Of Sow’s Ears and Silk Purses Part 2: Through Heartbreak to Hope

This week has seen two high-profile, tragic incidents in the news.  First the hostage crisis and 16 hour siege in Sydney in which 2 people were killed, and then the attack on the school in Pakistan, in which 132 children and 9 teachers were killed, and 125 others were wounded.  Both of these were, at least ostensibly, religiously motivated actions, although I suspect that political motivations were just as significant, and it seems as though in the latter event, revenge played a greater part than either.

Both were carried out by Muslims, the first by a lone individual, the second by a group acting as part of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban.  There has been very little positive news regarding Muslims making headlines recently, and as a result it’s increasingly easy to immediately think of Muslims when one hears the word ‘terrorist’ or ‘extremist’.  As a result, the Muslim community, both here in the UK, and across the world hardly needs more bad publicity, and the vast moderate majority must be despairing, as well as shocked and outraged by what, certainly in the second case at least, can only be called atrocities.

But on top of this must be a great sense of apprehension, even fear.  After all, when Lee Rigby was murdered by Muslim fanatics in the UK, there was a surge of anti-Muslim feeling, with mosques vandalised and Muslims verbally abused in the streets.  It will be sad, but ultimately unsurprising if these recent events don’t cause similar reactions in various places.

It is incredibly heartening then to see that people have already taken steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen, or at least try and limit it as much as possible.  In Australia, #i’llridewithu trended on Twitter.  The idea was for people to offer to accompany visibly identifiable Muslims on public transport to help protect them from any abuse that might be triggered by the events in Sydney.  To what extent this has worked, or was even necessary I don’t know, but it shows a very encouraging response, a level of understanding rather than scapegoating or generalising.  It would have been good if such a thing had occurred here in the aftermath of the Lee Rigby murder.  I hope that next time, and I fear that there will be many next times, something similar will be seen.

In India, the traditional rival and foe of Pakistan, and between whom there is a large amount of very bad feeling which has festered for decades, #IndiawithPakistan began trending on Twitter, as people in India responded to the attack on the school with an outpouring of sympathy and compassion.  It is far too much to hope that this tragedy might lead to a greater reconciliation between the two countries, but it does at least emphasise the fact that people are not their governments, and that historical enemies can be united, albeit briefly, by grief.

These acts were acts of evil, but as is often the case, some good has come of them.  If it can be sustained and repeated, if forgiveness and understanding can replace bitterness and vengefulness, then much will have been achieved.  They may seem like small, insignificant things in the face of massacres and killings, but it is the many tiny, individually insignificant acts of kindness, forgiveness and love that counterbalance the monolithic evils of the world.  Better that they’d never happened at all, but if evil must occur, and I believe that in our world it must always be possible, then we must strive to ensure that at least as much good comes out of it too.

Last Sunday, before either of these events occurred, the church I attend printed the following prayer in its notices as the Prayer of the Week:

Through Heartbreak to Hope

The assignment is clear:

Bind up the broken, proclaim life restored.

Always be joyful!

Sing a song of hope;

Offer it to the world regardless of ears to hear it.

Lord, keep me fixed on the coming light,

Just visible through the haze of my tears.

Lord, clothe me in hope,

The garment of splendour for a heavy heart.

Amen.

Narrative, Storytelling and the Art of Terrible Puns

Warning:  Mild to moderate amounts of writerly pretension below.  May contain nuts.  To avoid suffocation, keep away from small children.

One of my hobbies is fencing, scientifically proven to be the Best Sport.  Once a week I attend Milton Keynes Fencing Club, where I get to repeatedly stab other people with a sword and call it exercise.  As the saying goes, ‘it’s all fun and games once somebody loses an eye’.

However, I have, for reasons not wholly clear to myself, acquired a reputation within the club as a teller of incredibly bad jokes.  I’m not sure that these accusations can be sustained in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  I mean, yes, alright, I have told them The Prawn Joke, The Butcher Dance Joke, The Assistant Zookeeper Joke, even The Landlord’s Dog joke.  And yes, I stretch them out, embellishing and extending them to squeeze every last iota of enjoyment out of them.  The Prawn Joke lasted a full fifteen minutes.

However, the fact remains that I do not launch into these tales unsolicited.  My victi- uh, audience have reached the point where they actually ask for them, and I am always happy to oblige, having delivered a cautionary disclaimer regarding the satisfactory nature of the end result.  An entire psychological thesis on humour-based Stockholm Syndrome is here for the taking! 

The thing is, I really enjoy telling these jokes.  Part of it is the sadistic joy of getting to the punchline, and seeing in their faces the slow realisation that you’ve just taken ten or fifteen minutes of their life, and they’re never getting it back.  However, there is also the pure enjoyment of a story well told, an unfolding narrative that holds the listeners’ attention until the final moment.  I’ve been asked how I remember every single detail, and the fact is that I don’t.  I haven’t memorised these things word for word.  I know the overall plot, and I know the punchline, but all of the details are made up as I go along, each time I tell the joke.  Obviously they are always very similar, but nonetheless, not identical.  People ask why I bother to elaborate and extend them the way I do, when it would be possible to tell the story and deliver the punchline in a far briefer and more utilitarian way.  I daresay I could tell The Prawn Joke in less than a minute, but the punchline wouldn’t have the weight and momentum of the longer narrative behind it; it would be little more than a tap.  Including the details, acting out the dialogue, making stuff up on the fly to enrich the plot all add to both my (and maybe even their) enjoyment of the story, and the height of the drop when the joke finally ends.

