Christianity, Feminism and Operation Yewtree.
I’m not a religious man by any means. Not in the sense of organised religion, or worship of a named ‘Higher Entity’. I don’t define myself by religion, by politics or race – people are/were generally able to spot a ‘wrong ‘un’ and deal with them. The Human Race didn’t evolve over thousands of years by the males of the species destroying the women and children at any available opportunity. I may not agree with religious doctrine, but most religions – particularly Christianity – are founded around the concept of forgiveness.
“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”
Forgiveness is the foundation on which a healthy society is built. Forgiveness is the touchstone of most religions, and of most of the pre-millennial ‘Life Mastery’ self-help books and seminars – the sort of thing that can change lives for the better, and heal people.
By heal, I do not mean ‘The Courage To Heal’ picking of scabs, I’m speaking of the wonderful work of the likes of Tony Robbins (‘Unleash The Power Within’), Jim Rohn (‘The Art Of Exceptional Living’), M. Scott Peck (‘The Road Less Travelled’ or ‘People Of The Lie’), Eckhart Tolle (‘The Power Of Now’) and others – none of whom preach victimhood or the pursuit of grudges. In fact they communicate the exact opposite – and they certainly helped me balance their message of positivity with the brutal reality of modern life, of the future predicted in the 1940’s by Ayn Rand (‘The Fountainhead’) and in the 1990’s by the lesser-spotted Stuart Goldsmith (‘Privacy’)
Is Christianity being usurped in the English-speaking Western Countries? I’m not going to wade into the boggy waters of ‘The Rise of Islam’, but it does indeed appear to be the case that the roots of what I’ll loosely describe as Spirituality – forgiveness and belief in ‘good’ – are fast being strangled by the weeds of selfish narcissism and pernicious victimhood.
There can be no denying that this is completely at odd with the words of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, and that particular prayer is the bedrock of Christianity. Whilst the present witch-hunt can easily be seen as a Feminist war on men, in reality it is more that women are being used to provide the ammunition for a two-pronged assault on two enemies – forgiveness (and, thus, Christianity) and privacy.
The slaying of both Christianity and Privacy also provides an interesting insight into the manner in which the witch-hunt has developed.
Three of the main ‘witches’ so far can be seen in an almost biblical manner when viewed in this way – ‘marmite’ entertainers Cliff Richard, Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile are/were all guided by their personal own strong beliefs and principles, ones that don’t sit well with the ‘witch-hunters’. All three were very private men, and in an age when the media feels it has the right to know everything about everyone, this becomes a gauntlet laid down.
Remember how, during the Leveson Inquiry, the tabloid ‘veteran’ Paul McMullan declared:
‘Privacy is for paedo’s‘ and that ‘in 21 years of invading people’s privacy I’ve never found anybody doing any good’?
This belief is the one of the Ten Commandments of the ‘new religion’ bulldozing over all else in this country right now.
The ‘Privacy is for Paedo’s’ doctrine was switched into overdrive when the media teamed up with the police, the legal profession and the CPS to launch ‘Operation Yewtree’ in October 2012. Founded on entirely unsubstantiated rumours that Jimmy Savile’s good deeds could only have been done to mask a lifetime of evil wrongdoing, they then quickly mutated to include any man of a certain age of whom they did not know everything. After a public show of support for the veteran entertainer by many of his fans, this only seemed to strengthen the determination of ‘The Savile Police’ who decided they must nail him to the cross at any cost.
Rolf Harris was convicted on no evidence of crimes seemingly on the basis that he – a ‘beloved children’s entertainer’ of many years – had extra-marital affairs of which the media were completely unaware. That then equated to a jury convicting him of assaulting a small child 45 years ago when there is no evidence to suggest he was ever at the location (or anywhere near), let alone committed the offence
The witch-hunt has now graduated to the current scandalous treatment of Cliff Richard – another man who because he values his privacy and possesses strong Christian beliefs that, in 21st Century Britain, have become completely unorthodox and thus suspicious to the minions who lap up the Mainstream Media. His cards, like those of others, were marked a long time ago when it was evidently decided that ‘The Good’ must be destroyed, if not by rumour and conjecture, then by perverting the law in order to achieve their capture.
Cliff Richard is celibate, unmarried and – for the past 30 years or so at least – relatively asexual and this does not sit well with a sex-obsessed media. Jimmy Savile never married but always expressed his admiration for the female form – this does not sit well with today’s media either. Rolf Harris is married, has a daughter and admired the female form so much he had a couple of extra-marital affairs. That didn’t sit well with the media.
These men are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t – literally.
Jimmy said ‘God’ll Fix It’ – so much so he wrote a book on his spiritual philosophy. Cliff has been a Born-Again Christian for the past fifty years. Rolf, too, lived his life to a philosophy unsuited to vulgar modern mores. In his autobiography ‘Can You Guess What It Is Yet’, Mr Harris described how his life changed when he was given a book by David Dunn
“…’Try Giving Yourself Away’ had a profound impact upon me. In particular it crystallised my philosophy of being nice to people and giving them my time. The world didn’t have to be ‘dog eat dog’.
