SYMBOLISM sometimes becomes more real than the reality it shadows. Observing the dark times Indians are fighting against with a blend of grit and determination, I am reminded of the nattily dressed Omid, the blind man from Bamiyan in Afghanistan whose name spells hope writes Jawed Naqvi in The Dawn
Bamiyan is, of course, famous for its ancient Buddha statues and remembered with sadness for their destruction by the Afghan Taliban. Omid is a waiter at a restaurant that serves food in pitch-dark rooms. That’s the way this popular outfit in Canada does brisk business.
I remember a smiling Omid taking my hand firmly into his hand and nudging two others to line up behind me to form a train with our arms linked. Mobile phones were required to be switched off, not even a light-emitting wristwatch was permitted.
Threading his way in the lightless room through a clutter of furniture and people who could be heard munching but not seen, he led us to a table whose shape we have remained uncertain about. He served food without mixing orders. We groped and searched for cutlery, but decided to eat with fingers as a good option given the situation we were in.
Omid exuded confidence needed in his job as he negotiated the packed room avoiding furniture and people on the way. His worldview was imprinted in the stoic verbal interaction, which gave just a faint hint that he belonged to the Shia minority group of Muslims, vulnerable and targeted in a puritanical, Sunni-dominated Afghanistan.
It is well known that clarity of thought usually sharpens in the dark, a reason why people close their eyes to concentrate. Some of the best literature has come from the pens of people confined to dimly lit prison cells. Gramsci’s prison diaries have remained a perennial source of intellectual insights into a troubled world jousting outside the walls of what became for him an oasis of intellectual burgeoning.
Sitting with eyes shut for a stretch of time, getting momentarily into Omid’s shoes, can perhaps help one see the world with greater clarity than, say, would reading a newspaper or watching TV news do. The mind’s eye can perceive a small gesture of kindness before it becomes an invaluable link in one’s struggle against rampaging injustice and prejudice. A little noticed news item sifted from images of tragic bloodletting could become a truer anchor of support.
Newspapers, for example, highlight images of police brutality and the state’s indulgence of petty bias in the current Indian context, and that would move any of the young comrades to anger or action. Something that Omid would spur one to see with greater clarity though is the man with the janeo, the sacred thread worn across the shoulder by high-caste Hindus. This man stood his ground the other day against a baton-wielding policeman at the Jamia Millia students’ protest In Delhi. “I’m not a Muslim. Here’s my janeo. Hit me too since I’m protesting.” The image trumped the visual chaos of violence, and shored up hope with more self-assuredness.
From Kerala, a report spoke of a Christian church that gave space to Muslims to offer prayers as they both linked up in a march against a communally divisive new law imparting citizenship to everyone except Muslims from three chosen countries.
Images of determined Muslim men throwing a protective ring around a church in Peshawar quickly came to mind. Christians were targeted by Muslim zealots there. And Muslims came out promptly to protect the Christians from the zealots. That’s what rattles the toxic state most. Glimpses of another Gujarat are being woven into the narrative of state-backed communal violence in Uttar Pradesh where police under the command of an ignorant Hindu monk have gone berserk in Muslim localities. Historical reality challenges such easy assumptions. Uttar Pradesh is where the 1857 revolt began with Muslims and Hindus jointly fighting British rule. New videos have emerged of ordinary Hindus in the state vociferously rejecting the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah bias against Muslims.
The most reassuring prospect the mind can see in the new year is the unravelling of the Hindutva plot. And this is not something the youth from college campuses and universities have set into motion. Their role has been pivotal in spurring the opposition to Modi. However, it is comforting for the young men and women (actually in the reverse order) that there has been a political earthquake in Maharashtra, a source of immense confidence whether the students see it or not.
The revolt within the Hindutva alliance in Maharashtra has actually given spine to the students’ movement. It was no small deal for Udhav Thackeray, the head of the notoriously anti-Muslim Shiv Sena, to admit the other day that mixing religion with politics had been a mistake. It’s not an ordinary mea culpa but possibly a tectonic shift in the country’s political matrix.
The fact is that the prime minister and his home minister are riding a tiger. They will throw anything at the opposition that would help thwart the street anger. The divisive citizenship law they ushered and the damaging citizen’s register they seem to be stepping back from tactically following intense pressure on the streets were both aimed at the state of West Bengal.
Suppose Modi in his desperation to win at any cost decides to dismiss Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s government to set the stage to capture power in the state in 2021. Nothing is impossible after what he did with Maharashtra, where he tried to sneak in his own chief minister in a pre-dawn coup of sorts. Maharashtra stalled Modi and shored up the opposition. A critical historical fact is that the Marathas are the only cohesive force after the Mughals and before the British to have come within a whisker of ruling India. They today comprise the core of the Indian state apparatus, straddling every wing of it, and, therefore, are not to be trifled with. This much again one can say with eyes closed.
Showing posts with label prejudice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prejudice. Show all posts
Tuesday, 31 December 2019
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Why did Andrew Marr lose it with Shami Chakrabarti?
The establishment is throwing its toys out of the pram, with old-guard political broadcasters struggling to cope with change writes Faiza Shaheen in The Guardian
BBC viewers used to the genteel, unflappable Andrew Marr might have had a shock on Sunday morning when the veteran broadcaster suddenly snapped. His guest, Shami Chakrabarti, explaining how Labour would follow through the Brexit referendum result, said: “I don’t know about you, Andrew, but I’m a democrat.” To which he barked, jabbing his crib notes in her face: “Don’t try and patronise me – I’m as much a democrat as you are!”
Change is hard to deal with – especially, it seems, for old-guard political broadcasters. Right now the number of women and people of colour coming forward and challenging the establishment is growing and the establishment is not taking it at all well. Yes, we can read their behaviour as bullying and obviously unacceptable, but Marr’s retort to Chakrabarti is just another sign that they have their knickers in a twist.
As well as Marr’s aggression, in recent weeks we’ve had Andrew Neil tweeting an outrageous insult about the award-winning journalist Carole Cadwalladr, Adam Boulton retweeting people who chastise me for sounding like I’m from east London, and Piers Morgan telling people of colour they should leave the country if they don’t take more pride in Britain.
The more I find myself in prestigious TV green rooms, traditionally not the spaces for women of colour from a working-class background, the more I see how establishment biases play out both on and off screen.
The first time I went on the Andrew Marr Show I was struck by the “in-crowd” cosiness of it all. In the green room the guests’ conversation consisted of showing off about who’d most recently had dinner with David Davis. On another occasion a Tory grandee completely ignored me. He said hello and goodbye to everyone else (all older, middle-class and white) on the panel and just looked straight past me as if I were invisible. This was particularly weird given that I directly addressed him while we were on air.
