What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • St Andrews Debates

    Great night last night in Lower Parliament Hall in St Andrews. I’d been invited to join a panel debate (a bit like Question Time) on LGBT issues at the invitation of the Debating Society and the LGBT Society of St Andrews University.

    I like going back to St Andrews, which was where I read theology from 1989 – 1992. I don’t get there terribly often.

    There are people who go to university there who never leave. They hang around and can’t get it out of their system. I was never like that but it is still lovely to return. There is still an emotional thrill to be had peeking into St Mary’s Quad and thinking, “I was here, I was here”

    So many things about St Andrews never change. However some things do. It was obvious last night that things have changed for gay students. In my time, the LGBT group met behind closed doors in a small room in the Chaplaincy on a Sunday evening. I never went. I would have been frightened to go but do remember walking past the steamed up windows and wondering what was going on inside. (They were probably boiling kettles to make tea, but the steamed up windows did make you wonder).

    Now, the LGBT Society is a sub committee of the Union, like the Debating Society. That means that by definition, every student in the University is a member and they are responsible for providing a range of services. They say there are a couple of hundred active members and last night, LGBT and Debates were holding their first joint event. It is almost inconceivable to me that the Debating Soc, which was so macho, testosterone fueled and deeply conservative in my day should be doing this now.

    It is quite moving to go back to your alma mater. Last night wasn’t just nostalgia for me though. I could see the real, material changes that have come to students like me. Things have changed, gloriously changed in the last 20 years. I’m proud to have been part of that and proud to have joined a great bunch of students last night for debate and socialising afterwards. (Though I gave up and headed to bed before they did).

4 responses to “Guest Post: Alan McManus on The Feast of St Francis”

  1. Jaye Richards-Hill Avatar
    Jaye Richards-Hill

    Whilst the sentiment is worthy, I think you’re being a wee bit naive here Alan. Ruth may be praying for the safe return of her sons, as I will pray for my step son when he is called up for service in the IDF next year. She might also be praying that her sons don’t encounter the devastation of the Katusha rockets fired from Gaza on an almost daily basis and have to deal with dead and maimed Israeli children. They all might pray that they’re not in the bus stations in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem when some poor misguided Arab child with a bomb strapped to their back causes devastation, death and mutilation.
    And Lesbian Rachael may have been ostracised from her family, but she can give thanks that Israel is the ONLY country in the middle east where her rights and equality is protected by law. Of course, if she was a palastinian in Gaza or the west bank, her sexuality would be criminalised.

    Your view of the activity of Israel and its army in my view is one which, if you’ll forgive my directness, is through rose tinted specs. My wife is an ex-IDF officer, and whilst there is most definitely some bad treatment of the Palastinians, it’s usually in response to many of the dangers I’ve outlined in this comment. We should be lighting candles perhaps for the Israeli government and constitution which provides free health care and education for all it’s citizens, be they Arab, Jew, or anything else, including LGBT. These are the real poor in Israel and they are protected. This is not apartheid, and to compare it to the system in South Africa under which my wife grew up is, quite frankly, offensive to most Israelis and many others.

    Sorry if this comment upsets you, but I’m sure Francis would have been apolitical in this. His concern might well have been the poor, but he might have seen that the poor are the misguided people in this world who are too quick to condem Israel from the comfort of their western armchairs…

    Jaye

    Reply
  2. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    Well-intentioned but naive isn’t the harshest criticism a post involving this Near-Eastern politicial knife edge could have attracted, so I thank you. My mother’s maiden name is Jewish; I spent some months on a kibbutz in the 80’s; I think I was the worst student of Hebrew that St Mary’s College, St Andrews Uni, ever had; I only avoided being elected president of St Andrews Jewish student society (I was the oldest member) by declaring, “I shouldn’t be the president: I’m goy!”; I think that Eretz Yisrael is a beautiful, fascinating and deeply tragic place and I admire your commitment to primary human realtionships and share your exasperation of uninformed, unbalanced and uninvolved politics-as-entertainment.
    I also have many Muslim friends, some Western, who repeat to me that the root of the problem is the oppression of the Palestinians. Not all are uneducated fanatics.
    The following links, which could not (for technical reasons) be linked to phrases in my original post, may help to contextualise my words. I do not strive for dominance of the discourse but rather to question adherence to party lines and easy answers. You defend those you love, Jaye, as you should, and that love is a candle in a deep deep darkness. But there are other candles, across the barbed wire and beyond no-man’s land.

    http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/whfraintro.htm
    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/29/atos-paralympic-sponsors-under-fire-disabled-attitude_n_1838614.html
    http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc22500.htm
    http://www.asylumaid.org.uk/data/files/publications/46/Still_No_Reason_At_All.pdf
    http://beyondcompromise.com/2012/08/17/everybody-must-get-stoned/
    http://www.no2brandisrael.org/?p=324
    http://www.stophonourkillings.com/index.php?q=taxonomy/term/60
    http://muslimmatters.org/2009/07/16/islamic-jerusalem-%E2%80%9Cwe-will-drive-the-jews-into-the-sea%E2%80%9D-1-of-3/
    http://www.ranker.com/list/7-worst-capital-punishments-for-being-_illegally_-gay/joanne
    http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2012/03/13/israeli-settlers-cut-down-150-olive-and-grape-trees-in-wad-abu-reesh/
    http://electronicintifada.net/content/demanding-justice-yousef-quiet-boy-killed-israeli-settlers/10865
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/not-all-israeli-citizens-are-equal.html?_r=0
    http://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.co.uk/
    http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1757
    http://artsandfaith.com/t100/jesusofmontreal.html
    http://liberatingtheology.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/theology-and-liberating-praxis-theology-as-second-act/
    http://robertpirsig.org/Intro.htm
    http://www.robertpirsig.org/
    http://inharmony.yolasite.com/
    https://www.facebook.com/events/240919052672305/#!/tentcitytheatrecompany

    Reply
  3. Alastair McManus Avatar
    Alastair McManus

    I am resuming religion at age 63. I am Cof E, but now a Buddhist….My olf McM family of Antrim became C of I in around 1670s on.

    Will write more if you could reply.

    AM

    Reply
    1. Alan McManus Avatar
      Alan McManus

      Hello Alastair,
      forgive my extremely tardy reply! I only looked up this post to get the date as I’ve forgotten how old my beloved dog Ben is and I got him just after writing this post (I remember thinking I should practice what I preached and he needed a home). I don’t get notifications from this site (I have RSI and I can’t keep up) but if you click on my website link there’s a Contact page.
      slán, Alan

      Reply

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