along and strive towards making not only Newcastle a City of Peace, but the whole Earth a Planet of Peace.

Anyway you can read his lecture here.

God Bless

Michael

CNN did a very good article on the contribution of Muslim inventions that helped shape the world we know today.  I have also been playing Assassin Creed 2 on the Xbox 360, and both of these have got me thinking about the major influences that Islam has had specifically on European society, particularly in the Renaissance of the 15th century.

Islam has a surprisingly long history in Europe; for a nearly 800 years there was a major Islamic presence in the Iberian peninsula (modern day Spain and Portugal), which at one point pretty much encompassed the whole peninsula as well as some parts of southern France. There was also an Islamic state in Sicily during the 9th – 11th Centuries.

When these areas were recaptured by Christians during the Reconquista in Iberia and the Norman conquest of Sicily, the introduction of many parts of medieval Islamic culture into European society lead to the Renaissance of the 12th century, which paved the way for the Renaissance of the 15th century

So I figured I would look at just three areas and explore how these were influenced by Islam. The preservation of classical texts, the Scientific method and agriculture.

The Preservation of Classical Texts

When the Roman Empire fell, Europe descended into what we now know as the dark ages, an awful lot of science and knowledge from classical antiquity was lost to Europe. As a result of the Islamic conquest of the former territories of the Byzantine Empire, the work of  Aristotle, Galen, and Plato (amongst others) were translated from the crumbling papyrus they were written on. This knowledge was persevered, studied,commentated on and expanded upon. As early as 832, there was a great library of these texts kept in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad.

As the Muslims conquered Iberia & Sicily, they brought these writings with them as well, reintroducing the ideas and concepts back into Europe. When they were driven out by the Christians these texts were left behind, and the ideas were translated into Latin and spread over Europe, meaning things like the Hippocratic oath came back into use.

The Scientific Method

In Greek science, a great deal of emphasis was placed upon rationality rather that experimentation however in Islamic science, the reverse was true. This may be down to the emphasis on empirical observation found in the Qur’an and Sunnah, but whatever it was, Islamic scientists combined precise observation, controlled experimentation and careful record keeping. Every A-Level science student will tell you that those things are the key to science as we know it. The use of controlled experiments to determine the correctness of a theory was ground breaking then. This is the same method that has carried on since and is still used all over the world today, from the smallest school science classroom to the most advanced university research labs.

Abū ʿAlī al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (in Europe we call him Alhazen), wrote the Book of Optics in 1021, and if you read it (and I highly recommended you do, my A-Level physics teacher made me and I am glad she did), you will see the beginning of all modern science. So influential is this book that Alhazen is often called the first scientist and many historians place it up there with Newton’s Principia Mathematica as the two most important scientific works ever.

If you look at Alhazan’s method you will recognise the heading and sections of any modern scientific reports. It basically consisted of the following headings:

1. Observation
2. Statement of problem
3. Formulation of hypothesis
4. Testing of hypothesis using experimentation
5. Analysis of experimental results
6. Interpretation of data and formulation of conclusion
7. Publication of findings

Familiar to any student and/or scientist all over the world!

Using this method, Islamic scientists even developed a theory of evolution by natural selection as far back as the 9th century, while we had to wait until the 19th for Darwin to figure it out!

In regards to science in general, in Europe there is a gap in scientific development of around 1000 years, and it was only due to the works of the Muslims that science was able to develop so quickly in Europe during the Renaissance.

Agriculture

The Muslim conquest of Iberia saw the introduction of some extremely important agricultural innovations, particularly crop rotation, where a different crop in planted in winter and summer, doubling the productivity of a field. Muslims also grew cash crops, crops which are not just for a farmers own subsidence, but are sold for profit. Muslim rulers also took a radically different approach to labour rights and land ownership, rewarding productive farmers, as opposed to the feudal system in Europe in which farmers were practically slaves with little hope of improvising their lot in life.

Until the Islamic rule in Iberia, most crops grown in Europe were wheats. The Muslims brought with them some fantastic crops to grow, including sugar cane, rice, lemons, oranges, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines, bananas, and saffron. All of which we still use today and they are very yummy, except cotton which leaves your mouth kind of dry!

On the technology side, Islamic famers brought us irrigation, industrial milling, fertilizers and windmills. And all of this allowed for the development of towns and cities as fewer people were needed to grow the fod to feed society, so great scientists and artists were able to flourish, would Leonardo Da Vinci, have accomplished so much if he had to work the fields to feed himself?

Conclusion

So there are my thoughts on it, in my opinion we should really be thankful for Islam, without it, who knows what kind of world we would be living in, maybe we would never have gotten out of the dark ages!

Have Fun

Michael