It’s no coincidence that before before last year’s election Diane Abbott, a black woman, received more online hate than any other politician
Sometimes the bias is more subtle. The organisation I run, Class, is often introduced on air as a leftwing or trade-union-supported thinktank. This doesn’t bother me – we’re transparent about where we get our money from and our political stance. However, it does irk me that my counterparts on the right are almost never introduced with their political bias upfront – and they are rarely transparent about where their funding comes from, which means that their vested interests are never called out.
And let’s consider why Marr might have had so much latent anger towards Chakrabarti: could it be that he no longer understands the world around him? He probably never imagined the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, whose shadow cabinet includes more working-class people, women and ethnic minorities than any before.
We cannot let the media dinosaurs – people who should be taking a long hard look at their prejudices – make us feel we’re the ones in the wrong. And this has real-world consequences: it’s no coincidence that before last year’s election Diane Abbott, a black woman, received more online hate than any other politician.
Nowadays I’ve taken to drawing satisfaction when seeing outbursts such as Marr’s: it’s the privileged white-male equivalent of throwing toys out of the pram, and shouting: “It isn’t fair!” We need to fight their attitudes and demand fairer representation, but we should also take pride in the fact that they’re finally being forced to acknowledge us.
BBC viewers used to the genteel, unflappable Andrew Marr might have had a shock on Sunday morning when the veteran broadcaster suddenly snapped. His guest, Shami Chakrabarti, explaining how Labour would follow through the Brexit referendum result, said: “I don’t know about you, Andrew, but I’m a democrat.” To which he barked, jabbing his crib notes in her face: “Don’t try and patronise me – I’m as much a democrat as you are!”
Change is hard to deal with – especially, it seems, for old-guard political broadcasters. Right now the number of women and people of colour coming forward and challenging the establishment is growing and the establishment is not taking it at all well. Yes, we can read their behaviour as bullying and obviously unacceptable, but Marr’s retort to Chakrabarti is just another sign that they have their knickers in a twist.
As well as Marr’s aggression, in recent weeks we’ve had Andrew Neil tweeting an outrageous insult about the award-winning journalist Carole Cadwalladr, Adam Boulton retweeting people who chastise me for sounding like I’m from east London, and Piers Morgan telling people of colour they should leave the country if they don’t take more pride in Britain.
The more I find myself in prestigious TV green rooms, traditionally not the spaces for women of colour from a working-class background, the more I see how establishment biases play out both on and off screen.
The first time I went on the Andrew Marr Show I was struck by the “in-crowd” cosiness of it all. In the green room the guests’ conversation consisted of showing off about who’d most recently had dinner with David Davis. On another occasion a Tory grandee completely ignored me. He said hello and goodbye to everyone else (all older, middle-class and white) on the panel and just looked straight past me as if I were invisible. This was particularly weird given that I directly addressed him while we were on air.
It’s no coincidence that before before last year’s election Diane Abbott, a black woman, received more online hate than any other politician
Sometimes the bias is more subtle. The organisation I run, Class, is often introduced on air as a leftwing or trade-union-supported thinktank. This doesn’t bother me – we’re transparent about where we get our money from and our political stance. However, it does irk me that my counterparts on the right are almost never introduced with their political bias upfront – and they are rarely transparent about where their funding comes from, which means that their vested interests are never called out.
And let’s consider why Marr might have had so much latent anger towards Chakrabarti: could it be that he no longer understands the world around him? He probably never imagined the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, whose shadow cabinet includes more working-class people, women and ethnic minorities than any before.
We cannot let the media dinosaurs – people who should be taking a long hard look at their prejudices – make us feel we’re the ones in the wrong. And this has real-world consequences: it’s no coincidence that before last year’s election Diane Abbott, a black woman, received more online hate than any other politician.
Nowadays I’ve taken to drawing satisfaction when seeing outbursts such as Marr’s: it’s the privileged white-male equivalent of throwing toys out of the pram, and shouting: “It isn’t fair!” We need to fight their attitudes and demand fairer representation, but we should also take pride in the fact that they’re finally being forced to acknowledge us.
Sunday, 7 October 2018
Why Religious Faith is becoming more and more Popular
Harriet Sherwood in The Guardian
How many believers are there around the world?
If you think religion belongs to the past and we live in a new age of reason, you need to check out the facts: 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religious group. Members of this demographic are generally younger and produce more children than those who have no religious affiliation, so the world is getting more religious, not less – although there are significant geographical variations.
According to 2015 figures, Christians form the biggest religious group by some margin, with 2.3 billion adherents or 31.2% of the total world population of 7.3 billion. Next come Muslims (1.8 billion, or 24.1%), Hindus (1.1 billion, or 15.1%) and Buddhists (500 million, or 6.9%).
The next category is people who practise folk or traditional religions; there are 400m of them, or 6% of the global total. Adherents of lesser-practised religions, including Sikhism, Baha’i and Jainism, add up to 58m, or well below 1%. There are 14m Jews in the world, about 0.2% of the global population, concentrated in the US and Israel.
But the third biggest category is missing from the above list. In 2015, 1.2 billion people in the world, or 16%, said they have no religious affiliation at all. This does not mean all those people are committed atheists; some – perhaps most – have a strong sense of spirituality or belief in God, gods or guiding forces, but they don’t identify with or practise an organised religion.
Almost all religions have subdivisions. Christians can be Roman Catholic (the biggest group with almost 1.3 billion adherents), Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Anglican or many other sub-denominations. Muslims might be Sunni (the majority), Shia, Ibadi, Ahmadiyya or Sufi. Hinduism has four main groups: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartism. There are two main traditions in Buddhism – Theravāda and Mahayana, each with subgroups. Jews can be Orthodox (or ultra-Orthodox), Conservative, Reform or belong to smaller groups.
Geography is important in religion. Asia-Pacific is the most populous region in the world, and also the most religious. It is home to 99% of Hindus, 99% of Buddhists, and 90% of those practising folk or traditional religions. The region also hosts 76% of the world’s religiously unaffiliated people, 700m of whom are Chinese.
Three-quarters of religious people live in a country where they form a majority of the population; the remaining quarter live as religious minorities. For example, 97% of Hindus live in three Hindu-majority countries: India, Mauritius and Nepal, while 87 %% of Christians live in 157 Christian-majority countries. Three-quarters of Muslims live in Muslim-majority countries. Among the religiously unaffiliated, seven out of 10 live in countries where they are in the majority, including China, the Czech Republic and North Korea.
In contrast, most Buddhists (72%) live as a minority in their home countries. There are seven countries where Buddhists form the majority of the population: Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Which religions are growing, and where?
The short answer is religion is on the wane in western Europe and North America, and it’s growing everywhere else.
The median age of the global population is 28. Two religions have a median age below that: Muslims (23) and Hindus (26). Other main religions have an older median age: Christians, 30; Buddhists, 34 and Jews, 36. The religiously unaffiliated come in at 34.
Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world – more than twice as fast as the overall global population. Between 2015 and 2060, the world’s inhabitants are expected to increase by 32%, but the Muslim population is forecast to grow by 70%. And even though Christians will also outgrow the general population over that period, with an increase of 34% forecast mainly thanks to population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, Christianity is likely to lose its top spot in the world religion league table to Islam by the middle of this century.
Hindus are set to grow by 27%, and Jews by 15% mainly because of the high birth rate among the ultra-Orthodox. The religiously unaffiliated will see a 3% increase. But proportionately, these religious groupings will be smaller than now because their growth is lower than the increase in the overall global population. And Buddhists are forecast to see a 7% drop in their numbers.
It’s mainly down to births and deaths, rather than religious conversion. Muslim women have an average of 2.9 children, significantly above the average of all non-Muslims at 2.2. And while Christian women have an overall birth rate of 2.6, it’s lower in Europe where Christian deaths outnumbered births by nearly 6 million between 2010 and 2015. In recent years, Christians have had a disproportionately large share of the world’s deaths (37%).
And while the religiously unaffiliated currently make up 16% of the global population, only about 10% of the world’s newborns were born to religiously unaffiliated mothers between 2010 and 2015.
But 23% of American Muslims say they are converts to the faith, and in recent years there has been growing anecdotal evidence of Muslim refugees converting to Christianity in Europe.
China has seen a huge religious revival in recent years and some predict it will have the world’s largest Christian population by 2030. The number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 % annually since 1979, to between 93 million and 115 million, according to one estimate. There are reckoned to be another 10-12 million Catholics.
In contrast, Christianity is in decline in Western Europe. In Ireland, traditionally a staunchly Catholic country, the proportion of people identifying with Catholicism fell from 84.2% to 78.3% between the two censuses of 2011 and 2016, and down to 54% among people aged between 16 and 29. Those with no religious affiliation increased to 9.8% – a jump of 71.8% in five years.
In Scotland, another country steeped in religious tradition, a majority of people, 59%, now identify as non-religious – with significantly more women (66%) than men (55%) turning away from organised faith. Seven in 10 people under the age of 44 said they were non-religious; the only age group in which the majority are religiously affiliated is the over-65s.
What about theocratic states?
The Islamic Republic of Iran is probably the one that springs to mind first. Until the 1979 revolution, the country was ruled by the Shah, or monarch. But the leader of the new state was the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who implemented a political system based on Islamic beliefs and appointed the heads of the judiciary, military and media. He was succeeded in 1989 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. There is an elected president, currently Hassan Rouhani, who is considered a moderate, reformist figure. Iran is one of only two countries in the world that reserves seats in its legislature for religious clerics (the other is the UK).
Other Islamic theocracies are Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Twenty-seven countries enshrine Islam as their state religion.
The only Christian theocracy is Vatican City, the tiny but powerful centre of Roman Catholicism, where the Pope is the supreme power and heads the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Vatican government.
Thirteen countries (including nine in Europe) designate Christianity or a particular Christian denomination as their state religion. In England, the Anglican church – the Church of England – is recognised as the official “established” church of the country with important roles relating to state occasions. Twenty-one bishops sit in the House of Lords by right.
Israel defines itself as the “Jewish state”, with an 80% majority Jewish population. However the government is secular.
In 2015, more than 100 countries and territories have no official or preferred religion.
What religions are oldest and are there any new ones?
The oldest religion in the world is considered to be Hinduism, which dates back to about 7,000 BCE. Judaism is the next oldest, dating from about 2,000 BCE, followed by Zoroastrianism, officially founded in Persia in the 6th century BCE but its roots are thought to date back to 1,500 BCE. Shinto, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and Taoism bunch together around 500-700 BCE. Then along came Christianity, followed about 600 years later by Islam.
Some might argue that the newest religion is no religion, although non-believers have been around as long as humans. But periodically new religious movements spring up, such as Kopimism, an internet religion, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarianism (officially recognised by the New Zealand government but not the Dutch), and Terasem, a transreligion that believes death is optional and God is technological.
In 2016, the Temple of the Jedi Order, members of which follow the tenets of the faith central to the Star Wars films, failed in its effort to be recognised as a religious organisation under UK charity law. In the last two censuses, Jedi has been the most popular alternative religion with more than 390,000 people (0.7% of the population) describing themselves as Jedi Knights on the 2001 census. By 2011, numbers had dropped sharply, but there were still 176,632 people who told the government they were Jedi Knights.
Does religion have an impact on the world?
Of course – there are huge consequences to religious belief and practice. Firstly, countless wars and conflicts have had an overt or covert religious dimension throughout history right up to the present day. In the past few years, we’ve seen Islamic extremists waging war in the Middle East, a power struggle between Sunni and Shia across the region, the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, violent clashes between Christians and Muslims in Central African Republic, to name a few. Women are subjugated, LGBT people are persecuted, and “blasphemists” are tortured and murdered in the name of religion.
Then there’s the political impact. Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election with the overwhelming support of white evangelical Christians. Legislators in Argentina recently voted against legalising abortion under pressure from Catholic bishops and the pope. Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has cited the need to protect his country’s “Christian culture” to justify his anti-immigration policies.
But it’s not all bad news. There are millions of people of faith across the world engaging in social action projects to help the poor and marginalised. Look at the involvement of churches, mosques and synagogues in food banks and projects to support refugees, the sanctuary church movement in the US, the extraordinary sums raised by Islamic charities for relief work in some of the world’s most desperate places.
What happens next?
More prejudice and persecution. Followers of most major religions report increasing hostility and, in many cases, violence. Christians have been largely driven out of the Middle East, with some calling it a new genocide. Meanwhile antisemitism and Islamophobia are rising in Europe.
One of the biggest upheavals on the religious landscape in the next few years is likely to be the death (or, possibly, retirement) of Pope Francis, who is 81 and has a number of health issues. His efforts to reform the Vatican and the church have led to a significant backlash by conservative forces, who are organising against his papacy and preparing for the moment when the post becomes vacant.
Further reading
A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway
Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islamby Karen Armstrong
The Caliphate by Hugh Kennedy
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
The Bible
The Qur’an
How many believers are there around the world?
If you think religion belongs to the past and we live in a new age of reason, you need to check out the facts: 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religious group. Members of this demographic are generally younger and produce more children than those who have no religious affiliation, so the world is getting more religious, not less – although there are significant geographical variations.
According to 2015 figures, Christians form the biggest religious group by some margin, with 2.3 billion adherents or 31.2% of the total world population of 7.3 billion. Next come Muslims (1.8 billion, or 24.1%), Hindus (1.1 billion, or 15.1%) and Buddhists (500 million, or 6.9%).