I also learned, as David Dunn had discovered, that it takes courage to compliment total strangers because they suspect some ulterior motive or that you’re trying to con them. When you say to a woman in a lift, “Gosh, don’t you look stunning,” or, “What a wonderful dress. It’s the colour of the sun rising,” you have to be prepared to be snubbed, or misunderstood, or treated with suspicion. But, if someone can accept the compliment in the spirit in which it’s been given, they go away walking on air. At the same time, you feel great for making them feel good. Everybody benefits.”
Jimmy Savile could have spent every day of the past 30 years of his life denying the unsubstantiated rumours about him and explaining the real truth – it would make no difference to what happened to him in death.
Rolf Harris could have come clean that he had weaknesses – as do so many ‘Rock Legends’ who remain far more credible and so very lucrative for those huge multi-national multi-media companies such as Universal and, as it happens, remain untroubled by the tentacles of the witch-hunt. He painted a picture of The Queen purely because ‘The Establishment’ had spent the best part of 40 years piggybacking the world of ‘Popular Entertainment’ and not through sacrificing his troubled soul to ‘The Lizard People’. It won’t earn him any greater understanding from ‘The Masses’ now.
Cliff Richard could open his private life up to all-comers, free to review his every twitch and spin since he became a pop star 56 years ago – the detractors, convinced by their own prejudice, bigotry and stupidity, would still bitch and whine.
Of course, folk also say “people only bother with them ‘cos they are famous” – my point being if they – the famous and well-connected – can be thrown to the wolves for representing something not ‘acceptable’ to the current drive for stupidity, then what chance do the rest of us have?
It’s precisely because I’m not famous that I have to speak up – it’s something that is being denied to so many others who are famous, and I have been privileged to gain the trust and confidence of one or two who feel they are very much ‘in the firing line’ if they dare to speak the truth.
It seems to me that there is a march very much underway toward a brutal ‘Nu-Testament’ and a very real war of ‘Good’ versus ‘Evil’. The question remains will anyone be able see what is really happening before it is too late?
“Our Sister, which art on ‘This Morning’
Shallow be thy name
Thy Queendom Come
Thy will be done in court
As it is in the media
Give us this day our Daily Tabloid
and forgive us our trespasses
as we were abused by men who trespass against us
Lead us into consumerist temptation
But deliver us from common sense
For yours is the Queendom
The Power & The Glory
Forever & Ever
A-Women”
(or did Beyonce get there first?)
Retrocool73
- belinus
August 21, 2014 at 9:47 am -
Having studied all the religions there is only one doctrine built on forgiveness and that is the doctrine brought by christ Such is also indirectly found in the teachings of socratic doctrine, confucious and as a sub text to the teachings of Buddha.
The remaining are founded on the eye for an eye which opens them to the Talmud. - GildasTheMonk
August 21, 2014 at 11:07 am -
Forgiveness is hard. In my life there have been and unfortunately still are people who have done me enormous harm and caused me enormous suffering and loss which I still feel the effects of today – very much so. How is it possible to forgive people whom you know by all standards of decency have done such wrong. It is very, very difficult. You have referred to various works and I have come across all of them in my readings, but the work that had the most profound effect on me is something called “A Course in Miracles”, or to be more honest, teachings about the Course by Marianne Williamson.
The Miracles the Course is talking about are not walking on water or parting the Red Sea – though one might note that it is not ruling them out.
The Course is a work book, but essentially it is a fusion of psychology and spirituality with the goal of obtaining inner peace. Forgiveness is an important part of the work because it important to allow growth. As Williamson puts it: the Course asks “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?”
And as she acknowledges, forgiveness can be damn difficult.
I share your concerns over the present Witch Hunt.- Chris
August 21, 2014 at 11:49 am -
I did the Tony Robbin’s ‘Unleash The Power Within’ seminar – twice, as it happens, 2003 & 2004. Whilst there are elements of it that are a tad ‘American’ for this stiff-upper-lip Englishmen, it is the kind of experience I’d recommend to anyone – as long as they leave their cynicism at the door. The crux of it is focusing on the positive and getting rid of demons to achieve ones real potential, with ‘walking on hot coals’ at the end. For all the ‘high-fiving’ not being my thing, I might just go again in 2015 – it is very cathartic and helps balance the harsh realities of modern life. I used to harbour grudges like crazy for all manner of things and it helped channel my ‘Scorpio’ tendencies in more constructive ways – and I suppose it even helped me cope with the past few rather stark years in which I encountered one problem after another.
Robbins’ actually specialises in coaching those who have had damaging life experiences – abuse or rape included – to heal themselves by forgiving and moving on – thus freeing themselves from the torture, not their abusers. He uses the analogy ‘If you watched a really terrible harrowing film, would you choose to replay it again every day of your life’ to teach people to move on in order to make their lives better.- GildasTheMonk
August 21, 2014 at 12:02 pm -
Sounds like it might do me good – I have those same Scorpio tendencies, so I know exactly what you mean
- GildasTheMonk
- Andy M
August 21, 2014 at 12:23 pm -
Gildas is so, so right – forgiveness is so hard. Cards on the table – I’m a practising (i.e. trying to get better) Christian, but it is still difficult to forgive when wronged – but so liberating when you do! From being wronged, you are released and it becomes the perpetrator’s problem, not yours. But I can only speak as one who has had minor wrongs done to me – I can’t say that if I was a victim of abuse whether I could practice what I preach, so no judging those who can’t. What I find intensely unsettling in all these celebrity cases is the apparent “compo” culture, the apparent arbitrary finding of the juries, the feebleness of the evidence – in short, the weakness of the whole justice system – and overriding feeling that it is the snouts in the trough that are driving it, not concern for any victims.
