Article
Comment
Community
Grenfell disaster
Justice
4 min read

Grenfell – what should happen now?

Six urgent priorities that should follow the Inquiry

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A tube train runs on a raised track, in the distance is a tower block wrapped in white material with a green heart on it.

I remember standing at the base of Grenfell Tower on the morning of the 14th June 2017, talking with firefighters, gathering clergy to act as emergency volunteers, praying with evacuees from the surrounding blocks, as the building still smouldered. At the time the question on everyone’s lips was: how could something like this happen in sophisticated twenty-first century Britain? 

Now we know. 

In one sense the Public Inquiry into the Grenfell tower fire told us nothing new. Few people who have followed the Inquiry over the last six years will have been surprised by its conclusions. What is new is to see the dreadful catalogue of ‘incompetence dishonesty and greed’ laid out in excoriating detail for all to see. 

So what should happen now? At least six things must be on the agenda: 

  1. Combustible cladding on remaining buildings around the country should be removed as soon as possible. Government estimates suggest there are 4,600 buildings around the country with unsafe cladding. Less than one third of them have had their remediation completed, and work is yet to start on half of them. And, astonishing as it may sound, this is now more than seven years after Grenfell. Cladding that is illegal on new buildings can still remain on existing ones. Developers and owners who are responsible for this state of affairs should be made to pay for the remediation rather than passing those costs on to leaseholders, or delaying remediation for technical and bureaucratic reasons. Institutional resistance to this, as outlined recently by Michael Gove, someone who from my dealing with him on Grenfell, was one of the better politicians to deal with this issue, has to be overcome with urgency. 

  2. Prosecution of those who have been identified in the inquiry as bearing responsibility for the fire should also be brought as soon as possible. The police investigation suggests that it will be a number of years before court cases take place. The victims of this tragedy have already had to wait seven long years and now face the prospect of another three or even more years until justice is served. That is too long.  

  3. Those named and shamed in the report should examine their own hearts. Some remorse and apology has been evident from some, but not enough. Many still deny responsibility despite seven years of evidence-gathering. This is not a matter of revenge, but an indispensable step towards justice for everyone. Those named have presumably carried a burden of guilt over these past years. The Christian doctrine of repentance, confession and absolution tells us that there is a relief in finally admitting culpability, bearing the penalty, and finally, once all this has happened, receiving a measure of absolution.  

We might look back on Grenfell as a turning point in our life together: a fitting memorial for those who tragically died on that terrible night. 

  1. The companies involved often have big pockets and the bereaved and survivors are ordinary people without the resources to pay expensive legal fees. The government should set aside a sum of money to enable victims, if they wish, to bring a civil case against those accused in the report. Arguably this should have happened many years before to speed up the process of justice.  

  2. A wider debate needs to take place in our society as to how we place love for neighbour at the heart of national life. A libertarian individualism which focusses on personal fulfilment and a view of freedom as doing what we like as long as we don’t harm others, rather than freedom to do the good has led us to this point. What would it mean in company law, for example, for each business or institution to have to explain how it is seeking the genuine welfare of its staff, clients and customers, not as an add on in their ESG agenda, but as the primary purpose of the organisation?  

  3. We need a spiritual renewal. Toleration rather than persecution of the neighbour was a good legacy of the Enlightenment, but it is not enough to build a well-functioning society. We are commanded not just to tolerate our neighbours but to love them. And this only be justified if my neighbour has ultimate transcendent value. The new atheism was an act of cultural vandalism, undermining faith in God, an objective basis for each human life, and having nothing to replace it with. As Nick Cave recently put it: “People need meaning. And secular society has not come up with the goods.” This is why religious traditions including Christianity have tended to link love for God to love for neighbour. What that spiritual renewal looks like is hard to tell, and yet we have perhaps seen a stirring of it in recent times.  

If something approaching those six things happened, then we might look back on Grenfell as a turning point in our life together: a fitting memorial for those who tragically died on that terrible night.

Article
Comment
Freedom of Belief
Politics
5 min read

No George, Christians aren’t free to worship in Iran

Apologists make a mockery of the real costs of freedom of belief.

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

A couple stand on the steps of a cathedral in Iran.
On location with George Galloway.

I guess it’s a good job he’s no longer a member of parliament, or George Galloway may be facing the same scrutiny Nigel Farage came under for his trips to the United States. 

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the former MP for Rochdale didn’t head to the Land of the Free on his own extracurricular jaunt the other week, but instead to Tehran and Moscow.  

