The Cordate Blog

Cigarette

2012-02-02T16:47:00.000Z

Yesterday when I walked the streets near Broadway School, the biggest secondary school in Aston with about 1,300 pupils, I was asked for a cigarette by one of the students. He just stepped out of the group he was in and put his question to me: do you have a cigarette? I had never seen him before and the other way around is likely true as well. So, I assume that he made his request to a complete stranger.

I wondered a lot about this happening. Was there some intimidation going on? After all, he was not alone and meeting groups of boys in the street can be threatening. On the other hand, it did not seem to be a group decision to ask for a cigarette, just this one boy who wanted something from me. He did not glance around to see whether the others were listening and when he found them attentive put his question to me.

I happen not to smoke and that was my immediate answer trying to say it in a friendly way accompanied by a smile. I don’t think the others even heard my reply, they just walked on. It was only he who got my answer and he accepted it with a nod and that was all.

What was his real purpose? Was he truly after a cigarette or was it something else that he wanted? Was the phrase about the cigarette a kind of code for weed or other drugs? To be honest I have no idea and no way of finding out either. Whatever the purpose behind the little incident, I feel that friendliness should be the answer to any question, even to those that seem strange and out of place.

Ton

Survival

2011-12-16T10:40:00.000Z

The St James Advice and Community Centre has anew name; it is now called CAN DO 4:13. The new name refers to the Letter ofSaint Paul to the Philippians, chapter 4, verse 13: “There is nothing I cannotdo in the One who strengthens me.”

The new new name does not mean that the Centreis full of confidence and making a new start. It rather means that the Centreacknowledges that it needs lots of help from Above in order to survive and to overcomeits difficulties.

Funding is at the heart of the problem. In the course of its long existence of overthirty years the Centre had become more dependent on the financial support itreceived from Birmingham City Council, roughly75%, but this source of funds has now dried up. There had been some hope that a newapplication would be favourably received. It involved moving away from advice onmigration matters to advice on debt problems, as the Council demanded, but thischange was not enough to get a slice of the new funding.

The Centre is still operating but at muchlower levels of activity. It involved the painful process of making some staffmembers redundant and giving debt advice training to the remaining ones.

Will the Centre survive? The change of name isintended to make this possible. It makes of the Centre a charity in its own right, no longer under the umbrella of theParish of Aston. It is hoped that this change makes it easier for foundationsand trusts to contribute to the funding of the Centre, especially those thatshy away from religious institutions. After all the Centre makes a socialcontribution, even though the motive behind it is that of Christian service.

Ton

Roadworks

2011-11-28T14:06:00.001Z

Ettington Road has been resurfaced. It tookonly two days to do so at a little inconvenience to the residents who had toput their cars somewhere else.

The actual work on the road was preceded by a letter from the ProjectDirector informing us, ahead of time, of what would happen and what would be expectedof us. This is the correct and normal procedure, which should be no reason forsurprise.

What was surprising, however, was that theletter of the Project Director was the third letter we had received about theresurfacing of Ettington Road. The first letter was quite some time ago. Itannounced the roadworks, but they did not happen, at least not on our road.Neighbouring streets were worked on instead. The second announcement made me frown my eyebrows. It did not come fromthe Project Director, but from one of the councillors of the Aston Ward. Mythought was: what the heck does he have to do with the maintenance of our road?Is it not a decision of the whole City Council to award maintenance contractsto applicants? Can it be that this councillor is trying to gain electoral advantageout of a project that is not his own?

If this was the intention of the councillor,it backfired, because nothing happened on the days he had announced. Work onlystarted when the Project Director sent out his notices.

The resurfacing had another twist. A fewmonths ago the worst part of Ettington Road, that at the corner with Federick and Witton Road, was repaired.It was not just filling in the potholes but it involved taking out the wholecorner section and paving it anew. It took a day’s work. When last week the whole Ettington Road wasresurfaced that newly laid portion was taken out again and replaced with freshasphalt.

Even in times austerity money is still being wastedand government departments do not seem to get their coordination right.

Ton

Our Living Room

2011-11-09T15:00:00.000Z

Visitors entering ourhouse have been surprised to see two pictures with Muslim calligraphy on theright wall of our living room. The surprise has not been the same forChristians and Muslims. Muslim visitors are startled to see an attributeassociated with Islam on display in our house and Christians wonder what we, aChristian community of Roman Catholic priests, have to do with a devotionalobject of the Muslim faith.

The two pictures inquestion are beautifully painted representations of two of the names of Allah.In Islam tradition Allah has 99 names or one hundred if one includes the nameAllah itself. Recitation of the names is a devotional practice in Muslim pietyusing 99 or 33 prayer beads.

The two names weselected for our living room are Ar-Rahman, the All-compassionate, andAl-Wadud, the Loving One. We explain to our visitors that Muslims andChristians worship the same God, the Creator of all that exists and the Giverof all life. We may have our differences – and they are substantial indeed – butthis does not take away that we have much in common as well. An acknowledgementof our similarities can bring us together. After all, we need each other, forall believers of whatever faith community live in a secular society in whichfaith itself is suspect, is considered irrational and even dangerous to humanwell-being.

The two names havebeen selected for a reason which we also explain to our visitors. They areclosest to our own spirituality as Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. We try tolive a spirituality of the heart, following Jesus Christ, who opened his heartto all kinds of people, especially those ignored by others. He was indeed avery compassionate and loving person, representing the Heart of God in thisworld.

We did not know it atthe time, but by appropriating the two names we showed our ignorance as well.In Muslim tradition Ar Rahman is always taken together with Al Rahim. Bothwords are related to the quality of rahma, meaning mercy and compassion, andoccur right in the opening verse of the Qur’an. Mistakenly weseparated what Muslims keep together. Fortunately, no Muslim visitor everpointed this out to us.

Ton

Preacher

2011-10-20T11:04:00.004Z

In the bus on my way home last week a guy stood up all of a sudden and started to preach. It was standard evangelical theology. We are all sinners, often doing the wrong things, unable to overcome our weaknesses, because of which we face punishment and eternal damnation. But there is hope, because thanks to God we have been given a saviour, Jesus Christ who died for our sins on the cross in his great mercy for us. So let’s confess him as our Lord and Saviour, and his healing power will renew our hearts and give us eternal life.

On the one hand I admired the guy. He was youngish, in his early thirties I think. You need some courage to get up in a crowded bus, raise your voice and proclaim your message. On the other hand he annoyed me, because he forced himself on people in a riding bus without giving them much choice than to listen to him. The alternative would have been to get up and leave the bus or to shout him down. Nobody did anything of the kind. They just remained in their seats for the five minutes or so it took him to finish his memorised message. They showed neither approval nor disapproval. At the end of his sermon the preacher asked the people to say after him in prayer and to confess Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Nobody did and he finished the prayer as he started it, on his own. At the next stop he left the bus.

It would have been different if he had approached passengers individually and asked them whether they knew Jesus Christ and believed in him. Then they would have had the choice of entering into a conversation with him or declining it by telling him that they are not interested. This would have been more respectful of the freedom of his fellow human beings and of their right to be left alone. But I guess he felt such a strong sense of mission, such a strong urge to save people from hell and damnation, that he took the liberty to go a little too far.

I felt no inclination to get into a discussion with him myself, certainly not on a bus while trying to get home after a rather busy day. There are better times and places. But had a discussion taken place I would certainly have posed the question to him: what do you think? Would the Son of God have become man, even without the sin of Adam and Eve?

I wonder whether he would understand the question at all and grasp its implications.

Ton

Fasting

2011-08-24T10:07:00.003Z

Last year during Lent I was asked to give a talk in the parish of Tamworth about Christian fasting or what remains of it and the fasting of Muslims during the month of Ramadan. The request prompted me to have a closer look at fasting in both religious traditions and to see what they have in common and where they differ. In doing so I was struck by the differences in particular, differences not just in law but in the ideas behind the fasting as well.

For one thing the Christian tradition, following in this the Jewish prophets, has an anti-fasting strand. The prophets criticise a kind of fasting which abstains from food and drink but is not expressive of a change of heart. Fasting should lead to conversion and to the practice of justice. If it does not, it does more harm than good.

Related to this is fasting as penance or as prayer. One fasts as an admission of one’s wrongdoings; one is sad about one’s sins and prays for forgiveness. The abstinence of food and drink serves as an atonement showing God that one is serious about mending one’s ways. At the same time one hopes that God will withhold his punishment and renew his grace. The fasting of Jesus can be seen along these lines; the only difference is that he does not fast so much for himself as for the whole people of God.

If I understand them correctly, Muslims would be wary of this kind of fasting. It resembles too much an attempt to change the mind of God, forcing his hand as it were by refusing to eat and to drink. God is above even the semblance of manipulation and He alone decides about to whom to extend his mercy and forgiveness. What his believers have to do is just to submit themselves to his will and trust that He will reward his faithful servants.

The fasting of Ramadan is foremost an expression of this belief. It is done not on one’s own initiative but in answer to God’s decree as revealed in the Qur’an. Fasting is an act of obedience and surrender to God’s will. It is an attempt to be on the side of God, not an attempt to get God on our side.

There seem to be different images of God behind the different traditions of fasting. The Christian God is that of a Father whose children may approach Him freely and almost playfully. The Muslim God is that of a Sovereign who is merciful as well but on his own terms.

Ton

Riots

2011-08-11T12:47:00.004Z

Aston has a bad reputation; it is said to be unsafe and infested with gangs. It is therefore with some glee that I can report that by and large the recent riots in Birmingham have passed by Aston. There was some minor trouble in TESCO and a window of an optician was smashed at the roundabout near the supermarket, but those are the only scars of a neighbourhood that has remained peaceful on the whole.

This is not to say that we can shrug off the looting in the city centre as no concern to us. Disaffected youth are found everywhere, even though they express their frustrations in different ways and in different places.

What has happened reminded me of something I read a few years ago. It was an editorial in The Tablet, the Catholic weekly, of February 17, 2007. The editorial commented on a United Nations report, prepared by Unicef, about the treatment of children, which put "Britain at the bottom of a league table of 21 prosperous nations". The comment went on: "On a range of criteria, some economic but some directly measuring children's happiness and well-being, Britain's adults are failing to give the next generation what they deserve and need. This is a portrait of a nation that does not love its children enough. It does not bode well."

Alas, the prophecy has come true and the signs that were apparently there have not been sufficiently heeded. The Unicef report mentioned many economic and social reasons having to do with the family, the peergroup, education, employment etc., but for The Tablet these factors are not the only ones to consider. It surmises "a spiritual crisis behind the sociological one" expressed in these strong words: "Today British society is reaping what it sowed with its move towards a selfish consumer culture and focus on hedonism."

Is this too simple? Perhaps, but even so it is good to remember that the cultural and spiritual changes meant here do not occur in leaps and bounds. They are a continual process moving in small, nearly imperceptible increments over a considerable period of time, until a saturation point has been reached. The slow process makes it difficult to put the blame on anyone specifically. Somehow all are involved in the problem and likewise all should be involved in the solution.

