For A Change articles from June 2004

For A Change archives from June 2004

Free and fair.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... South Africa's democracy is ten years old. After two previous successful elections, it never even crossed my mind when we went to the polls in April to question whether the elections would be free and fair. I took it for granted. Risky, taking...

A mandate for trouble.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... The African National Congress (ANC) got more than two thirds of the vote and President Thabo Mbeki has promised not to fiddle with the constitution. The New National Party, descended from the infamous party that institutionalized apartheid,...

Roots.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... Fourteen years ago in Germany I was asked to address a group of people on South Africa. It was in the final days of the National Party, two months before the ANC was unbanned and Nelson Mandela released from jail. I said: 'l am an Afrikaner and...

Who are Europeans?(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... This leads to one of those fundamental questions--Who am I? South African? African? Afrikaner? English-speaking South African? We whites are sometimes still labelled 'Europeans' which I find peculiar, seeing my French Huguenot ancestors arrived...

In your face.(Ear To The Ground)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... South Africa, as a new democracy with a rainbow of cultures and colours, is still struggling to understand itself, to find a comfortable identity. Besides du Preez's, two other current bestsellers are stirring the debate. In A Change of Tongue,...

Rhubarb! Rhubarb!(From The Editor's Desk)
June 1, 2004... A new comedy drama, Rhubarb! Rhubarb! by Hugh Steadman Williams, was premiered in a church-based arts centre in London recently. That was appropriate enough: the play is set in the home and family of a Church of England vicar. And the vicar and...

For a change.
June 1, 2004... For A Change is about change, how to make it happen and how to live it. We believe that what happens inside people has an effect on the world around them. At the heart of global change lies change in the human heart. We draw our material...

Indians get to grips with good governance: John Freebury and Mike Brown report an initiative aimed at bringing good governance to India while Australian Natasha Davis discovers that new freedom of information laws coupled with some determined grassroots activism is bringing far-reaching change in the country.(Lead Story)(Cover Story)
June 1, 2004... Chandrashekhar Prabhu was a gold medalist student of architecture and town-planning in America's Ivy League when former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent two emissaries to tempt him back to his country of birth. He wasn't interested--he...

Islam and the middle way: extremism is a betrayal of Islam's essence, states Imam Abduljalil Sajid.(Essay)
June 1, 2004... Most people treat Islam and Muslims as synonymous and mutually interchangeable terms. In my opinion the word 'Islam' should he used exclusively for the way of life based upon the Qu'ran, the word of God, and Sunnah, the proven practices of the...

Paul & Marguerite Craig: sowing seeds of growth: rebuilding after war--and rebuilding relationships--are keys to sustainable development says agriculturalist Paul Craig. He talks to Michael Smith.(Profile)(Biography)
June 1, 2004... The ink was hardly dry on the Dayton peace treaty that brought the Bosnian war to an end when agriculturalist Paul Craig made his first visit to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in 1995. 'Seventy per cent of Bosnia's livestock had been killed,...

Addressing child trauma in Sierra Leone.(People Making A Difference)
June 1, 2004... WHEN JENNIFER WHITE-BAUGHAN met Emma Kamara at a conference on peace and reconciliation in Caux, Switzerland, last year there was a 'fire of connection' between them. The two women, from the US and Sierra Leone, quickly found they had...

Students on their honour.(People Making A Difference)(Pine Crest School)
June 1, 2004... EDUCATION AT Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, means more than garnering good grades and landing a coveted spot at a highly-regarded college. Each year, students ceremonially sign an honour code, 'I will not lie, cheat or...

Crash course in faith: what has making your bed got to do with surviving plane crashes and meeting prime ministers? Jim Coulter tells Mike Lowe.(Turning Point)
June 1, 2004... TO SURVIVE one plane crash is lucky. Jim Coulter survived three--all during his training as a pilot in World War II. On one occasion a wheel fell off his plane shortly after take-off. The frantic waving of his instructor in another plane...

What are you doing about the environment?(Since You Ask)
June 1, 2004... I'M A keen naturalist with a particular interest in birds. I feel passionately about preserving the countryside. Whenever I see a familiar tree felled or hedgerow 'butchered' I take it like a personal injury. At school I was fortunate in...

The cosmonaut and the cross: Easter in Russia introduces Mary Lean to the resilience of faith and the power of grandmothers.(Russia)
June 1, 2004... There's no hope of squeezing into the church in the centre of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, when we arrive late on Easter Saturday night. Instead we join the crowds waiting outside with their candles. Then, around midnight, the church bells...

Healing streams: Zainab Bawa draws insights from a new Indian book on dialogue and reconciliation between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.(Bookmark)(Book Review)
June 1, 2004... 'Mine is the story of an ordinary person who, when thrown into extraordinary situations, acted according to the prompting of her heart.' As I copy these words from Sushobha Barve's book, Healing Streams *, I ask myself whether it is...

Anti-corruption Odyssey.(News Desk)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... LAURENCE COCKCROFT, Chair of the UK chapter of Transparency International (TI), stressed the role of the individual in fighting corruption, in a lecture at the IC centre in London in February. He spoke of the 'huge courage, effort and energy'...

Plea to support Third World farmers.(News Desk)(Farm Africa)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... 'AGRICULTURE USED to have a very high standing in the development plans of Western countries, but over the last 10 years this has been lost,' maintained Christie Peacock, Chief Executive of the British-based non-governmental organization Farm...

Vision for the mass media.(News Desk)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... BERNARD MARGUERITTE, President of the International Communications Forum (ICF), addressed a one-day media conference organized by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March. Its aim was to consider the breakdown of public trust in the media, and...

One MP's recipe for recovery.(Book Review)
June 1, 2004... FRANK FIELD has been the MP for Birkenhead for 25 years. The visit of a group of pensioners to his surgery some eight years ago 'is indelibly etched on my memory', he writes. 'Nothing had prepared me for the description of what they were...

Indian agents of change.(Dateline Asia)
June 1, 2004... Mahatma Gandhi altered the history of India as he listened to villagers, all over the country, and encouraged them to 'Be the change you want to see in the world'. In the last few months, I have been part of Action for Life, a training...

Balancing between two truths.(Reflections)
June 1, 2004... SOME YEARS ago, I was at a meeting in France to plan for a forthcoming conference. There were 25 of us sitting around a large table, when one of the two Belgians present suddenly leaned forward and asked a question that seemed quite out of...

State laws--private initiatives.(Guest Column)
June 1, 2004... Many countries are experiencing tensions between their various faith communities, and between those communities and the authority of the state. This is no less true for my country, France, where such issues have been front-page news in recent...