Force of Nature - Jane Harper

A month ago my Mum thrust Jane Harper's debut novel -The Dry - in my face and said that I should read this.  My Mum and I have a penchant for Murder mystery type books.  I think that it is the British Agatha Christie streak that runs through us - but we enjoy a good murder mystery.  This is a little bit more of a thriller (as most crime novels are nowadays), but it was as Australian as Bush Tucker and fairly well written.  Well, as good a read as "The Dry" was, I think this one has it beaten.

It could be that I bounced back from reading the loathsome new Jack Reacher novel.  Lee Childs is an awful writer and his formulaic, predictable tripe leaves one desiring something enjoyable.  Jack Reacher: Past Tense, was a book of short sentences (if you stretch the definition of sentences to a handful of words, always starting with a preposition, put together in an arbitrary manner) and little substance.  Graphic descriptions of the violence and incoherent plot issues are the most enjoyable aspects of the book.  I was on holidays - and it was there.

Force of Nature is much more thoughtful.  Aaron Falk is a Federal Policeman in the financial division of the fraud squad.  The first book dealt with his hometown and the murder of his childhood friend.  It was the Australian drought through and through.  Harper deals with some more nuanced family issues this time - and there are some lovely little dialogues between his partner Carmen Cooper and Falk.  She pushes him into interesting admissions and acknowledgments & I appreciate how she acts as the method to unveil some of Falk's struggles; rather than spicing it up with a love interest.  The tender kiss followed by "I am still getting married" and the climax of the book is refreshingly real and understated.  I love the way that there is no sex or violence in this work, rather some lovely writing explicating the terror of the Australian Bush and the dank fug of Australian Rainforests.

As the story unfolds there are some interesting character development amongst the girl on the hike.  The delicate mocking of the corporate world with smarmy job titles like the 'Strategic head of forward planning' and obsequious characters who hold their servile responsibilities in the middle of the Bush, reminds one of the periphrasis of Dickins's "Office of Circumlocution" in Bleak house.

The story is about five women who enter the bush on a corporate team building exercise and four re-emerge a few days later.  Alice goes missing, which drags Falk into the story as Alice is a whistle-blower against money laundering within her company.  There is one really thoughtful passage that deals with Free will / determinism and a reflection of their lives and the role choices play.  It is well weaved into to some interesting discussions amongst the lost girls.

I love the character focus in this book, it makes the crime/suspense aspect all the more riveting.  Falk didn't play as much of a role as in the last book - however, I do not think that the book suffered from that.

Jane Harper is a great writer - however, it did become a little clumsy at the end.  The short chapters didn't speed up the tempo of the denouement, and the clichés started to emerge.  All in all 4 out of 5 stars.  Even though it hasn't won the accolades that her first book did, I think that it is better.

Teacher - Gabbie Stroud

After working sixteen years in my current school - intended to stay no more than five years - I attended my first English meeting.  In 2019 I am teaching Year 8 English, my first time teaching English, ever!  In this meeting, the Head of English handed out raffle tickets and at the end of the meeting, she selected tickets and gave books for prizes.  I won this book.

Two or three teachers came up to me extolling the value of this read - so I took it away on holiday to give it a going over.

Any teacher will resonate with this book - the frustrations of modern teaching are well described in a real Australian yarn.  Gabbie shares her story; and it is a sad one.  It chronicles her journey through teaching to leaving the profession.  She touches on issues of hiding behind educational jargon, having children with disabilities in the classroom, behaviour management, NAPLAN and test standardisation, performance pay, the nature of schools as a business and workload stress.  These are matters confronting all teachers across the world.  However, this remains a pragmatic book and chronicles the impact that politics and educational philosophy are having on the workplace.  It is hard not to be compassionate about her struggles and angry at the structures of schools, yet this is a superficial look at the problems we are entering into in modern education.  It seeks to value the teaching profession and teachers individually - however, it can over-eggs the pudding.  It is much better as a memoir than putting any cogent critique of Education.  More Michelle Obama's "Becoming" than Neil Postman's "The End of Education".

As an insight into an invested teacher's life, it is touching, and well written.  She weaves her narrative, her family breakdown and her difficulty surviving in the current Australian Education system in a delightful way.

