This week's visitors

Here's the update on the number of pageviews the blog has received from different parts of the world in the week just ending.

1. United Kingdom 377
2. United States 113
3. Germany 31
4. Canada 14
5. India 12
6. Georgia 11
7. Iran 11
8. Denmark 9
9. Philipines 9
10. Russia 9

This week's total: 596 (last week's: 706) These are aggregates of figures from the top ten countries only. Blogger's stats software doesn't show me numbers of pageviews below the tenth-ranking country.

The world map at the top of this post is the graphic that I see on the stats page. The darker the green, the more pageviews from that country. I can see different versions of this map for "now" (whenever that is), today, this week, this month and "all time" (which seems to mean the last 12 months). They're updated each time I look at that them.

NEW CITY COUNCILLOR VISITS WELCOME CENTRE

I'm glad to meet Councillor Sundip Meghani this afternoon at the Welcome Centre. Sundip was elected Labour Cooperative Councillor for Beaumont Leys (in the north west of Leicester) earlier this month. He's a lawyer by profession and has been a newsreader and presenter on MATV as well as Public Relations Secretary for the British Hindu Forum. We've been connected through Facebook and Twitter for a while, but I was paying particular attention to his tweets last Sunday, while I was in Glasgow. Sundip was tweeting regularly throughout that day, as he visited different places of worship around Leicester, on what appeared to be a personal pilgrimage. The places he visited were, in order:

Christ the King Church, Beaumont Way

Shree Sanatan Mandir, Weymouth Street

The Church of St James the Greater, London Road

Leicester Hebrew Synagogue, Highfields Street

Central Mosque, Conduit Street

Jain Centre on Oxford Street

Guru Nanak Gurdwara, Holy Bones

I've included links to each of these faith centres' wesites so that you, faithful reader, may have the opportunity to undertake a virtual pilgrimage of your own. If you know Leicester well enough you can reconstruct the route for yourself. if not, you can take advantage of one of the great affordances of the internet and jaunt from one to the next!

I tweeted Sundip from Glasgow, saying that I was impressed with his dedication, commitment (and stamina) and that since he so clearly had a personal interest in the diversity of faiths in Leicester, we should meet when I get back.

Sundip's an accomplished, charming and interesting fellow, with an obvious interest in faith community issues and social cohesion. We talk about such things for an hour or so. I give him a potted introduction to Leicester Council of Faiths and we discuss its history, current condition and future prospects. I'm sure this will not be the only time our paths will cross and I look forward to meeting him again.

I also wish him all the best in his work as a newly elected City Councillor.

That's Sundip on the left in the photo above, alongside Rosemarie Fitton, who's on short-term placement with the Council of Faiths as part of her MA Studies at St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi Faith Society. There was a small moment of unexpected connection between the two of them when Sundip mentioned that he arrived at the Church of St James the Greater on Sunday afternoon, just as a service dedicated to The Laura Centre (a local charity that provides bereavement counselling to adults and children in Leicester and Leicestershire) was about to start. The purpose of this service was to call to remembrance those who have died in the past year, whose families and friends have sought assistance from the Laura Centre. Rosemarie told Sundip that she had been given the commission to refurbish the children's rooms at the Laura Centre, a job that was completed only within the last few weeks. I like these unexpected moments of positive crossover - serendipity is magical.

MULTI-FAITH PRAYER ROOM PROPOSED IN HIGHCROSS

Leicester Council of Faiths has been invited to advise Highcross (the city's biggest shopping venue) on establishing a Multi-Faith Prayer Room for customers. Following an exchange of emails in the last week, I have a positive conversation on the phone this morning with Jack Payne, Buildings Manager at Highcross and we arrange to meet on site and discuss the development on Tuesday 31 May.

I understand that this sort of facility exists for staff, but this will be the first time that Hammersons, the company which owns and runs Highcross, will have done this for customers at any of their shopping centres. So, once again, Leicester leads the way!

I remember there was a bit of a push to ensure that Highcross would have a prayer room before the venue opened. Although that campaign didn't appear to come to anything at the time, That sort of gentle pressure appears to have paid off in the medium term.

Of course, the Council of Faiths has a good relationship with Highcross, as regular readers of this blog will know. We've put on a display there for National Inter Faith week (at the invitation of Highcross) two years running - and we hope we'll be able to go back for that event this year, when it rolls around in November. Highcross also made a substantial contribution to the exhibition that's been used in those two special weeks - and on many other occasions in several sites around the city in between.

Leicester Council of Faiths is grateful for the opportunity to lend its weight to this project, which we're sure will prove of benefit to Highcross and to its customers, as it seeks ever more fully to reflect the makeup and meet the needs of the diverse community it serves in this city. We're also glad to be able to strengthen our relationship with Highcross, which is such an important part of Leicester life.

There's a full meeting of the Council of Faiths this evening, so this will be a piece of good news to relate there. Undoubtedly we'll be promoting the idea that this kind of facility has to work as something that will be appealing and useful to people of all faiths. Still, it's going to be of more interest to members of some faith communities than of others. It will be helpful to get input from members who have used this kind of facility in other public places; there may be some who've been involved in setting up this kind of prayer room elsewhere. All comments and feedback welcome - from anyone who wishes to express an interest!

MP CALLS FOR FORCED MARRIAGE TO BE CRIMINALISED

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

MP calls for forced marriage to be criminalised

Forced marriages should be criminalised, an MP has said.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, made the comments after the committee finished an inquiry into the issue yesterday.

Its final report found that forced marriage affected thousands of young people in the UK.

Mr Vaz, the MP for Leicester East, said: "I am very disappointed that progress on protection and awareness remains slow.

"I am also concerned that a loss of specialist support services due to spending cuts will stunt further progress.

