Breaking the curse
Ten suspected human traffickers went on trial today in Zwolle, near where I live, as a result of an African pastor friend of mine breaking voodoo curses over young Nigerian girls forced into prostitution.
Breeding far-sightedness
Winston Churchill put it this way: The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
I like to say it as follows: Short memories breed short-sightedness. Or it’s corollary: Long memories breed far-sightedness.
Both these quotes express the reason why my wife and I, each summer, jump in a van, bus or cars with a bunch of new-found friends for a discovery trip through Europe. And we’d like to invite you to join us again this summer on our Share the Heritage Trip (27 june-11 July).
Re-Awakened in East Berlin
The tram arrived at our stop in East Berlin. All seventy of us poured out (it was a long tram). We followed our young guide across the tracks and entered a forest of apartment blocks. And ‘blocks’ they were. Like up-ended egg-cartons. Stalinist baroque, that style was called, all across the old Communist world. This was, our guide told us, the most atheistic district in Europe. Many old members of the Stasi-the GDR secret police-still lived here.
Whistleblowers & Prophets
Whistleblowing is a thankless job. Ask Paul van Buitenen, now sitting in the European Parliament as a one-man party, Europa Transparant. Shortly before I first met him in Brussels ten years ago, his exposure of corruption and cronyism involving Former French Premier, Edith Cresson, had caused the resignation of the whole of Jacques Santer’s European Commission. But before his allegations were proven to be true, van Buitenen had been suspended, his salary halved and he faced disciplinary action.
Remember Cat Stevens??
It happened again last week in Berlin. When I asked a German congregation to think of a prominent European personality who had converted to Islam, immediately the name ‘Cat Stevens’ was called out. Now, how long ago was that? It was in 1977-over thirty years ago!-that singer Cat Stevens converted to Islam at the height of a musical career. Since then he has gone by the name Yusuf Islam.
