Prophectic Voices
The publication in 1999 of Naomi Klein's first book, No Logo, coincided with the first great anti-globalisation demonstrations in Seattle. She seemed to be speaking prophetically about the growing stranglehold of the multinationals on the world economy. Her latest book, The Shock Doctrine, published 18 months ago but this week awarded the Warwick Prize for Writing, seems set to have similar fame: it anticipated today's financial crisis, which has shaken the foundations of the capitalist system. And now all we can do is shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Accused sometimes of being a naïve leftie, Klein has an uncomfortable knack of being right.
Another prophetic voice is that of the ex-Islamist, Ed Husain, founder and Co-Director of the Quilliam Foundation. Husain describes Quilliam as 'Britain's first counter-extremism think-tank'. They have just published a report, Mosques Made in Britain, which is based on a poll of more than 1,000 mosques. This research reveals that 97 per cent of the imams at Britain's mosques come from abroad. Writing in The Times last Tuesday, Husain comments: 'By importing cheap imams from poor, intellectually deprived and theologically conservative places mosques put young Britons in the hands of men who do not have the linguistic or cultural backgrounds to deal with modern Britain. Little wonder, then, that many young Muslims turn to radical university Islamic societies...'
'While British soldiers risk their lives in Afghanistan,' Husain continues, 'in British Muslim seminaries we allow the teaching of intolerance, unequal treatment of women, religious rigidity, the banning of music and theatre, and an end to free mixing of the sexes...Graduates of these highly conservative madrassas have taken up nearly 100 posts as chaplains in our prisons. Soon, they will move into mosques...How long will we tolerate this underworld in Britain?'
The scrupulous tolerance of British Christianity is a far cry from the robust prophetic tradition of the Bible. We do, of course, need to be wise in deciding what we should get 'prophetic' about, and how we pitch it. Fire and brimstone don't work today. But well-informed and courageous challenges to values that are inimical to the gospel, and damaging to our society, will strike a chord in many people's hearts.
And we must show, by word and by life, that there is - however unfashionable - a different and better way.
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Date:
2009-03-20 11:23:46
Author:
tetstst