Jersey in Transition October

Following on from the Transition Conference, and the last General Meeting where we discussed it all, this month marks the first steps of a local REconomy initiative. This will be a new group within JiT centred around people who want to start, or have started, a local business with a Transition ethos to it. This could be self-employment, a partnership, or a co-operative. It should be low on imports, low on crude oil and its products, and provide good honest products or services in exchange for good honest money. How many people in Jersey are either unemployed or stuck in a job that does nothing either for the greater good of the Island, or for their self-respect? How many people in JiT are either thinking of it, or already have a sustainable business running? Come along on Monday the 22nd so we can see who's interested, and build on this exciting vision for a rich and sustainable local economy.

• Meditation Flash Mob. Tuesday 9 October 6.00 - 6.40 pm, Liberation Square, St Helier. 30 minutes of silent meditation followed by 10 minutes of sound bath - please bring your voices, your mantras, singing bowls, chimes, bring a candle, bring your cushion or stall for sitting meditation. Bring Everyone! Let us come together as One Community... as ONE... This is an event open to everyone, all ages, from every path, experienced in meditation or not.
  
• J-CAN Monthly Meeting. Tuesday 9 October, 8.00 pm, The Town House, New St, St Helier. The Jersey Climate Action Network have moved their monthly meetings back into town for the winter. Their agenda is attached.
• Upcycling. Thursday 11 October, 7.00 - 8.30 pm, Upstairs at the Harbour Gallery, St Aubin. Sewing machines and magic with Kirsten. If you want to take part, please contact Kirsten either via Facebook or by e-mail at atlanticblueuk@aol.com
• Free hugs. Saturday 13 October, 10.30 am - 1.30 pm, King St, St Helier. Come and help spread some love and kindness in town. For every hug you give, you get one free! It's fun and worthwhile once you break the ice, and we really know how to break ice.
• Cider making. Saturday 13 October, 2.30 pm starting at Hampton Villa, La Rue du Douet de Rue, St Lawrence in the orchard, and moving on to La Robeline, St. Ouen, where the cider is actually produced. Jersey Organic Association member Sarah Matlock has kindly agreed to show JOA supporters and friends how organic cider is produced, and has kindly extended this invitation to include supporters of Jersey in Transition. Sarah and her husband Richard will talk us through the production process, and there will also be an opportunity to sample the product for those so inclined. We are advised that Morris dancers will hopefully also be there to add to the atmosphere.
  Parking is limited at both Hampton Villa and La Robeline, and you are therefore asked to share cars if possible. Directions for Hampton Villa: From Carrefour Selous, take La Rue Sara (the road that runs between the front of David Hick Antiques/Laura Ashley shop on the left and the Carrefour Selous Health/Fitness club on the right) then take the left/immediate right (in other words, go straight on) into La Rue du Douet de Rue.  Hampton Villa is on the right hand side about 1/4 mile down the road.
• JiT General Meeting. Thursday 18 October, 7.30 - 9.30 pm, "The Board Room", The Town House, New St, St Helier. Hear the latest news from all the JiT groups, and help to make the plans that steer JiT into the future. All welcome. 
• Green Drinks. Friday 19 October, 7.30 - 9.00 pm, The Town House, New St, St Helier. The informal, kick-back time when we can relax and chat together over a drink. Ask questions, have ideas, make friends, laugh.
  
• REconomy inaugural meeting. Monday 22 October, 7.30 - 9.00 pm, St Brelade's Youth Project, Communicare, Quennevais Rd, St Brelade. There will be a plan in place in time for this evening, I'm just not sure what it is yet. I'm talking (and listening!) to people in the meantime about the details. Please come along if you are interested in the proposal in general. I hope that this, alongside everything else we already do, can rejuvenate the interest of lots of people, and should bring in many of those who have been hovering around the edges of JiT for some time, interested but not sure whether to get more fully involved. If that describes you a bit, we'd really love to see you there, and hear your thoughts.
• JiT Film Night. Saturday 27 October, 7.30 - 9.00 pm, St Brelade's Youth Project, Communicare, Quennevais Rd, St Brelade. The last Fishermen ‎"You're going to lose all the knowledge that's been handed down, and that you'll never get back... When it's too late, people'll think, 'Oh! We should've helped them', but it's too bloody late then" (5 mins). Followed by Future Permaculture in Britain, a BBC Natural World documentary from 2009. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family's wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future. (48 mins).

The crumbling facade of trusted institutions

The last day or two have seen something like a tsunami beginning to build. The previously formidable apparently untouchable great institutions of the land are showing their dilapidated moral fibre under the crumbling trustable facade that has been presented to the public for so long.

