OUR CHERISHED RIGHTS HAVE BEEN THE RESULT OF A LONG STRUGGLE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Our cherished rights have been the result of a long struggle

Michael Myers (Mailbox, December 29) seems to be mainly concerned over my assertion (First Person, December 11) that "we are a country that belongs to all who live here and where all share equally in deciding its future".

Of course we already have a culture, a good one, and this is important; but it is also important to note that we have fought for it, forged it, and improved it over the centuries, and that a driving perception has been that we all count equally and share equally in taking it further.

So I make my assertion, agreeing with St Thomas Aquinas ("It is through culture that man lives a truly human life."), V S Naipaul ("if a man picks himself up and comes to another country he must meet it halfway"), and especially with Colonel Rainsborough at the Putney Debates, 1647: "...for really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under..."

And please note that the Putney Debates started in St Mary's Church simply because it was convenient. These were secular debates before the General Council of the Army. The demands were political demands from the soldiers addressed to the establishment and the landowners.

We should be teaching our children about the struggle that has gone on to get the rights that we value.

A good overview is the excellent website from the British Library, 2008 exhibition, "Taking Liberties".

Allan Hayes, Leicester

2009'S TOP 10: 7

“Sacred on Location”,

Central Lending Library, Belvoir Street, Leicester,

Friday 16 January - Friday 6 February 2009

This was a touring version of the British Library’s most successful ever exhibition (on show at the British Library’s St Pancras site, April to September 2007). It visited Leicester’s Central Lending Library for three weeks. The exhibition brought together some of the world’s most important and beautiful religious texts, exquisite and rare examples of Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred texts from the British Library’s collections were presented in a unique and compelling modern context, which included a distinctive interactive element, enabling visitors to leaf virtually through some of the Library’s greatest treasures and even to hear extracts from the texts chanted aloud in their original languages. It also provided people with the chance to explore information about customs and rituals from the three faiths featured in the original exhibition: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

I was commissioned to run a series of workshops on behalf of Leicester Council of Faiths, for several schools and colleges who were booked in to visit the exhibition. Unfortunately, this coincided with the worst snowfall in England for over 25 years; a fairly small amount of snow brought the country to its knees for days on end. So only two of the workshops went ahead, with Crown Hills Community College and Regent College. This was an excellent exhibition to have come to Leicester and it's a pity that more people didn't see it. Of those who did get to see it, many complained that it didn't reflect the nature of religious diversity in our city, focusing as it did only on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But that was missing the point and there are always plenty of people who will do that, sadly. To counteract any such feelings of omission or misrepresentation, we were able to display our full series of leaflets, featuring all eight of the religions represented on Leicester Council of Faiths, in the entrance to the library. Loads of these were taken away by visitors to the library over the course of the exhibitions.

Sacred on Location launched at an event split between the The Mitchell Library and Botanic Gardens in Glasgow on 27 April 2007 before touring the UK for more than two years in all.