Michael Gove says that schools should promote the values of democracy, mutual respect and tolerance. Who can disagree with that? They are not just British values, they are liberal values.
Extremism is allegedly being promoted in some schools by a small minority within one religious faith. That’s the context in which Michael Gove makes his statement. The values he wants to promote though are universal, to mean anything they must be applied as rigorously in one school as in another, and to one faith as to another. Some people will use the term ‘British Values’ to isolate and judge certain communities whose ethnic origin is not British, that may not be what Mr Gove intended, but it is what will happen. We must find a better way to describe the values we share.
It wasn’t an Imam who instructed faith schools in his area to refuse to allow speakers in his school who did not conform to his religion’s teaching on matters of faith and morality, it was the former Roman Catholic bishop of Lancaster. What is the democracy of that? Our own established Church of England says that the mission of its schools is to “Nourish those of the faith; Encourage those of other faiths; Challenge those who have no faith”. How does singling out a particular group of children for challenge fit in to the values of mutual respect? How would we react if a non Christian school announced it was going to challenge the faith of a Christian minority within its school?
The liberal (small l) values of democracy, tolerance and mutual respect are taken for granted as the values on which we build our way of life, but it wasn’t always so. Britain has frequently in its history failed to uphold those values, as its record as a colonial and slave trading nation testifies. The great religions too have a sad record when it comes to the values which they now claim to hold, but at other times they have led the way in promoting freedom. No nation and no faith can claim these values exclusively for themselves, and no religion or nation can claim that others are less good people because they don’t subscribe to their particular brand.
So yes Mr. Gove, let’s teach young people about values. Let our pupils know about the great philosophies and religions that lie at the heart of our culture, and let’s tell the story about how all these great traditions can come together across the world around one common set of values that is changing the world for the better. But let’s call those values what they are, liberal values.
* Richard Church is a former Councillor in Northampton, now living in Montgomeryshire
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41 Comments
Richard Church
” Extremism is allegedly being promoted in some schools by a small minority within one religious faith. That’s the context in which Michael Gove makes his statement. The values he wants to promote though are universal, to mean anything they must be applied as rigorously in one school as in another, and to one faith as to another.”
In a discussion such as this, we need to be very careful to distinguish between ‘extremism’ ie: the promotion of violent ideologies such as Islamism and ‘integration’ ie: the promotion of tolerance, peace and dialogue within a religious and ethnic group and between communities.
It is very unfortunate that we have in place a Secretary of State who has willfully blurred the distinction between these categories. If the categories are blurred, it leads to further misunderstandings between liberals and social conservatives. In a liberal society, we must be careful not to impose or force our liberal values on others, because that in turn, is illiberal. This is the mistake of this latest knee-jerk move by the Tories to ‘inculcate British values’ by making schools promote ‘Britishness’ from this September.
If we simply go along with this move, we are reinforcing a growing perception among law-abiding British Muslims, due to the ‘trojan horse’ allegations, that they not regarded as fully British. We give the impression that somehow they are ‘other’ by not accepting whole-heartedly our version of liberal values.
However, I am with many British Muslims in questioning Mr Gove’s version of liberal, British values. I do not think that it is liberal to impose those values on more socially conservative minorities. Social conservatism and conservative religion is not the same as ‘extremism.’
We are heading down the wrong path as liberals if we think that imposition of the ‘right’ values is the way forward. It does not sit comfortably with my own view that a liberal society in one which celebrates difference fosters peace and dialogue between communities and promotes harmonious social cohesion.
“It wasn’t an Imam who instructed faith schools in his area to refuse to allow speakers in his school who did not conform to his religion’s teaching on matters of faith and morality, it was the former Roman Catholic bishop of Lancaster.”
Yes, and I note from the article that Catholic bishops were summoned to “appear in front of a powerful committee of MPs” to explain themselves.
Which doesn’t quite fit with the claims of those who say it’s only Muslims who get picked on for this sort of thing.
Why is the ‘say no to plain packaging’ banner at the top of all the pages? It’s very annoying (not to mention taking the wrong side of the argument :P)
Trojan horse is a hoax.
“Britain has frequently in its history failed to uphold those values, as its record as a colonial and slave trading nation testifies. ”
Would those be the values that took the British to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya? Or don’t middle east countries count?
