Saturday, November 25, 2006

[the cross] b.a. backdown not necessarily correct

So BA boss Willie Walsh has finally backed down following an avalanche of criticism. The airline had faced four days of angry condemnation from an overwhelming alliance of Cabinet ministers, 100 MPs, 20 Church of England bishops and, finally, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr Rowan Williams called its stance 'deeply offensive' and threatened to sell the Church of England's £6.6million holding of BA shares. Just five hours later, the airline capitulated.

The atheistic and humanistic among the readers of this blog would have expected me, a known serial-Christian, to be crowing. Not a bit of it. Actually, I don’t believe what she did was right and the photo of her in a light blue outfit, with matching cross, had me shifting uneasily in the chair.

This strikes me as being as bad as the burkah issue where the woman was clearly doing it to provoke and to make some money. I see where this Nadia is coming from [very Eastern European name, where icons are central to the faith] and it’s not a cynical exercise, rather one of defiant outrage.

And yet … it’s not right. It’s not what the cross is for. Certainly it shouldn’t be hidden away but neither should it be flaunted. This is not in keeping with the nature of Christianity, which should go about its business quietly. It’s not about taking up arms and burning heretics. It’s about personal belief and trying to spread goodwill.

3 comments:

  1. 'Nadia' may well be a very European name, but it seems Miss Eweida, at least according to The Telegraph, is 'from an Egyptian background and attends Pentecostal as well as Arabic churches'. (This is London tells us she is 'a Coptic Christian whose father is Egyptian and mother English').

    I'm a bit surprised that no one, at least so far, seems to have consulted the views of two groups whose opinion might be thought to matter -- BA's customers and the company's shareholders.

    Frankly, I'm not particularly bothered on way or the other what the check-in staff wear when I travel and, were I a shareholder, I suspect I'd take the view that this whole thing's a complete waste of time that's serving only to generate poor publicity for the airline. OK, the fuss has blown up primarily because the tabloids have spotted a good story, but it should never have been allowed to get to this stage.

    It seems to me an example of shockingly bad management -- why on earth they couldn't just say staff are discouraged from so doing but may wear small items of jewellery for personal reasons, subject to their supervisor's permission, such permission not to be unreasonably withheld, and leave it at that I do not know.

    Such a policy, it seems to me, would not adversely affect either the quality of service to BA's customers or the company's bottom line; I don't really see what other considerations should enter into it.

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  2. Not Saussure is right, it is the potential threat to the bottom line that has Walsh back peddling.

    The Shareholders should fire his arse at the first opportunity. He has definitely risen way above his natural level of incompetency.

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  3. Yes, thanks for the info, Notsaussure and yes, Quinlan, about Walsh.

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