Makeshift poet

Being an English graduate, I thought it was high time I offered some textual analysis to the untold millions who read this blog every day. My liberal arts degree, however, makes me a pretentious bastard almost by default, so instead of talking about Chaucer or Blake, I've decided to bang on about a little-known hip hop artist.

The little-known hip hop artist in question goes by the name of Sage Francis. Originating in Rhode Island, he belongs to the sub-genre known as slam poetry. From what I can tell, slam is a form of hip hop that shares common ground with beat poetry, although it could also just be another name for quality American rap.

Francis alternates between introspection and political commentary; sometimes on the same record, at other times devoting an entire album to one or the other. Album titles tend to reflect this; for example, A Healthy Distrust is his most politicised offering to date, while Personal Journals is almost entirely a work of self-analysis.

An example from the latter album is Runaways, a hymn for children who are lost in any sense of the word. It evokes the image of a faceless drifter, always looking for home, but being unable to find it: " I kind of look familiar, my name is on the tip of your tongue / The lost look on my face makes you play dumb / Say something colloquial, / I need to get my bearings and a feel for where I'm at". The album leaks painful emotion, although there's always a cynical undercurrent: "Yeah, if these walls could talk, they wouldn't shut the fuck up."

Over on the political side, we have Makeshift Patriot, an almost unheard-of song that is perhaps Francis's greates single achievement. Released in October 2001 (note the date), it assumes the voice of a reporter covering 9/11 to expose how the media abuses tragedy. The lyrics are almost a half-and-half mix of historical reconstruction and political insight. Lines like "The hospitals are overwhelmed. / Volunteers need to go the hell home. / Moment of silence for firefighters were interrupted by cell phones" mingle with observations such as "We'll tell you who to pump your fist at / And whose boot is right to kiss. / We don't know who the enemy is yet... but he looks like this."

Francis can be whimsical too. Check out Bridle, a song about a serious subject that nonetheless revels in word-painting: "He's pullin' on the rains, the bridle, the shower, the storm, / The maze, the high tower, clouds are at war…" He's also capable of pushing the boundaries of bad taste: "All for the sake of military recruitment / It felt like Kent State the way they targeted the students."

Perhaps the man's greatest single talent is for mixed metaphors - a device that's normally both accidental and annoying, but manages to be neither in Francis's lyrics. This should become apparent in the excerpt below, but here's a couple of examples: "He sold his own shirt off his back for cheap exposure"; "My pedestal was too tall to climb off / In fact, that's the reason for the high horse." Wordplay in general is a constant pleasure when listening to his records: "I freedom-kiss the French for their political dissent."

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: listen to Sage Francis's music. Even those who dislike rap should at least give it a try - the man single-handedly got me back into hip hop after years of being disillusioned by Dr Dre and pissed off with Fifty Cent. You can look him up on YouTube, or here: http://www.strangefamousrecords.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=16 .

I'm going to finish this with an excerpt from Slow Down Ghandi, a song that is very much a liberal call-to-arms. I've chosen the middle section because it's possibly the longest moment of sustained lyrical brilliance I've ever come across - and also one of the best arguments for lyrics being a form of poetry. I'm having to ad-lib the punctuation, and I'm quoting more or less from memory, so please forgive any mistakes. Anyway: ladies and gentlemen, for your delectation... Mr Sage Francis.


Slow Down Ghandi (exerpt) - Sage Francis

...Now it's whistle-blowers versus the pistol-holders.
Case dismissed.
They'll lock you up and throw away the key witness.
Justice is the will of a judge - check his chest density;
It leaves much room for error, and the rest left to destiny.
The West Memphis Three lost paradise,
Now it's death penalty vs suicidal tendencies.
All I wanted was a fucking Pepsi.
Institution. Making you think you're crazy is a billion-dollar industry.

If they could see sanity in a bottle they'd be charging for compressed air.
They're marketing healthcare.
They demonised welfare. Middle class eliminated.
Rich get richer till the poor get educated.
But some of y'all haven't grown into your face yet,
And your face doesn't quite match your head.
And I'm waiting for a brain to fill the dead space that's left -
You're all "Give me ethnicity or give me dreads."

Trustafundian rebel, without a cause for alarm,
Because when push comes to shove
You'll jump into your forefather's arms.
He's a banker: you're part of the system.
Off come the dreadlocks, in comes the income
The briefcase - the freebase.
The sickness - the sympton.
When the cameras start rolling, stay the fuck out of the picture, pilgrim!
The briefcase - the freebase.
The sickness - the sympton.
When the cameras start rolling...
Slow down, Ghandi. You're killing 'em.