However, I get a little suspicious when teacher's sentimentalise our profession.  Gabbie leans this way at times.  I must confess that, as teacher's, we have a penchant to believe our own press.  I can think of no better way to describe this phenomenon than Taylor Mali, the Slam poet.  He has a piece of performance poetry called "What Teacher's make".  We all want to believe that we make a difference, that our role in life is important - yet, of all the professions that I have worked in - teacher's alone cling to their own hype.  I like to think that I make a difference in people's lives - there are past students that I have kept in contact with, and who make me proud; I'm glad that our lives intersected and am truly honoured to have been of assistance to them.  But I cannot countenance that I was the profound influence that Teacher's like to think that they are.  We believe our own ballyhoo; even though it is propaganda.

Postman's magisterial book on the nature of Education divides schooling into two sections, the metaphysical and the mechanical.  He states that we spend too much time on curriculum, bells, timetables, processes and policies - all this is valuable, but there is a '...crisis of narrative...' going on in our schooling.  It is this metaphysical issue - the 'gods' of education - as Postman puts it, where we need to seek first.  Here, Stroud is at sea - she has a strong desire to impact children positively and a real heart for kids and a passion for learning, but no real insight other than her own experience of being disheartened.

It is sad that such a competent teacher as Stroud has left our ranks.  It should be an affront to policy makers and school management that such passionate teachers leave our profession.  I love her writing - I feel her pain, but I think that when a book like this moves beyond memoir and seeks to say something meaningful about Education, we need to rue the demand to be empathetic! We need some rigorous thinking behind us.  We also need to be wary of believing our own press.  We are not as much of an influence as we think.  We need an Untouchables - Eliot Ness type of embarrassment to eschew this nonsense.

I get the feeling, re-reading this, that I am not really fair in this review.  Maybe what I am expecting from this book is simply not what it is meant for.  This could very well be an over-preoccupied teacher, misreading this book in light of my own thoughts.

Teaching is changing at breakneck speed in vapid directions.  Social-constructionism, flipped learning, teacher as facilitator, skills-based learning, inquiry models, 21st Century learning skills, mindfulness and Learning Styles are swamping Educational facilities with little empirical evidence backing them up  or pragmatic awareness of the negative impact they have.  This is ideologically driven stuff.  Unfortunately, very few Staff are philosophically incisive in thought or are perspicuous in expression. Particularly at the management level. 

Look, I suppose I recommend it - I gave it to my Mum to read and I giggled, hurt and shook my head in resonating with her tale.  

3 out of 5

The Last Hundred Days - Patrick McGuiness

I remember meeting a musician who I worked with some years ago.  We have now lost contact, however, he was an extraordinary musician – not valued anywhere near enough in this country.  He was originally a Romanian, now a naturalised Australian.  That’s all well and good; but, one day when we were teaching together – a group of us started talking about authoritarian governments and the worth of studying Yr. 12 History ‘Revolutions’.  Not knowing much about Romania – Petré (named changed) opened up about his experiences living in Romania during the reign of the Ceausescu’s.  He talked about having unstable electricity, ½ hour of TV on Friday afternoons that are Party propaganda; he talked about never being able to share political views – even with one's closest friends.  You simply never would – you never know who will inform the Secutariate of treachery.  Further, he talked about how in 1989, the shooting of Nicolai & Elena Ceauşescu was sprayed, repeatedly on the TV for all to see.  It is now easily available on YouTube – the trial and killing by firing squad.  He was happy that they were gone – but he left Romania, in search of a better life and to leave the Socialist propaganda.

A few years later I read that amazing book, ‘Tortured for Christ’ by Richard Wurmbrand.  This Romanian hero was important for blowing the lid off of Romanian Christian persecution.  The stories he told are unbelievable barbarity, mixed with astonishing strength of faith and courage.  Then a trip to the Romanian Baptist Church in the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne furnished me with real stories of faith and suffering.

Then with the mention of Patrick McGuinness’s book the ‘Last Hundred Days’ against the background of the Romainian revolution in 1989 – my interest was piqued.  The book was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2011, that didn’t bode well – but I steamed ahead anyway.

McGuiness is an academic, this worried me as the list of academics who are great writers, one can count on a single hand.  This is his first book and he can write extraordinarily well; yet it is his familiarity with the milieu that really piques one's interest, the great writing is the paint that describes the city of Bucharest during the last days of Ceauşescu's reign.

