GlobalCivility comes to Birmingham

I popped into the city centre on Saturday to take a look at GlobalCivility's counter-demo. Unfortunately I didn't realise until too late that the speeches started at 11am and didn't make it into town until about 12.15pm. Not that I think I could have stood there for two hours, but I would at least have liked to have seen the star-attraction Salma Yaqoob.

As it was I got to listen to some bloke (sorry, I don't know which one of the speakers it was) speaking on how Islam could teach not just Birmingham, not just Britain, but the whole of Europe how to conduct themselves. This seemed to include teaching Europeans how to treat their daughters and sisters with respect. Now, come on Europeans, someone's got to show you how to do it, it might as well be a band of men who want to wrap us from head-to-toe and make us unequal in law.

The next and last speaker spoke in his native tongue which wasn't English and so I had no idea of what he was saying, but the odd English words "Free expression" and "civil" came popping out.

I figured there were about 200 people there at an absolute max, mostly men in white robes and caps, but there were a handful of ladies too, grouped together. The young lads wearing the steward coats looked tired and bored, and the police kept a respectful distance and were visible if not very numerous. A few locals out shopping, no more than a scattering of ten or so at any one time, stopped to listen for a while before moving on. I had thought GC would be handing out literature or something trying to engage people in what they were about, but there was nothing like that. Just a couple of large banners and many placards, nothing you haven't seen at previous MAC demos, stuff about secular fundamentalists and nice stuff about their Prophet. My favourite said "learn to apologise properly". Learn to apologise properly or what? Scribbles would like to ask.

By the time the march began the wind had whipped up and the rain had started. Suddenly the day turned from mild and sunny to wet and cold. It made the whole thing look desolate and my thoughts that this movement would amount to nothing seem right. Unlike the March for Free Expression, which went to great pains to try and get support from a cross-section of society, including the religious, GC attempted to fuel this demo only by the support of local mosques. They didn't bother trying to engage the people of Birmingham, to reach out to non-Muslims, or to spread the concept of civility further than their own clan. If the aim of GC is to "have a sincere insight of each other that should lead to sustainable civility resulting in harmonious existence", then they'll have to find a way to start talking to people other than themselves.

There was one thing that amused me though, and that was that this demo took place in Victoria Square which is home to what locals call "The Floozy in the Jacuzzi". As the GC speakers stood on the platform this was the view they got...




Cover yourself up, woman!

Spring Forward!

Friday afternoon I finally got around to changing the time on the clock in the dining room, which had remained fast since not being put back an hour last autumn. Then of course yesterday I had to put it forward an hour again.

Pat on the back for me.

Spot on!

What's your epitaph? From here.

You've got to be kidding me

On the pretty damn fabulous news that Norman Kember and friends have been rescued from the headhackers by armed forces, Norman's outfit, Christian Peacemaker's, say this.

"We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping."

Have a go why don't you?

I suppose a thank you to those who put their lives on the line to rescue their friend would have been too much to expect!

Coalition secular movement ready and waiting

Oh my giddy Aunt. So, the politics surrounding the March For Free Expression (MFE) this Saturday is getting all in a tangle. I suppose logically if you are going to march for such a cause then you can't ban certain people from coming along and expressing themselves because that would be silly. But then that leads to situations where people like Alan Johnson (he of Democratiya) withdraws support because he doesn't feel comfortable standing alongside some of the other supporters.

And new Muslim organisation on the block, the Muslim Action Committee (MAC), have pounced on the day as being racist and anti-Islamic because the organisors of the march have no problem with people using those Danish cartoons to illustrate their belief in freedom of expression. At least, that's ostensibly why they've got active about this. Actually what they are doing is using this march as a springboard to raise their profile.

I think that something like MFE is much needed. We have in this country some pretty powerful organisations whose demonstrations and campaigns are making a serious dent in our freedom to express ourselves (Bhezti, Jerry Springer, Danish cartoons blah, blah) and unless opposition starts to voice itself soon these organisations will think we don't care. A high profile protest that makes a stand for secular values is all for the good.

Now though I am beginning to wonder whether we don't need more than that. The trouble with MFE is that it was born off the back of the cartoon saga and that for me is not a good starting place. The whole cartoon debacle showed religious censorship in a very bad light, but - and this for me is the crucial bit - it didn't show secular expression in a particularly good one. Those cartoons are just not an inspiring rally call for me. And it has painted a big red bullseye for the MAC to take aim and denounce the whole march as anti-Islamic whilst getting its name in the papers. And without this march it is really hard to know what MAC and the very silly GlobalCivility movement would have done with themselves.

