Occupying Royal Holloway

Posted on by symonhill

This evening I have had the privilege of speaking with students at Royal Holloway College in the University of London. They today began an occupation of their college, camping outside the Principal’s office and calling on him to oppose the government’s agenda for higher education.

I gave two talks at the college. The first, which was planned weeks ago, was a talk about my walk of repentance for homophobia. I’d been invited by the Students’ Union, Chaplaincy and Catholic Society. It was great to have an engaged and diverse audience, with interesting and challenging questions from (among others) a Muslim and at least two Catholics and members of the college’s LGBT Society.

The second talk was much more spontaneous. Some of the students involved in the occupation, which began this afternoon, asked me to go and speak to them. I was honoured. I wasn’t sure what they wanted me to say, but as they gathered round in the corridor, I spoke about my delight at the outbreak of active nonviolence over the last year. I encouraged them to resist the lies and misconceptions that would be spread about them and shared some thoughts and experience. As with the people at the first talk, I also had much to learn from the questions and comments with which they responded.

I was inspired by the enthusiasm, sense and detailed commitment of these people.

Students listened to each other, including on occasions when they did not agree. They seemed to be working well together to organise things effectively. They have allocated one room (the Principal’s Meeting Room) as a quiet study area, where students who have essays to write or research to do can go and work in silence. There was a steady stream of people with books and laptops going in and out. There seems to be a careful allocation of space. There was a quieter area dedicated for sleeping. Bins are divided for paper recycling, plastic recycling and general rubbish.

The diversity of students present was a challenge to the assumption that student activists are a small minority of eccentrics who get no real interest from the main student body. There appeared to be a gender and racial balance and the diversity of clothing did not live up to stereotypes of activist hippies.

The two talks I gave this evening were about different subjects, but the links between them are becoming ever clearer to me. Sexual ethics and economic ethics are closely linked. Tackling homophobia and resisting economic injustice are both part of a wider struggle to challenge a world in which people are encouraged to relate to each other on the basis of power, prejudice, money or convention. As a Christian, I believe we are called to relationships – whether personal or political – based on love, justice and mutuality. This is a challenge to both legalism and selfishness.

I am often accused of being too optimistic, particularly about politics. But I find it hard to imagine my reaction if someone had told me after last year’s general election that there would be an outbreak of active nonviolence in the coming year and a half. If they had told me that people would peacefully occupy the shops of tax-dodging corporations, that student activists would occupy universities across the UK in protest at tuition fees and that there would be a global movement of nonviolent occupations targeting financial centres, I would probably have laughed in their face.

In some ways, there are many reasons to be pessimistic about the future. Economies are in crisis across Europe. The UK government is responding with a vicious assault on public services and the welfare state.

But as I sat in that corridor at Royal Holloway tonight, I was reminded that there is another way. That the government’s assault on the working class and lower middle class is being met with resistance. That people from Cairo to Wall Street have inspired the world to stand up to injustice. That the power of money and markets will never understand or suppress the power of love manifested in active nonviolence.

No longer can radical campaigns be dismissed as the preserve of eccentric minorities. The breadth of support for Occupy Royal Holloway was very clear. While I was there, the Roman Catholic Chaplain spoke and offered his solidarity. For me, one of the most encouraging comments came from a security guard, as he wandered over to listen to the discussions. He told us he was glad to be working the evening shift because “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world”.

Speaking about my walk of repentance

Posted on by symonhill

Since July, when I finished my pilgrimage of repentance for homophobia, I’ve been a bit taken aback by the number of requests I’ve received to give talks about it. I’m really chuffed that so many people are interested!  

In the talks I’ve given so far, I’ve been both encouraged and challenged by the questions and conversation. I hope that the other people there have got as much out of the events as I have. Many thanks to the people who have organised the events I’ve spoken at so far – at Courage UK, the Greenbelt festival, the Student Christian Movement, Southampton University, St Mark’s Church, Sheffield and City United Reformed Church, Cardiff.