Ton

The cost of immigration

2011-07-13T11:05:00.003Z

Last Saturday I attended an Immigration Seminar in the Anglican Church of Birchfield, the border area between Aston and Perry Barr. The seminar was organised by the Jamaica Diaspora for the West Midlands and attracted an attendance of over a hundred people. It was not surprising, given the name of the organising group, that mostly people from Jamaican descent attended the seminar. What was amazing to me, however, was that the seminar ended by singing the national anthem of Jamaica!

I learned a lot during the seminar. The main speakers were from the UK Border Agency [UKBA] and a barrister from London and not to forget the voices from the audience who had their questions ready and made their comments. An MP was also present but after a short speech he disappeared prompting the reaction: why is it that politicians never stay around to answer questions? The reply was: it is one of those days with plenty of events to attend and, please, here is my phone number, don't hesitate to call me. In the meantime the politician had revealed that 60% of the people calling on him during surgeries bring up immigration issues and that their greatest grievance is the high fee for citizenship, over £800 for a single adult and over £500 for children under 18 years of age. These amounts are simply too much for a family with a number of children.

Two other main issues surfaced during the discussions: overstaying or becoming an illegal and problems in bringing in dependents from Jamaica. It turned out that the barrister and the representative of UKBA were not always on the same line. UKBA is an enforcement agency and implements government immigration policy. Within this framework it tries to be of service to people who have got into difficulties because they failed to extend their visa or did not renew their passports. It takes into account that lack of money may be the underlying reason for not applying again for these documents, but it cannot extend a leave to remain for reasons of poverty. It cannot do more than act humanely because of family circumstances, as the law allows, or provide assistance in case of voluntary return to the home country.

The barrister represents clients and fights for their interests by challenging the rules and regulations of the government in court. One weapon is article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is stronger than paragraph 395c of the Immigration Rules. Both consider the importance of family and private life, but the one in the context of human rights and the other in the context of humane treatment by the Border Agency, which is discretionary.

Money again emerged while talking about bringing in one's dependents from Jamaica. Two requirements make it difficult for poor people to be reunited with their families. They need to have a sufficient number of rooms in their house to accommodate children of different gender ten years and older who require separate rooms by law. And they need to have a weekly income high enough to maintain their dependents without recourse to public funds. To bring in a spouse would need an income of no less that £101 a week. The audience was told in no uncertain terms: get your mathematics right before you make an application.

The vicar of the church where the seminar was held had her own contribution to make. We have to listen to what people in the street have to say and: the church is meaningless without addressing the issues of the underclass.

Ton

Take That

2011-07-01T15:29:00.006Z

Monday and Tuesday, June 27 and 28, saw the biggest crowds ever flocking to Aston. Nearly 1000,000 people, mostly women, attended the two concerts given by Take That in Villa Park, the football grounds of Aston Villa.

Weeks before the event all residents of Aston received and A4 in their letter-box advising them about the invasion that was going to happen and apologising in advance for any inconvenience it may cause. In our area it was not bad. We could hear the music in the distance but for people living closer to the stadium it must have been a lot worse. Walking over to the football grounds through Aston Park I could feel the vibrations of the bass tones in my body while still on the slope downhill. But then the concert was not an all-night affair: the official opening was at 7:00 o'clock and all had ended before 11:00.

What was more disturbing, at least to some residents, was the closure of roads around Villa Park, not only on the days of the concerts but also before and after to build up the huge stage and take it down again. The traffic was diverted along alternative routes but these were not built to accommodate the number of vehicles in such a short time. The problem was mainly felt after the concerts, when everyone wanted to rush home. It took a few hours to clear the traffic, longer than is the case for Aston Villa at home matches.

It may seem strange but I had never heard of Take That before the events of this week. I did not live in England when they first gained popularity in the nineties and besides my interest in pop and rock music has never been great. Anyway I was told that the band broke up and has been reconstituted, so to say, the last one joining again being Robbie Williams, who "was fabulous", according to my spokeswoman.

Concerts like these do not come cheap. The woman just quoted paid no less than £55 for a ticket, which was neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. All in all the concerts generated an awful lot of money and I wonder how much of it ends up in Aston. Taxi drivers had a busy evening; there were plenty of them going to and fro Villa Park. Also the eateries had lots of customers. But I guess that these are just the crumbs that fell from the table of the rich. This is not to complain: Aston was in the news and what is more it was in a positive way.

Ton

Whose the future?

2011-05-24T09:19:00.002Z

One of my English students is quite a talker. He does not formulate his sentences grammatically correct, but he gets his ideas across, all the time scrutinising your face and looking for signs that he has been understood. When he concludes that you did not get him, he tries again in a different way. He is not easily put off.

His English is clearly of one who has acquired enough knowledge of the language to get by but who never advanced beyond the stage of throwing nouns and verbs at you without connecting them in the right way. He knows his deficiency and one day he confessed to me that he had made a big, a very big mistake. At asking what he meant he replied that he should have attended English courses 25 years ago, when he first arrived in the UK. Now his memory was full and it was very difficult for him to unlearn the broken English which he had picked up during all those years of trying to converse with neighbours and colleagues.

His big mistake would not have mattered so much, he added, within 50 years time or so, but alas he would not live that long. I did not know whether I understood him correctly, but apparently I had, because he continued to explain half-jokingly that by that time the UK would be mostly populated by Asians and he would not need English anymore. I started to say that migration was getting more difficult, but he cut me short and made it clear that he did not have migration in mind. "We big families", he said, "many children". And making a wave with his hand indicating a few generations he said half-jokingly again: "the UK will be ours".

I did not begrudge him his little enjoyment of being in power one day, even though I don't believe for a second that it will ever happen. I rather expect birth rates of cultural communities to fall with the rise in education, particularly of the women, as has been the case everywhere in the world. But why bring in sobering remarks? After all, as a member of a minority grouping he is rather powerless and he knows it: his limited English is a constant reminder.

Ton

Royal wedding

2011-05-03T12:16:00.003Z

The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton last Friday was a great success. According to the BBC 24 million people in the UK alone tuned in to see the wedding on TV and another 10 million viewed at least part of the ceremony. The streets of London were busy too: it is estimated that a million people took the trouble to go out in the streets and catch a glimpse of the newly-wed couple and the royal family. It was great entertainment indeed.

Still these figures do not tell the whole story. It was obvious to me that in the Westminster Abbey most of the people present were white, with black and in particular Asian people being underrepresented. Perhaps this comes as no surprise: the elite of British society are still mostly the old ensconced classes, in spite of Kate herself being of middle class origin and further down the line of miners’ descent.

Changes are indeed taking place. Not just that one day a commoner may become the queen consort of the King, but also a shift is taking place in the ownership of economic enterprises. From steel makers (former Corus is now Tata Steel) to football clubs (Blackburn Rovers) investors from the Indian subcontinent have come in to make their economic clout felt in the home land of their former coloniser.

I wanted very much to estimate the Asian portion of the people lining the streets of London. It was simply not possible: the camera’s, not surprisingly, had another focus. My hunch, though, is that the Asians among them were very few and not only that but also that they did not watch the TV coverage of the event in great numbers.

My hunch is based on two small incidents which took place some months ago. During one of the English classes I’m assisting in the tutor asked the learners: who is the head of state of the UK? To my astonishment the learners, all Asian of long stay in England, did not come up with the answer. They only knew it was a woman, it was a queen, but even their combined effort did not provide the name of the queen!

The other incident involved primary school children of Asian descent. A few of them came into our house and right at that moment the queen was shown on TV walking towards her car to go back to Buckingham Palace. We asked the children: do you know that lady? Their faces showed it all; they had no clue whatsoever. They did not even know that they were watching the queen.

These incidents made me think that Asians seem to have their own media from which they get their news and entertainment. These are not in the English language and apparently their contents are far from the English scene as well.

Ton

Walk of Witness

2011-04-22T19:31:00.004Z

It has been a tradition in Aston - I don't know for how many years now - that the Christian churches in the neighbourhood publicly show their Christian faith on Good Friday. They hold a Walk of Witness going from one church to another and conducting short services in front of each church. They don't enter the church buildings but remain outside emphasising that the Walk of Witness is meant to reach out to the largely non-Christian population of Aston.

Aston Churches Together (ACT) is behind the Walk of Witness. It does not represent all the churches in Aston, not even half of them. The reason is that a number of Christian denominations are not interested in any kind of cooperation with other Christian churches. Perhaps they see it as a threat to their own identity or they feel that the truth, as they profess it, cannot be compromised.

The Walk of Witness does not suffer from this lack of cooperation, as the attendance this year was better again than that of last year. The glorious weather no doubt was a factor in bringing over a hundred Christians to the streets of Aston but it is certainly not the only one. I have participated in the Walk of Witness three times now and I noticed an increase in attendance every time.

The participating Christian churches are clearly from different traditions and hold different views about sin, grace and salvation. They also have their own particular style of reading scripture texts, and of preaching and praying. Still, these differences are overcome in the desire to commemorate the cross of Christ together and acknowledge him as the living Lord.

The common act of worship binds the participants together. They see through the differences that divide them and sense the sincerity by which each denomination reveres Jesus Christ. The Walk of Witness is an enriching experience and this may be the true reason why it enjoys a still growing attendance.

Ton

The Common Good

2011-03-24T11:37:00.003Z

I may be wrong, but I can't help feeling that my understanding of what organisation is all about is different from that of my neighbours.

Recent experiences are the cause of that feeling. Together with some others I'm involved in setting up two different organisations here in Aston. Organisation means influence, power if you like, and that is a scarce commodity in a deprived neighbourhood. Organisations are rather crucial in having one's voice heard.

In preparing for the two organisations it was unavoidable to discuss frameworks and constitutions. The discussion brought home to me two concerns I had not really thought of before. One said that great care should be taken not to exclude anyone and certainly not persons with a kind of following. They may turn against you if they are not properly acknowledged. The second concern was even more interesting. It had to do with the possibility that one particular group of people, a large family or a network of family and friends, would try to hijack the organisation for its own particular ends.

These concerns struck me, because so far I had thought of my organisational efforts as an attempt to bring people of different backgrounds together. It was all about bridge-building for the sake of the community as a whole. But apparently, this is not how my partners in the discussion looked at things. Perhaps, they thought me rather naive, as they had stories to tell of how organisations have been used not to serve the common good but to benefit the leaders.

It brought home to me that the 'common good' is very much an abstract concept. In a community that is fragmented, there is no such a thing as the common good, at least not in an experiential way. It is all about your own group, your own particular community, your own culture and religion. And even if the different groups would get together, they are not in it for an overarching purpose but to promote their own interests. It is the politics of the temporary alliances: you scratch my back and I scratch yours. Until, that is, when I grow strong enough to do without you.

The 'common good' may not seem to be part of the 'real world'. Still, there is joy in getting to know each other, to explore each other's backgrounds, to share each other's experiences and to set common goals. Both realists and idealists have their place; together they may make a difference.

