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30 January 2000 

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FUTURE 

The Homelessness Sunday Pack contains exactly 20OO reasons and resources to 

make a difference to homelessness and bad housing. L4.4O each from CHAS, 209 Old 

Marylebone Road, London NWl- 9QT. Final posting date for resource 25/r/2000 

movement n. 7. a moving or being 

moved. b instance or this (watched his 

every movement). 2 moving parts of a 

mechanism (esp. a clock or watch). 

3 a body of persons with a common 

object (peace movement). b caffLpaign 

under taken by them. 4 (in pl.) person's 

activities and whereabouts. 5 fabulous 

magazine published termly by SCM. 

Available for f15 for two years and 

free to affiliated groups. (I must get my 

copy of movement now !) See address 

opposite. 

movement 

recommended 

on good 

authority

Zoltan Helsey argues that the less gtamorous environmental issues are being 

sidetined because we'd rather hear sensational predictions about rising sea [evels 

than about [oca[ wettands. 

Global warnfng 

tform 

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catastrophe is about to engulf us. When 

there is a hot summer or a strong hurricane 

some scientist, almost inevitably, will 

appear on TV spouting warnings of human 

induced climate change and how things will 

only get worse. But how true are these 

apocalyptical predictions? With what 

confidence can we believe scientists' 

predictions? 

The research for climate change is 

undertaken using huge supercomputers 

which are able to simulate the Earth's 

climate. By changing parameters in these 

models - such as a doubling of 

greenhouse gases in the next 50 years - 

they can try to predict what the climate 

will be like in the future. Most of the 

models predict the Earth's climate will rise 

in temperature by an average of 1.5 to 

4.5'C. You will, no doubt, have seen these 

kinds of figures in the news, but just how 

accurate are they? 

The problem with these predictions is 

that they rely on models which are far from 

perfect, since they operate at a relatively 

coarse resolution; moreover they are trying 

to model a system which is inherently 

chaotic. To verify these models, scientists 

try to predict past climate changes from 

which we do have some data. This is not 

ideal, because whilst Europe has many 

years of past data, vast parts of the globe 

(the oceans and Africa) have little recorded 

climatic data. Even if these global predictions 

are accurate, what is really needed by 

policy makers is regional estimates of 

climate change. Again, the climate models 

face difficulties here and it is very difficult 

to predict regional climate change. 

Despite these criticisms, many 

scientists argue it is best to be cautious 

and make plans for various climate change 

scenarios. The difficulty is implementlng 

the restraints needed to reduce 

greenhouse gas emissions. Most people 

agree with cutting greenhouse gas 

emissions; but it is hard to get people to 

use public transport more regularly or boil 

less water in their kettles and so on. To 

effectively implement climate change 

controls would require a radical change in 

the economical and political structure of 

society. lt demands a stop to economic 

growth, perhaps through the 

implementation of large taxes on fossil 

fuels. 

Such a policy is very unlikely to be 

taken up and hence what will probably 

happen is that nations will adapt to the 

effects of climate change as they happen 

The effects will not happen overnight, but 

over a period of time which gives us the 

chance to build bigger flood barriers or 

whatever. Remember also that the 

greenhouse effect will also lead to positive 

changes like larger areas for cultivation at 

high latitudes. This may lead to larger crop 

yields and the possibility of growing a 

greater variety of crops in the UK. Maybe 

with average temperatures in the UK 

increasing, British wine will taste better! 

We, of course, have a responsibility to 

look after the planet. However, despite the 

media attention this gets (perhaps 

because stories of doom are always 

popular) we must not forget other equally 

important yet less glamorous 

environmental issues. These include land 

fill sites, the protection of wetlands, the 

effects of oil drilling on British coral, 

desertification, urban pollution, heavy 

metal pollution.... 

These issues do not get the same 

amount of attention in the media, or as 

much research funding, because they 

often operate at a local level and are 

perhaps less dramatic stories compared to 

global changes. For example, wetlands are 

vital habitats for migrating birds, they are 

great absorbers of pollution and they 

provide flood protection. But when did you 

last read a story about wetlands in the 

press? lt would seem sensible that we do 

not over focus our efforts on climate 

change and neglect the rest of the 

problems the environment is facing. ls 

climate change worth worrying about? Yes, 

but we must not ignore other environmental 

issues as a result and one should 

remember that the scientists' predictions 

are far from perfect. 

,tn_ 

Zoltan Helsey is a member of Leeds SCM 

and is a Research Fellow in the School of 

Geography. 

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lssue 104 

Winter 1*912ffJfJ 

Movement is the termly 

magazine of the Student 

Christian Movement, 

dlstributed free of charge 

to members and 

dedicated to an openminded 

exploration of 

Christianity. 

Edltorial address 

2/2 167 Hyndland Road, 

Hyndland, Glasgow. 

G12 gHT 

r (0141) 339 7343 

e: movemag@aol.com 

SCM central office 

Westhill College, 

t4/75Weoley Park Road 

Selly Oak, Birmingham. 

829 6LL 

r (0121) 4712404 

f: (0121) 474 1257 

e: SCM@charis.co.uk 

Editor: Tim Woodcock 

Editorial board: Diccon Lowe, Sara 

Mellen, Carolyn Styles 

SCM staff 

Coordinator - Carotyn S9les 

ProjedWorter: Groups - Elinor Mensingh 

Website: www.charis.co.ulvscm 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in 

Movement arc those of the particular 

author and should not be taken to be 

the policy of the Student Christian 

Movement. 

Membershlp fees: 

-915 (uaged) 

t10 (urMraged/$udents) 

Next copydate 

1jlh Mar$ 2000 

UrEoliribd materhl uelcome. 

AskbrguitelirEs. 

Adveltbil€condab 

20fi March 200O 

lssN 0306.980x 

Cfnrity No.241t€o 

@1999SCil4 

movement 1

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Thank you Stephen 

We bring you the news that our Project 

Worker for Publications, Fundraising and 

Membership Development, StePhen 

Matthews came to the end of his contract 

with SCM in November. SCM's Project 

Workers are employed on a two year basis, 

to ensure fresh energy and new ideas. 

Stephen began working for SCM just 

before the 1997 Annual Conference and in 

his time here became a familiar and 

friendly face at all of our events. He was an 

excellent fundraiser (a dull but essential 

job) and gifted in the art of persuasion, he 

made more people part with their cash than 

anyone before him! He is now headed for 

greater things in the big city and we wish 

him well. 

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Beatltudes or 

platltudes? 

IE 

HE RECENT SGM CONTCRENCE 

U'lrurutt*ti:iffiir;;' 

everyone seemed to know what these were 

at the start of the conference, but I hope 

that they felt they'd learnt something about 

it by the time they left! Not unsurprisingly 

then the weekend focused a lot on 

persecution, but I left feeling hopeful about 

Christianity in the next century, having learnt 

that the Beatitudes tend to focus on 

reversal and that things don't always have to 

stay the way they are. 

We had three very powerful speeches, 

particularly profound was Chris Kitch's 

account of her own time as a 'bag-lady' and 

her experience of'reversal. I think we all 

learnt something from her, if nothing else to 

listen with our hearts. 

The workshops were good too, I wasn't 

able to sample them all but I can say that I 

had fun with the drama and I believe the 

general consensus was thumbs up. The 

weekend was nicely rounded off with SCM 

joining in with the service of the United 

Reformed Church, where we were staying. 

Not only was it nice to be able to take part 

in their service and spread something of the 

message of what SCM is and what we do, 

but it was also good that we were able to 

SCM staff and conference speakers (l-r: Stephen Matthews, Nick Bradbury' Chris Kitch' 

Carrie Styles, Mary Alfonse, Ellie Mensingh) 

give something by contributing pieces from 

our various workshops. 

We also had Kopanang, a fab band, on 

the Saturday night, which nicely mixed 

entertainment with the telling of a message' 

And spread throughout the weekend, 

worship from Cambridge, Lincoln and Leeds 

and group activities. 

Overall I think the last SCM conference 

of the century went out with a bang! I really 

enjoyed being part of the planning team and 

I hope that all those who attended enjoyed 

it as much as me. We can now look forward 

to a new millennium and whatever SCM 

conferences that will bring us! 

(ELSIE RILEY) 

SEE ALSO PAGE 4: creative writing and art 

from the conference. 

movement 2 

! 

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I 

The Taize Experience! 

Get your dlaries out now and make 

sure you remember to keep the flrst 

weekend of March free! The organlsers of 

the Ecumenical Gatherlng 2OOO (SCM, 

CSC and Methsoc and St Alphege's 

Church ln Solihul) are lnviting you to a 

weekend's taste of Talze ln the charmlng 

city of Blrmingham. To make the flavour 

of the weekend more authentic, the event 

wlll be led by Brother Paulo, a welFknown 

member of the Talze community. 

There wlll be plenty of chances to 

partlclpate in the beautlful Taize style of 

worshlp, as part of a large group of young 

people. As well as the worship, you'll be 

able to find out more about what the 

Taize communlty is and what lt stands for, 

Various workshops will offer you the 

possibility of exploring themes about 

whlch Taize is concelned, such as peace 

and reconclllatlon. Booklng forms wlll 

soon be avallable from the SGM offlce. 

coming up: Ecumenical meeting 

2000. BrRlrrrucHnm, 3Ro - SrH 

Mnncn 2000. 

Child soldiers 

Stuart Ullathorne of 

Pax Christi writes: 

Since January 1982 

no less than ninety 

two 16 and L7 year 

olds have died 

during service. 

Britain has the 

lowest (equal) 

minimum age of recruitment, the largest 

recruitment of under 18s into the armed 

forces, and the lowest age of deployment. 

On 10th November the Coalition handed 

in a 6O 000 strong petition to the Prime 

Minister which strongly urged him to 

support the introduction of an Optional 

Protocol to the UN Convention On The 

Rlghts Of The Child. This would raise the 

minimum age of recruitment and 

participation in the British Armed Forces to 

18 years of age. 

Ethnic minorities and young people who 

are economically deprived are often the 

focus of recruitment campaigns, as it is 

assumed that possibilities for further 

education and good employment will not be 

available to them elsewhere. 

However, the question should be asked: 

is the recruitment of young people into the 

armed forces a suitable means of 

compensating for their lack of 

opportunities? 

For more information on the issue p/ease 

contact Pax Christi. t: 0787 203 4884 or e: 

p axc h r isti@ gn. a p c. o rg. 

Cockney Catholic Workers? 

A group of people in London are 

thinking about the possibility of beginning a 

Catholic Worker community. There are 

already groups in Liverpool, Glasgow and 

Oxford. The Catholic Worker movement is 

committed to actions of resistance and 

hospitality and emerged from 1930s 

depression in the USA. 

A group of people have been meeting 

once of a month to discuss the possibilities. 

It is most likely to be in east London. Fr 

Martin Newell said: "At this stage there are 

lots of if and bits and maybes. We are just 

drawing people together." lf you are 

interested in living in a radical intentional 

community, contact Martin Newell on 0171 

4764L29. Spread the word... 

Summer challenge 

Doug Hemin! of World Vision writes; 

ln her recent article Beki Bateson explored 

the complex issues which Palestinian 

Christians face in the West Bank and Gaza 

Strip ('Surface Tension', M103). Most 

tourists to the Holy Land tend to be 

cocooned away from the harsher realities 

which these 'Living Stones' of the 

Palestinian Church now face. Beki's 

challenge to readers was to look under the 

surface of this beautiful land from beyond 

the comfort of air conditioned coaches. 

Here in the Church Relations 

Department at World Vision UK we have 

been sending teams of Christian students 

to the West Bank for some years now. We 

offer UK students the chance to visit some 

of the communities most affected by the 

lsraeli Occupation. World Vision works in 

these areas as part of its wider 

commitment to the issues of justice and 

reconciliation world wide. 

The Student Challenge Programme is 

run over the summer break for a period of 

five weeks which include an initial week of 

orientation with local Church leaders, 

human rights lawyers and development 

experts. The teams take part in various 

educational and research projects which 

contribute to the longer term work of World 

Vision in the Holy Land. 

For more information about these teams 

p/ease contact Doug Heming at: 599 

Avebury Boulevard, Milton Keynes Central 

Milton Keynes, MKg 3PG. 

O r e-mail : Dou g.He m i ng@worldvisi on.org. u k 

movement 3 

The Cairns Network is an "international 

network of people whose spiritual way 

involves: being committed to the earth; 

wrestling with faith; daring to contemplate; 

being creative." They have just published a 

32 page booklet called By Heartfor the 

Millennium. Further details from available 

from 0114 243 Ll82 or cottercairns@ 

compuserve.com. 

The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement 

has launched a website at http://members. 

aol.com/gcm. lt features information about 

the organisation and an archive of articles 

on gay and lesbian issues. 

Spotted in the Guardian letters page 

(25/9/99) in response to a piece earlier in 

the week about 'hard partying missionaries 

who turn pub chats into moral debates 

about masturbation and home-taping': 

"All the views could have come straight 

out of the 1950s. Christians who don't 

want to get caught up in the CU right-wing 

anti-intellectual bigotry can still do what 

those of us who were pursued and prayed 

for did then. Join the Student Christian 

Movement, which is still very much alive 

and as intellectually robust as ever. 

Dr Jack Priestley, Exeter." 

WSCF-Europe's Regiona/ Asse m bly took 

place in ltaly at the end of November. 

Outgoing Chairperson Eilidh Whiteford and 

former Movement co/umnlst was 

bombarded with gifts from well-wishers. 

The new European Retional Committee, 

who are responslb/e for the next two years' 

program, was e/ected and it includes Kate 

Wilson of British SCM. 

WSCF-Europe is working on a series of 

international and ecumenical projects and 

events, details of these can be found on 

SCM's website when they are announced. 

National Fairtrade Fortnight is running from 

6-19th March 2000 and is being used as a 

focus to promote fairly traded goods. There 

are already 75 products that have earned 

the Fairtrade Mark. To complement 

Caf6direct coffee and others, a chocolate 

called Divine has been launched ("Heavenly 

milk chocolate with a heart").

Some creative hightights from SCM's recent conference on the beatitudes. 

Creme de la creativity 

Blessed are the rich 

The creative writing workshop explored the gap between the claims and the reality of the 

church. Here are some 'anti-beatitudes' by David Anderson. 

* Blessed are the rich for their taxes will be cut to encoura$e enterprise. 

* Blessed are those with transferable skills, for they need not fear chan$e. 

* Blessed are the poor, for they shall be the subject of award-winning 

documentaries. 

* Blessed are the revolutionaries, for their portraits shall decorate student bedrooms. 

* Blessed are those who believe advertisements, for they shall always have 

something new to dream of. 

* Blessed are the pure in body, for they will all have bought the latest product' 

* Blessed are the ironists, for we need never commit ourselves to anything. 

* Blessed are the realists, for they will ensure that nothing changes. 

I 

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People from the music workshop sing with Kopanang 

Banners by Cathy Clarke, bottom one made duringthe conference. 

Words from the beatitudes being rearranged. 

Collage poem 

by rearranging the words of the beatitudes 

(Matthew 5: 3-10, NIV). 

Who are the blessed? 

Who is the God of the persecuted? 

Who are the kingdom? 

Are their sons blessed? 

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Wlllthe blessed be poor? 

Will the blessed be less blessed in the fulness? 

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Manifesto 

The following was written last summer in 

response to some of the wilder claims I 

have heard from some evangelist types 

during my time at university. A small survey 

among friends sugElested that mY 

experience was not unique, since most of 

the people I showed it to could relate to it. lt 

has even been described as 'therapeutic'' 

"l do declare myself to be in twenty-four 

hour communion with God being one of His 

chosen ones (and it is to be remembered 

that we do not choose God but He chooses 

us) after my death my body shall not 

corrupt and my corpse shall give off a floral 

odour and I do also declare that my 

understanding of faith is the only true 

understanding and that anyone who differs 

from that which I proclaim is mistaken and 

their faith is not the true faith and 

furthermore The Bible shall be the one and 

only absolute source of all knowledge the 

very words written there having been 

dictated by God Himself (and all objections 

raised on grounds of difficulty of translation 

or that the original scriptures no longer exist 

shall be dismissed on the grounds that 

such objections are based on intellectual 

reasoning and should therefore form no 

part of any religious discussion) My 

Statement of faith is embodied in the 

KikYoo ten-point doctrine and no other 

creed (for after all shall not a group of '60s 

students have greater wisdom than any Sth 

century Bishops)? none of my words or 

actions may be subjected to valid criticism 

since I refuse to accept that anything I say 

or do intending well could cause anything 

but good (and I therefore have an absolute 

right to state my opinion of anyone else's 

words actions or beliefs and to act on 

anyone else's behalf if I consider it right to 

do so) and any criticism of such words or 

actions shall not deter me for those 

subjected to persecution shall be 

considered blessed." 

