Thursday, December 10, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Memoirs from North Korea - Day 1
From Feb 3rd-7th I joined a parliamentary delegation visiting the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) headed by Lord Alton and Baroness Cox. Here is my daily account:
Feb 3rd
As we touched down in North Korea, the landscape appeared barren and brown. Although the sun was shining, the lakes were frozen over as a result of minus 13 degree conditions the week before. From the plane you could see small silhouettes of people skating on the ice. However, my concerns over a frosty reception were allayed when we were met on the tarmac by an enthusiastic welcoming committee, including the DPRK Ambassador.
We were ushered into the VIP lounge in which we exchanged pleasantries. After a few minutes, we were asked to hand over our mobile phones。 Although not unexpected, this was a reality check for me。 With my digital umbilical chord temporarily severed, I was driven to our hotel in a brown 1960s Mercedes. Its beige seats and flannel covered steering wheel were symbolic of the fact that time too had frozen here.
On the road to Pyongyang, we passed ordered villages built in symmetrical rows. We were told that in Pyongyang everyone had jobs, a house and enough to eat. However, outside the bubble of the capital, life was much starker. The separation with the south has meant that the North can't easily afford to feed its own people. As a result, almost 2million people died of food shortages in the 1990s and still more than 37% of six year olds in North Korea are chronically malnourished.
We arrived at our splendid Koryo Hotel and unpacked bags. Baroness Cox and I went for a walk before dinner. After a few minutes we realised we had been tracked down by our North Korean guide. He told us it was not possible for us to walk alone。 We witnessed a quiet city full of greying high rise apartment blocks and ordinary people who kept their heads down as they walked past, shy of catching your eye.
We returned from our walk for a formal dinner at the hotel。 The setting was almost opulent. After a series of speeches and course after course of food, the conversation drifted to anecdotes of the North Korean's visit to London. Apparently our host had visited the Tower of London in 1989 for a reception and parked his car in the space reserved for Lady Thatcher! He said he had been invited to the UK by a young Scottish, Labour MP. No-one could think who that would have been. 'Scottish…Labour MP?' I ventured, 'it wasn't Gordon Brown was it?' They seemed to get the joke.
The night ended with a coffee with the newly installed British Ambassador. he was obviously knowledgeable and very supportive of our visit to North Korea.
Memoirs from North Korea - Day 2
Feb 4th
The first full day started with a visit to the birth place of North Korea's Great Leader. Born in the woods around Pyongyang, Kim Il Sung had gone on to liberate Korea from the Japanese in 1945. Although his son Kim Jong Il has taken power since his death in 1994, Kim Il Sung is still considered the immortal leader of North Korea and is revered by all who live in the North.
We left the woodlands to attend a meeting with DPRK ambassador. He expressed real sadness that relations with South Korea had deteriorated badly in recent months and at one point said 'there is no telling how bad this situation can get – our soldiers are angry and indignant'. A new harder line government has won power in the South and is now insisting on new conditions before engaging. For the North, this is seen as reneging on previous bi-lateral agreements and an act of provocation by the South.
The second meeting followed soon after with the business sector. These 9 men responsible for running North Korea's big business. They talked proudly of the export, manufacturing and IT sectors in which they work. Although there is no private sector in DPRK since everything from restaurants to railways is state-owned， they know that foreign investment is critical to the country's future prosperity. We saw at least two covered markets in Pyongyang which suggested some that some liberalisation has taken place.
The next meeting was with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Kung Sok Ung. After exchanging pleasantries, David Alton asked Mr Sok about reports we had seen of North Koreans dying in their attempts to flee the border and about the conditions in the prison camps where at least 200,000 are reportedly held. Finally, he raised the level of military spending in North Korea - 30% of the county's GDP and asked if this could be better used in other areas. Mr Sok refuted the claims over human rights abuses as Western propaganda and branded all 'defectors' from North Korea as criminals (something David Alton countered because he had met at least one escapee who had been born in the camps). Although Mr Sok said he would welcome further assistance on the food security question, he repeated the mantra that while hostile relations with the US and the South remained, a strong military was essential.
I was impressed by David Alton's skill in surpassing platitudes without losing a sense of respect for our hosts. Politicians have too often been given a bad name but it is impressive to see the 'dark arts' deployed to such good effect.
The day ended with dinner at the invitation of a few of the embassy staff and a small number expats that are teaching English in Pyongyang - we ate fine food and drank beer before I retreated to bed.