Is beauty in the tie of the beholder?

It's a strange phenomenon, especially in the face of people who say things like "opposites attract", but it generally seems to hold true: we are attracted to people who dress like us.

Why is this? There are a number of possibilities. Being too lazy to research any relevant studies, I am going to use the one example available to myself - me - while exploring them. So I apologise in advance if this well-meant article meanders off into the realm of self-indulgence.

Anyway: some kind of physical profile is probably in order. At time of writing, I have long hair and a short beard (hence my pretensions of Vikingosity), and tend to dress fairly casually if given the option. Insofar as people are attracted to me at all, they tend to be similarly casual. Occasionally their attire will lean slightly towards the gothic, or toe the line of being preppy, but they never seem to occupy a completely different sartorial slot to myself (and no, this is not a polite way of saying I am only attractive to ugly women; I suspect it's rare for me to be the looker in any romantic or sexual coupling). Similarly, while I can find celebrities - who are to all intents and purposes fictional from my point of view - to be attractive regardless of the niche their clothing represents, I tend to dismiss real-life women who don't share similarities of style with myself.

There are some interesting points that come out of this. One is that we - or, at least, I - don't always fancy people that we might be expected to. I'm thinking about a certain type of woman at the moment; a type that we would all recognise immediately, but that seems to lack a label. Nobody should be without a brand in this day and age, so I shall invent one for them. I dub them Picture Perfects.

Everyone knows a few Picture Perfects. They tend to be blonde, slim without being skinny, extremely pretty and possessors of a tan that is at least not obviously fake. Their dress sense can perhaps best be described as well-appointed, and their make-up is expertly applied to accentuate their features. This isn't sarcasm, by the way. These women are almost objectively gorgeous.

They don't fancy me, of course. That's hardly surprising; compared to them, I'm a slob. But here's the thing: I don't fancy them either. And that's bizarre: in the hierarchy of attractiveness, they are obviously a class or two above me. Their company and acceptance is something I should logically strive towards. I should at the very least fulfil the old stereotype of desiring what I cannot have. But I don't. And if I feel this way, I'm willing to assume that other people do, to.

So: why not? Why am I not attracted to undeniably beautiful girls? I'm inclined to think that our old friend tribalism comes into play here. In love, as in everything else, we are attracted to people similar to ourselves. Freud, were he alive and whiling away his inexplicably lengthy existence by reading this blog, would not doubt agree with me.

I also suspect that a form of sartorial fishing is going on here. It's a lot easier to decide what to wear than who to be attracted to. Resultingly, were are surely likely to adjust our personal look to suit those that we wish to woo. Prejudice undoubtedly plays a part: we tend to make assumptions about people we consider to be unlike us, generally negative ones. In honesty, this all seems to go back to tribalism again...

Of course, I could be confusing cause with symptom. If I assume that Picture Perfects won't be attracted to me, I'm unlikely to ever find out if they are - especially as they are almost certainly the kind of women who prefer men to make the first move. And such an assumption might also prevent me from finding them attractive in the first place - believing them to be unobtainable, I might write them off automatically. This could be the same logic that prevents me, apparently uniquely in the world of straight men, from nurturing a pointless attraction to lesbians.

To those who don't know me, and a fair few who do, this might all sound like whinging; an attempt to rationalise my non-Alpha position in the pecking order. But that would miss the point. Why should I care? I don't want Picture Perfects, or townies, or vamps, to want me, because I don't want them. I fancy girls who wear dreadlocks or comfortable jeans or those weird gypsy hairband things that look cool for some reason. And, wonderfully, from time to time one of those girls will reciprocate.

See? I warned you this would get self indulgent. Best to quit while I'm behind, so I'll end the most superficial of my blogs yet with these equally superficial words: I may not know much about women, but I know what I like.

Keep on votin'

So the Irish have rejected the Lisbon Treaty. The debate has now shifted to what we need to do next - if, indeed, anything should be done at all.

