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Ethical Record the Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 113 No. 9 £1.50 October 2008 THE ANNUAL REUNION OF KINDRED SOCIETIES Jennifer R Jeynes When I became Programme Co-ordinator for the Ethical Society, some years ago now, I found that our Autumn Lecture programme was preceded, after the summer break, by an Annual Reunion of the Kindred Humanist Organisations. I thought this was a very good idea in principle, to stand (or sit) together, united by the conviction that it is possible to live a good, ethical (and musical) life without imaginary supernatural support. I became persuaded that Humanists/Secularists should be united by the overriding importance of our Weltanschaung (or life stance to use the inelegant English equivalent). On 21 September I felt vindicated (if that is not too hyperbolic an expression) as over 70 people heard News and Greetings from our usual friends, the British Humanist Association, the National Secular Society and the Rationalist Association (formerly the Rationalist Press Association) but also the Sonnenberg Association of Great Britain, the Freethought History Research Group (of which the late Virginia Clark and I were founding members) and most recently, the CEMB (Council of Ex Muslims) whose members are not only principled but courageous. (continued on page 21) THE ANNUAL REUNION OF KINDRED SOCIETIES Jennifer R. Jeynes 1,21 NEW PRIZES AND FELLOWSHIPS LAUNCHED 2 IS THERE AN ETHICAL SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF IRAQ? Mike Phipps 3 VIEWPOINT Sue Mayer 13 ONE (ANTONY) FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO'S NEST, or how and why Prof Antony Flew, once the public face of atheism, changed his mind. Chris Bratcher 14 THIRTY FIVE YEARS OF MY 'HUMANISM' Barbara Smoker 19 ERIC S. STOCKTON (1924 —2008) Ralph !son 22 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: librarygethicalsoc.org.uk Chairman: Giles Enders Hon. Rep.: Don Liversedge Vice-chairman: Terry Mullins Treasurer: John Edwards Registrar: Donald Rooum Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Executive Officer: Emma J. Stanford Tel: 020 7242 8034/1 Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7242 8034 Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel:020 7242 8032 Librarian1Programme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes M.Sc. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Lettings Assistant: Marie Aubrechtova Caretakers: Eva Aularechtova (i/c); Tel: 020 7242 8033 together with: Shaip Bullaku, Angelo Edrozo. Nikola Ivanovski, Alfredo Olivio, Rogerio Retuerna, David Wright Maintenance Operative: Zia Hameed New Members We welcome to the Society: Hon. Alderman Richard Barry of Hull; Barbara Bean of Enfield; Richard Fletcher and Collette Fletcher of London N5 Obituary We regret to report the death of Eric S. Stockton (see p.22) NEW PRIZES AND FELLOWSHIPS LAUNCHED A note from the Arts and Education sub - Commitee Two new education initiatives are being launched by the Society, in cooperation with the Rationalist Association and the British Humanist Association: The James Hemming Essay Prize will be open to any student in years I 2 or 13 (lower or upper sixth) in an educational institution in the UK and is named after Dr James Hemming (1909-2007), who was a frequent lecturer at the South Place Ethical Society, President and Vice President of the British Humanist Association, and an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Association. He was a dedicated teacher and educationist and a passionate advocate of an education system that would value and encourage every child. Adverts are going out to schools and colleges, and a webs ite for the prizes will shortly go online. The deadline for essays will be March 2009 and a prize-giving will be held in Conway Hall in spring 2009. The Harold Blackham Fellowships will be awarded to post-doctoral academics and will consist of a grant to assist in the editing of doctoral research into publishable form in a field related to freethought, reason, or humanism. The successful applicant will also be obliged to give at least one lecture on their work to the Ethical Society. The fellowships are named after Harold Blackham (1903—), Appointed Lecturer to the South Place Ethical Society, first Executive Director of the British Humanist Association, co-founder and first Secretary of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Association. As a writer, educator and activist, he did more than any other individual in the twentieth century to promote the principles of Humanism. Together with the new programme of concerts now run by SPES at Conway Hall, these two educational initiatives are the second phase of the GC's strategic plan to increase the activities of the Society in pursuit of our charitable mission. 