The next category is people who practise folk or traditional religions; there are 400m of them, or 6% of the global total. Adherents of lesser-practised religions, including Sikhism, Baha’i and Jainism, add up to 58m, or well below 1%. There are 14m Jews in the world, about 0.2% of the global population, concentrated in the US and Israel.
But the third biggest category is missing from the above list. In 2015, 1.2 billion people in the world, or 16%, said they have no religious affiliation at all. This does not mean all those people are committed atheists; some – perhaps most – have a strong sense of spirituality or belief in God, gods or guiding forces, but they don’t identify with or practise an organised religion.
Almost all religions have subdivisions. Christians can be Roman Catholic (the biggest group with almost 1.3 billion adherents), Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Anglican or many other sub-denominations. Muslims might be Sunni (the majority), Shia, Ibadi, Ahmadiyya or Sufi. Hinduism has four main groups: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Smartism. There are two main traditions in Buddhism – Theravāda and Mahayana, each with subgroups. Jews can be Orthodox (or ultra-Orthodox), Conservative, Reform or belong to smaller groups.
Geography is important in religion. Asia-Pacific is the most populous region in the world, and also the most religious. It is home to 99% of Hindus, 99% of Buddhists, and 90% of those practising folk or traditional religions. The region also hosts 76% of the world’s religiously unaffiliated people, 700m of whom are Chinese.
Three-quarters of religious people live in a country where they form a majority of the population; the remaining quarter live as religious minorities. For example, 97% of Hindus live in three Hindu-majority countries: India, Mauritius and Nepal, while 87 %% of Christians live in 157 Christian-majority countries. Three-quarters of Muslims live in Muslim-majority countries. Among the religiously unaffiliated, seven out of 10 live in countries where they are in the majority, including China, the Czech Republic and North Korea.
In contrast, most Buddhists (72%) live as a minority in their home countries. There are seven countries where Buddhists form the majority of the population: Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Which religions are growing, and where?
The short answer is religion is on the wane in western Europe and North America, and it’s growing everywhere else.
The median age of the global population is 28. Two religions have a median age below that: Muslims (23) and Hindus (26). Other main religions have an older median age: Christians, 30; Buddhists, 34 and Jews, 36. The religiously unaffiliated come in at 34.
Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world – more than twice as fast as the overall global population. Between 2015 and 2060, the world’s inhabitants are expected to increase by 32%, but the Muslim population is forecast to grow by 70%. And even though Christians will also outgrow the general population over that period, with an increase of 34% forecast mainly thanks to population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, Christianity is likely to lose its top spot in the world religion league table to Islam by the middle of this century.
Hindus are set to grow by 27%, and Jews by 15% mainly because of the high birth rate among the ultra-Orthodox. The religiously unaffiliated will see a 3% increase. But proportionately, these religious groupings will be smaller than now because their growth is lower than the increase in the overall global population. And Buddhists are forecast to see a 7% drop in their numbers.
It’s mainly down to births and deaths, rather than religious conversion. Muslim women have an average of 2.9 children, significantly above the average of all non-Muslims at 2.2. And while Christian women have an overall birth rate of 2.6, it’s lower in Europe where Christian deaths outnumbered births by nearly 6 million between 2010 and 2015. In recent years, Christians have had a disproportionately large share of the world’s deaths (37%).
And while the religiously unaffiliated currently make up 16% of the global population, only about 10% of the world’s newborns were born to religiously unaffiliated mothers between 2010 and 2015.
But 23% of American Muslims say they are converts to the faith, and in recent years there has been growing anecdotal evidence of Muslim refugees converting to Christianity in Europe.
China has seen a huge religious revival in recent years and some predict it will have the world’s largest Christian population by 2030. The number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 % annually since 1979, to between 93 million and 115 million, according to one estimate. There are reckoned to be another 10-12 million Catholics.
In contrast, Christianity is in decline in Western Europe. In Ireland, traditionally a staunchly Catholic country, the proportion of people identifying with Catholicism fell from 84.2% to 78.3% between the two censuses of 2011 and 2016, and down to 54% among people aged between 16 and 29. Those with no religious affiliation increased to 9.8% – a jump of 71.8% in five years.
In Scotland, another country steeped in religious tradition, a majority of people, 59%, now identify as non-religious – with significantly more women (66%) than men (55%) turning away from organised faith. Seven in 10 people under the age of 44 said they were non-religious; the only age group in which the majority are religiously affiliated is the over-65s.
What about theocratic states?
The Islamic Republic of Iran is probably the one that springs to mind first. Until the 1979 revolution, the country was ruled by the Shah, or monarch. But the leader of the new state was the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who implemented a political system based on Islamic beliefs and appointed the heads of the judiciary, military and media. He was succeeded in 1989 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. There is an elected president, currently Hassan Rouhani, who is considered a moderate, reformist figure. Iran is one of only two countries in the world that reserves seats in its legislature for religious clerics (the other is the UK).
Other Islamic theocracies are Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Twenty-seven countries enshrine Islam as their state religion.
The only Christian theocracy is Vatican City, the tiny but powerful centre of Roman Catholicism, where the Pope is the supreme power and heads the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Vatican government.
Thirteen countries (including nine in Europe) designate Christianity or a particular Christian denomination as their state religion. In England, the Anglican church – the Church of England – is recognised as the official “established” church of the country with important roles relating to state occasions. Twenty-one bishops sit in the House of Lords by right.
Israel defines itself as the “Jewish state”, with an 80% majority Jewish population. However the government is secular.
In 2015, more than 100 countries and territories have no official or preferred religion.
What religions are oldest and are there any new ones?
The oldest religion in the world is considered to be Hinduism, which dates back to about 7,000 BCE. Judaism is the next oldest, dating from about 2,000 BCE, followed by Zoroastrianism, officially founded in Persia in the 6th century BCE but its roots are thought to date back to 1,500 BCE. Shinto, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and Taoism bunch together around 500-700 BCE. Then along came Christianity, followed about 600 years later by Islam.
Some might argue that the newest religion is no religion, although non-believers have been around as long as humans. But periodically new religious movements spring up, such as Kopimism, an internet religion, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarianism (officially recognised by the New Zealand government but not the Dutch), and Terasem, a transreligion that believes death is optional and God is technological.
In 2016, the Temple of the Jedi Order, members of which follow the tenets of the faith central to the Star Wars films, failed in its effort to be recognised as a religious organisation under UK charity law. In the last two censuses, Jedi has been the most popular alternative religion with more than 390,000 people (0.7% of the population) describing themselves as Jedi Knights on the 2001 census. By 2011, numbers had dropped sharply, but there were still 176,632 people who told the government they were Jedi Knights.
Does religion have an impact on the world?
