Russell Brand
In light of the very serious allegations against Russell Brand in Channel 4’s Dispatches and in The Times in mid- September 2023 and out of respect and concern for all those who have made allegations, we have decided to remove images, videos and audio of Russell Brand from our website.
Jack Monroe at Greenbelt 2023
We have welcomed Jack Monroe to Greenbelt twice in recent years. With food poverty an increasingly urgent issue, we wanted to include Jack’s unique voice again in 2023.
We have, of course, kept abreast of the various developments in Jack’s life and work. Along with many others we read Simon Hattenstone’s warts-and-all interview in the Guardian at the start of the year. We’ve continued to look closely at Jack’s public event appearances (at Edinburgh, Cambridge, Hay, Stroud, on BBC 1’s Question Time, and so on).
We know that few people divide public opinion as much as she does. As Simon Hattenstone says in his article:
For many, she is a heroic anti-poverty campaigner, as evidenced by her recent awards. In October, she won the 2022 Food Hero at the Observer Food Monthly Awards, and a couple of weeks ago she was named The Grocer’s Hero of the Year. Both publications praised the way that Monroe has highlighted the fact that food inflation disproportionately affects the poor. As for her critics, they say she exaggerates her influence, makes claims she cannot back up, and is not transparent about money.
Our eyes are open to all this. But the suggestions made that we need to ‘protect’ Greenbelters’ from Jack – as if she poses a risk or a threat to them – is one we do not buy.
Some of the critique we have received has been about why we should give Jack a platform when there are others (living in poverty) better able to and more deserving to speak into the (food) poverty debate. This, we really hear. Jack’s is not the only or most important voice and presence in this critical area of our life together. Far from it.
That’s why we are working closely with Trussell Trust (and Church Action on Poverty, Christians Against Poverty and Citizens UK) to welcome people with lived experience of poverty to the festival in greater numbers this year. Some of them will be partnering with Trussell Trust to host our brand new venue called The Living Room, leading sessions in that venue over the weekend. We see this participation and sharing as central to our focus on UK poverty at the festival this year.
Ultimately, we do have a track record with Jack. We know her and she knows us. Like all of us, she has made mistakes. Like all of us, she deserves a chance to do better. We look forward to welcoming her back to the festival.
Mon 3 July 2023
Speakers and performers who are no longer able to attend Greenbelt 2023
Andy Hunter, The Prayer
Unfortunately, for medical reasons, Andy Hunter is no longer able to attend Greenbelt 2023.
22 August 2023
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Carmody Grey
For unexpected personal reasons, Carmody is sadly unable to attend Greenbelt this year as planned. She wishes the Greenbelt Festival all the very best and hopes she’ll be able to join you another year.
Adjoa Andoh
For personal reasons, Adjoa has decided to take a step back from public appearances for the foreseeable future. She wishes the Greenbelt Festival all the very best and hopes she’ll be able to join you on another occasion.
27 June 2023
Disinviting John Sentamu from Greenbelt 2023
Following the publication on 11 May 2023 of the Church of England’s report into the lessons and learning from historic abuse perpetrated in Bradford, and the immediate responses made by former archbishop of York, John Sentamu, we have taken the decision to withdraw our invitation for him to speak at the festival this summer.
While John Sentamu is challenging the findings of the report (his initial responses have been reported by The Telegraph, The Guardian, the Church Times and other press publications), we feel it would be wrong to give him any sort of platform. He was coming to us in his role as Chair of our partner Christian Aid, and we have informed them about our decision.
We have made our decision because we are committed to building and holding as safe a space as we can at Greenbelt. We are conscious of the many people over the years who have suffered abuse and who have then not been listened to by the institutions involved. Greenbelt has, for all its history, sought to be a space where people can find various kinds of refuge, including from the institutional church.
Tue 30 May 2023
Greenbelt 2022 speakers
When we released our 2022 festival lineup back in March, a few of you raised concerns in response to some of the names on this year’s bill. We think each of the speakers and artists on the bill have interesting and pertinent things to say and share in our Greenbelt space, but we promised you clarity about exactly what it is that they’re being invited to speak on. Here it is.
