What to do if you encounter sexual segregation on your campus

I attended a sexually segregated event in the student union at a previous place of work in the not too distant past. Avoiding confrontation, my friend and I slunk to the back and dragged chairs to straddle the mid line between men and women. A pitiful gesture. Then as a bombastic cleric began to yell from the front we realised it was a scheduling error on the part of the student union – we were at a religious event by mistake, so we left. I often wish I had protested the ignominy of sexual segregation on a university campus. The chaplain of the time was there. He seemed unbothered.

If you encounter sexual segregation on your campus, chances are it’s against the university’s policies protecting staff, students and visitors against discrimination. So:

1. Contact the organisers to verify what their policy is. It may be a misunderstanding. But if not, then proceed.
2. Pinpoint the institutional policy to the effect that religious belief does not justify discriminatory behaviour. If your institution doesn’t have such policy, then lobby for it.
3. Contact institutional senior management and copy in the people responsible for public or media relations. Insist that the organisers are obliged to make it clear that people can sit wherever they like regardless of sex or any other protected characteristic.
4. Encourage any speakers or panellists to put pressure on the organisers to desegregate. Ask them to consider boycotting the event unless they have guarantees..
5. If that fails, obtain a reliable eyewitness account.
6. If you don’t get a prompt and decisive response, use social media. Ideally amplify your concerns by contacting a celebrated secularist, feminist or other principled public figure – if nobody else already has – and make an indignant scene.
7. Hold the institution to account – they should ultimately appreciate this anti-discriminatory counter-pressure. Particularly if they have form.

I firmly believe that campuses should be secular spaces – not atheist, but secular. Not without rooms where worship can happen, but secular. I strongly object to the view that male-female proxmity constitutes sexual harassment on the one hand or enticement on the other. I reject the ‘three sections’ approach because it makes default of segregation and normalises segregation – we want to normalise mingling, exchange and diversity across society’s boundaries, and de-emphasise the role of sex in academic spaces. I will oppose any such elevation and institutionalisation of sex as a division between one human being and another.

Women bishops versus church and state

Next time somebody tries to tell you that this country has separated church from state you could cite this response to the e-petition – still open and in need of signatures – No women bishops, no automatic seats in the House of Lords. My emphases:

Dear [Flesh],

The e-petition ‘No women Bishops, no automatic seats in the House of Lords’ signed by you recently reached 10,519 signatures and a response has been made to it.

As this e-petition has received more than 10 000 signatures, the relevant Government department have provided the following response: The Government is committed to the Church of England as the Established Church in England, with the Sovereign as its Supreme Governor. We consider that the relationship between Church and State in England is an important part of the constitutional framework that has evolved over centuries. The Government believes that the second chamber should be more representative of the British people, which is why we introduced the House of Lords Reform Bill; however, the Bill was subsequently withdrawn when it became clear that it could not make progress without consuming an unacceptable amount of parliamentary time. While there continues to be an appointed element to the membership of the House of Lords, the Government believes there should continue to be a role for the Established Church. It is for the Church itself to decide whether it will appoint women Bishops and, if so, what arrangements are necessary to support those who cannot accept this change, but it is obviously disappointing that the Synod was unable to agree how to take this forward. The Government believes that the time is right for women Bishops – indeed it is long overdue. This e-petition will remain open to signatures until the published closing date and will be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee should it pass the 100 000 signature threshold.

View the response to the e-petition

Thanks,

HM Government e-petitions http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

This is unsatisfactory. The Church of England can’t be such “an important part of the constitutional framework” that its primitive exclusions of women from high office should be overlooked. There may be “better uses of parliamentary time” but there are also many worse uses – this is a highly symbolic case of a faith group with a toehold in officialdom taking a position outside good progressive law by excluding women. See One Law For All for arguments against this kind of secession. Moreover this is not just some private members group we’re talking about – it’s the House of Lords, one of the highest governance forums in the land.

I’m for disestablishment but unlike the New Humanists I don’t think this reform-minded petition is tactical blunder. I think campaigning for the exclusion of 26 Lords Spiritual as a matter of principle rather than urgent redress is harder to warm to than arguing for the inclusion of women.

So how about that 100,000 signatures? Sign the petition.