"We believe the best way to deter people is through criminalising forced marriage.

"Taking this bold step alongside providing a range of services supporting victims of violence and raising awareness in schools must be a priority for the Government.

"There should be zero tolerance of this harmful activity that ruins the lives of so many."

Mr Vaz said it was possible for the authorities to tackle forced marriage through the civil courts, by persuading a judge to issue a Forced Marriage Protection Order. These impose restrictions such as who a person can contact.

If the subject breached the order they could get sent to prison for up to two years.

Since 2008, the last time the committee ran an inquiry into forced marriages, 293 orders have been issued, but Mr Vaz said they had not been properly enforced.

KELVINGROVE: MR SINGH'S INDIA

This is a painting in the style of a collage by the Singh twins. Commissioned by Glasgow Museums, it represents shared Indian and Scottish culture. Mr Singh's India is virtually the first picture you see on entering a display entitled "Scottish Identity in Art".


There's a page devoted to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum on the website of the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail.

KELVINGROVE: MIXED MEDIA BOXES ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST

This is part of an extensive exhibit about Jews who arrived in Glasgow in the early and mid-twentieth century, fleeing persecution of different forms in different parts of Europe. The exhibit is contained in a section on the upper floor entitled "Conflict and Consequence".

Asked in 1990 by a distant relative to help compile a family tree, I found the task impossible, as so many family members had disappeared in the Holocaust.

Instead, I spent the next five years researching and making Holocaust artworks in memory of the millions who perished.

Testimony by Myer Lacome, artist 

Arbeit Macht Frei (1996)

Myer Lacome, Mixed media box

“Arbeit Macht Frei” – work leads to freedom – were the deceptive words on the main gate at Auschwitz Camp. Auschwitz, near Krakow in Poland, was the largest concentration camp and killing complex. 

The Burning of the Books, Germany, 10 May 1933 (1999)

Myer Lacome, Mixed media box

In 1933 the Nazis publicly burnt books by those Jewish and non-Jewish authors they disapproved of. Jews were forced out of their jobs. Some academics, artists and writers were able to flee. 

Kristallnacht, Germany, 9 November 1938 (1998)

Myer Lacome, Mixed media box

The night of broken glass – Kristallnacht. During this terrifying Nazi anti-Jewish pogrom – organised massacre – 267 synagogues, 1,000 prayer halls and 7,500 businesses were destroyed. Ninety-one Jews were killed and 26,000 arrested.

SHARING OF FAITHS AT THE INTERNATIONAL FLAT

Here's the site of what use to be the International Flat: 20 Glasgow Street, Hillhead (first floor). This is where the Sharing of Faiths met, where I had my first taste of inter faith relations under the mentorship of Stella Reekie, from 1979, aged 19, representing Glasgow's Bahá'ís. From this place and that time runs an unbroken thread that connects to my work for Leicester Council of Faiths today.

CREATIONISM IN THE CLASSROOM

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Creationism in the classroom

The subject of creation science has once again be raised in a controversial manner by a local clergyman.

Therefore, I would put the question, should schools and colleges have the intellectual freedom to educate their students on the debate between the theories of intelligent design and that of Darwinian evolution, encouraging students to do their own research into the science behind these theories?

As a democracy that encourages a variety of freedoms of expression and promotes individual initiative, would it be appropriate on occasions to allow qualified scientists from both sides of this debate to input to this process if school governors and head teachers deem it appropriate?

Could this be something for our new Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, to instigate?

Tim Heatley, Leicester

THIS WEEK'S VISITORS (706)

Here's the update on the number of pageviews the blog has received from different parts of the world in the week just ending.

1. United Kingdom 369
2. United States 185
3. Slovenia 43
4. Ukraine 22
5. Russia 20
6. India 19
7. Iran 18
8. Canada 11
9. Netherlands 10
10. Germany 9

This week's total: 706  (last week's: 548) These are aggregates of figures from the top ten countries only. Blogger's stats software doesn't show me numbers of pageviews below the tenth-ranking country.

The world map at the top of this post is the graphic that I see on the stats page. The darker the green, the more pageviews from that country. I can see different versions of this map for "now" (whenever that is), today, this week, this month and "all time" (which seems to mean the last 12 months). They're updated each time I look at that them.

KELVINGROVE: LAFARUK MADONNA

This exhibit in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum reminded me of the story of the Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm in the Orkney Islands (which is still standing, a little closer to home and which I've had the pleasure of visiting on two occasions, more than 20 years apart - first time for a few blessed hours entirely on my own on a wet and blustery day in the autumn of 1984, the second time as part of a hot and harassed coach party on a day trip in the summer of 2008).

This is a story about three religious paintings that were made by an Italian prisoner of war – Giuseppe Baldan – for a mud chapel. Find out how pictures painted on the back of old flour bags gave prisoners hope during World War II.

The paintings show the Virgin Mary holding her son, the baby Jesus, with angels on either side of them. In the background are views of the Lafaruk prisoner of war camp, where the Italians were held.

The camp was set up near Berbera, in what is now Somalia. The British built it to hold Italian prisoners of war during the war in North Africa.

How did the paintings survive? When the camp was disbanded, Somali soldiers, who were at the camp to keep order, destroyed the chapel and slashed the paintings. The Italian solders rescued the paintings and gave them to Captain Alfred Hawksworth – the British officer in charge of the camp – to look after. In 1965 he tried to give them back. A letter from Luigi de Giovanni, the camp interpreter, explained why the prisoners told Captain Hawksworth to keep them.

“I have appreciated your idea of bringing back to Italy the sacred paintings of captivity we entrusted to you … you must keep them for ever as a gauge of gratitude and love by the 35,000 people who owe you, beyond their life, the dignity of human treatment.”