Ton

The Birthday of Muhammad

2011-02-23T11:38:00.006Z

Not all Muslims celebrate the birthday of their prophet Muhammad and not all who do, celebrate it on the same day. The Shiites celebrate it five days after the Sunnis do. This year the celebrations took place on February 15 and February 20 respectively.

Walking about in Aston it is easy to see which mosques take part in the celebration; they have their facades adorned with strings of little lights. The lights are not simply there to call the attention of passers-by. They have to do with the meaning of the feast itself. Light signifies wisdom and those Muslims who celebrate the birthday of Muhammad consider him 'the best of all creatures', a guiding light of God's wisdom.

They believe more; they also believe that the celebration of Muhammad's birthday brings blessings to those who honour his achievements, his moral conduct and his way of life. They experience the good influence of his eminent example of 'the last and greatest of all prophets', as they call him. It is this belief that makes ordinary faithful hang banners in their windows. They witness to Muhammad's importance in their lives and open themselves up for his benevolence.

Other Muslims frown on this kind of piety. They call the celebration of Muhammad's birthday an 'innovation', which was added to the true faith and deviated from it. What is at stake is the pre-eminence of the Qur'an, the holy book of the Muslims, that came straight down from heaven. Muhammad is just the messenger who passed on the divine words without adding anything of his own. Consequently, the birthday of Muhammad has no importance; after all he received his first revelation only at the age of forty.

The believers in Muhammad are not deterred and they celebrate his birthday with great joy. To them Muhammad is not just a prophet who passed on the divine words to others but he lived them himself to the full. This makes him special, a kind of saint, one who preceded them to where they hope to go themselves.

Ton

Advice Centre

2011-01-17T13:44:00.003Z

The St James Advice and Community Centre is in danger of closing down. It has been in existence for 33 years and provided a great service to the migrant communities of Aston, mostly on issues of immigration and social benefits.

It all started very simple. The local vicar of the Church Of England was asked by recently arrived migrants to help out with their paper work. He did so with the help of a young man from Bangladesh who later studied law and became the director of the Centre. So from the beginning the Centre not only involved the Church of England but representatives from the migrant communities themselves. This is still very much the case, both with respect to the staff of the Centre and the Management Team. The Centre in its very heart reaches across ethnicity and across religion.

The reason for the imminent closure is the Birmingham City Council, the main sponsor of the St James Advice and Community Centre and of many other similar centres across the city. Times are bad and spending cuts of 20% or more were expected, but what was not expected was the interruption of subsidies altogether. Last December the City Council announced formally that its funding will stop by the end of March. It allows reapplication by July but for the intervening period the advice centres are on their own. What this means in fact is that the smaller centres with less financial capacity are forced to stop operations and lay off their workers. This is exactly what the St James Advice and Community Centre did: it sent redundancy notices to its seven staff.

It did more than this. It also collected 500 signatures of local residents who protested the way the City Council had made its funding decision and it involved the Birmingham Mail to put pressure on local politicians. One problem is that Aston is Labour territory, whereas the councillor and cabinet member for local services is Lib Dem. Political strife may be involved in another way as well: one of the two Labour councillors in the area is the former director of the St James Advice and Community Centre who built his reputation by his long-standing service in the Centre.

Attempts are on their way to continue the advice service on a voluntary basis, at least until the time that reapplication for funding can be made. But there is a hitch or two: Funding in the future may not be on the basis of an individual advice centre but only when they are grouped in clusters. What is more, advice centres should move away from face-to-face meetings with their clients and operate mainly via the internet and telephone connections. This would be disastrous for Aston: whether the Council likes it or not, migrant communities function mostly on the basis of face-to-face encounters.

Ton

English Language Learning

2010-12-17T13:37:00.002Z

Every Wednesday I help out with English learning in a small community centre not too far from our home. The learners are all men, mostly from Bangladesh and Pakistan. They live in Aston and in the neighbouring communities of Lozells and Newtown. Classes start at midday which suites those of the men who work in Asian restaurants. They come home late at night and sleep until deep in the morning.

If I have learned one thing from assisting these learners, it is how difficult the English language is for them. Some had little education at home and have to acquire the additional skills of reading and writing the letters of the alphabet, one by one, both in small and capital letters. It takes them hours of practice to produce some satisfactory results. Others are a step further and know some reading and writing, but they have trouble in recognising words. They are able to spell the letters of a word separately, but they have difficulty in putting the letters together and hit on the word itself. The biggest group, however, reads and writes easily. They are functional literates and only have to cope with the considerable confusion the spelling of English language poses to them.

In English the same sounds can be represented by different letters or letter combinations, and the same letters can stand for different pronunciations. It is not only the vowels that are afflicted with this bad habit but some consonants as well. Moreover, you have the silent consonants which you are obliged to write but not allowed to pronounce. The learners find it utterly confusing and I can't blame them.

There is no way of explaining the differences. Rules do exist but there are so many exceptions that indeed the rules are made to be broken. Historical explanations are not very helpful either. They are highly complex and often more governed by coincidence than by logic. So, what it comes down to in the end, is that learners have just to memorise 'the way it is'.

The teaching of grammar relies heavily on memory as well. It is more a question of memorising sentences in certain situations than an explanation of the distinctions that underlie grammatical differences. Learners are taught how to approach their GP in a health centre, what to say when they go shopping, how to talk about their children's education etc. It is hoped that by means of adopting these sentences the learners gradually develop a feeling for the language and spontaneously start using the right grammatical constructions.

It seems to me that this is the way children learn a language, but children are fast learners and have excellent memories. My learners are adults, they need plenty of time and lots of hard work to put things to memory. A few hours of English once or twice a week is on the whole not enough.

Ton

Monoculture

2010-10-29T11:15:00.003Z

We are now three years in Aston and sometimes I have the feeling that the tide is running against us. We selected Aston mainly because it was a multicultural and multireligious neighbourhood, and we hoped very much to build bridges between people of differing background. We had no illusion about how difficult this would be: you can't force people to become friends with strangers! We knew it would be a slow process of establishing trusting relationships.

But shall we have the time to do so? Is our neighbourhood not changing from a multicultural community into a monoculture? The statistics have it that about 20% of the population of Aston is white English and Irish, but that is not the impression you get when you walk the streets. You hardly see any white people: they seem to have disappeared from the scene.

What is happening is that white people are still moving out of the neighbourhood. They follow their children who have moved out ahead of them in search of the employment opportunities no longer found in Aston. The same is happening, but to a lesser extent, to the Afro-Caribbean people. They are still present in good numbers, but they are ageing and their children are no longer with them. The empty places are being taken in part by new migrants, refugees from Africa and Asia, and economic migrants from Eastern Europe. It remains to be seen, however, how stable these new arrivals will be. This leaves the Asian population, from Pakistan and Bangladesh, already in the majority. They are a young population, fast growing in this country and with plenty of relatives in their countries of origin willing to come to England and hoping for a better life. They will occupy the empty places left by the other groups and as a consequence Aston will grow into a monocultural neighbourhood.

I like to emphasise that the processes underlying this development are all very natural, there is nothing sinister about them. Lots of individual decisions, all making sense by themselves, point in the same direction and the combined outcome is a monoculture.

How to react to this development? You can't stop the tide. I think, two things can be done. There are people in Aston among the white and the Afro-Caribbean population who do not want to move out. They see the variety that is still being present as a plus, as something to be appreciated and cherished. It will be important to spot these people and support them in whatever way we can. They show what a future of living together may look like. Secondly, when neighbourhoods continue to lose much of their variety, one needs to look beyond one's own neighbourhood and attempt to bring neighbourhoods of different kinds together. As somebody told me in a slightly different context: it will make the difference between a ghetto and an enclave.

Ton

Closures

2010-10-08T13:25:00.001Z

When we arrived in Aston three years ago, the Guild Arms, the pub at the corner of Witton and Ettington roads was all boarded up. Nothing has changed since then in spite of several attempts to auction off the pub. Perhaps the problem is that the land belonging to the pub has been sold and redeveloped. In fact, the very house we are living in is built on it, so that I cannot really complain. Just the same, selling off the open space of a property may make it more difficult to sell the rest, in particular if it concerns a listed building, as the pub is said to be. The result is that what should be a beauty to look at becomes an eyesore.

Recently, at the beginning of the academic year, another building in Aston was closed down. It was not an old building at all: City Academy Aston opened its doors only in 2004 and the building it occupied was newly constructed. It is sad to see a building like that go out of use. Apparently, City Academy, which has four other campuses in Birmingham, saw no future in keeping the Aston campus open. One wonders what will happen to the building now?

Opposite City Academy Aston, the Broadway School, the largest secondary school in the area with 1,300 pupils, has its campus for the 7 and 8 years. It will not remain in its present location for long. If everything goes according to schedule, the Aston campus will join the main campus of the Broadway School in January 2011. The unanswered question is what will happen to the vacated building and how will it be protected against vandalism?

The Aston Library dates back to the time when Aston was still an independent coumcil, that is before 1911 when the amalgation with Birmingham City took place. Its long history, however, does not guarantee its continued existence. There are no less than 40 community libraries in Birmingham and all are under review for delivering value for money. The announced spending cuts may mean that a number of libraries will be closed and its services transferred to mobile libraries. If this happens to the library in Aston another building will close down, as Aston Pride which has its offices in the same building, will stop operations in March 2011.

All buildings under discussion lie within a short distance of one another: standing at the corner where the pub is one has the other three buildings in one's vision. While going around taking pictures of them a resident approached me and commented that Aston is becoming a depressive place. He was not just talking about the buildings, but about the high unemployment and the benefit cuts as well. For him Aston was not the place to be.

Ton

Ramadan

2010-08-20T15:14:00.005Z

Our mosque in Ettington Road underwent a facelift. It was no coincidence that this happened shortly before Ramadan. After all, Ramadan is for Muslims the most important month of the year when they visit the mosque more often than they usually do. We can notice it not just by the number of pedestrians who pass by our house but also by the number of cars that clog our street.

Fasting in summer time is no small feat. The hours without food and drink make up most of the day, fifteen hours or more. What seems particularly vexing is the abstinence of even a drop of water. On warm days when one is doing physical work, this seems not just nearly impossible but positively unhealthy as well.

Muslim apologists, however, maintain that fasting is healthy for body and soul. They claim that it cleanses the body from all kinds of toxic substances that accumulate in the body thoughout the year. The fast of Ramadan removes them from the body making the person more healthy as a result. It seems to me a rather spurious argument tagged on to the religious motivation for fashionable reasons.

In truth, Ramadan is foremost a religious exercise. It is an act of willingly submitting oneself to God who in the Qur'an (2:183) prescribes fasting to Muslims, as to others before them, by whom Jews and Christians are meant. The purpose of the fast is explicitly stated: it is to be mindful of God.

Muslims are mindful of God by not giving in to their natural urges to eat, to drink and have sex. It requires an effort and by that effort they show how highly they regard their God in their lives, much higher than their very real bodily needs.