Memoirs from North Korea - Day 3
Feb 5th
In the morning we went to see the body of Kim Il Sung lying in state. This is not the place to describe what one sees there – suffice to say that it will remain with me for many years to come.
We left the mausoleum for the more enlivened environment of Kim Il Sung University. We were welcomed to an excellent English class where a dynamic teacher was instructing a very attentive class. Of course we had to take our turn in addressing the class but it was refreshing to see the students eagerness to learn and enthusiasm to absorb as much information as possible. If students were like this in the UK, the teaching profession would be dream vocation.
After lunch we had a meeting with the highest ranking member of the authorities on our itinerary - the Speaker at the Supreme People's Assembly. He had a calm presence and kind eyes and carried a statesmanlike air about him. He welcomed us warmly although repeated the credo about building up a powerful and prosperous nation and how their 'military first' strategy was the highest priority. Our discussion centred on how we can help North Korea move towards, not away from, the international community as means of achieving their goals for the prosperity of their country.
After our visit to the children's palace to see a celebration of the Lunar festival, I understood something of what sustains the North Korean system。 Children filled the stage and performed breathtaking gymnastic, scintillating piano concertos and wonderful dance routines which would have put my school panto firmly in the shade. But they also sang songs of devotion to The Great Leader that made your realise how quickly a person's view of the world can be set in place.
We finished our day with what can only be described as banquet with the Speaker of the Korean parliament. I counted that we were served eleven courses from trout to pheasant dishes. Baroness Cox recounted the story of Churchill, who was no fan of women in politics, but was once told by the first female member of parliament 'Winston, if I was your husband, I would put poison in your coffee.' To which Churchill replied, 'madam, if I was your husband, I would drink it!' Our Korean hosts were almost bent double with laughter.
Memoir of North Korea - Day 4
Feb 6th
We finished our time in North Korea with a visit to the beautiful mountains North of Pyongyang. We visited a museum - perhaps the only one in the world - which contains hundreds of gifts from the leaders of nations who wanted to honour the life of the late Kim Il Sung. Gifts from a list of leaders including Stalin, Tito, Mugabe, Honeker, Chairman Mao, Castro, Ceausescu were a sobering reminder of the lure of totalitarianism that defined the last century.
We took the opportunity to visit churches – Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox which are starting to emerge – and we impressed upon those we met the importance of allowing religious liberty to prevail. Some progress has been made in terms of them being able to build new buildings which was positive. The priests we did meet talked enthusiastically about their congregations though clearly allegiance to Kim Jung Il is a prerequisite for all in North Korea. It wasn't clear how easy it is for ordinary citizens to practice their faith freely.
Our last meal in North Korea was dinner at the revolving restaurant at the top of the Koyro hotel。 It was an opportunity to thank our hosts。 I made a speech in which I admitted that I had come to the country with that attitude 'that I thought I knew what is best for North Korea'. I felt it important to express how humbled I had been by the sincerity and kindness with which we had been received. I hadn’t expected it but my comfortable preconceptions had been challenged.
I went onto say that there is a big job to do if we are to build a more peaceful and equitable world. We would all need to be willing to learn from each other.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
10 things you might not know about North Korea
Next week, I am visiting one of the most closed countries on earth – it is one of the few remaining Stalinist states. Here are a few key facts:
1. After a half century of isolation, North Korea remains has one of the largest standing armies in the world.
2. 80,000 South Korean civilians are thought to have been abducted by North Korea during the Korean war (1950-53)
3. In 1994, The Great Leader Kim Il Sung died after 50 years of undiluted power.
4. Succession went to Kim’s son Kim Jong-il – a man whose birth was apparently marked by a sightings of a double rainbow and a new star
5. An estimated 2 million people died from food shortages in North Korea during the 1990s.
6. In 2002 US President George W Bush named the country as part of an "axis of evil"
7. In 2006, North Korea became the ninth country to possess nuclear weapons
8. In June 2008, the authorities in the capital Pyongang finally handed over a list of the country's nuclear assets and in the October agreed to give international inspectors full access to its nuclear sites
9. Military spending is still 20% of GDP
10. There is no internet connection in North Korea
1. After a half century of isolation, North Korea remains has one of the largest standing armies in the world.
2. 80,000 South Korean civilians are thought to have been abducted by North Korea during the Korean war (1950-53)
