An Open Letter

I have two possible letters to write at the end of January 2020 when we might, or might not, leave the EU. The first one, presuming a Tory majority government tomorrow morning, will go something like this:

I am wearing black today. I am distraught, angry, and deeply saddened, that a handful of people voting to leave the EU in an unnecessary referendum back in 2016, and again in this general election, can deprive me of my European citizenship. I have been a citizen of the EU (or its predecessor) for over forty years, all of my adult life. I did not choose to renounce this citizenship, it was taken from me.  And it seems there is little I can do about it. That is why I am in mourning, wearing black. 

What will happen when those who were persuaded by a handful of very rich men, and even fewer very rich women, that we would ‘get Brexit done’ and that the UK would prosper outside the EU, realise they have been lied to? The weaker pound will primarily benefit those with off-shore accounts. The ability to hide money in tax-havens will favour those with millions to hide. Weaker regulation on workers’ rights and environmental standards will only suit multi-national corporations and those who put profits before planet and people. Controlling immigration, whatever that means, will lead to a greater shortage of essential workers and lower tax receipts. Austerity will continue, action on climate change will be down-graded (if it could get any lower) and yet the reality of climate change will continue to threaten – both locally with the effects of sea-level rise on nuclear power stations on the River Severn and the Severn Estuary, and globally. The pressure on populations forced to relocate due to climate change will be destabilising, beyond anything we have seen so far as the result of war. 

There will be an opportunity to rebuild civil society from the ground up, more local energy schemes, less economic growth, greater local self-sufficiency (growing local seasonal food if you are lucky enough to have access to a garden or allotment). But it could go the other way. Those who find that the services they depend on continue to deteriorate, and that Brexit if far from ‘done’, may look for scapegoats, encouraged by a largely right-wing media and politicians who are incapable of taking ownership of the forces they have knowingly unleashed. It could get a lot worse before the political tide turns. 

For those who believe that a majority government will unite the country I can assure them that I will fight every inch of the way. I will oppose TTIP mark II (i.e. any attempt at a trade deal with the USA), I will hold elected MPs to account for how they vote and for their actions, I will support local community initiatives to build resilience, such as local energy generation, I will oppose attacks on worker’s rights, regressive LGBT… measures, attacks on the environment – including continued Conservative attempts to sell off the Forest of Dean to private investors, and further attempts to privatise our infrastructure, including the rest of the NHS. I will argue for the reversal of disastrous privatisations, such as the forensic science service, the probation service, and most disability and mental health provision, as well as the railways and water. I will oppose the development of nuclear energy and fracking (yes, it is still on the Tory agenda), push for a revolution in renewables and in the ways we think about energy use, with all new houses built – not on flood plains – to passivhaus standards (i.e. carbon neutral). I can see a rise in political activism in the next five years under a Tory government, with the younger folk increasingly active and vocal, supported by all those who care about our planet and communities. The fight for Green candidates in the next County Council elections starts now.

Or I might just share a good bottle of red wine then hide under the duvet for a few days – or both.

https://campaigns.greenparty.org.uk/two-years-ten-bills/

Social Anthropologies of the Welsh

Social Anthropologies of the Welsh: Past and Present

I was delighted to take part in this symposium on the Anthropologies of the Welsh held at Cardiff University from 1st to 2nd May 2019, organised by Professor John Morgan, and supported jointly by the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Learned Society of Wales, WISERD and the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. The link has a bilingual programme for Day 2, on which I gave a talk on social anthropology and religion in Wales. The symposium opened with a plenary lecture delivered by Dame Marilyn Strathern on the nature of comparison. It was a wonderful line-up of speakers and attendees covering many decades of Welsh academia.

Click on the links to access the programme and powerpoint.





Anthropological Perspectives on Religion in Wales

A Spirituality of Unity - Ysbrydolrwydd Undod

Caerdydd, 10.7.18

A talk by Fiona Bowie given (in Welsh) on the Focolare Movement, at the invitation of Peredur Griffiths (centre) at the National Eisteddfod of Wales on 10th July 2018 in Cardiff. The Welsh version was delivered by Oliver Davies.