Here is just a brief list:

The UK civil service bungling £40 million of a railway contract, that  now has to be revisited.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/city-news/west-coast-main-line-governments-1358596

The BBC who covered up what they knew of the unacceptable and illegal behaviour of a star performer.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-bbcs-lack-of-action-over-jimmy-savile-abuse-accusations-amounts-to-a-coverup-8196247.html

The Attorney General in the Isle of Man facing charges of acting against public justice!!
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-19812316


A magistrate in Jersey in court today for sentencing for fraud.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-19826792

A chief inspector in Jersey  suspended today.
http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_jerseynews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=501712


If you want to know why the public have lost faith, why turnouts decline election by election, why trust has evaporated, read the list and weep. Just imagine if the AG here were acting against the public interest he would have to determine whether to prosecute himself, or perhaps decide it really wasn't in the public interest to do so. And that decision not challengeable!


It may be simply coincidence of course.  Perhaps though it is symptomatic of an altogether seismic change.  No longer does a coterie of  well connected key people at the top of a handful of  central organisations have total command of the situation. No longer can that clique rely on the others in their circle to think and behave as the club would expect.  We have enquiring minds in the public with skills to test the consistency and coherency of the evidence and action, coupled with the means to rapidly communicate that to a wide public.  That fact must be dawning on the minds of those who inhabit the rarefied heights of those institutions, surely?

Public and private personas.

I would not usually do things this way round, but I am going to cite a couple of references before I start. I hope people will note them, particularly  the first, from The Lawyer 2008, that substantiates a point that some people have challenged me on in the last couple of days.

http://www.thelawyer.com/jimmy-savile-turns-to-fox-hayes-for-action-against-the-sun/131780.article

http://news.sky.com/story/991691/jimmy-savile-investigated-in-2007

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/paul-gambaccini-claims-sir-jimmy-savile-used-charity-work-to-prevent-sexual-abuse-of-schoolchildren-being-exposed-8191761.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210592/Jimmy-Savile-accused-sexual-predator-women-claim-abused-underage-schoolgirls.html

It will have come as no surprise to those who followed events concerning  children in care in Jersey , and particularly Haut de la Garenne, that  Jimmy Savile has both been previously investigated (in 2007), and has now had accusers publicly supported by Esther Rantzen , somewhat backed up by Paul Gambaccini. Nor will it be any great surprise to those who follow such things that it has taken decades for the facts to dribble out, and for those who  knew or suspected, colluded as Ms Rantzen puts it, to come clean.

There will be those who dismiss the repeated accusations simply because they cannot believe that someone can be such a public figure and do a huge amount of charitable good work and simultaneously do such evil things.  To do so fails to recognise an important point.  The public persona is a construct; it may well not be the same as the private persona.  This is obvious for actors, but it often holds for politicians and entertainers, even sometimes writers.   It is one reason why in many of those professions the given name and the performance name differ.

I know barely any professional entertainers or actors personally, but I do know a fair few politicians both local and further afield.   There are those with whom I vehemently disagree politically, but like and trust personally.  There are yet others who are of a similar political persuasion to me, but with whom  I find it almost impossible to work.  Over years I have come to the conclusion that frequently the important distinguishing factor between the 2 groups is  congruity.  People whose actions and views are 'in synch', unless they are fundamentally abhorrent, are easier to  deal with than people who give a compatible impression, but whose actions are at odds to their position.

Unfortunately you generally have to be close to someone for sometime to know if they are really congruent.  The trap it is all to easy to fall into with public figures to assume you know them and therefore that their action are congruent.  In truth you only know the public persona.  Oftentimes a similar error occurs with people in a position of authority.  If they are in such a position it is taken because we know something of the position we know something of the person.   Why is this important?  Because given one voice against another, unless you are aware and conscious of such biases, it is likely you will trust or believe the famous person over the unknown; the holder of office over that ordinary person, the adult over the child.  It is one reason why, unless guarded against, the voice of children does not get heard.  And that is one reason why abuse can get to persist and go unreported and unchecked for so long.

There is another strand to this too.  It is what Margaret Thatcher summed up neatly when someone was nominated to her circle:  “Is he one of us?”  People are more likely to believe those who they perceive are more like themselves.  It is another source of bias.  It is also only a short step from there to groupthink: the  psychological condition that occurs within groups, in which the desire for harmony in  decision-making overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.  Nothing better describes a bias.  It also goes someway to understanding how individual group members can go decades knowing or deeply suspecting something is wrong, yet not acting on that.  It is not an excuse, it is not a good reason for not acting or speaking clearly, especially when you know you will have the ear of the media or key decision makers, like Gambaccini above.

This piece is not about whether Jimmy Savile did obtain an injunction against the Sun about involvement at Haut de la Garenne.  Having engaged lawyers and initiated  action, both the publicity loving Sun and Mr Savile go silent.   There is one overriding likely reason for that.  Nor is it about whether Jimmy Savile did or maybe did not visit Haut de la Garenne, though there is a pretty convincing photograph still on the web, and of course dozens of children there at the time who could inform that view.

