EDL Aylesbury: wingnuts lock down

Day out in Aylesbury with Frs Shane Wood and David Cloake, as the EDL came to town. Lord knows why Aylesbury, but the day demonstrated clearly the strength and cohesion of the town, in the face of major frustration and annoyance. However unwanted it all was, it did bring people together. I spent the day on walkabout with visits to the TVP Silver Command, Jamia Ghausia Mosque, and Young People’s activities at CGS in Southcourt, among other places.

The tiny but good humoured UAF event at Vale Park, whilst basically irrelevant, was no bother at all. The EDL have been trying to build numbers on their outings, so will doubtless be disappointed by a modest turnout. There was only one public order arrest, with a small number of others for offensive weapons and, inevitably perhaps, one drunk and disorderly EDL member. There’s always one. The day demonstrated great patience, professionaism and good humour from our police and emergency services. An Al Jazeera reporter commented, on the basis of experience all over the world, on the “gentlemanly” way TVP had approached a pretty daunting task.

Above all, the day saw a basically good humoured, cohesive community cope, mainly cheerfully. Most people, wisely, stayed away. I feel really sorry for the town’s small traders, innocent people, who have lost thousands of pounds so that EDL could indulge their ignorance and insecurity in public.

One or two aspects of the day struck me as quintessentially Engish.

• We believe passionately in free speech, in the town John Hampden and John Wilkes served as MP’s. This particular exercise cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions, taking into account lost income to local businesses on a bank holiday weekend. If EDL’s views reflected local reality, they wouldn’t have to bus in people from all over the land. The 50 odd EDL members in the town can’t be expected to cough up the £20-30,000 each their antics have cost their neighbours, I suppose, but the idea was, understandably, expressed by various locals during the day. Balancing the right to free speech against the right to get on with your life unmolested was the original wingnut dilemma I discussed last week, and things seems to have worked out relatively peacefully, if unfairly weighted against local traders.
  
  
• The power of Twitter was demonstrated interestingly when silly rumours started up mid-aftermoon that someone had firebombed the mosque — this on the back of various tales on the streets about stabbings in the town over the previous few days — all rubbish. Enough is enough, so Fr Shane and I went down to Havelock Street for a very English Nice Cup of Tea with the Mosque president, a photo of which we tweeted straight out, to demonstrate that we weren’t actually in a war zone. Samosas followed soon after.
  
  
• As the EDL went home (by way of some high jinks in Morrison’s car park) I noticed boarding coming down from the Green Man in the Market Place.
  
  Like Noah’s dove returning to the ark, this was the first true sign of normality’s return, and it was great to have a pint in there as it reopened at 6·00. Nice pint, too.
  
  
• A more public all-clear came at 7·00, as bellringers met at St Mary’s to ring the Church bells. A couple of bottles of Champagne were opened and shared. The mp3 below records the happy sound of some changes rung, along with a small amount of associated ribaldry. “Thanks,” said one local resident. “This means we’ve got our town back.”
  

EDL Aylesbury: The Wingnut dilemma

In a week’s time, the English Defence League are coming to Aylesbury. For transatlantic readers, EDL is a protest movement against all things foreign and especially Islamic; a group who got chucked out of the far right BNP, for being too p’nutty. Now they’re heading for Aylesbury, of all places, on May Day.

We all enjoy some basic freedoms in this country.

1. People should be free to get together with their friends, demonstrate and express their points of view, pretty much whatever they may be. That’s a basic freedom. It includes freedom to express contrarian points of view, even to sow fear, and aggravate dissension up to a point. But push it to the nth degree, and this freedom compromises other freedoms.
   
   
2. People should be free to get on with their lives, conduct their businesses, enjoy their leisure on a bank holiday weekend, without their streets being hijacked by demonstrators.
   
   
3. People should be free to be themselves safely in a country that has been diverse since the Bronze Age, subject to wave after wave of immigration and settlement, with corresponding interaction and synthesis. That is the basis of the Eglish language and culture that has, historically, thrived on its capacity to interact, adopt, adapt, modulate freely.
   
   
4. People should be free to live in a law-abiding, stable, democracy, which works out differences together, not by setting people against their neighbours. If you want to change things, you know where the ballot box is. All you have to do is persuade others you are right, and off you go. If, however, you can’t persuade them, bully boy tactics are no substitute.
   