The stated purpose of the fast is also the reason that the observance of Ramadan involves a lot more than fasting. In order to be mindful of their God Muslims read the whole of the Qur'an during the month of Ramadan. In addition, they strengthen their bonds with family, neighbours and community. The poor are not forgotten either; Ramadan is pre-eminently the month of almsgiving.

Ton

Muslim Prayer

2010-08-03T15:19:00.002Z

Pious Muslims pray five times a day; all Muslims should but not all Muslims are pious Muslims. Like people of other religions they do not always live up to the obligations of their faith. In particular younger people may be amiss in fulfilling their religious duties. They live much more in a culturally divided world than their parents who, it is said, tend to feel foremost at home in their culture of origin. Control of the mosques is in the hands of the older generation and young people often have little affinity with them. This may explain the fact that it is mostly middle-aged and elderly men who pass by our window five times a day on their way to the mosque nearly opposite our house.

This being said, one should not underestimate the power of prayer. It gives structure to the lives of pious Muslims by dividing their day into five fixed points, around which their day revolves. The hours are compulsory and cannot be changed at will. This does not mean that all pray at the same time to the minute. I often see men still entering the mosque for prayer while others are already on their way out.

Muslim prayer is very much an individual act of piety, even where many Muslims are together in the same mosque praying at more or less the same time. One Muslim I met at an interfaith meeting last year - and he had me thinking about it ever since - expressed his experience in this way: "Prayer gives me the opportunity to stand before the Almighty with nothing in between; it is paradise in front and hell at the back".

I am not sure whether I get him right, but he seems to express an experience that is not alien to me as a Christian either. When you are blessed in prayer with a deep awareness of God, as sometimes is the case, you know that you are face to face with the Absolute One, with Life and Happiness in person. Cut off from Him or Her you fall in an abyss of darkness and nothingness.

Ton

Hamara Project

2010-06-21T10:40:00.003Z

Hamara means 'ours' in the Urdu language, one of the languages of the Indian subcontinent. It was used for an educational project which was user-led, meaning that the learners themselves determined to a large extent the activities in which they participated.

The project was initiated by BEEAS [Birmingham Ethnic Education & Advisory Service] and had two excellent facilitators, whom I happen to know as we followed the same course for assistant English language teacher last year. They did not simply facilitate the group process of the forty women (two batches) who made up the Hamara Project, but they also made a great effort to recruit the women learners themselves.

It is interesting to note how they did it, for recruitment may well be the more difficult part of the Hamara Project, more difficult than the educational sessions proper. I quote from the evaluation report: "They delivered flyers to every road in the target area and handed out leaflets in school playgrounds. They spoke to women on the street and at shops and they worked closely with the learning mentors at prince Albert and Mansfield Schools to identify potential recruits." The two facilitators, women of Asian origin themselves, really reached out and made full use of their own backgrounds and language abilities to overcome suspicion, shyness and fear on the part of their target learners.

As it turned out they were very successful. They recruited the kind of women they wanted to recruit: those in social isolation who up to now had not participated in any sort of educational programme. Again I quote from the evaluation report: "[...] for many of the women this was the first opportunity in the whole of their lives to join a programme. For some it was the first opportunity to participate in an activity outside of the family circle and to attend independently. For them, this Project offered a first taste of independence as adult women, and they, naturally, were very nervous and had a fear of speaking out within the group setting."

The learning process did not simply take place in the small community centre which opened its doors to the women learners. The informality of the programme meant that they could go out and visit other places like the nearby library and health centre or musea and art galleries in the heart of the City. Some of the women had to learn some basic social skills: "For example, when the women all caught the bus together to go to the City Centre, they had no idea that they had to wait for people to get off the bus before they pushed their way on. They did not understand the critical comments that came from the other bus travellers who viewed their behaviour as being 'rude' rather than being a lack of understanding. The facilitators also encouraged the women to make eye contact wiht strangers with whom they were undertaking transactions rather than look away as, again, this could be misunderstood."

All activities included an English and a health component, which was much appreciated by the women learners. "One beneficiary explained that, although she had lived in England for 14 years she was still unable to speak the language. This was due to the fact that when she arrived in the country she lived with her extended family and stayed within the home. She brought up her children and now that they are grown up she wished to learn to speak more fluently. She said that her lack of language skills embarassed her especially when answering the telephone or going to hospital appointments. She especially enjoyed the ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] component of the programme."

A lasting benefit of the project is that the women made friends with one another. They did not want to lose each other's company and they did not want the programme to stop. BEEAS acknowledged that you cannot make people enthusiastic and then leave them out in the cold. They managed a continuation of the programme. albeit in a diminished form because of financial constraints.

Ton

Election fever

2010-04-22T09:05:00.004Z

May 6 is election day for both the members of parliament and for the local councillors. As a resident of Aston I have been granted the right to participate in the election of local councillors, but being a Dutch national excludes me from the British parliamentary elections.

The arrival of my poll card heightened my interest in Aston politics. As part of trying to understand the dynamics in the neighbourhood I had already searched the internet for information about past elections. What it made clear was that only two parties are vying for political control of the neighbourhood: Labour and the Liberal Democrats. All the other parties stand no chance at all, including the Conservatives.

What leapt to the eye was that political campaigns are hard-fought in Aston and make use of dirty tricks. Candidates accuse one another of telling lies about their opponents trying to smear their reputations. This went so far that at the day of one of the elections a sound van was going through the streets of Aston blaring the alleged abuse of social benefit claims by the opposition candidate. Accusations of vote rigging and ballot irregularities flew to and fro as well.

The present elections are in comparison relatively quiet. What I have come across with so far is a rather blatant attempt to mobilise the Muslim vote. Last Friday near our house I found a number of leaflets scattered on the ground. Apparently, they had been distributed after the Friday service at the mosque in our street. The Lib Dems were responsible for these particular leaflets. Under the heading "What Labour don't want you to know", they listed eight items all meant to arouse the feelings of the local Muslim population. Just to mention the first, the last and the one in the middle: "Labour's illegal war in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and children"; "Labour have made major changes to the Immigration Act, making it harder for your families to join you"; and "Labour are introducing intrusive full body scans at Britain's Airports".

I have not yet seen the answer of Labour to this kind of campaigning, but no doubt there will be some response or other. Whatever it will be, I do hope that the response will avoid two glaring shortcomings of the leaflets: they just condemn the other party without any alternative policy proposal, and secondly, they only address the Muslim population and ignore the other (minority) residents in the neighbourhood.

Finally, a conspicuous omission. It is a well-known fact that unemployment is the biggest problem in Aston and for that matter in the West-Midlands as a whole. In particular, young people stand very little chance to land a job. A fact like this cannot be ignored than at our own peril.

Ton

"Pray for me"

2010-04-09T11:19:00.002Z

Within the span of a week three people asked me to pray for them and only one of them was a Christian. The other two were Muslims, one clearly so and the other having a Muslim name hailed at least from a Muslim family.

Such a request shows that the people in question knew who we are and indeed we never hid the fact that we are members of a religious community and three Catholic priests. It is a bit difficult to introduce ourselves without causing confusion, but I always start by saying that I am a member of a religious community belonging to the Catholic Church. When this comes across as rather vague - what is a religious community after all? - I add that we are three Catholic priests living together here in Aston. For most people this suffices as an initial introduction and they leave it at that.

The request for prayer is directed to me being a priest. The idea, which I sense behind it, is that priests are supposed to be mediators between God and the people. They have to bring God to the people and the people to God. It is not enough just to talk about God, they have to approach God and bring the people along with all their needs and concerns. That is their task and those who asked me to pray for them believe somehow that that task is God-given.

The remarkable thing about it is that two of them crossed religious boundaries. Apparently they believe that God is present not just in their own religion but in other religions as well. It is the same God who is acknowledged and worshipped in all religions. Right or wrong, false or true does not come first. There is something deeper, beyond the differences, and that is the one God who is all in all.

I'm not surprised that feelings like this occur in a multifaith community like Aston. When neighbours of different religions get to know each other, when they experience each other as good, responsible and caring people, they cannot possibly deny God's presence in the other. For God is goodness and the source of all goodness.

What it needs and that is the challenge we in the Cordate community face, is to bring people in contact with one another and let them experience that goodness that knows no boundaries.

Ton

Mansfield Green once more

2010-02-15T18:00:00.006Z

Amazing, a fence is being put around Mansfield Green! It is not a high fence, just reaching up to the waist of an ordinary person, but it is still a fence and Mansfield Green looks differently already now, while the fence is still under construction.

The amazing thing is not so much that work on the fence began during winter, even though it seems to make sense to wait until the cold days are over and work stoppages are no longer to be expected. The most amazing thing is that a decision about Mansfield Green was made at all and that the decision is being implemented right now. I went to the Libary last week in order to find out who made the decision, on what grounds and when. In the Library you can find plenty of reports about Birmingham City Council and its projects in Aston Ward and Ladywood Constituency, but Mansfield Green was nowhere to be found. A search on the website of Birmingham City Council was not successful either. Clear is that Mansfield Green is not classified as a park. It is either listed under the name of Albert Road Public Open Space or shown on a map as Amenity Green Space.

The public space that Mansfield Green represents was under threat at least twice. Aston Pride, the government regeneration agency for Aston, claimed that 52% of the residents favoured the construction of a community centre on the Green. The statistic was hotly contested by the Mansfield Residents Forum and nothing came of the proposal. The second, more recent, threat came from outside Aston. A group in Perry Barr claiming to represent the Bangladeshi community applied for permission to erect a monument on Mansfield Green in honour of the Bangladeshi martyrs at the time of their struggle for independence against Pakistan. The danger of such a monument was obvious: any attempt to soil the monument by graffiti or otherwise would pit the two ethnic groups against each other. This was the reason that even Bangladeshi people were against the monument, though they could not say so in public for fear of appearing unpatriotic to their country of origin. But other residents, like myself, protested to the City Council in writing, pointing out the divisive nature of the proposal. In the end - I like to think as a response to the protests - the application was withdrawn.

Now Mansfield Green gets its fence. Hopefully, this is the first step into developing the Green into a park worthy of the name. Then the dream of the Mansfield Residents Forum will come true, even after the forum itself ceased to exist. Frustrated by the lack of response from the side of the authorities and the lack of participation of the residents, it closed shop last July. Perhaps prematurely so, as they may have been more influential than they thought!

Ton

Volunteers unwanted!

2010-01-27T15:44:00.010Z

Society cannot do without volunteers. There is so much to do, so much to take care of, and money is scarce. Paid jobs provide only a fraction of all the work that is needed to keep our society going. Professionals alone cannot do the job. They need the sustained dedication of volunteers to turn basic provisions into quality service.

It is not difficult to sing the praises of volunteers. Right here in Aston an elderly man makes sure that school children cross the busy Witton Road safely. He is there every school day, all year round, in all weather conditions. He is small in stature but great in service.