Please click here to see a new page giving details of that I’m giving as well as other events I’m involved in.  

Over the next few days, I’ll be discussing my walk on three occasions: 

Firstly, at 6.00pm on Wednesday (30 November) at Royal Holloway, University of London (just west of London). See http://www.su.rhul.ac.uk/news/article/6001/337/ or visit the Facebook event. 

Secondly, at 7.30pm on Thursday (1 December) at the Chaplaincy at Warwick University (in Coventry). See http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/sunion/christianfocus/termcard/?calendarItem=094d43923295cfef0132b0a321366148.

Thirdly, as part of my sermon at All Hallows Church, Leeds at 10.30am on Sunday (4 December). See http://www.allhallowsleeds.org.uk/.  

I’m very much looking forward to them all! If you would like to know more, please feel free to email me at symonhill@gmail.com.

How the Guardian made me gay

Posted on by symonhill

I’m used to reading inaccurate things about myself on the internet, but I had a surprise last week when reading an inaccurate description of myself in an article which I had written.

It was a piece for the Guardian website about the controversy over Benetton’s use of an image of the Pope. One line of the article (as it originally appeared) began, “As a gay Christian…”.

I’m not gay. I describe myself as queer. If you want to fit me into one of three narrow categories (and I’d rather you didn’t), then I could be described as bisexual (the majority of people I find attractive are female, but some are male).

Of course, there are various places on the internet in which I’m described as gay. On the whole, this doesn’t offend me. It’s just an inaccuracy, in the same way as if they said I was Scottish, left-handed or six foot tall. When I am offended is when people who know I’m not straight assume that I’m gay, as if there were only two possible sexual orientations.

On this occasion, I had written in the article (as it read when I submitted it to the Guardian), “As a queer Christian…”. I suspect the Guardian style guidelines regard the word “queer” as offensive, and so it was changed. Unfortunately, they assumed that “queer” meant “gay” and so substituted the word without asking me.

I’m aware that sub-editors have to read and edit a vast amount of material, often in a short space of time. I don’t object to my work being edited and I recognise that mistakes will sometimes be made. The Guardian changed the wording back to “queer” when I asked, and put a note at the bottom clarifying the issue. They sent me an email to apologise.

I understand that many people are still offended by the word “queer”, which has often been used as a term of abuse. I think it’s different when it is a matter of self-definition. Furthermore, “queer” is not a synonym for “gay” – or even for “gay or bisexual”. It can include, for example, people who are genderqueer (who consider that they don’t fit into binary categories of male and female) as well as others who challenge the boundaries commonly used to categorise sexuality or gender.

For convenience and ease of communication, I am happy to call myself “bisexual”, but when I do so, I feel I am going along with narrow categories. When I call myself “queer”, I am breaking free of them.

An open letter to Christian Concern

Posted on by symonhill

I have today written to Christian Concern, a lobby group opposed to same-sex marriage. I decided to do so in response to claims they have made regarding a change in the law announced this week.

The government has announced that the ban on civil partnerships taking place in religious premises will be lifted on 5 December. This is good news for those of us who campaigned for and supported this change, and it’s been a long time coming. The change was approved by Parliament in the Equality Act, passed in April 2010. It’s taken the coalition government this long to implement it.

The change does not go far enough. This is not same-sex marriage. It still does not provide all people with equality before the law, regardless of their gender, sexuality, religious or non-religious views.

The Equality Bill, rightly, makes very clear that no church or other faith group should be obliged to host same-sex partnerships if they do not believe in them. Despite this, Christian Concern claimed in a press release on Wednesday that ”It is almost certain that homosexual campaigners will commence litigation against churches that refuse”.

I have sent the following email to Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern.

 

Dear Andrea and colleagues,

Thank you for your press release giving Christian Concern’s views on the change in the law with regard to civil partnerships on religious premises.

