The Guild Thought for the Day Summer 2008 Friday 29 August After hours on the road, my dad turned the Cortina into the drive way dead on three o’clock – tea was at half past. I looked up at the ivy clad building and felt OK. It was just like the photos in the prospectus. No-one at my school had heard of St Andrews but I’d liked the look of it and my Scottish mum was very pleased. We went inside and that’s when I started to feel sick. Why had I ticked the box “willing to share a room”? It seemed like a good idea at the time but what if she was too studious, or too radical, or too posh? My dad was already half way up the stairs. His accent sounded more Yorkshire than I’d ever heard it. My mum was commenting on the lovely wood panelling and wondering about the history of the house. God forgive me, but I wished them miles away. This was my chance to reinvent myself for a whole new audience. I could be a good time girl here. No-one need know I was stay-at-home-on-Saturday nights, go- to-church-on-Sunday girl. Everything was going to be different here. Room 23 – it was tiny, how were two of us going to live here? Or maybe it just looked small because her stuff was all over the place. I’d never seen so much make-up, - and loads of records, and unless she was abnormally small, these had to be incredibly short skirts, even for nineteen sixty eight. I started to try and make room for my things and realised I didn’t want my folks to go quite yet. My mum always hated mess and I winced as she started picking things up off the floor. She turned with a book in her hand. ‘I think you’ll be alright here’ she said, smiling as she placed a battered Bible on the bedside table. At which point the door crashed open and a stunner in a miniskirt said “Hi I’m Barbara”. “Hel - lo” said my dad, sounding like Leslie Phillips and my mum marched him off smartly. Barbara and I exchanged looks and laughed. Time to get on with the adventure. Wednesday 20 August Amnesty International’s report on human trafficking, published today, makes stark reading with its shocking statistics and harrowing case studies. Later today, as part of the Festival of Politics, a meeting at Holyrood will also highlight human trafficking and I don’t expect that to be any less disturbing. It all leaves me with questions about the demand side of the equation. Who is driving this trade if it isn’t ordinary people like us who want our cheap clothes and trainers and don’t think to question how prices can be so low? And who’s using the girls who are trafficked to Scotland for the sex trade if isn’t people we meet on the train, in the office, at the gym, who occasionally buy sex from a prostitute? The Church of Scotland Guild called recently for a serious debate on the link between prostitution and trafficking. Some will tell you there’s no connection, but the evidence shows that traffickers profit hugely from the sex industry and the simple fact is they wouldn’t be in that line of business if there were no demand for their product. When we start to see a person as a commodity rather than a unique individual, made in the image of God, it becomes easier to distance ourselves from the consequences of our actions. Punters who pay for sex are buying into the myth that paying for it absolves them from any further responsibility. They may notice that the girl they’ve just had doesn‘t look too well and doesn’t speak the language, but hey, that’s not their concern. Well, it is mine. When the owner of the largest brothel in Germany says of big match days “football and sex belong together” and when stag parties routinely include the price of a prostitute, and when a boy is slagged off for refusing to join in the fun on a lads’ trip to Amsterdam, I hope the response is more that a weary shrug. Challenging these attitudes is a step towards changing hearts and minds so that none of God’s children is seen as a commodity to be bought and sold. Wednesday 2 July I wonder what you’d pick if you were asked to choose something to symbolise Scotland? The National Museum will open a new gallery later this month aimed at reflecting the nation through objects as diverse as a Piper’s medals from World War one and a dress worn by Lulu. Some of the selected items, like the Hillman Imp - in which I passed my driving test - had me nodding in approval; others made me snort with disdain. And when it comes to the people who might be chosen to sum up who we are and what we’re about, there’d probably be an equally varied response. Would you go for Andrew Carnegie, whose home town of Dunfermline has announced plans to hold an annual festival in honour of his business success and philanthropy, or is Andy Murray the new Scottish icon, described in the Times yesterday as so atavistic that he might as well have been playing naked and covered in blue paint? It all goes to show how impossible it is to define national characteristics. For every stereotypical romantic Frenchman or laidback Aussie or uptight German, there will be a dozen others who’ll give a totally