14 NEWS Best articles: Britain
THE WEEK 9 April 2022A Church that
puts a blot on
Christianity
Editorial
The Guardian
Not everyone is appalled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says
The Guardian. Vladimir Putin’s vile campaign enjoys the backing
of none other than the head of the Russian Orthodox Church
(ROC), Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. Kirill, who once hymned
Putin’s leadership as a religious miracle, has now asserted that it
is “God’s truth” that the people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
should be reunited. He casts the war as a “metaphysical” struggle
to save Ukraine from the clutches of a decadent West, a stance
that has outraged Church leaders around the world: hundreds
of Orthodox Christian clergy and laity have issued a declaration
condemning the ROC’s complicity in the invasion; and there are
calls for it to be expelled from the World Council of Churches.
That might “go against a natural instinct to promote Christian
unity”, but it’s fully justified. By hitching its theology to Putin’s
“murderous ambitions”, Orthodox Christianity’s “rogue affiliate
in Moscow” will become “a pariah Church within a pariah state”.Why should
Will Smith be
my role model?
Tomiwa Owolade
The Times
The verdict is in on the Oscars slap. Apparently, by resorting to
violence to avenge a slight to his wife, the Hollywood star Will
Smith didn’t just let himself down; he let down all the many black
boys who looked up to him as a role model. They shared in his
success, but now he has made black people look bad. What a load
of rot, says Tomiwa Owolade. Why should I feel personally
invested in the behaviour of any celebrity just because they share
my skin colour? Nothing wrong with the idea of role models in
principle: we all need people to look up to and learn from. But
these individuals should be people rooted in our own families and
communities, not celebrities. Real “father figures”, whether they’re
your actual father, an older brother, grandfather or family friend,
offer far better guidance. They’re not stars you gawk at from a
distance, but normal people you see up close, with all their
imperfections. They’re people who are connected to you,
accountable to you. It’s a “richer and more meaningful source of
identity than proclaiming you belong to a notional black family”.Some male
advantages you
can’t dispute
Kenan Malik
The Observer
How should we handle the issue of transgender athletes taking
part in women’s sports? Given the recent fuss over US swimmer
Lia Thomas and now the British cyclist Emily Bridges, it’s an issue
that’s impossible to duck, says Kenan Malik. Yet sports authorities
are doing just that. Bridges was last week barred from taking part
in her first race as a woman, but only on a technicality: she must
wait until her registration as a male cyclist expires. This won’t do.
There’s good reason why women compete separately from men in
many sports. It’s because the male physique provides physical ad
vantages – greater muscle mass, larger hearts, bigger lungs – that
confer more than just a competitive edge. No surprise therefore
that Bridges’s junior male 25mile record (as Zach Bridges) is two
minutes faster than that of the fastestever British woman. And
studies show that athletes who transitioned after puberty retain
most of these advantages even after hormone treatment. So by all
means, let’s respect people’s gender identities – but not to the point
where it means ignoring reality and undermining women’s rights.Ukraine is no
Nazi state, but
it has its Nazis
Aris Roussinos
UnHerd
When a French pensioner
noticed a blue jacket hanging
on a wall in Paris’s Picasso
Museum, she assumed it had
been abandoned. The 72-year-
old duly took it home, tried it
on, and – finding it was a bit
long – asked her tailor to
alter it. A few days later, she
returned to the exhibition,
and was promptly arrested. It
turned out the garment was
actually a con temporary work
by the Spanish artist Oriol
Vilanova, and a “little old
lady” had been identified on
CCTV as its thief. When she
explained her mistake, she
was let off with a warn ing,
and the work of art was
restored to its peg.A billionaire from the United
Arab Emirates has built the
world’s biggest Hummer – a
two storey vehicle complete
with a toilet and a sink.
Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan
Al Nahyan’s Hummer H
X3 is 46ft long, 20ft wide
and 21.6ft tall, and runs on
four engines. According to
the Sheikh’s Sharjah Off
Road History Museum, it is
“three times bigger than a
normal Hummer H1 by scale
and 27 times by volume”.
Its top speed, however, is a
rather paltry 19mph.A Sydney restaurant whose
USP is “rude waiters with
non-existent manners” is
now expanding worldwide.
Waiting staff at Karen’s Diner- named after the pejorative
term for a demanding middle
aged white woman – are
instructed to insult and
ridicule their customers.
“Great food, terrible service”
is the diner’s motto. One
punter said that a waiter
threw her party’s menus
at them and mocked her
daughter’s hair. It was good
fun, she said, but, “I’d hate
to walk in there blind, not
knowing what it was about.”
IT MUST BE TRUE...
I read it in the tabloidsOf all the lies told about the war in Ukraine, says Aris Roussinos,
one of the biggest is the Kremlin’s claim that it’s a Nazi state. This
is categorically false. Ukraine is a liberal democracy, albeit a
flawed one. However, our understandable desire not to fuel Putin’s
propaganda shouldn’t obscure the truth that an array of farright
groups are pitted against him in Ukraine, not least neoNazi ones.
The most powerful, the Azov movement, was founded in 2014
during the Maidan Revolution against proRussian president
Viktor Yanukovych, and in recognition of its fighting prowess was
incorporated as an official regiment of Ukraine’s National Guard.
It is still funded and armed by the state: Ukraine must be the only
nation in Europe where farright groups possess their own tank
and artillery units. Thankfully, farright parties have always been
trounced at the polls, and before the invasion Azov’s influence was
becoming ever more marginal. But having burnished its heroic
reputation in the defence of Mariupol, it might well in future get
a more receptive hearing. As Syria showed, nothing “radicalises
a civilian population more than dispossession, bombing and
bombardment”. It’s something the West must monitor and help
to counter, if Ukraine’s misery is not to deepen in years to come.