Richard,
The values we should be upholding and espousing in our national curriculum are the values of the enlightenment and Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). These are common values accepted, if not always practised, across the civilised world. Article 2 is unequivocal – “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”
The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam has been established as a watered down version of the UDHR that makes “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration subject to the Islamic Sharia.” and says: “There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Sharia.” The CDHRI fails to guarantee freedom of religion, in particular the right of each and every individual to change their religion, as a “fundamental and non-derogable right”.It limits human rights, religious freedom, and freedom of expression and limits the rights enshrined in the UDHR and the International Covenants. It undermines equality of persons and freedom of expression and religion by imposing restrictions on nearly every human right based on Islamic Sharia law. The declaration gravely threatens the inter-cultural consensus on which the international human rights instruments are based in introducing intolerable discrimination against non-Muslims and women. The CDHRI reveals a deliberately restrictive character in regard to certain fundamental rights and freedoms, to the point that certain essential provisions are below the legal standards in effect in a number of Muslim countries; it uses the cover of the “Islamic Shari’a Law” to justify the legitimacy of practices, such as corporal punishment, which attack the integrity and dignity of the human being.
This is the essential difference between ‘British Values’ and many Islamic countries. Many people who have emigrated from Islamic countries will have done so too escape the suffocation and lack of respect for human rights in the countries they have left behind. They and their fellow British citizens are entitled to expect that these values and rights will be respected and championed in this country – whether in schools, courts, governmental institutions or in our dealings with foreign countries.
Very much agree with the OP.
When Gove described his “British values” of democracy, mutual respect and tolerance it was liberal values he was talking about. It’s nonsense to try and brand them as “British” as they’re shared by many people around the world, and not necessarily by all British people.
I think a few of the comments seem to have missed the point that’s being made.
@ Helen Tedcastle
Whenever we oppose things like segregation, discrimination against women, homophobia, etc, we’re effectively imposing liberal values to a degree. Clearly it’s possible to go too far in this, but I don’t think Richard did in his article.
@Joe Bourke. Very well said.
Daniel Henry
I don’t know if you are aware but all schools have been required to teach ‘British values’ for around twelve years now in a new national curriculum subject called Citizenship. It was developed as a subject the last time we had a national hand-wringing about immigrants, extremists etc… In these lessons, teachers are required to teach about democracy, the rule of law, what it means to be a citizen.
The key point is that academies are not required to teach the national curriculum and can set their own priorities. In the case of some of the schools in Birmingham, the teaching of Citizenship was rather weak. it would be a simple enough task to focus on this area for improvement.
Instead, we get Gove making headlines about inculcating British values in schools from this September and everyone running around saying what a good idea it is, how yes, Gove is right to focus on this and impose it on schools to appease our liberal consciences for another day. It’s a joke.
Joe Bourke
What evidence do you have that Muslim communities in Britain (aside from the tiny minority of fundamentalists) are not following the declaration of human rights? Are you perhaps conflating extremist ideologies with social conservatism? Of course, immigrants have come here for a better life and that is why so many of them are proud to be British and abide by the rule of law.
So on the matter of gender equality, we have anecdotal evidence of a few girls being told off by socially conservative governors for speaking with boys, of girls and boys sitting separately in class. To me, this is insufficiently hard evidence of an active breaking of the declaration of human rights or lack of awareness of ‘Britishness.’
As a teacher, I have witnessed for myself time and time again, boys and girls preferring to sit along gender lines, naturally in class and of girls and boys undertaking separate PE lessons. It’s quite normal in fact.
If there are problems, it is with a small number of very conservative governors who have free rein in academies.
In RE, the multi-faith LEA RE syllabus can be ditched for a more Islamic curriculum because of the coalition law on autonomy of academies. So why do we need to ‘re-impose’ British values? We should be requiring academies to be overseen and their curriculum should be along broadly similar lines to the national curriculum.
We should be asking why Liberal Democrat MPs trooped through the lobbies to support the creation of more and more academies without adequate oversight.
Please can we get some perspective on this issue, advocate the improvements to governance in these academies and not fall into the trap of thinking that a neo-con like Gove is a champion of liberal values.
Helen,
in another recent thread, I shared the account posted by a man in a muslim marriage with an Egypto-Sudanese woman and living here and in Egypt.
He said “I’ve seen the hardening of attitudes in the Middle East – those wanting to keep religion a private matter being pressured by the coercive and overtly religious.Unfortunately, much of this ignorance, misogyny and bigotry has been imported into the West and the UK. FGM, honour killings, child grooming, consanguineous marriage, sanctified violence and misogyny, threats to free speech and freedom of conscience, etc, etc….My late father-in-law didn’t want my wife to study here due to the perceived extremism on English campuses.”
“In London, the sheikh officiating our wedding advised me to “Try not to hit your wife”. I doubt your average Catholic padre offers similar advice to the newly married! A member of our family in the Middle East was sentenced to death by a cleric granted asylum in the UK. A friend was beaten up in the East End for being on a “Muslim estate”. The police said there had been over 20 similar attacks but their hands were tied (they’d speak to ‘community leaders’). My car was surrounded and kicked after doing a three-point turn outside a mosque. The gay couple downstairs from my sister moved out due to the perceived threat from Muslim youths. My sister and her flatmate took cabs the half mile home from the station to avoid the sexual harassment. In the East End, a friend was disavowed by her family for the dishonour of leaving her imported husband after repeated beatings (a blind eye turned to his affairs with white, non-Muslim women). Another friend’s imported husband had never worked – as he was too busy escorting his wife to and from work in order to make sure she didn’t speak to other men.”