different impression. The title of this latest exhibition at the National Museum is significant. It’s called “A changing nation” – and that’s what we are. Just look around your neighbourhood, or listen to the conversations on any train or bus. The accents are changing. Newcomers are bringing their past with them as they search for new opportunities, just as Scots took their language and customs to the New World in centuries past. The questions for us are, how do we welcome the stranger, and what do we tell them about ourselves? Government departments and institutions can develop information packs and orientation courses, but the newcomer will only encounter Scotland in meeting you and me. For Christians, offering hospitality is a core value, and for all Scots, whatever we believe, it’s our actions and behaviour that will determine how we’re described in thousands of messages sent back home to Gdansk and Lagos and Istanbul. Friday 27 June Two stories topped the news reports yesterday. One was the proposal from the equalities minister, Harriet Harmon, for anti-discrimination legislation , including measures to end discrimination against older people. The other concerned a rather frail old man, and a statement on Zimbabwe for which the world had been waiting. In his 90th year Nelson Mandela still embodies the kind of moral authority that’s needed if we are to change the cultural context of the world we inhabit. Human rights legislation, like any other kind of law, is a necessary tool that can do a good job when well used, but it isn’t enough on its own. In order to challenge the kind of discrimination and injustice that Nelson Mandela has known in his lifetime we need to change people; to open their eyes to a new understanding of what effect their actions and choices - and liberties - have on the lives of other people. Take, for example, the issue of human trafficking for the sex industry. The laws of supply and demand would indicate that there’s a link between prostitution in our cities and the trafficking of women to Scotland . Without a steady demand, the suppliers would have no market for the women they can buy at auction. Effective legislation is good; strong moral leadership from public figures is good; but when it comes down to it, we have to confront the mindset of the punter who just fancies a Thai girl maybe, or a Moldovan who doesn’t argue because she can’t speak the language. Human rights starts in the home, in the school, in the workplace, in the clothes shop, in the brothel – anywhere we can speak out against abuse, bullying and discrimination. But that doesn’t come easy. For Christians there’s the example of Jesus siding with the reviled Samaritans, the shunned women, the insignificant children – and making powerful enemies in the process. And we also have examples from our time of courageous challengers of human rights abuse, Aung San Suu Kyi, Martin Luther King, and a frail old man who’s 90 this week. Friday 13 June Yesterday I took part in a seminar on Power. A group of potential leaders from the public, private and voluntary sectors came to the Church of Scotland as part of their course on ‘power and where it lies’. With their contrasting personalities and eagerness to get their point across, the group members reminded me for a minute of the contestants in “The Apprentice”, which finally fought itself to an exhausted standstill this week. But this group wasn’t about seeing off the opposition to seize the prize of a six figure salary. They listened intently to what everyone had to say and we had an animated and challenging discussion. As well as meeting church representatives, they were also spending time at the Parliament , and hearing from a journalist and a chief constable. If you were asked to pick the odd one out , I guess most people might plump for the church – not widely recognised these days as a source of power in the land. And for many Christians power has negative connotations – we see ourselves as standing with the powerless and enabling the voice of the poor to be heard. Challenging power has been a constant calling of the church from the beginning. Its strength was demonstrated in the blood of the Roman amphitheatre and the civil rights marches of forty years ago; and it’s been at its weakest and most shameful when it ‘s been seduced by the trappings of power and status. But all this refers to the kind of power that is fought for and won, wielded and clung to, used and abused. There is another kind of power – the kind that is tapped into rather than possessed. In our discussion the point was made that the first thing Jesus did in his ministry was to start a community – a community based on co-operation rather than competition, and underpinned by the power of love. It was a hard lesson for the first disciples to learn – some of them weren’t above vying to be the chosen Apprentice – and it’s no easier for us. We want to aspire and achieve - but to be the best we can be should involve helping others along rather than doing them down.