- GildasTheMonk
August 21, 2014 at 2:08 pm -
I agree with all of that Andy
- GildasTheMonk
- Chris
- Fat Steve
August 21, 2014 at 11:42 am -
‘Privacy is for paedo’s‘ and that ‘in 21 years of invading people’s privacy I’ve never found anybody doing any good’?
Invading eh ? By what right? Any good? By whose judgement of good?
If true (and I don’t doubt it) quite the most telling quote on the person who uttered it as I have probably ever heard—-, the value in which he holds himself and what he believes to be his rights —and possibly (but not necessarily) of the profession in which he has found success –if one likes someone’s reality which inevitably says more about them than anything or anybody else..
Whilst holding no brief which permits me to quote scripture one cannot but think of the words ‘Judge not that ye be not judged’.
Gotta spend some time looking at this jokers background to see what his objective achievements have been —betcha no different on examination than MWT- Chris
August 21, 2014 at 12:28 pm -
Watch the weasel here (and one of Steve Coogan’s best TV performances IMO) – and bear in mind this was not just “post-phone hacking” but “pre-Yewtree” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUjrIn6OzJA
- GD
August 21, 2014 at 5:07 pm -
I KNEW there had to be a reason for this strange impulse I have always felt to have Steve Coogan’s babies.
Once upon a time the Sunday World destroyed me on the front page, not as a corrupt politician, nor even as someone in the public eye, but rather just to fill space October 1980 (probably the 19th if you are interested and live near Hendon). They broke more laws than you could shake a stick at…but as an ordinary person, desperately trying to protect her child >< yeah far from indigent in an impossible position the harsh, bald truth is that any attempt at legal action would makes things many time worse than they already were.
We were homeless by 12th night because of it, in the snow no less (not making that up, it was just true) and had nothing like a home until late February, or a proper home for months. I have honestly never recovered, I can't even look at "help the homeless" ads on TV…they are too much of a trauma trigger.
- GD
- Chris
- David
August 21, 2014 at 11:48 am -
Only recently discovered your blog. Am I dreaming? A sane voice softly whispering wisdom in the age of absurdity. Simply on the principle of ‘how would you like it if you were treated like this?’ I feel great sympathy for Rolf Harris and Cliff Richard, but your blog put the whole thing in context. Thanks
- Ed P
August 21, 2014 at 11:58 am -
The behaviour of crowds has always been very different to that of any individuals within them. Present obsessions with celebrities and their possible weaknesses is driven by the vacuous and superficial half-educated bird-brains of today (sorry birds), as demonstrated by their Twittering and Arsebook postings. The hilarious recent confusion between Robbie & Robin Williams in their “minds” sums up this crowd mentality – cf. jackals around a kill.
As Christianity succumbs further to political correctness and the rise of Islam, the moral compass you describe and lament will be lost completely. Britain has changed forever from a green and pleasant land to just one more ruined moral wasteland.- GildasTheMonk
August 21, 2014 at 12:04 pm -
I agree
- GildasTheMonk
- GildasTheMonk
August 21, 2014 at 12:01 pm -
And I echo your concern that what I would call the Judeo – Christian basis of the West is being undermined. There is plenty of room for criticism of organised strains of Christian religious thought. However, the fundamental values of truthfulness and respect have been unde attack for many years, not simply from the forces of consumerism, but from a prevailing Establishment mind set that is inimically hostile to the cherished values of the lower classes, and in particular to organised Christianity. Sometimes it would seem that the attack on Christianity came from within the Churches itself, with a version of Christianity which seemed to assume that belief in God was a rather embarrassing superstition, and on the whole was best not actually dwelt upon. In an interesting twist of fate, it may yet be that the void which was so encouraged may yet be filled by a faith which has little time for the small “l” liberal values which have been so supine before it, and so active in the subtle ideological attack on Christianity.
As for Beyonce, she is a great singer, but goes way over the top in her videos. - The Jannie
August 21, 2014 at 12:31 pm -
The forgiveness thread struck a chord with me. Only last night I worked out that I may have achieved an equilibrium of some kind. I thought about all those I have disappointed over the years. I then thought about all those who have disappointed me over the same span. Result? I’ve stopped feeling guilty about being a bit of a shit; it’s an increasingly common occurrence so I’m not out of the ordinary at all.
- EyesWideShut
August 21, 2014 at 1:20 pm -
Re “forgiveness”: I have never been able to work out if I am naturally a good person or a complete sociopath, because I have no difficulty whatsoever in letting bygones be bygones. I never have to make a conscious effort to do so – it is more a question of out of sight, out of mind, or “That was then – this is now”. My initial reaction when someone has done me wrong is simply to get offside and remove myself from their clutches. if they cease their evil-doing, as George Dubya used to call it, I may cultivate a sort of wariness towards them in future, as one would with a dog that has shown itself capable of biting you, but I certainly don’t waste any time brooding on the whys and the wherefores, and I will continue to treat them “normally”. This has actually caused some offenders to openly wonder at my refusal to take revenge. The irony is, it is not, I repeat, a noble, principled choice, but more that I cannot be bothered. if someone is bad news, then i want as little to do with them as possible and that includes giving them any head-room at all.