Given the importance of volunteers it is quite incomprehensible that often life is made difficult for them. Our own experience in volunteering bears this out. One requirement that comes back time and again is the Criminal Records Bureau check. The intention is to protect children and vulnerable adults against sex abusers, a protection which is far from watertight, but the unintended effect may well be to deter potential candidates from volunteering at all. I myself had to apply for the CRB check three times since my arrival in England four years ago, as every institution or organisation of my volunteering choice required its own check. I was told that meanwhile the Law has been changed in this matter, but to my knowledge implementation has not started yet.

Volunteers have to put up with a lot more. Training may be another requirement involving not just a few sessions but up to a dozen demanding a considerable investment of time. It is never sufficient to read articles or training handbooks on one's own. Self-study is not an acceptable way of doing the course. One has to be present in person, sometimes at all sessions without exception.

Questioning the whole procedure may yield some interesting answers. Of course, the organisations do not wish to appear patronising but the point is that the insurance company requires the training as a precautionary measure in the context of their health and safety policy. Or the particular training is part of an accredited course and the accreditation agency requires attendance at all or most of the sessions. So absences cannot be lightly dispensed with. It is always the other, the outsider, who is to blame for the bureaucratic demands on volunteers!

Volunteering does not always come cheap. Trainings may usually be free of charge but it happens also that payments are required. This is the case when volunteers are supposed to represent organisations and it is these organisations which are supposed to make the payments. Where the presuppositions are wrong, the volunteers are left to foot the bill themselves.

Why putting up with all these obstacles? There can be only one reason: an overriding sense of mission. We want that much to be part of Aston and to befriend its people! We want that much to build bridges between the different ethnic and religious communities, and we want that much to believe that it is a God-given task for us!

Ton

Do Muslims celebrate Christmas?

2009-12-22T10:27:00.002Z

After two years of living in Aston in the midst of Muslims, I must confess that I cannot really answer this question. Christmas is not a traditional Muslim feast, but since Muslims have great respect for Jesus and his mother Mary, it is quite possible that in some way they join their Christian brothers and sisters in celebrating the birth of Christ. But, as I said, I do not really know what is happening in the privacy of their families.

What we do ourselves at Christmas is to invite our neighbours for an afternoon tea or less threatening to them we take some presents to their homes. This is always well received and strengthens the bonds of good neighbourliness. It may also lead to some discussion about what is common and different in our respective faiths.

What I learned, not just from discussions but also from reading, is that Muslims do know about Jesus and Mary, but generally they are the Jesus and Mary as portrayed in the Qur'an, not in the Bible. Muslims do believe that the original Bible was the true word of God, but they maintain that subsequently the Biblical message was corrupted by both Jews and Christians, so that only the Qur'an remains as the uncorrupted word of God.

It is a strange experience for a Christian, as happened to me once, to be told that Jesus predicted the coming of Muhammad. My first reaction was to ask: where in the Gospels could one find such a pronouncement? But my partner was not quoting from the Bible, but from the Qur'an, where in chapter 61 Jesus refers to a messenger that will come after him. The strange feeling was that both of us seemed familiar with Jesus, but our so-called common Jesus was oh so different.

A reverse experience was reading a text from Seyyed Hossien Nasr about the word of God. He acknowledges that in Christianity the word of God is ultimately Christ, whereas in Islam it is the Qur'an. He then continues by discussing the vehicles of these respective words, how they came into the world. According to him, it is the illiteracy of the propehet Muhammad in Islam and the virginity of Mary in Christianity. The reason is in both instances the same: the vehicle for the word of God needs to be pure and receptive, all openness to the word of God. That is what Muhammad represents and that is what Mary represents.

Do the differences have a common root after all?

Ton

Aston: a transitory place?

2009-11-02T13:48:00.002Z

It has been observed many times: Aston is not a permanent residence for the people living here. They are migrants who come and go. Aston is just a stepping stone for them, it is said. Once they have settled in this country and are doing reasonably well, they move on to more spacious and greener places.

This did not just happen once, but at least two times in living memory. The Irish were the first migrants to come to Aston. Only a few of them are left now, mostly elderly people. Their children who received a good education landed jobs elsewhere and that is where they went. The next group that came in and by and large replaced the Irish were the Afro-Caribbean people. A good number of them are still around, but it is also obvious that many of them are no longer here. They have been replaced by people from Pakistan and somewhat later from Bangladesh. Right now, these two groups constitute the majority of the population of Aston.

A disadvantage of a shifting population is that a high sense of belonging is absent. No pride in the neighbourhood of Aston is expected from transients. As soon as they have an opportunity they will move on to more prosperous and peaceful neighbourhoods. We have a kind of vicious circle here. Community participation is low in Aston, because people look for their future elsewhere, outside the neighbourhood. As a result, little is happening in terms of community activities, which in turn is not enticing for people to stay on. And so community participation remains low.

It is as though your steering wheel is blocked on a roundabout, preventing you to take one of the exits. Still, there are signs that counter such an understandable feeling of pessimism. Every day I am walking the streets of Aston and what I see is not just decay and neglect. No, on the contrary, in every street there are residents busily refurbishing their homes. They are not just working on the interior but on the exterior as well, changing the portal or beautifying the facade. Can it be true that these people intend to make their houses into their permanent homes? It looks like it and I sincerely hope that it is the case. After all, the permanent residents can be relied upon to take a keen and very much needed interest in their neighbourhood.

Ton

Nostalgia

2009-09-09T15:27:00.002Z

A group of seniors in our parish comes together on Tuesdays for a lunch in the Sacred Heart Primary School. Actually, the room where we gather belongs to the West-Indian Chaplaincy and its caretaker is hosting the event. On the other hand, the food served to the seniors comes from the school's kitchen and the pupils of the school are serving the guests as part of their formation in dealing respectfully with elderly people. Both the young and the old love it.

It is inevitable, I guess, that in a group like this the glorious past figures prominently in the conversations. Memories never fail to recall the large number of people that attended the celebrations of the years gone by and how lively the participation was in those days. The conclusion invariably is that all is very different now.

There is no denying the conclusion: the neighbourhood has changed beyond recognition. Aston turned from a white English-Irish neighbourhood into an ethnically mixed population where at present the majority of the inhabitants comes from Pakistan and Bangladesh. There is still a good sprinkle of Afro-Caribbean people, but like the Irish and the English they are declining in number, as the children of the first migrants have progressed and moved to more comfortable quarters elsewhere in the city. So, for those who remained there is much to be nostalgic about.

Nostalgia has its degrees, though. The crucial point is how realistically one deals with the facts, the facts of the past and those of the present. When one stays within the facts, nostalgia is a way of dealing with true losses due to changes in personal and community life. But when nostalga idealises the past to an extent it never was and at the same time is overly critical of the present, then one is in danger of blaming the newcomers for all of one's negative feelings. Then they are held responsible for putting the good old days to an end and bringing in all the problems of the present.

Nostalgia is not just confined to the old-timers, newcomers may suffer from it as well. The migrants who left their country of origin may turn out to be more traditional than those who stayed behind. They may remember vividly the good things they experienced before they moved to Britain and compare these with the negative experiences they had to cope with since they arrived in this country. Then nostalgia becomes a distortion of reality, not just a nurturing of good memories.

Last Saturday British and Asian people clashed in the centre of Birmingham to the horror of the shoppers of all complexions. One wonders how much of it was due to nostalgia gone wrong on both sides, for, sad to say, something innocent in itself has the potential to turn extreme.

Ton

Obstacles

2009-08-03T08:11:00.003Z

Some months ago I learned that English is taught to Bangladeshi men here in Aston. It was good news to me, because I strongly believe that command of the English language is a prerequisite to any bridge building between the various ethnic groups in the neighbourhood. Without it, segregation will reign supreme with its attending dangers of ignorance and prejudice.

So one morning I took the bold step to visit the community centre where the English classes were conducted and waited outside until I had a chance to talk with the teacher. He was surprised to meet someone who wanted to volunteer in helping him with his classes, but, sad to say, he could only accept an assistant who had the necessary qualifications.

At that time I had no idea what those qualifications were. I simply thought that it would be enough that my command of the English language was much better than that of his learners and that it would take him only a few minutes to find that out. Disappointment on my side: volunteering was not going to be easy.

It was Aston Pride, the regeneration programme of the city government, that organised a course for Adult Learner Support. After some hesitation I followed the lead of my two companions and subscribed to the course. It turned out to be an extensive affair way beyond what I would ever need to help a few men to improve the little English they possess. In fact, the language part of the course was the shortest part of the course. Most time was spent on other matters: education policies of the government, health and safety, learning styles, learning disabilities, methods for assessment, curriculum fits and so on. Worse still was the amount of paper work expected from the volunteers, a true deterrent.

What I needed most was in short supply: an understanding of the particular difficulties that Bangladeshi men face when they try to master English and how to work with a variety of simple exercises to keep the learners interested. The focus of the course was not on that, even though, thanks to the course, I know by now where to find these things.

My big suprise came in the end. One of our teachers admitted that a volunteer does not need the qualifications which the course provides in order to volunteer. It all depends on the tutor, the principal teacher, whether he or she can make good use of the services offered by the volunteer. That was exactly my original idea: what a long way to get back to it.

The need for English

2009-06-15T10:02:00.005Z

Walking the streets of Aston is a strange experience. The houses are unmistakenly English, in fact Victorian, a reminder of the Industrial Revolution which started in England in the nineteenth century. But the Englishness of Aston stops there, for most of the people are aliens. They walk around in clothes which are distinctly Asian and they talk in languages native to Pakistan and Bangladesh. The English language is in fact marginalised.

This would not be a bad thing, if the command of English was there and the other languages are only used for the sake of familiarity, a sign of closeness and intimacy. But this is often not the case, at least not for the older generation. They speak English poorly, if at all, and it is not uncommon to see young children act as interpreters to their parents in health clinics or other government institutions. I experienced this myself one time, when an elderly man wanted to see our house, as he was interested in a similar house a few doors away. It was his little boy who did all the talking.

I can imagine that it is embarrassing for a grown-up to rely on children in order to make contact with wider society. Likewise it is embarrassing for a parent not to be able to help one's children with their homework and feeling outclassed by even their little ones. It seems that experiences like these are the strongest motivations for wanting to learn English. They go right back to the family situation and the family is at the centre of the Asian cultures.

The three of us believe that responding to the need for English is a great service to the community, perhaps the greatest service we can offer. The time for looking around and trying to understand the neighbourhood and its dynamics is over, it is now time to make decisions about how to insert ourselves into concrete action. Helping with English seems the right choice. The need for English is there, not just from the point of view of integration and cohesion, but as a felt need of the people themselves.

Mistaken

2009-03-25T10:16:00.003Z

Birmingham Central Market is not only a good place for shopping, it is also a place where one can meet people from all over the world looking for cheap goods and foods. Even without striking a bargain oneself it is an entertaining place just to walk around in.