“The above examples aren’t the norm, but they’re there, lurking, growing and largely ignored. Last year, we even removed our children from Saturday Arabic school. They’d been taught the downright offensive – nursery rhymes about the “kuffar”, scolded for mentioning pigs when singing Old MacDonald Had A Farm.”
These kind of experiences are becoming all too common for many in the UK. When I grew up in West London it was very rare to see a Hijab (certainly not on young children) and never a Niqab. It was not part of the culture of Pakistani or India immigrants then, but rather an Arab custom. Today it is commonplace and is a feature of the influence of Saudi Arabian Salafism on Muslim communities worldwide, that has led to the hardening of attitudes in the Middle East and the torrent of violence unleashed from Syria to Pakistan.
Richard want’s to see liberal values taught in British schools. So do I – the values ensconced in the UN declaration of human rights and not the values promulgated across the Islamic world by Saudi Wahhabism. I think the great majority of moderate British muslims , would welcome a commitment to such values and a rejection of the entreaties of hardline islamists.
Let’s ignore the Muslim part of this thread and just ask what British values mean.
Democracy – not where the head of state and upper house are not elected and FPTP
Freedom under the law – not with secret courts (Con/Lib) or ID cards under Labour
Freedom of speech , as long as GCHQ is not listening
Welcoming, as long as you come from the white commonwealth if you read the comments on even the Guardian web site.
Not much to boast about is it!
To make it perfectly clear that the desired values are not owned by one single group, they need to be described as universal values, which is precisely what they are. To infer that there are British values, which are better than anybody else’s, is in bad taste.
@ Joe Bourke
I don’t deny that there are problems – never have. However, British Muslims are not majority Salafists or Wahabis but follow much more moderate interpretations of Islam. The rise in Hijab-wearing among young women is for various reasons – for some it is a badge of identity or a sign of their religious commitment. Certainly the Muslim women I have talked to all state they chose to wear it for those reasons
As I have said before, Citizenship is already taught in schools and covers areas like democracy and the rule of law. Also as others have pointed out, some values are actually universal. This latest move by Gove and Cameron is a gimmick, which simply gives the impression that British Muslims are not regarded as entirely British by this Government.
I don’t think the British state can really lecture Muslims on values when our government sells arms to the the Saudis and invades countries like Iraq, precipitating the deaths of over 100,000 people and giving extremist militants the green light to infiltrate the country – under Saddam, Al- Qaeda were non-existent.
@Helen Tedcastle
“I don’t think the British state can really lecture Muslims on values when our government sells arms to the the Saudis and invades countries like Iraq, precipitating the deaths of over 100,000 people and giving extremist militants the green light to infiltrate the country – under Saddam, Al- Qaeda were non-existent.”
While there is some truth in that, much of the daily bloodshed in Iraq can be traced directly back to a succession squabble that took place in the mid-7th century, igniting a civil war that continues in various parts of the world to this day, nearly 1,400 years later. And you wonder why some people take a dim view of religion?
You are correct to point out that brutal dictatorship is an effective way of keeping a lid on extremist and sectarian violence (at least temporarily – it’s stopped working in Syria), but surely Cameron’s much-derided plan to teach “British values” in PSHE classes is a slightly more liberal solution.
I’m not sure what form these classes could take that would not offend somebody or other – watching DVDs of the Great British Bake-off, perhaps?
Helen Tedcastle
However, British Muslims are not majority Salafists or Wahabis but follow much more moderate interpretations of Islam.
Well, you keep saying this, and it is true, but what I observe is that the Salafist/Wahabi interpretations are having an influence well beyond their number and cultures where they originated. An aspect of this is the rise in practices associated with those interpretations, such as certain dress codes, in Muslim groups where there is no tradition of these practices. There does not seem to be much of an intellectual and spiritual fightback against these interpretations in the Muslim communities here. As a result, young people whose knowledge of their own religion is a bit vague are very easily taken in by those with Salafist/Wahabi interpretations telling them that “ours is true Islam, what you were brought up with is a twisted semi-pagan version”. It is much the same as I see in my own religious community, where young Catholics are often take in by Protestant evangelical groups funded from the USA to push their own USA-politics driven version of Christianity.
I don’t think the British state can really lecture Muslims on values when our government sells arms to the the Saudis and invades countries like Iraq, precipitating the deaths of over 100,000 people and giving extremist militants the green light to infiltrate the country – under Saddam, Al- Qaeda were non-existent.