So there’s a balance of freedoms — the freedom of an astroturf organisation to coach in busloads of political chums has to be balanced against the freedom of people to get on with their lives, and their neighbours, in peace.

Here’s the rub. In a basically tolerant, peaceful town, what do you do about roving right wing nuttery? You could organise a left wing demonstraton — fight fire with fire. I could imagine circumstances where that could be necessary. Racism, ignorance and rampant prejudice are obscene, and rightly provoke passionate opposition. I’m happy to sign up to anything that makes that basic point. The fact is, the vast majority of people in Aylesbury are tolerant and law-abiding. That’s a very important part of what it means to be English for them. We know we’ve got our share of social problems, but these are best worked through and sorted between the people concerned as neighbours, not by bussing in extremists for a day out.

Therefore, after carefully and sympathetically considering options with community and faith leaders, under pressure to face down a right wing demo by what’s bound to end up a left wing demo, I can understand why people want to react like this, but I’m just not persuaded. Doing this is more likely to feed EDL’s hunger for significance, than to achieve anything positive here on this occasion. In collaboration with the Mayor of Aylesbury, I released this statement yesterday through AVDC:

Aylesbury is a peaceful, law-abiding town. Anything that turns it into a set for factional posing, left or right, is not helpful. Racist organisations don’t deserve the oxygen of publicity. The best way for people to stand up to racism is to show there’s a better way to live, by staying calm and getting on with their lives in mutual respect

The best traditions of our country include the Christian values of living in harmony, doing as we would be done by, loving our neighbour as ourselves. Whatever our neighbours’ race, religion or culture, we respect them and want them to have the same freedom to be themselves that we all enjoy.

That's why I support our town mayor’s call for people not to join any outsider-organised demonstrations on 1 May, and for outside activists please to leave us alone to get on with our life in peace.

The Town Mayor, Ranjula Tandokra’s, statement (the call I’m supporting) goes thus:

It is my opinion that Aylesbury has a peace loving community and on the 1 May, with most the shops and places of entertainment closed for the afternoon, it would be more profitable for Aylesbury residents to spend their time at home with their families and friends.

The fewer people there are in the town centre when the English Defence League hold their meeting, or for any other form of demonstration, the less likely it is that there will be any disruption to the life of the town.The best way to show the EDL that we do not support them is to avoid showing them any form of attention including any opposition event on the same day.

Let us celebrate our fun, friendly, peace loving multicultural society and united Town by letting them arrive, have their speeches and then depart peacefully. This will give Aylesbury the opportunity to celebrate our multicultural community at a time that suits us and on our own terms without provocation or threats.

HT Walton — Passion for Life

Holy Trinity Walton, Aylesbury, has long been a flourishing Evangelical Church. Since the 1860’s as a mission to workers on the nearby Grand Union Canal, it has grown disciples who wanted to make a difference in the world. It’s had various particular mountains to climb in the past few years. Not least among these has been a deeply problematic building.

People look at Victorian Churches and think they'll last for ever, but check the foundations first — often the Victorians rather skimped on these whilst reaching for the sky in rubble-filled knapped flint. This is a particularly serious problem when the ground underneath is dodgy as well, with underground streams and other chalky downland delights. Real architectural creativity and technological skill have gone into this project to make good some of the proboems about the site and existing building.

At one time the only option looked like a complete rebuild. Still, with inspirational leadership from Andrew Blyth, the Vicar, the building is now structurally sorted, with some real enhancements to the whole site tying things together and providing extra facilities for Ht’s many people and groups. There’s still substantial internal fitting out and reordering to be done, but the structural horror story is sorted. Like the best structural projects this one was tithed for overseas projects, and the local campaign to raise £900K has built new Churches in Pakistan and the Sudan, along with as other spin-off benefits.
The vibrant sense of hope, joy and community spirit in was overwhelming when I went to reopen the building the other week. We placed stones, as signs of faith and hope, in a well which has come to light under the new reception area — a rather symbolic unexpected find. So, for Walton, this year’s Christmas present is a structurally refurbed building for Church, playgroups, community organisations and passers by — I noticed a shower suite in what used to be the porch for the use of people off the streets.