2 Ethical Record, October 2008 IS MERE AN ETHICAL SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF IRAQ? Mike Phipps Editor of Iraq Occupation Focus Lecture to the Ethical Society, 5 October 2008 In February 2003, between one and a half and two million people marched against the prospect of an Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Perhaps some of you were there. Two weeks ago in Manchester, just 5,000 people demonstrated outside the Labour Party conference on the same issue. This was part of a pattern: pretty much every demonstration against the war since 2003 has been smaller than the last. Maybe this indicates the extent to which the issue has fallen through the cracks of our collective consciousness. Perhaps it is a reflection of the way the mainstream media present the problem almost exclusively in terms of the impact of events here — the death of British soldiers, or the effect on public support for the government. Clearly, it expresses a recognition that if the largest popular demonstration in this country's history could not stop the war in Iraq before it happened, then no public protest can turn back the course of events once they are unleashed. Personally, I don't believe that the people in this country have simply forgotten about the conflict. Most people remain anti-war and many are angry about it. In a YouGov poll in March 2007, 59% of people in Britain said that British troops should be brought home 'more or less immediately'. A MORI poll in September 2007 found that 41% of people feel 'angry' about the war. So there is a powerlessness in the face of these events over which people feel they have no control, as well as perhaps a fear that a premature withdrawal might increase violence in the short term. Some might go as far to say that having gone in, British and US forces must do more to stabilise and rebuild Iraq before simply cutting and running. These are the principal arguments one meets when discussing withdrawal from Iraq and they are largely motivated by legitimate ethical and humanitarian concerns. Interestingly, they are not matched by public opinion in Iraq. A poll taken at the end of February 2008 found that 70% of Iraqis want US-led forces to leave. A BBC poll taken at the same time found that most Iraqis thought an immediate US withdrawal would not worsen the situation — only 29% thought security would get worse; 23% thought it would remain the same; 46% believed it would get better. To understand the disparity, it is necessary to take stock of what the occupation of Iraq has meant over the last five and a half years, a period almost as long as the whole of World War II. A Catastrophe For Iraqi People On every level, the occupation has been a catastrophe of immense proportions for the Iraqi people. A million dead. One in two households in Baghdad alone have lost a family member. A million left disabled. Half a million orphans. Three quarters of a million unable to resume primary school this year. Five million refugees. Antony Arnove, author of The Logic for Withdrawal, wrote recently: 'Some two million Iraqis have fled their country. Another 1.9 million are estimated to be internally displaced persons, driven from their homes and neighbourhoods by the US occupation and the vicious civil war it has sparked. Add those figures up and you have close to 16% of the Iraqi population uprooted. Add the dead to the displaced, and that figure rises to nearly one in five Iraqis. Basic foods and necessities are now increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary Iraqis, thanks to soarine inflation unleashed by the occupation's destruction Ethical Record, October 2008 3 of the already shaky Iraqi economy, cuts to state subsidies encouraged by the International Monetary Fund and the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the disruption of the oil industry. Unemployment is somewhere between 50-70%. Access to safe water and regular electricity remain well below pre-invasion levels.' To that let us add: widespread corruption and embezzlement. Water shortages destroying agriculture. Power shortages crippling industry. Permanent damage to the country's historic cultural heritage. An Amnesty International report earlier this year concluded: 'Despite claims that the security situation has improved in recent months, the human rights situation is disastrous' with 'a climate of impunity [and] the economy in tatters.' Chaos A Deliberate Policy There is a school of thought that says that •through the deployment of inexperienced personnel and a lack of forward planninR, America made a number of errors in Iraq. I want to suggest something a bit more controversial — that much of the chaos into which Iraq descended after the invasion of 2003 was the fruit of a deliberate policy. The organiser of today's talk (Jennifer Jeynes) originally asked me to discuss Naomi Klein's new book The Shocic Doctrine. I felt I couldn't really do justice to a work that wasn't my own, so we're discussing Iraq instead, on which I seem to have been working for far too long.
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