Timmyhawk

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HANUKKAH
As you may have noticed I am far to busy in my real life to do any regular posting at the moment so I figured I might as well take a proper break until real-world issues have been decisively dealt with. That means I will not be back until Monday, January 9.
I am as always bemused by the arguments being traded over Christmas. There are some Christians who complain that the event has lost its religious meaning. I don’t find that quite convincing as the real Christian festival is Easter after all: And on the third day he rose again . . . and all that. That’s the key to Christianity. Christmas is really more a social and cultural event, a festive occasion to bring families together. Of course I am not downplaying Christmas’ religious meaning. I am simply saying that the event is more about family, rather than faith. That said, for me the two are strongly bound together, and I am sure many will agree with me. I think the reason for that is that Christianity’s core message, is also what ties us to our families: the combination of duty and love.
Normally I don’t go for this multi-culti-stuff, but I thought here’s a good political reason to include a Happy Hanukkah this year. Also, the coming year sees the 350th anniversary of the return of the Jews to these shores.
I am not going to wish readers a happy new year, because frankly, it’s a meaningless event. That’s not to disparage it though: after all, the dearth of meaning is surely the whole attraction of it.
Wishing you all a good following days, whatever you make of them.

FAIR PORTRAYAL OF MUSLIMS IN BRITISH MEDIA
Well I suppose it had to happen some day. David t at Harry’s Place has the story. Whilst it may be the remaining liberal do-gooder instinct in me that are the main course for my occasional concern over the vilification of Muslims, I think right-wing hawks should bear in mind that this matters a lot. Think about some of the arguments raised against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Very prominent amongst them was the idea that these military actions were going to inflame Muslims to the extent that hordes of terrorists, including within our own country, were to be unleashed on the world. That is nonsence of course. But it’s an argument that has a lot of traction for the simple reason that the only British Muslim voices that are giving space in the msm are those of extremist nutters like Abu Hamza, or the often mealy mouthed apologists from self-declared community representations. The latter may say no to terrorism, but, well, there’s always a but. A but that often implies that the terrorists actions may be sort of wrong, but that their arguments were basically right; just a bit misguided the chaps. If this image of seething Muslim masses that are incapable of operating their own independent critical faculties to reach individual moral decisions, were true (which it isn’t), I can see that the best course of action in fighting terror would indeed be to lie low and hope you don’t get noticed.
But if you agree that the best way to fight terror is by confronting and facing down the enemy, with all means necessary, then it is obviously necessary to counter the myth of the mad and wild Muslim hordes. For if people believe in this myth they will be unwilling to shoulder the burdens of fighting a war that in their minds would unwinnable and best avoided. Of course by not acting against terror cells you actually let them grow as we saw with bin Laden’s gang in the 1990s.
So, by believing the racist mythology that there’s a jihadi lurking behind every Muslim neighbour, you actually increase the chances that it will be so.

NOTES: THE EU-JUGGERNAUT, PRESERVING THE CHURCH, LOSING OUR MORALE OVER IRAQ, APPEARANCE OF NEW TORY FOREIGN POLICY?, ARMENIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM
Whilst I complained that many people in this country were going slack in regards to the expansion of EU (and less recently), that was more of an aside, I had little idea just how fast and far the EU was actually going. In the Speccie's cover story Anthony Brown recounts some of the major development from only the past few months. It is pretty dizzying reading. Whilst one could try to find solace in Brown's remark that

I fear the EU is simply doing its usual thing in flying under the radar. Again it's a shame that the main press doesn't really pick these stories up properly. In turn of course that leads to angry-old-man-syndrome when it suddenly becomes apparent that the EU has instigated some mind bogglingly stupid and rightfully unpopular move like forcing out the Red Ensign. Well, probably too late if true. By the time you see the result of EU regulations or an expansion of EU institutional competences it's probably already too late to do anything about it - that's how it works. It's time the wider public got to understand this better. It's good of the Speccie to run these stories (and reminds me why we really need it), but that is just not enough.