"In the cemeteries the graves were marked out with wooden planks, table legs, chairs, even broomsticks.  Ceauşescu's new palace of the People could be measured not just in square metres but in gravestones." p.33

 The city of Bucharest is really the central character in the story.  The grey drabness of the city and the wistful memories of what Bucharest; coupled with the desire to document the remaining areas of uniqueness by Leo - puts the city as, not only the backdrop, but in some ways the hidden protagonist.

The main person in the story is an unnamed Westerner who comes to take an undeserved position at the Bucharest University.  There he meets Leo, another professor - he has some romantic relationships, even gets removed from the country - all while facing the corruption and brutality of the Socialist ideal in Romania.

But this is in the advent to the fall of the dictator:

"With Leo around, daily life was felt less as Stalinist terror than as shady ineptocracy - brutish and clumsy, sometimes comical, usually absurd.  Our sense of the system's viciousness was offset by our belief that it was not sufficiently organised to implement that viciousness." Chapt. 7

The climax of the book revolves around the public killing of Nicolai & Elena, and his last speech in public from his Palace.  Both of these events were broadcast on TV.  Indeed my friend told me that the firing squad shooting the couple was played over and over again for nearly a week on TV.  Well these things are now available on YouTube.  I watched the shooting and the speech and the book puts this all in context.  All written by an man who was there.  This really is the height of Historical fiction.

Extrodinary writing, riveting plot, historical accuracy and pathos.  This has it all. 4/5 Stars

Post God Nation - Roy Williams

This book has a fascinating premise, and if it was found to be substantial, this would be quite some find.  Roy Williams is an Australian former-lawyer turned Australian apologist for evangelical Christians.  His first book was 'God Actually' and was an interesting read.  Most of the Dawkins rebuttals were streaming from the US, very few Australians were engaged, John Dickson and Greg Clarke the possible exceptions.  Now Williams has come on the scene.  He is a lucid and clear writer that has a panache in some of his turns of phrase.  He his clearly Australian and that semi-diffident attitude comes across in his writing.  Should the mantle of evangelical leadership be conferred upon him?  Should he be the voice of evangelical reason and should he be widely read amongst the evangelical community?  Well, I'm not so sure about that!

This work dominated my September reading, and made me think long and hard about the premise behind the book.  It is divided into two parts - firstly, 150 pages called 'Our Religious Heritage' and was the part of the book that was most interesting.  However, the links that William's makes between Christian belief and Australian heritage range from quite convincing to unpalatably tenuous.  The reductive nature in which William's ideal of Christianity is presented is somewhat disturbing.  Henry Parkes is a perfect example - whilst admitting that Parkes had numerous dalliances outside of his marriage, William's credits his involvement in Federation and fatherhood and influence on the nation, to Christian ethics and virtues.  This is because his wife and daughter were committed Christians, who influenced him.  William's cites a letter from his daughter urging him to flee Hell-fire as an example.  Deist's like Captain Cook and others are presented as semi-Christian.  This reductionist forms of Christianity and broad strokes are clearly used to promote his thesis.  A more explicit example is this: 

"...Australia's finest ever legal mind, Owen Dixon was an agnostic.  Yet his grandfather had been a lay preacher with his own chapel, the Zion Independent Church of Lower Hawthorn, and his father-in law was an Anglican minister."  p.144

Tenuous indeed! However, there are many places where the thesis holds much firmer.

I was, however, particularly interested in William's treatment of the Myall Creek massacre of 1838.  William's is worth quoting here:

"There was nothing especially unusual about this gruesome event, other than the aftermath. It was a very rare occasion when a measure of justice was done. Seven of the murderers… were  tried and convicted. Subsequently they were hey. This happened even though majority popular opinion was on the side of the accused at large amounts of money were contributed today the fence-including a contribution by the wealthy owner of Myall Creek station, Henry Dagnar.  The culprits were punished in this case because of a near-unique combination circumstances and individuals. Several principled men Took a stand in the face of private intimidation and public opprobrium, including a white witness, hearts-keeper George Anderson, and two local stockman, William Hobbs and Frederick Foote, who reported what they had learned to the authorities.  Equally crucial was the fact that four key public officials were serious Christians: the police magistrate at Muswellbrook, Edward day; The attorney-General and prosecuting counsel, J.H. Plunkett; the presiding judge the second trial, William Westbrook Burton; and the Governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps." p.56-57

