Religion must be removed from all functions of state

The government's mistake is to confuse faith with race

Polly Toynbee
Wednesday December 12, 2001
The Guardian



"We can't tiptoe around these issues," said David Blunkett yesterday, after stamping around them in steel-toed Doc Martens. "We need sensitivity, not political correctness." (Anyone on the left boasting of not being politically correct deserves a good kicking: the phrase is an empty rightwing smear designed only to elevate its user.) His rabble-rousing interview has damaged the terms of this crucial debate on race and religion before it even began. Notice his weekly habit of pitching something tasty to the Sunday papers: an aide was heard boasting that he hit 48 out of 52 Sundays last year. Yesterday's serious and seriously worrying reports on the fate of Oldham, Burnley and Bradford deserve better treatment than this from the home secretary.

It is not that David Blunkett said anything untrue, it was all in the emphasis. He conveniently blurred the difference between third generation Burnley Asians and newly arrived refugees. Speaking of the most desperate communities in the country, his comments suggested the fault lay mainly with them. What must they do to become more British? What is it to be a citizen? Going straight for the extreme, he listed all the worst aspects of religions and customs - "enforced marriages, 16-years-olds whistled away to the Indian subcontinent, genital mutilation" as if these things were everyday occurrences. He said less about the duller practicalities of getting communities to rub along together, addressed so well in these impressive reports. And nothing about the white community and its obligation to reconsider the changed nature of Britishness.

David Blunkett is the man who has most muddied the waters on the tricky question of race and religion. As education secretary he proclaimed he wanted to "bottle" the "success and ethos" of faith schools, creating 13 more with 60 awaiting approval. Now he is pushing through the "incitement to religious hatred" law in his ragbag terrorism bill. Not himself religious, he uses it dangerously. On the one hand he frightens us with its most obnoxious manifestations, on the other he oozes with sentimental admiration.

These riot reports drop into a hot post-September 11 ferment of uncertainty. Is the west at war with Islam? Is Muslim alienation in Britain so strong that even the moderate prefer to "understand" fundamentalist lunatics than ally with non-Muslims? Is Islam incapable of cohabitation with liberal modernism? Or is that Islamophobic? Blunkett is right that all this must now be capable of debate without people hurling accusations of racism: fear of racism is the reason why local authorities in the three riot towns failed to tackle growing segregation. How do councils stop hostile communities huddling together? These reports offer 70 sensible recommendations.

Listening to some near-racist Conservative peers and newspapers fulminate against the proposed religious hatred laws shows what a minefield this is. But two key principles should guide the government through this morass of its own making. These are the modern multicultural needs for a complete separation of religion and state - and the rights of women. Devised in a vain attempt to woo Muslims to the war on terrorism, the "incitement to religious hatred" law is rightly probably now doomed. It is rational to hate religions, quite irrational to hate other races. Religion is a choice, race is not. (We are not obliged to live by Adolf Hitler's definitions). Confusing the two is a clever trap the religious have laid for a worried government rightly anxious about race.

The only way to treat all British races equally is to remove official recognition of any religion. The one third of state schools run by religions will be an ever greater problem, unless phased out now. Mono-cultural segregated state schools are also a problem highlighted in yesterday's reports which recommend that they should all achieve at least a 25% intake of other religions and races. Difficult but not impossible. However the government immediately rejected even this mild proposal.

The new House of Lords will cause further racial tension now that other religions want parity with the C of E, whose bishops get 16 seats. With Catholics, non-conformists, Sikhs, Hindus and Jews all told their claims will be heard, the faiths will form a permanent conservative force, voting against public opinion on abortion, gay rights or any liberal issue. This year's Religious Trends lists all Christian church membership at just 12.2%. Muslims (not all practising), are 3% with other non-Christians at 3% - a total fewer than 20%. If the 300,000 Jews in these statistics get a chief rabbi, all other religions will press for equal representation. Britain, the least religious country, will have the only theocratic constitution in the west. In a quietly post-Christian society, the National Secular Society and their ilk used to be mildly eccentric campaigners against an already dead God. Now Muslims have reminded us how dangerous all faiths are when passionately believed. They have made it a surrogate for race and so from now on there must be transparently equal treatment of all faiths if the resentment and division in towns like Oldham is not to grow.

The only non-racist route is to remove religion from all functions of the state. State faith schools must be phased out and no religious leaders should sit in the Lords, except on the same personal basis as any profession or by election. An entirely secular state can do more to tackle racial segregation in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford, demanding religious integration. Instead, the government is digging a deeper hole, storing up worse trouble for the future, as atheist white middle classes demand more (selective) church schools while Muslims choose segregation too.

The other useful perspective is feminist. Human rights often conflict - none more than women's rights against respect for religious belief. Badly expressed, David Blunkett pointed out that some extreme anti-women religious practices are against the law. More difficult to tackle is the coercion of women to accept a lesser status in many faiths.

It's quite right to insist women seeking British nationality should have English lessons, including teaching about the laws that protect them, how to get help, freeing them from an excluded life communicating only through their young children. The right of girls to wear the hejab at school was won (rightly campaigned for by this paper), but state education for all must mean opening doors of opportunity to wider horizons than any child's narrow home culture. Single sex, single religion schools cannot liberate boys or girls to make real choices as they grow up.

Religion should be kept at home, in the private sphere. David Blunkett did break some taboos in this public debate. Now let him admit his past mistakes and throw his weight behind a secular, multicultural Britain.

p.toynbee@guardian.co.uk