You’re probably aware that this is a subject on which we disagree, although I of course respect your right to a different view, as well as your right to put out statements expressing your own views. I think this is important for free speech and religious liberty.

Please can you explain the following sentence in your press release? ”It is almost certain that homosexual campaigners will commence litigation against churches that refuse”.  This claim appears early on in your press release and was quoted in today’s Church Times. 

Please can you let me know of any campaign groups, or individual campaigners, of whom you are aware, who are planning to take such action, or have discussed the possibility of doing so? 

When campaigning for a change in the law, I strongly emphasised my conviction that no church or other faith group should be required to carry out ceremonies in which they do not believe. As far as I’m aware, this is the position of every religious group that has campaigned for this change. In terms of non-religious campaigners, I know that Peter Tatchell is against any attempt to force churches to host civil partnerships or carry out same-sex weddings. I am aware that Ben Summerskill of Stonewall made a vague comment along the lines of “this may change”, with regard to the right of faith groups not to host same-sex ceremonies. But this is not Stonewall policy and I am not aware of him having taken the idea further. This is very different to anyone planning to “commence litigation”.

Your release asserts that litigation is not merely possible or even likely, but “almost certain”. Such a claim cannot realistically be sustained unless you are aware of a campaign group or campaigner seriously considering legal action. If you can provide me with the name or names of such a group or campaigner, then I will readily admit that  the statement is not necessarily inaccurate. If you cannot do so, I hope you will recognise that it is misleading, and therefore apologise and withdraw the claim.

I look forward to hearing from you. 

Shalom,

Symon 

Christian solidarity with Occupy London

Posted on by symonhill

A number of groups have now signed a statement of Christian solidarity with the Occupy London movement. I’m delighted to say that the statement has been welcomed by both Christians and non-Christians involved in the occupations near the London Stock Exchange.

Signatories so far are Ekklesia, Christianity Uncut and the London Catholic Worker, although we’re confident that others will join in soon. The statement has been welcomed on the Occupy London website.

The statement can be read below.

 

Christian solidarity with the ‘Occupy London’ movement 

As Christians, we stand alongside people of all religions and none who are resisting economic injustice with active nonviolence. We offer our greetings to people engaged in occupations of financial centres throughout the world.

We seek to witness to the love and justice of God, proclaimed by Jesus Christ. Jesus said that he had come to “set free the oppressed”. His gospel is good news for all people. It is a challenge to all structures, systems, practices and attitudes that lead people to exploit and oppress their fellow human beings.

The global economic system divides people one from another and separates humanity from creation. It perpetuates the wealth of the few at the expense of the many. It fuels violence and environmental destruction. It is based on idolatrous subservience to markets. We cannot worship both God and money.

We are inspired by Jesus, who protested against exploitative traders and moneychangers in the Jerusalem Temple. Christianity began as a grassroots protest movement. Nonviolent direct action can play an important and ethical role in resisting injustice and achieving change.

We stand in solidarity with the ‘Occupy London’ movement and regret that they have not been able to make their protest closer to the London Stock Exchange. We applaud their commitment to co-operating with St Paul’s Cathedral and to ensuring that their camp is safe for everyone in the vicinity. We were pleased by the cathedral’s initial welcome to the camp and hope that difficulties between the occupiers and the cathedral can be speedily resolved, keeping the focus on the need to challenge the financial injustices perpetuated by the City of London.

Would Jesus kick the ‘Occupy London’ protesters off the St Paul’s Cathedral grounds?

Posted on by symonhill

I wrote a piece for the Guardian on this issue on Thursday (20 October). It can be read online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/occupy-london-st-pauls-christianity. This was before St Paul’s Cathedral had closed and asked protesters to leave.