Sorry Helen, but it is part of my Christian belief that people bear individual responsibility for their own actions. If one Muslim kills another Muslim because one is a Sunni and the other is a Shia or whatever, the guilt falls on the killer. To blame Tony Blair instead is ridiculous. Sure, Blair got things terribly wrong here, but so far as I can see he genuinely supposed that deposing the dictator in Iraq would lead to the rise of a more liberal democratic government there. It is against all I stand for as a Christian and a liberal to impose some sort of communal guilt on Britain for this. If it could be shown that Tony Blair deliberately planned the invasion in order to cause a civil war between Muslims groups in which thousands would be killed, then you would be right in placing guilt on him personally, but still wrong in placing it collectively in the British state.
I am actually appalled at the way people like you, and others with some sort of political motivation, have this tendency of writing about Iraq as if all the deaths in conflict since the invasion were personally ordered by Tony Blair and George Bush. You may not have intended it that way, but impressionable young people who know little about what has actually happened out there DO read it as such, and are whipped up into reading it as such by people who push that interpretation very much in order to promote division, violence and hatred. Those people tend to be of a Salafist/Wahabi mentality – it is part of their push to use this false impression to gain influence.
Stuart
“… surely Cameron’s much-derided plan to teach “British values” in PSHE classes is a slightly more liberal solution.”
Except that there is already in place a national curriculum called Citizenship which deals with all these issues, as I have explained several times.
Not sure why you drag up a battle from the 7th century between Sunni and Shi’a to explain the reason for the carnage that is going on in Iraq now and over the past decade. I’m afraid that although there are long-standing feuds and political rivalries which use religion to justify their blood-thirsty ways, on a more recent occasion, the British state invaded a sovereign country without the presence of Islamist militants – it was run by a secular dictator who allegedly, had weapons of mass destruction.
This was political but the point in all this is that really those who pontificate about inculcating British values of ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect,’ should really practice what they preach and not use Ofsted as some sort of Spanish Inquisition.
Matthew Huntbach
“An aspect of this is the rise in practices associated with those interpretations, such as certain dress codes, in Muslim groups where there is no tradition of these practices. ”
You are right. First generation settlers may not wear Hijab but their grand-daughters do. The reason for this, as it has been explained to me by young educated Muslim women, is that it is an assertion of identity and even protest and a sign of their religious commitment. We saw the same phenomenon in Iran in the years up to the fall of the Shah – young women turning to traditional dress as a protest against the culture of decadence in Iran at the time. Now it seems the underground culture is moving in a more westward direction in female dress-code.
“There does not seem to be much of an intellectual and spiritual fightback against these interpretations in the Muslim communities here.”
I don’t think that is fair. Communities in Birmingham are trying to address radicalisation or disaffection among youth and educating them as part of the Prevent programme. Of course, there is much more to be done but this intervention by Ofsted and Gove will not help because he conflates extremism with integration/conservative social practice issues and governance in these largely 96%+ Asian academies.
“As a result, young people whose knowledge of their own religion is a bit vague are very easily taken in by those with Salafist/Wahabi interpretations telling them.”
Yes, and this is why those who are educated about their faith are far less likely to go off to Syria or be tempted by the simplistic messages of the fundamentalists.
It is the disaffected youth, not those educated in the actual principles of Islam, who turn to fundamentalism, and in a growing number of cases, young white disaffected youth, who are tempted to join Salafist groups. It gives them a simple message, an identity and a purpose and a sense of belonging. All things their family or community and British society doesn’t offer in their view.
” Blair got things terribly wrong here, but so far as I can see he genuinely supposed that deposing the dictator in Iraq would lead to the rise of a more liberal democratic government there.”
I agree with you that individual responsibility and conscience is paramount and I would still hold Blair culpable for the deaths in Iraq. In fact, it is for precisely this reason. He would have been aware of the fragile nature of that country, of the dominant neighbour next door and the ethnic tensions before invasion. He was warned time and again about it. Any one who knows anything about the history of that part of the world was warning him but he didn’t listen.
That is willful culpability for the bloodbath that followed. Of course, he will have to answer for his own personal actions within his conscience but decision-making, (in full knowledge of the facts), is part of that. Part of the healing process would be for Blair to make a public apology for his decisions and to own up to what he is at least partially responsible for.
Helen Tedcastle
Any one who knows anything about the history of that part of the world was warning him but he didn’t listen.
Sure, I remember when the invasion took place thinking that there must be some sort of secret plan, some sort of government-in-waiting already set up which would quickly appear and establish order. Quite obviously this would have had to be kept completely secret, but to me the only way the invasion made sense was if there had been a thorough infiltration of the Iraqi government to set it up. Otherwise, I thought, it was bound to end up in mayhem.