3. In 1994, The Great Leader Kim Il Sung died after 50 years of undiluted power.
4. Succession went to Kim’s son Kim Jong-il – a man whose birth was apparently marked by a sightings of a double rainbow and a new star
5. An estimated 2 million people died from food shortages in North Korea during the 1990s.
6. In 2002 US President George W Bush named the country as part of an "axis of evil"
7. In 2006, North Korea became the ninth country to possess nuclear weapons
8. In June 2008, the authorities in the capital Pyongang finally handed over a list of the country's nuclear assets and in the October agreed to give international inspectors full access to its nuclear sites
9. Military spending is still 20% of GDP
10. There is no internet connection in North Korea
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Boxing Day at Crisis 2008
By the time I completed my third and final day volunteering at Crisis, I was starting to develop my own ideas about how the day centre could be run...
Some of the guests had expressed unhappiness at management’s insistence that guests showered before they were able to take advantage of the massage services on offer. I agreed and took this up with some of the ‘green badge’ supervisors. It seemed altogether the wrong message that we considered guests to be in some way unclean – especially as some of the guests were cleaner than the volunteers!
My many hours on security had also convinced me that we needed to take a harder line on preventing alcohol into the centre. The day before (Christmas Day) the police had arrived as trouble started to brew between guests. It was all drink related and I thought that was entirely preventable with a zero tolerance approach to allowing alcohol onto the premises.
But given that this was my last day, I thought I better concentrate my efforts on engaging the people I had come to serve. My answer was Chess.
It didn’t matter what country guests came from, chess was universally understood and could be played regardless of an individuals grasp of English.
My miserable defeat to one of the guests exposed my own prejudice. When we started, I assumed the ragged looking man opposite probably couldn’t tell his bishop from his knight. How wrong I was! It was actually embarrassing as he took my Queen without reply and set about cutting through my defences with consummate ease. What frustrated me was the speed with which he made his moves – I didn’t have time to think!
The highlight of my final day was meeting and talking to George. George was a statesmanlike Jamaican born man in his fifties who looked a little like Morgan Freeman. He was the most articulate person I can remember meeting. It wasn’t long before I was recommending that he run for London Mayor!
What I found absorbing about him was his twinkling eyes and that he would lightly touch your arm every time he wanted to make a point. He rattled through his views on European integration, immigration, culture, economics and the war in Iraq. With souring rhetoric, he concluded one monologue about terrorism which was punctuated with emphatic hand gestures, saying, ‘you see, we must take a stand, we must take a stand.’
So I finished my time with Crisis. I was certainly uplifted, surprised and inspired by the buoyancy of the individuals I had met. I had found little trace of self-pity – just a group of people who had come up against life’s harshest realities and were busy trying to survive.
Some of the guests had expressed unhappiness at management’s insistence that guests showered before they were able to take advantage of the massage services on offer. I agreed and took this up with some of the ‘green badge’ supervisors. It seemed altogether the wrong message that we considered guests to be in some way unclean – especially as some of the guests were cleaner than the volunteers!
My many hours on security had also convinced me that we needed to take a harder line on preventing alcohol into the centre. The day before (Christmas Day) the police had arrived as trouble started to brew between guests. It was all drink related and I thought that was entirely preventable with a zero tolerance approach to allowing alcohol onto the premises.
But given that this was my last day, I thought I better concentrate my efforts on engaging the people I had come to serve. My answer was Chess.
It didn’t matter what country guests came from, chess was universally understood and could be played regardless of an individuals grasp of English.
My miserable defeat to one of the guests exposed my own prejudice. When we started, I assumed the ragged looking man opposite probably couldn’t tell his bishop from his knight. How wrong I was! It was actually embarrassing as he took my Queen without reply and set about cutting through my defences with consummate ease. What frustrated me was the speed with which he made his moves – I didn’t have time to think!
The highlight of my final day was meeting and talking to George. George was a statesmanlike Jamaican born man in his fifties who looked a little like Morgan Freeman. He was the most articulate person I can remember meeting. It wasn’t long before I was recommending that he run for London Mayor!
What I found absorbing about him was his twinkling eyes and that he would lightly touch your arm every time he wanted to make a point. He rattled through his views on European integration, immigration, culture, economics and the war in Iraq. With souring rhetoric, he concluded one monologue about terrorism which was punctuated with emphatic hand gestures, saying, ‘you see, we must take a stand, we must take a stand.’
