Dreaming of Freedom

It was extremely interesting hearing Ariane Sherine - talk about the Atheist Bus Campaign that she created last year. It’s always inspiring to hear about people who make a bit of a splash. The campaign was really encouraging for a lot of atheists out there and it’s great to see that they launched a bill board advertising campaign on Wednesday - targeting the concept of labeling children as religious or non-religious. See the image here. In a similar vein there is also an effort to campaign against faith schools that the BHS is running.
Find out a bit more about the funding of faith schools on the ATL site or on wikipedia. There is also an interesting dossier on Faith Schools
complied by the Accord Coalition.

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Yesterday I actually managed to play a bit of tennis with Jolien and Vanessa before heading to the Friends Meeting House to go to a Stop The War meeting on Afghanistan. The meeting was quite interesting - a chap from the National Office came down and they showed the new documentary called Timeline that John Rees has made.

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Everyday I hear on the news how many British soldiers have died in Afghanistan and how the military wants even more resources.

I continue to be appalled by the situation in Afghanistan. This is one of the poorest countries in the world. Years of occupation by Russia followed by the repressive religious regime of the Taliban, numerous humans rights abuses and three decades of civil war has made life unbearable there and forced many Afghans to leave the country. In 1999 Amnesty noted that the six million people (1/5 of the population) who had left between 1979 and 1992 had been unable to return due to continuing arrest.
I cannot imagine that bombardment and occupation by the US and GB can improve the situation at all. It seems the primary reason for involvement is that ‘Afghanistan [is] traditionally a perfect route for exporting oil and gas to Western countries’. The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline - a natural gas pipeline that will run through Afghanistan that has been on the cards since 1995. There was an oil pipeline proposed too.

Meanwhile how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan? No-one knows although estimates have been made and a dossier complied by not really reported in the western press. Brief glimpses into the horror of the situation demonstrate that the war has not improved things for civilians. In early 2002 Media Lens commented that the press was remiss about reporting that 100 civilians were dying every day in the Maslakh refugee camp to the west of Herat while keen to report other situations around the world.

Since 2002, more than 5 million Afghans have returned to their country, primarily due to massive repatriation operations but about 3 million remain refugees. Inside the country there are tens of thousands of internally displaced persons. The problems that led to people leaving their homes have not been solved and although the government has international support there is massive insecurity in the country and humanitarian aid is often prevented from getting to people. At ‘the end of 2007, there were almost 3.1 million Afghan refugees, or 27 per cent of the global refugee population.’ Although they could be found in 72 asylum countries worldwide, a massive 96% majority were in Pakistan and Iran. What is more ‘Iraqis were the second largest group, with 2.3 million having sought refuge mainly in neighbouring countries’. UHCR Statistics

The wars in the Middle East are causing massive problems for civilians - not solving them. In March of this year the UNHCR said that ‘Iraqis continued to be the largest nationality seeking asylum in the industrialized world’ and that Afghanistan ‘recording a significant rise in applications’. And according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon ‘civilian deaths resulting from armed hostilities between insurgents, the US military, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and government forces have increased by 24 percent so far this year compared to the same period in 2008′.

What does the UN say?
What Refugees International says.

In the good news section - the Viva Palestina convoy, which was held in Cario for 10 days has been allowed in Gaza.

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I went to see the fireworks last night on Parker’s Piece. It wasn’t a massive display but it was nice. Afterwards Andy and I wandered the cute little streets of Cambridge which were surprisingly busy. After a much needed lie in today I went into the center to the Sedgwick Museum to see Pif-Paf perform their short play Under The Floorboards which was all about important 19th century figures in Geology and what they discovered that contributed to our understanding of geology and the formation of the earth. They ended the play by telling us we were entering an era of human made geology which left a million questions buzzing in all our heads.

Andy and I spent the rest of the day buying him a bike on the ‘bike to work scheme’. It sounds like a great idea - people are encouraged to ride bikes to work and the money to buy your bike is taken out of your wages and you benefit by not paying tax or national insurance on it. The downside is that your employer gets to decide where you can get your bike and Halfords isn’t a great choice. Most of the customers in the bike department were clutching their bike to work vouchers with a sort of manic desperation. I was left undecided as to whether they really did need a tax break on their bikes or they just wanted it because it seemed like a really good higher purchase scheme. Perhaps the air of desperation was due to being in Halfords which is possibly the worst place to buy a bike from. I am convinced that the lack of choice of where you buy your bike from is a major drawback of this scheme. Halfords has an expensive and unimpressive range of bikes, it was chronically understaffed and the staff seemed to have a total lack of passion about bikes. Give me a little bike shop any day, where people know what they are talking about and can offer you real and valuable advice.

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It was a busy week last week. Work ate a huge chunk of every day and then the evenings were spent cycling backwards and forwards to the letting agent to sort out the flat key and other such neccessities. I did manage to get out a bit and squeezed in a Stop The War meeting at the CB2 Cafe on Monday evening. On Thursday Andy and I wandered around the centre of cambridge, stopping for chips at the Greek Fish and Chip Shop, tea at the Copper Kettle, a bottle of cider at one of the many river side pubs and a plastic cup of lemonade at The Mill.

I then spent the entire weekend moving, lugging boxes, bags and flat packed tables around. I couldn’t have done it without Mum. By midnight on Sunday we were dropping with exhaustion as the adrenalin wore off but we nipped off the the train station to collect Tim so we could hear all about his trip to Vancouver.

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While catching up on this weeks Colbert Report I was saddened to find Stephen Colbert appears to have gone over to Iraq not only to entertain the troops but also to provide us with some good old war propaganda. So far on the show he has had Obama, Bush No.1, Clinton, Biden and Palin give short amusing cockle warming speeches to the troops. He has had the Iraq Deputy Prime Minter on congratulating the Americans for invading the country to save them from tyranny and genocide. Meanwhile there has been nothing on the number of people killed due to the illegal invasion. Nor has there been any mention of torture, use of depleted uranium or the use of white phosphorus. He has not mentioned the sanctions that devastated the country for a decade between the two Iraq wars. Colbert in his brief history of Iraq totally failed to mention that the USA funded and supported Saddam Hussein. While it is true that the people of Iraq are better off without an oppressive ruler like Hussein - for Colbert to only focus on that aspect of the situation amounts to pro war propaganda. It doesn’t take long to mention the facts - check out Chomsky’s succinct summery of them.
I noticed there wasn’t a whole lot of discussion on the web although one blogger has talked about it.

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Swedish humanists have put up adverts around Sweden proclaiming ‘God probably doesn’t exist’ in an attempt to challenge the role religion plays in public life. Sweden is a remarkably secular country but it’s still good to see that such a campaign is taking place. I’m all in favour of keeping religion out of public life and make it a private affair. It’s great to see it being discussed around the world.

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For those of you interested in getting some figures regarding MP’s expenses - try They Work For You. They also have details on MP’s saleries and other useful information.

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It’s a typical April day stuffed full of sunshine and showers that seems to have wandered into the wrong month. I’ve managed to squeeze in a whole lot of spring cleaning, washing and general tidying up as well as a walk with Karin and Ted. I am now sitting down to a well deserved break with the latest copy of Now or Never and the laughs are flowing.

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The Greenpeace ship, The Rainbow Warrior, is in town. They are here to prevent deep sea trawling as it damages the fragile ocean floor and marine life there. GT have an article up entitled A Celebrity In Town. A few pictures have been posted up of the ship arriving and being docked here at the habour.

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