I did think, as the anti-invasion protests took place, that the government-in-waiting would spring up, and we who had protested about the invasion would be left with egg on our faces, forever condemned as appeasers to the dictator, forever written off with “If it went you way, Saddam Hussein would still be there, with his regime of fear and torture”.
However, it really was as we saw it – smash your way in, knock out Saddam, leave the Iraqis to sort things out for themselves. I think, though, Blair really thought they would sort it out in a liberal democratic way, and to be fair to him, he’d had experience of that happening (sort of) elsewhere, Romania for example didn’t collapse into mayhem when the dictator was deposed even though that was done in days.
I still don’t think this allows us to write up Iraq as you did, in a way that only mentions Blair and/or Bush, and all the deaths in conflict that have occurred since, as that leaves the impression – which clearly IS believed by many who want to believe it and see what happened as some sort of western anti-Islam action – that all those deaths were deliberately ordered by Blair and Bush because they just liked the idea of killing Muslims. See those people who killed Lee Rigby just a mile from where I live, see how their minds have been warped by this sort of write-up. Sorry, that is why I find it utterly inexcusable for people to do it just because they don’t like Blair, so thought it a good thing to attack him in this way.
The Iraqis who used allegiance to their different forms of Islam to justify killing each other didn’t HAVE to do it, and I think it is very patronising to let them off with a “there, there, it isn’t your fault, that nasty Tony Blair and George Bush made you do it”. I do see it as a fault in current Islam (i.e. Islam as it is being practised now, not inherent in the religion) that here, as elsewhere, the different sects have so readily turned to violence. Blaming it all on Blair and Bush is a sort of buck-passing exercise enabling the world Muslim community to avoid thinking about the issue. I don’t think in the long term it does Islam any good for us to join in with it and let it play the “poor little us, the big bad west forced us to act like this” game.
Helen,
I am afraid I am with Matthew Huntbach on this one. While we Libdems rightly opposed an unnecessary intervention in Iraq, Blair and Bush had parliamentary and congressional approval for their actions and the backing of a majority of the population. We might not like it- but that is democracy. Both leaders were re-elected following the Iraq invasion.
Was Nato’s Kosovo intervention to protect the muslim population there a war crime – perhaps to the Serbs it was. Was the action in Afghanistan to root out Al Qaeda following the attack on New York self-defence or as some would have us believe an attack on Islam. Was Nato’s intervention in Libya a humanitarian intervention against a crazed dictator welcomed by the majority of the Libyan’s in fear of their lives, or as it seems to be presented now in some quarters as a US backed imperialist adventure to assert Western dominance in the Maghreb.
You are of course right about the need not to conflate extremism with integration/conservative social practice issues and governance in these largely 96%+ Asian academies.The Quilliam foundation press release on the Birmingham schools contains some good advice http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/press-releases/quilliam-responds-to-ofsted-report-on-birmingham-schools/
“Discussions around Islamist extremism need to be more honest, rather than polarised by rival alarmist and denialist factions. Denialists must recognise that extremism is real. Pretending it is not, out of fear of negative repercussions, only encourages such repercussions by making the work of extremists easier, further fueling the far-right and aiding xenophobia.
Alarmists must recognise that the vast majority of parents, pupils and teachers at these schools are not extremists. The allegations, which Ofsted has now verified to a large extent, concern attempts by a small section of entryist hard-liners to paint themselves as ‘the community’. Succumbing to the idea that this faction is indeed ‘the community’ further fuels Islamists by legitimising them as the only interlocutors.”
Martin Parsons is a teacher with a PhD in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations. In his article http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/05/martin-parsons-the-trojan-horse-islamism-is-a-strategy-not-an-abberation-by-individuals.html he quotes Australian Prime Minister John Howard:
“In responding to the threat of terrorism…there is nothing more important that to reassert our self belief…the history of fanatical movements – and Islamist extremism is a fanatical movement by any definition – shows that there is nothing they despise more than weakness and lack of self belief in the ideologies that they attack. I hope that all of the nations, not only in the Anglosphere, but all the nations of the broader free world, see this as a time not to apologize for our particular identity, but rather to firmly and respectfully and robustly reassert it.”
As Liberal Democrats we need to stand firm on respect for Universal Human rights, freedom of religion and Liberal democracy in this country and around the world. Stand with British Muslims in protecting their right to freely practice their religion without interference or denigration; challenge and denounce extremist views that impinge on the rights and liberties of others including efforts to introduce alien tenets of Sharia law incompatible with the British justice system ; and apply the full force of the law in countering terrorist activity and plots. wherever they may be encountered.
@ Joe Bourke,
Thank you for providing the links.
Matthew Huntbach
” … which clearly IS believed by many who want to believe it and see what happened as some sort of western anti-Islam action – that all those deaths were deliberately ordered by Blair and Bush because they just liked the idea of killing Muslims”
Matthew, I am absolutely not saying that ie: that the deaths were ‘ordered’ by Blair as part of an anti-western action to kill Muslims – not at all.
