“There were 4 witnesses on the Moral Maze last night of which I was the last. I was asked to comment on my campaign for Mandatory Reporting in the context of “Turning a Blind Eye and the Law”. The relevance of the subject was that because signs of child abuse have not been reported in the past we need a new law to make it illegal not to report signs of abuse either witnessed or reasonably suspected.
I was questioned by Michael Portillo who was concerned that there would be an obligation on professionals working with children to report mere suspicions that something had happened. I explained that this included an actual complaint by a child that abuse had taken place without it actually being witnessed, the witnessing of suspicious behaviour such as canoodling on the part of, say, a teacher with a pupil, but not mere rumour.
Claire Fox questioned whether the nanny state was infringing civil liberties by expecting the public to report actions by other members of the public, when in reality this was the job of the police, and the state had gone too far in reaching into people’s lives to regulate their behaviour. She also questioned whether we could indeed rely upon the due diligence of the prosecuting authorities to make the correct decisions about whether or not to prosecute in different circumstances.
For instance she asked if a teacher, using my model of mandatory reporting should be obliged to report a relationship between a 17 year old boy and a 12 year old girl. I replied that a teacher should report such behaviour because it was both a criminal offence, and abuse.”
You can listen again to Peter’s discussion on the programme below.
To the Producer, Moral Maze. During the run-up to Christmas, would you consider this piece for debate/discussion on The Moral Maze? Can send you my details by mini CV if you wish. Many thanks, Arthur Kaufman
TITLE:- ‘ A Thought for Christmas ‘ by Arthur Kaufman
They say that a dog is for life and not just for Christmas. But for humans, not feeling wanted or loved can last all year round, including the season of Good Cheer when loneliness or not having anyone to be with is almost too much to bear.
It’s bad enough at this time of the year being on one’s own without being confronted with open displays of affection and intimacy between merry-making and embracing couples looking into each other’s love-glazed eyes as though mutual attraction was about to become extinct.
Such behaviour is especially noticeable from mid December onwards, reaching its peak on Christmas Eve before starting to fade after a final burst on the last night of the year. Until then, there’s a virtual epidemic of kissing, cuddling and nearly uninhibited contact in open public, with the participants being far too involved with each other to notice those only able to remember or fantasize about what it would be like to do the same.
While no one in this day and age would suggest we return to a repressive ethic, it could be argued that the unattached lonely or those deprived of ordinary companionship are not exactly overjoyed by seeing others in the throes of such wanton displays.
Imagine for example, all the widows and widowers who still miss their spouses, not to mention the many unfortunates left high and dry by unfaithful partners not caring how much hurt they leave behind in the so called game of love. And what of those labouring under the handicap of physical or mental disability and at a distinct disadvantage in the pairing off stakes? Surely they should not be expected to hide themselves away or avert their gaze when out shopping or simply strolling down the high street for a bit of respite from their insufferable solitude.
After all, would it be fit and proper to wine and dine in the presence of a starving man or to wear
a nicely warmed coat in front of a shivering woman? If not, then why impose flagrant shows of ardour in full view of forlorn people who have more than enough to cope with already? Perhaps the past forbidding of open intimacy had little to do with old fashioned or repressive laws and the real purpose was to safeguard the feelings of loners with no one to have and hold.
So the next time you feel the need to express whatever is urging you on in the pursuit of Christmas hug-ins, could you first have a good look round to see if some sad soul happens to glance your way, since there are lots about who might like to – indeed crave a little of the action you’re about to engage in, which might best be done between you and your consenting hugee in private without bringing another painful tear to an unseen eye.
All things considered, it’s not much of a sacrifice to make and wont cost even a penny. Besides, in doing so you could make another person’s Christmas just that little less miserable, which if nothing else is not too much to ask.
Approx 525 words of text
Arthur Kaufman email:- arthur35art@hotmail.co.uk
(07789 133651 or 0114 2368098)
70B Green Oak Avenue
Sheffield S17 4FZ
Re: The Moral Maze, 18th November, 2015
The question that seems to be mystifying so many people at the moment, why young Muslims in our society are being ‘radicalised’, was clearly answered by the comments of your progamme’s first witness, Inayat Bunglawalla. Here is a representative of ‘moderate’ and ‘integrated’ Muslim opinion, who demonstrates a visceral hatred of what he refers to as ‘The White Man’.
You can hear it in his tone of voice, the emotion that grips him as he utters the phrase. The equivalent, spoken by a Christian about Arab and Asian Muslims, or by whites about blacks, would be seen as the most offensive bigotry, and blatant racism.
He may not be directly inciting racial hatred, but he expresses a fundamental racial antagonism, the sort of bedrock animosity that exists between ethnic communities all over the world, but which our ‘enlightenment’ is meant to have banished. Well, our enlightenment has let the very thing it meant to banish fester and grow within our society.
Mr Bunglawalla takes for granted that Muslims are victims of aggression by ‘The White Man’; that the West is an invader and oppressor. The Iraq war was an attack on Islam; the setting up of the State of Israel was an attack on Islam; the crusades were an unprovoked attack on Islam. It follows that the Al Kaida insurgency in Iraq was born of a legitimate grievance; the desire to ‘drive Israel into the sea’ and punish those nations that support its right to exist, is based on a legitimate grievance; that opposition to White, Western society is based on legitimate grievance.
All these assumptions are propagated by a ‘moderate’ who is supposed to be helping to integrate Muslim youth. The fact that Muslim children are brought up on a diet of myth and grievance makes it unsurprising that so many of them ‘turn’ to extremism. They are fed all the assumptions necessary to ensure they have no defence against taking the step from seething resentment to radical action.
To fuel resentment, and then add, as an afterthought, ‘do no murder’, in a culture where to murder ones enemies is seen as martyrdom and the ultimate accolade of ones religion, is, at the very least, disingenuous. If a moderate bases himself on the assumptions that make hatred and murder appear legitimate, and even necessary to avenge wrong, can we be surprised that the young men he claims to be integrating into our society decide to go to war against us?
Yours
Robert Renak
m: 07738 017 207