Last week I saw a guy there dressed like a tramp, unshaven and dishevelled. He took a few unsteady steps before he toppled over in front of my feet. He had not seen the line that fastened a billboard to the ground. He had trouble to get up by himself, so I helped him together with a companion of his who was his look-alike in appearance. Behind me I heard a guy say: "One drink too much for sure"; and it was exactly what I had thought myself. But bending over him trying to get him up I noticed no smell of alcohol whatsoever and the same applied to his companion whose face came near mine. They were as sober as new-born babies.

The realisation jolted me, wrong again! I try so hard to be open and to do away with prejudices and preconceived ideas, but time and again I am caught out. It brings home forcefully that it is nearly impossible to erase from heart and mind what has found its way in there over many years. The only thing I can do is to keep on trying.

Since the incident I became more aware of behaviour that can often been seen in Aston, but which until now had not really sunk in as significant. Most people here in Aston are Asian and they are supposed to have come from a strongly patriarchal culture. You would expect that the roles of men and women are clearly delineated: the women mostly confined to the affairs of the home and the men in charge of everything else. It struck me, now, that in fact many men are involved in the household shopping, either on their own or together with their families, not just the younger men but the older men as well. Perhaps more strikingly, it is not uncommon (although far from general) to see young fathers push the pram while their wives are walking beside them.

I have no idea whether these observations reflect an adaptation to English society or fall somehow within the behavioural patterns of the original culture. Whatever is the case, the point is that my presupposition was wrong and needs revision on account of that.

Ton

Villa Park

2009-02-25T14:54:00.006Z

The most impressive structure in Aston is Villa Park, the football stadium of Aston Villa, the premier league football club in Aston, which proudly displays its year of establishment: 1874. The football club does very well and ranks momentarily fourth in the premier league table.

Villa Park has a capacity of 42,640 seats and due to the fact that it is often filled to capacity there are plans to expand the number of seats up to 50,000. In contrast, the neighbourhood of Aston counts only 27,000 inhabitants, which means that on match days Aston is flooded with people outnumbering by far the local population. They all flock to Villa Park changing temporarily the character of the neighbourhood: from mostly Asian to predominantly white. It is indeed conspicuous that most of the fans of Aston Villa come from outside the neighbourhood and belong to the white section of English society.

So far I have attended only two matches of Aston Villa. The first was prompted by a promotional offer of Aston Villa trying to bring more local people into the stadium. Tickets for Aston residents were reduced from £20 or 30 pounds to just £5 pounds and it worked. In the section Mark and I had our seats, there were many Asian people. In fact, we learned about the promotional offer from our Bangladeshi neighbours. No reductions were offered for the second game and this showed as well: Asian people were conspicuously absent. Apparently, the normal prices of the tickets are too much for the local residents who suffer from low income and high unemployment. My impression is that they would like to be counted among the fans but that sadly the cost of the tickets is prohibitive.

It was quite an experience to attend the two matches. One was a win and the other a draw, but in both cases the crowd was fantastic from the beginning to the end, moving as one in urging the players on to go all out and win the game. The shouting, singing, waving and wailing approached ritual proportions. Indeed, football has often been compared with a religious ritual taking place on the "holy ground" of the stadium and uniting people of all walks of life around the heroes in the centre, the modern-day saints. Whatever is true of this comparison football has surely the capacity to build up and to break down community relations. Hopefully, in the case of Aston Villa, the club succeeds in building up an inclusive community, not just of those living outside Aston but foremost of the residents themselves. It is in line of the club's intention to be committed to equality.

Ton

Mansfield Green

2009-01-16T17:25:00.003Z

Aston is a innercity neighbourhood with few green spaces. The largest is Aston Park adjacent to Aston Hall, the stately mansion constructed by the Holte family in the 17th century. It is presently being restored together with the park for £10 million. I consider the park my lifeline and frequent it on my daily walks around the neighbourhood.

Closer to our house is another green space, called Mansfield Green. It can in no way compare with Aston park, still it is a breathing space in a neighbourhood crisscrossed by streets and full of buildings. The green space has not always been there: a map of Aston in our house, dated 1917, shows that what is now Mansfield Green was at that time packed with houses.

Unfortunately Mansfield Green is not fully appreciated for the rarity that it is. Littering is a problem in the whole of Aston, but Mansfield Green receives more than its share. The corner closest to our house seems to be the favourite dumping ground of drivers who stop at Mansfield Road to unload their often bulky rubbish onto the grass. Mansfield Green contains a small football field, but it is much less used than one would like to see. The reason seems to be that Mansfield Green lacks maintenance and is even dangerous because of holes hidden in the grass.

The Mansfield Residents Forum likes to see Mansfield Green developed. What they have in mind is rather simple: make it into a park by putting a fence around the area, laying out some paths through it and lining them with benches. A proper playground is to be constructed as well.

It has been a frustrating business. Aston Pride, the regeneration agency for Aston, has conducted two consultations among residents and claims that 52% of the respondents were in favour of constructing a community centre on Mansfield Green. The Mansfield Residents Forum cannot believe that the stated figure is true and would like to scrutinise how it was arrived at, but up to now they have never seen a written copy of the report.

Aston Pride admits that there is no shortage of community facilities in Aston implying that a new community centre is not really needed, but they are said to find it difficult to simply drop it in favour of a park, because one of the three city councillors from Aston is championing the community centre. Bureaucracy is another factor complicating the park proposal. Mansfield Green is owned by the Birmingham City Council with the housing department as the responsible agency, the area still being classified as a housing site. Reclassification of the site is necessary in order to guarantee the development of the park and its maintenance after establishment. This has not yet happened, as the site may still be needed for housing after all.

A strong Mansfield Residents Forum could mean all the difference. Unfortunately the organisation is rather weak and cannot make much of a noise. In order to make its voice really heard it needs to involve many more residents across the several ethnic groups. Would it be possible? Time would learn, but at least it has Mansfield Green to fight for.

Mediator?

2008-12-29T14:20:00.002Z

Walking around Aston a few days after Christmas I got a bit of a scare. A group of four guys were having a row, shouting at each other and gesticulating wildly. Getting a bit nearer I saw that two of them really wanted to have a go at each other and that the others were trying to restrain them. What scared me was that one of the guys who stepped in beween and tried to keep the two protagonists apart, received some blows in the process himself and lost his cool as well. This could become an uneven fight with serious consequences, but fortunately the shouting had alarmed some more people and together they tried to pacify the hotheads. It took some time for the shouting to go down but in the end the two opponents, still glaring angrily at each other, parted ways.

Hopefully this was the end of the row, but it is by no means sure. Newspapers regularly carry stories about knife crimes, in which an initial fight that ended in a draw was decided at a later stage by more violent means. It all depends on how humiliated the aggrieved parties feel and whether the initial problem can be solved. I for one had no idea what the row was all about. The shouting contained some English words but most of it was in, what I suppose, an Asian language from Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Mediation needs true insiders. As long as these are around and willing to commit themselves, escalation of a conflict can be prevented and the peace maintained. The whole incident brought forecefully home to me that I do not belong to that category. I felt very much the outsider, present, but unable to understand and to act.

Ton

The limits of dialogue

2008-11-05T10:13:00.002Z

Dialogue may be an exciting thing to do: it is venturing into an unfamiliar world and reaching out to others who are different from ourselves. On the other hand it is hard and demanding work. It is not easy to understand someone who grew up in another culture and has a different outlook on life. When religion is involved it becomes even more difficult: then areas of life are touched which go deep and the deeper they go the more sensitive they become.

Aston is a place where many cultures and many religions are in evidence. Churches and mosques abound and people in all kinds of dress are visible in the streets, from Western style clothes to the Muslim woman in full burqa. The differences are enormous and it is clear that observation does not get one very far. You may register the diversity but in order to enter the mindset of somebody else much more is needed than the look of an outsider.

One way of gaining some understanding is study, reading books and articles preferably written by representatives of the other cultures and religions. Let them talk about themselves and give them a chance to express who they are and how they live. Study is reaching out to them but not yet that close as that they are right in front of you and a perhaps uneasy face-to-face encounter becomes inevitable.

I have been studying Islam for months now and slowly I have gotten some inkling of what the Islam stands for. Time, I thought, to share what I have learned with my fellow members of the Catholic parish in Aston. They too live with Muslims all around them and they too may wonder what goes on in the Muslim world. A basic course on Islam might help them to deepen their contacts with their neighbours and understand both them and themselves better.

The course took place in five sessions. Material was gratefully borrowed from the Church of England and it covered five themes: The Origins of Islam; the Qur'an; Islamic Belief and Practice; Evangelism or Dialogue and Extremism. Attendance varied from 15 to over 20 people, both from Aston and neighbouring parishes. On the whole it went well with the exception of one highly confrontational session. The problem was that some of those present did not want dialogue, they wanted clear pronouncements against Islam and its teachings. They were not after understanding another faith but after proclamation of the Catholic truth in all its clarity.
Anything less would be relativity.

True dialogue does not mean that one gives up one's own convictions. On the contrary these will be brought in into the discussion, but what is definitely needed for dialogue is the willingness to understand the other in his or her faith and appreciate what that faith means to him or her. In the end persons are more important than doctrine and love is of a higher order than truth. When this awareness is absent, dialogue has reached its limits.

Ton

Dogs

2008-10-08T09:47:00.002Z

A radio newsitem on October 6 caught my attention. It said that for the first time a guide dog was allowed to enter a mosque in Leicester at prayer time together with its owner. The decision or fatwa was heralded by a mosque leader as a breakthrough and he hoped that many mosques all-over the United Kingdom would follow this example: guide dogs are no longer to be considered as unclean when they take their blind owners to say their prayers in the mosque. He added by way of assurance that guide dogs are well-trained and well-behaving dogs that do not disturb the praying service in any way.

The newsitem brought home to me that indeed in the predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of Aston one hardly sees a dog. I am in the habit of making daily tours through the neighbourhood on foot and it is only rarely that I see dog-owners walking their dogs and they, the dog-owners that is, are mostly white. In a garden not far at the back of our house a large dog can be seen and heard occasionally, jumping and barking around, but its owner is distinctly West-Indian. The Muslim population of mostly Pakistani and Bangladeshi do not seem to take to dogs. Cats is a different story, we see them daily in a balancing act crossing the wooden fence of our garden.

So I was utterly surprised while reading the reminiscences of Dr. Mohammed Naseem, the chairman of the Birmingham Central Mosque since 1975. His piece was first published in the Birmingham Mail of 15th July 2006. He recalls his visits to a park as a child and how he loved the roses on display. The part that suprised me said: "I love dogs too, they are beautiful creatures, so loyal, so devoted. They have only one mission in their lives - to serve and please their masters. They have a total commitment that we humans can learn from. They also come in different colours - white, brown, black, grey and even spotted. It is a joy to visit the annual dog show. The display of colours and quality takes me back to my days of the visits to the park."