And I have had rotten stuff done to me. Big, bad wicked lies, which accounts for my abiding interest in the phenomenon of false accusation, though not the specific individual who falsely accused me.
- GD
August 21, 2014 at 3:30 pm -
I was just trying to think of words to explain my own attitude to forgiveness and I find you have grabbed them all already. So now I REALLY have to reach and get creative:
If it is too late to prevent further wrongdoing I simply cannot be *rsed with the erstwhile perp, just don’t ask me to share the same space, or “make nice” as in, *EVER*, because I am not going to do it.
One of the (very few) advantages of coming from a family overburdened by clinical psychopaths is that there is no sustained vindictiveness. I was raised in an environment where the very idea of letting anyone matter enough to put the effort into getting your own back was deemed silly and creepy. So I walk away.
…and I have had the most terrible things done to me too…and only the very worst of them by blood relatives (who I have avoided for most of my life as a result…seems only sensible?). I only really get riled when someone is in the process of doing bad and wicked things to someone else…then I lose it…
- GD
- Gil
August 21, 2014 at 1:21 pm -
“forgiveness and belief in ‘good’ – are fast being strangled by the weeds of selfish narcissism and pernicious victimhood”
That does seem to be happening. I find it hard to believe that genuine victims would come across as selfish narcissists or pernicious victims. I think those are more likely to be frauds. They wouldn’t be interested in forgiveness or goodness anyway. The ones who don’t just speak publicly about being abused but appear to derive relish from doing so and can’t keep away from the spotlight, repeatedly delving into a subject they supposedly find painful, appearing somewhat artificial in their emotions. In a number of cases there are people involved, and not just women, who have actually either admitted or been revealed in the media to have made up stories for money or committed fraud in the past. Yet their backgrounds have apparently not been checked out further. In one case, involving a male accuser, there was even a reported suicide of someone who was never charged. His name appears online only in connection with the allegations by his apparently sole accuser.
- GD
August 21, 2014 at 4:32 pm -
@Gil somehow you just pulled it all together for me there.
Let me explain. I have never had the slightest doubt that I was a victim, or that my victimhood has been compounded many time over since it began more than 50 years ago. (If you want more details go through my blog, email me and I will send you a zip of my last blog that has more, google my real name, even ask question but DON’T ask me to sit down and go through it all again…hmmmmm…is that ‘tude part of where I have been going wrong?)
Unfortunately for me, everything I fell victim to lagged many years behind the issues society recognised and, apparently, strove to address, so I have spent almost as long watching things I knew would never be believed and/or understood at the time make the front pages and the internet support groups…BRILLIANT!!! Help and validation AT LAST…
But instead, every time I get left bewildered (I can be a bit naïve when it comes to my own life) wondering why nobody has even offered me a Kleenex, and wondering even more why those being carried shoulder high appear to be more like perpetrators than victims, and for many years I had a ringside seat to know for sure.
(Every “leader among survivors” I have ever seen, putting themselves forward on any issue, seems to be downright evil. I was afraid it was only me who saw this.)
Example: You have NO IDEA how I prayed, even when I was still child enough to believe anyone was listening, for people to realise just how devastating and twisted emotional abuse (such as my family handed out as daily fair, not the odd emotional dysfunction we all do) could be and do something for the victims. Now they are finally striving to make emotional abuse a crime, under proposed laws that would be all the Christmases and Birthdays to a family like mine to use as a weapon…
I don’t let myself start screaming, because I, honest to god, know that if I DID I would never find a reason to stop…everything I prayed from as a hurt and terrified child and young woman will be delivered in a format that is seems calculated for use to make life even more impossible for hurt and terrified children and young people just like me.
You can apply that to sex work legislation…literally ANYTHING that is supposed to “help people like me” only helps monsters who prey on us instead.
As a woman it pains me to have to admit this, but I do see the passive aggressive hand of my own gender stamped all over this. Loosely and with great over-generalisation, in pursuit of power and group recognition guys tend to rape, murder and pillage, but a woman will keep you alive and torture you in cold blood while claiming credit for “nurturing” and “protecting” you.
- Gil
August 21, 2014 at 5:17 pm -
From what you say, it sounds as if the lawmakers are not listening to the right people. Are you saying that the likes of victim advocate groups have an interest in keeping victims feeling bad to promote their own careers/businesses, etc.? Maybe even therapists? Lawyers? Your post reminds me somewhat of an interview I saw on YouTube with Samantha Geimer. She seemed to be saying that the police and court process was more of an ordeal than the crime itself and that this was partly because she was made to feel that she was not behaving as people expected a victim to behave.
- GD
August 21, 2014 at 6:44 pm -
That is a lot of what I am saying…but I only wish it were as clean as lawmakers not listening to the right people.
I get the impression, beyond that, that the lawmakers’ idea of the “right people” consists entirely in establishing who will be of most benefit to his own interests, career and agenda. It is no coincidence that “victim advocate” groups always exclude those they advocate for except for a few carefully controlled tokens.