Of course – there are huge consequences to religious belief and practice. Firstly, countless wars and conflicts have had an overt or covert religious dimension throughout history right up to the present day. In the past few years, we’ve seen Islamic extremists waging war in the Middle East, a power struggle between Sunni and Shia across the region, the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, violent clashes between Christians and Muslims in Central African Republic, to name a few. Women are subjugated, LGBT people are persecuted, and “blasphemists” are tortured and murdered in the name of religion.
Then there’s the political impact. Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election with the overwhelming support of white evangelical Christians. Legislators in Argentina recently voted against legalising abortion under pressure from Catholic bishops and the pope. Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has cited the need to protect his country’s “Christian culture” to justify his anti-immigration policies.
But it’s not all bad news. There are millions of people of faith across the world engaging in social action projects to help the poor and marginalised. Look at the involvement of churches, mosques and synagogues in food banks and projects to support refugees, the sanctuary church movement in the US, the extraordinary sums raised by Islamic charities for relief work in some of the world’s most desperate places.
What happens next?
More prejudice and persecution. Followers of most major religions report increasing hostility and, in many cases, violence. Christians have been largely driven out of the Middle East, with some calling it a new genocide. Meanwhile antisemitism and Islamophobia are rising in Europe.
One of the biggest upheavals on the religious landscape in the next few years is likely to be the death (or, possibly, retirement) of Pope Francis, who is 81 and has a number of health issues. His efforts to reform the Vatican and the church have led to a significant backlash by conservative forces, who are organising against his papacy and preparing for the moment when the post becomes vacant.
Further reading
A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway
Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islamby Karen Armstrong
The Caliphate by Hugh Kennedy
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
The Bible
The Qur’an
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Study Economics To Win Every Argument
by Girish Menon
The Emperor's new clothes courtesy Cactus Records
Since 1992 when former US President Bill Clinton’s campaign manager coined the winning slogan, ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ persuaders of all belief systems have been increasingly relying on economic arguments to win the debate. The Brexit vote and Trump’s election are recent examples of the success of an economic point of view to the detriment of all others. A student with a good A level in economics will be equipped to reason out the merits and demerits of each argument and defend her own belief system or prejudice.
The A Level
syllabus
In the book The Econocracy three Manchester University
In a nutshell an A level in economics is divided into two
parts viz. Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. Microeconomics explores the
theoretical utopia of a free market which is known as perfect competition and
compares it with modern market phenomena like Monopoly, Oligopoly and
Monopsony. Macroeconomics looks at the picture from a national point of view
and explores themes like Inequality, Unemployment and Immigration, Economic
Growth and Trade/Budget deficits. It also considers the tradeoffs that
governments face as they try to resolve crises.
Am I suited for an
Economics A Level Course?
Unlike economics courses at most universities which rely on
a strong foundation in mathematics, an A level economics course is right for
any student who has an A grade in Mathematics and English at the GCSE level. He
should have a curiosity about the world he lives in, is able to think logically
and must have a desire to debate issues based on evidence.
In short, an Economics A Level Course can combine well with
the sciences, the arts, the languages as well as the humanities. You could do
this A level especially when you wish to specialise in other subjects at the
degree level.
What will I gain
from doing the Economics A Level Course?
You will realise that there is no such thing as a free
market. You will have heard politicians and other persuaders trying to praise
the virtues of the free market. After doing an A level in Economics, you will
understand the assumptions that underlie free market theory. You will then
conclude that those arguing for a free market are not making objective
arguments but are indulging in alternative facts.
You will realise the bluntness of economic policy tools and
why governments are unable to solve the problems of climate change, rising
inequality, racism and other social ills.
Most importantly, you will understand the meaning of economic
terms. You will discover that many popular ‘economic arguments’ are actually
political arguments couched in economic terms. You will then be able to indulge
in debate in a confident manner and be able to point out loopholes in your
opponents’ arguments.
Many handed person
A businessperson was once asked what kind of economist she
wished to hire. She replied, ‘a one handed economist’. When she was asked to
explain her strange reply, she said, ‘When I ask a question of an economist I
want him to give me a straight reply and not resort to phrases like on the
other hand…’.
Saturday, 7 May 2016
Is it science or theology?
Pervez Hoodbhoy in The Dawn
When Pakistani students open a physics or biology textbook, it is sometimes unclear whether they are actually learning science or, instead, theology. The reason: every science textbook, published by a government-run textbook board in Pakistan, by law must contain in its first chapter how Allah made our world, as well as how Muslims and Pakistanis have created science.
I have no problem with either. But the first properly belongs to Islamic Studies, the second to Islamic or Pakistani history. Neither legitimately belongs to a textbook on a modern-day scientific subject. That’s because religion and science operate very differently and have widely different assumptions. Religion is based on belief and requires the existence of a hereafter, whereas science worries only about the here and now.
Demanding that science and faith be tied together has resulted in national bewilderment and mass intellectual enfeeblement. Millions of Pakistanis have studied science subjects in school and then gone on to study technical, science-based subjects in college and university. And yet most — including science teachers — would flunk if given even the simplest science quiz.
How did this come about? Let’s take a quick browse through a current 10th grade physics book. The introductory section has the customary holy verses. These are followed by a comical overview of the history of physics. Newton and Einstein — the two greatest names — are unmentioned. Instead there’s Ptolemy the Greek, Al-Kindi, Al-Beruni, Ibn-e-Haytham, A.Q. Khan, and — amusingly — the heretical Abdus Salam.
The end-of-chapter exercises test the mettle of students with such questions as: Mark true/false; A) The first revelation sent to the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was about the creation of Heaven? B) The pin-hole camera was invented by Ibn-e-Haytham? C) Al-Beruni declared that Sind was an underwater valley that gradually filled with sand? D) Islam teaches that only men must acquire knowledge?
Dear Reader: You may well gasp in disbelief, or just hold your head in despair. How could Pakistan’s collective intelligence and the quality of what we teach our children have sunk so low? To see more such questions, or to check my translation from Urdu into English, please visit the websitehttp://eacpe.org/ where relevant pages from the above text (as well as from those discussed below) have been scanned and posted.
Take another physics book — this one (English) is for sixth-grade students. It makes abundantly clear its discomfort with the modern understanding of our universe’s beginning. The theory of the Big Bang is attributed to “a priest, George Lamaitre [sic] of Belgium”. The authors cunningly mention his faith hoping to discredit his science. Continuing, they declare that “although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it probably will never be proved”.
While Georges Lemaître was indeed a Catholic priest, he was so much more. A professor of physics, he worked out the expanding universe solution to Einstein’s equations. Lemaître insisted on separating science from religion; he had publicly chided Pope Pius XII when the pontiff grandly declared that Lemaître’s results provided a scientific validation to Catholicism.