Of course, Dr. Naseem does not say that he ever owned a dog himself. He may be simply talking about a love from afar. Still, it is remarkable that he publicly declares his love for dogs, while other Muslims consider them as unclean. I have not yet been able to figure out how this incongruity is possible, but the one conclusion I felt safe to draw for myself is, that caution is needed in approaching the belief system of another religion. It may be more complicated than it seems at first sight.

Ton

Mosques

2008-08-06T09:48:00.003Z

Aston has plenty of mosques, big and small. I have not yet counted them all but surely they number over ten. In addition you have Islamic centres that are not connected with a mosque. Both mosques and Islamic centres make the presence of Islam very pronounced in Aston. Without doubt it is the religion of the majority of the population. On Fridays this fact shows itself in another way. The mosques are crowded by the faithful and the streets around them by their cars.

It is not so easy to chart what particular strand of Islam each mosque represents. As a start it would be needed to go around, paper and pencil in hand, and list down all the names that are written on the mosques, hopefully they are in English as well as in Arabic or other scripts. So far I have been hesitant to do so, as if I felt exposing myself to accusations of spying on other people's lives and sacred beliefs. Perhaps I am too sensitive, for I was told that nothing more may be involved than people from the same village in Pakistan or Bangladesh putting up theitr own mosque and having their own imam.

So far I have been in only two mosques, one in Aston and one in the city centre, both were rather large mosques that catered to Muslims of various countries of origin and used several languages in their Friday services. Some time ago a Muslim youth leader told us that only one mosque in Aston had an English speaking imam, but since then we found out that at least one other mosque should be added to this short list.

The question of language is a sensitive issue. The Qur'an is written in Arabic and Muslims believe that only the Arabic version is the true word of God. Any preacher should be able to read the Qur'an in the original language and explain the meaning of it to the congregation in a language they understand. Imams cannot do so without study and it is still the case that most opportunities for studying the Qur'an are found in Muslim countries. Also many of the mosque-goers, in particular the older men who are most faithful in going to the prayer services, have a poor command of the English language. They get by in the ordinary matters of daily life, but for more intricate discussions about issues of faith their knowledge of English falls short. Then for them the word of God becomes more important than the language of this country.

Ton

Aston Heritage Day

2008-06-25T15:03:00.002Z

It was a splendid idea to declare the 21st of June Aston Heritage Day. Aston does not have an enviable reputation being rather associated with gangs and violence, so a move to put the neighbourhood in a positive light is only to be applauded. After all, gangs and violence cause anxiety once in a while but they are definitely not the order of the day.

The occasion was announced by banners and a lot of flyers in public spaces: "Take the Aston Challenge and let Aston amaze you". It is indeed amazing that a deprived, innercity neighbourhood lists no less than 12 sites of memorable distinction. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that up to 1911 Aston had a political standing of its own, not yet being incorporated in the expanding City of Birmingham. The old magistrates' court from that period is now a training centre for youth with emphasis on the arts and the old Council House, while continuing to be the home of the Aston Library, now contains the offices of Aston pride, the regeneration programme for the neighbourhood.

The Heritage Day lasted from 11:30am to 4:00pm, a total of 4 hours and 30 minutes or 270 minutes altogether. The flyer announced that all adults who visited all 12 venues on that day would be entered in a Prize Draw, the prize being a stadium tour of Aston Villa followed by a lunch for two at the nearby Holte Hotel. I wonder whether anyone went for that! They would have had only 22.5 minutes per venue including moving from one site to another. The only way to have a chance was by not lingering at places at all, just get your sticker and jump in your car again.

I myself went around on foot and saw half of the venues. What struck me was the big difference in historical awareness. At some of the places those receiving the visitors gave an overview of what went on in their particular building from the time of its construction up to now. Aston Hall was a good example of that. Others seemed only interested in the present, in the activities as they are going on today without any sense of how much has changed over the years.

One nice aspect of a heritage day is that you have access to parts of buildings which are normally closed to the public. One instance of this is that you are allowed below ground level and that you can see for yourself how much space is unused or used for so-called storage. There has been a proposal in Aston to convert part of Mansfield Green into a community centre. It seems to me that before any scarse green space is taken up by yet another building, refurbishing of underused parts of already existing buildings deserves to be looked into. It may turn out to be better for the heritage of Aston and better for the environment.

Ton

Bridging

2008-05-08T14:54:00.003Z

A bridge connects two riverbanks running from one side to the other. I like bridges with an arch, not just because they are more pleasing to the eye, but because they make it more difficult for a walking person to reach the other side. You have to put in an effort first and only when you have reached the highest point does it become easier to complete the crossing. At the same time the upward slant of the bridge no longer blocks your view and you can see what lies ahead of you without restriction.

After seven months in Aston our Cordate Community is still trying to make its way up the bridge and we have not yet reached the easing-off point. We never thought we would in such a short time. In our planning we have given ourselves at least one year to immerse ourselves in the neighbourhood.

We are not the only ones negotiating the bridge of intercultural relationships. For seven years a regeneration project has been going on in Aston. It is a ten-year programme and by now it should have scaled the highest point of the bridge, but I wonder whether they have succeeded in doing so. Recently I attended a meeting called by the health coordinator of the programme in the area. The various faith groups were invited, meaning in fact representatives of the many churches and mosques in the neighbourhood. They did not show up in great numbers, in fact only a few mosques and churches were represented. More telling perhaps than the disappointing attendance was the topic of the meeting. It was all about seeking the cooperation of the faith groups in getting the health and family services of the programme delivered to the target groups. Apparently, they had reason to believe that the needs for health care and family assistance were there, but the services meant to answer those needs were not sufficiently availed of by the population.

The programme is not wanting in effort. They are willing to be flexible in time and place. If the people could only make it in the evenings or during weekends, so be it. They would adjust their schedules accordingly. If the people wanted them to go to the places where they feel at home, like their churches or mosques, no problem. They would rent space there, if possible, and so make themselves available right on the spot where the people want them.

It is not so easy to pinpoint why this bridge has not been crossed. Does the problem lie with the programme in spite of their great willingness to serve? Did they somehow make the wrong start having difficulty ever since in connecting with the people? Or does the problem lie with the people who prefer their own problem-solving, even if deficient, and rather keep to themselves? One suspects that cultural differences on both sides make it difficult to shuffle up the bridge. Running or walking is definitely out of the question.

Ton

Church and State

2008-02-26T09:39:00.002Z

Carl, Mark and me are all from different countries: England, Belgium and the Netherlands respectively. Our countries are all part of Northwestern Europe, but even so they differ a lot among each other in their church-state relationships. In England the queen is the formal head of the Anglican Church and the archbishop of Canterbury for one has a seat in the House of Lords. Belgium is a Catholic country and it shows by the State taking responsibility for church buildings and paying parish priests a monthly salary. In the Netherlands Church and State are farther apart, but even there it is possible to receive state subsidies for sectarian schools, as long as they meet the educational standards set by the State.

The differences between the three countries are due to each going through its own historical development. I do not claim to understand what the particular experience of each country was and how in the course of time they arrived at their present arrangements. I do not even know what the precise present arrangements are! All that I know are a few elements of an intricate structure.

The complexity of church-state relationships has more than one cause. It is not just a matter of law and the legal language it uses. It has as much to do with religion and the way it looks at itself. Religion claims to be based on a divine revelation and that puts religion over against the State, unless of course the State itself is sanctioned by religion. What can be confusing at times are the actuations of governments. Governments are not the State, but they may try to change the political system and remodel the State.

I was in the Philippines during the reign of President Ferdinand Marcos. He declared Martial Law and used the armed forces to alter the system of government into a one-man rule. The Catholic Church reacted ambiguously at first. They gave him the benefit of the doubt and felt that Romans 13, 1 still applied: "Everyone is to obey the governing authorities, because there is no authority except from God and so whatever authorities exist have been appointed by God". Others quoted rather Peter and John before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4, 19: "You must judge whether in God's eyes it is right to listen to you and not to God". In the end the Church turned massively against Marcos because he had lost all legitimacy by making a mockery of the political process.

Religions have their own way of judging governments and ultimately the State. They do not accept governments and states automatically. They need to be persuaded that it is the best thing to do.

Church-state relationships are not fixed once and for all. They are susceptible to change. Secularists may try to ban religion from the public domain into the private sphere. Religions may strive hard in having their particular views prevail in legislation and government policies. In the end it is all about the common good and the common good is something of everyone and for everyone.

Ton

2008-01-16T20:36:00.001Z

superiority

2008-01-16T09:56:00.001Z

It should not have surprised me, but it did nevertheless: one of our Muslim visitors told us that Muslims feel generally superior to Christians. It should not have surprised me, because the other way around is true as well. Christians feel that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, so what more do you need?

The claim for Muslims' superiority is based on the fact that Muhammad is the last prophet. He was given the Qur'an, the final and ultimate revelation of Allah. It sums up and corrects everything that went before it and it cannot be outdone by anything which follows it. It is without equals.

Our visitor was at some pains to add that for some Muslims this meant that all people of other persuasions are unbelievers and should not be called brothers and sisters, but that he himself did not go as far as that. He felt that Muslims and Christians have enough in common to consider each other as members of an extended family.

On the other hand the claim to superiority has more to it than a doctrinal basis. In the minds of many Muslims it is also borne out by the fact that Christians on the whole are not as committed to their faith as the Muslims are. Obvious are the largely empty churches and the full mosques, and the practice of Ramadan compares very favourably with that of Lent. Muslims take their faith seriously and their impression is that Christians do not. It certainly means that for us, Christians, to merit their respect as a credible partner in dialogue we have to be much more than just Christians in name. Christ has to be the true centre of our lives.

Strangely enough our visitor felt somewhat lucky that Christians do not practice their faith as much now as before. He seemed to imply that English society would not be as liberal as it is regarding Muslims if the Christians would have remained true to their faith. This got me really thinking. Freedom of religion has been a difficult point in the history of our own Catholic Church. It was only proclaimed as a value at the Second Vatican Council, after nearly two thousand years of Christianity. Apparently, it will take a few more years before it is acknowledged as a universal value, at least the full version of it.

Ton

Fragmentation

2007-11-13T18:50:00.000Z

When the establishment of our Cordate Community, without using that name as yet, was first talked about, it was in the context of secularisation. Western Europe was in the process of profound change. Organised religion experienced a steep decline and what remained of it was pushed back to the privacy of the home. It even went further than that: not just organised religion was affected but faith as well. Secularisation represented no less than a crisis of faith. Our community was envisioned as an attempt, however small, to confront the challenge of secularisation.

With this in mind, it is quite astonishing to walk through Aston in Birmingham, a neighbourhood in the second largest city of England, where you would expect secularisation at work in full force. But what you see in going around its streets is many mosques and many churches. I counted at least twelve mosques, big and small - the smallest not bigger than a house -, and eight churches of different Christian denominations. Apparently Aston is a highly religious neighbourhood and organised religion is still very much alive.

Fortunately our project was not only given the purpose of confronting secularisation, it was also meant to build bridges between different religions and different persuasions. Modern Western Europe was not just characterised by secularisation, it was also a fragmented society with all the dangers to peaceful coexistence which division implies.