So I finished my time with Crisis. I was certainly uplifted, surprised and inspired by the buoyancy of the individuals I had met. I had found little trace of self-pity – just a group of people who had come up against life’s harshest realities and were busy trying to survive.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Christmas Day at Crisis 2008
My second day at Broadway Centre felt very different from the first. By now, I felt like a veteran of the system. I generously helped to give guidance to volunteer virgins who looked as disorientated as I did on my first day. The absence of public transport meant that I had cycled for an hour in quiet London streets to arrive at Shepherds Bush and the exercise had put a spring in my step.
It struck me throughout the day that the Crisis centres are set up at Christmas as much to benefit the volunteers as they are for the guests. Everyone of the 40 volunteers had their own reasons for being there. One volunteer from Sunderland told me that she had lost her husband six months ago. Another volunteer was there to escape the spectre of another family Christmas. For me, the main driver was to find an antidote to the self-pity that threatened set in because I couldn’t spend Christmas with my own family.
From that perspective, the guests are very gracious. They sense the vulnerability of the volunteers who want to engage.
After I finished my morning security shift, I got a cup of tea and sat down in the café. I started chatting with Noel – an Irish guest who must have been in his late 60s and had spent 15 years sleeping rough in some of the toughest areas of London and Birmingham. He hadn't seen his wife and children for 25 years but he said he would never stop loving his wife, as long as he lived. His face and hands were badly scarred from what look like severe burns. Although he wore dark glasses, his piercing blue eyes would look at you over the top of his frames when he wanted to be sure you were listening.
I made the mistake of straying onto the issues of politics with Noel. In no time at all, Noel was expressing his apoplectic anger at the sight of Polish and other immigrants who were diluting British culture and using services that they had never contributed to. The issues he raised were a common theme that emerged from guests who felt the help on offer was not reaching the people who really needed it. The tension between the Eastern European guests – many of whom were much younger– and the ‘local’ guests was palpable.
I decided to chance my arm at connecting with some of the Polish guests. It was much tougher. Many could barely speak English. They could play table tennis however. I confidently challenged one guest to a game. Unfortunately, I lost pretty quickly to a Pole who I can only assume must have been a table tennis champion in his home town!
The day finished with an uplifting debrief where we heard Edwin’s story – a volunteer who had almost died on the streets but who had literally been saved by visiting a Crisis Centre. He now gone 14 years without a drink and there was no more powerful advocate for the value of the work Crisis does.
It struck me throughout the day that the Crisis centres are set up at Christmas as much to benefit the volunteers as they are for the guests. Everyone of the 40 volunteers had their own reasons for being there. One volunteer from Sunderland told me that she had lost her husband six months ago. Another volunteer was there to escape the spectre of another family Christmas. For me, the main driver was to find an antidote to the self-pity that threatened set in because I couldn’t spend Christmas with my own family.
From that perspective, the guests are very gracious. They sense the vulnerability of the volunteers who want to engage.
After I finished my morning security shift, I got a cup of tea and sat down in the café. I started chatting with Noel – an Irish guest who must have been in his late 60s and had spent 15 years sleeping rough in some of the toughest areas of London and Birmingham. He hadn't seen his wife and children for 25 years but he said he would never stop loving his wife, as long as he lived. His face and hands were badly scarred from what look like severe burns. Although he wore dark glasses, his piercing blue eyes would look at you over the top of his frames when he wanted to be sure you were listening.
I made the mistake of straying onto the issues of politics with Noel. In no time at all, Noel was expressing his apoplectic anger at the sight of Polish and other immigrants who were diluting British culture and using services that they had never contributed to. The issues he raised were a common theme that emerged from guests who felt the help on offer was not reaching the people who really needed it. The tension between the Eastern European guests – many of whom were much younger– and the ‘local’ guests was palpable.
I decided to chance my arm at connecting with some of the Polish guests. It was much tougher. Many could barely speak English. They could play table tennis however. I confidently challenged one guest to a game. Unfortunately, I lost pretty quickly to a Pole who I can only assume must have been a table tennis champion in his home town!
The day finished with an uplifting debrief where we heard Edwin’s story – a volunteer who had almost died on the streets but who had literally been saved by visiting a Crisis Centre. He now gone 14 years without a drink and there was no more powerful advocate for the value of the work Crisis does.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas Eve at Crisis 2008
This Christmas, I decided to volunteer at the Broadway Centre for the homeless with Crisis.
Like starting anything for the first time, it takes a while to find one’s feet. As my two year old boy would say ‘it is a little bit scary.’
