This is the thirteenth issue of the weekly CHACR Take Away newsletter.  In these newsletters, you will find links to the latest products by the CHACR, but also links to key reports and studies by external experts and institutions which we think you should pay attention to.

A Word from the Director

In 2018 I was asked to contribute, with a short essay, to a book rather optimistically entitled ‘Curing Violence’ (edited by Phil Bowen and Stephen Whitehead). A very wide range of authors, with a very wide range of experiences and views contributed their thoughts to the book. I have dug it out as I reflect upon what we see on our screens at the moment unfolding, regardless of COVID restrictions, on the streets of the USA and, to a lesser but nonetheless significant degree, UK. Both these nations espouse and embrace ‘Western Liberalism’ as their bedrock. At the same time, as the protests unfold, there are a growing number of articles appearing – like one by Douglas Murray in the Spectator recently – from sources that one may see as being traditionally ‘centre right’ in their views, reflecting upon the subjects of liberty, democracy, libertarianism and liberalism, and the nature of tolerance, as so many authors like Anthony Arblaster did in the nineteen seventies and eighties. I’ve also noticed a growing tendency to identify views, on a whole range of subjects, that are ’simply not acceptable in today’s society’. The strength, to my mind, of the little book on ‘Curing Violence’ is that it offers a very wide range of views, many of which conflict or disagree with each other in their standpoints or musings. At the CHACR we hope to provide you, without value judgement, with as wide a range of views as possible, on all subjects that are pertinent to your profession – you can only hope to understand if you listen carefully and with interest to what everyone has to say.

Maj Gen (Ret) Dr Andrew Sharpe