(CATHERINE CARFOOT) 

Piece not from workshop. 

After the earth will they mourn for it? 

Because they thirst God, 

[and] hunger in their heart for heaven, 

they will be filled. 

(COLLECTIVE EFFORT) 

movement 4

I 

El3g,3i":Ig,il#-i 

some with ten people. All of them had any 

of a number of diagnoses: schizophrenia, bipolar 

disorders, borderline personality 

disorders, epilepsy, depression, dissociative 

identity disorders (formerly multiple 

personality disordeO. They varied from low 

to high functioning, learning life skills, job 

ski I ls,' how-to-f u n ction-i n-society' ski I ls, etc. 

And despite the support of the mental 

health care 'system', they always needed 

more. 

We could never meet their spiritual 

needs, never able to answer why it is they 

came out the way they did, and what place 

God had in their lives. We were actually 

prevented from doing so. Any religious 

questions or interest they expressed meant 

an immediate referral to a local church. This 

was done to protect them from the personal 

beliefs of any staff, but still, I always felt 

that we were never able to connect with 

these people, whose lives clearly needed 

some kind of solid foundation, other than 

therapy and pharmaceutical medication. 

Mental illness is contagious. lf you don't 

have good boundaries, you can easily get 

seduced by the despair that many of these 

people face in having minds and psyches 

that don't work the way most minds work. 

For this reason, we had a fairly high 

turnover in our staffing. There was an 

understanding among my co-workers that 

few people could deal with doing this kind 

of work for much more than three to four 

years. I was in my fifth year of this work 

when I had my first bout of active 

depression, in the form of 'post traumatic 

stress disorder'. I think I learned at that 

point how vulnerable I could be, something I 

hadn't even considered before. I was always 

popular, had good grades, and was active in 

my community. But when I collapsed from 

the pressure of my work, I realised that 

anyane could have a seemingly normal life, 

and secretly be harbouring an inner world of 

deep anxiety and pain. 

A boy and his brain 

Rrcr GnnnNo 

At first I treated my condition as an 

illness, something I could confront, treat 

and leave behind me. But as I explored my 

past through counselling and with friends, I 

began to realise that what happened to me 

wasn't simply based on pressure from work. 

It was, rather, an extreme example of a 

pattern I had been living for most of my life. 

This was not an illness that I could 'defeat'. 

This was a chronic condition that I had to 

live with. I don't know if it is possible to 

explain to you what this 

means, exactly. I had to 

accept the fact that my 

emotions do not 

function the way others 

do. I had to become 

accustomed to overreactions 

and 

misplaced feelings and 

extreme highs and 

lows. As a man, I had 

been taught that these 

things were signs of weakness. As a 

Christian, I had been taught to listen to the 

voices of passion and compassion. As a 

student of political and social analysis, I had 

to develop a relationship between my heart 

and my head, and have my feelings inform 

my thoughts, and vice versa. How could I 

trust myself anymore? How could I be 

responsible, if I couldn't trust my 

responses? The only conclusion I was able 

to reach was to be as honest as I could be 

about my world, and share that with my 

friends and family. Honesty is a key to 

dealing with all this, and although I am not 

sure whythis is, I have certainly seen it 

prove to be my best self-support. 

I am sure this must seem somewhat 

opportunistic, using this column to testify 

about my life experience. I did not initially 

plan to focus on my own story as I have, but 

I think people need to have a better grasp 

on this condition in determining how it fits in 

to our overall analysis of the world we are 

trying to save. Depression is debilitating to 

millions of people around the world, as are 

other mental illnesses. lt keeps people from 

realising their potential, and often expresses 

itself in the form of self abuse and suicide. 

This is a rapidly growing illness in a world 

that has lost its sense of meaning, its 

spiritual centre, and its belief in our 

traditional institutions, and hope for the 

future. Depression is a serious symptom of 

our central issues in the Student Christian 

Movement. 

I do not believe for a minute, however, 

that it is anything that can defeat us in the 

work we do. ln my study of liberation 

Mental ittness is contagious. 

lf you don't have good 

boundaries, you can easity 

get seduced by the despair 

that other peopte face. 

theology, I have learned that the forces that 

oppress us are weaker than we are because 

they interpret their strength in money, 

muscle and political might. And it is the 

study of these powers that is the key to their 

failure. ln the case of depression, it is no 

different. 

I use the illness as a lens through which 

I can look at the world. Just as I interpret 

the world differently as white, as male, as 

gay, and as middle class, I interpret it as 

someone who has depression. I also accept 

that mental illness is a social construction 

that will have ownership of me, unless I 

have ownership of it. lt is still a struggle, but 

facing struggle is one of those things that 

we SCMers do. And it is the way that we 

address issues that is our real message to 

the world. 

lf you are a reader, you could be a writQr,,. 

mOVement is always interested in new ideas. 

Fancy doing a review? Having a rant? Generating ideas? 

lf so, please get in touch - see address on page one. 

movement 5

Richard Holloway on the government's attempts to embrace the market economy 

and combat poverty. Can weatth creation reatty be for the benefit of the majority? 

And do we need to find new ways to talk about inequatity and social intergration? 

RED 

, 

MUD 

or slD 7 o 

NE OF THE MOST SEARCHING 

diagnosticians of the human 

condition was Karl Marx. Dr Marx 

was a lousy therapist, but his 

diagnosis of human social pathology is still 

powerful and searching. He understood how 

political economies functioned, so his 

analysis is a good place to start thinking 

about the effect of global capitalism on the 

human community. His main insights, like 

most brilliant perceptions, once you get hold 

of them, are startlingly simPle. 

The central claim is that power always 

justifies itself, not necessarily by brute force, 

though it is rarely reluctant to do that, but 

by theories or ideas. That is why the ruling 

ideas in any era always justify the position 

of the ruling class - they are always used to 

legitimate the way things are done by the 

people in charge. lt is important to 

understand that this is not necessarily an 

accusatory insight, though it is a critical 

one. A moment's thought will show how 

obvious and necessary it is for any 

institution to be able to justify itself to itself, 

if it is to continue to operate effectively and 

not paralyse itself into critical gridlock. The 

importance of the Marxist insight is that, by 

helping us to understand how institutions 

work, it puts us in a better position to strive 

for their improvement, or, where necessary, 

their complete transformation. The main 

point I want to make is that people who are 

doing well out of a system rarely call for its 

reform. That is certainly how Kenneth 

Galbraith understands global capitalism 

today. 

ln his book, The Good Society, he writes: 

'There is the inescapable fact that the 

modern market economy accords wealth 

and distributes income in a highly unequal, 

socially adverse and also functionally 

damaging fashion'. Galbraith knows better 

than most how good the market economy is 

at generating wealth, but he is concerned at 

the way those who benefit from the system 

refuse to address the damaging effects it 

has on the most vulnerable members of 

society. Few people today argue for the 

complete abolition of the capitalist system. 

lncreasingly, however, they are calling for a 

candid acknowledgement of its failures. 'We 

created the thing', they say, 'so why can't we 

learn to modify or correct it?' And we have 

started to do this in certain areas. We have 

learnt about the cost to the planet of 

unregulated industrial activity, so we no 

longer tolerate businesses that pollute our 

rivers and destroy the quality of the air we 

breathe. So far, however, we are uncertain 

about how to respond to the effects of the 

global market economy on the human 

environment. We could make a start by 

acknowledging that the system that has 

made most people in this country more 

prosperous has plunged a significant 

proportion of our fellow citizens into poverty 

and despair. 

One of the undisputed facts of the 

history of human industry is that change in 

the methods of production always has a 

disproportionate impact upon the most 

vulnerable in society. History, like nature, 

seems to be indifferent to the pain it causes 

the weak. Think of the way the industrial 

revolution chewed up and spat out 

generations of the poor, before we learned 

how to protect them from its worst 

depredations. The paradox of our time is 

that it is the death of heavy industry that is 

now devastating the poor. Much of this is 

J.K. Galbraith has argued that wealth is 

distributed in socially damaging ways. 

movement 6 

the consequence of global economic 

changes. Heavy industry has been replaced 

by the knowledge economy, and we are only 

now trying to catch up with its 

consequential impact upon the poor and illeducated. 

And, as if that were not enough, 

social change has combined with the 

economic revolution to destroy the cultural 

cohesion of the most vulnerable sections of 

our society. 

History, like 

nature, seems to 

be indifferent 

to the pain it 

causes the weak 

When the cultural revolutions of the 

sixties met and married the economic 

revolution of the eighties, there was created 

a potent instrument of social change that 

has transformed the social landscape of 

Britain, and its most devastating impact has 

been upon young, ill-educated workless 

males. The institutions that once gave them 

a motive for responsible living, such as 

holding down a tough, demanding job with 

its own culture and honour, and presiding, 

however clumsily, within a marriage and 

family that was the primary context for the 

nurture and socialising of children, have 

largely disappeared, and with them the 

main ways the human community 

traditionally disciplined and integrated what 

the Prayer Book calls, 'the unruly wills and 

affections of sinful men'. This shattering of 

the structures that once gave the poor 

significance and purpose has created a 

breeding ground for despair and alienation. 

Whenever I refer to these facts at the 

dinner tables of Edinburgh someone 

inevitably points out that no one in Britain is 

starving today, because absolute poverty 

has been eradicated. That may be true, but 

minority poverty has a peculiar cruelty of its 

own. When most people were poor, there

ti 

nonsense 

enjoyed. lt has occurred to the new Left that 

this engine of the market, steered carefully, 

might be used to drive towards a more fair 

and equal society. So, with brilliant 

effrontery, they have united the two ideas 

together in Holy Matrimony. lt's as though 

the Left wing daughter of the shop steward 

at the Mill, fresh from the London School of 

Economics, and determined to do 

something about life in the Valley for her 

people, has married the owner's son, a nice 

lad, good at making money, a bit challenged 

intellectually, but mesmerised by the charm 

and cleverness of his unexpected bride. 

was a camaraderie and cultural cohesion in 

belonging to the working class that gave 

them a strength and pride that transcended 

the structures that excluded them. But in a 

society where most people are prosperous, 

and the poor are a minority whose culture 

has disintegrated, the pain and anger they 

feel is heightened. 

It is the mark of a humane and civilised 

society to acknowledge this pain and try to 

tackle the factors that produce it, though 

generations are always sacrificed while we 

learn to make the necessary adjustments to 

the great engine of change that drives its 

way through time. Because the Government 

has acknowledged that the endurance of 

poverty in a prosperous society is a scandal, 

we are currently embarked upon an 

ambitious programme to tackle the tragedy 

created by the revolutions of our time. 

We have acknowledged that the system 

that benefits most of us has had the 

unintended effect of excluding many of our 

fellow citizens, so we have to learn to 

correct that tragic imbalance. The 

paradoxical thing about the Government's 

The Government's programme to end 

poverty and social exclusion no longer 

conforms to the otd prescriptions. 

determination to end poverty and social 

exclusion is that the programme of change 

no longer conforms to the old prescriptions 

of the Left, though it is clearly prompted by 

the Left's traditional passion for a more 

equal society. lt has been argued that the 

Left won the ethical or cultural argument in 

Britain, but that the Right won the economic 

argument. lt is claimed that the market 

economy is the best instrument for the 

creation of prosperous societies, even 

though the prosperity is not universally 

II PEOPTE OF OOOD WILL 

must pray that the project will 

succeed in bettering the lot of the 

excluded. So the intention behind 

the Government's anti-poverty campaign 

has to be commended, but that does not 

mean that we should refrain from critical 

analysis of the methods used, nor that we 

should retire Dr Marx because we have 

nothing left to learn from him. His central 

diagnostic insight is still helpful, though we 

may have to apply it in a subtler way. The 

domination system is more likely to be 

spiritual today; we are more likely to be 

imposing a moral or cultural agenda on the 

poor, because we are convinced that we 

know what is good for them. 

There is some evidence that the 

Government is in the grip of this kind of 

thinking; in current social administration 

jargon, they have been seduced by SlD. SID 

is one of three types of discourse that are 

applied to the whole area of poverty and 

social exclusion. The three are RED, MUD 

and SlD. RED is what is called a 

redistribution discourse, because it believes 

that there can be no permanent bettering of 

the poor without significant elements of 

redistribution. MUD is a moralising 

discourse that blames the poor for their own 

pathologies. SID is a social integration 

discourse, which believes all problems will 

be solved if we get people back into work. 

There is little doubt that the Government 

has recruited SID in its campaign to 

eradicate poverty in this country. Can he do 

it on his own without RED? That is the 

question./{t- 

Richard Holloway is the BishoP of 

Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish 

Episcopal Church. He has written several 

well-regarded and provocative books, the 

latest being Godless Morality: Keeping, 

Religion Out of Ethics has been published 

by Canongate. 

movement 7

Tim Woodcock meets Dave Andrews, an Austratian ideatist and author of Christi- 

Anarchy. Here he tatks about tiving a spirituatity without hierarchies. 

Accfdental lffe 

of an anarchfst 

rv:AxonewstsADnEAilER. 

Perhaps the biggest dreamer I 

have ever met - and, no, that 

isn't meant pejoratively. 

Mordja Amari Boradja. lt is an Aboriginal 

saying that he invokes: those who lose their 

dreaming are lost. Andrews talks about 

compassion and inclusiveness and 

community, fully aware of how fanciful and 

abstract it can sound, yet unlike so many 

others, he did not leave such ideas behind 

in the 1960s. Dave Andrews has a fount of 

quirky anecdotes that demonstrate dreams 

can impinge on reality. 

For ten years Dave and his wife, Ange, 

lived in Delhi, where they set up an open 

house for disillusioned travellers. lt became 

'against 

the home for hundreds. After the murder of 

Mrs Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, and the 

ensuing backlash, he organised sanctuaries 

that offered to the Sikhs. Back in Australia 

he gained notoriety in the seventies for 

almost starting a riot, when he and a friend 

stood in a shopping mall handing out $2 

notes (their own hard earned 

cash) as a protest against 

greed. 

More recently he has 

moved away from grand 

gestures and grand standing. 

He is based in inner-city 

Brisbane, which is a bustling, 

cosmopolitan yet violent 

place. He is involved with the 

Waiters' Union - about thirty 

households committed to 

'waiting' on people, working 

towards community. "ln spite 

of our illusions we are only 

little people. lf we ever do 

great things it is an 

accumulation of a lot of little 

things. We need to get back 

to discovering our littleness. 

We need to do little things 

with a lot of love and integrity 

and dignity - I'd encourage 

people to be far less 

grandiose." 

Andrews has always been a 

movement 8 

'Christ' 

a saY 

aod to 

as srcn 

dissenter. He soon noticed the disparity 

between the church's actions and its claims 

and spent his teenage years sermonising 

and sniping. "lt was only when I got to the 

a1e of 20,l realised it was a pretty selfindulgent 

response just to lash people. I 

came to the conclusion that I if thought 

" l came to the conctusion 

that I if thought things 

needed to change, then 

I needed to change. " 

things needed to change, then I needed to 

change. For the whole of my life, since I was 

20, that is the journey I have been on: to 

develop an alternative rather than sit back 

and take cheap pot-shots..." 

The 'alternative' has led to Andrews 

identifying a vital but submerged tradition, 

what he calls Christi-Anarchy. lt is an idea 

explored by Jacques Ellul, the French 

sociologist, who calls it 'Tradition X'. He 

identifies Ellul as a fellow pilgrim, and 

name-checks him along with along with 

Dorothy Day, founder of Catholic Worker 

movement and 17th century digger Gerrard 

Winstanley. Andrews argues that we need to 

discount Christianity as a religion, 

but still try to remain true to 

Christ's teachings. "l want to 

replace the ideology with a 

sensibility. We need to 

reconstruct the idea of what it 

means to follow Christ." 

This new paradigm demands a 

thorough critique of structures, 

and this easy-going Australian 

becomes unusually didactic 

when he starts talking about 

church structures: "The 

leadership structures in 

Christian organisations are 

totally contradictory to what 

Christ was all about. Jesus 

was quite explicit. He said 

to his disciples, 'With the 

pagans their bosses rule it 

grouPs

q 

all over them. lt shall not be so amongst 

you'. He explicitly forbade it." 

