by Simon Jones | Dec 29, 2021 | Opinion
A Facebook feed memory stopped me in my tracks. Normally these things are innocuous — posts about meeting friends, delivering a talk, something funny heard on the bus — but this cast me back six years to a wintry afternoon in the so-called “Calais jungle,” listening...
by Simon Jones | Sep 26, 2017 | Opinion
John Berger, the radical art critic who taught us all how to look at our representations of the world in the 1970s, wrote in 2006, “Misinformation is developing its techniques.” The followers of Jesus have been onto this for a while – after all, Paul...
by Simon Jones | Jun 5, 2017 | Opinion
A heavily armed CRS, or Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (the French National Police), officer brought his baton down on my hand as he prevented me from carrying a box of food to a group of refugees. This unnecessary aggression reinforced a total prohibition on...
by Simon Jones | Jun 2, 2017 | Opinion
I visited again in mid-May the site of the so-called “Jungle” in Calais, France, where refugees had created a makeshift camp. I caught up with friends in the warehouse, met new people in the Catholic worker house and went shopping with my favorite monk....
by Simon Jones | Nov 7, 2016 | Opinion
The last bus has left the refugee camp in Calais, France, known as the “jungle.” Closing the camp has reminded me of a second curse of today’s world (the first is too few people doing important jobs): our apparent commitment to brinksmanship. We...