Well, Aston is clearly a fragmented neighbourhood along religious lines, coinciding to a large extent with racial backgrounds as well, so plenty of work to be done. So far, apart from the very welcoming Catholic community, I have met representatives of only one mosque and one Christian church. Contact building is a slow and time-consuming process.

But how to build bridges? Just outside Aston near a large shopping centre is a hairdressing salon called "The Hand of God". I could not believe my eyes the first time I saw the name. I found it very funny and imagined the owner believing that the hand of God was guiding his hand in providing the most perfect hair care to his customers. Of course, the claim is outrageous if it were meant seriously.

Perhaps, religions should learn some modesty too. They often claim to know much more about The Other than is warranted. After all God is the one "whose home is in inaccessible light, whom no human being has seen or is able to see" (1Tm: 6,16).

Ton

Moving house

2007-09-16T12:18:00.000Z

I lost track of how many times I moved house in my life. I estimate it to be more than twenty, once every three years on the average. Still, this time while we are in the process of moving from Princethorpe to Aston, there is a huge difference.

In the past I just moved from one furnished house to another being appreciative of what my fellow MSCs had prepared for me. I just moved my personal belongings and that was all. The frequent moves helped not to collect too many of them.

This time we ourselves have to furnish our house and for each piece of furniture I am asked: what do you want? Do you feel comfortable with this? What do you prefer? The questions force me to consider a range of product possibilities which I had the good fortune not to be bothered about before. Until now I had been spared the multitude of choices that modern capitalism offers to its consumers.

Of course, this is prosperity, the luxury of choice. wealth exhibited in many types of materials, shapes and colours. But for me it is simply overwhelming, confusing and it makes me long for a simpler age, where freedom of choice was limited and all that you expected were one or two alternatives. You did not feel any the poorer for it, because you had no idea about the subsequent explosion of possibilities.

This blissful ignorance is no longer with me. Times have changed and a nostalgic looking back at the past will not do. Yet, I cannot feel grateful either for everything that our consumer society has on offer. It is simply too much and no amount of advertising has as yet been able to convince me to the contrary.

Ton

Culture

2007-06-14T12:58:00.000Z

Living in another country is a healthy experience. Everyone should have the opportunity to do so for a shorter or longer period of time. Ostensibly it is beneficial to widen your horizons and to realise that the world is bigger than the small territory that you have set your sights on up to now. In fact, contrary to expectations, self-knowledge may be the more important outcome of a confrontation with another culture. If everything goes well, you may discover that much of what you considered as natural and a matter of course is not that at all. It is plain home-grown culture, just one local way of looking at things and experiencing the world, but not the only way possible and certainly not the only logical way.
What we have learned by living together, even as three Western Europeans, is that we have to be careful in assuming that logic is on our side. Just take the example of language. English is a notorious language for pronunciation and spelling. All logic seems to be absent: you don’t pronounce words consistently in the way that they are written and you don’t write them in the way that they are pronounced. For a foreigner it is quite a bewildering experience.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude smugly that your own language, Flemish and Dutch in the case of Mark and myself, is the more logical means of communication. Such a conclusion is based on a false comparison: by taking inconsistencies in the English language and putting them over against cases of consistency in your own language.
Self-knowledge is to be gained when you dare to search for inconsistencies that are part of your own language as well. The only thing that is needed is honesty and you surely don’t have to search very far.
It may seem unsettling at first, your nice self-image gets a bit dented. But what is really happening is that you arrive at a commonality of inconsistency, a togetherness in accepting that our different languages, written and spoken, are just inadequate ways of expression. They don’t tell the whole story.
Ideally, this awareness becomes a source for a common search for meaning. As long as we acknowledge that no one has the full story, the basis is there to look together for the missing parts.

Ton

Stranger

2007-05-18T08:12:00.000Z

Who will be the stranger when we finally move into Aston?

Chances are that we, the white Western Europeans, feel the most out of place. The reason is sheer numbers: we shall be a minority in a neighbourhood where the other strangers, those usually called stangers because of their colour of skin or the way in which they dress, far outnumber those of our complexion and appearance.

The first feeling may be defiance: “WE out of place? ... but we belong here more than THEY do, don’t we? We are not going to allow ourselves to be reduced to a remnant of the past. We shall show them what quality we are made of.”

The trouble with feelings is that you don’t have full control over them. They just arise out of some hidden depth in you, without you knowing how, and they make their point, whether you manage to put them into words or not. They may even be the more insidious, the less you succeed in naming them.

Nobody is above racism, it is said, and I’m afraid that it is true. Nobody with a fair amount of self-esteem is above a feeling of superiority. Your own culture, your own religion, is always the best. You are rightly proud of them and you are not prepared to settle for second place.

One advantage of our moving into Aston is that we do not occupy a position of power in that neighbourhood. It means that we have to earn our respect, and if we did not know it already, we shall soon find out the hard way, that respect is only shown to those who are respectful of others.

Respect and strangers go very well together. Respect does not take differences away, on the contrary it thrives on them.

Ton

Explaining our presence

2007-04-15T20:25:00.000Z

Three white guys moving into, and not out of, a multicultural neighbourhood requires some plausible explanation to take away the inevitable suspicion. It remains to be seen whether we shall succeed.
We would love to simply tell the truth, that we are Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, a religious community of mostly priests, like ourselves, in this part of the world, but we fear that these words won’t do us any good.
‘Missionary’ is the first difficulty. The missionaries that are most active are the evangelicals and the pentecostal churches. They have the image of an aggressive type of evangelisation. We don’t want to be put into the same bracket as them. For us ‘mission’ is dialogue, it involves as much listening as talking, trying as much to understand as to be understood.
‘Roman Catholic priest’ sounds a bit better but runs into another difficulty. We are priests without a parish and do not represent in any way the local parish church. We need to explain that for us the neighbourhood and all its people are important, not just or primarily the Catholic part of it. We are precisely interested in how the different cultural and religious groups live alongside one another and cope with their differences. If possible we would like to be involved in building bridges.
The words ‘Sacred Heart’, for Catholics and those in the know, point to universal love but for others, Muslims and evangelicals alike, it smacks of idolatry: God may not be represented in an image of any kind. Even for many Catholics the Sacred Heart may appear too sweet or something of a bygone age.
All these associations prompted us to look for different words. Finally we came up with ‘Cordate Community’, knowing well that ‘cordate’ (which means ‘heart-shaped’) is not self-explanatory either. There is no way in which we can explain ourselves honestly and succinctly without running into difficulties. One advantage of the word “cordate”, however, is that it does not carry other connotations, other baggage. Hopefully it will encourage people to ask about its meaning. That itself provides an opening for dialogue and conversation.
And so we have chosen to be known as the ‘Cordate Community’, a community that has heart for the neighbourhood and for all the people living there. But we realise that it is not within our control to have this name accepted. We can only hope that in the end our deeds speak louder than our words.

Patience

2007-03-01T14:06:00.000Z

Waiting to move house is a tough job. You are itching to make the necessary arrangements and the only thing you can do is to sit back and be patient. The uncertainty is the worst. Because you have no idea when you will finally get the key of your house, you can’t make any definite plans, not just for moving house but for any other activity as well. After all, you may receive the sudden notice to pack up and get going.

If there is one thing I have learned during the past six months, it is that assurances of house builders do not count for much. One of their promises was that we could surely start moving house before Christmas. As matters stand now, we shall be happy if we are reasonably installed by Easter. If you are that far out in your timing, I feel justified to say: ‘You don’t really know what you are talking about, do you?’, hoping that my impatience does not come through too clearly. In England you have to keep your feelings in check and you have to learn the art of expressing your annoyance in a polite way.

A horrible thought struck me: moving into Aston may not be the end of our waiting, but actually the beginning. The problem is our ministry of presence. It turns on seeking to establish contact with our neighbours and other people nearby and then waiting for their response. Without gaining their trust we shall never get beyond small talk and sterile conversation. Trust takes time to develop; it depends on many fleeting encounters, in which gradually familiarity puts us at ease with one another. Unfortunately for me, there is no way of hurrying up the process.

Ton Zwart msc

Reflections

2007-02-02T12:03:00.000Z

Our new house in Aston will have a prayer room, one of the five bedrooms designated for that purpose. We like to have our daily Eucharistic celebration and we pray together after supper and the washing up in the evening.
I feel that our prayer room should somehow reflect our presence in a multicultural and multireligious neighbourhood. This can be done by not only having Catholic religious symbols displayed in our chapel but also representative objects of other religions. It would be lovely if these were given to us by our very neighbours. I don’t expect them to do so on their own initiative, however. A little prompting or soliciting may be needed, taking care that the size of their objects do not dwarf our traditional Catholic symbols. We would not want the picture of Jesus to be relegated to a subordinate position!
Actually it was he who shows the way how to deal with religious reality. He could be quite critical of basic aspects of his own Jewish religion, the Temple and the Law, and got into conflict with their keepers, the priests and the scribes. At the same time he praised the Samaritan leper, a person of another so-called inferior faith and the only one of the ten healed lepers who returned to thank him for his cure. The Parable of the Good Samaritan comes to mind too. He is is a truly outstanding example of compassion for all who pride themselves on their own faith and misjudge the heights to which other religions can bring their followers.
Ton

New Year, New Beginnings

2007-01-09T20:45:00.000Z

Well, all three of us are back at base now after some holidays - Mark with his family in Belgium, and Ton and I with my parents in Devon.
As the New Year opens, so we are really looking forward to finally beginning our presence and ministry in Aston. The last few months have been very frustrating and difficult for us as we have had to accept one delay after another with the building of our house. It is totally out of our control and all we can do is watch and wait. We had initially expected to be moving some time in August, and here we are now in January still facing delays of another few weeks.
We have been trying to keep ourselves busy with some supply work and more reading and study, but the time has long since come and gone that we just want to get started. The one thing the last few months has honed in is is patience! We first placed an offer on the house last May. At the beginning of February it will be nine months - my first real insight into what waiting for the birth of a child is like!! I am just hoping that nine months will be the limit!
We have been very lucky to have such a good period of preparation. But all the preparation in the world won't take away the need to move very gently when we finally do take up residence in Aston. The patience we have been acquiring recently will need to be sustained - resisting the urge to make up for the lack of ministry these last few months by going mad and jumping into anything and everything. The first priority is to build relationships with neighbours and key people in Aston, taking care to listen and learn what life is really like there.
As we have been celebrating the incarnation of God in human flesh these last few weeks, we pray that we may take care to allow oursleves the same vulnerability when we finally pitch our tent in Aston.
Carl

Welcome

2006-11-25T14:44:00.000Z

Welcome to the first post on our new Cordate Blog. In addition to our existing website (www.cordate.org) we hope that this will become another means of keeping in contact with our many friends, fellow MSCs and supporters.
We are new to the world of blogging but we hope that the interactivity of this medium will bring a fresh dynamism to our communication and conversations. Please do add your own comments to our posts on this Blog.