The day began with a short induction – 24 volunteers crammed into a smelly room. None of us had met before and with next to no training we were being tasked with running a day centre for 100 guests over Christmas. After some rather poor jokes aimed at breaking the ice, our team leader started allocating tasks.
My first shift was on security. The first guy that walked past told me that he thought I was a sanctimonious middle class do-gooder. He probably had it right.
Anyway, I was kitted up with a radio and told to monitor who was coming in and out. It was freezing. Just when I was beginning to think this was a complete waste of my time, two guests, David and Wayne showed up.
David was a hooded 25 year old who looked like he was in his mid 30s. He had a quiet demeanour although you could tell that, like a volcano, any eruption would be quite dramatic. David told me that he had spent the last three weeks on the streets. In that time he had been assaulted twice – leaving him with stitches in his head which he proudly showed me.
Like most people who end up on the streets, David was heart broken. He had split up with his girlfriend who had disappeared with their 9month old daughter. The council had told him that due to his criminal record, David was a ‘danger to his own daughter’ despite the fact that he had seen his partner hold a knife to his daughter’s throat. He was coming to terms his enforced estrangement from his family – with absolutely no power to address the situation.
David’s friend Wayne was a little more inebriated. Clutching a tin of cider, Wayne was busy confessing his undying love to my security colleague, ‘the beautiful Ellen’. His love was evidenced when he ran off to the shops and used his scant resources to buy Ellen a box of Ferrero Roche. Quite a gesture.
After two hours on the door, I moved inside and listened to a talented musician entertaining the guests with moving covers of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and David Gray’s Babylon. I met two more guests who described themselves as the old gents fo the centre. One was a totally toothless Scottish guy called Gordon (he advised me to look after my teeth while I still had them) and his pal David – another David – who was a former employee of the Bank of England (from 1963 to 1976 he told me). These guys were great company – the kind of individuals who you felt had a much deeper understanding of the way the world worked than I would ever obtain.
I resisted the temptation to grab the mike and entertain the guests with a few tracks of my own and decided instead to help out in the kitchen. The ladies in the kitchen were impressed with my mopping skills. I had to let them know that I wasn’t this good at home and that really I was just a show-pony. So that became my nick-name for the rest of the day. I thought ‘Mark the show-pony’ was rather apt.
Like starting anything for the first time, it takes a while to find one’s feet. As my two year old boy would say ‘it is a little bit scary.’
The day began with a short induction – 24 volunteers crammed into a smelly room. None of us had met before and with next to no training we were being tasked with running a day centre for 100 guests over Christmas. After some rather poor jokes aimed at breaking the ice, our team leader started allocating tasks.
My first shift was on security. The first guy that walked past told me that he thought I was a sanctimonious middle class do-gooder. He probably had it right.
Anyway, I was kitted up with a radio and told to monitor who was coming in and out. It was freezing. Just when I was beginning to think this was a complete waste of my time, two guests, David and Wayne showed up.
David was a hooded 25 year old who looked like he was in his mid 30s. He had a quiet demeanour although you could tell that, like a volcano, any eruption would be quite dramatic. David told me that he had spent the last three weeks on the streets. In that time he had been assaulted twice – leaving him with stitches in his head which he proudly showed me.
Like most people who end up on the streets, David was heart broken. He had split up with his girlfriend who had disappeared with their 9month old daughter. The council had told him that due to his criminal record, David was a ‘danger to his own daughter’ despite the fact that he had seen his partner hold a knife to his daughter’s throat. He was coming to terms his enforced estrangement from his family – with absolutely no power to address the situation.
David’s friend Wayne was a little more inebriated. Clutching a tin of cider, Wayne was busy confessing his undying love to my security colleague, ‘the beautiful Ellen’. His love was evidenced when he ran off to the shops and used his scant resources to buy Ellen a box of Ferrero Roche. Quite a gesture.
After two hours on the door, I moved inside and listened to a talented musician entertaining the guests with moving covers of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and David Gray’s Babylon. I met two more guests who described themselves as the old gents fo the centre. One was a totally toothless Scottish guy called Gordon (he advised me to look after my teeth while I still had them) and his pal David – another David – who was a former employee of the Bank of England (from 1963 to 1976 he told me). These guys were great company – the kind of individuals who you felt had a much deeper understanding of the way the world worked than I would ever obtain.
