Greenbelt Festival '07 Closes - Raising Funds for Justice

The Greenbelt Festival came to a close Monday after gathering 16,000 people over the four-day event.

|PIC1|This year's festival saw thousands of people gather on Sunday for the Greenbelt Communion service where the annual collection for the Communion Fund raised over £46,800 for Trust Greenbelt. Along with proceeds from Gift Aid, the total amount raised from donations this weekend is expected to reach between £55,000 and £60,000.

"This is Greenbelt's way of giving back to the wider community," Marketing and Development Manager Paul Northup said.

"It's one way that we can 'walk our own talk' by helping people to work out the Greenbelt vision throughout the year."

Cheltenham Racecourse Managing Director Edward Gillespie said he was delighted with the success of this year's festival.

"It's great to see Cheltenham 'open for business' again after the floods earlier this summer."

The Department For International Development (DFID) has returned to the Greenbelt Festival for a second year to raise awareness of its work among festivalgoers.

"This is an opportunity to get across the work, programmes and projects the UK Government is undertaking in aid and development overseas and also of the ongoing issues faced by developing nations," said Karen Gregory, Head of Campaigns and Marketing at DFID.

Greenbelt is the only festival at which DFID has been present this year. The Department's presence on site provided a "real opportunity to engage with people and to find out what people think is important", said Gregory.

It also provided an opportunity for DFID to interact with children and young people through the use of games and activities in order to make them aware of the issues affecting children in foreign countries.

"Young people are very important to us because they represent the future," said Gregory.

Leading Jewish academic Marc Ellis also joined the festival's inter-faith panel 'Can We Coexist?', and called for religions to maintain a critical perspective within ecumenical dialogue.

Ellis claimed much inter-faith dialogue was simply "treading water".

"When those on the other side of our power cannot 'tread water', it is irresponsible of me to focus on the beautiful traditions within Judaism - it is only beautiful when it is not being used against another people," he said.

"I don't want to tell Palestinians about the beauty of the Sabbath because if you are on the other side of that symbol, it is a symbol of violence."

"We need to stop trying to pretend there's an innocence in all religious tradition, and move to a new terrain based on justice which will raise all of these same questions but in a different way."

Ellis is Professor of Jewish Studies and director of the Centre of Jewish Studies at Baylor University, USA.

He spoke extensively about Palestinians and called for them to be present at all levels of inter-faith dialogue.

"Not because they are angels but because, right now, they are oppressed," he said.

The panel brought together leading theologians from Judaism, Islam and Christianity, including Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding at the University of Glasgow.

"Any inter-religious dialogue that doesn't deal with what is happening on our streets is useless," she said.

There are limits to diversity, she added.

"I don't think tolerance should be tolerated all the time. A religion that says violence is the only way out should not be tolerated. Diversity is not inherently a good thing - we need to kick some things out."

Keith Ward, former Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, said it was good to have disagreements.

"A lot of people take security from people who think the same as them, but thinking different things should be a good thing. You stand up for your own view but you should expect to be disagreed with," he said.