Religiosity

There was something treacley about the kind of admiration Christopher Hitchens attracted that put me right off. But since his death the Prime Minister has brought Christianity into national identity, a pro-Palestinian activist has argued that actually no, this country is Jewish, I’ve downloaded the lauded/maligned ‘God Is Not Great‘, offended a colleague who disclosed that militant atheism had turned her into an agnostic by calling stridently for militant agnosticism, had that disrupted already by an endearing note from an extremely religious family friend that he is praying for me, seen GALLUP’s 2010 poll of world religiosity speculating what for Hitchens would have seemed obvious, that the poorest peoples of the world need religion to withstand difficult lives, and noticed with satisfaction how more and more Muslim women are fiddling with their hijab to mollify their families while contriving to attract the attention of the opposite sex.

So I was interested to read in the 28th British Social Attitudes Survey on religiosity, which found that

• Religiosity is in decline – two in three respondents belonged to a religion in 1983 when the survey began; this has fallen to one in two today.
• While 79% of us (including me) were raised in a religion, 50% of us say we have no religious affiliation today.
• But it’s a bit complicated – those raised in minority religions (including Roman Catholicism) are more likely to remain affiliated than those raised in mainstream Christianity, which has experienced the largest decline, or those raised without affiliation, who tend to remain that way.
• Those at either extreme in educational achievement are more likely to be religiously affiliated than the middle.
• Religiosity is most strongly linked with age – in the 18-24 age-group two thirds don’t belong to a religion, comparing to fewer than a third in the oldest age group, over 65s.
• The non-religious are least likely to identify with a political party, and where they do are most likely to support a party other than the main three.
• Although more Conservative supporters say they follow a religion, they don’t attend more religious services than the other two main parties’ supporters.
• No evidence of a life-cycle effect (people’s religious views changing with age); there may be the beginnings of a period effect (change due to events in society); ‘generational replacement’ (each generation less likely to be born into a religious family than its predecessor) best explains the decline in religion.

As a result of the decline in religion I hope to celebrate a strengthening of liberal attitudes to homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia, and the decline of the Conservative right.

EDL update

Not a definitive update, due to pressures of work, but a bunch of stuff I found on the web.

Proselytising Muslims in Peterborough have invited the EDL to dinner at the Khadijah Mosque after a number of conversations at their street stall.

“A member of the EDL approached us and it actually was a very positive incident.

“He was asking questions and listening to the answers we were giving.

“We had a similar incident in Wisbech previously, where a member of the EDL approached us to talk about Sharia law – he did not know what it was, but had a number of misconceptions.

“We were able to explain what Sharia law was and answer all his questions.

“When he left he actually apologised for some of his previous views.

“He was more polite than some other people who approached us, who kept interrupting and not letting us finish.”

This is in keeping with what The Guardian’s Matthew Taylor found during his undercover work among the EDL:

“Last year, I spent four months undercover on EDL demonstrations, witnessing its growing popularity. At each demonstration I attended, I was confronted by casual racism, a widespread hatred of Muslims and often the threat of violence. But I also met non-white people, gay rights activists, disaffected working class men and women, and middle-class intellectuals. I came to the conclusion that the EDL is not a simple rerun of previous far-right street groups. “

The EDL is against sharia law. It’s good to organise against religious law because religious law is deeply pernicious. Sharia law in particular is beginning to flex its muscles in my part of the world so I’m all for pushing it back. The trouble is a) that many of the EDL’s members are also violently racist, b) they frequently implicate all Muslims in the perceived threat and whip up hostility against Muslims, c) EDL business is conducted as an unsavoury expression of insecure nationalism, and d) what about political Christianity? Surely being a committed campaigning secularist is a far better, more inclusive, more positive, less discriminatory way to keep the authoritarian excesses of religion out of public life. In response to religious impositions, there is far more potential in secularism than nationalism.

The Peterborough piece continues:

“Stephen Lennon – also known as Tommy Robinson – an unofficial leader of the EDL, said he was interested in meeting with members of the mosque.

He said: “We have done similar meets across the country in the past, and it is something we would be interested in doing.

“We would not want to hold the meeting in the mosque. We would want to do it in a neutral location.

“We will be in talks with the mosque to see if this is possible.”

Update: it’s not – quite reasonably the mosque is interested in improving relations with its local EDL supporters, not the EDL as a whole.