"We've negotiated with the local 

Anglican Church lin Brisbanel to take over 

the evening service and to make it a space 

for the most distressed and disadvantaged 

people in our neighbourhood. So they not 

only attend but they control it. Anybody can 

speak. Anyone can lead the service. 

"There's an open invitation - people 

volunteer, then the organiser, if they have 

never done it before, will help them do it. 

We have people who actually live on the 

streets who check themselves into 

psychiatric institutions to get on medication 

so they can have a greater degree of 

stability. They go to a library, plan their 

sermon, come and preach it, and check 

themselves back out of hospital and go 

back on the streets. Now I don't know of any 

other church in the world that does that. 

"lt is a place where, for us, the good 

news is not only the content but the 

process. The good news for the poor is not 

that the rich telling them the that Christ is 

good news for them, but the poor have 

access to Christ for themselves. They are 

not just an audience." 

Such stories should makes those groups 

who claim to be inclusive - be it New 

Labour or SCM - reassess that fashionable 

claim. To truly empower people and to be 

authentically inclusive is a terrifying 

prospect: it th reatens trad ition, cliq u ish ness 

and orthodoxy. 

HAI ANDREWS ADVOCATES IS 

not a simply anarchy-with-aspiritual-twist, 

or a hippy vibe, or 

even a progressive'world ethic'. 

ln a throwaway epigram, Andrews says: "The 

longer I live, the less and less I believe. The 

little I believe in, I believe in more and 

more." There is an absolutism that jars, an 

seemingly unshakable faith in "who God 

revealed himself to be in Jesus." 

Many people have tried to pinpoint the 

moment when Christianity all went wrong - 

was it when Christ's teaching was 

Hellenised by Paul or embraced by Emperor 

Constantine? l\4aybe so, but we can't shift 

the blame in this way, says Andrews. Even if 

we inherit a corrupted Christianity, it doesn't 

" People who live on the streets go 

to a [ibrary, ptan their sermon, 

come and preach it, and go back on 

the streets. " 

mean we can't recover the essence of the 

gospel. We are responsible for doing that 

here and now - Christ's life is still relevant, 

his teachings are still compelling. 

To illustrate this he mentions the use of 

role-play in community disputes: "lf we [the 

Waiters' Unionl are working with people that 

are in a conflictual relationship we'll 

encourage them to role-play different ways 

of dealing with that conflict. Sometimes they 

come up with ways that are really quite 

creative - crossing boundaries of enmity, 

relating to 

the enemies 

as friends. 

They'll try 

that, and 

we'll say after 

they've done 

it: 'lt worked 

didn't it?' 

And they'll 

say, 'Yeah it did.' 'lt's very interesting that 

what you've found is a productive way of 

solving a problem which is quite consistent 

with the kind of approach Jesus 

advocated."' 

Or similarly, he remembers being 

involved with a group who were going to be 

driven out of the slums by the city councils' 

bulldozers. "They said to me, 'What do think 

Jesus would do?' Do you know anything in 

the Bible about how to deal with bulldozers? 

I don't. And then I remembered that parable 

that Jesus told about a I'il lady and the big 

ole judge. She kept on hassling him until he 

gave her what she wanted. I told them that 

story and said, 'Does that mean anything to 

you?' ('cos I didn't say it had to mean 

anylhing). They said 'We feel like we are 

little people. Maybe we can do what the li'l 

old lady did,' and they devised a scheme to 

harass the council until they relented." 

Andrews' methods are Christ-centred, not 

because of an evangelical guilt-trip or need 

to prove himself orthodox, but because he 

finds them the most effective way to 

improve relationships between people. 

A key ldea in Andrews' Christi-Anarchy 

(Lion, 1999) is that we must abandon a 

closed-set conception of following Christ - 

movement 9

Lllr' 

that which defines a Christian, through 

either beliefs or behaviour, with 'in' and 'out' 

clearly demarcated. He suggests an 'open 

set' perspective with fluid boundaries - 

becoming more like Christ is the only factor. 

ln this new model, conversion still has a 

place: "turning towards Christ, whether we 

know him by name or not, beginningto 

judge our lives, for ourselves in the light of 

his love... We can move beyond the 

scriptures, creeds, rites, rituals, ceremonies, 

and even religions that divide us." 

This is not a concession to a complex 

and post-modern world (although it deals 

with that admirably), but the open set is 

drawn from the gospels. Following Christ 

does not mean the same thing to all people 

- one person is expected to leave home, 

and other expected to go home; one told to 

sell all his wealth and give it to the poor and 

another only half. There are not fixed 

standards, but "variations on a common 

theme." 

Andrews' maverick views and 

provocative stances have, inevitably, landed 

him in trouble. 'At the moment I've been 

called to give account of my theolo$/ at the 

local Baptist Theologian College. They said I 

could only continue to teach theology if 

another member of staff was in the room, 

monitoring what I said." His response to this 

threat was charmingly unconventional - "l 

invited that person to contribute to the 

class. Then I invited the staff who were 

critical round to my house for a meal, and 

took them round the community." By 

refusing to play victim, and by exposing his 

whole life, it undermined the accusations. 

History has shown Christianity to have a 

dark side: the lnquisition, colonialism and 

wars have all been justified by claiming it is 

o c 

rl 

l v 

lrt 

What's your favourite possession? 

My books. 

What are you reading at the moment? 

Myth of the Millennium byTom Wright. 

Whats yourfavourite film/ play? 

Life of Brian. 

How do you relax? 

Play and listen to music. Write and read a lot. 

Tennis. 

li 

What's your favourite journey? 

To the foothills of the Himalayas. 

God's will. More significantly, those 

tendencies can be found in regular 

churches: using orthodoxy as a way of 

bullying, using leadership as a way of 

controlling people. These things cannot be 

brushed away as aberrations, argues 

Andrews, they are in fact true indicators of 

the nature of Christianity. 

So Dave Andrews sets off on a lonely 

and hazardous route, trying follow Christ but 

What do you like most about yourself? 

l'm gutsy. 

What do you dislike about yourself? 

I'm shy. 

What's your favourite word? 

Hope. 

lf you could be someone else who would it be? 

Gandhi. 

When did you last cry? 

Today. 

What are you scared of? 

Failure. 

Describe a recuning dream that you have. 

Flying... 

What do you never miss on TV? 

Premier League. 

What music do you listen to most? 

Van Morrison. 

What pet hates do you have? 

Burmese cat. 

What would your motto for living be? 

Macsicca! Make sure! 

without imperial Christianity. He is not the 

first to do it of course. This way predates 

Christianity... and, you can only dream, but it 

might out-live lt too. f4- 

Tim Woodcock is the editor of Movement 

and is a student at the Scottish Centre for 

Journalism Studies. 

d 

l 

I' 

I 

i 

Who's afraid of the big bad world? 

tr*jH**fu$+.=*t. 

graduate, and a sinking sensation. I'd been 

a student for so long, I wasn't sure I knew 

how to do anything else. No more discounts, 

no more lying in bed all day, no more union 

prices. A proper job'loomed - lcould smell 

office coffee, nine to five hours, a 

mortgage... 

I'm not the non-student I dreaded 

becoming. Two weeks before the start of a 

new term, - they don't have terms in the 

real world, do they? Except in schools - | 

had a phonecall from the post-graduate 

course I'd applied for, way back when. There 

was a space. Would I like it? Would I ever! 

Up until I had that call, it hadn't occurred 

to me how terrifying the 'world after college' 

can be. Most of my friends are out there 

now, working in Somerfield to fund their 

MAs, or trying to break in to the graduate 

Snnn 

ELLEN 

job market. lt's a big adjustment to make, 

and some people never manage it. The 

world of university is a bubble, a little 

sphere of safety and rules, populated largely 

by people of your own age. The rest of the 

world doesn't have an Equal Opportunities 

policy, or free internet access, or a nicely 

priced gym. lt doesn't give you the chance to 

be really important to your peers through 

politics, or societies, or working behind the 

bar. You're not a bigfish in a little pond any 

more. 

Remember going from primary school up 

to high school? lt's a bit like that. 

movement 10 

But it's not all bad news, for those of us 

who make it through. You'll have more 

money, for a start - well, that's the theory. 

What actually happens is that getting a job, 

buying non-studenty clothes and starting to 

make repayments on your loan (if you're 

lucky enough to earn that much) can take 

away any extra money you might have had. 

That's for the people who are able to go 

straight into the job of their choice. The 

reality for most people is at least six months 

back under your family's roof, trying not to 

get nostalgic about being able to stay up all 

night in halls. (Were 3am fire alarms really 

that much fun?) One thing that might not 

have occurred to your undergrad persona is 

that you won't be in an SCM grouP any 

more. lt's time to move on. 

And there is a bright side. lt's unlikely 

your boss will expect you to stay up all night 

to meet a deadline. And nobody will snarl 

'flipping student' at you any more.

I 

r 

t 

fn D 

th 

neXt 

r 

Pnoresr 

IS CHANGING. 

Writing letters and 

marching on parliament 

no longer cuts the mustard. 

We demand to be out there, we 

demand community. We want to know 

we're not alone, we want to join together. 

Everyone at d demonstration has a common concern 

and everyone seems prepared to shout about it, Militant 

protesters and the old dear who makes the tea on Sunday are 

stood side-by-sicle, shouting. 

tn the 60s it was enough for tots of peopte to be there, in one place with one goal. That in itself 

was radical. This is no longer the case.ln June 1997 there was a protest. whose size surprised 

everyone. it attracted an estimated 120 OOO people. The cause? 'The Countryside rtrvJrus Alliance' nrrrqrrvs - dedicated to 

the protection of country sports and the rural way of life. 

The wortd seems to become ever more 

inter-connected and yet more 

fragmented. Diccon Lowe 

offers a vision of what 

But if marching and picketing has become a respectable activity, and if every creed and class is prepared to shout for their 

rights, then where do the militant go to be radical? Where can you go to make a difference? 

pfOteSt COUId [OOk 

tike in thg 

fUtUfg' 

movement 11

,, 4r. 

Well... that's not entirely clear. The net 

is one 'place' where alt.protest is thriving. 

It offers unprecedented opportunities for 

making connections and for causing 

mischief. Noone really knows how 

effective the web is as a medium for 

protest: it is hard to believe that a 

forwarded email is as powerful as a handwritten 

letter. Anyone can get hold of 

software to bring down a website. lt is 

there waiting to be taken and used, all you 

need is some co-ordination. Aside from the 

point€coring, is it worthwhile? A 

corporation knows that it can load up its 

web site tomorrow without hassle; it knows 

that it can just delete any mail from 

certain addresses as it arrives. So what is 

the point? 

The internet is about community and 

communication. lt is relatively cheap and 

transcends geography, it allows numerous 

groups to use their own style of action at 

the same time for the same goals. 

An effective protest has to be in the 

'real world': the net doesn't remove the 

need for creativity and planning, it is no 

substitute for blood, sweat and tears. I've 

never heard of an cyber sit in... 

Alternative culture is, and always will be 

about, taking the normal and subvertin$ it. 

Subvertising, whether it means 

deliberately using a corporate identity 

against them or spontaneously graffiti-ing 

a billboard, makes use of the strong 

associations we have with certain images 

and products. Mark Thomas' or Ali G's 

irreverent interviews only work because we 

are familiar with the pomposity of most 

political journalism. 

So where will alt.protest go from here? 

As the media becomes a greater and 

greater influence in our lives and the net 

replicates itself, becoming ever more 

labyrinthine and ever less trustworthy, how 

do we get the "righton' message across? I 

can see two camps developing. One 

pushes radicalism to its limit - it uses 

every new tool of protest as it arrives, and 

constantly inventing new ways to irritate 

corporations and glovernments. lt seeks 

ways to transform social spaces into 

political ones. 

The second embraces the corporate 

and bureaucratic structures. lt uses the 

system in place tg get its message across. 

Gafe Direct are currently runnin$ a very 

agglressive marketing campaign for its 

fairly traded coffee. Likewise Jubilee 2O00 

advertise their campaign very powerfully in 

The Big lssue and the Guardian. These 

advens play on my psyche as skillfully as 

any other company's; but because their 

products are considered to be 'ethical', 

somehow I don't object. In fact I applaud 

the success, and pat myself on the back 

because I was buying lt before it was a 

household name - and my brand loyalty ls 

enforced a thousand fold. 

I am not alone in having an automatic 

hatred of transglobal companies. But 

Oxfam, Christian Aid, Traid Craft, 

Caf6direct, these all operate transglobally 

- it is inherent in their aims. As charities 

and campaign groups like these make 

greater use of mail shots and advertising 

to promote their message we will have to 

learn how to discern who the 'good guy' 

multi-nationals are. 

And there are the stories of GM crop 

trashers, Hawk-Jet smashers, nuclear base 

crashers: committing an individual act, 

knowing they could be arrested, and using 

the courts to gain publicity. lt's not that I 

don't support these actions or their wish to 

use the law to give mandate to the 

campaigning. But I long for people comin$ 

together to protest. Not necessarily about 

the same thing, but protesting in the same 

space, 

And this is the final innovation in my 

eyes. Although it is not an innovation at all: 

it is simply people getting together to 

protest. This may sound like the marching 

and picketing of the past, but there is a 

difference. This new way is decentralised. 

No one says why it is happening - it just 

happens. We protest about everything - 

and nothing. 

I am talking about thingg (can we call 

them campaigns?) such as Critical Mass 

and Reclaim the Streets. A group of people 

get together and cycle round the city with 

no reason given. A group of people block 

of a street and have a party with too many 

reasons given. There are no obvious 

leaders in these activities. Of course 

someone must instigate the action, but no 

one controls it. No one says what you have 

to be protesting about. They don't court 

publicity, they just do it. lt is this I love. 

Some cycle because they hate the 

dominance of the car. Some simply 

because they like to cycle. Others to meet 

friends. This is multi-layered, multi-lssue, 

multi-tactic campaign democracy. No 

longer many people with one voice. I want 

to hear many people, many, many different 

voices, 

. Diccon Lowe is training to be a nurse in 

Huddersfield and is a member the 

Movement editorlal team. 

Woody Allen in A Brief, yet Helpful, 

Guide to Civil Disobedience= 

"ln perpetrating a revolution, there 

are two requirements: someone or 

something to revolt against and 

someone to actually show up and 

do the revolting. Dress is usually 

casualand both parties may be 

flexible about time and place but if 

either faction fails to attend, the 

whole enterprise is likely to come 

off badly." 

movement 12 

Making a mark 

A ittre:f gLr iile io rtltc,rtri't Iitrc ttittl 

crca']ti\./o foi i't ts ci1' llr.olers;is,. 

[\/ait\' ita-tt'c rjr;r.,rtloiitrtl irr illt: 

Ir,rst tJct.at.lc ll(:)r'l i.rl ;ls 

.'-' lt r..rri, I I t r,: \i,' at)i i I I Lc) i. I t tt t I r.l:r. i. 

t rtilir,rrtrtittrtl. 

1 liit'1 iL tli 

Compiled by Tim Woodcock. With help from 

Louise Ashyard, Bob Cuff, Katy Gordon, Diccon 

Lowe, sara Mellen and Stuart Ullathorne. 

Two groups have developed 

in the nineties which are 

notable for their spontaneity 

and decentralised structures. 

lntriguingly both have 

transport issues at their 

core. 

The tactics of Reclaim The Streets have 

included DIY cycle lanes painted overnight 

and, on one occasion, taking a jackhammer 

to the tarmac of the M41 and 

planting trees there. Another time they 

tried, unsuccessfully, to seize a BP tanker 

on the M25! 

It is the impromptu road blockades,/ 

street parties that are RTS' mark. According 

to Mark Lynas, "They have evolved into 

festivals open to all who feel exasperated 

by conventional society. A carnival 

celebrates temporary liberation from the 

established order; it marks the suspension 

of all hierarchy and prohibitions." RTS 

events are - at their best - celebrations of 

community albeit a temporary and fragile 

one, with street theatre, safe games of

t-| 

*r 

0, 

o 

s, 

football, sound systetrs, face painting, fireeating 

and so on. 

Because of the need to keep the police 

at bay very few people know the location of 

an RTS event before the day - everyone will 

meet at the town square or a tube station 

and go on from there. Wlro will come is 

largely down to word-of-mouth amongst the 

dispersed anti-roads sub-culture, although 

they always hope to to drag in the 

occasional local shopper or policeman. 