These dodgy practices go way beyond Fox and Werrity

Posted on by symonhill

It’s happened at last. Liam Fox, one of the most gung-ho militarists ever to occupy the post of Defence Secretary, has returned to the backbenches. All the excuses and half-truths his supporters could come up with have not saved him. But his departure will be largely pointless if we don’t learn a great deal from the Werrity scandal. When it comes to dodgy practices involving arms lobbyists and the Ministry of Defence, Adam Werrity is only the tip of the iceberg.

Adam Werrity appears to have lobbied Fox on behalf of arms-related companies without civil servants present. Whether the presence of civil servants would have made any difference is open to debate. The MoD’s tendency to lobby for the interests of arms dealers is now widely recognised. Labour’s shadow trade minister Wilf Stevenson (a member of the House of Lords) referred to it only last month, describing the situation as “bonkers”.

There is a revolving door between government and the arms trade, allowing a string of former ministers, civil servants and generals to retire to lucrative roles on the boards of arms companies. In 2006, multinational arms company BAE Systems used its influence on Tony Blair to ensure that they were effectively placed above the law, as Blair pressured the Serious Fraud Office into dropping a criminal investigation into BAE’s Saudi deals. Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote in his memoirs that the head of BAE had “the key to the garden door at Number Ten”.

On Sunday, it will be five years since I joined hundreds of other campaigners to surround the central London offices of the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), a unit of the MoD that promoted private arms companies. In a blatant example of a conflict of interest, DESO’s boss received both a civil service salary and a “top-up” payment from the arms industry.

DESO’s closure was announced by Gordon Brown’s government in 2007, following a long-running campaign by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other groups. The arms industry reacted with fury. They lobbied to ensure that DESO’s replacement was only slightly weaker. DESO’s functions were transferred to UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), a unit of the Department for Business that promotes British exports. UKTI now employs more staff in its arms section than in all civil sections combined – even though arms make up only 1.5% of UK exports.

This resignation is not enough. We need an end to the sort of practices demonstrated by Liam Fox and Adam Werrity. We need a thoroughgoing, genuinely independent inquiry, not only into the MoD but into all government relations with the arms industry.

This is about power. It is widely understood that arms dealers are helping to suppress human rights around the world with their supply of weapons. It is vital to realise that they are also undermining democracy in Britain with their excessive and corrupting influence at the heart of government.

Coming out as disabled

Posted on by symonhill

A few weeks ago, I was sorting through some old papers and came across my first ever published article. It was a piece on Christian attitudes towards mental health, published in the (now defunct) New Christian Herald in October 1998. I was 21. It was several years before I began to make my living from writing.

The topic may surprise people who are familiar with my more recent writing. I haven’t mentioned my mental health problems publicly for a long time. Today is World Mental Health Day, and it seems an appropriate time to talk about them. This is not least because people with mental health problems, like disabled people generally, are under attack from the ConDem government and its cuts agenda.

Ill health is real and can be experienced anywhere. The mental distress I experience is real. Just like physical pain, it can be found in any society and culture. I would much rather not have it. Pain, distress and impairments do not exist solely because of society or culture.

But do they lead to disability? What sort of disability? Whether an impairment is disabling is dependent on society.

A society that stops people with mobility impairments from accessing buildings is disabling them. A culture that treats deaf and blind people as objects of pity is disabling them. An employer that refuses to employ someone with dyslexia is disabling them.

We are disabled by society.

This understanding is commonly known as the social model of disability.

The right-wing press seem intent on further disabling large numbers of people by portraying them as scroungers. The government are forcing benefit claimants to be re-assessed by Atos. Atos know that the government want people to be thrown off benefits. Their willingness to find people fit for work would be comical if the consequences were not so horrific. I recently heard from a partially sighted woman who was told by Atos that she had “no difficulty seeing”. This was the first time that any test on her had reached this conclusion and she was deprived of benefits. In York, a woman was reportedly found fit for work despite being sectioned under the Mental Health Act at the time.

The evidence is not only anecdotal. Around 40% of appeals against Atos decisions have been successful.