With substantial new building of all kinds in the Holy Trinity parish, it’s good to see a flourishing, growing local parish Church doing what it’s there for with real passion, prayer and commitment. Get the internal relationships and processes working together, say your prayers, grow a culture of generosity, and very good things can happen...

Lifers Carols: Christmas begins here

One of the most significant party of Christmas for me is the Lifers Carol Service at Aylesbury Gaol. It’s now a Young Offenders Institution, where all male young offenders in the country serving life sentences are imprisoned. According to the book of words,

The prison was opened as a county gaol in 1847 and served as such until 1890 when it became a women's prison. Two new wings were added in 1902 serving initially as an Inebriates Centre and in the 1930s as a girls' borstal. In 1959, the prison was converted to house adult male prisoners and in 1961, it changed again to house young male offenders aged between 17 and 21. In 1989, Aylesbury was designated as a long term young offender institution. Aylesbury holds the longest sentenced young adult males in the English prison system.

At Christmas, the chaplaincy organises a carol service to which lifers’ families are invited. They are able to give a small present provided by the Institution, whilst prisoners give a Christmas candle to their families, to remember them at home with everyone else at Christmas.

Image by R P Marks via Flickr

Families are brought in from the visits area, and then inmates. Fr John Fleming, RC chaplain, expertly planned and led the service. From the front I couldn’t miss an unforgettable rush of emotion as people were reunited in this context — tears, laughter, one or two whoops of joy, even, and two people dancing in silly little circles. After the service there is some socialising time afterwards, when it's very important if you're an extraneous visitor not to get in the way — but a welcome opportunity to touch base with chaplains, volunteers and staff.

Everybody puts themselves out to make this rather extraordinary hour and a half happen. Supervision of such an event requires real professionalism in depth, in that it has to feel generally light and personal, but, of course with security and safety routines to be maintained for the good of all. Staff were fabulous, and the whole evening good humoured, passionate and engaged, with, sounding like a wine writer, undertones of comfort and joy. How strange it should take the birth of a baby 2,000 years ago to trigger such an encounter ...

Uproot, upsize your world

After yesterday’s post about the International Eating Disorders Centre, Aylesbury, someone asked whether I think you have to have faith to make progress there. Of course people of all faiths and none use the Centre effectively, but some kind of faith about yourself has to grow, I suppose, for treatment to work. And if staff have faith that takes the form of unconditional acceptance, Grace, all sorts of things begin to seem possible.
I’ve now managed to capture the script of Suz Hemming’s dance on Tuesday. She’s one of the most inspiring people I’ve met. She thinks kinetically, and is recovering from an eating/exercise disorder. They are a message of hope for anyone who’s gotten into the habit of boxing themselves up in a place that’s to small to sustain real life:

This world is so unfathomable in its magnitude 

It's so chaotically huge, 

I'm a large person, a MASSIVE person, 

And I DON'T mean my body 

Even though it FEELS huge, 

Even now,

But my mind; your mind; the mind itself,
is infinite beyond of all comprehension,

Interconnected pathways, brim to overflowing 

With masses of meticulously defined
thoughts, feelings and notions, 

Big ideas, obese with possibilities, 

FAT with opportunities

Measure the world in women's clothing sizes
and it's in the outsize collection, 

It's the 36GG bra, the big granny knickers,

It's a colossal giant of a place to inhabit

Why make your home within it so insignificantly small? 

Why dull the mammoth scale of colours,
sounds and tastes careering through your body?

To be a skeleton of the life you knew,

on a catwalk so big
it could consume what's left of you
The Size ZERO body is a label for 

ZERO creativity, ZERO Passion,
ZERO spontaneity, ZERO Fulfilment; 

ZERO LIFE

Still I've tried to edit my rainbow,

Safe black and white
mixed with an off peach pallor skin, 

Made my world as big and unexciting
as a mini rice cake, 

I've had bones bruise from lying down,
felt cold in a 25°c room, 

Passed out on a treadmill,

(needless to say I was running in completely the wrong direction) 