Local biology books are even more schizophrenic and confusing than the physics ones. A 10th-grade book starts off its section on ‘Life and its Origins’ unctuously quoting one religious verse after another. None of these verses hint towards evolution, and many Muslims believe that evolution is counter-religious. Then, suddenly, a full page annotated chart hits you in the face. Stolen from some modern biology book written in some other part of the world, it depicts various living organisms evolving into apes and then into modern humans. Ouch!
Such incoherent babble confuses the nature of science — its history, purpose, method, and fundamental content. If the authors are confused, just imagine the impact on students who must learn this stuff. What weird ideas must inhabit their minds!
Compounding scientific ignorance is prejudice. Most students have been persuaded into believing that Muslims alone invented science. And that the heroes of Muslim science such as Ibn-e-Haytham, Al-Khwarizmi, Omar Khayyam, Ibn-e-Sina, etc owed their scientific discoveries to their strong religious beliefs. This is wrong.
Science is the cumulative effort of humankind with its earliest recorded origins in Babylon and Egypt about 6,000 years ago, thereafter moving to China and India, and then Greece. It was a millennium later that science reached the lands of Islam, where it flourished for 400 years before moving on to Europe. Omar Khayyam, a Muslim, was doubtless a brilliant mathematician. But so was Aryabhatta, a Hindu. What does their faith have to do with their science? Natural geniuses have existed everywhere and at all times.
Today’s massive infusion of religion into the teaching of science dates to the Ziaul Haq days. It was not just school textbooks that were hijacked. In the 1980s, as an applicant to a university teaching position in whichever department, the university’s selection committee would first check your faith.
In those days a favourite question at Quaid-e-Azam University (as probably elsewhere) was to have a candidate recite Dua-i-Qunoot, a rather difficult prayer. Another was to name each of the Holy Prophet’s wives, or be quizzed about the ideology of Pakistan. Deftly posed questions could expose the particularities of the candidate’s sect, personal degree of adherence, and whether he had been infected by liberal ideas.
Most applicants meekly submitted to the grilling. Of these many rose to become today’s chairmen, deans, and vice-chancellors. The bolder ones refused, saying that the questions asked were irrelevant. With strong degrees earned from good overseas universities, they did not have to submit to their bullying inquisitors. Decades later, they are part of a widely dispersed diaspora. Though lost to Pakistan, they have done very well for themselves.
Science has no need for Pakistan; in the rest of the world it roars ahead. But Pakistan needs science because it is the basis of a modern economy and it enables people to gain decent livelihoods. To get there, matters of faith will have to be cleanly separated from matters of science. This is how peoples around the world have managed to keep their beliefs intact and yet prosper. Pakistan can too, but only if it wants.
When Pakistani students open a physics or biology textbook, it is sometimes unclear whether they are actually learning science or, instead, theology. The reason: every science textbook, published by a government-run textbook board in Pakistan, by law must contain in its first chapter how Allah made our world, as well as how Muslims and Pakistanis have created science.
I have no problem with either. But the first properly belongs to Islamic Studies, the second to Islamic or Pakistani history. Neither legitimately belongs to a textbook on a modern-day scientific subject. That’s because religion and science operate very differently and have widely different assumptions. Religion is based on belief and requires the existence of a hereafter, whereas science worries only about the here and now.
Demanding that science and faith be tied together has resulted in national bewilderment and mass intellectual enfeeblement. Millions of Pakistanis have studied science subjects in school and then gone on to study technical, science-based subjects in college and university. And yet most — including science teachers — would flunk if given even the simplest science quiz.
How did this come about? Let’s take a quick browse through a current 10th grade physics book. The introductory section has the customary holy verses. These are followed by a comical overview of the history of physics. Newton and Einstein — the two greatest names — are unmentioned. Instead there’s Ptolemy the Greek, Al-Kindi, Al-Beruni, Ibn-e-Haytham, A.Q. Khan, and — amusingly — the heretical Abdus Salam.
The end-of-chapter exercises test the mettle of students with such questions as: Mark true/false; A) The first revelation sent to the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was about the creation of Heaven? B) The pin-hole camera was invented by Ibn-e-Haytham? C) Al-Beruni declared that Sind was an underwater valley that gradually filled with sand? D) Islam teaches that only men must acquire knowledge?
Dear Reader: You may well gasp in disbelief, or just hold your head in despair. How could Pakistan’s collective intelligence and the quality of what we teach our children have sunk so low? To see more such questions, or to check my translation from Urdu into English, please visit the websitehttp://eacpe.org/ where relevant pages from the above text (as well as from those discussed below) have been scanned and posted.
Take another physics book — this one (English) is for sixth-grade students. It makes abundantly clear its discomfort with the modern understanding of our universe’s beginning. The theory of the Big Bang is attributed to “a priest, George Lamaitre [sic] of Belgium”. The authors cunningly mention his faith hoping to discredit his science. Continuing, they declare that “although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it probably will never be proved”.
While Georges Lemaître was indeed a Catholic priest, he was so much more. A professor of physics, he worked out the expanding universe solution to Einstein’s equations. Lemaître insisted on separating science from religion; he had publicly chided Pope Pius XII when the pontiff grandly declared that Lemaître’s results provided a scientific validation to Catholicism.
Local biology books are even more schizophrenic and confusing than the physics ones. A 10th-grade book starts off its section on ‘Life and its Origins’ unctuously quoting one religious verse after another. None of these verses hint towards evolution, and many Muslims believe that evolution is counter-religious. Then, suddenly, a full page annotated chart hits you in the face. Stolen from some modern biology book written in some other part of the world, it depicts various living organisms evolving into apes and then into modern humans. Ouch!
Such incoherent babble confuses the nature of science — its history, purpose, method, and fundamental content. If the authors are confused, just imagine the impact on students who must learn this stuff. What weird ideas must inhabit their minds!
Compounding scientific ignorance is prejudice. Most students have been persuaded into believing that Muslims alone invented science. And that the heroes of Muslim science such as Ibn-e-Haytham, Al-Khwarizmi, Omar Khayyam, Ibn-e-Sina, etc owed their scientific discoveries to their strong religious beliefs. This is wrong.
Science is the cumulative effort of humankind with its earliest recorded origins in Babylon and Egypt about 6,000 years ago, thereafter moving to China and India, and then Greece. It was a millennium later that science reached the lands of Islam, where it flourished for 400 years before moving on to Europe. Omar Khayyam, a Muslim, was doubtless a brilliant mathematician. But so was Aryabhatta, a Hindu. What does their faith have to do with their science? Natural geniuses have existed everywhere and at all times.
Today’s massive infusion of religion into the teaching of science dates to the Ziaul Haq days. It was not just school textbooks that were hijacked. In the 1980s, as an applicant to a university teaching position in whichever department, the university’s selection committee would first check your faith.