And yet without the violence and death threats that followed the advertising of these cartoons in the middle-east by those irresponsible Danish imams, and the political use made in this country of the offence they caused, us secularists wouldn't be feeling such an urge right now to make our feelings known. How could we not respond?

Respond then, yes, but how? How, when religion at the moment is the main threat to freedom of expression, do you campaign about freedom of expression without being seen as anti-religious and losing useful support from the religious moderates and progressives? How do you espouse freedom of expression without allowing the likes of the BNP to come on board and so alienating people on the left? Do you even need such cross religious and political support? How do you campaign for freedom of expression with any true credibility when there are slander and libel laws in this country that regulate it anyway? And what exactly are we hoping to achieve?

It's not clear what a generalised campaign for freedom of expression, much as I am glad it is happening, will achieve beyond giving organisations like MAC a chance to get the attention they crave.

But what is clear that all the organisations that have signed up to support this march could together have a very loud and influential voice. Such a coalition secularist movement could really come into its own when there is a clear and sound rallying call. The movement for women's rights in this country only started to achieve things when all the women organisations concentrated on one specific aim - to get the vote. Every movement, if it is to be successful, needs a specific achievable aim that has a chance of gaining popular cross sector support.

But then the suffragettes were fighting to make change, where as the secular fight here is to keep our freedoms in place. In this instance it may be that the religious organisations are the ones who will be at their most successful when they aim for something specific - rather than what they do at the moment, which is to protest about things that happen in secular countries they don't like. In which case, providing that the specific aim of the religious organisation is a significant threat to the secular nature of this country, the role of the secular movement will be one of counter protest.

I'm hoping that will never be needed. That things like MAC will stay impotent movements, mere showcases for ambitious people with little outside influence. But I still support the desire to voice support for freedom of expression, and I remain watchful of the political movements coming out of religion. As, I think, should we all.

A great idea

The winter games, rugby, racing, common wealth games. Never ending stream of sport running through my telly. And it's only going to get worse with summer coming.

I had this idea yesterday that at the top right hand corner of the telly screen there should be a little sign saying a) what event you are watching, and b) how many more days this shit is going to be on for. It wouldn't reduce the number of hours sport invades my home, but it might help me cope. Like when they dig up roads these days and they put up a sign saying what they are doing and how long it will go on for. Gives you a sense of control.

March for Free Expression

"The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offence, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offence in their time. The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticise and mock. We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same. We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them."

March 25th, Trafalgar Square, London.

Details here.

Worried about being eaten alive.

Three things are playing on my mind at the moment; Slobodan Milosevic dying a peaceful death so sickeningly close to the end of his trial, the international repercussions of the Jericho jail incident, and the immortal properties of the mice who live under my bedroom floorboards.

It is interesting, is it not, how the brain fails to distinguish between matters of global significance and trifling domestic concerns of unlikely scenarios. But there it is, I have long since stopped taking any responsibility for what my brain decides to do. It can think what it likes.

Anyway, no doubt you don't need me to fill you in on Slobbo or the Jericho affair, but my immortal mice have failed to make it into the Guardian and so I'll enlighten you. Remember, first there was the siege, then there was the toaster incident. This is not to mention the time one of them ran at me whilst I was doing the washing-up or the one that jumped out at me from behind the kitchen bin, but you get the picture. Rodent infestation.

I thought, because of their relative size and their boldness, I was dealing with rats. When the pest man came from the council however, after seeing the droppings I'd left to show him behind the bin, he assured me they were mice. A rat, he said, leaves massive droppings larger than the length of a fifty pence piece. Looking at my rodent droppings they were less than a bit of grit. Reader, I never thought I would be made to feel inadequate over the size of my droppings. Anyway, I argued with the pest man that they might just be young rats with the size of their faecal matter as yet unrealised. The man didn't think so, but he put poison down for me anyway.

And this is where the immortal bit comes in. I keep putting this poison out for them at a particular rodent hot-spot, and they keep eating it, but they don't seem to be dying. I mean, two weeks on should they still be alive to be eating this stuff? Shouldn't there be corpses by now? Or bad smells coming from under the floorboards?

Add to this that, Google as I might, I can't find a picture that proves to me one way or the other whether I have rats or mice, and you see where my thinking is going with this: that I have, within my house, a mutant breed of rat-mice that are not only loving the poison I'm trying to destroy them with, but growing stronger on it. Perhaps, knowing that I have been trying to kill them, and ignorant of the guilt I feel over this, they might grow so big they will come and eat me to death in the middle of the night.

You see why this is so occupying my thoughts?

