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

Lately I have been thinking a lot about food, and more precisely sustainable and environmentally friendly food.

You see, I look at what we here in the developed world eat, and then I see images of children in the developing world starving, and like many people, I can’t accept that this is the way the world should be.

Now I am an admirer of Norman Borlaug, and his Green Revolution, though I imagine that if he had done his work today, it would certainly not be called that. Now his work led Mexico from being a net importer of grain in 1943, to self sufficiency in 1956 and finally to becoming a grain exported by 1964. The Green Revolution has a number of environmental issues though, substantial use of pesticides, loss of agricultural biodiversity, heavy use of water etc. But considering the rate of population growth this century, it clearly has helped to keep the world feed, and if we didn’t use these techniques, surly we would have seen many more famines that we have.

Now this leads me onto organic food, personally I like the idea of organic, personally I don’t like the term though, I prefer traditional agriculture, as for thousands of years it the only way we could grow crops. But yields is an issue, with some crops the yields can be as low as 50% compared with intensive farming methods, and I honestly do not think that we could feed the worlds current population if we went 100% organic. But environmentally speaking, organic is best, fewer pesticides, less water use and increased biodiversity.

Its clear that continued use of the techniques pioneered by Borlaug are not good, and the environment is suffering. So for my part I think the world needs to move towards more organic food production. But do I necessarily mean certified organic, no personally I think that if synthetic fertilizers are used that say contain only vitamins and minerals, that’s fine, I know its not with a lot of people, but that’s just my personal opinion. GMO is another matter altogether, I don’t understand the science to form any kind of opinion about it, though we have been altering crops for millennia with selective breeding, so I sometimes wonder if GMO is simply a more advanced version of that.

But I am a real hypocrite, I don’t always buy organic, and I don’t always buy local, I try, and I am getting better, but sometimes my budget just doesn’t stretch far enough, I wish it did though. And at the same time I am aware that I am thinking like a western elitist, as a friend from Pakistan says, I have never know the pains of hunger, and as he says from his point of view. He told me that he looks at me and my ilk and thinks we are simply rich idiots prancing around thinking we know whets best for the world and telling him if he has to starve to make sure our melons can be organic then tough.

Now I do think if I was in his shoes and was starving, I would be screaming at the top of my voice for farmers to farm as intensively as possible and use the finest GM crops science could manufacture, oh and use tractors galore and fly it to me on the fastest jet planes possible, cause I don’t care about carbon footprints, I am just starving to death!

So where am I going with all of this, well I really don’t know, this world has so many problems, most of them caused by man, we have grown simply too numerous for this world to handle and we need to start thinking about reversing population in order to ensure the world can sustain not only the human race, but the other wondrous plants and animals on earth.

But even if we don’t go down the organic route, how can we feed the ever growing world population without further damaging our environment, personally I don’t think we can, the world is at breaking point and we need as a matter of urgency to either bring population growth down to zero, or better still reverse it so its negative population growth.

So to sum up my thoughts on food:-

• I like the idea of organic food
• I am not sure if organic farming can feed the world
• Local is best
• For things that cannot be grown locally Fairtrade is best
• Synthetic fertilizers of vitamins and minerals are ok
• Population growth needs to go to zero or less to allow us to be able to feed the world.

None of it makes sense but then again, it something I can’t make sense of in my own mind anyway!

But I will finish with this question:- Did the Green Revolution solve the potential hunger crises caused by the human pollution explosion of the 20th century, or did it enable that growth to happen?

Sorry for rambling on!

Michael

Tomorrow our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair goes in front of the Iraq enquiry.

Now the war, in all honesty, is something that really worries me. I mean, I can’t put my hand on my heart and say that Iraq would be a better place with Saddam still in power. But at the same time war troubles me, war should only be an option as the very last resort.

As a great man once said, where there is a thought of war, it must be overcome with a more powerful thought of peace.

In my heart I detest the fact that there was a war, with the deaths of innocents and young men on both sides, who only wanted to serve their country. But when you look at the crimes committed by Saddam against his own people, I think, maybe there was a case for regime change.

We were taken to war on what turned out to be false information, was that the result of deception, I don’t know, I hope not. I think that Tony Blair is an honourable man who honestly believed he was doing the right thing.

I am not really making sense am I, well, I really don’t know how to sum it all up in my head. My dad said to me before we went to war, imagine if we had stood up to Hitler after Kristallnacht, and removed him from power, would that have saved 60 million lives?

I wonder if regime change can ever be right? Who would decide when a regime crosses the line, who has the right to police the world, and who would watch the watchmen?

Either way I don’t think I will ever reconcile the war in my own mind, best I can hope to do is pray that this never happens again. I guess this is for historians to judge and make sense of.

God bless,

Michael

At the Newcastle Bahá’í Centre, we have recently started a monthly open deepening/fireside, exploring different themes within the Faith. It all started with some deepening’s we received from the NSA on the fund and we kind of carried it on. Having had deepening’s on Marriage, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, our next one which is on the 27th is on Unity.