 However, despite some flimsy premises and reductionism of Christian belief, there seems to be a bigger issue with the book - that is the bizarre equivalence with Christian morality and the political ideological Left.  This is sparsely scattered through the first section of the book where William's will refer to great Protestant Socialists and Catholic Socialists. The second section of the book, entitled, 'The Secular Juggernaut' is very different in its approach.  In places it is a diatribe against Christians who hold politically conservative views. Perhaps, I should more closely define my criticism - the issue is more about Williams's conviction that real Christianity (which is ironic after spending the first half of the book being reductionist) is aligned with the social/moral ethic of the politically Left.  This is a real revelation to those of us who are becoming more politically conservative.  This is a real answer to the initial question that I had when I picked up both of Roy Williams's books:

Why did the ABC publish books from an evangelical?  Why did Left-wing Journalists like Gideon Haig and Annabel Crabb endorse these books?  Why, because Roy Williams is one of their children.  He is a voice to the pesky Conservative Christian community to dump political conservatism and be a real Christian in the camp of the Labor and the Greens.  He is their child and will reinforce their propaganda to the Christian community. 

The Christian community has been under assault from wolf-in-steeps-clothing like Tim Costello, Roland Croucher, Rob Buckingham (Melbourne) et al. for some years now.  Perhaps we should add the Presbyterian Roy Williams to this list?

Well, maybe, maybe not.  Williams has stated on the ABC website that he thinks that Christians should get over their fears of Homosexuality but doesn't think that gay marriage should be State endorsed. 

Williams is a socialist and unabashedly so.  He lauds Samuel Griffith as perhaps one of the greatest Australian (Williams's caveat is his indigenous record).  His Christianity is represented in the book by his statement:

"'The great problem of this age,' he said at the time, 'is not how to accumulate wealth, but how to secure its more equitable redistribution.'" p.143

This is a statement of Socialism, not Christianity.  Yet the lines are blurred between the two.  Williams clearly believes that Socialism is an offshoot of Christian ethics.  Williams launches a blistering attack on John Howard's Prime Ministership - accusing Christians of associating with the xenophobic popularist politics of the super-rich.  Catholics in the the Liberal party get a shellacking too - they care too much about divorce, homosexuality and abortion, and not enough about war, climate change, social justice and abortion (p. 147)  My reading of Williams seems to be that he believes that many Christians finding a political home on the Right have added to secularisation of this country.

Contrast this with the 'earnest' Catholics however are on the Left - Scullin, Chifley, Calwell and Keating.  Sigh, this is partisanism at its best and  this is best seen on p. 156.  Right-wing secularists only care about making money and an unregulated economy.  Maybe this is true of some, but in my experience, right-wing secularists care more about the intrusion of big government and excessive regulation.  The bleeding heart Leftist create the problem by insisting that drucken teenagers are a victim of money-hungry business owners and are not responsible for their actions.  Herein lies the issue.  Many who are wealthy are on the Left, and his argument is selective and fatuous.

Williams will not speak for many Christians for this misrepresentation of their beliefs.  I think that he is a genuine Christian, he is an intelligent and thoughtful one too.  I do not object to disagreeing with him on minor points - but the neo-Left is as concerning as the neo-Right and Christianity shouldn't be ascribed to one side of politics - the truth of Jesus is confronting wherever we go.  I tend to agree with the conservatives - the promotion of the family and of social good.  I am unconvinced with the big government, socialist policies of the Left.  I am circumspect with the Climate Change alarmism and the types of social justice that I see today that abrogates human responsibility, and the bullying of the pro-homosexual lobby to enforce the redefinition of my sexual ethics and the privatisation of my faith.  I care about war and disagree with the war-mongering of BOTH sides of politics - even more the humanitarian interventions so often cooed over by the Left.  

Williams has many good points too - however, I worry about this type of Leftist propaganda in Christian garb.  I think that he is a sincere man - however, he should be more circumspect about the reasons the ABC would publish a book like this from him.  I doubt whether they would publish a conservative author on the same topic.  Like Aaron Sorkin often does in his TV shows.  He sets up a Republican that he finds acceptable and then demonises the rest.  Williams does something similar to Christians.  This makes Christianity more palatable to the Lefty journalists - doesn't do much for Christianity or the cause of Christ.

