Street Angels

Earlier today, I heard that my friend Paul Blakey, and indirectly the Street Angels, had received an MBE for services to Community Safety in Halifax.

As Deputy Mayor of Calderdale, I had the great privilege of attending the Street Angels' fourth birthday party earlier this month, and a nicer and more dedicated team of volunteers you couldn't wish to meet.

A couple of years back, when I was Mayor of Hebden Royd, I invited Paul and his team to Hebden Bridge to show us how the scheme operated, and I am pleased to say that following their example, earlier this summer a similar scheme led by Revd. Marcus Bull was started on Fridays.

I think that people like Paul show that there is enormous depth and strength within our communities across Yorkshire, and that overall there is a fount of civic and community goodwill at work without much recognition.

Well today of all days, I'd like to raise a cup o' kindness to Paul, his family, and the Street Angels.

On suffering - 3

If you're still not convinced have a look at a Polish film called Krótki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film About Killing) directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski in 1988, as part of his Dekalog TV series.

On suffering - 2

I forgot to say, that in 1998 the UK abolished the death penalty for all crimes. That was one of the high-water marks in terms of human rights that this government achieved, for which it should be rightly applauded.

On suffering

There is something intolerable in the suffering of humans... for it is evil and that the person who causes it is a criminal.
Romain Rolland

Like many people, I was disgusted by the state murder of Akmal Shaikh in China. I am, have been, and will remain a passionate opponent of capital punishment and no amount of debate or argument will shift my position. I am against it viscerally and mentally. There is not enough space to go into it here, but one day maybe.

Today, three years ago, the dictator Saddam Hussein was hanged in a mockery of justice. This is in no way to condone his behaviour of over three decades in power, or the horrific crimes his regime perpetrated both on his own peoples and those in neighbouring countries, after all he did invade the land of birth Iran and fought a wasteful 8-year war to stalemate.

But there was something grotesque in the snatched mobile phone footage of him swinging stupidly as life left his body.

Twenty years back this week, the Ceauşescus, Nicolae and Elena, were summarily shot by a frightened firing squad after a hastily put together after a kangaroo court had found them guilty of crimes against the people.
Again it was a macabre scene of an old man and woman who suddenly realised that their end was imminent. It was horrible!What these state sanctioned murders (I refuse to call them executions, because it seeks to sanitise what is being done, they are pre-meditated murder pure and simple) do is to desensitise people to the value of human life and there is nothing more precious.

That is why the government is right to condemn the Chinese regime, not because they did not carry out the trial of Mr Shaikh properly and according to their penal code, but that that code still maintains the death penalty, and China kills more people officially than the rest of the world combined.

I can do no better than finish with some words of George Orwell's, telling the story of an execution that he witnessed whilst serving in the police in Burma in the 1920s.
"Until that moment I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man... was alive just as we were alive..."

Have a look at http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty

Muhammad Iqbal

My fondness for the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal is well known, and today in Allahabad nigh on 80 years back he propounded his theory of the Two Nations which laid the eventual basis for the foundation of modern day Pakistan.

Here are a couple of lines in which he praises Persian (the language)

Garche Urdu dar uzūbat shakar ast
Lék Pārsī-am ze Hindi shīrīntar ast

(Even though in sweetness Urdu is sugar
nevertheless my Persian is sweeter than Hindi)

Here Urdu/Hindi are the same language albeit written in two different scripts.

The nerve of the man...

"I don't think we should invent differences where none exist". DC

David Cameron, "Whether you're Labour, Conservative, or Liberal Democrat, you're motivated by... progressive aims... a country... where opportunity is more equal".

Progressive, the Tories?
* "Tory tax plans put child benefit at risk" The Independent
* "Raise the inheritance tax threshold from £700k to £1m" The Guardian
* "Scrapping vehicle excise duty on the least environmentally friendly cars" The Times
* "Tories reassure independent schools about their charitable status" The Independent
* "Tory marriage tax allowance would give the highest earners 13 times as much as those on lower incomes"

Oh yes and they want to bring back fox-hunting with dogs.
Of course that's what the country has been crying out for.
In the depths of the deepest recession in living memory, and top of the list of things the Tories want to do is have a free vote on fox hunting.
On the doorsteps throughout Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden, and elsewhere in the constituency, that's what people buttonhole me about. A free vote on fox hunting with dogs.

At the risk of sounding sarcastic, you've obviously got your finger on the political pulse of the nation, David.
The Tories are not progressive, never were and will never be.

Don't be fooled by the smooth(ish) banter.

Joyous Kwanzaa to all my Black friends

How remiss of me, of course today is the first day of week-long Kwanzaa celebrations dedicated to Umoja or Unity, specifically of family and community.

I was reminded by my friend Lester, thanks for that and Happy Kwanzaa to you and your family.