Issue 22 

I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of ….

 

22 flagsWell I don't really and I am not sure I would, but would anyone else? If you read my previous article on Ramadan you will know I am interested in people and culture and find things of interest worth exploring.

Well I have been hearing lots of things on the radio and television about citizenship and how an idea has been put forward that children leaving school may be asked to swear a pledge of allegiance.

Given my age and shallow perspective on the world when I hear the word citizen I think of the "Tooting Popular front" but having some insight into my shallow self I thought I would check it out.

I am making some headway into finding out if I am citizen, though I am still confused as I may be a subject as well! Is any body else interested in finding out if they are a citizen, a subject or possibly both? Whether we live in a state, a principality, a kingdom or all three. (I know getting some of these answers has got me in a state)!

What are our rights and what are our responsibilities?

feature22 pledge citizen caneIf you are interested there will be some discussion on this in April or sometime after at the café and all contributions are welcome. Please approach your C.T.M. and get the OK to come along and confuse me some more. Some members of staff have very kindly offered their help and assistance in order to get this off the ground, but it needs people to come along to make it fly.
citizen cane from tv comody

How will it work? Well it will work as a group with a maximum of eight people I hope over six to seven weeks. We, the group will decide the rules as to length of session, tea and toilet breaks.

There will be a questionnaire in the second and penultimate session so we can measure if our views have changed or not and the last session will be a discussion of what we have learned, if anything.

The sessions in the middle will be roughly guided by some "loose notes." I hope these will help generate ideas. What it will be about is what the people in the group bring to it.

Iestyn Cardigan Ward