I’m all for words and exchange – but the problem of a marching, street-dominating event can’t be directly addressed with words, so I think it will be necessary to go to Tower Hamlets on September 3rd and put as many bodies as possible in the way of the rally the EDL plan there. But the street-fighting, spirit-of-Cable-Street, wannabe-heros had better stay away. It’s hard to distinguish between racist and anti-racist among the itchy fisted geezers, presumably lacking both sex and ideas for fulfilling pursuits, who are drawn to such things as an EDL rally for the entertainment, the scars and the nostalgia. But there’s plenty of difference between resistance and provocation.

Update 25th August: News from Hope Not Hate that the Met “requested a ban on the English Defence League march in Tower Hamlets because of fears that this would whip up tensions in the area and ignite trouble”. So though they may rally in Tower Hamlets, they will not be marching through. This is a good outcome.

Pro-sharia campaigners march through Walthamstow

You can tell Muslims Against Crusades are a tiny groupuscule because all their placards are done by a single person, there’s no report from yesterday’s mini march on their site, and their Media page doesn’t load. They’re expensive clowns and tossers, though – a lot of police, a lot of verbal (though the EDL mostly remained in the pubs), two arrests. Things are getting a bit bigoted round here.

Against religious bigotry stand – among others – the National Secular Society, One Law for All, Quilliam, the British Humanist Association, and British Muslims for Secular Democracy:

Against the far right of various stripes, Searchlight and Hope Not Hate but I should remark that I was recently told in infuriatingly sanguine tones that Hope Not Hate cannot treat the Islamists as they treat the BNP types because they will be called ‘Zionist’ and their credibility will suffer. The point was that HnH are better off sticking to fighting the white far right. If true, this is a disappointing kind of anti-fascism which will tie its own hands (though HnH is excellent at analysis and the absolutely crucial job of getting the anti-racist vote out – both indispensable), and why I will always appreciate Harry’s Place, which researches and fights all the authoritarian, racist, fascist or proto-fascist fuckers regardless of hue, don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world to be taken for a Zionist, and make surprisingly few mistakes while they’re about their business – LibbyT excepted (tosser). There’s also the Guardian’s Matthew Taylor who has been undercover with the EDL and recognises that they can’t be dismissed as thugs:

“At each demonstration I attended, I was confronted by casual racism, a widespread hatred of Muslims and often the threat of violence. But I also met non-white people, gay rights activists, disaffected working class men and women, and middle-class intellectuals. I came to the conclusion that the EDL is not a simple rerun of previous far-right street groups.”

Basically, fighting an anti-Muslim alignment like the EDL entails disrupting anti-Muslim views, and there is plenty of material via the links above. Depending on whether policing is sensitive to the communities targeted by the EDL, it can require some bodily obstruction to prevent EDL types intimidating Muslim communities. It also entails arguing and lobbying against sharia – not because Muslims Against Crusades are any good at what they do – they’re an embarrassment to Muslims – but because the authoritarian and chauvinistic religious right – Christian, Muslim and the rest – feed on each other and the work to keep them from taking power is never done. Harder, it requires circumstances in which a moderate majority exists and turns out to vote to keep the far right out of the seats of power.

For every privilege granted to religion, others’ rights are betrayed

For anybody worried about the advance of religion on civil rights, it has been a bit of a week.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission, fronted by Trevor Phillips, is intervening in the cases of Lillian Ladele, the registrar who refused to fulfil her duties with same-sex partnerships, and Gary McFarlane of Relate who wouldn’t give counselling same-sex couples. If their religion prevents them from doing this, then they have chosen a homophobic religion. I’m an ardent defender of freedom of worship, but if the law finds these people entitled to enact their prejudices in the workplace then the law is an ass.

Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society comments

“Mr Phillips should realise that by encouraging these worthless cases he is putting at risk the rights of gay people and others to live free from discrimination and injustice. For every privilege granted to religious people, someone else’s rights are diminished. The fight for equality for gays has been long and hard, and now we see this campaign putting them at risk as religious believers fight for the right to legally enforce their prejudices against LGBT people.”

And alarming news from Maryam Namazie, whose organisation the Council of Ex-Muslims – mutual support for apostates from Islam – was denied charitable status by the Charity Commission. She writes in a mail-out

In its refusal letter the Charity Commission says:  “Under English law the advancement of religion is a recognised charitable purpose and charities are afforded certain fiscal privileges by the state. The prohibition of any such financial privilege as called for in the demand made in Manifesto would require a change in law. Similarly a separation of religion from the state and legal and education system would appear to require both constitutional reform and change to the law.”