The EU's reaction, and the resulting counter-reaction, have exposed yet another flaw in the idea of the referenda system as democratic perfection. Europe's bigwigs are considering a number of options - to carry on without Ireland or any other states that do not ratify the Treaty; to try to convince the Irish to change their minds in a later vote, possibly by changing the treaty to favour that country a little better; or to just write the whole thing off as dead in the water. Of the above, any choice other than the third would make a lot of Europhobes red in the face with righteous indignation. I am encountering the phrase "when will they realise that no means no?" on web forums, in the papers, on Newsnight. The suggestion is that a second vote, or a Lisbon Treaty that excludes Ireland, would now be undemocratic. This is an oversimplification which has passed into the territory of being simply wrong. When a member of the public expresses this opinion, it's understandable, as the reality is a little counter-intuitive. When it's used by a politician or the media, it's downright dishonest.

There are a number of obvious flaws to the 'no means no' argument, the most obvious being that it's a little shaky to declare a vote over a European issue that less than 1% of the European population is entitled to participate in as democratic. It is democratic for Ireland, not for Europe. But more to the point: while the right of the Irish public to a referendum over such matters is written into their constitution, there seems to be no framework for when or how often such referenda can be called. Eurosceptics are angry that, in theory in least, there is nothing to prevent the powers that be calling an election on Lisbon every few weeks until they get what they want, and such anger is understandable enough. But it's equally as ludicrous to suggest - as the "no means no" line seems to - that the vote on 13/06/08 must now stand for all time. The idea that it should in any way disallow Lisbon to be ratified with Ireland excluded is nothing less than insane.

Furthermore, it's apparent that a lot of the Irish voted against Lisbon not because they disagreed with it in principle, but because they didn't understand it. "If you don't know, vote no" has become a popular slogan, even if it is inherently contradictory: if you don't know about an issue, surely the logical solution is either to educate yourself beforehand or abstain, rather than screw up the figures for people who actually care about the outcome. It seems possible, even likely, that the Irish would be in favour of Lisbon were it properly explained to them, or perhaps with a few clarifications to ensure that Ireland's position on abortion, for example, could not be overruled by the EU.

A vote in which ignorance plays such a major contributing factor - disinformation seemed to be the word of the day for the No campaigners, with some people thinking that the Lisbon Treaty would ban families from having more than two children, and others believing that a Yes vote would be a vote to reinstate the death penalty - is not a victory for democracy, but rather puts democracy to shame. It is a rather good demonstration of the fact that the electorate cannot be expected to digest and understand a legal document that runs to over two hundred pages, and a further reason to argue as I have earlier ("Is This Democracy?", below) that a preferable system is for the people to periodically decide who they want to make such decisions rather than voting on every single decision separately.

If countries such as Ireland are going to have these votes enshrined in their constitution, some regulatory factors are probably a good idea. Perhaps there could be an annual vote, on a set day of each year, when any proposed changes to the constitution can be approved or discarded. But without set rules - and without the ridiculous idea that a one-off vote can decide on an issue for all eternity, even after the voters are all dead - then "no" does not mean "no", but only "not yet".

Losing the thread

I am writing this now for one reason, and one reason only: Facebook is, characteristically enough, refusing to load on my computer.

I feel cut off, ostracised, betrayed. I can't communicate. It's akin to losing your voice, only less of a shock, as it happens at least every three days. I'm one of those people who doesn't use Facebook for its social networking abilities. Instead, I primarily use it to argue with strangers. For some reason, this makes my inability to log on even more frustrating.

Facebook, along with sites of a similar nature, has become one of the most recent addictive substances of modern society. This is far from being a big deal: a new narcotic appears almost every week. Computer games, sudoku, happy-slapping (sorry): our civilisation gets hooked on things novel at an alarming rate. But this one is actually strong enough to give me withdrawal symptoms. I'm not normally inclined that way - unlike about half of the population, I'm capable of going 24 hours sans mobile phone without hyperventilating - so why, when I have so many better things to do with my time, do I feel so angered by my estrangement from this one online service?

In part, it's down to social instinct. I know people on there; people I can only distinguish by a name, a photograph and a writing style, but to whose defence I feel compelled to leap to if necessary, often before discerning whether or not they actually deserve it. More importantly, I have enemies. I have productive and not-so-productive arguments going with half a dozen of them, and while I'm unable to contribute, they're given the last word by default. I need to pontificate, goddamnit!

To be honest, though, the above explanation seems like a smokescreen; something you believe wholeheartedly, but is nevertheless untrue. I suspect Facebook is a symptom of a deeper illness: the desire to make your mark. Why else would my reaction, on finding myself unable to post in beloved forums such as Government + Religion = Disaster, be to instantly start blogging instead? It smells of intellectual narcissism: I must have my say, people must be aware of my existence, they must listen to me, to me, to me.