Take a look at this:
http://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/myth-ruhama-do-some-good-work/Looks like beating my own tub (ad nauseam) until I point out that my secondary objective was always to use the sex work issue as leverage for other issues without risking co-lateral damage.
Most of these issues are “ringfenced” with a human shield of innocent and vulnerable people who would be lost without them though they will never get any better with them either, you can’t really do that with sex workers. Understand this is not limited to issues of abuse or moral panic, any kind of disability and disadvantage is subject to the same rules.
You see, a vulnerable and dependent person (for whatever reason) can be a valuable commodity. Depending on status and/or specifics of that vulnerability it would not be unusual for them to be worth $500,000 pa (I am picking dollars cos it comes to a nice round figure, but this could be in Ireland, UK or the US) to an NGO providing anything like residential services. $100,000 pa would be a common figure, $75,000 for a glorified lodging house with additional security (you would get that for sex workers and “rescued victims of trafficking” NO PROBLEM). I learned these figures by digging them out for myself, and, believe it or not I was digging the bigger orgs in search of “control figures” to compare with the blatantly bent “cottage industries” and found, to my horror, that the bigger orgs tend to be worse.
However, anyone who has conquered it all is worth, zip, zilch, NADA…to anyone but themselves. Where you have the backing of companies like Allia UK who literally float disadvantage as bond issues on the open markets it might even be an offence to let THAT kind of dramatic depreciation occur on a regular basis.
(This is real, this is happening, it is NOT a sneak preview of Saturday’s Dr Who or anything).
But there is ALWAYS another hand (in this instance, THANK FECK! If only for the redemption of the human race). Whether you are a victim of abuse of disability (I score both, aren’t I clever?) have you ever thought what it would be like to hang your whole actual life out on the line for the world to see? I had sat down to try and do that just before the Irish Sex work consultation broke, shortly followed by “The Duncroft Scandal”. I wasn’t aiming to be famous or make money, I just wanted to leave a full record behind of all I have seen, which, I am told also included a treasure trove of social history from close quarters.
I was chided by an erstwhile friend, who lived in writers’ groups and made a science of working out how to get herself published for:
a) Not making it raunchy and funny (that is where the “erst” came from, it was not remotely funny, and I relate to raunch about as well as I relate to boiled carrots)
b) Not mentioning the fact my autism or the fact that I was a sex worker in the first 33 pages.The book was never going to be about autism or sex work, it was about *me* so why on earth should I mention Autism or sex work when what I was writing was chronologically years away from one and decades away from the other?
My writing was actually halted by coming across Karin Ward’s memoir online in May 2012. In between the blatant melodramatics, in a very different style, I found the physical description of Duncroft acutely evocative (she could have been a fine writer if she had stopped trying to cast herself as the star of every show), just when I got to the point of writing about it myself (I was researching and fact checking). It would only have been a chapter, but even so, I needed to assimilate this unexpected reminder from an alien perspective before I could grasp my own perspective of the material facts of the place again. It was like wandering the corridors of my owned memory and unexpectedly bumping into someone else there…bit of a jolt!
Meanwhile, Rachel Moran “prostituted survivor” is busily completely reinventing a different 3 years of my life (on the plus side, it was so far from reality I was spared any disturbing evocation!
I am going into all this because I want to put you inside my head when I was looking at the rather obvious course of writing out the whole objective truth of my own life (including, but certainly not limited to these two episodes). To make it public without endangering myself and/or others there is a surprising amount I would have to leave out, without which a lot more would not quite make the right kind of sense. I think that probably applies to everyone unless they opt for total anonymity, which, in this case would have defeated that object.
…then how would what was left make ANY kind of sense if I edited out everything that makes me cringe if I even think of it? I don’t want that out there so the worst kind of people can use it as a stick to beat me…but equally I do not want to reinvent myself as someone better than I am…that would leave ALL the other cringemaking in the shade.
…and all because I wanted to stick to the facts…
Then the penny dropped, there is NO WAY I want all my Achilles heels, vulnerabilities and personal failure out there in a hostile world for access on demand now or ever…
Telling the objective truth about one’s own life is just too painful and dangerous to do…telling lies about it is far easier and safer.
- Fat Steve
August 21, 2014 at 7:24 pm -
@GD but a woman will keep you alive and torture you in cold blood while claiming credit for “nurturing” and “protecting” you.
Chillingly correct.
- Fat Steve
- GD
- Gil
- GD
- Jim Bates
August 21, 2014 at 1:41 pm -
I’m 100% behind the idea of forgiveness – life is far to short to waste on hatred; but is forgiveness necessarily always yours to give?
Purely for example say, if you knew the identity of the individual who beheaded the journalist and then posted video of the event. Your own capabilities might allow you to forgive him but would you (should you) extend that forgiveness to keeping his identity secret?
Or a little less emotive – if you decided that MWT should be forgiven for his lies and deception, should he be allowed to fade into obscurity without punishment for the damage he has caused?
I haven’t expressed this very well but I’m sure the capable Raccoonistas will get the general idea.
- EyesWideShut
August 21, 2014 at 1:54 pm -
Well, we have about a thousand years of legal precedent in Britain for dealing with criminality. Sunny Jim has committed a war crime by participating in the execution of a prisoner, so if anyone knows who he is, they should certainly report him to the cops. Personally, I think all war is a crime, but that is toute autre tasse de the. Whoever funded Sunny Jim and we know exactly who they are, they are not a million miles from here, bears some responsibility too, but try and make that case stick in the Hague.
