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| Protestors outside St. Paul's Cathedral. |
The following was an online comment made with regards to the ongoing protest in America that in my opinion aptly sums up the Occupy Wall Street struggle.
“ These governors, mayors, city councils, police chiefs and street cops of America need to realize that it is NOT UP TO THEM whether or not Americans peaceably gather , protest, discuss, or demonstrate. It's up to a document called the US CONSTITUTION. Zuccotti Park is no longer just a place - Zuccotti Park is everywhere. You can beat us and arrest us and tear-gas us, you can try to "permit" us to death....but you can't kill an idea. You can't keep down a people’s hopes and dreams for a better life.....a life with dignity and freedom....for us, and for our kids. More power to Occupy Wall Street, as it spreads to every town and city. Because OWS is us, and for us, and by us. It comes up from the grassroots, and it lifts us up in turn. With OWS America has found it’s voice, and that voice demands fairness and justice - for ALL. This land IS our land! AND WE WANT IT BACK! We want our LIVES back! We want our FUTURE back! But it’s much more than just words.... it’s much more than just politics.... it’s your LIFE, and how you want to live it. So why not take some time, find a quiet place somewhere, and consider this: Each of us has only one brief life....one chance....one roll of the dice....and many choices. The time has come to choose....to risk...and to act. If not now...then when? If not you, then....who? You DO have the power my friend....and the choice IS yours. Don’t let your dreams die....”
More than 800 people have been arrested in New York since the protests began in September 2011 as demonstrators solidified their hold on Zuccotti Park, which has become the headquarters of Occupy Wall Street. The demonstrations began with about 6,000 people gathering in Times Square for what organizers called a “global day of action against Wall Street greed” on October 15. The protests then spread to Europe and Asia, with more than 100 people injured in Rome after as many as 200,000 people gathered. Italian police launched raids in cities including Rome and Milan, according to the Ansa news agency, while gas masks and balaclavas were seized in Florence. A board placed on Paternoster Square, home to the LSE, said the area is private and that “any licence to the public to enter or cross this land is revoked forthwith.”
In Amsterdam, protesters lined up at the entrance of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and greeted employees with slogans. Demonstrators burnt fake money and hosted an alternative exchange, bidding for “shares” titled stress, health, future and happiness. About 50 people took over a disused hotel close to the Puerta del Sol square, the focus of demonstrations in Madrid. In Zurich, an estimated 1,200 protesters at the weekend occupied the Paradeplatz, home of Credit Suisse Group AG, the Swiss Social Democratic Party’s youth organization said in a press release. Over 60 people stayed overnight, until police asked them to leave. Protests have now moved to the nearby Lindenhof, overlooking Zurich’s old town. In Australia, about 30 people gathered in front of the central bank in Sydney. Signs on a nearby fence included: “When I do it, it’s counterfeiting. When the Reserve Bank does it, it’s called Quantitative Easing.” Another 70 protestors occupied Melbourne’s city square in front of the Westin Hotel. Chicago police arrested about 175 protestors in Grant Park after they refused to disperse. Tokyo, Toronto and other cities also saw protests in support of the month-old movement, which organizers say represents “the 99 percent,” a nod to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s study showing the top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth. In Hong Kong, protests continue after about 40 demonstrators slept overnight in a foyer beneath the Asian headquarters of HSBC Holdings Plc in the central financial district. Equipped with tents, bullhorns and a gas-powered generator used to help them recharge their laptops, the protesters occupied the public thoroughfare under the building as about a dozen police stood by. Demonstrations were also held in Seoul and Taipei. In Rome on October 15, firecrackers were thrown at the Ministry of Defense and windows of Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini and Poste Italiane SpA shattered. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called “the unbelievable violence” in Rome “a worrying signal for civil coexistence.”
It is estimated that there were demonstrations in 1,500 cities worldwide, including 100 in the U.S.
When Metropolitan Police officers carrying batons and gas sprays manned steel barriers close to St Paul’s Cathedral in London, blocked supporters of the Occupy London Stock Exchange group from approaching the LSE they set into motion an interested series of events.When the protestors were denied access to the LSE they took up residence in the environs of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The protestors main targets are bankers and politicians, whom they blame for a capitalist system they say has gone badly wrong, yet their presence outside St. Paul's has also caused deep division within England's official church, the Church of England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion.. Soon after they arrived, the clerics who run St. Paul's shut the cathedral for nearly a week, citing safety reasons. St. Paul's hasn't closed since Hitler's bombers blitzed London. There was a huge outcry and words of disapproval, even from other churchmen.
The controversy grew even bigger when St. Paul's launched legal proceedings to remove the protest camp. Some clerics believe the church should, like Jesus, be on the side of the poor and, therefore, should support the protestors. A heated debate began in Britain about the church's role. "Wasn't there some old anarchist way back who stormed into a church, knocking over tables, complaining about moneylenders?" a blogger asked. (Yes, he meant Jesus.) Yet St Paul's was now telling protesters to leave.