Having spent the day in Canterbury I am impressively reminded why I stand by the Church of England, despite some of its growing troubles. When you look at the Cathedral but also some of the smaller Church buildings spread around you are not immediately struck by it. It's when you look closer, that what really conveys the quiet splendour of the Anglican faith are the little details and the air of historical matter-of-courseness that accompanies the Church and its works. It certainly grew on me again while I was there.


In Saturday's Times Matthew Parris has an interesting comment on Iraq, in which he says that whatever we may consciously argue, subconsciously we all agree on Iraq having failed. I am afraid I know what he means. When Iraq hawks talk and particularly blog amongst themselves it all seems less bad, but the moment you open a newspaper, switch on the telly or the radio you can't avoid this sinking feeling. I see no reason (yet?) to change my mind over invading and occupying Iraq, but the emotional commitment to the enterprise had been gone for a long time. In the lead up to the invasion there was a real feeling that things were changing for the better, and this was a just and necessary war that it was a pleasure to be an advocate for. I can't really say when that tipping point came. Looking back there are two points that stand out for me.
The first was Bush's "mission accomplished" show. At the moment when the war was going into its more difficult phase of reestablishing order in Iraq Bush was effectively saying there's nothing to do anymore, let's go home. That built up exactly the wrong kind fo expectation both in the military and the public. After you've created the impression that the job is as good as done and you then say, "yes, but I need to send an extra two hundred thousand troops in for at least a year" (a realistic war plan I would wager), people are going baulk at that. I think this is when I began feeling that our leaders were possibly going to mess things up.
The second was the David Kelly affair. Whether or not Andrew Gilligan was journalistically right or not to blow the wmd story up at a time when public support was already beginning to wane I will leave to others to debate; ultimately there’s nothing that can be done about freedom of the press, even if that freedom gets used badly. But again like Bush’s speech this was in the transformationary phase of the war. To run a proper nation building war effort would have required public backing. The Kelly affair set off the then sheer endless stream of officials past and present rolling out supposed exposes about wmd lies. This helped undermine public morale. Why the Government was so incompetent in meeting this bad pr remains a mystery to me, given how good they are normally at spinning.
But both those incidences I think we’re instrumental in pushing the emotional dimension of the Iraq war debate in the wrong direction. To be sure, there is plenty that went wrong policy and argument wise to be sure.
If you read the Economist's fine leader on Iraq this week you are struck by the level of disappointment that seeps through the comment. That is a feeling I sadly share. What makes it worse is that I know it's possibly too late to make a real shift in strategy. That would also be politically difficulty increasingly in Iraq itself now I guess. Otherwise I think this posting from more than two years ago describes what would needed to be done.
(As an aside, advocating the invasion of Iraq may have been a pleasure, but socially comfortable it wasn't; I guess people don't really like debating politics properly in a social environment; it's more about finding commonality with other, which intensifies ten-fold the displaesure on realising the other side diagrees with you.)


So what template would a Tory Government do to deal with such a situation? Not easy to tell. Back in June I had pointed out that the Conservatives needed to debate and develop clear thinking on foreign policy. Whilst Michael Howard's positions had already hinted in an interventionist, hawkish and sovereignist direction, it seems that outlook is gaining traction amongst the Tories. In this week's Speccie Peter Oborne reports on a London meeting of the Henry Jackson Society. Plenty of up and coming Tories in there. It certainly looks like this is where the Conservatives seem to be heading in terms of forging a new foreign policy consensus. This will definitely help the Conservatives win the next election. After all, one of my favourites themes I like to go on about is how you can’t fight properly in politics if you don’t have certainty on the national strategy, Britain’s place in the world and on how you would decide matters of war and peace. Even if there is a wide political range in the Henry Jackson Society itself, most are centre-right and I think it is no safe to say that therefore the Tory revival edges closer.
(see also Stephen Pollard)


After the doubtful occurances during Azerbaijan’s elections recently, time to turn to another South Caucasus state and an expression of public will, the constitutional amendment referendum in Armenia. The proposal would most importantly have moved powers away from the presidency towards parliament. After first hearing about it I thought this looks a lot more promising avenue for bringing genuine democracy into the post-Soviet sphere than trying to do so in single big steps such as revolutions or general elections. By gradually starting to move things from the bottom up, piece by piece, chances are far better that the democracy that emerges from that will hold. Sadly, it seems the referendum has followed the dubious routes that similar events have gone in the ex-USSR. Shame really. Hopefully it will work one day.