It has to be said that this is nothing new, and certainly nothing to do with the information age. I may have a mild dependency issue with online communication, but it's normal to feel the need to interact with other people; in fact, anyone who doesn't is generally branded a sociopath. Despite its ubiquitousness in the modern world, the internet is capable of creating a certain stigma. If I met someone over the net, and subsequently started going out with them, I would probably find this embarrassing to admit to other people, even though there is no logical difference between finding love at work and finding love on Myspace.

[Note: while writing this, I've noticed that Facebook has actually managed to do its job properly and is now welcoming me with open arms. Too late. I've been sidetracked.]

Human beings need to be heard, to stand up and be counted. They often try to achieve this in spectacularly ineffective ways - when I argue with bigots and libertarians and Abba fans on Facebook, as when I write on this blog that nobody reads, I am clearly crying in the wilderness. Perhaps such things serve a similar function to dreams, or to talking to yourself: the audience, fictional or otherwise, is simply a device that allows you to marshal your own thoughts.

Or maybe I'm over-thinking it. This is something I'm used to doing, and I've been prevented from doing it. If I went down my local pub, only for it to tell me that it was suffering from an internal runtime error and could not process my request for a pint at this time, I'd be equally annoyed. But it remains that communicating online has become as normal as communicating in your home or workplace or bus stop, even if people on Facebook tend to refer to offline conversations as occurring in "the real world". We've been presented with an entire new dimension of existence, and - true to form - it's irritating us already.

Is this democracy?

I was idly browsing through the musings of Nick Robinson - perhaps the mightiest blogger in all of Christendom - today, when I came across a throwaway reference to democracy. Y'know, democracy; that magical concept that seems to be as close to an objective definition of 'good' as we can get these days. The context was Wendy Alexander's apparent U-turn on the Scottish referendum issue:


"Ms Alexander - or "Bendy Wendy" as some have dubbed here after her apparent U-turn - had privately argued for months that it was time to call the SNP's bluff and tell them to put up or shut up on the issue of independence. Her purpose was to reposition the Scottish Labour Party to be in favour of letting the people choose rather than being opposed to democracy."
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2008/05/an_almighty_mes.html


What struck me as strange was that what Robinson was here referring to as 'democracy' seemed to me an example of a very undemocratic practice. I don't think Robinson was intentionally defining his goalposts for democracy - I believe he either used the word casually, or meant to imply that Alexander wanted to avoid seeming to be opposed to democracy, a very different thing altogether - but it was a good example of two diametrically opposed sides being able to simultaneously claim that they are the one party defending a value that we all hold dear. Not freedom this time; or 'the people', whoever they may be; but democracy itself.


Proponents of referenda, any referenda, are always able to present themselves as democrats. The reason for this is obvious: voting is democratic, yes? Well, no. Not necessarily. Here's how it looks from my side of the fence.


Let's start by admitting that democracy is, and never can be, perfect. The much-touted example of 'pure' democracy - the old city-state style undertaken in Greece before it was Greece - was far from perfect, even when you remove the signs saying 'no women, no slaves, no Africans' from the polling booth doors. One person, one vote sounds all well and good, but how do you actually implement that? Do you uphold the voting rights of the vulnerably insane, or cancel said rights to prevent them from being abused? Do you stop the politically aware sixteen-year-old from having a say, thus rendering him subject to the laws of the land without a right to change it, to prevent his friends from voting according to their parents' wishes or handing the Monster Raving Loony Party some genuine power? What about the fact that one man wields ten thousand votes, should he happen to be rich enough to own a national newspaper? You could ban the private press altogether, but any government handed a solely state-controlled media would become a dictatorship within a matter of years. Should people whose opinions are dangerous to the public - racists, homophobes and other such charming sects - be given a voice in the name of freedom of speech, or silenced in the name of keeping the peace? Do you allow people to comment on politics, even when they write polemics composed almost entirely of rhetorical questions?

So: democracy is not perfect. However, it is possible to improve - or worsen - the democratic process of a country. At face value, a demand for a referendum on Scottish independence looks like a demand for improved, more representative democracy. On closer examination, this proves to be a ludicrous idea. The issue of Scottish independence affects every person in this country; it would impact on our economy, our culture, our agriculture, our trade, our everything. The so-called 'democratic' movement to allow Scots to vote on their own independence seeks to deny the English, Welsh et al any say in whether a sizeable part of their country is to be ripped away from them. And, if the line between England and Scotland is distinct enough to qualify them for this kind of exclusivist electioneering, does this carry over to other, smaller places? Could the North vote to have England divided along Watford Gap? Could London, which after all gives far more than it receives to the economy, elect itself into independence? If I decided I was fed up of paying tax, could I collaborate with my flatmate to declare my home a separate state and therefore turn the Inland Revenue from my door?