Reclaim the Streets are "for walking, 

cycling and cheap, or free, public transport; 

and against cars, roads and the systenr that 

pushes them." The car has become 

symbolic of the individualism that 

denigrates communal quality of life, 

especially in urban areas. 

There were two local campaigns where 

polite resistance had proved futile, and 

RTS's approach proved invaluable. Most 

famously there was TwYford Down, in 

Berkshire, which was primarily an ecological 

issue, with Swampy as a media-friendly 

mascot; and the M11 in East London, 

where the road proposed would fragnrent a 

whole community and disPlace manY 

people. 

As RTS put it: "The cars that fill the 

streets have narrowed the pavelnerrts - our 

streets have become nrere conduits for 

motor vehicles to hurtle through. RTS want 

to re-create a safer, lnore attractive living 

environment, and to return streets to the 

people that live on therr and perhaps to 

rediscover a sense of 'social solidarity'." 

On the last Friday of everY month 

Critical Mass happens, meets and slmp/y is in London. There 

are other froups in most major cities - it is an international 

phenonrenon. Critlcal Mass is group of cyclists, enough to clog 

the traffic. lt is an international phenor"nenon. With obvious-yetrevelatory 

slogans such as 'We are the traffic!', it is the 

comnronality of being bike-riders that is emphasised. lt is not 

planned in much detail - other than a tinre and a place - and 

has been described as "a monthly organised coincidence". 

Matt Seaton, in article for the fimes Magazine remarked 

that: "Critical Mass is a post-modern political phenomenon: it 

has a plethora of web sites devoted to it, but no PO box. lt has 

no office, no staff, no budget - it is not a campaign in the 

conventional sense. lt relies simply on word of mouth, informal 

networks and the lnternet, as well as its own momentunl, to 

muster about 10OO cyclists in summer and several hundred in 

to the Waterloo Brid$e ride." 

Perhaps what is most fascinating about Critical Mass is its 

spontaneity. lt is not conceived of as demo but as a ride, it is a 

social space that can be become a political one' 

Chris Carlsson, a rider from San Francisco put it this way: 

"l've heard people not liking Critical Mass because: it's too 

disorganisecl; it's too organised (self-appointed organisers 

impose their own idea of acceptable behaviour; good'spirited 

rnass makes a boring ride); it's too apolitical (no demands; no 

relationship with politicians); it's too political (too many people 

aren't having enough funl)" 

Such observations are 

signiflcant. People still want 

to nleet together and be 

cornmunity if only for a few 

hours - even if they don't 

share the same objectives, 

or understand each others'. 

Does this represent a 

'paradigm shift' in grassroots 

politics? 

movement 13 

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It is almost impossible to encourage a 

company to behave ethically from the 

outside - which is why sometimes 

shareholders and comedians are needed 

to embarrass a company into action. 

The Ethics for USS campaign is giving students throughout 

the UK a unique opportunity to affect change within some of the 

world's most unethical corporations. We all know that big 

businesses frequently put profit before people in an attempt to 

make money for their shareholders. However, if those 

shareholders demanded that corporations clean up their acts, 

the corporations would be forced to listen. 'Ethics for USS' is all 

about putting pressure on corporations via the only people that 

really matter to them - their shareholders. 

80% of academics and administrative staff are members. of 

Universities Superannuation Scheme. USS is the official pension 

fund of lecturers employed at 'old' Universities, and it is investing 

1,18.6 bn in massive corporations on behalf of our lecturers. This 

represents 0.5% of UK stockmarket. Students throughout the 

People & Planet network are raising awareness among their 

lecturers who are shocked to discover that their hard-earned 

money is being used to support such paragons of immorality as 

Shell (whose pollution of Nigeria is disgraceful), British Aerospace 

(which sells arms to lndonesia's genocidal military), Nestle 

(involved in unethical marketing of baby milk formulas) and 

British American Tobacco (whose aei€iressive marketing in the 

Third World is having a devastating effect). Students and 

lecturers are working together, demanding that USS respond to 

questions about the 2O0O companies in which it is investing. 

Furthermore, when USS speaks, companies will have to listen, 

illustrating how this campaign has the potential to ensure that 

the power of t18.6bn is used to change the way companies 

behave. 

Over the past few weeks, support for the campaign has been 

gathering real momentum. Already 3500 lecturers are in support 

of the campaign, and this figure is increasing following the 'Ethics 

for USS' Week of Action, during which numerous students 

encouraged lecturers campus-wide to support the campaign. 

Meanwhile, the campaign has started to attract the support of 

some very influential people at Universities including Vice 

Chancellors and has been favourably received by USS 

committees. We are even more excited by the progressive 

response we have had from the USS Management Committee. ln 

fact, we are on the verge of winning this campaign! 

Contact Louise Ashyard at People and Planet (01835 24567e) 

for further information. 

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Mark Thomas is currently making his 

fifth TV series for C4. Wlth his mix of 

comedy, investigative journalism and 

haranguing companies and governments, 

Thomas has made more headway than a 

thousand other more earnest attempts. For 

instance, he pranced in a rabbit costume at 

the launch of Nestle's new logo, whilst 

telling children about how their promotion 

of baby milk in the Third World breaks WHO 

guidelines. 

On another occasion he went to a huge 

arms fair called Defendory lnternational 

("Algeria, lndonesia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, 

Colombia - all your top torturers are 

there...") and formed a company called 

Mackintosh Morley, offering PR to arms 

companies and regimes. He had the Deputy 

Commander of the Kenyan Army 

complaining that Amnesty lnternational do 

not understand their culture's values of 

child abuse, wife-beating and other human 

rights abuses. And the Zimbabwean 

Minister of lnformation boasting that he 

gets "better at lying every year." 

The TV progam and website encourage 

people to get involved and apply pressure 

on the companies that he names and 

shames. The comedian-campaigner said: "lf 

you look at the television show we asked 

lots of people to get involved, and a lot of 

them did. I think that it is a very democratic 

show as it actually encourages people to do 

things and question things which is very 

pro-democracy. 

"lf you look at all the stuff that has been 

eroded in the last twenty years - such as 

the trade unions which is democracy at 

work and also the power of local authorities 

being curtailed. All the real signs of 

democracy have been taken away from 

people so that they are left with is the 

minimum amount, which is parliament." 

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John Pilger has 

ar$ued: "ln 

an age of 

media 

conformity, 

we need to 

hear more 

dissenting 

voices." Here are 

some... 

Desktop publishing, 

camcorders and the web 

have all helped to make alternative sources 

of news a reality. lt is already quite possible 

to go online and be presented with 'the 

news' set according to a pre-selected 

priorities (nicknamed the 'The Daily Me'). lt 

would be foolish, irresponsible even, to 

discard traditional sources of news in favour 

of only what interests you. 

Nevertheless the mainstream media 

could be said to promote a top-down 

approach to change, marginalise and 

Ploughshares is a movement committed "to peace and 

disarmament by nonviolently, openly and accountably disabling 

a war machine or system so that it can no longer harm people". 

This is a modern application of the biblical injunction to the turn 

swords in ploughshares. lt emerged from the dissenters who 

had publicly burned their draft cards during the Vietnam war as 

a commitment to non-violence. The increasing number of 

nuclear weapons demanded new tactics and first Ploughshares 

action was in 1980. 

Cairon O'Reilly, who has been jailed for disarming a 852 

bomber that was headed for the Gulf in January 1991, 

said:"There's been 80 such actions. The first in Britain was in 

1990. One of the more well known actions was four women 

disarming a Hawk fighter at British Aerospace. lt was ready to 

go - already painted in lndonesian airforce markings. They were 

acquitted by a Liverpool jury in 1996. One of those women was 

Angie Zelter, who then began the Trident Ploughshares 2000 

movement andJlas a heavy emphasis on legality as ruled by the 

World Court." 

Most recently in October this year three women, including 

Angie Zelter, were charged with causing 180,000 of damage to 

a floating laboratory at Faslane naval base in Scotland. They 

were were acquitted when the judge agreed with their defence 

that Trident was illegal under international law, and their actions 

were justified because it prevented a greater crime. The 

decision, however, is by no means secure: it has been 

challenged by otherjudges and is subject to an appeal. 

Cairon O'Reilly says that acquittals are "pretty rare" - one 

activist in the States is serving an 18 year sentence, and the 

1996 decision concerningthe sabotage of Hawkjets was the 

first to go in Ploughshares'favour. "l would personally put that 

down to the courage of the Liverpool jury." 

caricature protesters and fail to make 

connections between different stories. 

ln May 1989 a group of Belgrade media 

activists asked for permission to open a 

radio station for experimenta! programs. 

The Serbian government, 

anticipating nothing more 

than an apolitical but funky 

student radio show, initially 

granted them a 15-day 

permit on an FM frequency. 

With irreverence and 

imagination, B92 opposed 

war and promoted ideas 

of democracy, economic 

reform and respect for 

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ethnic minorities. 

ln December 1996 after huge and brutal 

election fraud during local elections in 

Serbia, massive anti-Milosevic 

demonstrations sprang up across major 

cities. 892 informed people about the 

election fraud and covered demonstrations 

virtually round-the-clock, with live 

broadcasts from the streets. A few days 

later, the government banned the station. 

Through OpenNet, an embryonic internet 

provider in Belgrade, B92 immediately 

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redirected its program and began live 

broadcasts over the lnternet. 

ln 1992 892 initiated a network of more 

than 30 local radio stations, which could 

receive and rebroadcast from a BBC 

satellite. For the first time, Serbs and 

Montenegrins could speak to each other in 

uncensored radio programs. The conflict 

between B92 and the Serbian government 

goes on - but with shiftingtactics and 

creative use of technologies B92 has 

continued broadcasting. 

One of the most impressive (but sadly 

unsustainable) attempts in Fritain to an 

follow an alternative agenda was 

Undercurrents. lt was founded in 1994 and 

produced ten videos of alternative news - 

showing images of protesters being cut from 

concrete bunkers at the M11, sensing the 

anxieties about GM food way before anyone 

else. The mini-documentaries are fleshed 

out with music videos and subvertisements. 

the time-lag is too great for it to be called 

news and they make no claims to be authoritative 

or balanced - but why should they? 

ln a recent essay co-director of Undercurrents, 

Paul O' Connor wrote: 

Take a wander around a gathering of 

alternative news reporters and you will 

hear debates about creating a society 

where people are not expected to live 

with foul air and radioactive waste in 

their waters, and where entire nations 

are not forced into famine and war over 

national debt. 

The mainstream media 'industry' is 

being redesigned to produce desires 

rather than visions and talks in terms of 

profit rather than community benefit. 

Minfle amongst mainstream hacks and 

the talk is routinely dominated by the 

/atest ratings, po I iti ca I scanda/s, gossip, 

competition, celebrities, fashion, money, 

war and power. Two very different worlds 

beingcreated and reinforced by people 

with different agendas but both usinS the 

sarne persuasion tool - 'the media'. 

Oneworld follows a progressive and 

international news agenda (oneworld.org). 

The reader comes away feeling informed but 

passive. SchNEWS, however, is a Brighton 

based, direct action weekly newsletter 

(www.schnews.org.uk) and has a weekly 

readership of 25 000. There are over 500 

entries in their database of alternative 

organisations. And come summertime, you'll 

be glad, to know the site has good links if 

you want to track down the latest news from 

festivals and free parties. 

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movement 15

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ODBUSTE-R$ X BU}' IYDT!.JI}YE DA}' x 

As advertisers become ever 

more sophisticated, some 

activists have adopted the 

very same techniques of 

persuasion to undo the 

advertisers' message. 

All adverts say, more or less, the same 

thing: "Buy this!", "You don't really need it, 

but we'll persuade you want it". The average 

American will have seen seen a million 

adverts by the time they are 21. A million 

adverts and all say, more or less, the same 

thing. Except a few. 

The key idea behind "subvertisements" 

is that these are both subversive and 

advertisements. They encourage you notto 

buy more. Or to not watch more television. 

Or to live more simply - the very opposite of 

what corporations want. 

Adbusters take glamorous imagery and 

rework it to make the connections between 

hidden issues: the elegant curves of a 

bulimic wretching into a toilet bowl 

(Obsession). A fashionable drink to point out 

that alcohol - in the words of Shakespeare 

in the caption too small to read - 

"increases the desire, but takes away the 

performance" (Absolut lmpotence). lt is the 

precision and wit of subvertisements that 

make them so powerful, compare that to 

the recent riots in Seattle and London 

'against capitalism'. 

Subvertisements is aimed at the 

consumer as much as the negligent 

government and irresponsible companies. lt 

doesn't hope to unite workers of the world, 

or wipe out this or that evil, but its aims are 

modestl to challenge individual choices. lt 

thrives on parody and exposes how our 

desires are manipulated. They are not 

attacks on particular products, but rather on 

our habits and thgefforts of companies to 

manipulate our desires. 

Adbusters use the work oftop designers 

- yet they are distributed gratis to them to 

anyone who wants them. The magazine 

adverts have been widely reprinted. but the 

television adverts, whose potential are 

much greater, have revealed how unlike 

conventional adverts they are. Even though 

the Media Foundation, who make them, had 

the money to buy airtime, the networks have 

denied them their right to broadcast. As 

justification, CBS said: "Fhe advertsl are in 

opposition to economic policy in the United 

States". 

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The director of the Media Foundation, 

Kalle Lasn is an East European emigr6 who 

moved to the States and discovered that its 

celebrated freedom is conditional: "l came 

from Estonia where you were not allowed to 

speak up against the government. Here I 

was, in North America, and suddenly I 

realised you can't speak up against the 

sponsor." Eventually they did manage to 

have ads aired - with remarkable results 

and unprecedented interest. 

The Adbusters team have their 

precursors. One of the sparks for the whole 

project is fascinating document called First 

Things First written by a group of 

disenchanted British designers in 1964, it 

begins: 

We, the undersigned, are graPhic 

desrgners, photographers and students... 

who have flogEed their skill and 

imagination to sel/ such things asi cat 

food, stomach powders, detergent, hair 

restorer, striped toothpaste, aftershave 

Iotion, beforeshave lotion, slimming 

diets, fattening diets, deodorants, fizzy 

water, cigarettes, roll-ons, pull-ons, and 

s/ipons. ...We think that there are other 

things more worth usin{ our skill and 

experience on. 

We, in the West, are affected by 

"affluenza": we suffer from the ennui and 

constant strain brought on by too many 

choices and over-consumption. So to 

combat this, one day in late November has 

been declared Buy Nothing Day. lt is 

celebrated (at least by some) in around a 

dozen countires, but has most resonance in 

the States where it is on the day after 

Thanksgiving, which traditionally kick-starts 

the Christmas shopping season. 

Various pranks that have been carried 

out whilst not shopping include: planting a 

sofa in a shopping centre; handing out 

checklists to frantic shoppers ("How many 

do I have alreadf Could I borrow it 

instead?") and alternative Christmas 

carollers. For instance a version of God Rest 

Ye Merry, Gentlemen - "Slow down,you 

frantic shoppers, for there's something we 

must say." And to the tune of Rudolph the 

Rednosed Reindeer, "Uh oh, we're in the red 

dear." 

The Media Foundation, who have 

backed it, said: "This is nothing we're 

pushing heavily; it's just happening 

spontaneously." Unfortunately due to the 

timing of this issue you've missed it until 

next year. But be prepared. 

That's all folks 

Further infornration on most of these groups links 

calr be found on Movemeut s website: http:// 

members.aol.com/movemag/'online,' 

welcolne.html 

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Far flung friends 

lN THE JOHN HUGHES movie, The Breakfast 

Club, a group of high school students from 

disparate backgrounds and social cliques 

are forced to serve an all-Saturday detention 

together. As you would expect from a mid 

'80s teen film, the detention becomes 

something of an encounter group. And as 

these things tend to go, by the end of the 

movie, the jock, the princess, the freak, the 

geek and the delinquent manage to break 

down their social barriers and become fast 

friends. 

For the past five years or so, I've been 

involved in a Breakfast Club of my own. 

Special K is a mailing list comprised of 

people of differing geographic, economic 

and social backgrounds. Like The Breakfast 

Club, it's a place for healthy debates, silly 

conversations and honest discussions about 

our lives. lts members range from a librarian 

in Oklahoma, to a writer for a popular ITV 

drama in Yorkshire, to a software writer and 

SF author in Sydney, to a tech support 

person for an internet provider in Florida, to 

a former editor of Movement now living in 

Canada. 

