Sunday 10 April 2011

Road to the cross? Use the pavement instead!

I see that Brent Council, that great bastion of all that brings the odd raised eyebrow and the resigned sigh has once again managed to makes the news. This time, council officials have banned the annual Good Friday 'walk of witness'.

No, they don't want them to do an 'Earth Day' procession (although I would be this would be more favourably treated) like the Episcopalian Church are advocating in places, but are concerned with the 'health and safety' aspects of the event and so have forbidden them to walk on the road, pushing the event onto the pavement (surely that's a health and safety risk?).

Knowing the area and the community I know of various marches and parades, none of which have been pushed onto the pavement, but then again, none of them were Christian (unless you count St Pat's Day)! Diwali is splendid in Brent's area, there are parades and the like and there's never been a question about them happening. This is where we need to be able to point to other groups public acts of witness and celebration and tell Brent where to go. we don't want special treatment, we just want to be treated the same as everyone else.

Thankfully, the MP for Brent Central, Sarah Teather, has taken up the cry to let this event take place:

"It is important that the Good Friday procession is allowed to take place on the roads. Brent is a multicultural area. The turnout at the annual St Patrick’s Day parade shows that many people appreciate the celebrations of cultures other than their own. I have written to Brent Council asking them to reconsider their decision to make the Good Friday procession take place on the pavement. This provision is not only impractical, but also does not allow the people of Brent to fully enjoy the event.

Then again, perhaps we need to drop Good Friday and engage in Earth Day instead, wouldn't be a problem then, would there?

Happy Sunday

3 comments:

Vic Van Den Bergh said...

This item is also reported:

http://www.christiantoday.co.uk/article/red.tape.casting.doubts.over.london.churches.good.friday.procession/27803.htm

with parrallel reporting of story, here:

http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news.aspx?action=view&id=5290

HTH

Paul said...

It was me, Father Scott Anderson, Rev Issachar Lewinson, Father Tony Dwyer and Rev Phil Robinson who started that and it kicked off in the thousands. We started it because none of us could get planning permission for anything and whatever we did get was heavily restricted while huge Hindu Temples were being built etc. with no hindrances at all. It was clear we were being squeezed out so we stood together to carry that cross down the street and back each other applications. It was an astonishing success. Diwali etc. all get funding and support while we had none. The fact they are closing this down and getting away with it is sad and I just hope all of our successors take the same approach we did, which was just to go ahead and do it no matter what they say!

andy said...

We have absolutely no problems with our Good Friday March of Witness through Penarth, in South Wales. In fact, the police usually say how pleasant it is to supervise us - if they even do that (we often supervise ourselves!!)

Remind Brent that they are in no way representative of local authorities, and most ethnic minorities see this kind of thing as non-threatening and are actually worried that any attempt to minimise Christian activities of this kind is simply a precursor to their own activities being minimised.