Some hold up tradition as an excuse for defaulting on the voting rights of those who live on the wrong side of an arbitrary line. Scotland, after all, has always been a distinct entity, the extent of which varying around the period and the viewpoint. Personally, I think heritage, when it uses the experiences of the long-dead to justify the will of the living, is a terrible reason to do anything, but more to the point: the Scottish are part of the British electorate, and surely secession from such can only be granted on a true democratic mandate. To be part of a state for hundreds of years, to share its parliament and economy and politics, and then to suddenly claim only you get a say in perhaps the most important decision that state faces in a century; well, it sounds a lot like cheating.

I wouldn't say any of this were Scotland an oppressed nation, of course. The case for Northern Irish independence (and a Northern Irish vote on the matter) before and during the Troubles was strong. Sometimes a region's right to self-definition is valid. Democracy was perhaps best defined as 'two wolves and a sheep voting who to have for dinner', and it's better to let that sheep walk away of its own choosing than to force it into a desperate and bloody battle. But Scotland is not the Northern Ireland of the Seventies. It is not Tibet. It is simply a region of Britain with historical distinguishing characteristics. Scotland is not under oppression, whatever the SNLA (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jan/08/politics.ukcrime) may think. In fact, it benefits from English taxation and is better represented in the parliamentary system than either England or Wales. I have no issue with this, but merely want to make it clear that super-imposing fond memories of Braveheart onto a real, modern political landscape is a grave error indeed.

Now: what about referenda that include the entire electorate? The obvious example here is the much-debated vote on Britain's relationship with Europe. Surely such a move could only be a step closer to a fairer democracy?

Again: I am not so sure. It must be remembered that we live in a representative system. Our democratic rights are upheld in the General Election, when we get to choose who will make the nation's decisions for the next four or five years. All other issues are thus dealt with by proxy, and nobody has yet explained to me why this one issue should somehow be awarded special status. Granted, we elected a party that promised us a referendum on the European Constitution (and I agree that Gordon Brown has not succeeded in dodging this responsibility by giving said Constitution a quick paint-job and rebranding it a Treaty), but no laws exist to force a politician to hold true to the assurances given in their election campaign. Maybe they should, but again: if so, this should apply to all issues, not just Europe. By refusing a referendum - any referendum - the Government does not fly in the face of democracy, only declines to redefine democracy to suit one particular interest group.

So; perhaps the answer is to decide all issues on a referendum vote. This, at least, would be closer to 'pure' democracy than the at-one-remove system we have now. But the sheer amount of referenda needed would mean people, en masse, either deciding not to vote, or voting without due care and attention. Voter apathy is not something I'm necessarily against - I'd resent having my vote cancelled out by someone voting at random - but on this level, most decisions would go the way of one special interest group or another. I've seen this happen on a small scale, watching the bizarre decisions made at student elections when only six percent of eligible voters turned up. The idea of it happening on a national scale is troublesome, to say the least. A better turn-out would be seen for more major issues, but most voters would be seriously uninformed. This is not to say that the electorate is ignorant; just to point out that most people's jobs, unlike politicians', do not involve knowing the ins and outs of every political concern. A vote on any subject that the public cared about would, in practice, be won by the tabloid media. Rupert Murdoch would be King.

And there is another problem. Each action has an equal and opposite reaction, even in politics. Parliamentary decrees are weighed against each other. Conversely, the public has a history of favouring completely contradictory policies. All in favour of reduced taxation and increased public spending, say aye! All in favour of a more empowered police force and better-protected civil liberties, say aye! All in favour of more power to local education authorities and a nationwide equality in schooling, say aye! The people, myself included, want to buy steak on the cheap and drink beer at a penny a pint, while protecting the livelihoods of small business owners like publicans and farmers. Our politicians know this to be impossible. Under a referenda system, we would order our civil servants to decentralise financial control for medical treatment while putting an end to postcode lotteries and, in doing so, hand them a paradox instead of a mandate.