The Cytun (Churches Together in Wales) tent at the
National Eisteddfod. Gethin Rhys and Peredur Griffiths (Cytun) with Myra Crilly (Focolare)

English Version

A Spirituality of Unity

http://www.focolare.org/gb/spirituality/spirituality-of-unity/

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say something about the Focolare Movement, a spirituality of unity which I count myself fortunate to have known for almost fifty years. 

A collective spirituality

Members of the Focolare live a collective spirituality of unity based on Jesus’ prayer to the Father ‘that they may be one as we are one’ (Jn. 17:12), ‘That all may be one’ (Jn. 17:21). The unity that members of the Focolare aim for isn’t just with fellow Christians, or among friends and family, although this can be challenging enough, but with all people, everywhere. Even the most desperate situations, and the most difficult people, are included in Jesus’s prayer, and are therefore are ‘candidates for unity’. 

This choice to recognise everyone as brothers and sisters to be loved, whatever their race, religion, background, views or lifestyle was one of the things that first attracted me to the Focolare, and today it seems more important than ever. Unity is not merely being kind or nice to people but is based on Jesus’ promise ‘where two are more are gathered together in my name, I am in the Midst of you’ (Matthew 18:20). When we love as Jesus loved, ready to give our lives for one another, it is Jesus himself who is here among us. It is Jesus who changes people’s hearts, who comforts those who are suffering, who brings hope, peace and joy. The warmth of this love gave the Focolare its name, the ‘hearth’ or ‘fireside’ in Italian. 

We may not always reach unity but we can strive for it. The ‘key to unity’ is not our own efforts or will power but love for Jesus, finding Him in a special way in suffering. The founder of the Focolare Movement, Chiara Lubich, expressed it like this: 

‘We came to know that the greatest suffering of Jesus and, therefore, his greatest act of love, was when on the cross he experienced the abandonment by the Father: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ This touched us to the depths. And our young age, our enthusiasm, but especially the grace of God, urged us to choose only him in his abandonment, as the means to realize our ideal of love.’

There are many moments in our lives when we are stuck and don’t know how to go ahead, how to love. It is enough to recollect ourselves and say ‘Yes, Jesus, I love you here, now, like this; in this darkness, in this mistake, in this fear or embarrassment, in my failure or that of others. In what seems like a hopeless situation with no solution, You are here. The experience of members of the Movement, and my own experience, is that this choice of Jesus, forsaken, brings peace and transforms situations both big and small. In part it is we who are changed, but also there are what seem like miracles of resurrection. 

History

The Focolare Movement was born amid the destruction of the Second World War. A young woman from the town of Trent in the Italian Dolomites called Silvia Lubich felt called to follow God and to give her life to him, but wasn’t sure how. Silvia became a third order Franciscan and took the name Chiara (Clare). On a student retreat to the shrine of Loretto, where legend has it that the holy house of Nazareth was transported, Chiara had an intimation that this had something to do with her future her vocation. She wasn’t called to be a nun or to get married, but to live as an ordinary lay person, together with others, with Jesus among them. She didn’t know how this would happen, it was a new type of vocation in the church. 

Soon other young women, and then men, families, priests, nuns and people from all walks of life were attracted by Chiara’s love for God and began to meet together. When the air raid sirens sounded they would run to the air raid shelters, taking a copy of the gospels with them. As they read the words of Jesus they became alive: 

‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’ (Luke 6:31), 

‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Matt. 22:37), 

‘Give and it will be given unto you’ (Luke 6:38), 

‘Whatever you did for the least of one of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ (Matt. 25:40), 

‘You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it’ (John 14:13). 

They didn’t know how long they had to live and started to put these words into practice. They visited the sick and poor and shared out their belongings with them, experiencing the hundredfold of God’s love and generosity. When someone was in need they asked God for that need and the goods arrived. One by one the words of the gospels came alive and they understood that it was not a book to be read but something to be lived. Living the ‘Word of Life’ and sharing the experiences of it  became and remains a key aspect of the life of those who live the spirituality of unity. 