In those days a favourite question at Quaid-e-Azam University (as probably elsewhere) was to have a candidate recite Dua-i-Qunoot, a rather difficult prayer. Another was to name each of the Holy Prophet’s wives, or be quizzed about the ideology of Pakistan. Deftly posed questions could expose the particularities of the candidate’s sect, personal degree of adherence, and whether he had been infected by liberal ideas.
Most applicants meekly submitted to the grilling. Of these many rose to become today’s chairmen, deans, and vice-chancellors. The bolder ones refused, saying that the questions asked were irrelevant. With strong degrees earned from good overseas universities, they did not have to submit to their bullying inquisitors. Decades later, they are part of a widely dispersed diaspora. Though lost to Pakistan, they have done very well for themselves.
Science has no need for Pakistan; in the rest of the world it roars ahead. But Pakistan needs science because it is the basis of a modern economy and it enables people to gain decent livelihoods. To get there, matters of faith will have to be cleanly separated from matters of science. This is how peoples around the world have managed to keep their beliefs intact and yet prosper. Pakistan can too, but only if it wants.
Monday, 16 February 2015
How much can a captain influence short-term performance?
Ed Smith in Cricinfo
People who don't believe that the media indulges honeymoon periods should consider the relative treatment of Alastair Cook and Eoin Morgan. Having survived a media storm as Test captain in the summer of 2014, Cook was eventually sacked as ODI captain at the 11th hour before the World Cup. Most pundits felt this was a good idea, even though it left Cook bereft of his dream of captaining in a World Cup, and left Morgan very little time to put his stamp on the team.
Now Morgan has scored three noughts in his last four innings and four noughts in his last seven. Many of those who called for Cook's sacking seem very relaxed about this, citing's Morgan superb natural talent and better track record as an ODI match-winner. Yet Cook's resilience and capacity for enduring pressure was equally well-established. In short, I'm less convinced that Morgan's bad form exists in a different category from Cook's.
The reasons given for Cook's sacking were: 1) his poor form with the bat, and 2) the need to protect his long-term prospects as an England player. The selectors felt that continuing with Cook for the World Cup might radically deplete his resources. Effectively it would burn through too many miles on the clock, racing Cook towards a hastier exit from the English game. Though no one seemed to notice at the time, exactly the same arguments could have been presented as reasons for not making Morgan captain either. If Cook was in danger of ending the World Cup exhausted and short of confidence, Morgan might end it disillusioned and disengaged, one step closer to a career oriented to the roving life of a T20 specialist. It is far too early to be certain - England could still win the competition with Morgan as its hero - but it is a very real possibility that in sacking one captain England will end up undermining two careers.
There is a much deeper question. How much does the captaincy, over the short term, affect performance? Morgan or Cook? Bailey or Clarke? Everyone has a view and can marshal the evidence to support their prejudices. It makes a nice "talking point", as the saying goes. That does not, however, mean the decision under review is important in explaining events.
Put differently, what if England would have lost anyway on Saturday, whoever was captaining? And suppose that Australia would have won, whichever of their strong captaincy candidates was in charge? In obsessing about the psychodrama at the top, we ignore the underlying fundamentals.
There are two central trends in the evolution of professional sport and its coverage. The odd thing, however, is that the two movements are contradictory, indeed irreconcilable.
The first is the cult of personality the hero, the champion, the winner, the master of mind games, the tactical wizard, the leader of men, blessed with the Midas touch. This is the way elite sport is frequently presented and analysed. Why? First, because it fits the modern obsession with celebrity; secondly, because it is endlessly useful as a media "talking point" - big personalities are always easier to discuss than systems or ideas.
Then there is the underlying reality of how professional sport is actually evolving. Every top team now employs a massive backroom staff of coaches, physios and analysts, all of whom are trying to find a tiny incremental advantage, a fraction of 1% here or there, to help their team. The idea that one single mind controls the whole team is laughably out of date. Even in football, where the manager is like the cricket captain, coach and selection panel rolled into one, he actually sits atop a vast coaching machine. Yes, he steers the wheel, but there are many more cogs in the machine than ever before.
In cricket, the captain's power and control are increasingly shared with other influences on the team. He can still make a difference, of course. But he exists in a highly professional context in which control is shared widely.
I was recently asked to write a new introduction to the reissue of Mike Brearley's iconic book The Art of Captaincy. One thing that struck me was how much more control Brearley had over his teams than any captain would have today. On being recalled as England captain in 1981, one of his first acts was to restore the pre-match warm-up and stretching routine. It is unimaginable today - given the number of physios and trainers - that this area of team life would be the preserve of the captain.
Critics of captains today lightly ignore a contradiction: modern captains certainly have less power than ever, yet they are still held overwhelmingly accountable for decisions and tactics that usually originated in discussions with the team's whole top table.
We have not yet mentioned by far the biggest constraint of all on any captain: the form and quality of the players.
In his post-match interview, Morgan was asked by Andrew Strauss why the England death bowlers favoured the bouncer over the yorker. Morgan's answer was that the boundaries at the MCG are shorter straight (65 yards) than square of the wicket (85 yards). Yorkers tend to be hit down the ground, whereas short balls are often hit square of the wicket. So as the fielding captain, Morgan was trying to force batsmen to play the harder, riskier shot. Had England bowled well, this would have sounded shrewd and canny. Because England bowled badly, it sounded too clever by half. In other words, it is the bowlers who make and unmake the success of tactics, not captains.
I will always believe in the power of great leadership, especially by gradually improving team culture over the long term. Right now, however, the correct answer to the question "Bailey or Clarke?" and "Morgan or Cook?" is: "Nice talking point, but it doesn't explain very much about the result."
People who don't believe that the media indulges honeymoon periods should consider the relative treatment of Alastair Cook and Eoin Morgan. Having survived a media storm as Test captain in the summer of 2014, Cook was eventually sacked as ODI captain at the 11th hour before the World Cup. Most pundits felt this was a good idea, even though it left Cook bereft of his dream of captaining in a World Cup, and left Morgan very little time to put his stamp on the team.
Now Morgan has scored three noughts in his last four innings and four noughts in his last seven. Many of those who called for Cook's sacking seem very relaxed about this, citing's Morgan superb natural talent and better track record as an ODI match-winner. Yet Cook's resilience and capacity for enduring pressure was equally well-established. In short, I'm less convinced that Morgan's bad form exists in a different category from Cook's.
The reasons given for Cook's sacking were: 1) his poor form with the bat, and 2) the need to protect his long-term prospects as an England player. The selectors felt that continuing with Cook for the World Cup might radically deplete his resources. Effectively it would burn through too many miles on the clock, racing Cook towards a hastier exit from the English game. Though no one seemed to notice at the time, exactly the same arguments could have been presented as reasons for not making Morgan captain either. If Cook was in danger of ending the World Cup exhausted and short of confidence, Morgan might end it disillusioned and disengaged, one step closer to a career oriented to the roving life of a T20 specialist. It is far too early to be certain - England could still win the competition with Morgan as its hero - but it is a very real possibility that in sacking one captain England will end up undermining two careers.