“There is something fundamentally wrong when the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain can’t get charity status but the Sharia Council legislating misogyny in its sharia courts can. And how absurd that defending secularism is not a charitable object but advancing religion is.”

Pretty disappointing then that the best inter-faith organisation I know of, Faith Matters, doesn’t seem to be engaging with secularism at all.

If I can find any, I’ll post details of any campaigns to remove charitable status from organisations advancing religion, or extend it to organisations advancing secularism.

Bonus link: One Law For All.

Update: the Pink News reports that the National Secular Society has gained permission to intervene in four cases – including those referred to above – to come before the European Court of Human Rights. And after strong criticism, the Equality and Human Rights Commission seems now unlikely to argue for reasonable adjustments for religious adherents. Sanity breaks out.

Fire Gospel

The exploits of the Quran-burners make uncomfortable reading.

These were inflammatory islamophobic acts, rather than acts against religion in general, and they deserve contempt. In this climate, they need to be investigated for incitement. But it’s an unfree land where public scenes against religion are outlawed – the burning of a book is surely too pathetic to be considered incitement in itself – or if it isn’t then I worry the time approaches when a number of very ordinary things are considered grounds for punishment – wearing niqab as incitement against Frenchness, for example. That would never happen, not in liberty egality fraternity France. Oh, it just did.

And a society where the burning of Quran could be taken as a pretext for the murder of United Nations workers is a society infested with the kind of people that make anti-Muslim bigots feel like expressing themselves with Qurans. The wedge drivers need each other. And so it goes on.

Personally I think that to hold stunt provocateur Pastor Terry Jones responsible for the murders can only appease the actual murderers. Contemptible islamophobe, yes – murderer, no. The actual murderers responded to the burning of a book with a killing spree as if a burnt book was worth several lives. The atrocity belongs wholly to them. They’re not Islam, but a small group of thugs who need to be marginalised. Raffaello Pantuchi argues that Terry Jones’ story of an army of jihadi terrorists is just that – a story.

Personally I think it is ridiculous to hold the Quran responsible for the murders. As Goldie Looking Chain once stated, “Guns don’t kill people – rappers do”.

Rosie Bell writes on this with reference to John Stuart Mill and how stupid The Observer was to publicise the British version as if it was public interest. Meanwhile it is important to reserve the right to disrespect holy books.

All this was happening around the time I plucked my first loan from the shelves of our newly refurbished, miraculously unclosed, Fullwell Cross public library. It was a slim, commissioned satire called The Fire Gospel whose author Michel Faber is better known for the currently-serialised ‘The Crimson Petal and the White’ (already on loan).

Calculating and pathetic Aramaic scholar Theo Griepenkerl returns to the US with some unknown papyrus scrolls he’s looted from the wreckage of a bomb blast in contemporary Mosul. They turn out to be a fifth gospel written by a contemporary of Jesus’ called Malchus. Malchus is a pious and grotty windbag whose correspondence is reminiscent of a column in the local newspaper of a small and parochial town. Theo Griepenkerl finds a publisher.

The trouble is, in its innocent details – the drug-taking, the struggle to hoist the newly-nailed Jesus upright on the cross because although small in stature he is large in girth, the un-iconic, carnal nature of death (instead of uttering the final dignified words “It is finished” he instead whimpers for somebody to please finish him), Malchus being under the cross when the dying Jesus’ bowels and bladder open – this gospel possesses extraordinary power to ruin Christian faith.

Amazon reviews are Theo’s first intimation of trouble to come. On his book tour he is kidnapped – not by slighted Christians but by an Ickey millenarian and a Muslim anti-Zionist who believes that the debunking of Christianity Malchus’ gospel represents will empower the Jews and enslave the world. (I hadn’t gone looking for that, I can tell you – I’d gone looking for ‘The Crimson Petal and the White’. Zeitgeist.)

Some reviewers feel that Fire Gospel is rather thin. I loved the caricature of the academic, Malchus was hilarious, the Christian disarray was sketched very deftly, as were the Amazon reviews and the bonkers intrusions of daytime television. Despite Malchus’ telling, replete with inappropriate details, the death of Jesus still manages to appall. Over the course of the book, in a turn that would be revelatory except for being written as farce, this unscrupulous but ultimately harmless academic fails to notice how much he is coming to resemble Malchus’ revised and compromised Jesus.