After the war when travel became possible again Chiara and her companions started to move to other parts of Italy, taking this life of the gospel with them. They met Lutherans from Germany, Calvinists in Switzerland, Anglicans from the UK, Orthodox Christians in Turkey, all of whom found in this lived, gospel-based Christianity a way of living that appealed to them as well. 

I was brought up in the Anglican Church in England and was first introduced to the spirituality of the Focolare when I was 11 years old. I had just been prepared for confirmation, and I was deeply attracted by their message of mutual love. It seemed so simple and obvious. It was a way of being Christian that anyone could live. In my confirmation classes no one had taught me that the first and most important thing is to love. I tried to put this simple but  radical message into practice. I became more patient with my sisters, more helpful towards my parents, more courageous with my friends. It was like finding the precious pearl for which one is ready to leave everything, hidden but in plain sight. 

So it was in the 1950s and 1960s that the ecumenical dimension of the Focolare was born. It was followed in the 1970s by deeper relationships with people from other religions. The Focolare had already been invited to Cameroon, West Africa, during the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. They opened a mission station with a school, hospital and workshops at Fontem in Lebialem  Division among the Bangwa people. There they got to know and respect many of the Bangwa traditional cultural and religious practices.  The message of love and unity also appeals to Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists – to peoples of all faiths and none. As the first commandment is not to convert but to love, no one is excluded. 

In the many Focolare communities that have grown up around the world, and at the temporary holiday gatherings, both of which are known as a ‘Mariapolis’ or ‘City of Mary’, the only law is to love one another. Although there are many social projects carried out by members of the Focolare Movement, businesses run on communitarian principles, large and small meetings for people of different ages, occupations and backgrounds, the message remains the same. That we are all one family and that all of humanity is called to be united – not the same – but to live in mutual respect and dialogue in a society based on love.

Early on in her journey Chiara stated that she and her first companions wished to be buried in a common grave with the words, ‘We have believed in love’. For me, and for all those who try to live the spirituality of unity, this is the daily promise and challenge, to believe in love.

Thank you!

Oliver Davies at the Millennium Centre, Cardiff

 Fersiwn Cymraeg

Ysbrydolrwydd Undod

http://www.focolare.org/gb/spirituality/spirituality-of-unity/

Diolch am roi’r cyfle i mi ddweud rhywbeth am y Mudiad Focolare, ysbrydolrwydd undod yr ystyriaf fy hun yn ffodus o fod wedi ei adnabod ers bron hanner can mlynedd. 

Ysbrydolrwydd casgliadol

Mae aelodau’r Focolare yn byw ysbrydolrwydd undod casgliadol yn seiliedig ar weddi’r Iesu i’r Tad ‘er mwyn iddynt fod yn un fel yr ydym ni yn un’ (Jn. 17:12). Mae’r undod mae aelodau’r Focolare yn anelu ato nid gyda chyd-Gristnogion yn unig, nac ymhlith ffrindiau a theulu, er y gall hyn fod yn ddigon heriol, ond gyda’r holl bobl, ym mhob man. 

Nid bod yn garedig neu’n ddymunol at bobl yn unig yw undod ond mae’n seiliedig ar addewid yr Iesu ‘lle y mae dau neu dri wedi dod ynghyd yn fy enw i, yr wyf yno yn eich Canol’ (Matthew 18:20). Pan rydym yn caru fel y carodd Iesu, yn barod i roi ein bywydau i’n gilydd, Iesu ei hun sydd yma yn ein plith. Yr Iesu sy’n newid calonnau pobl, sy’n cysuro’r rhai sy’n dioddef, sy’n dod â gobaith, heddwch a llawenydd. Rhoddodd cynhesrwydd ei gariad ei enw i’r Focolare, yr ‘aelwyd’ neu ‘bentan’ yn Eidaleg. 