The Special K Club (the name has nothing 

to do with The Breakfast Club but rather a 

now-obscure in-.1oke) was initially made up 

of members of the usenet newsgroup 

rec.arts.drwho. Five years ago several 

people on that newsgroup who also hung 

out on lnternet Relay Chat (lRC), decided 

that it would be more productive to defer 

off-topic discussions about their lives (and 

complaints about some of the more idiotic 

elements of the newsgroup) to a separate 

mailing list. Since that time Special K has 

evqlved from a sort of virtual pub, if you will, 

where people kvetched and cavorted in 

equal measures,.to a fascinating experiment 

in forming community on-line-part support 

group, part speaker's corner, part funny 

farm. 

Mailing lists are traditionally functional 

beasts. (A mailing list is a server that is set 

up with instructions to automatically 

distribute e-mail to a list of addresses when 

mail is sent to that particular server). A 

good example of one is the Scottish SCM 

malling list; people use it to announce 

events and to keep people up to date about 

SCM information. Occasionally, you'll have a 

mailing list designed to discuss a specific 

topic (the mailing list devoted to discussing 

the works of musician Bruce Cockburn, 

Humans, is one of the best examples of 

this, even getting attention in the 

mainstream press), much like a usenet 

newsgroup. 

Special K is not a purely functional 

mailing list. Members (it is a members-only 

list; new members are nominated by others 

on the list), discuss their lives and opinions 

in a free and unrestricted manner. The rules 

are simple: you don't divulge the list 

discussions to others, in order to maintain a 

safe space; and you try to not get nasty in 

responding to others. 

ln the time I have been on the list, I have 

been able to freely opine about the latest 

Doctor Who novels, rant about my disgust 

over Peter Mandelson, and wibble about 

ephemera like why leopard skin is supposed 

friends. But in some ways, the fact that 

there are such struggles indicates to me 

how vital and alive something like this is. 

And while all this may seem virtual pie-inthe-sky, 

the friendships forged over this 

mailing list have been very concrete. When I 

moved to the UK three years ago, I had, 

more or less, an instant base group of 

mates from the list members who lived near 

London. Recently I turned 30 and I 

combined this passage with a vislt to 

Boston, where several members of the list 

from the Eastern part of North America got 

together. My 3Oth Birthday party with this 

extended community was great fun. And 

although I had not actually "met" many of 

these people, I knew so much about them 

and their lives, that coming together with 

them was a wonderful experience. 

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to be sexy. I have experienced the joys of 

having works published and the frustrations 

of souring relationships. People respond to 

these various postings with great wit, 

vigorous argument, and warmth. When my 

grandmother was dying earlier this year, I 

posted to the list frequently about my 

thoughts and feelings about this impending 

loss. The thoughtful responses giving 

encouragement and solace was profoundly 

touchi ng. 

COMMUNITIES LIKE THIS are not always 

easy. There are as many rivalries, political 

machinations and personality clashes on 

something like Special K as there would be 

in an SCM group or your average group of 

movement 17 

l 

{ 

,trEl 

AE 

Special K is not unique - since beginning 

work on this piece, I was made aware there 

are other, similar mailing lists - but it does 

show a way of transforming a mundane 

mode of communication to something, well, 

special. lt's worth a try - you too could 

become an internet version of Judd Nelson. 

Graeme Burk has a story in an anthology of 

Doctor Who-related short fiction Short lrips 

and Sidesteps (published by the BBC in 

March 2000), fulfilling his second greatest 

ambition as an adult; the first was editing 

Movement, which he did in 1997-98.

t6te-a-t6te 

Dear Matt, 

My basic position is that we can learn 

more from others then we can from 

ourselves - assuming we have some 

knowledge of ourselves. 

We are all universalists of one sort or 

another. Most universalists of the last 

millennium have been the sort who have got 

hold of what they thought was a good idea 

then attempted to shape the world in that 

image (usually letting themselves get in the 

way in the process). 

Bernard of Cluny in the 11th century 

was a prime example. He had this vision of 

Jerusalem, as Zion, the city of God. He 

takes a good idea and makes it his own - 

from northern and southern Europe now 

face each other along the border between 

southern and northern America. 

I'm never quite sure whether these 

crusades actually have yet come to an end 

in the minds of Christians. Those images 

have got down deep. I accidentally sangthe 

song where Bernard of Cluny expresses his 

vision of claiming Jerusalem. Strange but 

true - it was in the middle of an inter-faith 

gathering at St George's, Windsor, looking at 

conflict resolution and united initiatives 

between religions for the next millennium. I 

think the first time I have had to actually 

repent of my attempt to worship God - 

makes me think you cannot be too careful, 

you never 

I have had to rePent of mY 

attempt to worshiP God - You 

never know where the words You 

find in your mouth have been. 

he takes God into his own image, as it were. 

When the idea spreads, problems start' He 

is implicated in the founding of the Knights 

Templar, one of the first Jesus Armies. They 

set up the pilgrim houses on the way to 

Santiago in Northern Spain - St James' 

bones are said to be buried there. St James 

is some how resurrected and turns into this 

Pilgrim figure; over a period of several 

centuries this Pilgrim figure transmogrifies 

into St James the Moor Slayer' 

Now this is all very handy as Spain at 

this time is full of Muslims. The crusades 

against lslam start - and they do not stop in 

Spain. Bernard's ideas about Jerusalem 

now have to take material form at the other 

end of the Mediterranean - through modern 

Turkey into Palestine. 

ls that enough? Well not reallY. The 

Spanish head webt, find America, and guess 

what - St James on a big white horse is 

there as well. This time he has decided to 

go for the lncas, the Aztecs and anyone who 

does not quite fit the images they are 

carrying with them. I found a recently-made 

sculpture of St James with his sword and 

white charger in the old mission station in 

Carmel, just south of San Fransisco. lt could 

fit on your mantelpiece. 'Beware they may 

be round the next corner!' 

We develoPed our own images - and 

these took us (or did we take them?) on our 

own pilgrimages, crusades and missions 

across the globe. ln fact the same images 

know were 

the words 

you find in 

your mouth 

have been. 

Well what 

about the 

next 

millennium? 

Are we going to keep all this stuff going? I 

certainly hope not. 

The other form of universalist is 

basically the one who wants to explore the 

universe and desparately seeks not to make 

it in his or her own image; or conquer it and 

make it into an emPire. 

We learn more from others then from 

ourselves. This is ancient wisdom. I hope we 

can learn it again from the remaining 

indigenous traditions of the world, the faith 

traditions of the east and in fact the core 

elements of the western religions. Jesus' 

relationships with the leper, the prostitute, 

the Samaritan women, the outsiders were 

surely about his learning as well as his 

teaching. 

We find the other in our relationship 

with the stranger, the poor, and the rest of 

nature - it is in these relationships that we 

find our understandings of the place we 

have in the underlying and transcendent 

universe. Let us not keep spoiling and 

exploiting those relationships, making 

others into our own image' 

movement 18 

Dear Crai$, 

Thank you for your letter - I have to say 

that I was interested by your idea of the two 

types of universalism, and I agree that there 

is a real need in this business of religion to 

be responsible both for ourselves and to the 

others we meet, and to 'the other' as you 

call it. However, I disagree with you basic 

position and I'm a little worried aboutthe 

implications of your 'good' universalism. 

I think you are right that (PerhaPS 

inevitably?) we project ourselves onto the 

image of God we have - which is certainly 

not always a good thing, as in your example 

of St Bernard (that old dog). Yet' I think 

there are subtle differences between the 

way that we are made in God's image and 

then have to necessarily construct all-toohuman 

representations of that God-in-us' 

and your negative interpretation of this 

projection of an imperialistic self onto God' 

We have to start where we are - even if that 

is an imperfect place (We all start with 

human baggage and presuppositions). Why 

do we? Because there is an imperative to 

do so: once we recognise that we' as 

people, are made in the image of God - and 

I am taking that to mean that we are 

movements of love and self-giving in 

ourselves as persons, just like the Trinity is' 

Certainly, there is much need for 

Christians to repent of the sins of the past. 

We really do not have a glorious track 

record. I think that much of the problem 

that you outline in your example is part of a 

'bad' universalism - in which the politics of 

the day use religion to their own ends, and 

the politics are applied in the service of a 

bad religion. 

The exploits of the neo-lnquisition in 

Louis de Berniere's excellent, funny and 

tragic novel, The Troublesome Exploits of 

Cardinal Gusrnan, seem to illustrate this 

bastardisation of religion in the service of 

(in)humanity. My problem with your 

interpretation is that it seems to suggest 

that'Christianity' itself was to blame - this, 

to me, is not true ChristianitY' and 

Christianity has been preached, performed 

and, yes, constructed, in ways which are 

peaceful and progressive' lsn't it only Jesus 

Christ (God in all God's powerlessness and 

vulnerability), who can truly judge us, bring 

us to repentance, turn us around, and draw 

us towards the kingdom of God' the 

'peaceable Kingdom'? 

I fear that Your closing comments 

suggest, in themselves, a very subtle 

imperialism of their own, that is inextricably 

linked to your basic presupposition. I think

Some people would argue that inter-faith worship and dialogue is an exciting and 

rewarding experiment. Others say it brings all religions down to the lowest common 

denominator. Are Christians capable of engaging in dialogue without proselytising? 

Do other faiths have more to offer Christians than contemporary Christianity? 

that it is dangerous to assume (or maybe 

consume) knowledge of others as if we 

could grasp, appropriate and possess 

knowledge of wholly other cultures, beliefs 

and practices. The western mind-set has 

often been implicated in this hubristic 

certainty that we can stand back from 

ourselves, wipe away our own beliefs and 

assumptions, and survey the whole world 

from an objective and neutral place - a 

form of self-deification of Western Man (and 

I use the term on purpose). 

I see this in the way that we seem to 

have appropriated knowledge of other 

cultures and bowdlerized it in the endless 

production of those self-help books in 'Mind, 

Body, and Soul' sections of bookshops, so 

making it palatable for the capitalist, liberal 

way of thinking. 

lndeed, the only words of which I can 

truly know the provenance of are those 

words from my own tradition and faith 

practice. These words I can interrogate, 

maybe repent of, and hopefully I will then be 

able to discern and re-iterate the real 

Christianity that forever changes and makes 

things new. At the centre of this is the Trinity 

that eternal relationship of self-giving love in 

which we participate and bring to a broken 

world. 

I like what you say about Jesus and the 

way he reaches out to the others, but I am a 

bit uneasy with the seemingly anonymous 

'Other' which we find in others. lt seems 

very impersonal, and it seems to bring all 

religions down to the lowest common 

denominator of a sense of the divine, an 

intimation of an impersonal transcendence. 

This seems to reflect our Western idea(l)s of 

universal equality and liberality whilst being 

fundamentally unfaithful to those religions 

you are asking us to respect and learn from. 

Jesus did respect the others, and saw God 

in them no doubt. But he didn't deny them 

their own specificity - and I don't think he 

was ever afraid to give them the message of 

peace and hope that he himself was - but, 

of course, in that wonderfully non-coercive 

way that left him open to the possibility of 

his death at our hands. 

I'll look forward to seeing what you have 

to say... 

f.,l^ft 

Dear Matt, 

'Being made in God's image' is a 

dangerous place to start. Those who state 

themselves to be the closest to God's image 

can claim the greatest authority over all 

others. Hence the way'divine power' has 

been vested and transferred through 

priests, pontiffs and kings; and other forms 

of ecological and cultural dominance. 

lf semiology has anything to show us it 

is that the hierarchical systems built 

ultimately on the 'image of God' formulation, 

were in the end just people battling to see 

who could wield the biggest signs. 

The second point 

you make is to attempt 

to extricate unta rn ished, 

'real Christianity' from 

the politics of the last 

thousand years. lt was 

not just the politics of 

the day it was the Christianity of the day, 

that led to the crusades and the colonies. 

We have to honestly face that, in the name 

of peace and progress, as well as in 

reclaiming Jerusalem and embarking on the 

missions, Christianity has been directly 

implicated. 

Learning from other understandings is a 

way of being changed by their experience. 

This is uncomfortable and challenging, it 

brings about the process of change you talk 

about and makes things new - it will lead to 

upsetting the capitalist and liberal ways of 

thinking. We cannot claim a neutral or 

objective place and all that we see and hear 

will be shaped by our journey so far. 

We have to face our place of origin, our 

provenance, with clear sight and courage. 

Our'own tradition and faith practice' may 

have made a major impact on the world, 

and they are continuing to change others 

into our image. I would like to sit down, as 

Jesus did with the women at the Samaritan 

well, and learn from the stranger's 

experience so that their life may have an 

ongoing revolutionary impact on me. 

ln that, thanks for meeting with me, I must 

confess your opinions have changed me. 

-1 

Dear Craig, 

I still maintain that being made in God's 

image is our greatest hope, for this alone 

allows us partlcipation in the healing and 

dynamic life of the divine. I believe that God 

only mediates Godself through signs, 

language, creatures and cultures - but I'm 

afraid that we are not very good at allowing 

an untarnished mediation. So, as you say, 

Christianity's cultural renderings haye been 

abusive and ungodly. However, I still believe 

that the Christian vision for ourselves and 

society goes beyond its failed actualizations, 

beyond to the creator and sustainer of the 

world who promises salvation in all its many 

SCNSCS. 

I agree with the rest of what you say 

here, and especially that dialogue is 

necessary but uncomfortable, if not hazardous. 

But, through risk and vulnerability, and 

The onty words which I can 

truty know are those words 

from my own tradition. 

through others, I hope that we may learn to 

see God more effectively, to be conformed to 

Christ more closely, and so become closer to 

our true selves made in the image of God. 

So, here's to conversation and friendship. 

Thank you. 

f.,I"fi 

Graig Russell is an artist 

involved in the Art and 

Spirituality Network and 

the newly formed United 

movement 19

The year 2000 is now here - how wilt we choose to mark it? The idea of Jubilee 

might have entered mainstream potiticat discourse, but that won't make it happen. 

Barbara Crowther on the realpolitik of cancelting Third World debt. 

Popes, pop'stars 

and Presldents 

[##Hn:#';;';'."'T# 

credited as the inspiration behind the words 

of politicians or criticisms of neoliberal 

capitalist ideology. Until now. Writing about 

the Jubilee 2000 movement in lhe 

Observer, Will Hutton commented, "Atthe 

end of an increasingly secular century, it 

has been the biblical proof and moral 

imagination of religion that have torched the 

principles of the hitherto unassailable 

citadels of international finance... The leftof-centre 

should take note; it is no longer 

Morris, Keynes, and Beveridge who inspire 

and change the world - it's Leviticus." 

Will Hutton was writing in the immediate 

aftermath of the annual meeting of the 

World Bank and lnternational Monetary 

Fund. This was a remarkable meeting. lt not 

only endorsed and agreed the financing of 

an 'enhanced' debt cancellation plan for the 

poorest indebted countries of the world, but 

it aiso marked a new schism amongst the 

G7 leaders. Having backed the Bank and 

Ctinton abandoned the Pragmatic 

language of economists and potiticians 

ald appropriated the language of 

Jubitee and poverty. 

Fund package on debt (which gave up to 

9O% debt cancellation under certain 

conditions), the President of the United 

States then used his own sPeech to 

immediately step out of line from his 

colleagues. He publicly directed his 

administration go even further and allow 

1OO% cancellation of bilateral debts owed 

to the US where the money was needed for, 

and would be channelled towards, poverty 

reduction. Bill Clinton's announcement sent 

US Treasury officials scurrying back to their 

offices to try to work out the details of how 

t 

t 

t 

+ 

t 

this could actually be done. (They did, by the 

way, come up with a workable proposal. The 

immediate media ejaculations of "President 

wipes debt slate clean" were somewhat 

premature. The President and the Congress 

locked into a battle over the foreign budget' 

from which extra money to finance debt 

relief had to be found. The extra debt 

package was being put forward against a 

backdrop of US reinvestment in defence 

and declining aid budgets. During this 

battle, however, it became very apparent 

that, if nothing else, the political will of the 

President was genuine. This gave his G7 

colleagues a new challenge. 

The Clinton statement marked a new 

climax in a remarkable period of Jubilee 

2000 campaign activity. When the G7 

leaders met in Cologne in June 1999, they 

were forced to weather another welter of 

Jubilee 2OO0 human chain pressure. They 

could not have been pleased when their 

long trumpeted new debt initiative was 

written off as not even going halfway 

towards what the poor countries needed. 