As for MWT, the best thing possible is for him to fade into obscurity – right after his MO has been thoroughly exposed.
- GD
August 21, 2014 at 3:44 pm -
Let’s see…if I could identify Sunny Jim I am sure I could understand his dysfunctional motivation and explain it to you. I am equally sure I would not be able to help feeling a little sorry for him as the centre stage “fall guy” when all his vile little friends were capable of as bad and worse. I am also a terrible mortal coward, so I would be inclined to send his name, address and his parents phone number (secretly, to avoid repercussions on other hostages) to Diane Foley and let her decide what she would like to do about it.
MWT? As long as I am satisfied he will be getting the help he so desperately needs in an appropriately secure environment I believe it is quite horribly wrong to further torment the afflicted. When a person doesn’t have a conscience or a sense of consequence, it would be most unfair to expect him to act like someone who has…as long as the innocent are protected from him.
- EyesWideShut
August 21, 2014 at 4:04 pm -
Absolutely. These are the horrors of war, which why I so against it, and despite what we have been told, all wars have their share of them and all armies are capable of committing them. The “original sin” is the decision to go to war in the first place. Sunny Jim has drawn a lot of attention because a Briton murdered an American. A week ago another British jihadi took a “selfie” while swinging the head of an Iraqui and while this was not exactly approved of, it didn’t generate anything like the same opprobrium from the media.
I firmly expect that these British jihadis will end up being such a liability to their own side, not least because of their penchant for showing-off, which seems to have already got up the noses of the locals, that it will be six of one and half a dozen of the other who gets to them first. The SAS or their brothers-in-arms.
As for MWT, the most important thing is to remove his poison from circulation. Discredit him. Then let him disappear. Job done. There are literally hordes of MWTs out there and if we imagine there is anything unique about him, which makes him a fit subject for exemplary punishment, then we have got it all wrong. What we need to do is look very closely at his enablers. Without them, he would have got nowhere.
- GD
August 21, 2014 at 4:51 pm -
By coincidence, you could say exactly the same thing about Hitler, except, in his case no-enablers would probably = “nice quiet neighbour – bit weird though” and I suspect MWT would still be obnoxious in some way whatever.
I don’t think it will even be brothers in arms who will take out these “The Only Way is I-rak” monsters. What we have to remember is, whatever they claim they are fighting for (and they DO NOT appear to have read the book properly) they have no more mandate from the vast majority of Muslims than they have from the Ku Klux Klan!
On thing is for sure, they is no realistic way they can be let back to their old lives without censure when they have grown out of the phase they are going through. You can’t expect anyone to risk their daughter dating, or their son going to a football match with some git who has happily “chilled with his homies” one piece at a time all over twitter…
…and there is a fact…the first “kill” flips a switch for good in the animals we are under it all and that switch cannot be flipped back even if the animal genuinely wants it to be. It builds alternate synaptic pathways for life. It can be mitigated somewhat as an aspect of social conformity…but like this? As a late teenage rebellion on overdrive?
Not a chance.
I have a feeling they will be subject to an accelerated program of martyrdom by whoever gets their first. I suspect most of them are even horrifying their own families.
- GD
- EyesWideShut
- EyesWideShut
- binao
August 21, 2014 at 1:59 pm -
My dear late wife was keen on ‘moving on’ from things.
Her view was ‘Always forgive, never forget’.- Mudplugger
August 21, 2014 at 5:06 pm -
It’s hard to forgive, impossible to forget.
When someone does something which would require me to forgive them, that labels them as the sort of person with whom I’d really rather not associate, so I move on – not just from the ‘thing’, but from the person. I don’t wish to be surrounded by those people whose acts require forgiveness, my life is better without them and their careless or deliberate misdeeds: there’s another 7 billion on the planet so plenty of scope for good replacements in my world. A cop-out some may say, and I never forget either.
- Mudplugger
- Johnny Monroe
August 21, 2014 at 2:35 pm -
When I was a child, there was still a strong strain of ‘Chrisitian’ values running through British society, and that’s to say Christian in a secular as well as a religious sense – having compassion for one’s fellow human beings, seeking to improve the lot of the less fortunate, a reluctance to mock the afflicted, and a general condemnation of anyone who appeared to exhibit selfish, avaricious, arrogant and conceited characteristics. But in a culture wherein those who practice bullying for a living are lauded, applauded and rewarded – Cowell, Sugar etc – is it any wonder a virulent nastiness has infiltrated human interaction, and anyone who expresses any form of genuine kindness that has no sinister ulterior motive is viewed as suspect?