The real point of this piece is to learn some lessons and see some parallels.Having a high profile and reputations for public good works is not a guarantee or safeguard against atrocious personal actions. Ask yourself  what you really know about the personas of the people involved in the child abuse debacle in Jersey.  How much of what happened and did not happen in the past was shaped or determined by what people thought they knew about others rather than what they actually knew of the private person and the facts?  How will we ever get to the truth of this and learn the lessons unless we get under those public facades and what we think we know and get to the hard facts and the real personalities and motives of the participants. What the recent public 'revelations' regarding  Jimmy Savile means for us now is a proper, full open Committee of Inquiry.

Committee of Inquiry

The reports by Verita and Williamson on the setting up and terms of reference of the  Committee of Enquiry are out.  Both Channel TV and Rico have been hot of the blocks after the embargo date to publish about it.  See http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline/displayarticle.asp?id=501560  and http://ricosorda.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-williamson-report-committee-of-non.html

It is worth reading Mr Williamson's piece carefully.  It is also worth reflecting on the title that Channel TV put on their piece. For while it certainly is true that the JCLA and other have been forthright in seeking a Committee of Inquiry, it was not for what Mr Williamson and the CITV headline suggest. Yes, of course, many victims and survivors want to know and have recognised what happened to them, may need that if they are to be able to think of moving on.  That is particularly so for those whose cases the police wanted to prosecute but the Attorney General decided to drop. Their voices and cases have still not been heard nor their plight recognised. But there is also a wider public need.

Mr Williamson's note highlights recent changes and improvements that have been made relating to children services. The rationale being the CoI would not need to go over what has been improved. It is true there have been changes and no doubt a deal of modern best practice thinking from the UK and elsewhere has been incorporated. But there is a logical problem here. Jersey has many individual and peculiar features in its structures and organisation. I need only mention centeniers rights to charge, the AG's incontestable right to drop prosecutions, and the system of Jurats to try facts in cases.  It follows therefore that what might be best practice and sufficient safeguards elsewhere on the assumption of modern services and 21st century institutions may not graft well onto our historical and peculiar system.

We have to get to the facts of what happened, which services and systems and  post holders and individuals failed in their duty of care and why, if the public is to have confidence those changes do in fact safeguard against repetition of disastrous mal treatment of children in States care.   It is  not just the children's services, as Mr Williamson repeats in his note, to be considered here.  What about the police who failed to act on repeated attempts of people to run away, what of the health system that failed to note children with injuries to give two examples of other services.

I do not believe the recommendations from Mr Williamson will deliver the sort of CoI I have outlined above.  His proposals will more likely lead to a narrow look at just the Children's Service historically (note the capitalisation in his report).  If the issues and key problems lay elsewhere they will not come to light.  The other separate review he proposes to look at the prosecution decisions would be behind closed doors looking only at evidence available at the time. It will not shed any light on subsequent issues that might have arisen from that eg the multiple suspensions of Graham Power.

Yesterday Mr Gorst was clear he is in favour of holding a Committee of Inquiry. He has not ruled out simply following the Verita report  recommendations.  Now he has a choice. Take the Williamson route and get some specific answers to a narrow slice of the issues, but risk leaving the poison in the system. Or,  go with Verita's approach with wide enough terms of reference to get to the whole truth and maybe finally get to lance the boil and start ridding the body politic of venom.

Jersey scandal has national implications

Diligence and persistence by a UK MP reveals that 5 children were sent into care in Jersey from Birmingham. Four have been traced, but one remains unknown. Importantly other authorities are also implicated, though some have refused to even check the facts! See MP-report-reveals.html

 It is impossible not to juxtapose charred remains, unexplained pits and now proven at least one missing person. It is not conclusive, but the weight of evidence shifted towards  the most chilling of conclusions. Even if death did not occur, and we really dont know one way or the other with confidence, it is clear that something wrong was happening on a very large scale. 

London, Jersey, gets a kicking.

Also an interview with Leah McGrath Goodman at 12 minutes and 50 seconds.

There are a few inaccuracies, but it is  clear to see how the outside world sees the Island, and people out there are taking notice.





Ms Goodman has a blog at http://leahmcgrathgoodman.com/

Democracy and Trust

We have known for some time there is a deep flaw in our politics in Jersey. Turnouts on our main election day get to 40 odd percent of those registered, but many do not register. Including the non registered the 'abstention' rate is over 70%. Across Europe turnout rates have been in decline for some time. In this talk Bulgarian political theorist Ivan Krastev asks pertinent questions and offers some acute observations, though he avoids prescribing answers.

 I rather think a number of his key points are relevant to Jersey. While democracy is the only game in town, it is now one that increasingly people see as not worth playing. The abstention rate is highest among those who have most to gain by voting. It is an issue of trust: 89% of Europeans believe there is a growing gap between the opinions of politicians and those of the people. They have realised they can change governments, but cannot change policies! Until the 1970's increasing democracy was accompanied by increased equality: that has now reversed. We no longer have debate of policy and ideas - political campaigning is focused on manipulation of emotions. Politics is now about the management of mistrust. There's much more - see the video piece:


http://www.ted.com/talks/ivan_krastev_can_democracy_exist_without_trust.html