It was losing £16,000 ($24,700) a day in tourist revenue.
Perceptions grew that the cathedral's main concern was money. On October 27, Giles Fraser tweeted his resignation as Canon Chancellor. Three day later, the Dean resigned too. I found the resignation of Giles Fraser indicative of the level of turmoil within the church because as a cleric Giles Fraser has never been afraid to court controversy. The married father-of-three, 46, is widely known as a media commentator and is a regular tweeter. Ordained as a deacon in 1993, he was a philosophy lecturer before being appointed St Paul's Canon Chancellor in May 2009. He was a founder of Inclusive Church, the best-known group campaigning for the full recognition of gay lifestyles. At the height of concern about homosexual clergy in 2008, he welcomed the world's first openly gay Anglican Bishop, the Right Reverend Gene Robinson, to preach in his church. This was despite the bishop having been banned from attending a special church conference on the issue.
England's bishops were strangely silent about the turmoil in the cathedral, and until recently even the Archbishop of Canterbury had nothing to say. There was national incredulity. The church, jeered Mark Field, Tory MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, was a national joke. "The whole thing is farcical," said Field. "You couldn't make it up. This tented community has been there for two weeks and has hardly brought the foundations of capitalism to its knees. The only capitalist organisation that has lost out is St Paul's."
The church's most senior cleric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has now weighed in. He's positive about the protest.
ROWAN WILLIAMS: “It's triggered awareness of the unfinished business really in the financial sector. The unfinished business between government and banks, the whole sense of the need to press for something that will deliver a juster more rational system.”
The comments of the Archbishop would seem to be in favour of the protestors but I believe it was an attempt to mitigate the damaging image of the Church being more motivated by money than by people’s sufferings. I must confess that I have always had concerns about the financing of the Church of England, given it’s history and association with the infamous Roman Catholic Church. This caused me to conduct some research into their funding.
It takes just over £1000 million a year to run the Church of England, financing its 13,000 parishes and 43 cathedrals. Around three-quarters (£750 million) comes from worshippers in the parishes. Around 15 per cent (over £160 million) comes from the Church Commissioners who manage assets of £4.4 billion (at the end of 2008) on behalf of the Church. In addition, income for the Church of England is generated from:
£50 million through income on reserve funds in parishes;
£50 million through income on reserves in dioceses and cathedrals;
£30 million from fees paid for weddings, funerals and chaplaincies.
£50 million through income on reserves in dioceses and cathedrals;
£30 million from fees paid for weddings, funerals and chaplaincies.
The Church of England’s investment portfolio is made up of shares in banks, oil and mining companies, according to its latest annual report. Despite criticism of bankers' bonuses by church leaders and a commitment for the church to go green, its top 20 share holdings at the end of 2009 included BP and Shell, mining companies Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, banks HSBC and Barclays, as well as Nestle. More on these later.
The investment portfolio of the Church is managed by the Church Commissioners who have a goal of maximising profit within an ‘ethical framework’. I personally have my doubts that ethics and the pursuit of maximum profits can coexist in the same organisation but that is just my opinion.
The Church also has substantial holdings in commercial property including out of town shopping centres. It has sold a significant proportion of its social housing over the last 25 years. The Church Commissioners' 2009 annual results reports that they had achieved a 15.6 per cent return on their investments during 2009 as the stock market recovered. The Commissioners’ asset value grew to £4.8 billion at the end of 2009. The value of the assets of the Church Commissioners ten years ago was £4.4 billion.
“The Church Commissioners have had a satisfactory first decade of the twenty-first century”, writes the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith, in his introduction to the Report.
“The bottom line is that the Commissioners’ assets grew at an annual rate of 5.1 per cent, two percentage points better than the average fund and 2.4 per cent faster than inflation or, in other words, by 2.4 per cent per annum in real terms.”
The Church Commissioners say they do not see their work as part of the church’s mission, but something that funds it. “Our task is to develop proposals on how best the Commissioners’ funds should be used to advance the Church’s mission”,
The above statement is saying to me that the Commissioners' job is to make money. We are not part of the Church’s mission therefore we are not bound by any religious, moral or ethical concerns in the pursuit of making money.
The Church of England’s Top 20 Shareholdings (figures in £millions)
HSBC (94.8)
BP (90.7)
Royal Dutch Shell (82.1)
Vodafone (69.1)
GlaxoSmithKline (54.8)
Rio Tinto (37.8)
BHP Billiton (34.4)
AstraZeneca (33.2)
Tesco (29.8)
BG (29.5)
Unilever (29.4)
Anglo American (28.9)
Standard Chartered (27.2)
Barclays (24.6)
Nestle (23.0)
Reckitt Benckiser (18.4)
Microsoft (17.8)
Xstrata (17.4)
Treasury Variable Rate Index Linked 2017 (17.0)
Wal-Mart Stores (14.0)
In light of the above I find it rather difficult to believe that the Church of England is on the side of the man in the street protesting the power and influence of “big business”. They are themselves big business!