- Chris
August 21, 2014 at 3:20 pm -
I was brought up CofE and encouraged to attend ‘Sunday School’ for a couple of years when I was 6.7,8, and church for special occasions. My parents probably felt duty-bound to pay lip service to this kind of thing – Babyboomers who were seemingly always middle-aged, plus my old man was a copper so felt he had to appear a ‘pillar of the community’ and kind of torn toward the ‘instantly middle-aged’ as so many young parents did then but with one eye on the swinging sixties they had grown up in. The thing is in the 60s & 70s (and 80s I suppose) the counter-culture alternatives also had meaning and voice, a genuine alternative that meant one didn’t have to flock to a church to ‘think about things’
The ‘lip service’ to church-going was what all but disappeared, and I suppose it is my generation that helped bury it – religion tends to be ‘born again’ instead of ‘just there’ now. Modern music and media has all but lost any meaning (well, witness it being attacked along with Christianity, albeit by using risible and unprofitable targets) and thus the people have lost their meaning too. No-one gives a toss about anything unless they are instructed that they must by the media. Even Songs Of Praise has, in order to survive, become all ‘happy clappy’.I was (and still am really) too wrapped up in ‘pop culture’ to bother with singing hymns – my recently found love of the Thomas Tallis choral music came about by reading Fifty Shades Of Grey – but when I watched this (primarily, it must be said, to hear the end title music again that used to scare me shitless) to me it’s like viewing a lost world – a world of calm, of hope and of forgiveness. It could be 100 years ago, not just 34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUBm-bQ_iLo
- Gil
August 21, 2014 at 4:51 pm -
“in a culture wherein those who practice bullying for a living are lauded, applauded and rewarded – Cowell, Sugar etc – is it any wonder a virulent nastiness has infiltrated human interaction, and anyone who expresses any form of genuine kindness that has no sinister ulterior motive is viewed as suspect”
No, that doesn’t seem surprising. A genuine person just wouldn’t fit with that. These competitive ‘reality’ shows seem to be all about denigration and humiliation. I have wondered before where that all started on TV. Was it the Weakest Link? Both it and the thing with Cowell seem to involve tabloid journalists dishing it out. Then there are the TV presenters becoming ‘stars’ by competing in dance/skating, etc. Don’t know who’d want to watch that. Perhaps they’re intended as solace for displaced actors and anyone else who could make half-decent programmes!
It just occurred to me today that one of BBC Panorama’s four staff reporters, all of whom were apparently given notice of redundancy recently, had presented a documentary three months ago called “From Jail to Jihad?” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0444flh). Given its relevance, it’s surprising and disappointing that the BBC should have chosen investigative journalism as an area to cut back on.
- Gil
August 22, 2014 at 1:19 pm -
“in an age when the media feels it has the right to know everything about everyone, this becomes a gauntlet laid down”
Piers Morgan interviews Cliff Richard in 2009, describing him as an “enigma” and probing as far as he can go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvr2KBT73uQ
If he was a cat or dog, you could call the RSPCA.
- GD
August 22, 2014 at 2:13 pm -
I saw that interview at the time, and it surprised me. I found myself liking him. I had expected him to be a complete drip.
- GD
- Gil
- Gil
- Chris
- JimmyGiro
August 21, 2014 at 3:06 pm -
The North Star, isn’t owned by anyone, doesn’t have a political persuasion, isn’t moral or ethical, yet without it global navigation would have been compromised by the night. Sure other methods could have been used, but it was a common fiducial point.
So it is not necessary to be a Christian to benefit from our Christian culture, for the benefit is that none possessable ‘thing’ the moral reference point. Unlike the North Star, our culture is dependent on moral and ethical choices to act as a fiducial point, without such, the social navigation would require a devilishly clever alternative.
I therefore think that the State Bureaucracy is trying to possess our democratic culture, by subverting all our traditions, which contain those nuanced things called ‘right and wrong’. And it will be near impossible to oppose a totalitarian State, without ones own sense of ‘right and wrong’ being intact.
- GD
August 21, 2014 at 3:37 pm -
“I also learned, as David Dunn had discovered, that it takes courage to compliment total strangers because they suspect some ulterior motive or that you’re trying to con them. When you say to a woman in a lift, “Gosh, don’t you look stunning,” or, “What a wonderful dress. It’s the colour of the sun rising,” you have to be prepared to be snubbed, or misunderstood, or treated with suspicion. But, if someone can accept the compliment in the spirit in which it’s been given, they go away walking on air. At the same time, you feel great for making them feel good. Everybody benefits.””
I came across Rolf Harris once…in SW7 (where else would you expect to find an Australian?) in an otherwise empty Square, in 1984, as soon as we noticed him he was frantically grinning and waving as if he had been dying to see us all day. (I remember he was wearing a striking pair of trousers that appeared to be made of Friesian cattle.) So the above was more than just words.
I couldn’t for the life of me see why he was convicted either…did it not come out that his “traumatised victim” had also offered silence in return for a £25,000 (or so) “business loan”? And isn’t that often called “blackmail” for short?
- GildasTheMonk
August 21, 2014 at 4:09 pm -
Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is your self.
- Griffin
August 21, 2014 at 4:13 pm -
As one who in a long life has never suffered an injury difficult to forgive, I am not well qualified to pronounce about forgiveness. But I like to think that, should someone cause me serious harm, I might be influenced by the proposition ‘tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner’.
I wonder whether the decline in Christian belief in this country might be due to a growing perception that Christian doctrine, as preached, is simply insufficiently grand in comparison with the size and splendour of the universe that science has revealed in recent times. Take, for instance, the aweinspiring photographs of galaxies taken through the Hubble space telescope in the archive at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/. To me, it’s just not possible to reconcile such a spectacle and, say, the wonder of Darwinian evolution, with ancient dogma such as original sin, redemption and so on which presumably derive from the mythical ‘Fall’.