Staring at a plate of food in tears, 

Having food eat me rather me eat it, 

I've fallen when I go to stand,
and been out of control 

by the very measures I took to contain and mediate my life, 

I've eaten, and I've starved, 

I've lived and then I've pretended to live,

But now I've chosen to up roots, 

and move into my body
like a new home on moving day, 

I'll buy some new furniture for my mind, 

And throw out the old décor I don't need anymore, 

It'll take a while I know ... to feel like I'm at home,

And I'll miss my old house,
and the neighbours that came with it, 

All skinny and all just as sick as me,
But this house is warmer and brighter
throughout the year, 

And has a big comfy bed to sleep in,
because sleeping is no longer a sin, 

And an average size kitchen
where cupboards are allowed to have food, 

And a lounge big enough to throw a party in,

now I've gotten back a social life 

and the energy to dance again,

And though there will always be a part of me 

That holds that kind of nostalgic idealism
for that house in which I used to live,

That recalls why I moved there in the first place, 

And stayed there as long as I did 

I don't wish to sell up and move back in, 

I don't wish to look upon
that tiny broken down shell again, 

Sit within its small cold rooms alone

Because this house can be as big
as it needs to be to house the person inside it,

BIG really IS beautiful
It's a BIG, GIGANTIC, HUGE, VAST,
IMMEASURABLE world out there 

And it's spectacular, 

It's Beautiful 

And I know if I try, I can be beautiful too

Just give me time, 

And I know I can recover my body, 

Make Recovery my home,

And so can you 

Recovery IS possible, 

NEVER GIVE UP HOPE,

Eating disorders — hungry for Love

A wonderful Tuesday in Aylesbury, at The International Eating Disorders Centre with Andrew Blyth, the local Vicar. Dr James Clarke was a local GP, who has led the project over many years, taking a fresh approach (for the UK) to Anorexia, Bulimia, and overeating. In the early days he took his inspiration from Isaiah 58 with its stirring call to “Loose the fetters of injustice, swap every yoke, set free those who are bound!”

If the problem is people not eating, common sense says all you do is make them eat and they’re sorted. Right? Wrong. Why are people’s eating patterns cursing them? How is that impacted by the personal context? If the eating disorder is basically a symptom as well as cause there’s no more point trying to manage it behaviourally, manipulating symptoms, than there would be treating a cold by taping up your nose. Of course anorectics need to eat more, but they won’t do it until they want to do it, and they won’t want to do it until they believe they’re worth it. The approach here is holistic and progressive, and based on people working together intensively with a range of professionals — psychologists, art therapists, dietitians, spiritual and community counsellors, in an an integrated programme which tries to create a safe space within which people can painfully but truthfully engage with what’s driving their thing in the first place.

Much of the morning was spent with a group of people struggling with Anorexia. There was a strong feeling in the room that this is often portrayed as being all about gormless teenage girls wanting to be supermodels (the “size zero debate”). Nobody in the room fitted this stereotype. Anorexia affects men, too. Indeed anorexia often afflicts caring mature people who set a high standard. There’s a fine line between what athletes and dancers put themselves through in training (scarily impressive) and the rigours of anorexia (life threatening), with associated highs, lows, and hardships along the way. And, of course, eating disorders include a variety of conditions, including much more prevalent overeating, said to affect about one in four of the population at any time.

Two people at the centre spoke of it as a place they’d found unconditional love, and that was what stoked up their courage to press on and beat their disorder, so that world class professional help actually had something to go on. Like all compulsive behaviour there is an addictive dimension that has to be acknowledged and lived through meal by meal for what it is.

There was amazing, down to earth honesty all round, especially in those having a bad day. There’s so much pretending and low grade social hypocrisy around our lives — a whole system that builds up around the compulsion and makes it seem unbeatable. This is often fuelled by the unreflective, collusive, evasive and gormless comments from freinds and family. It takes incredible courage to step out of all that, and face the problem down for where it is and what it is.

I found the IEDC a really positive place to be. Afterwards there was a reception at the Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital (the first civilian hospital building designed to the specifications of former Buckinghamshire resident Florence Nightingale). There Suz Hemming, a gifted dancer, took us through her story in dance. I’ll post her poem tomorrow, when I’ve got it scanned, but here are her words about how Art therapy had helped her, as someone who thinks kinetically and was trapped in an exercise and undereating compulsion:

Until I had put some distance between my feelings about my body, about myself, and my life, I carried too much weight mentally. Once I began to unpack that weight, I had a way of eopneing up to the people around me. I could develop conversations in therapy from something I had drawn or written in a “safe” way. I could fine space inside of myself to begin exploring the issues I’d poured out onto paper, a bit at a time, page by page, without trying to take on the big issue as a whole.