Furthermore, the above only show the Church’s major holdings. What about the 6 Million dollars they have invested in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Despite the questionably ethical standards of many of News Corp. publications and media houses, the Church of England would not part with it’s shares even in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper, because they still see it as a “good investment”.
Since 1977, Nestle had been under international scrutiny for it’s role in the promotion of breast milk substitutes (infant formula), particularly in less economically developed countries, which campaigners claim contributes to the unnecessary suffering and even deaths of babies, largely among the poor. In May 2011, the debate over Nestlé's unethical marketing of infant formula was relaunched in the Asia-Pacific region. 19 leading Laos-based international NGOs, including Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE International, Plan International and World Vision have launched a boycott of Nestlé and written an open letter to the company. Among other unethical practices, the NGOs criticized the lack of labelling in Laos and the provision of incentives to doctors and nurses to promote the use of infant formula. Despite this the Church of England still has 23 Million pounds invested in Nestle. Why? They know that Nestles business practices, though questionable, net them huge profits.
Their substantial investments in pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline (£54.8 million) and AstraZeneca (£33.2 million) does no give them the Church any incentives to promote good health practices among the peoples of the world nor does their interest in BP (£90.7 million), Royal Dutch Shell (£82.1 million), BHP Billiton (£34.4 million), Anglo American (£28.9 million), inspire confidence in the Church’s promotion of a Green World. Investments in Barclays (£24.6 million) and HSBC (£94.8 million) makes one question the Archbishop's sincerity in supporting banking reform to the detriment of the Church’s bottom line. (HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the world. HSBC's international network comprises around 7,500 offices in 87 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.)
This is only one fund administered by the Church. Space would not permit me to examine the investments of the £1 Billion. (yes with a “B”) managed by the Church of England Pensions Board and the millions managed by the CBF Church of England funds. Suffice to say they are advised by the Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. The same group that advises the Church Commissioners.
In the fight between ethics and money, money will always win. Ethics will not help in the maintenance of church buildings and new building work costing in the region of £160 million per year. As a business man I understand the economics but don’t preach, (pun intended), to me about ethics.
The world stand at a crossroads. People all over are clamouring for change. People has lost confidence in their politicians and their Churches. As I continue to observe the uprisings in Middle East, the rumblings in Europe, the USA, Asia, Africa and Australia, I wonder where is all of this leading. Coming closer to home, let us not forget that in early March 2011, protests targeting pay cuts to civil servants and increased utilities rates broke out on Providenciales Island, the commercial and tourism center of the Turks and Caicos islands. Protestors blocked the road to the airport, some chaining themselves to roadside railings, threatening the vital tourist industry. Talks between the demonstrators and the British officials in charge of the dependency were soon arranged. On March 16, Britain announced that that it would deliver a “bail-out package” for the islands worth $417 million, a sizable figure considering the fact that territory’s entire GDP in 2006 was an estimated $722 million. Although the British government insisted that the “rescue package will not be used … to reverse current cuts,” it did reduce tensions, at least temporarily.
October 2011 saw States of Emergency and curfews in Trinidad, curfews in Westmoreland, St. Catherine and August Town, St. Andrew in Jamaica. How long before we start seeing similar actions across the wider Caribbean? The Trinidadians have a saying, “If your neighbour’s house is on fire. Wet yours.” We are definitely seeing the smoke. As I was writing this, a passage I had not read for many years came to mind.
“And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” Revelation 6:4
I can clearly see that “peace is being taken from the earth”. And, the scariest part of this is....I am not religious.
The investment portfolio of the Church is managed by the Church Commissioners who have a goal of maximising profit within an ‘ethical framework’. I personally have my doubts that ethics and the pursuit of maximum profits can coexist in the same organisation but that is just my opinion.
The Church also has substantial holdings in commercial property including out of town shopping centres. It has sold a significant proportion of its social housing over the last 25 years. The Church Commissioners' 2009 annual results reports that they had achieved a 15.6 per cent return on their investments during 2009 as the stock market recovered. The Commissioners’ asset value grew to £4.8 billion at the end of 2009. The value of the assets of the Church Commissioners ten years ago was £4.4 billion.
“The Church Commissioners have had a satisfactory first decade of the twenty-first century”, writes the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith, in his introduction to the Report.
“The bottom line is that the Commissioners’ assets grew at an annual rate of 5.1 per cent, two percentage points better than the average fund and 2.4 per cent faster than inflation or, in other words, by 2.4 per cent per annum in real terms.”
