Welcome, and happy new year, with a fairly easy start to the new year – a calendar of days that might be worth knowing and keeping by for those involved in multi-ethnic, multi-national ministry. If there are omissions, please let me know.
An International Calendar
Attached is a list of the National and other important days Days of countries that members of our churches might have close connections with. Whilst for some people from ethnic minorities, enquiry about their background may be experienced as offensively ‘othering’ them and implying a lack of belonging here (thus Lady Susan Hussey’s high profile encounter with Ngozi Fulani), for others recognition of their overseas roots is a respectful attention to what is valuable to them. Knowing whether to focus on ‘here, now’ or ‘back, then’ is something we constantly need to decide. For some people in our churches, but not others, their place of origin is still of live importance. When, unusually, we asked the congregation for prayer topics at a Sunday morning service, immediately we had three requests concerning painful, but often little publicised, political or economic crises in peoples’ ‘back home’ countries (example, the situation facing the Yoruba minority in Cameroon).
This Calendar could lead to:
* Just occasionally for special services. This June’s 75th Windrush Anniversary is an obvious case in point. (Was the excellent 70th Anniversarty service at Westminster Abbey really five years ago?)
* Inclusion in Sunday intercessions, praying for that country on the anniversary of its independence, especially if led by someone from that country.
* Simply phoning or texting a church member from that country to say we are praying for them, their family and for that country.
It is also important, of course, to be aware of more general events in peoples’ countries of origin; the crucial general election in Nigeria on 25th February is a case in point.
An International Calendar.
16 January USA Martin Luther King B’day
26 January (1948. India Republic Day
4 February (1948) SriLanka Independence Day
7 February (1974) Grenada Independence Day
3 March Bulgaria Liberation Day
6 March (1957) Ghana Independence Day
17 March Ireland Saint Patrick's Day
18 April (1980) Zimbabwe Independence Day
17 April Syria Independence Day
27 April South Africa Freedom Day
27 April (1961) Sierra Leone Independence Day
3 May Poland Constitution Day
26 May (1966) Guyana Independence Day
28 May Ethiopia Derg Downfall Day
12 June Philippines Independence Day
22 June (1948 UK Windrush Day
4 July USA Independence Day
6 July (1964) Malawi Independence Day
23 July Egypt Revolution Day
30 July Morocco Throne Day
6 August (1962) Jamaica Independence Day
14 August (1947) Pakistan Establishment Day
15 August (1947) India Independence Day
24 August Ukraine Independence Day
31 August (1957) Malaysia Merdeka/Independence
31 August (1962) Trinidad Independence Day
7 September Brazil Independence Day
1 October Cyprus Independence Day
1 October (1960) Nigeria Independence Day
9 October (1962) Uganda Independence Day
24 October (1964) Zambia Independence Day
1 November (1981) Antigua Independence Day
1 November Algeria Revolution Day
9 November Nepal Constitution Day
11 November Poland Independence Day
30 November (1966). Barbados Independence Day
9 December (1961) Tanzania Independence Day
12 December (1964). Kenya Jamhur
28 November Albania Independence Day
1 December Romania Unification Day
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Add ons
Pele 1940-2022.
Sad to record the death of a great footballer who will leave behind great memories (for me: the shot from the half-way line against Czechoslovakia in 1970 that was two feet away from being the greatest world cup goal ever), admiration for his skill and courage, and world-wide respect for his dignity, graciousness and humanity. He also inspired a generation of young black boys with pride in their blackness, and hope – widely fulfilled – that they too could become great footballers (and also at the time for many to support Brazil since; in the words of one teenager to me, they were ‘a black man’s team’).
But it would have been better for our understanding of ‘race’ if he had been a central defender. As it was, his iconic contest with Bobby Moore at the 1970 World Cup consolidated unhelpful and enduring stereotypes: the strong, physical, dynamic, unpredictable, rather intimidating black striker against the cool, calm, collected, reliable blonde, blue-eyed white central defender.
How good therefore that a couple of years ago the most highly rated player in the world (behind the now indisputably greatest-of-all-time, Lionel Messi) was, unusually, a central defender: Liverpool and Netherlands’ cool, calm, collected, reliable, brown-skinned, black-haired Virgil van Dyjk.
2021 Census – Religion. As a supplement to my blog at the end of last year on Ethnivity in the Census, the brief summary on Religion has a few points of ‘ethnic’ interest.
* London is the most religiously diverse region with 25.3% reporting a religion other than Christian, up from 22.6% in 2011; with 15% Muslim (up from 12.6%) & 5.1% Hindu.
* 40.7% of Londoners reported them selves Christian; or 54.5% of Londoners who aren’t of other faiths call themselves Christian.
* Tower Hamlets is the most Muslim area of the country 39.9%, Harrow the most Hindu with 25.8%; Barnet the second most Jewish 14.5%.
* This strong density of ‘other faiths’ in London makes more impressive that London had the highest proportion of minority ethnic members of any diocese in the 2007 Church of England’s diversity census.
* 6,000 people reported themselves as Rastafarians. (Plus how many who didn’t fill in the Census?)