3 out of 5 stars

Admirable Evasions - Theodore Dalrymple

It has been some months now since I have blogged - not that I have stopped reading, although, that too has slowed with everything that is going on in life presently.  I am trying to set the reading record straight by a series of entries to catch me up.

It was a little bit of a thrill when I found that Dalrymple (Daniels) had published another book.  The man is nothing if not prolific.  I first came across him in 2005 when I read his book "Life at the Bottom", then the superlative "Our Culture: or what is left of it".  Finally, "Spoilt Rotten: The toxic cult of sentimentality", this is the seminal book on sentimentality and it's affect on Western Culture.    When you live holding a minority worldview, it is always exhilarating to read Dalrymple's work.  It washes you clean from the daily grind and refocuses you on thinking through issues rather than the sentimentalism of today's secular left.  Since then I have tried to follow his essays online.  There is a tremendously insightful essay on tattoos dated from the year 2000, it is even more prescient today than when written.

Daniels is a doctor, but has fostered a love of literature and philosophy since he was pressured into a medical career.  For many years he worked as a prison doctor, indeed a psychologist.  He is well travelled, well read, well though of and can he write!

Well, 'Admirable Evasions: How psychology undermines morality' is a fascinating book.  I jumped at the chance to read it and read it quickly.  I digested it in the week leading up to a seminar that I went on hosted by the 'Science of Learning' centre at Melbourne University.  This seminar was on Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology and Education.  We currently have undergone a wholesale change in attitude at my workplace where 'Positive Psychology' and it's mystical corollary 'Mindfulness' have entered the sway and been uncritically and universally accepted as good things.  I have been somewhat skeptical about this change and have been glad that it has not directly affected me.  This is not being unduly critical of my workplace - this stuff has been accepted across Education nationwide.  This is the current fad!  Everyone is a part of it to greater or lesser extent.  Along with this, I was interested to read that the Neuroscientist present at the conference was a student of Stephen Pinker.  I assumed that he would be in Pinker's mould, an adamant Monist, physicalist and hostile to any form of dualism.  I signed up thinking that I may be an unwelcome agitator.

To my surprise, the opening salvo was a stern denouncement of the way Neuroscience has entered Education.  They openly mocked and decried the folly of the many programmes that are introduced into schools as the next best thing and how neuroscience adds credibility to Educative programmes that are not warranted.  Further, they stood by the statement that Neuroscience has nothing to offer Education.  The presenters were of the belief that Neuroscience can only inform Educators when filtered through the medium of cognitive psychology - a thesis in which they have since published, and one with which I concur.  Moreover, the Neuroscientist turned out to be a duelist and smiled when I looked at him astonished.  He said "Pinker is a lovely guy and has been so supportive of me, however, when he opens his mouth, I just can't bring myself to believe that stuff."  I was stunned.

Dalrymple's book prompted questions that I did't have to defend - they were largely agreed with.  His assault on Modern Psychology starts immediately:

"Psychology is not a key to self-understanding, but a cultural barrier to such understanding as we can achieve; but it is my belief that we shall never be able entirely to pluck out the heart of our mystery. Of this I am glad rather than sorry."

His distain for the effect upon society is clear:

"We owe incomparably more to improved sewers than to psychology."

He is invariably in tune with the Utopian nature of the influence of Neurology and psychology in our modern world and compares it with the enlightenment view of Liberal Democracy.

"Before long, if there is sufficient research funding, there will be no more puzzles and no unpleasant surprises, no agonizing dilemmas in human existence; the question of the good life will have been settled once and for all, indubitably and scientifically, without the necessity of endless and unprovable metaphysical speculations ... History will come to an end, this time not by virtue of the triumph of liberal democracy throughout the world, but by that of the triumph of psychology and neuroscience. Man will no longer pass on misery to Man, as in Larkin’s poem; he will pass on knowledge instead, knowledge and wisdom being of course by that stage coterminous. Indeed, knowledge will secrete wisdom as the liver secretes bile."

Dalrymple really resonates with me here - his declaration at this point is, "I don’t believe it, and I’m not sure that I would want to live in such a world if it were true." I wholeheartedly agree!