The Church Commissioners say they do not see their work as part of the church’s mission, but something that funds it. “Our task is to develop proposals on how best the Commissioners’ funds should be used to advance the Church’s mission”,
The above statement is saying to me that the Commissioners' job is to make money. We are not part of the Church’s mission therefore we are not bound by any religious, moral or ethical concerns in the pursuit of making money.
The Church of England’s Top 20 Shareholdings (figures in £millions)
HSBC (94.8)
BP (90.7)
Royal Dutch Shell (82.1)
Vodafone (69.1)
GlaxoSmithKline (54.8)
Rio Tinto (37.8)
BHP Billiton (34.4)
AstraZeneca (33.2)
Tesco (29.8)
BG (29.5)
Unilever (29.4)
Anglo American (28.9)
Standard Chartered (27.2)
Barclays (24.6)
Nestle (23.0)
Reckitt Benckiser (18.4)
Microsoft (17.8)
Xstrata (17.4)
Treasury Variable Rate Index Linked 2017 (17.0)
Wal-Mart Stores (14.0)
In light of the above I find it rather difficult to believe that the Church of England is on the side of the man in the street protesting the power and influence of “big business”. They are themselves big business!
Furthermore, the above only show the Church’s major holdings. What about the 6 Million dollars they have invested in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Despite the questionably ethical standards of many of News Corp. publications and media houses, the Church of England would not part with it’s shares even in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World newspaper, because they still see it as a “good investment”.
Since 1977, Nestle had been under international scrutiny for it’s role in the promotion of breast milk substitutes (infant formula), particularly in less economically developed countries, which campaigners claim contributes to the unnecessary suffering and even deaths of babies, largely among the poor. In May 2011, the debate over Nestlé's unethical marketing of infant formula was relaunched in the Asia-Pacific region. 19 leading Laos-based international NGOs, including Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE International, Plan International and World Vision have launched a boycott of Nestlé and written an open letter to the company. Among other unethical practices, the NGOs criticized the lack of labelling in Laos and the provision of incentives to doctors and nurses to promote the use of infant formula. Despite this the Church of England still has 23 Million pounds invested in Nestle. Why? They know that Nestles business practices, though questionable, net them huge profits.
Their substantial investments in pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline (£54.8 million) and AstraZeneca (£33.2 million) does no give them the Church any incentives to promote good health practices among the peoples of the world nor does their interest in BP (£90.7 million), Royal Dutch Shell (£82.1 million), BHP Billiton (£34.4 million), Anglo American (£28.9 million), inspire confidence in the Church’s promotion of a Green World. Investments in Barclays (£24.6 million) and HSBC (£94.8 million) makes one question the Archbishop's sincerity in supporting banking reform to the detriment of the Church’s bottom line. (HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the world. HSBC's international network comprises around 7,500 offices in 87 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.)
This is only one fund administered by the Church. Space would not permit me to examine the investments of the £1 Billion. (yes with a “B”) managed by the Church of England Pensions Board and the millions managed by the CBF Church of England funds. Suffice to say they are advised by the Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. The same group that advises the Church Commissioners.
In the fight between ethics and money, money will always win. Ethics will not help in the maintenance of church buildings and new building work costing in the region of £160 million per year. As a business man I understand the economics but don’t preach, (pun intended), to me about ethics.
The world stand at a crossroads. People all over are clamouring for change. People has lost confidence in their politicians and their Churches. As I continue to observe the uprisings in Middle East, the rumblings in Europe, the USA, Asia, Africa and Australia, I wonder where is all of this leading. Coming closer to home, let us not forget that in early March 2011, protests targeting pay cuts to civil servants and increased utilities rates broke out on Providenciales Island, the commercial and tourism center of the Turks and Caicos islands. Protestors blocked the road to the airport, some chaining themselves to roadside railings, threatening the vital tourist industry. Talks between the demonstrators and the British officials in charge of the dependency were soon arranged. On March 16, Britain announced that that it would deliver a “bail-out package” for the islands worth $417 million, a sizable figure considering the fact that territory’s entire GDP in 2006 was an estimated $722 million. Although the British government insisted that the “rescue package will not be used … to reverse current cuts,” it did reduce tensions, at least temporarily.
October 2011 saw States of Emergency and curfews in Trinidad, curfews in Westmoreland, St. Catherine and August Town, St. Andrew in Jamaica. How long before we start seeing similar actions across the wider Caribbean? The Trinidadians have a saying, “If your neighbour’s house is on fire. Wet yours.” We are definitely seeing the smoke. As I was writing this, a passage I had not read for many years came to mind.
“And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” Revelation 6:4
I can clearly see that “peace is being taken from the earth”. And, the scariest part of this is....I am not religious.
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