I resisted the temptation to grab the mike and entertain the guests with a few tracks of my own and decided instead to help out in the kitchen. The ladies in the kitchen were impressed with my mopping skills. I had to let them know that I wasn’t this good at home and that really I was just a show-pony. So that became my nick-name for the rest of the day. I thought ‘Mark the show-pony’ was rather apt.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
From Faith to Ideology
The Mumbai terror attacks last month are ample ammunition for some to point to the destructive and divisive role of religion in the world today.
In some respects, I agree. The single biggest threat to peace between peoples of the world is the journey from faith to ideology. It is the distortion of religious thought and spiritual manipulation that cannot be underestimated in its explosive power to breed enmity.
That is what has been happening in the southern states of Pakistan where the major it the Mumbai killers have come from. It is not that the political situation in Kashmir or the crushing urban poverty has driven these men to calmly walk into cafes, hotels and community centres and wantonly kill. It is a brittle and narrow belief system that leads individuals to apocalyptic conclusions about the future and a delusional sense of the importance of their own contribution to the struggle.
This comes to the heart of the distinction between faith and ideology. Religious faith is an essentially humble commitment to a spiritual journey that brings opportunity to find reference points to understand God and give meaning to the complexity of our own existence. Ideology is a fixed world view – set of hard-wired beliefs that is less about spiritual growth than about controlling peoples behaviour and thinking from an individual to societal level.
When Muslim men in Pakistan and Bangladesh throw acid into the eyes of women as is increasingly common in agricultural heartlands such as the Punjab state; that is ideology at work. When Protestant gangs in Northern Ireland take a hammer to another (Catholic) man’s knee and render him unable to walk for a lifetime; that is ideology at work. When individuals fail to countenance any possibility that they could be wrong or could learn from those of different tradition; that is ideology at work.
But when men like Martin Luther King sustain their campaign for civil rights in America – knowing that it could end his own life prematurely; that is faith at work. When women like Aung San Suu Kyi refuse to take a loaded offer to leave Burma and visit her dying husband, Michael Aris, in the UK – because she knew the ruling junta wouldn’t let her return; that is faith in action. And when ordinary individuals choose to open their homes and hearts to others at Christmas; that is faith in action.
Although ideology often masquerades as faith, the two are quite different. It is my view that genuine religious faith has been the inspiration behind some of the greatest individuals who have ever lived. Genuine faith has the power to release individuals to be the best the best they can be. It stands to reason perhaps that ideology also has the power to deceive people into being the worst they can be too.
What we need to do examine ourselves – how far have we gone in turning our faith into an ideology?
In some respects, I agree. The single biggest threat to peace between peoples of the world is the journey from faith to ideology. It is the distortion of religious thought and spiritual manipulation that cannot be underestimated in its explosive power to breed enmity.
That is what has been happening in the southern states of Pakistan where the major it the Mumbai killers have come from. It is not that the political situation in Kashmir or the crushing urban poverty has driven these men to calmly walk into cafes, hotels and community centres and wantonly kill. It is a brittle and narrow belief system that leads individuals to apocalyptic conclusions about the future and a delusional sense of the importance of their own contribution to the struggle.
This comes to the heart of the distinction between faith and ideology. Religious faith is an essentially humble commitment to a spiritual journey that brings opportunity to find reference points to understand God and give meaning to the complexity of our own existence. Ideology is a fixed world view – set of hard-wired beliefs that is less about spiritual growth than about controlling peoples behaviour and thinking from an individual to societal level.
When Muslim men in Pakistan and Bangladesh throw acid into the eyes of women as is increasingly common in agricultural heartlands such as the Punjab state; that is ideology at work. When Protestant gangs in Northern Ireland take a hammer to another (Catholic) man’s knee and render him unable to walk for a lifetime; that is ideology at work. When individuals fail to countenance any possibility that they could be wrong or could learn from those of different tradition; that is ideology at work.
But when men like Martin Luther King sustain their campaign for civil rights in America – knowing that it could end his own life prematurely; that is faith at work. When women like Aung San Suu Kyi refuse to take a loaded offer to leave Burma and visit her dying husband, Michael Aris, in the UK – because she knew the ruling junta wouldn’t let her return; that is faith in action. And when ordinary individuals choose to open their homes and hearts to others at Christmas; that is faith in action.
Although ideology often masquerades as faith, the two are quite different. It is my view that genuine religious faith has been the inspiration behind some of the greatest individuals who have ever lived. Genuine faith has the power to release individuals to be the best the best they can be. It stands to reason perhaps that ideology also has the power to deceive people into being the worst they can be too.
What we need to do examine ourselves – how far have we gone in turning our faith into an ideology?
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