The U2 singer Bono likened it to climbing 

halfway up Everest - people don't make 

history unless they get to the summit. The 

campaign agreed - and we weren't looking 

for only half a Jubilee. 

Tony Blair responded to this criticism in 

his speech to Parliament immediately 

following the summit, "l would like to see us 

go still further on debt.... I will personally do 

what I can." Clearly personal commitment 

and intensive pressure by both Blair and 

Gordon Brown were key to insuring that the 

IMF and World Bank meetings agreed the 

financing of the new initiative. But by the 

time of these meetings, they hadn't "gone 

further" than Cologne in any way other than 

in their rhetoric. 

It was the Pope who pointed this out. ln 

a speech to mark the 100 days to the year 

2000, he asked, "why progress in resolving 

the debt problem is still so slow? Why so 

many hesitations? Why the difficulty in 

providing the funds needed even for the 

already agreed initiatives? lt is the poor who 

pay the cost of indecision and delay"' 

Having gone halfway, he begged the world 

leaders not to let the opportunity of the 

movement 20

Jubilee pass without definitely resolving the 

debt crisis. The Pope made his statement 

alongside other image shattering meeting 

with pop stars, economists and 

campaigners, spearheaded by U2 singer 

Bono. The "funky pontiff" (as Bono cosily 

labelled him) apparently tried on the pop 

star's pair of wraparound shades, and then 

asked to keep them. When the Vatican 

refused to release photos of this exchange, 

it only succeeded in ensuring the story hit 

the tabloids along with pictures of the Papal 

Spitting lmage pop star puppet. The real 

pontiff is extremely reluctant to be used as 

a puppet for any campaign, so his new call 

for debt relief was a true indication of his 

own desire to see the Jubilee 2000 vision 

brought to fruition. 

There are few people on this planet that 

possess a level of authority to throw down 

such a gauntlet to the world's leaders. That 

Bill Clinton picked it up was a surprise. That 

he abandoned the pragmatic language of 

economists and politicians and appropriate 

the language of Jubilee and poverty 

eradication was astonishing, if rather 

disquieting. Jubilee 2000 believes that 

regardless of whether he chose his 

language to flatter the campaign (and 

therefore get them off his back) or whether 

it reflected a real change of heart, the US 

President injected new momentum into the 

debt campaign. The UK team (Blair, Short, 

and Brown) must have realised immediately 

that to regain their lead on debt they would 

have to at least match the US offer. A new 

race to the Millennium is on: it's hoped that 

Barbara Crowther is Campaign Manager for 

the Catholic aid agency CAFOD, one of the 

founders of the Jubilee 2000 movement. 

rcllef 

V nction cards to Japan can be ordered 

from to Japan can be ordered from 

CAFOD on O20 77 33 79 0O or at 

wwwcafod.org.uk/japantorm.htm. Or by 

returning the form on the card sent with 

the copy of Movement. 

Tony Blair will have made his move by the 

time he steps into the Dome on New Year's 

Eve. 

The G7 leaders are not scheduled to 

meet again until July 2000. When they do, it 

will be in Okinawa, Japan. This will be the 

summit of the Jubilee year. But will it go into 

the history books as the Jubilee Summit? 

So far, Prime Minister Keizo 0buchi of Japan 

has lagged behind most of his colleagues, 

and he has largely got away with it. The 

Japanese Jubilee 2000 movement has 

appealed for help in encouraging him to 

mark the Okinawa Summit by finishing off 

the job started in Birmingham and Cologne. 

Rather than wait until July, people in the UK 

can join this call now by sending their name 

and photo to Japan as part of a giant paper 

chain, using new campaign action cards 

(see details below). 

Jubilee 2000 has already changed the 

course of history. lt has broken records for 

petition signatures. lt has brought together 

religions and races, farmers and finance 

ministers, pop stars, politicians, and the 

Pope. lt has even made presidents speak 

with the words of prophets. Total debt 

cancellation at the G7 this year would be a 

Jubilee-in-the-making for the poor. And a 

pretty good entry for page one of our new 

millennium's historV. {n- 

"gq"'+.,{#*,,1t- 

V tunitee 200O wants to make the 

world's largest petition by collecting 22m 

signatures in favour of debt cancellation 

for the poorest countries. 17m signatures 

have already been collected. The petition 

above is from the Democratic Republic of 

Congo, a highly indebted poor country: 

those who could not write signed with a 

thumbprint. 

E HAVE to sAY I wAS t'lollTY 

I I depressed when I heard srr ctrtt 

II singing the Lord's Prayer to 'Auld 

LangSyne'. "Am ltoo old?" he 

cried, feeling re-buffed by the pundits. "ls 

there no appreciation any longer for rock 'n 

- 

roll?" he lamented, wondering why his record 

wasn't hitting the airwaves. Despite the fact 

Auld man's whine 

ls the angel who 'offers me protection, 

his risible single reached no. 1 in the charts 

(how?), I wanted to cradle him in my arms, 

gently stroke his hair and say "No, dear Cliff, 

the reason why your song didn't make it with 

the DJs is that, well, is just that... - it's naff." 

The fact is, the words of the Lord's 

Prayer are not popular currency these days. 

ln their traditional form, as sung by the 

brave Knave, they don't capture the mores of 

our culture. 

A 'Father who art in Heaven', the notion 

of being'hallowed', the concept of a 

'kingdom' are tough concepts even for those 

7 

J 

isoundings 

, in spirituality 

Ruru Hnnvgv 

the soul of the psatmist ctings? 

Cotter's 'By Heart for the Millennium'. (See. 

p.3 for details) 

Have you listened to 'Angels' by Robbie 

Williams recently? Not hard, as it is still the 

muzak of the month in shopping malls, 

petrol stations and swimming pools. I read 

the lyrics of the song in conjunction with 

Psalm 63 and stumbled upon the following 

connections: Robbie's 'lying in ma bed' 

meanders gracefully with 'l think of you on 

my bed, and meditate on you in the watches 

a lot of Love and affection' the same cetestiat being to whom 

I 

who are theologically literate. And in our 

world of sceptical secular spirituality these 

concepts are rightly no longer simply being 

accepted. 

Yet the sense that these words express 

is deep, true and longjasting: a sense of 

wonder and awe at creation; a sense of 

responsibility for our planet; a sense of care 

for those around us in need. There are many 

who have re-written the Lord's Prayer in ways 

that are more accessible for instance Jim 

movement 21 

of the night'. ls the angel who'offers me 

protection, a lot of love and affection'the 

same celestial being to whom the 'soul' of 

the psalmist'clings' and in the 'shadow' of 

whose 'wings' the psalmist 'sings for joy'? 

So here's your answer Sir Cliff: next time 

you are filled with self doubt, get together 

with Jim Cotter and Robbie Williams and 

workshop your way to a revolutionary new 

sound.

and nonsense 

The gospets were written a generation after the death of Jesus by peopte who were 

convinced that the Messiah had come. Can we actuatly know what did he said and 

did? The quest for the Historicat Jesus has gone on for over a century and Duncan 

Park explores the latest twists and turns. 

Des erately 

see rng Jesus 

Jesus sald, "Whom do you say that I am? 

And they answered and said, "You are 

the eschatological manifestation of the 

!1ound of our bein$, the kery$ma of 

which we derive the ultimate meanin{ 

in our interpersonal relationships." 

And Jesus said: "What?" 

(Graffiti in a Cambrid$e loo) 

xo s Jrsus? Wnr Jusus 

Wbooks stretching from Galilee to 

Pluto and after reciting his 'lifestory' 

a billion times in the creed, 

that might seem a silly question. Surely 

Jesus is the deity everyone knows, the 

messiah next door, the familiar face in every 

stained glass window. He is the hero of the 

G reatest-Story-Ever-Told? And told. And told. 

Ah but that's just the point. Have we told his 

story so much it has become our storf Has 

movement 99 

the real Jesus been worn away like beads in 

the hands of devoted pilgrims? ln our 

spiritual feeding frenzy, have we eaten his 

flesh and left only a sanctimonious vapour 

behind? 

Robert Funk, world-renowned New 

Testament scholar and founder of the 

controversial Jesus Seminar, thinks we 

should be told. ln his brilliant Honest Io 

Jesus, he points to something rather 

important missing between'born of the 

Virgin Mary'and 'suffered under Pontius 

Pilate'. Like a life. 

The Jesus of the Gospels is the hero 

with a thousand faces, too mythic to move. 

Our creeds have turned (Crossan's)'peasant 

with attitude' into cosmic potentate, servant 

into Lord, prisoner into Judge, prophesier 

Pau[ took Jesus 

and threw him to 

the Greeks. The 

rest is mythotogy. 

into Prophesied and Funk's 'iconoclast into 

icon'. Paul took Jesus and threw him to the 

Greeks. The rest is mythology. History found 

a faith and lost Jesus. For Funk, the job of 

the Seminar is to give Jesus back his life. 

Why bother? Surely the 'Post-Easter 

Jesus' (Marcus Borg) was the one that 

worked? The Christ of Faith rather than the 

Jesus of history transformed the world. He 

certainly did, but does he still and for how 

long? Many post-religious Christians have a 

gnawing uncertainty about their spiritual 

legitimacy. The mesmerising tales Mother 

Church told us about her Divine Lover get 

more like the fantasies of a single parent 

trying to explain the absence of a father. 

Was he such a superman? Did the angels 

sing and the tomb open? Did he walk on 

water? Did he even walk on earth? Could

I 

ogy 

Mother have lied? Such questions stir many 

Christians to search for their'real' spiritual 

parent. 

But what will daddy be like? Will 

'meeting Jesus again for the first time' 

(Borg) be a great disappointment? I mean, 

do we really want to discover that Jesus was 

not a Christian? That he didn't have all this 

prayer and praising in mind. That his Jewish 

ancientness is as alien as a Martian? Funk 

suggests that we would be better having a 

'bastard messiah' than an'unblemished 

Lamb of God'. By making him a rather 

'underachieving' deity (his miracles are 

parlour tricks today) have we forgotten what 

a remarkable man he was? 

Perhaps the real value in our search for 

the historical Jesus is in what gets 

demythologised en route. As we hack our 

way through Gothic architecture, Latin 

liturgies, Greek metaphysics and Jewish 

midrash, we expose the myths that became 

history and the opinions that became 

creeds and begin to know, at least, who he 

is not. This is liberating in itself. But there is 

much more to be gained. 

For a start we join the noble tradition of 

Questers who got off to a shaky start in the 

early nineteenth century. ln spite of the 

heady intellectual backlash against 

institutionalised magic, it was a brave man 

indeed who applied the new science of 

history to Jesus himself. One such was the 

young Fredrick Strauss who published his 

The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835) 

and lost his job as professor of Divinity on 

the same day he was appointed, never to 

teach again. 

Mother might be showing signs of senile 

dementia but, clearly, there were still many 

post-Enlightenment ways of getting burnt at 

the stake. As the post-Enlightenment thaw 

exposed icon after icon, scholars still 

averted their gaze from the mysterious 

figure who had legitimised western 

civilisation for nearly two millennia. Jesus 

was trans-historical, a sliver of eternity on a 

brief visit to time. The earliest interest in the 

historical Jesus was understandably 

cautious and the critical virus remained 

Funk suggests that we woutd be 

better having a 'bastard messiah' 

than an runblemished Lamb of God'. 

virtually dormant until the turn of the 

century when it emerged full-blown in Albert 

Schweitzer's Quest oF the Historical Jesus. 

This seminal study did for the transhistorical 

Jesus what a comet did for the 

dinosaurs. Jesus entered history. 

For most Questers that seemed to be 

that. Either Jesus was of his time (ipso facto 

irrelevant to us) or continually re-created by 

the Church (ipso facto there's no point in 

unearthing Jesus of Nazareth). Rudolph 

Bultmann went on to translate Schweitzer's 

methodology into existentialist theology and 

spawned a whole generation of cryptohumanist 

theologians (Tillich, Bonhoeffer et 

al). But the world was entering an epoch of 

mega-death, and had no appetite for such a 

slender saviour. 

The world turned and the many disciplines 

involved in the Quest (archaeology, 

literary criticism, historical criticism, 

linguistics and so on) made great advances. 

Entrepreneurial Biblical scholars no longer 

needed their insights put'on message' by 

the Church or the Academy. Meanwhile the 

Church itself drifted rudderless toward the 

postmodern world, bemused whether to go 

backward or forward, uncertain what to do 

with the historical Jesus, should he ever be 

found. 

movement 23 

So, enren rHE JEsus SemrrlR rn 

1985 at Santa Rosa, California, and the 

Quest returns from limbo. Robert Funk 

chal lenged thi rty-f ive New Testament 

scholars to join together in a renewed Quest 

for the historical Jesus. Nearly a century 

after Schweitzer left for the jungles of 

Africa, the Quest was on again. But this time 

it was different. Funk and his Seminar was 

going all the way. lt was also going public. 

No more ivory towers. No more jargon. No 

more looking over the shoulder (though its 

scholars do get their death threats) at sniffy 

alma maters. 

Its methodology was radical and 

transparent. lt would go through all the 

words and the acts of Jesus. Their (now 

200) highly reputable scholars (now Fellows 

of the Jesus Seminar) would, after 

deliberating openly on all the available 

evidence, from all sources, vote on its 

degree of authenticity. They apply four 

colour-coded categories - red (probably), 

pink (possibly), grey (probably not) and black 

(definitely not) to the ancient texts. The 

result is The Five Gospels, The Acts of

Jesus, The Gospel of Jesus and a whole 

library of Jesus Seminar publications 

detailing the results of their findings. Such a 

method has its critics. However their 

collective results show remarkable 

cbnsistency with New Testament scholarship 

in general. 

Unsurprisingly their'results' are radical. 

From the L8o/o of sayings and the L6o/o of 

acts of Jesus that made the red corner, the 

Jesus that emerges from this Quest is freed 

from the myths and creeds of the Church. 

lndeed, he can hardly be called religious at 

all, and is certainly no moralist. Funk is quite 

blunt - the Christian faith is not the faith of 

Jesus and the gospel of Jesus is not the 

Jesus of the Gospels. This 'real' Jesus is not 

concerned with the beliefs or doctrines of 

the traditional Church, far less the 

supernatural shenanigans of evangelicalism. 

Funk's Jesus is a sage. Crossan's is a healer. 

Borg's is a mystic. All are Jewish. All are 

peasants. Not much pickings here to feed 

the pomp and circumstance of the Ecclesia 

and no supernatural junk food for 

evangelical extra-terrestrials. 

The findings of the Jesus Seminar are 

radical, not because they are influenced by 

unpronounceable Continental philosophers, 

but because of the radical Jesus that 

emerges from the sources themselves. We 

should not be surprised if at first glance 

Jesus looks oddly contemporary - a Jewish 

Buddhist with feminist/ecological leanings - 

compassion, justice, truth, wisdom and a 

dollop of humour. But, at second glance, we 

find an altogether more radical Jesus - 

angry, hedonistic, anarchic, who would rip 

apart all our pretensions, safety nets and 

cosy assumptions and who does not present 

us with options but gives commands. What 

we do with such a radical 'Jesus' is another 

question, perhaps another journey. 

lf all that sounds all too human, perhaps 

this is because we have been myth-taken. 

Perhaps the truth is much more exciting. 

Perhaps the 'real'Jesus, preserved in the 

time capsule of Christian mythology, has at 

last broken free from our doctrinal tomb and 

is only now rising from the dead. lf so, be 

warned - the beginning is nigh.f4- 

Duncan Park is a writer based in Luton. He 

is member of the Salvation Army, the Sea 

of Faith and organiser of the Pil$rim 

Network! 

. The Jesus Seminar On-TheRoad comes 

to the UK (with Robert Funk) for six weeks 

in the sprin$ of 200o. 

.A publlc debate is taking Place at 

Salvation Army, Oxford Street, London 

(April 8th) and the Friends Meetlng House, 

Edinburgh (2oth April). Also in Aprilthere's 

a 3day retreat in Crieff, Perthshire and 

another at Cliff College near Sheffield. 

.For further info contact Duncan Park on 

t: 01582 705 279 e: pilgrimnwk@aol.com. 

Or see the website wwwpilgrimnetwork.com 

lNorareo 

KOpanang (own label) 

tr 

attended the SCM 

conference this year 

will know this band 

well. I was one of the 

lucky people who had the 

chance to be part of their 

workshop as well and so 

although this review maY be 

slightly biased in favour of the 

band I also feel that I can give 

an informative review as I have 

sung some of the tracks. 