It was a book of laughs and groans, which brings me back to the beginning – Salman Rushdie and Theo Van Gogh would probably agree that if you can’t see any humour in the social role of religious texts you may well end up in a society where you’re not allowed to disrespect holy books at all.

Addenda:

• a previous loan from Fullwell Cross Library
• UN’s Organisation of the Islamic Congress drops its UNHCR drive on defaming religion in favour of a vote for religious tolerance.
• So publish away, right?

being under the cross when the dying Jesus’ bowels and bladder opened

Defend the Muslims of Redbridge

We won’t stand for this in Redbridge:

“RACIST abuse was shouted at worshippers at a busy mosque.

Police were called to Eastern Avenue in Gants Hill after reports of a group of men causing damage to parked vehicles in the road.

Six men were seen heading in the direction Redbridge roundabout towards Redbridge Islamic Centre, also in Eastern Avenue.

As they reached the mosque they shouted racial abuse and threw bricks at the building, which broke glass in the front doors.

The incident occurred at around 7.45pm on Thursday (March 24), near the start of evening prayers.

A number of worshippers had already entered the mosque but there were still some people outside the building when the attack occurred.

One man suffered a minor head injury but did not need any medical treatment.

Six men were arrested by police and remain in custody at Ilford Police Station.

Chief Inspector Stan Greatrick, of Redbridge police, said: “We would appeal for anyone who was in the Eastern Avenue area and saw the group of males to contact us.

“We have spoken to a number of people in the area and continue to liaise closely with members of the Redbridge Mosque.

“We have already secured additional patrols for Eastern Avenue and we would like to reassure the local community, and those who worship at the Redbridge Mosque, that we are treating this case extremely seriously.”

Anyone with information should contact Redbridge CID on 020 8345 2632.”

From the Ilford Recorder:

“The imam of a Redbridge mosque was injured yesterday after six people tried to smash their way through the front door moments before the final evening prayer.

Windows were broken and a stone was hurled at the imam of Redbridge Islamic Centre (RIC), Eastern Avenue, at about 7.45pm.

The group allegedly shouted racist and islamophobic abuse as they tried to smash their way through to the main prayer hall of the mosque, throwing bricks at worshippers and staff.

Neighbouring homes and cars were also damaged.

The six men are now being questioned by police having been arrested after being detained by worshippers and some passers-by.

The chairman of the mosque Abul Khayer Ali said: “This is a sad day.

“Redbridge is a strong and cohesive community with long standing record of unity and cohesion.

“We will not allow such callous attacks to create a wedge in the community.

“Rather, this will inspire the RIC to work harder to engage and work closely to reduce stigma and discrimination towards Muslims in the borough.”

Environment and community safety cabinet member Cllr Shoaib Patel described the incident as “callous and heinous”, but did not believe it was a premeditated racist attack.

He added: “Redbridge has a very successful diverse, multicultural and cohesive society where residents are able to live in harmony, respecting each other’s faiths and values.

“As the cabinet member for environment and community safety in Redbridge, I assure you that the council and its partners, including the police, will not stand by and let this incident change the very nature of these successes. “

Chief Insp Stan Greatrick, of Redbridge police, said: “We have spoken to a number of people in the area and continue to liaise closely with members of the Redbridge mosque.

“We have already secured additional patrols for Eastern Avenue and we would like to reassure the local community, and those who worship at the Redbridge mosque, that we are treating this case extremely seriously.”

Anyone with information about the incident should call Redbridge CID on 020 8345 2632.”

More at The Islamic Standard. [unlink that one after more investigation - we got 'Ed Miliband Zionist Jew' posts, we got swastikas in Israeli flags, we got "WE HATE OPRAH FOR THE SAKE OF ALLAH!" - don't want to  link to a racist site, oh no. But goes without saying that this unpleasant blogger is as deserving as anybody else of support against Islamophobia]

Time to renew my relationship with Hope Not Hate, I think.

HT Wes Tweeting, Mod and the ever-vigilant Lancaster Unity.

Update:

Via Mod, Hugh Muir in The Guardian:

“The first thing Abdul Wahab heard, he says, was the shouting. “Muslim bastards; Paki bastards.” Unpleasant enough in the street. But no one expects to hear such things in a mosque.

What to do? Just six old men there, four of whom were on their knees praying when the hoodlums intervened. Nothing to do but remonstrate, shoo them away and hope.

