Bunting and Odone on faith schools

After last week's launch of a new campaign to outlaw educational segregation by faith and its vigorous welcome by Polly Toynbee, her Guardian colleague Madeleine Bunting responded yesterday with a lengthy defence of the 'strong ethos' provided by religious schools. Bunting's article was more even-handed and considered than many of her past outpourings, though it was shot through with her usual disillusionment with the modern world, as she bemoaned the 'desperate dearth of alternative narratives of transformation' in contemporary secular society.

Bunting's advocacy of faith schools clearly wasn't full-throated enough for her fellow liberal-Catholic-turned-Islamophile Cristina Odone, whose letter in today's paper contends that Bunting 'overlooks the impact these schools have on the Muslim community and in particular on Muslim girls'. Drawing on research appearing to show that state-sponsored faith schools 'increase the chances that low-income Muslim parents keep their daughters in schools', Odone argues that the alternative is parents withdrawing girls 'once they reach puberty, from what they regard as the dangerous playground culture of sex and violence found in secular state schools'. 

This is the kind of argument that looks conclusive on a first reading, but on reflection demands some serious unpacking. You'd need to look at the original research report to confirm whether these are the reasons that Muslim parents are actually giving for taking their teenage daughters out of school (rather than Odone's colourful interpretation of them). And even if this is the case, you'd need to ask whether their stated reasons correspond to their real reasons, or act as a convenient cover for them. Isn't it possible that there are other reasons (the kind you wouldn't necessarily share with a researcher), such as a belief in the segregation of the sexes at puberty, or a cultural prejudice against providing equal educational opportunities for girls? And if so, should the state bow to those beliefs and prejudices by funding religiously segregated schooling? Moreover, shouldn't the state both challenge misinformed generalisations about a 'dangerous playground culture' in state schools, and at the same time work to transform that culture so as to make it welcoming to all cultural groups, rather than simply giving in and accepting their self-exclusion?

Odone goes on to suggest that 'for young people who cherish Islam, the secular culture they experience in state schools can prove profoundly alienating.' But like it or not, it's a secular culture (meaning plural, multi-faith, open to a range of ideas) that we live in, and school is a key site for learning to flourish within it. And the roots of alienation may lie as much in the attitudes to secular society being inculcated at home or mosque as in the experience of school. Being schooled only with people from your own faith will surely increase rather than overcome that sense of alienation. 

LRBias?

Following on from these posts: Adam LeBor reports on the odd last-minute decision by the London Review of Books not to publish a review article about King Hussein of Jordan by Bernard Avishai. According to Adam, Avishai's account of the king's support for a moderate, Western-leaning Palestinian state didn't 'fall within the current London literati bien-pensant view of Israel'.

Writing about the affair on his blog, Bernard Avishai describes how he 'jumped at the chance' to present a more complex view of the Israel-Palestine situation to British readers. On the Wednesday before the Friday of publication, Avishai was asked to finalise his bio. Then:

The next communication I received was from Mary Kay Wilmers, the editor-in-chief, a letter of apology with a cheque and the claim that the piece 'does not work - or at least not for us'. No explanation, no request for revisions. The article that replaced mine, I soon learned, was a last minute report about how Israeli were shooting up Gaza.

Those who have followed the LRB's metamorphosis into the literary house-journal of the anti-American, anti-Israel left won't be surprised - and will know how to decode that 'not for us'. And it seems Wilmers has form in censoring articles that don't follow the magazine's party line. Avishai links to a 2002 Telegraph article which describes her spiking of a piece by David Marquand that had the temerity to commend Tony Blair's response to the September 11 attacks. In her email to Marquand, Wilmers wrote: 'I can't square it with my conscience to praise so wholeheartedy Blair's conduct since September 11'. She had no qualms, though, about publishing Mary Beard's infamous suggestion that America 'had it coming'.

I know it will hardly have the magazine's editors quaking in their boots, but my subscription now hangs by a very slender thread.

Wrongs and rights

Julian Baggini makes a useful point with regard to Terence Koh's 'blasphemous' statue. He argues that saying we have a right to offend doesn't mean that we are right to offend. This distinction can get lost in the heat of debates about religious offence, though more often than not it works the other way round. In the case of the Danish cartoons, those who took offence, and their supporters in the media, frequently muddled up a moral judgement that publishing the pictures was unwise and gratuitous, with declarations that it should be prohibited by law. So the reverse of Baggini's dictum is also true: saying that someone is foolish, rude or unkind to cause offence to a particular group doesn't mean that they shouldn't have the legal right to do so.

I'm less comfortable with another of Baggini's points. He argues that 'you just can't ignore the background against which lampooning takes place'. He goes on:

Christians, for example, are not oppressed, despite what some wannabe martyrs would have us believe. British Muslims, in contrast, are a somewhat beleaguered minority. We should think twice before mocking them because, while comedy speaking truth to power is funny, the powerful laughing at the weak is not.