This, along with the obvious practical problems, is why no large democracy has a referenda system. We, the people, do not and cannot decide on every subject raised in the house of Commons. Instead, we vote for the experts we want to make these decisions for us; and, as we ultimately decide which of these experts gets to keep their job, we get the final word. In this way, the desires of extremists are moderated, and we are assured all decisions are made by those qualified to make them, but those in power remain fully answerable to the electorate. George Monbiot called democracy 'the least-worst system'; flawed as it may be, I find it hard to think of anything better.

Archbishops bearing gifts

Yesterday, there was a minor victory for cooperation and mutual respect between the religious and the non-believers yesterday, as the Archbishop of Westminster urged Catholics to understand and tolerate their faithless fellow citizens: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7390941.stm. At least, that was how it appeared on face value.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said many things about how the relationship between those who believe and those who do not, most of them good. He asked both parties to consider that believers and non-believers interpret the world in different ways: that the scientific, secular criterion of testing a belief does not apply to God. That's what we've been trying to tell you, many atheists may reply, but that does detract from the central argument: dyed-in-the-wool atheists and Christians debating the existence of God is now pointless in real terms, if by 'debate' you mean 'a process by which I wish to convince my opponent of my point of view'. The atheists and Christians will fail to convince each other because they utilise different systems to describe and understand their points of views. There's no point in playing a game if you can't agree on the rules.

This may be valid, or it may not; either way, it amounts to a call to stop bickering, which is probably a good thing. It will have limited success: Richard Dawkins proudly tried to start a squabble with the Archbishop almost immediately, using deliberately offensive terminology such as referring to God as an 'imaginary friend'. But Murphy-O'Connor's statement passes the test as A Decent Thing To Say.

Unfortunately, this was not supported by some of his other comments, presented in the same address. For example, the Archbishop said he wanted "to encourage people of faith to regard those without faith with deep esteem because the hidden God is active in their lives as well as in the lives of those who believe": in other words, God believes in you even if you don't believe in him.

This is a trifle patronising. It reminds me of a woman who claimed that morality came solely from religion; that without religion and its inherent punishment/reward system, you could not be a good person. When presented with a list of atheist philanthropists and agnostic heroes, she explained that these people were religious really, but just hadn't realised it yet. Anyone else see a certain circularity here? Still, the Archbishop's comments along these lines are only slightly condescending; I take umbridge, but I'm not going to get too het up about it.

I am, however, prepared to get extremely stroppy about another of his comments: that societies built on lack of faith, that utilise solely reason as opposed to religious presumption, become examples of 'terror and oppression'. He held up Stalin and Hitler as examples.

This is extremely offensive, and I am, as an agnostic, arguably one of the people he is offending. To present Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia as an warning against the atheist state is mind-bogglingly ignorant. Firstly, it assumes that correlation equals cause, a common logical fallacy. The brutality of the Third Reich was born of poverty and national disenfranchisement and the desire to find and punish a scapegoat, not by its leader's supposed atheism. Using the same fallacious logic, I could say some very unfair things about Catholicism, but I won't. Secondly, it ignores the fact that atheism was not the driving force beneath either society, simply a byproduct or useful propaganda tool. Thirdly, it misses the fact that the blind adherence to the quasi-faiths that did drive these societies - nationalism and communism respectively - have a lot less in common with atheism than they do organised religion, especially a religion as organised as the Catholic Church. This is not to say that any religion somehow mirrors these two dark examples from the world's history. It is just to say that Hitler and Stalin both relied on the masses' unquestioning acceptance of the party line; something that religions tend to encourage and atheism fights to reject. As such, the Archbishop's comments seem, at the very least, to be a bit misguided.

I don't think that the Archbishop intended his words to be seen as an attack on atheism; at most, they were probably a form of aggressive defense, a method of demonstrating that religion does some good in the world. He could have accomplished this more accurately, and less aggravatingly, by mentioning the Salvation Army, or Christian Aid, or the spirit of mutual support found in many local parishes. Unfortunately, Murphy-O'Connor seems hung up on invalid arguments and old prejudices; even in a speech about mutual tolerance, he cannot resist throwing in some tired atheist-bashing rhetoric. As such, what at first sounds like a positive message starts to appear more and more like a Trojan horse, designed to allow more malign ideas to slip in unnoticed. I doubt this was his intention - he probably meant well - but you cannot talk about encouraging respect while simultaneously disrespecting the people you wish to engage. To play the game properly, you have to not only agree on the rules, but follow them.