Why the Redbridge Islamic Centre? Hard to say at this point. No one who worships there seems to know. They think the attack last week was unpremeditated. Why would whoever was responsible want to spout their bile within the mosque itself? Why the ferocity? The snarling. The physical intimidation, the wall of noise, like a swat team flying in through the window. The smashing of the toughened glass; the hurling of the reddish bricks the mosque had bought for building work? One brick, Abdul says, struck the imam, who was also injured by flying glass. He had to go to hospital. By then at least, the terror was over and the assailants were gone. “He was lucky,” says Abdul looking skyward. “God helped him.”

The physical damage isn’t much. Abdul lifts the green metal grill to show me the broken glass; by now it will have been replaced. But there is damage that can’t be covered by insurance. The shock. “We have been here for nine years,” he tells me. “There has never been anything like this.”

He says they have done everything they are called upon to do. They engage with the community. Members of his mosque have visited local Christian churches. Those who follow other faiths have been welcomed through the same door. “It’s usually open,” he says. “It was open when we were attacked. That’s why they got in so easily.””

Update 2 April 7th – today’s Woodford Recorder reports that 6 face trial. Matthew Stephenson and Daniel Leal,19 and of no fixed address, Rockylee Beale of Woodford Green, also 19, and a 15 year old boy are on bail. Ryan Jones, 22, of Ilford and Elliot Jones, 19, no fixed address, are in custody.

Update: Councillors and MP said at a meeting that the attack was not connected with the EDL.

Sam Leith: “You can’t force Britishness on everyone, Dave”

As I commented on Modernity’s post ‘Words Matter’, words always matter. In the execrable Evening Standard last week, I read a piece about a delinquent family living on housing benefit in a beautiful house. The ethnic or religious group of the family was completely irrelevant and incidental but the Standard dropped it in anyway – as Jennifer Lipman in Mod’s post puts it, to be notched up by haters of this particular group as another good reason for hating them.

And then I remembered how, on the occasion of David Cameron’s disasterously-timed damning speech on multiculturalism, columnist Sam Leith managed to dose the confused wits of Evening Standard readers with smelling salts with his, ‘You can’t force Britishness on everyone, Dave‘. Here is is.

“Classical rhetoric gives us the concept of kairos, or “timeliness”. The PM could have done with some of that, having just given a talk on how multiculturalism fosters militant Islam within hours of English Defence League thugs stomping through Luton shouting “Who the f*** is Allah?”

Timing does matter in the race relations game. An unimpeachably theoretical discussion, depending on context, can be incendiary. Defenders of Enoch Powell rightly point out that he didn’t say “One, two, three, four, I declare a race war!” He said (to paraphrase): “I’m worried it will all kick off if we carry on like this.” But the two aren’t as easily separable as all that. Think of the man in the pub who tells you: “Look, this is a rough old boozer and your face don’t fit. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t lay a finger on you. But I can’t vouch for my mates over there…”

Mr Cameron, mind you, speaks in good faith. And he articulates a widely held anxiety: that the passage from separate to separatist, separatist to extremist, extremist to terrorist, is an established one; and that the “hands-off tolerance” of bien-pensants eases that passage.

Personally, I’m quite in favour of “hands-off tolerance”. In fact, I’d say “hands-off” is pretty much the definition of tolerance. “Hands-on tolerance,” or perhaps “clear-off tolerance”, is the sort of tolerance the EDL wishes to extend to Muslim Britons.

When the PM says we shouldn’t fund jihadi youth clubs, or treat Islamic fascists as spokesmen for their co-religionists, we’re as one. But where he says we need an “active, muscular liberalism” that “believes in certain values and actively promotes them”, we part ways. Insisting that people hold certain values is not the job of even someone as important as the Prime Minister. It’s an impertinence to imagine it’s in his gift, and dangerous folly to seek to achieve it by state fiat. “Britishness” is the sum of everything British people think, say and do: not a handful of ideas politicians decide are good for us and administer like a dose of cod-liver oil.

Closed ethnic communities may not be to your taste but unless you can imagine a policy remedy that isn’t insane – racial housing quotas or banning the public speaking of Urdu, say – you have to live with them. Separatists are citizens too.

What you are entitled to expect is that the law of the land – not some idea, or some “British value”, but the law -applies as absolutely within them as it does everywhere else. And the law, lest we forget, forbids violence, hate-speech, oppression of women and the building of bombs out of fertiliser.