My artwork kept me still during the early stages of my recovery when I was told I wasn’t allowed to exercise. It trasfixed me and kept me sane during the time when my safety net of obsessive over-exercise was taken from me, allowing me to begin weight restoration. I’d draw and paint after meals instead of exercising. I’d get angry with the paper, cry at it, I’d try to draw through the panic attacks, I’d keep pressing deeper through the feelings, because the stronger the fear became, the stronger my artwork became. The stronger my voice became.

Oh, and it does take time. This is no fluffy bunny before and after story. The struggle goes on, but now Suz has got a reason to keep going, and the trends are good. I am immensely proud that this extraordinary place should have grown from a network of Christians in the town, Roger Axtell of Anorexia Bulimia Care UK, Dr James Clarke, and be surrounded by the love and prayers of a network in various churches, including Holy Trinity Walton, a growing and engaged Evangelical parish where it has especially close links. Its strapline is “Passion for Life.” They certainly need that here — clinical excellence goes with personal engagement — but the key is the fountainhead of all Christianity, unconditional love.

Looking up, without baggage

Wonderful and inspiring day yesterday at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Bedgrove. It was very energizing to experience vibrant Charismatic Evangelical worship, and to feel part of a real learning, discipled community. There are wise and committed home-grown leaders within the congregation. I found at least one of any sociological group you care to name, always a sign of strength in depth.

They are currently looking for a new Vicar. The challenge will be to find someone gifted to catalyze able people for service, and draw the act together by mutual accountability. Power games would be lethal, as would fantasy football Church (“I've got a great half baked idea which I'm going to download on you anyway...”), or Fat Controller grandiosity.

We explored Jesus’ baptism as a type of our baptism — standing at the lowest place on earth, turning from thirty years of home and small town life, looking up to all that was to be. Inspired by George and Ben’s incredible journey, I quoted an old thing I came across years ago. It’s all over the internet, sourced from “an anonymous Confederate soldier.” It says something helpful about our ambitions and expectations at the beginning of 2008:

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve —
I was made weak, that I might humbly obey.
I asked for health, that I might do great things for God —
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy —
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, to earn the praise of men —
I was given weakness, that I might feel my need of God
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life —
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things
I asked for great things in the future —
I was given the joy of the present moment.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for —
I am most richly blessed among all...

Toxic Moonshine about Muslims

Lots of press hoopla about “no go areas” for Christians, comprehensively summarised on Simon Sarmiento’s news blog, here and here.
It is immoral, horrid and shameful to bear false witness — the Ninth Commandment refers. The Scriptures instruct Christians to live at peace with our neighbours, so far as in us lies. In my many dealings with Muslims in Slough, Wycombe, Chesham, Aylesbury and Milton Keynes, including our few Muslim majority Church of England schools, I have always experienced courtesy and mutual respect. I have no idea what a no-go area would look like, nor would I want to. Buckinghamshire is a fairly conservative county, and, we do not really do radical “Multiculturalism” either. Sorry to diasappoint everyone, but there you are. I have, however, experienced some striking instances of hysteria aimed at Muslims:

1. An opinionated gentleman at the University of Buckingham who knew almost nothing about Muslim history and banged on obsessively about it using some stuff he'd got off the Internet
   
2. Hate mail here after I attended an Iftaar in Milton Keynes with Anouar Kassim
3. Last year‘s scare stories about extremist literature in a Mosque in High Wycombe, which turned out to be disingenuous hufflepuff, cooked up by a silly right-wing think tank.

Of course there are a few crank Muslims. There are a few crank Christians, too. And crank atheists. My (Hungarian) mother told me all about Central Europe in the 1930’s, and the lies and stereotyping aimed at Jews. Hitler lied. Millions died. This stuff is dangerous, and it is easy in a stable and humane country like ours to underestimate the stakes when people start to play fast and loose with it.