David Cameron last week claimed that people had been able to receive disability benefits with “no questions asked”. This is a lie. It’s a measure of this government’s approach to society that it is now considered acceptable to demonise disabled people.

In my early twenties, I did a lot of campaigning on mental health issues. I co-founded the Churches’ Campaign for Awareness of Depression (CCAD). It was a short-lived organisation, but I still think it was worth it. Since then, I’ve campaigned on other issues – such as war, the arms trade, sexuality, education and economic inequality.

I’ve not avoided mentioning mental health, but it’s not been a major focus of my work. It’s still a vital issue in my life. I have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I experience anxiety and sometimes panic attacks. In the past, I had depression, but I’ve been very lucky and not experienced depression for some years. The severity and frequency of my mental health problems varies considerably. Sometimes I am really quite ill, while at other times my health is pretty good. I am usually somewhere in between.

My difficulties with mental ill-health have also varied a lot depending on the context of my life and work. When I worked office hours in Monday-Friday jobs, it was much harder to deal with my mental health than it is now that I am mostly freelance and can to a large extent manage my own time.

This style of work has a less disabling effect on me. I can, for example, work in the night if I can’t sleep. I can be more flexible about timing to include things that help my health, such as walking or talking with friends. Most people are not so lucky.

I am less disabled because I am not forced into work patterns that make me more ill. But I am still disabled by society’s prejudices, assumptions, structures and economic set-up. When I describe myself as disabled, I am not putting myself down or asking for pity, but describing my experience of society’s priorities.

It is no surprise that many people prefer not to mention health problems or impairments which are associated with prejudice. Some years ago, when desperately looking for work, I was reluctant to mention my mental health problems when applying for jobs. I don’t judge anyone for choosing not to do so.

But when we can identify ourselves as disabled, we take a stand against the structures that disable us. At this moment in particular, we speak out against the assault on disabled people perpetrated by Cameron and the Daily Mail. We make clear that we mention disability not as a cause of shame or pity, but out of a desire for social change.

Speaking in a different context, the gay US politician Harvey Milk said, “The most political thing you can do is come out”. Today, I am publicly coming out as disabled.

The parallel universe of David Cameron

Posted on by symonhill

Welcome to the parallel universe of David Cameron. It is a world in which the Tories stand up for the poor, lead the fight against dictatorship and stop people from being given benefits on demand. It is a world that exists in a conference hall in Manchester this week, in a few daily papers the rest of the time, and in the less well-informed parts of the right-wing blogosphere. It has nothing in common with the world that most of us live in.

The real story of David Cameron’s speech is the blunder that saw him removing his comments about credit card debt at the last minute. It appears to have taken his advisers a while to realise that being lectured on managing your personal finances by a multi-millionaire would not go down well with people struggling to make ends meet. Nor would the prospect of being told to give money to banks by politicians who have already bailed them out with billions of pounds of our money.

In terms of what Cameron did say, it is difficult to know where to start in pointing out the inaccuracies and half-truths. On at least one occasion, he told a straightforward lie. He said that people receiving disability benefits were ‘Not officially unemployed, but claiming welfare, no questions asked.’

What are these mythical benefits that are given to people without asking questions? My father was on disability benefits throughout the nineties. Many friends of mine have been on them since. All of them had not only to answer strings of questions but undergo tests and interviews, some of them ridiculously over-the-top, that in some cases made their health worse.

Cameron said, ‘Now we’re asking those questions’. He failed to mention that Atos, the company contracted to ‘ask the questions’ – and to re-assess people for ability to work – has done its job so badly that around 40% of appeals have been upheld. Atos’ approach makes clear that the government is interested in throwing as many people off benefits as possible.