/ndebted is a collection of songs 

"ref lecting the vitality of music from 

Southern Africa where so manY 

countries struggle under the 

impossible burden of debt". 

Kopanang say they are indebted to 

the people whose songs they sing due 

to the richness and the inspiration it 

brings. 10% ofthe cost (t10) is 

donated to Jubilee 2000. 

The album kicks in with'TiYen 

'Abale' - a lively corpmunity song 0f 

thanksgiving - a call to worship. The 

tenor and bass backing together with 

innovative percussion make this a 

vibrant s0ng that you can listen to over 

and over again, it is relatively short but 

what it lacks in length it more than 

makes up for in quality. 

'Ndikweza' is a setting of Psalm 

121 with gorgeous harmonies, 

contrasting dynamics and a 

continuous unrelenting rhythm.'Moyo 

wathu mdzikoli' is a very vocal song 

with three simple notes constructing 

an amazingly catchy backing. The 

words would be a tongue twister to 

Southern comfort 

any non-native of Malawi but the band 

come out with gold stars. A long but 

easy-to-listen-to track. 

'Unodisbom'is a traditional Xhosa 

song from South Africa. The 

translation is'Unodisbom 

disappeared with my cattle - they say 

he's crary'! 'A Jehova lnu' is a song 

celebrating God's love for the whole 

creation. lt starts by gently building up 

percussion before the vocals come in, 

it is perhaps a weak link in the album 

and very samey, but nevertheless it 

has some great percussion. 

'Mtendere mwa Jesu'- well what 

can I say? Only that this song carries 

with it some great memories of the 

SCM conference. Alison, Richard, 

Jenny, Jane, Rob and I performed this 

to the congregation on the SundaY 

having been taught it by Kopanang in 

the workshop and I still can't stop 

singing it in the shower! 

'Bonke bazaliswa' - 'theY were all 

filled with the spirit, they cried aloud'. 

The harmonies make a lovely series of 

chords before the song launches into 

alleluias, a song with a real sense of 

awe. 

movement 24 

The next three tracks are taken from 

a Eucharist for unity, part of a jaz 

Eucharist from South Africa. They are a 

great contrastto the rest ofthe album, 

being more contemporary and using 

more modern instruments. The contrast 

works well and the songs fit into the 

album better than you might expect. 

With 'Taona'the percussion is 

back with a vengeance having been 

largely overpowered in the last three 

tracks. lt's a song of encouragement 

to work for good. 'Mose' is a song 

about Moses, Jonah and Jesus. A 

simple song but with fantastic backing 

percussion.'Noyana' ("we will meet in 

heaven one day") is perhaps the onlY 

truly contemplative song on the CD. 

Think ofTaize with an African feel and 

you might come close to this 

wonderful song. 

Skhanda Mayeza is a hangover 

song - a song every student should 

have in their CD player after a wild 

night out. The literal translation - don't 

worry I'm not a fundamentalistl - is "l 

must get medicine, I have a 

headache". 

The album ends with 'Hamba Nathi 

'Nkululi Wethu'which means go with 

us on ourjourney. A great end to the 

album both in terms of the music and 

the message. A really catchy and 

playable tune. 

Overall this is a high quality 

recording which includes manY 

contrasting songs but a sense of 

togetherness within the album. The 

album is about issues as well and it is 

good to know that people out there 

still care about our world, about peace 

and aboutjustice. ltwas a wonderful 

experience to meetthem and PlaY 

with them, I shall continue to pine for 

another similar experience, or at least 

for their next album... 

Colin Lea is a third year economics 

student at the Universi$ of Leicester. 

is the communications officer of 

Leicester AngSoc.

Clare Marie Horsneer gets the shakes watching the The Blair Witch Project. But 

camera technique aside, why is this fitm so innovative and scary? 

Sylvan foes 

HAT I8 THERE LEFT 

to say about lhe Blair 

Witch ProjecQ For almost 

six months now, everyone's 

known that it's scary. Really 

scary. Scary enough to break box 

office records and become the most 

profitable film of all time. Scary 

enough to make hardened film critics 

cack themselves with fear. How scary 

can you get? 

Why? To some extent, it's all about 

innovation. Frankly, there's not really 

much that scares today's media-sawy 

generation. The whole point about 

horror is that it doesn't work without 

the element of surprise. ln 1960, 

Norman Bates hacked up Janet Leigh 

in the shower - and hey, if even the 

heroine couldn't make it to the end of 

the movie any more, clearly no one 

was safe. Scary, you'll agree. But by 

the late eighties, though, we all knew 

where we were again. Friday 13th Part 

764: Jasorls Back - but he'll be dead 

again by the end of it. Not something 

to lose sleep over. 

The Blair Witch P/olect doesn't 

even nod to the conventions ofthe 

honor genre and barely acknowledges 

those of mainstream film generally. 

There's no steady-cam climbing the 

stairs ominously to the tightening 

sounds of a high-pitched string 

orchestra; in Blair Witch, the camera 

is with the victims all the way. They're 

making the film, and its their eyes, 

not a director's, that we see through. 

There aren't any clues to keep you one 

step ahead ofthem, and you can only 

thank God that you're in a nice warm 

cinema, instead of out in the big bad 

wood, because to all intents and 

purposes, it could be you. 

It's shot mainly on video, but the 

documentary scenbs, which are shot 

on film, provide an eerie backdrop of 

exposition, as well as a welcome relief 

from the jerky, hand-held shakiness of 

the video sequences. lt's also 

incredibly restrained - there's a 

considerable amount that y0u don't 

see - but it's all implied through the 

improvised responses of actors 

Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard 

and Michael Williams, and it's 

unnerving, to say the least. The final 

shots are incredibly understated, and 

all the more alarming for it. The occult 

implications are more frightening for 

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECTt; 

Everl'thing you vc hearcl is trttc. 

occuning off-camera. 

Most people who haven't been out 

in the woods themselves recently, 

know that the actors had no script 

and didn't really encounter the 

There's not 

reatly much 

that scares 

today's 

media-sawy 

generation. 

directors, who just left them notes 

and piles of food at pre-ananged 

locations. When they ran out of food, 

they got hungry. When it rained, they 

got wet. The effect is that what you 

see is, t0 all intents and purposes, as 

real as it gets. And while film has 

always been in the business of 

'making it real' - unlike, say, the 

theatre - The Blair Witch Project takes 

realism to a new level. Because the 

dialogue isn't scripted, because 

there's no carefully crafted 

camerawork, because there aren't any 

expensive CGI effects, the film has an 

air of immediacy and authenticity 

which makes it a breathtaking piece 

of work in itself. The overall effect is to 

reduce the distance between the 

audience and the film - distance 

usually created by all the aspects that 

remind you you're watching a film, like 

the soundtrack, the slick camerawork 

and the famous faces. lt convinces 

you thatthe'footage' is real. And if 

the film is real, then clearly so is the 

Blair Witch... 

There has, of course, been an 

incredible effort to make sure it 

remains real. The internet site and 

accompanying book, providing the 

history of the Blair Witch legend were 

available way before the film hit the 

U.K. A TV documentary, Ihe Curse of 

the BlaiWitch, showing interviews 

with experts on the occult, the 

archaeologists who'discovered' the 

reels offootage, and even the 

' missing' students' relatives, 

interspersed with the'found' footage - 

that is the film itself - was screened 

prior to the film's release. An internet 

database of American actors listed 

the three who appeared in Blair Witch 

as'deceased'. And even the 

merchandising men have done their 

job without blowing their cover - the 

'soundtrack' is actually an 

'accompanying album'. 0f what? A 

tape of songs allegedly found in Josh's 

car. 

It's a complete multimedia 

experience. The problem is that the 

film is only one part 0f the whole, and 

there's a tendency to lose sight of it in 

the face ofthe media hype. lfs also 

been suggested that it might work 

better once it comes out on video, as 

it was filmed with a video camera. lt 

is, however, still well worth seeing on 

its own merits, and if you're cynical, 

the directors have suggested that 

anyone who doesn't find the film scary 

should try watching it on the small 

screen late at night, alone in their 

house. I don't know about you - but I 

certainly won't be. 

Clare Marie Horsneer is a member of 

Warwick SCM and saw the film at its 

British Premiere, 

movement 25

Emily Bardell peeks at Canongate's second series of setections from the good book. 

Ya lfttle beauty 

THE POCKEI CANONS 

(Canongate) 

tr*ri;!*, 

as much as these have. This 

collection follows the first 

set in a series which have 

essentially revived 

Canongate's fortunes. 

The subject matter is the 

key. Forthose notyet in the 

know, or who missed the first 

set ofthese books, each 

contains a book ofthe Bible, 

from either Old orthe New 

testaments, preceded with an 

introduction by someone 

you'll probably have heard of; 

mostly writers, from best 

selling novelists, to 

theologians, including Ruth 

Rendell, Joanna Trollope, "an 

old asthmatic Glaswegian" 

(Alasdair Gray) and Peter Ackroyd, 

through to Karen Armstrong (catholic 

nun and feministtheologian) and Mier 

Shalev (lsraeli theologian). Each an 

important communicator in their field. 

Ihe use of the Bible in this manner 

has offended some - by giving these 

(mostly) secular writers a free rein to 

look at these literary texts - but also 

provided a route for the bible to those 

of an entirely secular persuasion, 

together with those of us too liberal to 

'read' the Bible, yet too lazy to ingest 

some of the better (but often heavier) 

works about it. 

Perhaps in this respect, the 

translation chosen by Canongate is 

slightly odd. I've always found myself 

a bitoffended bythe KingJames 

Version; the language is about as 

exclusive as it gets. But as they 

explain, "This version, more than any 

other 

and 

possibly 

more than 

any other 

work in history 

has had an influence in 

shaping the language we speak and 

write today." With that in mind, maybe 

they chose well in the intentto 

analyse the relevance ofthe bible in 

our progressive world. 

Each author has well and truly 

stamped theirthumbprint on the 

particular book they were given. The 

brief was interpreted in a variety of 

ways from a slightly political diatribe 

from Alasdair Gray (Jonah), to an 

informative insight into St Paul by 

Ruth Rendell (Romans). Some 

chose to reflect from a very 

personal pointofview on their 

own experience - 

Piers Paul Read 

uses his fathe/s 

Modernist 

outlook to 

explore the 

book of 

Wisdom, others 

prefer to 

explain the story to us like P.D. James 

on Acts. (l know a considerably larger 

amount about the lives of David and 

Paul following several of these 

introductions). 

The booktheywere given also 

limited the response posslble. Old 

testamenttexts allow much more 

room for imagination than the New, 

the New being much more historical 

books with little of the mystery of the 

0ld. Partly why my favourites in the 

series are those by Alasdair Gray and 

Bono (ofall peoplel) - both given old 

testament books. The least engaging 

was by Karen Armstrong. But she did 

get given Hebrews, and she is an 

academic theologian - not a recipe for 

an easy read. 

Alasdair Gray exhibits a degree of 

wisdom when interpretingJonah (if 

done in a slightly scathing fashion) 

and goes on to tackle some ofthe 

more pertinent problems in our 

society. "The only grand truth in 

Nahum's triumphant song is that 

nations who keep living by 

armaments will perish by them." 

Bono amused me most ofthe way 

on his exploration of the Psalms. 

Perhaps as a musician he is granted 

added insight into these lyrical 

writings. He brings his own story to 

share with us and gives a pretty 

sensitive insight into David - "a star, 

the Elvis of the bible". 

These little books are not only 

clever, they are also beautiful - 

adorned with a black and white 

photograph in some way suggestive of 

the text. 

The authors all tackled theirtext 

with some degree of reverence, 

unusual and pleasantto read, with 

even the least reverent finding time to 

appreciate the importance of this 

incredible collection 0f writings. 

Well worth a wee investment if 

you've some spare change in your 

pocket, and they might even inspire 

you to actually nosey atthe big book 

itself again. 

Emily Bardell is a medical student in 

Glasgow and a member of General 

Council. 

B00K(s) 

Ruth, Esther 

Samuel Land2 

lsaiah 

Jonah, Micah, Nahum 

Wisdom of Solomon 

Acts of the Apostles 

Romans 

Hebrews 

Psa/ms 

INTRO BY 

Joanna Trollope 

Meir Shalev 

Peter Ackroyd 

Alasdair Gray 

Piers Paul Read 

P.D, James 

Ruth Rendell 

Karen Armstrong 

Bono 

TYPTCAL QUoTE 

"Ruth is a story of simplicity and gentleness,' Esthet one of hatred and savatery!' 

"But David, King of lsrael - as we children of lsrael are fond of singing - lives and breathes." 

"lt stand out like a great melody, informingthe future and irradiatintthe pasti' 

"l hope the reform of Britain starts in Scotland." 

"My father Herbert Read... balked at Jun{s answer when asked if he believed in God: 'l do not believe, I knov/!' 

'Acts is a restless book, full of comings and goings, of dramatic incidents and violent events." 

"Faith can only arise through human berngg c/ose contactwith the gospel!' 

"0ur author is poignantly aware that is hard to live a religious life without any tangible replicas of the divine here below." 

"David was a star, the Elvis of the Bible, if we can believe the chiseiling of Michaelangelo (check the hce - but I 

still cadtfigure out thrs most farnous Jels foreskin)" 

movement 26

,"' books 

THr Hnnny Ponrn SeRrrs 

by J.K, Rowling (Bloomsbury) 

HARRY PoTTER B00KS just aren't 

published fast enough. 

Following the anival of Joanna 

Rowling's first novel about a boy who 

discovers he's a wizard, adults have 

breathlessly anticipated nights in the 

bath tub with a gin and tonic, 

savouring the delights of Harry Pottefs 

exploits. Even the grown up's who 

t 

t 

FH,'\lt{il 

ii riil 

ii'ifS 

k'F 

d n) I l,( Ithil,,,',,1,Ltr',' .\t 

*\ 

Ị.1 

'1 

s3 

t.. 

'r, q 

fl- 

Wizard! 

don't need to wait until the kids have 

had first shot have secreted it from 

other household members, lest they 

read ahead and spoil the ending. 

Hany Potter and the Philosophels 

Stone (1997), Harry Potter and the 

Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter 

and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) 

are imaginative, intelligent, and wellcrafted 

tales. Each ofthem covers a 

year of Hany's education at Hogwarts 

School for Witches and Wizards, and 

to the more usual boarding school 

pranks, such as sneaking out of the 

castle at night and paying 

unauthorised visits to the nearby 

sweet shop, are added invisibility 

cloaks, maps of secret tunnels in 

which you can watch yourself move, 

and a tantalising range of magical 

edibles which call to mind the land of 

sweets at the top of Blyton's Faraway 

Tree. 

Hany himself is a lovable character; 

a bit geeky, not too sugary, and 

capable of much mischief along with 

friends Ron and Hermione. Yet we are 

never more certain of good 

championing over evil, because Harry 

Potter is special to the wizarding world 

(which, by the way, exists in our 

midst), is gifted with great integrity, 

and is ever ready to do battle 

with the dark forces of He- 

Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, 

and his various underlings, 

all of whom present an illfated 

challenge to the young 

hero. 

There are those 

(Americans), I believe, who 

question Rowling's 

saintliness, arguing that 

Harry Potter is satanic of all 

things. lt is hardly worth 

dignifying such good folks 

with a response, however. 

Good triumphs, and if there's a 

little sparkle of tomfoolery along 

the way, it only serves to ensure that 

Rowling's humour separates her from 

the crowd of today's overly-politicallycorrect 

children's authors, who are 

sorely in danger of losing their sense 

of fun altogether. 

There are 'adult-style' covers of the 

Harry Potter books available for the 

feint-hearted. Most discerning 

readers, however, will choose to 

brandish their'Double Smarties 

Award-Winne/ paperbacks with pride ! 

(AMANDA McLEOD) 

A hard life's work 

LovE's Wonr 

by Gillian Rose (Vintage) 

GILLIAN R0SE'S Love's Work is an 

astonishingly powerful book by an 

astonishing woman. The book, like the 

person, strains categorisations to 

breaking point - ls it autobiography? 

Poetry? Philosophy? Theology? ln fact 

this book is an interweaving of all of 

these and more. 