I agree with his first sentence, but not with the second, if only because everything he says about Christians could be applied equally to Muslims. Recent events have taught us that there are as many (if not more) 'wannabe martyrs' (both literal and metaphorical) among Muslims as there are among Christians. I notice that Baggini refrains from describing British Muslims as 'oppressed', perhaps fearing that this wouldn't quite wash, but I think even the weaker word 'beleaguered' is questionable. Muslims enjoy complete freedom of religion and expression in Britain (unlike the truly beleaguered religious minorities in some majority-Muslim countries). And despite the part played by political Islam in recent terrorist atrocities, no restrictions have been placed on the practice of their faith and there have been remarkably few attacks on Muslims because of their beliefs. If some people of Muslim heritage are economically or otherwise disadvantaged in Britain, this has more to do with social class and with racial rather than religious discrimination. 

Moreover, who gets to decide which (religious) groups are 'weak' or 'beleaguered' ?Fundamentalist Christians might argue that, in an increasingly secular and sceptical society, these adjectives also apply to them. Jehovah's Witnesses are a minority group with very little social power: does this mean that their beliefs should be off-limits for artists and humorists? Surely it's possible to lampoon the ideas without attacking the people who believe in them?

Norm adds a further point:

By his choice of example Julian makes life too easy for himself. Mockery of the weak is an egregious practice of course. But what if someone makes a criticism of Islam - or any religion - in perfectly measured terms and some take offence, perceiving this criticism as mockery? What if the satirical treatment of a sacred figure in a work of fiction arouses anger, pleas for censorship, death threats? What if it is disputed between difference parties whether certain images or statements are offensive or not? In such cases, the right to say what you think - within the usual limits concerning incitement to violence and defamation - trumps what any of us might believe is the right way to behave.

Lawson loses his compass

Heaven knows Labour is in trouble, but God help the party if it takes Neal Lawson's advice. When it was first launched, I thought Compass was worth supporting, as it seemed to advocate building on the best of New Labour's achievements, while being critical of some of its policies and looking for new directions for the party in the changed circumstances of a new century. But after listening to Lawson on this morning's Today programme, it seems that the organisation is now advocating a return to the failed 'old left' platform of the '80s and early '90s. 

In the course of a brief interview, Lawson repeated a couple of hoary, revisionist myths. Firstly, that New Labour only gained and retained power for so long because the Tory party had become deeply unpopular (this argument is a close relation to the equally false 'John Smith would have won anyway' myth). So why couldn't Neil Kinnock and John Smith break through in the early '90s, when disillusionment with the Tories was at its height? It was only because Blair and those around him modernised the party, revitalised its programme and convinced a hitherto sceptical population that Labour could be trusted, that the landslide victory of '97 was possible. Lawson's second revisionist myth was that Blairism was merely a continuation of Thatcherism in a different guise. Hmm: I can just see Maggie introducing the minimum wage, pouring millions into the NHS, devolving power to Scotland and Wales, and massively expanding early years care for children. Finally, Lawson seemed to hint that old-fashioned centralist planning offered the solution to the country's woes.

It's possible to be critical of some aspects of New Labour's record - PFI and the academies programme are among the sticking-points for me - without comprehensively trashing the achievements of the last 10 years, or believing that what the country really needs is a return to the Bennite true religion. That kind of programme would be even less popular today with a majority of the British people than it was fifteen years ago. Rather, Labour needs to build on the best of its achievements in power, at the same time developing a forward-thinking, twenty-first century programme. Step forward David Miliband.

Scotland, sectarianism and faith schools

The autumn issue of Democratiya is now out. Among the many articles worth reading is this worrying piece by Tom Gallagher, on the growing links between Nationalism and Islamism in Scotland. According to Gallagher, Alex Salmond's SNP is actively encouraging ethnic and religious communalism in the hope of garnering Catholic and Muslim votes. (Incidentally, Gallagher's analysis of the reasons for Labour's decline in Scotland is similar to James Macmillan's, as reported in this post.)

Apparently the SNP 'have mobilised not just autocratic Catholic prelates but radical Islamic politicians in the hope that by offering them group rights they will deliver an ethnic block vote to the party. This raises the spectre, in some eyes, that in a Scotland fully under SNP control, individual citizenship will count for little and the party will rule through a large bureaucracy which franchises control of education, policy, and other policy areas to mobilised factions inside and outside ethnic minorities'.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Nationalists' backing for state-financed Muslim schools and their support for the Scottish Islamic Foundation, whose chief executive Omar Saeed manages to square membership of the SNP with calls for the restoration of the caliphate. Amanullah de Sondy, a lecturer in Islamic studies at Glasgow University, believes that such schools will 'leave young Muslims vulnerable to extremist pressures', while Gallagher is concerned that 'there are no strong voices pointing out that young people could be pushed towards introspection and even religious militancy through the insistence that Muslims combine a Scottish allegiance with an active search for their religious roots'.