Then there were Cameron’s comments on Gaddafi, for whose overthrow he appeared to take personal responsibility. The people of Libya might feel that they had something to do with it too. Cameron said that Labour were saying sorry for ‘sucking up to Gaddafi’ but nor for what ‘really’ mattered. The implication is that siding with Gaddafi is not a major problem. This would explain why Cameron’s government attempted to sell sniper rifles to the Gaddafi regime only weeks before the Libyan uprising began.

Cameron re-announced the government’s consultation on same-sex marriage. This was announced two weeks ago by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone. Indeed, a consultation had already been announced and Featherstone was effectively confirming that it had been postponed. She promised legal recognition of same-sex civil marriage by 2015. Throwing people off benefits can be done overnight, but marriage equality apparently takes a minimum of four years.

The more I read of Cameron’s speech, the more sickened I felt. But none of it quite compared to a comment made yesterday by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary. He claimed that the Conservative Party are ‘the party of the poor’.

This is the party of the poll tax, privatisation, mass unemployment and the great social housing sell-off. This is the party that is now leading an assault on the working class and lower middle class with policies that lead to increased homelessness, fewer jobs, lower pensions, worse public services and the abolition of benefits vital to disabled people.

The Tory Party’s core purpose has never varied over the last three hundred years. It exists to promote the interests of the rich. I’m sure that the Conservative Party includes compassionate individuals who genuinely believe that they are working for the best interests of society as a whole. But as institution, this is not how the Tory Party has worked. The Tories have opposed every major progressive policy ever introduced, from old age pensions at the beginning of the twentieth century, to the National Health Service in the 1940s, to the minimum wage fifty years later.

But Cameron and Duncan Smith are right about one thing: Labour is not the party of the poor. Labour presided over an increase in inequality. The ConDems are simply going further. Working class and lower middle class people are increasingly unrepresented by all three establishment parties. Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on these parties. Progressive political change does not start with politicians, but with ordinary people like us. It’s time to remember our own power.

The reality of BAE’s job cuts

Posted on by symonhill

I don’t claim to be an expert at making political predictions. Some of my predictions have been woefully off-course. But yesterday I made what must surely be the most precise political prediction of my life.

Speaking about the arms trade at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference, I was asked about the impact on jobs if the UK stopped exporting arms. I replied that even if arms exports are not reduced at all, arms industry jobs would gradually disappear from Britain, as companies such as BAE move employment to India and elsewhere. Later in the day, BAE confirmed nearly 3,000 job losses in the UK.

The redundancies are already being blamed on the government’s military cuts. The reality is that cuts to the military budget (or the “defence budget”, as its euphemistically known) have been relatively slight when compared to the coalition’s swingeing attacks on public services and the welfare state.

Furthermore, BAE have got form for being misleading about employment. When they signed a major deal with India last year, they said it would protect jobs at their Brough plant. Within months, they were announcing job losses at Brough. In 2006, when arms dealers were lobbying to end a criminal investigation into BAE, they claimed that the latest Saudi arms deal would provide 16,000 jobs in the UK (and both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph put the figure at 50,000). Once the deal was signed, BAE cynically announced that most of the jobs would be based in Saudi Arabia, with very few new jobs in the UK.

In this context, it would not be a surprise to hear an announcement from BAE pretty soon about the creation of new jobs in India or the USA. If this happens, it would be naive to think that this had no connection with the job losses in Britain.

There is no future in the arms industry. Apologists for the arms trade try to justify it by speaking of the number of jobs it creates (a tactic also used by supporters of the transatlantic slave trade over 200 years ago). In reality, the arms industry is subsidised with about £700million of taxpayers’ money every year. Future generations will look back in disbelief, unable to understand why, when faced with the horrors of climate change, we chose to throw millions into arms production. We could be using those millions, and the skills of thousands of British workers, to research and develop renewable energy and technologies that can help us to tackle the physical, economic and security threats resulting from climate change. Let’s start by retraining the workers that BAE have so callously thrown on the dole.

To read more on arms trade issues, please visit the Campaign Against Arms Trade website.