Dalrymple then proceeds to systematically undo Freud, Psychoanalysts, Behaviourism and the ultra-modern penchant for Neurology.

"That the latest neuroscience as a means of humanity understanding itself has been grossly oversold scarcely needs proof. It offers the illusion of understanding rather than understanding itself."

Self-understanding is best found in literature, Dalrymple argues - he says that psychology has not advanced human understanding beyond Shakespeare (the title of the book is taken from King Lear).

"...psychology has contributed nothing to human self-understanding; rather the reverse: for by coming between a man and what Doctor Johnson called “the motions of his own mind,” it acts as an obstacle to genuine (though often painful) self-examination."

As usual, Dalrymple is right.  However, our society will not heed the call, but plough on its shallow way of carving out the coming dystopia - where the search for Utopia always ends up.

5 Stars - I'd give it six if I could.  Must read.

The intolerance of Tolerance - D A Carson

I have found this book refreshing and instructive.  I have suspected that its thesis is true for some time now, yet I never knew the philosophical underpinnings of the views discussed.  Carson does an excellent job in overview of these issues.  Let me explain:

The first chapter is entitled '"The changing face of Tolerance" and seeks to explain the difference between what Carson calls the 'old tolerance" and the "new tolerance".

Old tolerance was about tolerating people, you would disagree with their views loudly and vociferously, yet you protected there right to hold that view and bring it into discussion in the public square.   The new tolerance insists that you tolerate every view as equally valid.  If you do not display tolerance to other views - you, yourself are being intolerant and that, simply cannot be tolerated!  Intolerant people cannot be tolerated - herein lies the incoherence of modern expressions of tolerance or judgement.  Carson says that when one reads the title he may be struck that this is 'arrant nonsense' or 'an obscure oxymoron'.  However, tolerance currently occupies a very high place in Western society; indeed it is often seen as the primary ethic upon which all ethical constructs are built.

"The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another's positioned means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own." (pg.3)

This is a significant change from the past and it is had a profound effect on on society. Carson begins to give empirical evidence of the effect of this is having a society by narrating many stories currently the news.

Carson deserves to be quoted at length on this issue.

"The rising number of Muslims in England has prompted subtle eviction of pigs and the stories. In some schools, the story of the three little pigs is now banned, as Muslim school children might be offended by stories about unclean animals … Calendars with pigs, porcelain porcine figurines, even pink shaped stress reliever's all had to go, including a tissue box depicting Winnie the Pooh and Piglet … When pressed on why pigs had to go ... a Mulim counsellor in West Midlands, explained, "its a tolerance of people's beliefs." Stunning doublespeak! What about the tolerance of those who think differently about pigs? In the name of tolerance towards the beliefs of Muslims, intolerance is imposed"(p.24)

And again:

"In 2008, the Supreme Court of California will get two physicians could not legally refuse artificial insemination to a woman because she's a lesbian. The doctors have not withheld the service because they disagreed with her: they argued but they happily provide medical care to all kinds of people with whom they disagree. They would not withhold cancer treatment from a rapist, for example. But where they felt they had to draw a line was in their own participation in an act that they judged to be immoral … In this decision, the courts stated, "Do the rights of religious freedom and free speech, as guaranteed in both the Federal and the Californian constitutions, exempt the medical clinic's physician from complying with the California Unruh Civil Rights Acts prohibition against discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation? Our answer is no." (p.39)

In a chapter called the "jottings on the history of tolerance" Carson elucidates how society has always discussed what we should be tolerant & intolerant of.  This has always been against the backdrop of right and wrong, objective right and objective wrong. Rather than being a property predicated upon other ethical values, tolerance is now paramount in its own right.  It has become the ontological bedrock of modern ethical systems.  