I am facilitating the February one which is on the 24th, and when deciding what to use as a theme, I didn’t really need to think very hard. I decided to focus on Fairtrade and how we can approach it from the perspective of the Bahá’í Faith. Its also fantastic that it falls in Fairtrade Fortnight as well!

You see this year instead of making silly New Years resolutions that would be all forgotten about by the 2nd January, I instead made a single resolution, to try and really put into practice the principles of the Faith.

One principle which I think that I, and indeed all Bahá’ís can really put into practice in a very practical way is the elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty, and one of the good ways to put this into action is to buy Fairtrade products.

Late last year my LSA decided to go Fairtrade and purchase only Fairtrade tea & coffee, and I guess since then I have really been thinking about Fairtrade a lot, and what does the Faith have to say about it.

Clearly during the time of Bahá’u'lláh and `Abdu’l-Bahá, the concept of Fairtrade that we have today did not exist. So when looking at the writings, I didn’t expect to come across a bit saying, “oh and by the way, Fairtrade is good”!

But when reading the Writings a particular Hidden Word springs to mind straight away.

“O YE RICH ONES ON EARTH!

The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.”

Bahá’u'lláh, The Persian Hidden Words No. 54

So this is Bahá’u'lláh saying that if you are well off, just looking after your own needs is not good enough. We have a responsibility to look after the poor as well, and if we remember that in his youth in Tehran he was known as “Father of the Poor”, then we should realise already have an example that we must follow.

Talking of examples, we have ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as The Perfect Exemplar, the person whose behaviour we should look to emulate, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was very kind to the poor. One of the things that really speaks to me are the stories of the Master giving away coats to the poor and needy of Acre, one in particular speaks to me:-

The wife of the Master was about to depart on a journey. Fearing that her husband would give away his cloak and so be left without one for himself, she left a second cloak with her daughter, charging her not to inform her father of it. Not long after her departure, the Master, suspecting, it would seem, what had been done, said to his daughter, “Have I another cloak?” The daughter could not deny it, but told her father of her mother’s charge. The Master replied, “How could I be happy having two cloaks, knowing that there are those that have none?” Nor would he be content until he had given the second cloak away.”

His reasoning can be applied to Fairtrade. How can we be happy sitting at home drinking our cuppas made with bargain tea bags, when the farmer who grew that tea is having to sell some of his land as he can’t afford to grow on it all, thanks to the low prices that tea buyers demand, even though he has already pulled his daughter out of school, and is skipping as many meals as possible, in order to ensure he is able to survive?

We Bahá’ís also believe that productive work is a form of worship and Bahá’u'lláh instructs us to work:-

“Please God, the poor may exert themselves and strive to earn the means of livelihood. This is a duty which, in this most great Revelation, hath been prescribed unto every one, and is accounted in the sight of God as a goodly deed. “

Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, p. 202

But he says “strive to earn the means of livelihood”, now an awful lot of the world live in poverty, because we won’t pay a little bit more for our tea, these people are working and are trying to earn a livelihood. But because of our insatiable demand for cheaper and cheaper products, they are denied the ability to earn a fair income, and Fairtrade products look to redress that. Bahá’u'lláh wrote:-

“They who are possessed of riches, however, must have the utmost regard for the poor”

Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, p. 202

‘Abdu’l-Bahá also said:-

“Service to the friends is service to the Kingdom of God, and consideration shown to the poor is one of the greatest teachings of God.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 27

So from two of our central figures we can quite clearly see that we have a real obligation to help and assist the poor amongst us, and remembering that Baha’u'llah also wrote:-

“It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.”

Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, p. 250

So it is not just about helping the poor in our country, it’s about helping all the poor in the world. And that’s what Fairtrade is all about. By making that choice to spend a little bit more on our tea, coffee and even our rubber gloves, we can all play a part in working to close the gap between the rich and the poor.

But I think we can pretty much sum it all up when we think of the “Golden Rule”, a value which is present in all of the major world religions, and in the Bahá’í Faith, its:-

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

Bahá’u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u'lláh, p. 71

But in Christianity, you will recognise it as

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

Matthew 7:12

And in Islam as:-

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

Sunnah

So going forward the theme for the February evening will be “Fairtrade – A Bahá’í Perspective”. I have some samples of Fairtrade products that I am going to take along for people to try, and hopefully I will show the friends, and other members of the wider community, why we should use Fairtrade products where we can.

Fairtrade isn’t the answer to the problem of poverty, its only part of the solution. In order to fully eradicate it we need to work towards eliminating poor governance, an end to the marginalisation of women, halting environmental degradation, and the provision of universal education. And only when we have achieved all of these goals, will the eradication of the extremes of wealth and poverty be possible.

But let’s start with this small step.

God Bless

Michael