Yr ‘allwedd i undod’ yw nid ein hymdrechion ein hunain neu ewyllys ond cariad at Iesu, ei ddarganfod Ef mewn ffordd arbennig mewn dioddefaint. Mynegodd sylfaenydd Mudiad Focolare, Chiara Lubich, y peth fel hyn: 

‘Daethom i wybod mai dioddefaint mwyaf Iesu a, felly, ei weithred fwyaf o gariad, oedd pan y profodd ymollyngiad gan y Tad ar y groes: ‘Fy Nuw, fy Nuw, pam yr wyt wedi fy ngadael?’. Cyffyrddodd hyn â ni i’r dyfnderoedd. A chymhellodd ein hoedran ifanc, ein brwdfrydedd, ond yn enwedig gras Duw ni i’w ddewis ef yn unig yn ei ymollyngiad, fel y modd i wireddu ein delfryd o gariad.’

Mae sawl ennyd yn ein bywydau pan rydym yn ein hunfan a heb wybod sut i symud ymlaen, sut i garu. Gallwn ddewis dweud ‘Ie, Iesu, rwy’n dy garu yma, nawr, fel hyn; yn y tywyllwch hwn, yn y camgymeriad hwn, yn yr ofn neu annifyrrwch hwn, yn fy methiant neu un eraill. Yn yr hyn sy’n ymddangos yn sefyllfa anobeithiol heb unrhyw ateb, rwyt Ti yma.’ Profiad aelodau’r Mudiad, a fy mhrofiad i, yw bod y dewis hwn o Iesu wedi ei adael, yn dod â heddwch ac yn trawsffurfio sefyllfaoedd mawr yn ogystal â bach. Yn rhannol ni sydd wedi ein newid, ond hefyd y mae beth sy’n ymddangos fel gwyrthiau atgyfodiad. 

Hanes

Cafodd Mudiad Focolare ei eni yng nghanol dinistr yr Ail Ryfel Byd. Teimlodd menyw ifanc o dref Trent yng ngogledd yr Eidal o’r enw Chiara Lubich alwad i ddilyn Duw.

Pan seiniai’r seirenau cyrchoedd awyr byddai hi a’i ffrindiau’n rhedeg i’r llochesau, gan fynd â chopi o’r efengylau gyda hwy. Nid oeddent yn gwybod faint o amser oedd ganddynt i fyw a dechreuon nhw weithredu’r geiriau hyn. Ymwelsant â’r rhai sâl a thlawd a rhannu eu meddiannau gyda hwy, gan brofi cariad a haelioni Duw gan gwaith. Pan roedd rhywun mewn angen gofynnon nhw i Dduw am yr angen hwnnw a chyrhaeddodd y nwyddau. Fesul un daeth geiriau’r efengyl yn fyw a deallon nhw nad llyfr i’w ddarllen yn unig ydoedd ond rhywbeth i’w fyw. Daeth byw ‘Gair y Bywyd’ a rhannu’r profiadau ohono yn agwedd allweddol ar y bywyd ac mae’n dal i fod i’r rheiny sy’n byw ysbrydolrwydd undod. 

Ar ôl y rhyfel lledaenodd y ffordd hon o fyw i rannau eraill o’r Eidal a thu hwnt -  i Liwtheriaid o’r Almaen, Calfiniaid yn y Swistir, Anglicaniaid o’r DU, Cristnogion Uniongred yn Nhwrci, pob un ohonynt wedi darganfod yn y Gristnogaeth hon wedi ei byw yn seiliedig ar efengyl ffordd o fyw oedd yn apelio atynt hefyd. 

Cefais fy magu yn yr Eglwys Anglicanaidd yn Lloegr a chefais fy nghyflwyno yn gyntaf i ysbrydolrwydd Focolare pan oeddwn i’n 11 oed. Roeddwn i newydd gael fy mharatoi ar gyfer conffyrmasiwn, ac roeddwn i’n cael fy nenu’n ddwfn gan eu neges o gariad at ein gilydd. Ymddangosai mor syml ac amlwg. Roedd yn ffordd o fod yn Gristion y gallai unrhyw un fyw. Yn fy nosbarthiadau conffyrmasiwn nid oedd neb wedi fy nysgu mai’r peth cyntaf a phwysicaf yw i garu. Ceisiais droi’r neges syml ond radicalaidd hon yn weithred. Deuthum yn fwy amyneddgar gyda fy chwiorydd, yn fwy cynorthwyol at fy rhieni, yn ddewrach gyda fy ffrindiau. Roedd fel dod o hyd i’r perl gwerthfawr y mae rhywun yn barod i adael popeth amdani, yn gudd ond yn glir i’w gweld. 