Frances Crook
Treehouse, Saturday
Prison is not the solution; it’s the problem
We have a justice system based on two-thousand-year-old principles of proportional revenge. It hasn’t worked and it’s not fair. It is time to abolish prisons and develop a new system of responding to social and personal conflict and misbehaviour.
As CEO of the Howard League for Penal Reform from 1986 to 2021, Frances Crook spent 25 years researching and raising concerns about the penal system
Onjali Raúf
Treehouse, Sunday
Children, Activism and our Hope on the Horizon
How childhood experiences of activism and storytelling put Onjali Q Raúf on the road to writing the modern classic, The Boy At the Back of the Class, and her first non-fiction guide for children, Hope on the Horizon.
Onjali Q Raúf is a women’s and refugee human rights activist and a multi award-winning children’s author. She will be in conversation with former chair of Greenbelt and now Head of Mission at the Methodist Church, Jude Levermore
Richard Dawkins
Glade mainstage, Monday
Richard Dawkins, in conversation
Richard Dawkins’ work on evolutionary biology saw him voted the world’s top thinker in Prospect magazine’s poll in 2013. He is world-renowned for a string of best-selling books, spanning from 1976’s ‘The Selfish Gene’, through ‘The God Delusion’ and his most recent ‘Flights of Fancy’. He is also widely regarded as one of the strongest proponents of so-called New Atheism. Richard will be in conversation with priest, journalist, broadcaster, philosophy lecturer, and popular Greenbelt speaker, Giles Fraser.
Expect a conversation that is surprising, respectful and wide-ranging. One in which we explore Richard’s life, asking about his sense of ‘otherness’, the human condition (of interdependence), his seemingly, strangely, almost Anglican aesthetic, his sense of awe and wonder. In other words, expect to be surprised; even if to disagree.
Monday 1st August 2022
A is For Autism
Withdrawal of the ‘A is For Autism’ session from Greenbelt Festival 2019
Following our earlier apology on Twitter for offence caused in the planning, framing, billing and wording of the ‘A is For Autism’ session at Greenbelt Festival 2019, we have decided to pull it altogether from this year’s programme.
We have done this having listened and realised that we failed fundamentally to consult with or involve the autistic community in the making of it. We clearly have lessons to learn. And we will learn them.
In the meantime, we apologise again for offence caused and we commit to doing better in the future – with the support and involvement of the autistic community. We feel like we’re listening to and talking with the right people to help us do that. And we’re sorry we didn’t do that earlier.
6.30pm, Wednesday 14th August, 2019
Disinviting Leah Levane from Greenbelt 2019
Statement on disinviting Leah Levane from the Greenbelt 2019 programme by Greenbelt Festival
Wednesday 21 August, 2019
Greenbelt has taken the decision to dis-invite Leah Levane (Co Chair of Jewish Voice for Labour) from one of its panel conversations at its festival this weekend. The panel conversation was on eschatology (see note 1 below) and was designed to be a playful and imaginative conversation about the stories our different faith traditions have schooled in us about the way the future will unfold and what these views mean for the way we live together in the present.
We are not afraid of inviting speakers considered controversial in the mainstream Jewish community to Greenbelt and have platformed Marc Ellis and Mark Braverman from the States, Jeff Halper from Israel and Robert Cohen from the UK in the past. (As well as many other more mainstream Jewish voices, like Rabbi Jonathan Wiitenberg, Rabbi Hershel Gluck and Rabbi Shoshana Gelfand from the UK.)
However, given the febrile nature of the debate around anti-semtism within the Labour Party in the UK at the moment – and the fact that we have more Jewish contributors on the bill and Jewish families in our audience this weekend than ever before – we reached a view that, on balance, Leah’s presence on the bill would draw too much attention away from the rich history and wider Jewish conversation that we have had the privilege of fostering over the years, continue to foster this year, and hope to grow in the future.
