First, Fabio Capello has walked out of his role as England football manager. I admit that I’m not the biggest football fan - there’s too much dissent to the referee and deliberate foul play for my liking. But an important principle is at stake here: innocent until proven guilty. After John Terry had been accused of racist conduct, the first mistake that the Football Association (F.A.) made was to postpone the trial until after the Euro 2012 championships. My understanding (and again I’m no expert in football) is that part of this postponement happened due the urging of Chelsea football club. But we need to know whether Terry is a racist before he plays for England again; at which point did the F.A. think it was wise to put club politics before the issues of prejudice and discrimination? Then the F.A. made the further mistake of stripping Terry of his England captaincy even though he’s legally innocent. No wonder Capello felt the need to resign.
The second issue I noticed this week was that of Councillor Clive Bone of Bideford Town Council, who won a legal battle to prevent other councillors from conducting Christian prayer before meetings. My first instinct was to think that Mr Bone was being a little petty in taking legal action in the first place against what seemed to be freedom of conscience, but then I realised that ‘Prayer’ was actually on the formal agenda for each meeting meaning that every councillor was obliged to witness it. This kind of enforced worship is a good example of how religious rights can impose themselves too much onto parts of society that should remain secular (i.e. neutral). So well done to Mr Bone for standing up for the rights of secularists, and well done to the court for acknowledging them.
Finally however, let’s not get too carried away with these issues, important as they may be. Perspective is still required when you consider that genocide is currently being carried out in Syria, while Russia and China refuse to do anything about it. Bastards.
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