Blair’s willful culpability was a. in believing he could restrain George Bush by sheer force of his own charisma – he hadn’t reckoned on Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld b. not learning the lessons of history of a country like Iraq, an uneasy alliance of Sunnis and Shi’a with Kurds, who were forced together and only kept together by means of a brutal secular dictator. Looming large was Iran, which would exploit any weakness in Iraq to exert influence over the majority Shi’a.
Iraq was a powder keg ready to go off as soon as a dictator went – a bit like the Balkans after Tito.
My charge against Blair was to willfully and recklessly ignore the reality of the country as a very weak alliance and to lie or at the very least, stretch the truth, in order to take the action required in a showdown with Saddam.
Of course there are long-standing tensions between the Sunni and Shi’a in Iraq and of course the Kurds – part of this has got to be because of the way the country was put together – it’s not just a religious tension but a political tension – under Saddam the Sunni enjoyed privileges and the Shi’a were suppressed. This switched dramatically after the war when the Shi’a gained power.
“Some people will use the term ‘British Values’ to isolate and judge certain communities whose ethnic origin is not British”
Something of a ridiculous statement given that British identity is widely seen as a catch-all term that gather ‘others’ regardless of their ‘national’ identity, particularly since “British” is most accepted by immigrant communities.
You might have had a point if you had talked about Welsh values, or Scottish values, or English values…
Joe Bourke
” You are of course right about the need not to conflate extremism with integration/conservative social practice issues and governance in these largely 96%+ Asian academies”
It is good that we agree on that point because it key I think to understanding what is going on in these academies in Birmingham.
I agree with you completely on the need to combat extremism – absolutely. My concern throughout the various threads on this topic, is to be careful that we don’t opt for the alarmist tendency. Equally we must not be in denial. Nothing I have read on this topic so far leads me to believe that there is an extremist plot or infiltration of schools and yet in some quarters, this is exactly what is being thought and it gives rise to fear and even prejudice.
However, on integration and multi-faith education, there is clearly more work to be done in academies where pupils are almost wholly of Asian background and Muslim by faith. There should be a re-commitment to providing good Citizenship lessons and the excellent multi-faith RE syllabus of Birmingham LEA. Governors need to be reined in and a refocus is need on core values.
I noticed that you have mentioned Shari’a law, which is already practised in mosques on matters of family law like Marriage and Divorce in the UK and there are no problems, as the jurists are moderates, as are most Muslims in Britain. We need to continue to implement the Prevent programme (both strands) as outlined by Theresa May on Monday.
@ Helen – “Blair’s willful culpability was a. in believing he could restrain George Bush by sheer force of his own charisma – he hadn’t reckoned on Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld b. not learning the lessons of history of a country like Iraq”
It was certainly a failing to not follow up Rumsfelds excellent light-weigh invasion plan with a heavy-weight occupation.
Equally, he hadn’t reckoned on the culpable intransigence of Clare Shorts refusal to cooperate with the post-invasion planning as Minister for Overseas Development. We widely recognise our failing to provide proper post-invasion planning, an example of which was disbanding the army and all Baath party members in government, and yet we refuse to look at some of the architects of this (deliberate) failure.
@jedibeeftrix: Very good points.
@Helen Tedcastle
“Not sure why you drag up a battle from the 7th century between Sunni and Shi’a to explain the reason for the carnage that is going on in Iraq now and over the past decade.”
See :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia%E2%80%93Sunni_relations
In particular the section on Iraq, where it mentions the bloodshed that flared up on occasions well before the 2003 invasion, though as you say it tended to get brutally suppressed by Saddam. You must also be aware that this conflict is still raging in various countries of the world that were never invaded by Tony Blair.
Only today, the BBC reports on the latest invasion :-
“Led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the insurgents are believed to be planning to push further south to the capital, Baghdad, and regions dominated by Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority, whom they regard as ‘infidels’…
ISIS has published rules of conduct for residents of the Iraqi city of Mosul and its surrounding province… Police and soldiers are told to repent or be killed, and women are ordered to dress decently and only go out if necessary.”
Many of these ISIS fighters are foreigners, including British men. It will be interesting to see if they raise the same degree of ire around the Muslim world as the American and British invaders did in 2003.
The fact is that this kind of thing was going on for 1,400 years before Tony Blair, and will doubtless be going on for another 1,400 years after Tony Blair. This is a never-ending tragedy, mostly for the large majority of Muslims who want no part of it.