It’s frustrating to think that it’s only at this point that the state can intervene, but there are good reasons why we don’t have “pre-crime” police. You can’t make people love each other, and you shouldn’t try to.”

New Statesman deluded about Islamism; secularism revisited

Like many people, I don’t read the New Statesman any more. Here’s something from Harry’s Place by Andy Lambert which confirms this decision and goes a tiny way to make amends for not posting nearly enough here on the problem of political Islam.

I know little about post-Islamism (according to Andy Lambert the AKP in Turkey, which has its origins in the same Muslim Brotherhood as Hamas, is an example) and having spent a bit time with a Malaysian colleague on Friday evening, I wondered what is happening there and whether their parallel sharia system is contained or not. A brief look suggests that the body of law referred to by its critics as Ketuanan Melayu (‘Malay hegemony’) embodies discrimination and is an obstacle to secularism, as Regina Lim writes (in a very informative paper of uncertain provenance but hosted at the Political Studies Association). In 2008, this Malay hegemony was implicated, along with the long shadow of colonial law, in the resignation of long-standing cabinet member, secularist and proper democrat Zaid Ibrahim. The influence of Islam in the legal system allowed for the conviction, also in 2008, of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for the charge of sodomy of which he was cleared after serving four years of his sentence. At the current time he is now on trial for new allegations of sodomy which he says are politically motivated. Clearly the law should literally butt out of sodomy between consenting people – and I’m thinking Oscar Wilde here too.

I am attempting to follow the work of the UCL political theorist and secularist Cecile Laborde.

A must-read, Cecile Laborde has an illuminating piece in this month’s RSA journal which sets out the differences between the Reformation and Enlightenment strands of secularism (the first emphasising conscience, the second, democracy) noting that they are not mutually exclusive, and neither is a fair way to conceptualise the proper relationship between state and religion in contemporary societies. (One of the things I love about the RSA is the willing welcome it gives critics of its own Enlightenment project.) She goes on to make the case for a secular state:

“In what sense is the secular state an important democratic ideal that we all have reason to endorse? It implies neither hostility to religion nor an intention to exclude it from public and social life. Freedom of conscience is one of the pillars of the secularist tradition (and is particularly central to Reformation secularism). Respect for freedom of conscience should not, however, be interpreted as a substantive claim according to which particular beliefs are true and should be politically entrenched as such. Rather, religious believers, when engaged in public debate about a particular controversy, can appeal to the importance of particular beliefs to them personally and can then explain to others how they relate to the issue at hand. What they cannot reasonably expect is that their views will prevail, or that religious rights will automatically trump other rights, in particular those associated with the tradition of Enlightenment secularism.”

Then she discusses the obligations of religious believers, namely their preparedness to offer political, secular reasons for beliefs they seek to make comprehensive under a justificatory structure which defines a secular state.

“Take the example of funding. Can a case be made, in a secular state, for the channelling of public funds towards religious organisations and activities? The answer depends on the context. What is not permissible is to subsidise religion on the grounds that it is intrinsically valuable, or that it promotes important truths, since this would violate the requirement of state neutrality.

By contrast, it might be permissible to argue for state support of religion by appeal to public, secular values. For example, one might claim that faith-based associations that provide a public service on the same terms as similarly situated secular organisations should not be discriminated against as recipients of public funds simply on the grounds that they are religious. So there might be good secular reasons for state support of religion, but only on the basis of (and conditional upon the respect of) democratic values. Likewise, if religious believers are to make a claim for exemption from the application of general laws, it will not be permissible for them simply to say that claims of conscience should trump other values. Rather, religious believers must explain to others the sense in which theirs is a rightful claim, one that respects and promotes the values of freedom, equality and reciprocity. Generally, while a secular state must make space for conscientious objection, this space will be narrowly constrained by, on the one hand, the demands of reciprocity and, on the other hand, those of equality.”

It needs saying in these times that the growth of Islam itself is nothing to fear – it does not make inevitable the triumph of Islamism, nor preclude the secularism we need to collectively defend as the only guarantee of equal religious rights and freedoms for all.

Relatedly, dump the New Statesman along with everybody else (circulation down to 22k these days according to Wikipedia), and instead see One Law for All, Women Living Under Muslim Laws, and this by Paul Kelly in the New Humanist.

My next post will be on the Con-Dem coalition Academies Bill, if it’s the last thing I do…