SLOPPY REPORTING, TODAY: THE TIMES
(As a blogger it should of course be my duty to rap the msm over the knuckles noe and then, and this is certainly a duty I have neglected. But betterment begins today.)
The Times reports today on a study which claims that Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side':

I have my doubts. Either way, the report in the Times is not actually helpful is it? For the most interesting aspect for me would be the question, why a decrease in religiosity would improve society causally. Simply listing statistical correlations, which is the only part of the research the Times reports here, doesn’t really get us very far in understanding the problem. I haven’t read the full article yet so at the moment, so I can’t make any statement about the article’s utility or otherwise. What I want to criticise here is they way that the Times’ religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill has reported the academic article (or maybe it was editor’s cutting?).
Her story doesn’t show up the possible causal connections between atheism and a good society made by the academic Gregory Paul. Equally she doesn’t ask or query what his statistics show or don’t show. Undoubtedly on a lot of indicators such as murder and abortion, the comparatively secular European societies perform better than the more religious US. At the moment that is. What I would need to know as a reader though is, what the rates of change are. That is what really matters. Religion has rebounded in America in the past two decades, while it has kept floundering in Europe. How have the indicators developed in that period? Did Paul make a difference between people in the US who (re)embraced religion and those who didn’t? Did the study look at differences between people who believe in the existence of God and people of a religious mentality? The two are not the same, certainly not for me. Did the study take into account other factors that would influence society’s wellbeing, such as character and extent of a welfare state?
I only mention these factors, not to disparage Paul’s research which may have serious political, social and cultural implications, but simply to question the quality of the Times’ report. Without taking stock in any way of the issues about methodology I raise above the article is clearly of little informative value. Additionally I wonder why Gledhill reports no criticism of the article which there surely is. Was there no time? Surely this news story was not such a priority that it couldn’t incorporate different views on the subject due to time constraints.
The disappointing conclusion is that the Times shouldn’t have run the article. Instead of enlightening its readers, it simply provides a possibly misleading first impression, and thus makes its readers less well informed than if the page had been left blank.

(More to follow when I have done my homework and actually read the study. . . )

THE LIBDEMS AT PRAYER?
The old joke about us used to be that the Church of England was the Tory Party at prayer. Given current news, wouldn't it be more accurate to say the C of E is the LibDems at prayer? Oh dear. I despair of this good Church sometimes.

More on this to follow soon . . .

Updated: Although an older post and not related to the current happenings, LimeyPundity has a great post about pacifism and Christianity. Other commentary so far seems to share my negative first impression. Via Stephen Pollard, she doesn't seem very impressed, as does Laban Tall, who links to Thinking Anglicans, a sort of news weblog about C of E affairs (looks good), who have a round up of related news stories.

THOUGHT FOR SUNDAY
CONNECTIONS, CONNECTIONS - LIBERALISM, PLASTIC SURGERY AND SUCH
Two items this week, not superficially immediately linked to each other caught my attention and got em thinking if they're not in fact about something very similar.
First up, Blimpish has this great posting on the relationship between liberalism and patriotism. It's a great posting and I urge you to go and read all of it. But basically this is what I'm interested in right now:

The second piece is by Jo Anne Nadler in the Groan about the return of Bridget Jones. Again, only this short bit is relevant for my posting here:

At a first glance the two don't immediately connect to each other, right?
What all these two snippets have in common I think is the issue of accepting oneself as oneself or not, and particularly what to do, when you're dissatisfied with yourself, or part of your identity. In a way the liberal running away and trying to submerge his affection for his country into some vague, undefineable abstract such as "tolerance" and the woman (and man too, these days) who tries to change bodily appearances by surgery are doing something quite similar - they are trying to gloss over the essence of their being and their uniqueness.
Now, it is entirely ok to be dissatisfied with certain aspects to one's identity; perhaps xenophobia in one's own country, or having bad skin or whatever. We will always be bound to feel that things could be better, a feeling that is one of humanity's strongest impulses; after all without it, we'd still be hanging in trees eating bananas. (On second thoughts, I love bananas, so perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing. . . .ok, ok, but I think you get my point.)
But you know, things are as they are. It is simply self-loathing to want to change the basic givens, whether it be by in the act of turning your country into a set of abstract nouns, or by submerging it into a soulless and meaningless "European" state project, or by having your nose shape reset by plastic surgeons. This kind of self-loating is of course a simple mirroring of an approach of unthinking chauvinism or the kind of people who take no care whatsoever with how they present themselves to their fellow beings or what they do with their lives; you know the type, who seem to do everything to be as unhealthy and visually unappealing as possible, where you can palpably sense the depressive self neglect.

It is clear to see, that these two attitudes are very negative and self-destructive. The better way is of course to accept wholeheartedly those things we can't change, so we can then focus on real self-improvement. Patriotism is an affection that we have for our country, when we feel connected to its fate and also responsible for where it goes and what gets done in its name. Patriotic people vote for example; non-patriotic people will simply shrug their shoulders and say "whatever", after all they don't feel it has anything to do with them. It is similar on the level of personal psychology. Low self-esteem doesn't lead people on a course of improving their lives and what they dislike about them, but rather it drives them either into despairing passivity (with tv and fast food addiction right round the corner), or to frantic attempts to cover up their own identity and to be turned into somebody else.
I sometimes get the impression that there is a trend that these kind of negative approaches have spread. Undoubtedly this has many factors, but what weighs heavy on my mind on a Sunday is certainly the Christian element. Anglicanism once offered a framework in which the more positive approach was centred. By accepting the inherent imperfection of humankind, sometimes extrapolated out to evil, the C of E managed nonetheless to instill in people enough self-worth as God's creatures that they were motivated to better themselves.
All of which brings me on to last week's Economist (yes yes I should stay up to date more), and its article on George Bush's "muscular Christianity":

This kind of practical religiosity has helped turn around many lives with George Bush being the most prominent current example.
This is not really a theological argument about eternal truths, but rathermore an argument about being gratious for the gift of life, and by expressing our gratitude and improving our enjoyment at the same time by making the best of our time. The connectedness to faith that helps in this path, and accepts that problems can be found everywhere, can be conveyed accurately and dramatically as follows:

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Lee Harris writes:

But isn’t he comparing apples and oranges here . . .

TRASHING THE ANGLICAN CHURCH?
I supposed I’m supposed to be relieved by this sort of “compromise” that the Canadian and American churches are being asked to leave the Anglican consultancy body temporarily for three years because they recognize gay clergymen and perform same-sex marriages. This is of course the opposite of what I raised as a solution a while ago (though did I really use the term “progressive message”? *shudder*). And I am not relived at all.
Needless to say I’m unhappy with the current situation and I am still maintaining that the proper Anglican way to deal with this issue would have been ignoring it. It is simply inappropriate to drag such personal issues out into the open instead of keeping them in the intimacy of private life where they belong. And to be absolutely sure about this I am hereby criticising both sides in the argument. It is a spectacle very unbecoming of the Church, indulging in these bouts of therapeutic exhibitionism and ritualised homophobia.

(Just for the sake of being complete I should perhaps add that personally I am completely in favour of gay clergy, but I am as now opposed to gay marriage in Church because of the meaning that I believe such marriage to have; incidentally a completely different issue from the question of civil gay marriage and the possibility of asking for God’s blessing for such marriages.)

ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN AND SINGLE?
Feeling lonely? Just can’t find the rigth partner to go forth and multiply? Well, help is at hand:

You bet. At least it remains serious by helpfully reminding us of the words from the good Book:

I know I shouldn’t mock this sort of thing, you know, being an Anglican myself and it being the Lord’s day all that, but still there’s something slightly comical about the whole thing.

SELF HATING BISHOP, UPDATE
Now, I'm perfectly aware that in the big scheme of the world's affairs this whole episode doesn't really matter that much, but I've been unable so far to get my teeth out of it, now that they've sunk in. A fairly new blogger cuts the bishy some slack (btw, what a cool title for a conservative blog, Salisbury Pages):

I disagree with that point, because that is exactly why I think Bishop Lowe's comment is so wrong. I vow to Thee my Country not unabashedly patriotic and miles away from any sort of jingoism, in fact it simply restates in a moving manner the old dictum about rendering unto Caesar what is his due. This is the point: it asks that you put all earthly desires and wants behind that of the nation. Lowe's objection is therefore baseless. My soul and my conscience is not an "earthly thing". If the State's actions contradict these, as a Christian, I have the duty to say no. But when it is only about earthly things, my job, my car, my profit margins, a life of luxury or anything of the sort, my being a Christian is reconciled with being a member of a nation. (I'll leave aside that I also have a duty towards fellow humans who are not a member of my nation, because, contrary to popular opinion, these differing loyalties mostly don't conflict with each other anyway.) As I pointed out clearly yesterday, the C of E is a State Church, and it is entirely consistent that it has hymns and other elements of worship that reflect this fact. After all, this is a free country, if you find such closeness of Church and State spooky, you can easily hop out and go somewhere else, such as an Episcopal church (well I think it's funny. . . ). Why the Bishop of Hulme isn't able or willing to recognize something so obvious to an unskilled layman like me is a bit of different story though, but more on that another day.

"SELF HATING WHITE ANGLICANS"
At first I thought I'd just try to ignore my annoyance at this:

For some reason my irritation hasn't subsided yet. I vow to Thee my Country is one of my favourite hymns, both musically and lyrically, so I suppose I can't really give it a rest. Laban Tall and "Tom Paine" have dealt with some of the key stupidities and so I urge you to give their posts a look too.
But the thing that I want to moan about now is the man's choice. His choice to become a part of the Church, when he quite obviously deeply disapproves of some key elements of it. Why did he join the Church in the first place? I mean, come on, it's even called the Church of England. It is the official Church of the British State and its head is also the embodiment of the State. To suddenly discover, after several decades of serving your way upwards to the position of bishop, that this institution had patriotic elements in it is rather unconvincing now, isn't it. He knew what he committing himself to. If that is not the kind of Christianity he wanted, he was and is entirely free to change his denomination or set up his own church. But there is no reason why he should now be allowed to start changing the C of E just like that. As I've pointed out over at Silent Running, the problem is the gulf between the leaders and the people of the C of E.
No doubt the number of people turning their backs on the C of E in alienation will only be increased by such behaviour of the Church's leadership. But I'm am not one of those who is for turning my back, at Silent Running, Gray Monk, articulates why I don't abandon the Church:

Just so.
Not all the commentary at Silent Running on the issue is quite such worthwhile, however. Opines an Andrew Ian Dodge:

What?! The C of E's self-destruction has nothing to do with Islam. To insinuate otherwise looks more like an attempt to sneak some mindless Islamophobia through the back door and that is the last thing we need. This Dodge's comment is in fact a syndrome of something else. In a way, as I've argued before, the decline of sensible religion and confidence in our nation is one of the main causes for Islamophobia. While Bishop Lowe's leftist shenanigans can only further add to this, anti-Islamic prejudice would make any alternative to the currently dominant views in the C of E unpalatable.
A wholly disappointing and alienating affair.