Rose was an academic who taught 

philosophy, political theory and 

theology, as a glance atthe list of her 

other books indicates: Hegel, The 

Dialectic of Nih,/isrnet al. Yet if 

anyone needs convincing that 

philosophy need not be dry and 

detached from everyday life, Love's 

Work should do the job. Not since 

Plato's Symposlum have sex and 

philosophy been so closely 

intertwined ! Equally important there 

is here no devious division between 

philosophy and theology, which 

trivialises the former and privatises 

the latter. This is a book about 

families, friendships, death, sickness, 

sex, bodies, women, love - the most 

mundane and yet precisely also the 

most profound (and therefore 

religious / philosophical) matters. 

This attempt by an academic to reflect 

upon the most prosaic (and private) 

details of her life could have been an 

honendously pretentious and affected 

project, but it emphatically does not 

do this. Like many similar people, 

Rose is in love with words and ideas, 

yet her style has a certain beautiful 

sparseness which prevents her toying 

from becoming indulgent or sickening. 

As a Jewish intellectual, Rose 

stands at the cross-roads of two 

immense traditions to which she is 

indebted: The rich, earthy, mystical 

fleshiness of her iewish heritage, and 

the hedonistic, yet sterile and 

analytical tradition of the Modern 

post-Enlightenment world (which she 

repeatedly describes as' Protestant' ). 

The interaction of these two related 

and yet foreign worlds can be dizying 

at times, ut is always intriguing: 

Ancient wisdom from the rabbis is 

offered with the casualness as if it 

had come from the latest issue of 

Cosmo; Graphic discussion of the 

significance of her colostomy is 

followed by reflections on Dante or 

Descartes; Kant and Marx come and 

go with as natural ease as 

the various relatives, friends, 

lovers and angels who are all 

painted with tender honesty. 

Rose's own views are not 

presented with polemical clarity in 

this book. However, the ideas with 

which she plays remain fascinatingly 

suggestive to theological concerns. 

Her writing is pregnant with what in 

Christian theology would be regarded 

as a radical incarnationalism 

(suggesting that this is not so foreign 

to Judaism as some would have us 

believe). Stemmingfrom this are 

various hints of criticisms towards 

'protestant' modernity, for its 

intellectualism and neglect ofthe 

body. Her thoughts on the holocaust, 

her illness and God are opaque and 

painful and, as before, resist simple 

categorisations like 'theist' or 

'atheist' . This subtle position comes 

across as she mediates upon the 

inscrutable Midrash: "Would thatthey 

would forsake Me, but obey my 

Torah. " 

The brief vignettes into her 

intriguing life story avoid the usual 

tendencies of biography towards 

tedium or titillation. Her talent for 

seeing the comic in the mundane and 

tragic experiences in her childhood 

and child-like adulthood offers the 

reader a surprising degree of empathy 

and intimacy, which becomes tinged 

with exquisite pain as AIDS and 

cancer begin to impinge upon the 

story. The wild life of a brilliant and 

beautiful women becomes 

overshadowed by the sickly sweet 

smell of a decaying rose. Yet even 

amid this mood of mortality, despair 

and death do not seem to triumph; 

there remains a passionate 

commitmentto life: 

" I will stay in the fray, in the revel of 

ideas and risk; learning, failing, 

wooing, grieving, trusting, working, 

reposing - in this sin of language and 

lips. " 

This is a stunning, beautiful, 

touchingand provocative book. lts 

unusual form and language and 

hermetic intensity should not prevent 

anyone from trying it. 

(JoHN HUGHES) 

movement 27

The horror of war is easy to condemn - but where do you go from there? 

Elinor Mensigh looks at two books that have some suggestions. 

Ffghtfng talk 

DEMANDTNc puce: CHRrsrnru Resporses 

ro WnR nno VrolEncr 

by A. E. Harvey (SCM Press) 

Blooov Hrrr 

(Ed) Dan Hallock (Plough) 

HE MEDIA TODAY IS 

saturated with graphic 

accounts of war and 

conflict in various parts of 

the world, from the Balkans to Central 

Africa to Northern lreland and so on. 

The temptation is to turn our backs on 

these conflicts because their sheer 

c0mplexity overwhelms us. Grasping 

what is going on in an area of conflict, 

such as Kosovo, is difficult enough, 

never mind facing the dilemmas that 

flood our minds when we discuss what 

we think our response (as individuals 

and as a nation) should be. 

The strength of Demandint Peace 

lies in A. E. Harvey's discussion of 

such a socially, politically and 

historically diverse range of attitudes 

to war and violence. Readers are 

presented with a comprehensive and 

unbiased exploration of the complex 

issues and dilemmas. Nevertheless, 

the book is written, to my relief (!), in 

an accessible and readable style. 

0ur assumptions are challenged 

throughout the book. Whatever view 

we personally have of war, in reality 

both pacifist and non-pacifist stances 

have been regarded as'legitimate 

responses to the Gospel' by most 

churches. Demandin!, Peace draws 

our attention to the ambiguity of the 

Bible concerning war. 

People looking to the Bible for 

guidance on what the Christian 

response to war should be are likely to 

become pretty confused. ln the Old 

Testament God seems to regularly 

condone the destruction and killing of 

whole communities, yet in the New 

Testament we are told to love our 

enemies. The author suggests that we 

look to Jesus' example of selfsacrifice, 

instead of searching for 

teaching which explicitly rejects the 

use of violence. Jesus, however, is not 

portrayed as a weak or passive victim, 

but rather as a person who refuses to 

replicate 0r retaliate against the 

violence which others inflict upon him. 

How do we respond to that challenge? 

This interpretation could steer us 

in the direction ofthe pacifist stance. 

Demandint Peace contains accounts 

of successful non-violent protests 

('people powe/) and negotiations 

which and these are becoming 

increasingly significant. 0n the other 

hand, it is also recognised that 

peaceful protests may not always be a 

viable option when confronting the 

threat of modern weapons in the 

hands of oppressive regimes. The 

book reminds us that we are 

witnessing world leaders agonising 

over long-winded negotiations as they 

desperately try to reach a compromise 

The temptation is to turn 

our backs on these conflicts 

because their sheer 

comptexity overwhetms us. 

and avoid war. The use of weapons as 

a last resort, in recenttimes, hasto be 

a sign of hope to us all. 

A stimulating analysis of the 'Just 

Wa/ theory takes up a large chunk of 

the book and this part, in particular, 

examines the kinds of issues with 

movement 28 

which we are currently struggling. 

Harvey examines the complexity of 

conflicts today. I ntervention is 

considered by most to be a just and 

compulsory response t0 the violation 

of human rights, though this action 

may potentially lead to violent 

confrontation. A key question to ask is 

whether our intervention will cause 

more harm than good. The author 

emphasises the changing attitude of 

the general public towards war. 

People are increasingly tending to 

oppose intervention when a high level 

of 'collateral damage' is likely. This 

has to be another sign for hope. 

The writer admits that we can 

never know the motives that lie behind 

the decision to intervene or not to 

intervene in international or national 

conflicts. lntervention is no longerthe 

decision of one individual but of many 

individuals, organisations and 

countries. Although they appearto be 

officially unified in their objectives, 

true motives will always to some 

extent be a mystery! 

Demanding Peace does not offer 

easy answers to readers, neither does 

it persuade them to adopt a certain 

view of war. lt does, however, provide 

a comprehensive overview ofthe 

changing nature of war and of our 

attitudes towards it. 

Harvey concludes with a brilliant 

interpretation ofthe book of 

Revelation. An apttheme as the 

millennium (apologies for contributing 

to the overuse ofthat dreaded word!) 

approaches along with the 

entertaining predictions of doom and 

gloom and the end of the world ! 

I would like to finish by quoting 

the concluding two sentences, 

describing God's peace, because they 

sum up perfectly the thinking behind 

Novembe/s SCM Conference on the 

Beatitudes. 

"lt is the vision which gives 

meaning to our lives, power to our 

prayers, hope and endurance in the 

midst of our history. lt is the sum of all 

we believe, all we strive for, all we pray 

for as we seek to respond to the 

promise of God's kingdom on earth." 

Arnrouen wE ARE rr:Pr 

informed by the media about events in 

areas of conflict, it is ultimately up to 

those working in the media and in 

positions of powerto decide what 

information will be reported. They 

select those situations which they 

think should be brought to the 

attention ofthe public butthey also 

choose (or are pressured into 

choosing) to conceal certain pieces of 

information. 

lf you want to discover the other 

half of the story, the half that usually 

remains hidden from the public, then 

Bloody Hell isthe book to read. A new 

pocket-sized book published by 

Plough, it brings together powerful 

personal accounts of war, written by 

veterans of different ages, sex and 

nationalities. The individual 

testimonies are brutally honest and 

disturbing. They depict the hanowing 

scenes of carnage which the veterans 

have had to face. The accounts also 

reveal the way in which many veterans 

feel deceived, manipulated and 

abused by the military and 

governmental bodies. 

I was also left with the feeling that 

an opportunity had been missed to 

include some experiences of non- 

Western soldiers. The West has often 

ignored their voices. All of the 

contributors seemed to be either from 

the USA or from Great Britain and 

most of them were describing their 

experiences ofthe Vietnam War, the 

Gulf War or the Falklands. 

Bloody Hell is, nevertheless, a 

brave and honest reflection on war. 

Elinor Mensigh is SCM's new Groups' 

Worker.

* BRINGING UP BABY 

What is this? A CD - 

buried amongst prep 

school prospectuses 

on a Habitat coffee 

table - called 'Baby 

Needs Mozart.' lt 

increases baby's 

intelligence and life 

chances, you 

see. The cover 

shows a toddler 

with a glint in 

his eye as if to 

say: buy this CD 

and lwill 

become a 

lawyer or 

perhaps a doctor, 

and provide for you 

handsomely in your 

dotage. 

Let me suggest a more 

realistic scenario. Your baby 

falls asleep to Mozart every 

night while the rest of 

his/her unspeakably 

common cohort is 

brought up to a 

back-ground of 

bickering and 

gangster rap 

I 

and Radio 1 

DJs "giving 

a big 

shout to 

the Watford 

posse". Your progeny is able to 

compose librettos but is unable catch 

a ball. When your precocious egghead 

goes in on the first day of school 

humming Erne Kleine Nachtmusik,iI 

soon becomes clearthat Baby Needs 

A Kicking. 

ln response l've started my own line: 

Baby needs Goth-Rock. Just getting 

the front cover done now. 

* FANTASIA:THE MORNING AFTER 

Disney are bringing out a follow-up to 

Fantasia called, intriguingly enough, 

Fantasia 2000. lt follows the same 

formula of classical music plus tenibly 

amusing cartoons and mad acid 

flashbacks. Mickey Mouse aka the 

Sorcere/s Apprentice has to clear up 

vomit and recycle bottles (to Wagner). 

And the rhinos go back to the fancy 

dress shop and try to explain - using 

only sign language ; why the tutus 

have ripped seams. 

* CREED IS GOOD 

WWJD is a trend amongst people of 

faith who can't be bothered to work 

out ethics for themselves, and Oasis' 

Liam Gallagher is all for it. He 

explained the principle of WhatWould 

lohn Do?, which has guided his career 

thus far, to Q magazine: "l believe in 

John Lennon, I believe in everything he 

stood for, that's the nearest to a God 

thing I get to. I'm sure he was a cunt 

as well, but he was a good guy..." 

J 

* MY ROUTE 

TO FAME, 

WWJD demands that you 

Iove Lennon with all 

your heart, all your 

soul and all your 

eyebrow. 

FORTUNE AND RICHARD 

WHITELEY 

Now that the sun sets at half 

three, I have to do something 

on these long dark nights. I 

have invested in a 

rhyming dictionary 

(confectionery!) and 

got reams of application 

forms from the Patent Office 

(glottis!). 

) 

The best inventions so far: acne pygmy 

chimney chutney (the Body Shop's 

new organic soot face mask); 

mizenmast elastoplast (bandage for 

a broken ship); snootflute (nose 

pipes); mute snootflute (nose pipes 

that are broken). 

lf I keep this going I could have a slot 

on Countdown before the 

commercials... better stop now. 

* QUE CERTSE SERA 

Serpent had the delight of discovering 

an essay by everyone's favourite 

hostage-in-your-own-home, Salman 

Rushdie. Salman recalls a film made 

as a tribute to him: 

A few years alo there was a 

Pakistani television film made 

cal/ed lnternational Guerillas. Ihe 

subject ofit was the heroic 

attempt by lslamic tenorists to 

murder ne. ln this film there was a 

character called Salman Rushdie, 

who was presented as a drunkard, 

a sadist, a torturer and a murderer, 

and at the end of the f/m this 

character was murdered by no 

/ess a person than God. 

lwatched the film. ltwas appalinf, 

and one of things I most objected 

to was the fact that the character 

playing me appeared in a very 

large assortment of incredibly ugly 

safarl suits, cerise safarl suits, 

and other equally unpleasant 

colours. Butthere is something 

undeniably revolting about 

w atch i n t yo u rse lf b e i n t 

murdered by God in the 

movies. 

Not an experience that many 

people have. 

* THIS EMU WONT FLY 

lmagine this. lt is 2008 and the Prime 

Minister, Phoney Blah, is starting his 

third term in office; he decides we 

must join the European Monetary 

Union and pulp the Great British 

pound. Some Europhobes take 

exception - the 17 remaining Tory 

MPs, the Countryside Alliance and 

allsorted fundamentalist Christians 

who believe that EMU is the final step 

before we get bar-codes on our 

foreheads. (Honestly ifyou were 

Beelzebub, Lord of Darkness and Barcoder 

of Heads, wouldn't you pick 

somewhere more glamorous to live 

than Brussels?) 

Anyway, this unlikely band 

of rebels takes to the 

hills to live a pure 

life without EMU, 

that filthy 

contaminating 

currency. They set up 

a system of barter, but 

this soon collapses as 

humanity has forgotten how it 

works. So, they begin using 

remaindered memoirs of Tory 

politicians as currency (there are 10 

thatchersin a churchill; small change 

consists of tebitts and demr-haf,ues). 

Although some of the outlaws were 

Boy Scouts, no one really knows how 

to survive outdoors without a Range 

Rover and wax jacket. 

ln time, they are forced to join up with 

crusties and travellers, who have been 

doing so for years. There is tension at 

first, but the hardship brings them 

together and a beautifully diverse 

underground culture emerges. Tweed 

ponchoes, hempjodphurs and red 

setters on string are all the rage for a 

season. Swampy and Michael 

Portfolio - whilst chilling out to 

Spiritualised at Glastonbury - hit it off 

and strike a pact: to oust the PM in 

the next election. 

Just a thought... 

* DOUBLE SAMMY 

The truth is strangerthan fiction, 

especially around Halloween.This was 

seen in the window of a local 

newsagent: "Wanted for a feature film. 

Lookalike/double for Sammy Davis 

Jnr. Must be under 5'7" and available 

on October 31st. lf you fit this 

category (you do not necessarily have 

to be facially similar and age is not a 

problem the most important thing is 

the height) please phone." 

* SIGNING 0N... AND 0N... 

Thank you t0 'a little bird', who uses e- 

mail, for this. Hermeneutics applied to 

a SIOP slf,n. 

1. A postmodernist deconstructs the 

sign by knocking it over with his car, 

and thus ends the tyranny of the 

north-south traffic over the east-west 

traffic. 

2. A serious and educated Catholic 

drives through it because he believes 

he cannot understand the stop sign 

apart from its interpretive community 

and tradition. 0bserving that the 

interpretive community doesn't take it 

too seriously, he doesn't feel 

obligated to take it too seriously 

either. 

3. Average Catholics and mainline 

denominationalists don't bother to 

read the sign but will stop if the car in 

front does. 

4. An orthodox Jew takes routes 

devoid of stops to eliminate the risk of 

disobeying the Law. 

5. A scholar from the Jesus Seminar 

concludes that the passage " STOP " 

was never uttered byJesus, since he 

would not stifle peoples' progress. 

So, STOP is a textual insertion from 

stage lll of the gospel tradition, 

when the church was first 

confronted by traffic in 

its parking lot. 

6. An Old Testament 

scholar amends the 

text, changing the T 

to H. The resulting 

"SH0P" is much easierto 

understand in context 

than "STOP" because of 

o the multiplicity of stores 

in the area. The 

o :;T,i;:ff[ifif:': 

form deschichte 

arteraiton. Tnus, tne 

O -O 

srgn announces Ine 

existence of a shopping 

area. lf this is true, it could indicate 

that both meanings are valid, thus 

making the message " STOP & SH0P. " 

movement 29

T}IE 

SCM offers a vision of Christianity where it is okay to 

ask questions, a place to share insights, debate issues, 

make friends and work for change.

Movement 104

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