Giles Fraser

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EuropaReflexionesIslam y Mundo Árabe,

In November 2010, a Muslim doctor in Germany carried out a circumcision on a four-year old-boy at the request of his parents. A few days later the boy started bleeding and was admitted to Cologne's University hospital who reported the matter to the police. Last month, after a lengthy legal battle, a judge in Cologne outlawed male circumcision as being against the best interests of the child.

Muslim and Jewish groups have been understandably outraged. This week, Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel set herself against the court ruling by telling members of her CDU party that "I do not want Germany to be the only country in the world in which Jews cannot practise their rites."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

In 1947 the official US historian of the second world war, Brigadier General SLA Marshall, published his groundbreaking book Men Against Fire. Marshall's astonishing contention, debated vigorously ever since, was that about 75% of second world war combat troops were unable to fire their weapons on the enemy. Guns were discharged, but they would be deliberately aimed over the heads of the enemy. The vast majority of soldiers couldn't actually kill. And, in the midst of combat, they became de facto conscientious objectors.

Plenty of historians have questioned the way Marshall gathered his evidence. But few have denied that the vast majority of people find it extremely difficult to kill another human being.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaIglesia Católica

The cathedral church of Sefwi-Wiawso, set on the top of a hill in a remote part of western Ghana, looks out over miles of what was once forest. The land from here and across the border to nearby Ivory Coast is where the majority of the world's chocolate comes from. The chances are the chocolate in your Easter egg comes from somewhere nearby. But in order to produce more chocolate, vast areas of the forest have been hacked down and converted to cocoa production, with the result that much of the good soil is washed away when the rain comes.

There are echoes here of past miseries.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalIglesia Católica

The Christmas angel tells us: "Fear not, for I bring you good news of great joy for all people." The pope, on the other hand, has been using this Christmas season to spread entirely the opposite message, a message of fear and exclusion that seems more bad news than good. For, apparently, gay people threaten the existence of the planet in a way that is comparable to the destruction of the rainforest. I guess the idea is that if we all were gay, then we wouldn't be making any babies. Yes, it's a bit like saying that if we all were to become celibate priests we wouldn't be making any babies either.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Somewhere in the Middle East, Jesus Christ is strapped to a bench, his head wrapped in clingfilm. He furiously sucks against the plastic. A hole is pierced, but only so that a filthy rag can be stuffed back into his mouth. He is turned upside down and water slowly poured into the rag. The torturer whispers religious abuse. If you are God, save yourself you fucking idiot. Fighting to pull in oxygen through the increasingly saturated rag, his lungs start to fill up with water. Someone punches him in the stomach.

Perhaps this is how we ought to be re-telling the story of Christ's passion.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Pupils at Radyr comprehensive, just along from Bridgend, have been studying Malorie Blackman's book, Noughts and Crosses. It's a bit like Romeo and Juliet. Well, sort of. It has a balcony scene and - more controversially - a suicide. After reading the novel, Radyr's 13-year-olds are asked to imagine what it would be like to be so desperate as to take your own life. They have written their own version of the book's tragic suicide note. And some parents have gone ballistic. "It's dreadful," said one mum, "all the children are aware what is going on in Bridgend - what was this teacher thinking of?…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

The headlines were grabbed by the Archbishop of Canterbury's attack upon US foreign policy. But the deeper point, widely missed, was his attack upon western modernity in general. "There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul," he insisted in his interview with the Muslim magazine, Emel. And his argument was simple: our brand of modernity turns people into things defined by their function. All too often, we are what we do.

This was the sort of thing that used to be said by Marxists back when they were a more potent cultural force. In the world of efficiency savings, productivity and league tables, humans are more and more treated as tools in some vast machine-like system.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalIglesia Católica,

Jesus wasn't a Christian. He was a Jew. The word Christian wasn't known until years after his death. Which means that in order to appreciate Easter in its own terms, we must think of it as Jewish. The whole purpose for which Jesus went up to Jerusalem was to celebrate the festival of Passover. The last supper was a Passover meal. And it's the symbolism of that meal that Christians must return to in order to understand the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Even in Jesus's time, the celebration of Passover was well over a thousand years old.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Media atheists are fast becoming the new best friends of fundamentalist Christians. For every time they write about religion they are doing very effective PR for a fundamentalist worldview. Many of the propositions that fundamentalists are keen to sell the public are oft-repeated corner-stones of the media atheist's philosophy of religion.Both partners in this unholy alliance agree that fundamentalist religion is the real thing and that more reflective and socially progressive versions of faith are pale imitations, counterfeits even. This endorsement is of enormous help to fundamentalists. What they are really threatened by is not aggressive atheism - indeed that helps secure a sense of persecution that is essential to group solidarity - but the sort of robustly self-critical faith that knows the Bible and the church's traditions, and can challenge bad religion on its own terms.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia, ,

'Apocalypto is unburdened by nationalist or religious piety" claimed New York's Village Voice. With this alibi, critics have allowed themselves to be won over by Mel Gibson's disgusting Mayan slasher movie. His previous film, The Passion of the Christ, was widely condemned for its anti-semitic portrait of Jews - repeating, many believed, the idea that "the Jews" were responsible for Christ's death. This interpretation was apparently confirmed by an incident last summer in which Gibson told a policeman: "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." In the light of this there is palpable relief that Gibson has left his religious politics at home and made Mad Max in the jungle.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

It's well over a year since the levees collapsed and billions of gallons of water flooded into New Orleans, trashing the city and displacing several thousand residents, most of them black and poor. Many may not return. For Hurricane Katrina produced acres of empty real estate that are being eyed up as a promising opportunity for corporate developers. Mayor Ray Nagin wants the new New Orleans to be "market driven". The Episcopalian Bishop of Louisiana thinks differently. Once a conservative, he was rebaptised with dirty water. He now speaks for many in condemning the mayor's words as "a blow against the poor and needy", and says developers threaten "the soul of the city".…  Seguir leyendo »