So, because of a whole web of delicate, inter-related issues and programming that we’re staging over the the weekend (see note 2 below), we reached the point where we recognised that a disproportionate amount of attention would have been focussed in Leah’s direction, on this particular panel, and on our decision to include her – and away from a range of other programming we have planned for this weekend. On balance, we do not think this attention is fair to our wider programme, to the other Jewish contributors and guests we have with us this weekend, to Leah herself, and to those expressing their concerns from outside of the event – to whom we would not be able to afford adequate time in terms of listening and nuanced explanations in the short time we have before the festival opens.
In disinviting her, Greenbelt must make it clear that Leah was not coming as a representative or spokesperson for the Jewish community in the UK. She had been invited as one voice onto panel; as a lively and interesting contributor; as someone whose passionate and contrary voice in the face of the prevailing narrative in the UK we considered would be interesting to include. We would also say that disinviting Leah on this occasion does not signal that Greenbelt will no longer invite “alternative” Jewish speakers. We will.
For this panel conversation, this year, we are fortunate that Rabbi Debbie Young Somers – who is with us all weekend as a programme contributor and camping at the festival with her family – has kindly agreed to sit in on the conversation to contribute her Jewish perspective.
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NOTES
1. This is the way the eschatological panel conversation for this weekend was billed:
SATURDAY, SHELTER, 2.00 PM
EVENT HORIZON: HOW THE WAY FAITH SEES THE FUTURE AFFECTS US ALL IN THE PRESENT
The world’s religions have stories about the way the future will go. Those different stories, and how literally we take them, can have profound implications for our living together in the present. Join a panel of people from different faith traditions and backgrounds (religious, cultural, secular) — and an agnostic — as together they look forward to the present.
With Moeen Yaseen (Global Vision, independent Islamic think tank), Rachel Searle (expert on William Blake and the relevance of Jerusalem), Leah Levane (co-chair of Jewish Voice for Labour), Clive Menzies (Critical Thinking) and chaired by longterm Greenbelter and Economics Professor Simon Mouatt.
It will now include Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers.
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2. This year we are hosting a number of other ‘interfaith’ events (besides platforming the Amal Muslim arts thread as a central part of the festival programme, too). These include:
SUNDAY, SHELTER, 2.00 PM
INTERFAITH MATTERS
Young laureates from this year’s 21 for 21 Programme share an honest discussion about the joys and challenges of interfaith work. With Georgia May (Programme Director at Rose Castle Foundation), Arzoo Ahmed (Physics and Medieval Arabic Thought graduate from Oxford and currently completing a philosophy masters in the ethics of science and technology at King’s College London), Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers (Community Educator for Reform Judaism). And special guests Katharine Crew (university interfaith practitioner), Rev Heston Groenewald (from multi-faith west Leeds where he spends almost as much time in mosques as in churches) and Ruth Edmonds (a first year ordinand at the Queens’ foundation and previously involved in an interfaith IFTAR with liberal Muslim group City Circle)
Chaired by Dr. Bilal Hasan (creative director of British Muslim TV).
In assoc. with Coexist House
SUNDAY, TABLE, 6.30 PM
MAKING MATZA. BRIDGING DIVIDES.
Rabbis Debbie Young-Somers and Gary Somers
You can buy the crunchy stuff from Yorkshire, or you can join foodies Debbie Young-Somers and her husband Gary Somers as they bake soft Iraqi-style Matza (probably closer to what actually left Egypt with the Exodus) and prepare Charoset (sweet sticky stuff eaten at seder with Matza). Hear their unusual story and discover Matza — and its importance to Jewish communities the world over.
Debbie is a Reform Rabbi and Gary is a newly ordained Orthodox Rabbi.
MONDAY, SHELTER, 11.00 AM
SCRIPTURE AND VIOLENCE: CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS
Join in a ’Scriptural Reasoning’ session where we will explore the assumptions around passages in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred texts that might seem to incite the very violence and hatred we are working in good faith to counter and combat today.
With the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, Rose Castle Foundation and Coexist House.
Session lasts 90 minutes
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3. Greenbelt will continue its decades-long commitment to spotlighting and platforming Palestinian speakers and artists at the festival as we call for peace, reconciliation and full equal rights for all Palestinians and Israelis.
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Leah Levane’s statement about being disinvited is hosted on the Jewish Voice For Labour website here.