Election fever

May 6 is election day for both the members of parliament and for the local councillors. As a resident of Aston I have been granted the right to participate in the election of local councillors, but being a Dutch national excludes me from the British parliamentary elections.

The arrival of my poll card heightened my interest in Aston politics. As part of trying to understand the dynamics in the neighbourhood I had already searched the internet for information about past elections. What it made clear was that only two parties are vying for political control of the neighbourhood: Labour and the Liberal Democrats. All the other parties stand no chance at all, including the Conservatives.

What leapt to the eye was that political campaigns are hard-fought in Aston and make use of dirty tricks. Candidates accuse one another of telling lies about their opponents trying to smear their reputations. This went so far that at the day of one of the elections a sound van was going through the streets of Aston blaring the alleged abuse of social benefit claims by the opposition candidate. Accusations of vote rigging and ballot irregularities flew to and fro as well.

The present elections are in comparison relatively quiet. What I have come across with so far is a rather blatant attempt to mobilise the Muslim vote. Last Friday near our house I found a number of leaflets scattered on the ground. Apparently, they had been distributed after the Friday service at the mosque in our street. The Lib Dems were responsible for these particular leaflets. Under the heading "What Labour don't want you to know", they listed eight items all meant to arouse the feelings of the local Muslim population. Just to mention the first, the last and the one in the middle: "Labour's illegal war in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people and children"; "Labour have made major changes to the Immigration Act, making it harder for your families to join you"; and "Labour are introducing intrusive full body scans at Britain's Airports".

I have not yet seen the answer of Labour to this kind of campaigning, but no doubt there will be some response or other. Whatever it will be, I do hope that the response will avoid two glaring shortcomings of the leaflets: they just condemn the other party without any alternative policy proposal, and secondly, they only address the Muslim population and ignore the other (minority) residents in the neighbourhood.

Finally, a conspicuous omission. It is a well-known fact that unemployment is the biggest problem in Aston and for that matter in the West-Midlands as a whole. In particular, young people stand very little chance to land a job. A fact like this cannot be ignored than at our own peril.

Ton

"Pray for me"

Within the span of a week three people asked me to pray for them and only one of them was a Christian. The other two were Muslims, one clearly so and the other having a Muslim name hailed at least from a Muslim family.

Such a request shows that the people in question knew who we are and indeed we never hid the fact that we are members of a religious community and three Catholic priests. It is a bit difficult to introduce ourselves without causing confusion, but I always start by saying that I am a member of a religious community belonging to the Catholic Church. When this comes across as rather vague - what is a religious community after all? - I add that we are three Catholic priests living together here in Aston. For most people this suffices as an initial introduction and they leave it at that.

The request for prayer is directed to me being a priest. The idea, which I sense behind it, is that priests are supposed to be mediators between God and the people. They have to bring God to the people and the people to God. It is not enough just to talk about God, they have to approach God and bring the people along with all their needs and concerns. That is their task and those who asked me to pray for them believe somehow that that task is God-given.

The remarkable thing about it is that two of them crossed religious boundaries. Apparently they believe that God is present not just in their own religion but in other religions as well. It is the same God who is acknowledged and worshipped in all religions. Right or wrong, false or true does not come first. There is something deeper, beyond the differences, and that is the one God who is all in all.

I'm not surprised that feelings like this occur in a multifaith community like Aston. When neighbours of different religions get to know each other, when they experience each other as good, responsible and caring people, they cannot possibly deny God's presence in the other. For God is goodness and the source of all goodness.

What it needs and that is the challenge we in the Cordate community face, is to bring people in contact with one another and let them experience that goodness that knows no boundaries.

Ton