For my birthday this year, I received the Baron Munchausen Roleplay Game.  It’s not a true RPG in the usual sense.  Instead, players take on the roles of 18^th century nobles, and take turns to tell extravagant tales in the style of the Baron himself, prompted by the other players.  I’ve only had the opportunity to play it once since I got it, but it allows for the same quick off-the-cuff storytelling as the long jokes, coming up with details on the fly.  In a way, it’s similar to running more conventional RPGs, and having to adapt your story and the actions and reactions of the non-player characters to those of the players, reacting in real time to what can potentially be sudden changes in direction.  It’s one of the things I love best about running games like this.

Not all art is beautiful, but not all art has to be.  Not all jokes are good, but it doesn’t have to mean that they have no merit of their own as exercises in storytelling.

By the way, if you are unfamiliar with any of the jokes mentioned above and want to learn more, when you have a spare hour or so, let me know and I’ll happily remedy this sad lack in your education.  Believe me, you will consider it time well spent!

Mild Extremism?

Firstly, I’d better apologise for not posting before now.  I’ve said before that I try not to fill this blog with inanities, and only post something when I feel I have something worth posting.  To what extent I’ve succeeded in this only you, dear reader, can honestly say.  However, the point stands that it’s now some time since my last post, and I thought I’d better do something about it.

Over the last few months, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the rhetoric of the government.  We have, for many years now, had the rhetoric of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ thrown at us frequently and repeatedly.  We’ve had the ‘War on Terror’ and ‘Counter-Terrorism’, ‘Threat Levels’ and various laws and acts passed to prevent the propagation, planning and committing of acts of terrorism.

Now, to me terms like ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ are hazy enough.  After all, as the saying goes, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.  However, it is easy to agree that blowing up cars and buildings and attacking people with guns and machetes is a Bad Thing, and to be strongly discouraged.  Whether that means more stringent application of existing laws covering the blowing up of buildings and cars and attacking people with guns and machetes, or whether brand new ‘anti-terrorism’ laws need drafting is a matter of personal taste.

However, recently, the rhetoric has changed slightly.  I hear the term ‘terrorist’ less, and find that it is being replaced with the term ‘extremist’, and ‘terrorism’ with ‘extremism’.  The Home Secretary wants to bring in new laws to counter extremism.  We’ve seen Ofsted charged with countering extremism in schools, and universities charged with watching for signs of extremism in their students.

If ‘terrorism’ seems like a hazy term, how much more then is ‘extremism’?  What does it mean?  It’s currently taken generally to mean religious extremism, maybe even specifically Muslim extremism, but of course could also include political extremism.  But what do even these terms mean?  A terrorist is a person who carries out acts of terrorism, defined by the OED as “The unofficial or unauthorised use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims”.  Fair enough.  But what is extremism?  Again, I turn to the OED:  “The holding of extreme political or religious views.”

Without wishing to spill into lazy Orwellian rhetoric of my own, can we really justify taking measures to prevent the holding of certain views?  Are we now willing to police the beliefs and opinions of our people, even before they turn into actions?  I understand that our police need all the warning they can get to help avert potential tragedies, and knowing who it is that hold such views could be useful, but surely holding them cannot be a crime in and of itself?  And who decides what views are ‘extreme’  The armchair jihadi who thinks all non-Muslims should be killed?  Probably.  The animal rights activist who thinks that vivisectionists should all be vivisectioned?  Quite possibly.  The Ku Klux Klan member who thinks that all non-white people should be subjugated and enslaved, or the café anarchist who thinks that the government should be brought crashing down?  Maybe.  The Christian who thinks that all non-Christians are damned to eternal torment?  Barely, even if they go out on the street to tell everyone all about it in the most offensive fashion.  What about the milder Christian, who thinks that Christianity is the only true way to God, even if they don’t hold with the bit about eternal torment?  How about the one who refuses to make a cake bearing a slogan lobbying for gay marriage?

And can we truly justify prosecuting even the first two or three examples?  If the armchair jihadi airs his opinion that all non-Muslims should be killed, he strays close to breaking the laws against inciting religious hatred (which I am not totally comfortable with either), but talking is not doing.  Making the holding of certain beliefs or opinions illegal is a very dangerous step, and one that the government seems almost eager to do, all in the name of ‘security’.

This is not the first time in our country’s history that we have faced the threat of religiously motivated violence, but as Queen Elizabeth I famously said at the time, “I have no desire to make windows into mens’ souls”.  Our current government apparently does, and it makes me worry very much.