There is a much deeper question. How much does the captaincy, over the short term, affect performance? Morgan or Cook? Bailey or Clarke? Everyone has a view and can marshal the evidence to support their prejudices. It makes a nice "talking point", as the saying goes. That does not, however, mean the decision under review is important in explaining events.
Put differently, what if England would have lost anyway on Saturday, whoever was captaining? And suppose that Australia would have won, whichever of their strong captaincy candidates was in charge? In obsessing about the psychodrama at the top, we ignore the underlying fundamentals.
There are two central trends in the evolution of professional sport and its coverage. The odd thing, however, is that the two movements are contradictory, indeed irreconcilable.
The first is the cult of personality the hero, the champion, the winner, the master of mind games, the tactical wizard, the leader of men, blessed with the Midas touch. This is the way elite sport is frequently presented and analysed. Why? First, because it fits the modern obsession with celebrity; secondly, because it is endlessly useful as a media "talking point" - big personalities are always easier to discuss than systems or ideas.
Then there is the underlying reality of how professional sport is actually evolving. Every top team now employs a massive backroom staff of coaches, physios and analysts, all of whom are trying to find a tiny incremental advantage, a fraction of 1% here or there, to help their team. The idea that one single mind controls the whole team is laughably out of date. Even in football, where the manager is like the cricket captain, coach and selection panel rolled into one, he actually sits atop a vast coaching machine. Yes, he steers the wheel, but there are many more cogs in the machine than ever before.
In cricket, the captain's power and control are increasingly shared with other influences on the team. He can still make a difference, of course. But he exists in a highly professional context in which control is shared widely.
I was recently asked to write a new introduction to the reissue of Mike Brearley's iconic book The Art of Captaincy. One thing that struck me was how much more control Brearley had over his teams than any captain would have today. On being recalled as England captain in 1981, one of his first acts was to restore the pre-match warm-up and stretching routine. It is unimaginable today - given the number of physios and trainers - that this area of team life would be the preserve of the captain.
Critics of captains today lightly ignore a contradiction: modern captains certainly have less power than ever, yet they are still held overwhelmingly accountable for decisions and tactics that usually originated in discussions with the team's whole top table.
We have not yet mentioned by far the biggest constraint of all on any captain: the form and quality of the players.
In his post-match interview, Morgan was asked by Andrew Strauss why the England death bowlers favoured the bouncer over the yorker. Morgan's answer was that the boundaries at the MCG are shorter straight (65 yards) than square of the wicket (85 yards). Yorkers tend to be hit down the ground, whereas short balls are often hit square of the wicket. So as the fielding captain, Morgan was trying to force batsmen to play the harder, riskier shot. Had England bowled well, this would have sounded shrewd and canny. Because England bowled badly, it sounded too clever by half. In other words, it is the bowlers who make and unmake the success of tactics, not captains.
I will always believe in the power of great leadership, especially by gradually improving team culture over the long term. Right now, however, the correct answer to the question "Bailey or Clarke?" and "Morgan or Cook?" is: "Nice talking point, but it doesn't explain very much about the result."
Wednesday, 2 July 2014
The lack of black faces in the crowds shows Brazil is no true rainbow nation
The World Cup was supposed to show Brazil's cultural diversity. All it's really exposed is the country's deep-rooted prejudices
Brazil's Neymar gestures to the crowd after scoring against Cameroon during their World Cup group game. Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters
Remember the Where's Wally books? They consisted of a series of detailed double-page spread illustrations depicting hundreds of people doing a variety of amusing things. Readers were then challenged to find a character named Wally hidden in the crowd.
Covering the World Cup in Brazil as a journalist, I find myself playing a similar game whenever I enter a packed stadium, only this time the question is a bit more serious. Where are all the black folk? I've been to five host cities so far and each time the answer was never easy to come by – I've even missed goals while looking through the crowd.
Salvador is the most Afrocentric city in Brazil. At the Germany v Portugal game, however, if I didn't know any better I would think I was in Kansas.
In São Paulo, Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, the same thing. Where have all the black people gone? This in a country with the biggest population of African descent outside of Africa. Brazil is sold internationally as a rainbow nation, as close to a racial democracy as any country can get. To some degree it's true; for all its sheer size and diversity there are no ethnic or religious conflicts and everyone speaks the same language. Socially, though, it's a different story. The government hoped to use the World Cup to showcase the country's cultural diversity and thriving democracy in all its splendour, but all it did was to highlight the deep-rooted prejudices and inequalities in this nation of 200 million.
So, in a piece of land where 60% of the population is black or mixed, why then, during one of the most important single events in its history, is the absence of those 60% so conspicuous?
The answer is as obvious as it is tragic. Most black people in Brazil are poor. Unlike in South Africa or the United States, there's no black middle class, and perhaps most importantly there isn't a black political class. A World Cup ticket is officially priced between $90 and $1,000, but in a country where the minimum wage is a little above $350 a month, a seat at the Maracanã is out of many people's reach.
Felipe Araujo covering the World Cup for German broadcaster ZDF. 'In a land where 60% of the population is black or mixed, why, during one of the most important events in its history, is the absence of those 60% so conspicuous?'
In Fortaleza, for Germany v Ghana, there were obviously more black people than usual in the stands – but apart from the Ghanaians, the only black people anywhere near the stadium were the poor residents from the nearby favela, selling drinks and snacks to white middle-class fans, who couldn't be bothered with the long queues inside the arena. Or for those who didn't feel like walking the 3km imposed by Fifa from the road blocks to the stadium, there were throngs of poor, black, favela kids ready to take the fans on their bikes.
Brazilians have always had a peculiar attitude towards race. This was the country's football superstar, Neymar, four years ago, when asked if he had ever been a victim of racism. "Never. Neither inside nor outside the field. Because I'm not black, right?"
The players of the national team are clearly mostly black or mixed race (including Neymar): many though, dye their hair blond (including Neymar). Other Brazilian sporting heroes have equally dismissed the issue of race in the past. Ronaldo has also denied his black heritage, and the country's biggest football icon, Pele, is too busy doing commercials to say anything meaningful on the issue.
In 1888 slavery was officially abolished in Brazil – the last country in the western hemisphere to do so. Fast forward to 2012 and it enacted one of the world's most sweeping affirmative action laws, requiring public universities to reserve half of their admission spots for the largely poor students in the nation's public schools and vastly increase the number of university students of African descent across the country. Brazilian officials said at the time that the law signified an important shift in Brazil's view on offering opportunities to large swaths of the population.
However, for all the things this World Cup has provided, opportunities for its black population isn't one of them. On this particular issue Brazil has scored an own goal.
Thursday, 12 June 2014
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