Coincidentally, today also sees the launch of Accord, a new campaign that opposes the educational segregation of children by faith. The campaign is supported by a diverse coalition of humanists and liberal religious groups, and is warmly welcomed by Polly Toynbee in an article in today's Guardian:

Accord wants faith schools to abide by the same admissions criteria as other state schools, with no selection by belief. Teachers should be employed for their skills, not their faith. It opposes Labour's new rules for faith schools, which came into law yesterday, allowing them to keep all jobs for the faithful. Teaching assistants, dinner ladies and caretakers may need to get on their knees to keep their jobs from now on.

But the National Secular Society doesn't think the campaign goes far enough.

Queasy like Sunday morning

I know it's a familiar and weary theme of this blog - launched with my very first post - but it's still a huge let-down when public figures you've admired give voice to arrant nonsense, particularly when it's of the infantile-leftist kind. Yesterday my Sunday morning reverie was disturbed by two irritating examples, both of them on Radio 4's Broadcasting House. 

First up was Middle East correspondent Hugh Sykes, who has one of those warm, reassuring BBC voices that make you want to believe every word he tells you. He was visiting Tehran for the first time in a number of years, and though his report wasn't quite in the Michael Moore happy-children-flying-kites category, it came pretty damn close. After a colourful tour of the markets and cafes, and some words of praise for the metro system, but barely a mention of the oppressive nature of the Iranian regime, Sykes paid a visit to the building that used to house the US embassy, which he described as being covered with anti-American and anti-western slogans. Cue explanation of why they hate us so much, going back to the overthrow of Mossadeq in the Fifties. The final sentence of his report went something like 'There's a word for this: blowback'. Now I'm no admirer of the CIA's past antics, but to see something that happened 50 years ago as (to borrow the tendentious sub-title of Stephen Kinzer's book on the coup) 'the roots of Middle East terror' is to overlook the part played by fanatical Khomeinism in fomenting Iranians' rejection of the west and secular modernity. There's a word for this, Hugh: ideology. I shall be more cautious as I listen to Sykes' future reports: apparently, he has form.

Even worse was the contribution of Paul Heaton, of Housemartins and Beautiful South fame, to the same programme's review of the papers. Prompted by presenter Paddy O'Connell to add something to a discussion about the bravery of British troops and their neglect by the government on their return home, Heaton said it was difficult to admire soldiers who had fought in an unjust war, and we shouldn't forget that fighters for the Iraqi resistance, and even IRA terrorists, could also be seen as 'brave'. I always thought Heaton's radical lyrics were a little simplistic, but this disgusting example of moral equivalence was difficult to dismiss as merely naive.

Obama serious, presidential - McCain cynical, irresponsible

Since the primaries ended, the US election campaign had been at risk of becoming boring, but the past week has put paid to that. Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as a running mate, followed by the drama of Denver, set the Democratic campaign back on track after a poor summer. Michelle Obama's great speech will surely put a stop to those ridiculous stories about the couple's 'elitism' (this from John 'Remind-me-how-many-houses-I-own' McCain) and their patriotism (I loved Jon Stewart's comment: Democrats always have to prove their patriotism, while everyone knows Republicans love America - they just hate half the people who live there). Hillary gave a barnstorming, generically pro-Democratic, anti-McCain speech which ticked all the boxes but ungraciously couldn't find a single word of praise for the candidate. Bill did better, finally conceding that Obama was 'ready' (which was good of him), but I thought the most forceful contributions of the week came from Biden and Kerry. As for the grand finale, thank goodness it didn't come across as the presumptious hubris I'd feared. I worried at first that Obama's rhetoric didn't quite rise to the occasion, but watching sections of the speech in the endless replays since, I've been increasingly impressed - it was serious, detailed, presidential. 

Of course, McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate immediately blew the Democrats off the front pages and out of the headlines - as it was intended to do. Was it a brilliant, maverick move, or a massive blunder? As an Obama supporter, I'm hoping it turns out to be the latter. But, even more, as someone who wishes America well, my main reaction is that McCain's choice is an irresponsible and dangerous gesture. For an ageing candidate, not in the best of health, to choose a running mate with no experience of national politics and little interest in international affairs, at a time when the nation is at war, smacks of putting partisan politics before the national interest. 'Country first'? You must be joking. McCain's 'judgement' in foreign affairs was surely the only reason why some on the anti-totalitarian left were tempted to support him. But this decision, coming after Obama's selection of Biden, surely neutralises that argument. 

Now Hurricane Gustav is threatening to disrupt the Republican convention. Already Bush and Cheney have withdrawn, presumably to the huge relief of the McCain campaign. We wait to see whether McCain and Palin's journey to the disaster zone (Obama has chosen not to visit, for fear he might get in the way of the evacuation effort) provides a chance for them to demonstrate leadership, or further evidence of a tendency to play cynical partisan politics at a time of national crisis.