And no, George wasn’t there to remind Iran of its obligations to provide human rights for its citizens - as some might expect of a British MP - nor did he go to Russia to put pressure on Putin to end the war in Ukraine. 

No, George was simply visiting his comrades - distinct as they may be - and doing his bit for their distinct causes. 

Mr Galloway published two videos during his visit to Iran - both published on his X account - and both showing him standing outside the buildings of a recognised religious minority (meaning, in Iran, Jews, Zoroastrians and Assyrian or Armenian Christians. Not converts or Baha’is). 

In the first video, the man in the black hat is standing outside a synagogue in Tehran, which he tells his audience doesn’t even have a guard outside “because they don’t need one”, as the “millions” of Jews who live in Iran (actually there are less than 10,000) are so “honoured” and “cherished”. 

They even have their own members in the parliament, he tells us (actually it’s just the one), and “you didn’t know any of this, did you? Because they don’t want you to know.” 

Well, now you do.  

And, thanks again to the former Member for Rochdale, two days later you were also able to discover, much to your surprise, that Iran is also home to “so many Christian churches.” (For the record there are around 300, but none of them open to converts.) 

This time, Mr Galloway is speaking to you from outside an Armenian cathedral, still wearing the same outfit and therefore presumably recorded on the same day but published two days later - perhaps to give you enough time to digest your first lesson. 

Inside the cathedral, George assures us, there are “many worshippers quietly going about their religious obligations,” which is “quite different from the picture that is painted of Iran in Western countries,” don’t you think? 

And what would that picture be, eh, George? 

That Christians are routinely arrested and imprisoned for meeting together to worship, and in years past the leaders of their churches - including Armenians - were even murdered on those same Tehran streets on which you are now standing? 

But no matter, here at least is clear proof that one church in Iran is still functioning - as well as that synagogue; don’t forget the synagogue! - and as Mr Galloway proudly informed us 24 hours after his first video, nearly one million people (according to X it was closer to 50,000) had watched it. 

So, job done. Let’s not worry about the details. They take too much time to research, and can also trip one up when trying to make a point - especially regarding Iran’s treatment of religious minorities or, well, anyone really. 

But no matter, one can guarantee that most viewers won’t have bothered to look into it, nor scroll down far enough to reach the dissent. 

Now, I don’t know whether it was because George hadn’t quite lived up to his billing, but a few days later some “real journalists” arrived from the Grayzone website to add their own insights. 

The Brits had been told; now it was the turn of the Americans.  

“Americans may be surprised to know Christians exist in Iran and are allowed to practice their religion freely.” 

So wrote Grayzone News’ Anya Parimpil on X, alongside a post showing a short video from inside - wow, they actually let the Americans inside! - another Armenian cathedral, this time in Isfahan. 

And alongside a few more pictures of the church, Ms Parimpil posted some photographs of “ancient bibles” - no capital ‘B’ needed, it would seem, nor explanation that today in Iran Bibles are often used as evidence of a “crime” in court cases against Christians. 

Meanwhile, Ms Parimpil’s husband, Max Blumenthal, posted a long video interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s favourite interviewee, Mohammad Marandi, as they walked around a Tehran cemetery. 

You can watch it on YouTube if you like, but I wouldn’t recommend it; not only is it over an hour long, but in the wake of the axing of Stephen Sackur’s BBC news show HARDtalk, this one is more like an episode of SOFTtalk, in which the presenter asks only two questions of real interest - regarding the nuclear programme and popular support for the regime - to which there is never any danger of a follow-up probe. 

To paraphrase, Marandi’s answers were that the regime is wildly popular and well able to make a nuclear weapon if it wanted to but that it doesn’t because such things are “inhumane” and the Islamic Republic of Iran is, of course, renowned for its decency. 

Mr Blumenthal also posted videos of an Iranian man singing while embracing him underneath one of Isfahan’s famous bridges - with the message, “Iran is not your enemy” - and of the return of water to the local river, failing to mention, as one responder noted, that “due to the corruption and mismanagement of the horrific mullah regime, the river is basically dry all the time”. 

But no matter, one can guarantee that most viewers won’t have bothered to look into it, nor scroll down far enough to reach the dissent. 

Certainly, the overwhelming reaction to all the videos and photographs posted over the past week has been positive: essentially, a “thanks for showing us what Iran is really like and not only what the biased mainstream media (MSM!) says about it!” 

These are the days of SOFTtalk, it would appear, so I suppose we’d better get used to it. 

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