One of the important issues that arises in discussion of tolerance and societies tolerance, is the issue of church and state. Many Christians, indeed I am one of them, support strict distinctions between church and state. However, this is been transformed into something that was never meant to be; either the American Constitution, with the letters to the Danbury Baptists, or the Australian Constitution. Carson says, "We start by insisting that state can either establish your prohibit religion, and agree that, reciprocally, religion does not have the right to control the state. Then in a mighty bound many infer further that religion does not have the right to influence any of the decisions of the state, and therefore conclude that religion must be restricted to a small and privatised world or the great barrier between church and state is jeopardised." (p. 67, Italics mine)

 In discussion of the gains that the new tolerance has made, in contrast to its losses, Carson is quite poignant:

"In reality, the genuine gains achieved by the new tournaments are slender in comparison with the losses. It has been moderately successful at diminishing demeaning epithets - " wogs"," chinks," and expressions of saying order. Even there the price is a certain kind of totalitarian political correctness.  More serious, however, is the way the new tolerance swamps penetrating discussion about truth morality: tolerance is widely perceived to be more important and more enduring them either. The result is a greater tendency to believe lies and to come adrift in immorality… far from bringing peace, the new tolerances progressively becoming more intolerant, fostering moral myopia, proving unable to engage in serious and competent discussions about truth, letting personal and social evils fester, the remaining blind to the political and international perceptions of our tolerant cultural profile" (p. 138-9)

Following this there is an outstanding little chapter on politics and democracy, where Carson has some insightful things to say about democracy as a form of government and how democracy works best predicated upon a worldview that values truth.

Finally a list of ten things that Christian's should do in response to the new tolerance:

1. Expose the new tolerances moral and epistemological bankruptcy
2. Preserve a place for truth
3. Expose the new tolerances condescending arrogance
4. Insist that the new tolerance is not progress
5. Distinguish between empirical diversity and the inherent goodness of all diversity
6. Challenge secularism's ostensible neutrality and superiority
7. Practice and encourage civility
8. Evangelise
9. Be prepared to suffer
10. Delight in and trust God

Insightful book & I couldn't agree more with Carson's list.  The only way that I can ensure that my views are heard - is if all views can be heard.  Limits on free speech are largely unwelcome in a liberal society and I worry about those that seek to curtail them.

5 Stars

All the way home (South Sudanese parent's stories for their children in Australia) - A Malual, A Maluk et al

It is so rare to find a book that will make me cry.  This is perhaps the most beautiful thing that I have read in recent times.  It is a truly moving book - I know some of the people in the book and, as such, I thought that I would find it interesting; however, I did not know what I was in for.

There is a story (as always) behind my reading of this book.  I was reading the local paper a week or so ago and I saw a picture of a young girl in my class holding a book up with her Dad.  This particular South Sudanese girl has the most beautiful smile, however, can be very quiet and reclusive.  Brazenly I said in class, in front of everyone, 'Did I see you in the paper holding a book that you had written?"  She was embarrassed and found me confrontational and the situation awkward.  I don't usually care about those things and powered on with my questioning anyway.  She eventually agreed that there was a book about the Sudanese community but it could have been her sister in the paper.  I said that I was interested in reading the book; I like to support the kids in your class.

Well, there are two other Sudanese students in the class, a quiet boy who was listening to the interaction but was silent the whole time.  The next class that we had - he approached me and passed on a copy of the latest book that the local South Sudanese community has produced.  I read it that night.  I simply couldn't put it down.

The book is an insight into South Sudanese culture and personal stories of refugees who have come into my local community.  It is more than that though.  It is the sharing of the stories and culture to their children.  It is an attempt to communicate with kids that want to be Australian and fit into Australian society.  It's a personal invitation to sit at their family dinner table and listen to these people communicate with their kids.  It is intensely personal - yet never voyeuristic.  You feel so special to read these personal accounts - so heartbroken at the trials faced by these people, and for me so jealous that they have such a strong culture.  Ours is broken and we seem hellbent on breaking it further - theirs is so strong.

In the introduction Abraham Malual shares how they want to assimilate into this country, however, not reject their own culture and stories.  This is the sort of bicultural substructure that Noel Pearson advocates, but seems so unwilling to be embraced among Indigenous peoples.  I, for one am glad that these people bring strong families into Australia - it is my hope that they will help us reclaim what we have lost.

The book is a set of stories about life in South Sudan or the difficulties of life in Australia.  Initiation, facial scars, menstruation, marriage dowry's, death of loved ones and problems with English teaching in Australia, it is all here.  Every story has a brief response from one of their children.  Some of them are priceless.  You'll laugh, cry, wince, laugh again and, if you are like me, feel jealous that such wonderful stories can be shared in families.

Storytelling simply doesn't get better than this - it will make these lovely people even more endearing to you.  Absolute must read.  I'm going to get them all.

5 -stars