Yn y 1950au a’r 1960au cafodd dimensiwn eciwmenaidd y Focolare ei eni. Cafodd hyn ei ddilyn yn y 1970au gan berthnasau dyfnach gyda phobl o grefyddau eraill. Roedd y Focolare wedi cael eu gwahodd yn barod i’r Camerŵn, Gorllewin Affrica, yn ystod Ail Gyngor y Fatican yn y 1960au. Agoron nhw orsaf genhadaeth gydag ysgol, ysbyty a gweithdai yn Fontem yn Lebialem.  Yno daethon nhw i adnabod a pharchu llawer o arferion diwylliannol a chrefyddol traddodiadol Bangwa. Mae’r neges o gariad ac undod hefyd yn apelio at Hindwiaid, Moslemiaid, Bwdhyddion – at bobl o bob ffydd a heb ffydd. Gan mai’r gorchymyn cyntaf yw nid i droi ond i garu, nid oes neb yn cael eu heithrio. 

Yn y cymunedau Focolare niferus sydd wedi tyfu o gwmpas y byd, ac yn yr ymgynulliadau gwyliau dros dro, a’r ddau yn cael eu hadnabod fel ‘Mariapolis’ neu ‘Ddinas Mair’, yr unig gyfraith yw i garu ein gilydd. Er bod llawer o brosiectau cymdeithasol yn cael eu gweithredu gan aelodau’r Mudiad Focolare – mae busnesau yn rhedeg ar egwyddorion cymunedol, cyfarfodydd mawr a bach i bobl o wahanol oedrannau, galwedigaethau a chefndiroedd – mae’r neges yn dal yr un peth: ein bod oll yn un teulu a bod dynoliaeth gyfan wedi cael ei galw i fod yn unedig – nid i fod yr un peth, yn ddiwahaniaeth – ond i fyw mewn parch at ein gilydd a deialog mewn cymdeithas yn seiliedig ar gariad.

I mi, a phawb sy’n ceisio byw ysbrydolrwydd undod, yr addewid a’r her ddyddiol yw i gredu mewn cariad.

Diolch yn fawr!

Slave States by Yasin Kakande

An important looking new book by Yasin Kakande, a Ugandan who worked for more than a decade as a journalist in the Gulf. The text is taken from the John Hunt publishing press release. Even if you don't read the book, the description of it below gives a taste of what Kakande uncovered about the mistreatment of migrant workers.

New book by former Middle East journalist exposes widespread abuses of the Kafala migrant worker sponsorship program in the Gulf Arab region

A new book by a Ugandan native who has been a Middle East journalist for more than a decade documents numerous shocking abuses of the Kafala sponsorship system in the Gulf Arab region that the author says constitute ‘pure slavery’ for millions of migrant workers who sustain the vital infrastructure in some of the world’s most celebrated and wealthiest economies.

Scheduled for release next month, Slave States: The Practice of Kafala in the Gulf Arab Region (Zero Books, John Hunt Publishing) by Yasin Kakande includes many individual stories that connect and lead to an understanding of just how the Kafala system became institutionalized as a societal mechanism of exploitation on an unprecedented breadth and depth of scope in Dubai, Qatar and other member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

“To many in and, most certainly, outside of the region, the system is unfamiliar, especially where the media – operating precariously and frequently compromising the fundamental ethical tenets of journalistic obligations – always hesitate and often refuse to give voice or visibility to the extent of abuse that has come to frame Kafala sponsorship in one of the world’s most progressive and economically developed nations,” Kakande says.“There are many delicate, fragile, and intricate mechanisms to preserve a status quo in Qatar, for example, where few would ever dare to entertain the idea of acknowledging the system’s most insidious flaws and injustices.”