Sometimes I think perhaps I am being a bit far-fetched. But then when I find there is a mutant breed of sheep-badger, I get even more unsettled. I'm locking my bedroom door at night, but if they come, they will probably come through the floorboards.

Talking of class...

... this made me laugh from yesterday's G2:

"Barbican sets sights on 'chavs'

In a bid to broaden theatre audiences, producer Simon Casson is setting out to "get more chavs down the Barbican". With his company, Duckie, he is putting together a new Christmas show called The Class Club, for which audiences at the Barbican in London will be invited to dress up as upper-, middle- or lower-class, with tickets priced accordingly.

"Upper-class tickets are £40," says Casson, "but local, bona-fide working-class people can get them for a tenner. What we want to avoid is just having the theatre class there."

...

Casson describes the show as a satire on nostalgic British stereotypes, and is expecting some class resentment. "We did a work in progress of this back in 2002 and it ended up as a big food fight between the lower classes and the upper classes, with the middle classes stuck in the middle not knowing what to do," he says. "

***

Not sure what I think about the 'lower classes' being called 'chavs' though. I mean, such crude class stereotyping.

CLASS WAR II

Now, some people seem to be confused about the difference between the middle-classes and the upper-classes. It is true, Scribbles thinks, that they do have much in common, but there are important differences.

A Guide To The Upper-Classes

The upper-classes don't 'get a man in', they have staff.

They do not own/holiday in gites, they own/holiday in renovated castles.

Beyond university the upper-classes do not do their own supermarket shopping. The kitchen staff do that.

They don't have second homes, they have piles in the country.

They have titles.

They own land.

The men have no chins and wear navy blazers with gold buttons.

The women have no shoulders and wear Alice bands and large shapeless cotton skirts.

They know more about the lives of their ancestors than they do about their own children.

They have set up all sorts of rules which they call "etiquette" to try and catch out infiltrators.

They have no discernible use.

Americans love them.

CLASS WAR!

Like most people, I love the middle-classes. So much so in fact I married one of them. But class distinction is blurry these days. How do you actually know for sure whether or not you are middle-class?

Scribbles' Guide To Being Middle-Class

You name your children after Shakespearian characters or remote islands off the Scottish coast, and don't think there's anything wrong with it.

You not only know what a gite is, you've stayed in one or even own one.

You 'get a man in' to put up wallpaper or cut your grass.

You get all your arguments from books, and if the subject matter gets dangerously close to some subject you haven't read a book on you knock your glass of Cabernet Sauvignon over to cause a distraction.

You have such a horror of sending your kids to state school that you have a plan ready in case you ever start to struggle with school fees - and it involves high class prostitution.

You think selling true life stories to Chat magazine for £250 is tacky. Much better to secure book rights and then get a deal with The Mail.

In your shopping trolley you have extra virgin olive oil (Spanish), rosemary focaccia, sundried tomatoes, Dijon mustard, organic vegetables, mozzarella di bufala and Fairtrade coffee, and you don't feel the least bit self-conscious.

When you were a kid, your dad left for work in a suit and would bring you back dolls or toy cars from business trips abroad.

You have done at least six of the following; skiing, jet-skiing, parachuting, sailing, absailing, surfing, hiking, archery, squash, mountain climbing, cricket, snorkling.

The Jam's song "That's Entertainment" makes you nostalgic for your student days when you got to play at being poor.

***

Bless the Middle-Classes, each and every one!

Jose Mourinho, you're an arse.

So, arse, you have to play little tricks like coming back out late for the second half leaving the other team waiting outside on a cold pitch in order to 'annihilate' them these days? Very professional. What were your players doing in the dressing room? Plucking their eyebrows or rearranging their pony tails?



An arse, yesterday.

Clare Short MP. I hate that I voted for you. (updated)

Clare Short has invited Hizb ut Tahrir to the commons for a chat about the new anti-Terror measures. (Harry's Place: An open letter to Clare Short about Hizb ut Tahrir from Peter Tatchell.)

Well, as a member of her constituency, I'd like to ask her to stop fannying about with fascist organisations with delusional ideas about world domination and do something about the fact that I've just found a rat in my toaster.

A rat, I should add, who is one of a number currently blighting my neighbourhood, having been displaced by the clearing of ancient woodland upon which 1000 new homes are going to be built. 1000 new homes, I should add, that are being built in an area in which the schools, medical facilities and transport network are already over stretched.

So much as I hate to drag Ms Short away from her important work as chief Blair tormenter, I think she's long overdue a letter from The Scribbles.

Update:

Seems they are not rats, they are big mice. So the man from the council assures me.