It’s not as though the history of Christian thought entirely lacks a grandeur consistent with that of the universe. For example there’s St Augustine’s metaphorical (and panentheistic) description of God and Creation as being like that of an infinite sea containing a finite sponge penetrated in all its parts by the sea (Confessions ChV). But I’ve never heard that line of thinking being developed in a pulpit.
- The Jannie
August 21, 2014 at 5:46 pm -
“Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is your self.”
You’re so right. - EyesWideShut
August 21, 2014 at 5:51 pm -
Well, most polls for what they are worth, tell us that the vast majority of the British people do claim to have some belief in “a Higher Power”, to borrow the language of AA, hope that there is “life after death” (if not before it, as they used to say in Derry), and would certainly give assent to broad Christian values. What they don’t have is any great attachment to the established Churches, if we discount the temporary popularity if Islam among some sections of the population. This has been the case since at least the end of WW1, which was the moment when institutionalised belief took a hammer blow it has not recovered from. it lingered on in the form of “outward observance” for another generation, but the writing was on the wall.
I am tempted to say: take the long view here. If what we are wondering is Will there be a revival of Church-going?, well, it wouldn’t be the first time that the established denominations went through a fallow period only to come roaring back. For much of the c18 in England, free-thinking reigned among the elites and adherence to the church of England was purely a political matter. No Popery and the Protestant Succession. The lower orders were frankly Godless in the extreme Methodism represented a massive shot in the arm to what was a decaying system and the C of E rose to the challenge when confronted by the new Kid on the Block, whose appeal was to those very same lower orders they had more or less forgotten about. Add to that an influx of Irish Catholics in the early to mid c19, and Rome was back in business on Albion’s fatal shores.
We shall see what we shall see.
- Moor Larkin
August 26, 2014 at 6:23 pm -
I was mulling over this theme with someone the other day and I don’t see religious feeling making any kind of come-back. What I do think has happened is that “children” are now the new Godhead. Folk leaned on religion because it gave them a sense of their own immortality – their immortal soul. With the decline and loss of any belief in the Hereafter the human need to feel important and thus immortal somehow leaves them with only their genetics to rely on. Thus “the child” becomes their way of feeling that THEY will never die. It’s easy to see how Childlessness is now become the new Ungodliness. Even gay volk now feel the need Cheeldren…… to be normal……
A few years ago there was a minor war of the chattering classes about this, with writers saying they had no children so why should THEY have to pay for schools etc. (the NHS perhaps). The debate was always going to be lost by the Childless of course; that was as inevitable as death itself. All those dead folks now being pilloried post-mortem are often the great unmourned by any child. If Cyril and Jimmy had had a child or two I’m willing to bet neither of them would have been subjected to the civic opprobrium of the press in the manner they have.
- Moor Larkin
- GildasTheMonk
August 21, 2014 at 8:48 pm -
This has been a great debate, full of informed comment. Thank you all
- Misty
August 22, 2014 at 12:19 pm -
It is somehow ironic that Rolf Harris asked for forgiveness in the letter that he wrote to Bindi’s friend’s father regarding the first affair, in which he stated that he had no idea that the friend was scared of him (so scared, in fact, that in evidence she admitted turning up at places where she knew he was going to be and asking him for £25,000 for a bird or animal sanctuary). Surely, if Bindi’s friend had been 13 (as she said) at the time it started, her father would have gone to the police instead of hanging on to the letter for X number of years?
As for the ‘sex attack’ on the Cambridge waitress, this amounted to a pinch on the bottom (assuming it happened at all and wasn’t just one of his enthusiastic cuddles) when she was 16, not 13 (which transpired when the video of ‘Star Games’ came to light). The indecent assault on the seven- or eight-year-old could never have happened as he never appeared at the Leigh Park Community Centre. That leaves Tonya Lee, who was supposedly groped 1n 1986 while wearing a duffel coat in a pub that used tablecloths. Rolf Harris, being a famous person, would have been the focus of attention, so how he managed to skulk around outside the ladies’ loo unnoticed in a busy pub will forever remain a mystery to me.
As only one of the women was prepubescent and that incident could never have happened because he never appeared at the Leigh Park Community Centre, he is hardly a paedophile, let alone a predatory one. Yet the masses are convinced that he is. LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE (or, rather, lack of it).
One day Operation Youtoo might come for you, too.
- Jonathan Mason
August 24, 2014 at 6:07 pm -
I see from The Mail Online that Sir Cliff Richard was interviewed under caution by the South Yorkshire police, having presented himself at the police station voluntarily to deny that he sexually assaulted a boy of 10 at a Billy Graham rally in 1985.
Not stated whether he was interrogated under torture, so one must assume that was not the case.
Cop: “Marital status?”
Cliff: “Bachelor boy.”
Cop: “Current address”
Cliff: “Just flew back from summer holiday in a bus”
Cop: “Was that on an Airbus?”
Cliff: “No, a Routemaster, double decker.”
Cop: ” So why do they call you “Little” Richard, Keith?”
Cliff: “Oh, God, spare me!”
- Gil
August 26, 2014 at 12:24 pm -
Oh-oh…
https://twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas/status/504156920786472960
Wonder where the files come from.
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