Kakande was expelled from Dubai after his first book The Ambitious Struggle: An African Journalist's Journey of Hope and Identity in a Land of Migrants(Florida Academic Press, 2013) was published, which received considerable international attention from groups such as Reporters Without Borders, Radio France International, and international migrant rights organizations. 

He returned to Qatar to work as a journalist shortly afterward where he worked on this newest book. He left Qatar voluntarily and returned to Uganda without incident after he completed the manuscript for Slave States.

Kakande says the impetus for his second book became more urgent after Qatar won The Fédération Internationale de Football Association bid to host the 2022 World Cup and Dubai earned the honors to host the global Expo 2020. Even among journalists who are expected to be fair and balanced in their work, it is considered politically risky and professionally insensitive to criticize the underpinnings by which Qatar and Dubai had come to their good fortune, he recalls. And, another GCC nation, Saudi Arabia plays host regularly to the largest religious ritual gathering in the world (Hajj) but, as Kakande explains,“its appalling mistreatment of poor foreign workers has never abated and the Kafala system remains securely in place. With the sonorous texts of Islam calling for justice and equality of all human beings, regardless of their race or country of origin, the continued implementation of Kafala in the holy lands is the gravest insult to Islam.”

The book offers a brief history of Kafala and the power of the sponsors’ lobby which has worked aggressively to sustain the system even as serious moral challenges to its continuing existence are raised, while adding the parallels describing the perils immigrants face as they seek work in Qatar and neighboring GCC countries and those who remain in the shadows because of their undocumented status. Focusing on the second-class status of immigrants under Kafala sponsorship, Kakande documents societal discrimination that borders on humiliation and indecency and how societal exclusion is enforced through punitive threats and strict controls that prevent migrant workers from traveling freely and safely at their own will.  These include instances of employment fraud, wage theft, limited means for resolving contract disputes, frustrating bureaucracy, and, more broadly, institutional racism fortified by hate propaganda, stigmatization and subjugation that are rarely challenged with any rigor or clarity by the local or national media.He reports that even cases involving violence and murder are persistently framed in a way that demonizes immigrants, especially when the evidence would suggest that employers and sponsors were irresponsible about their own legal obligations.

However, the abuses do not end there, according to Kakande. The book includes accounts about how the most basic emotional, sexual, and personal rights of immigrants are controlled and ignored. And, he reports on prostitution and human trafficking that occur with alarming frequency that should upend the most popularly conceived notions about moral decency and strictness in the Gulf Arab region. Kakande ends the book with his own experience as an immigrant employee (journalist) and how rigorously sustained press censorship thwarts even the capacity to ask simple questions about the propriety of a sponsorship system that has undermined the most basic principles and tenets of a faith and culture that has defined the long history of the Gulf Arab region.

"Kakande's expose of the seamy side of life in the Gulf is an important counterweight to the free pass the GCC gets in the Western press. Oil corrupts, and the oil alliance that the West has with primitive tribal 'emirates' and the Saudi kingdom has poisoned world politics for long enough. Time for a new world order, where the practice of kafala plays no part,” said Eric Walberg, author of the Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games.

Eckart Woertz, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and author of /Oil for Food/ also commented on Slave States saying, “In this moving and inconvenient account Yasin Kakande makes a compelling case for labor rights, press freedom and a reform of the kafala-sponsorship system."

About the author

A native of Uganda, Yasin Kakande has been a Middle East journalist for more than a decade. He has worked for the Abu Dhabi-based The National newspaper as the correspondent for the northern Emirates. He also has worked as a news producer for City 7 TV in Dubai, a features writer for the Khaleej Times, and as a reporter and assistant editor for the Bahrain Tribune. He currently works as a translator for The Peninsular newspaper in Doha, Qatar and has done several freelance assignments for international distribution.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in mass communication from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and a master of business administration degree in marketing from the United Arab Emirates branch of the U.S.-based Preston University. He is fluent in English, Arabic and Swahili.