Nice explanation here. Is it valid? …
“Islam was undermined in the Islamic Caliphate in Baghdad when the tolerant, outreaching mutazilim regime under the caliph al-Mamun was swept aside by the Hanbali diehards and their fellow-travellers. This was as early as the 9th century. By 848 ad, progressive Islam was doomed”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9225151/witness-to-a-stoning/
Helen,
I have no experience of Shari’a law, as practised in mosques on matters of family law like Marriage and Divorce in the UK. However, as to no problems – that may be the norm, but not everyone appears to agree they are wholly beneficial. There was a bill introduced by Baroness Cox to provide some basic safeguards to muslim women that was debated in the Lords in 2012. She refers to “…mounting evidence of serious problems affecting some women in this country from the application of Sharia law.” The bill was apparently supported by many Muslims and by Muslim women’s organisations such as Inspire, as well as by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, the Henna Foundation, Karma Nirvana, British Muslims for Secular Democracy and the National Secular Society
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2012/october/lords-arbitration-and-mediation-services-bill-second-reading/
Joe Bourke
” However, as to no problems – that may be the norm, but not everyone appears to agree they are wholly beneficial…”
Sorry Joe, I meant ‘no problems’ in relation to the issues you mentioned before of concern regarding Shari’a interpretation, such as stoning and other physical punishments, in Pakistan. I should have been more precise.
I meant that in Britain, the Shari’a court acts as an arbitrator in disputes within marriage. There are documented cases of these courts not being fair to women but there are also many cases of the arbitration working, as one Crown Prosecutor says in this article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9975937/Inside-Britains-Sharia-courts.html
“Most of them [Sharia councils] are absolutely fine but there are some – clearly like this one – who are putting women at risk. And doing so for ridiculous reasons, namely that they are somehow responsible for the abuse they are suffering.”
Clearly, there are still deeply conservative and cultural assumptions being made in such courts on the lesser value of women’s testimony. As many of these women are immigrants from the Asian sub-continent, they may not have the knowledge of the British legal system and so rely on Shari’a alone. Anyway, Sharia is not binding legally in Britain so it cannot be enforced and is down to the couples and communities to consult with the court or not.
I know to our western liberal sensibilities, where many of the battles have been fought and won, any thought of Shari’a as it is reported, (almost always negatively), is appalling and misogynist but that is not the whole story, as I was trying to put across.
@Helen Tedcastle
You keep referring to “interpretation” of Sharia. It would be more accurate to call what you are talking about “selection”.
The section of the Sunnah that endorses the stoning to death of adulterers and apostates is unambiguous enough and not really open to much in the way of interpretation. The only way to avoid putting it in to practise is simply to ignore it. Hence – as most Christians and Jews have learned to do with the Bible – the best way to proceed (to put it crudely) is to follow the good bits and ignore the bad bits. This, in effect, is what the vast majority of Muslims do, because when it comes down to it, for most people their innate sense of humanity trumps anything they read in their holy books.
Hence, most of us instinctively know that things like stoning adulterers, keeping slaves, and sleeping with children is wrong. Where do we get these moral boundaries from? We certainly don’t get them from the Bible or Qu’ran/Sunnah, since they explicitly endorse the things I just mentioned. The ultimate source of our sense of right and wrong is much more earth-based. And if that’s the case, why bother going to religion for moral or legal authority at all?
Stuart
It’s a little on the reductionist side to state, well it’s all down to our humanity really and nothing to do with what people hold dearly and most closely to their daily living, identity and spirituality.
It is not simply a matter of selection but interpretation, looking at context, history and cross-referencing between the Qur’an, the Sunnah and the Hadith. That is what the scholars do and communities refer to the scholars for interpretation. In fact, the process is quite ‘rigorous’ to coin a current buzz word and the same goes on in Judaism and Christianity.
Of course, outside of scholarly circles, less well-educated people confuse culture (pre-Islamic) with religious precepts. This is happening in India with the killing of young women in rural areas just for going out alone or honour killings. Inevitably, the western media pick up on the terrible cultural atrocities and offend our high-minded sensibilities. I prefer to watch Al-Jazeera to find out what is really happening in the world.
” Hence, most of us instinctively know that things like stoning adulterers, keeping slaves, and sleeping with children is wrong”
If only it was as simple as that – just relying on human instinct. I think that it is because a number of people who commit these crimes over-rely on instinct and do not know the principles of the religion they purport to follow, that gives some people license to hurl cheap accusations at religious traditions. What’s needed is greater religious education.
Helen,
“This is happening in India with the killing of young women in rural areas just for going out alone or honour killings.”
Richard in his article writes “Britain has frequently in its history failed to uphold those values, as its record as a colonial and slave trading nation testifies”
These comments remind me of one good legacy of the British Raj – the banning of the practice of Sati in India (subsequently enshrined in law in an Independent India), following on from the earlier abolitionist movement driven by the devout Christian William Wilberforce.
@ Joe Bourke
Yes, outlawing Sati was a good thing and so is outlawing Caste but unfortunately these cultural assumptions run very deep. In fact, I believe that the rape and killing of young women in rural areas has a caste-dimension. One of the reasons so many Dalits have become Christians is to get away from the stigma of caste, which is bound up with Hindu tradition (though not essential to it).
One reason I have been critical of Gove/Cameron’s championing of the ‘British values’ imposition, is because it reminds me of eras like the Raj, where British people went round ‘taming the unruly’. Yes it is in British schools not in India but to my mind it’s part of the same Tory mind-set. I think hearts are won by actually exemplifying these values in daily activity, not forcing people to learn them. There are ways and means.
Helen Tedcastle
Matthew, I am absolutely not saying that ie: that the deaths were ‘ordered’ by Blair as part of an anti-western action to kill Muslims – not at all.
I know you are not saying that. However, unfortunately, words which could be interpreted that way ARE commonly used by people who want to attack Blair or sound liberal and trendy and politically correct on having opposed the invasion. If the words could not actually be interpreted that way, they are at least put in the way that puts all the blame on Blair and Bush and hides completely the extent to which the situation was much more about vicious conflict urged on by various groups explicitly claiming allegiance to some interpretation of Islam.
These words DO encourage those who know little about the situation, but want an excuse to adopt a violent attitude in the name of Islam to do so.
Matthew Huntbach
These words are on a spectrum though. Yes those the ‘left’ point to Blair and Bush as the architects of an illegal war and yes, the Respect Party and George Galloway agree and then call Blair a war criminal, while extremists agree with that and then go further, calling for a personal Jihad in joining their brothers on the frontline.
So I don’t think the liberal left is directly responsible for the anger at the war and neither are they responsible for the sense of alienation many of the young jihadis feel (the White British as well as Asian-British) when they head to Syria in 2014.
They adopt violence as they see it as ‘self-defence,’ because they already see the world in binary terms – good versus evil. In that, they share much in common with Blair/Bush. Neither do shades of grey.
Like you, I am very concerned about the damage done to the ancient Christian communities of Iraq and Syria with the violent conflict going on. I know that Muslim leaders in Egypt spoke out and indeed helped Christian communities in trouble during the recent attacks. I am not so sure about Syria and Iraq but I would like to hear more condemnations of violence from UK Muslim leaders. I think the situation has improved in recent years (Baroness Warsi, Salma Yaqoob) but the Muslim community does not have a single tier of leadership or agreement on leadership spokespeople.
When I was 13, someone had taken a picture of me and a couple of friends praying in school uniform in a mosque courtyard during Friday prayers. The picture must have been taken from one of the buildings around the mosque. I became aware of it when next day all my family rang me to find out what had happened. The picture ended up in the front page of a paper similar to the Sun with a nasty headline. I felt like I had committed a crime by praying. The atmosphere created by right wing journalists and politicians is making life very difficult for people who just want to get on with their life. I was portrayed in that article as a threat to the secular state for praying at a young age and finding time in my lunch break to go to Friday prayers. Today I see the same done to the pupils of Birmingham. I feel very sorry for them. Nobody at such a young age should be made scared of expressing their identity.
@ Turhan Ozen: Indeed, you are quite right.
As a journalist from Pakistan that face served radicalisation during the last 35 years, I always believe that UK was importing radicalisation by providing visas only to those religious scholars who were students of one sect of Islam. Moreover even your visas system is on same patron. It is very simple to get huge money in bank and get the statement and then get UK visa. this money can be from anybody from any source of filthy income. While professors, educated persons journalists having no Huge bank accounts were denied visa. Look in Pakistan every mosque that is beautifully constructed and have air condition system etc etc is only from one sect Wahabis because Huge money comes from gulf and Saudi arabia to promote this sect. Read my recent article over radicalisation of your society http://www.dnd.com.pk/cameron-speaks-mind-wahhabism-radicalised-great-britain/
I’d like to get back to the original question. The debate on Islam, Iraq and so on is interesting and vital but should not be the main content of a debate on “British values”.
My problem with the phrase is that it easily slips into alliance with a rose-tinted-spectacles view of British history, in which the abolition of slavery bulks larger than our massive earlier promotion of the slave trade, in which our brave and effective contribution to defeating Fascism in the Second World War allows us to celebrate Britain in arms and therefore also the cynical crushing of the Sikh kingdom in the Punjab, the suppression of revolt against colonial rule in Sierra Leone or “gunboat diplomacy” in the Mediterranean, and in which the Civil War and Commonwealth become a stereotype or an embarrassment.
Yes, I agree, democracy, mutual respect and tolerance should be promoted because these are values we consider essential, but in promoting them, teachers should be able to encourage debate about how democratic, mutually respectful and tolerant we really are, and certainly not claim that these values are more distinctive of us than of, say, Danes or Indians.
I Completely Agree with Turhan Ozen, There Must be a Line Drawn.