Politics and Religion

This week, the New Generation Network launched itself with a manifesto in the Guardian’s Comment is Free, along with an article by one of its founders, Pickled Politics’ Sunny Hundal. All very good stuff, or so it seems to me, particularly their dislike of communal politics –

As Britons we want to be treated not as homogenous blocks but as free-thinking citizens with diverse views.

So-called community leaders and race-relations experts should be seen as lobbyists not representatives. They do not have a democratic mandate to represent anyone.

– and their recognition of everyone’s multiple cultural identities. They speak of

The right to combine mixed identities, which include culture, faith, ethnicity, religion and more [which] is the essence of an open society. These rights must be underpinned by a common citizenship which protects our rights.

I very much dislike the reductive rhetoric that seeks to define everyone by their membership of some monolithic ‘community’; that seems badly misguided for two reasons. First, there’s no such thing as an homogenous cultural group in the first place; if you think of any religious or political group — the Catholic Church or Labour supporters, for example — it’s obvious that such groups contain a whole swathe of different and sometimes hostile opinions. Second, people aren’t defined solely by their membership of any one group, since, again, people members of loads of groups which help to define their experience of life and attitudes towards it. You might be a Muslim, but you’re also male or female, straight or gay, from a particular age group, living in a particular part of the UK and part of a particular economic group, and your family comes from a particular part of the world. All of these are perfectly real ‘communities’ and you live in their various intersections, while neither any one of them, nor all of them in combination, fully define who you are.

Apologies… this goes on at quite some length; you’ve been warned…

Where’s me ‘online community leader’ got to?

Some time ago, Chris Dillow criticised, in Stumbling and Mumbling,

absurdities like Blair’s call to “mobilise the Islamic community” to defeat terrorism. To see the cretinism of this, ask: why doesn’t Polly Toynbee to use her influence to curb the rhetorical excesses of the Devil’s Kitchen? After all, they’re both members of the secular liberal community, of which she’s a prominent leader.

Chris, we all thought, was going in for a bit of the old reductio ad absurdam, but it would seem that the cretins in Blair’s office are immune to such concepts. How else to account for the views of Blair’s outgoing Chief Strategy Advisor, Matthew Taylor, as expressed to the BBC? Mr Taylor apparently ‘stressed he was speaking as a “citizen” not a government spokesman’ but unless he was plastered after his leaving do, we must assume his views are similar to those the benefit of which he’s been paid vast sums of our money to give to the Dear Leader.

Anyway, Mr Taylor — who’s apparently of the opinion that

Mr Blair’s online grilling from voters — and other initiatives such as environment secretary David Miliband’s blog and Downing Street’s new online petition service [...] showed the government was making good progress in using the internet to become more open and accountable

so he may well have been plastered — reckons

Outrage and indignation all round.

Some people — well, me at least, think politics is a rough old trade and that political leaders should get used to criticism, no matter how offensive or lame, and not get too indignant about things like this:

In the Commons, Tory spokesman Mr Lewis suggested the posters were part of a wider trend and reminded MPs that Labour chairman Ian McCartney last year described shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin as a “21st Century Fagin”.

“Given the outrage that that smear caused then, how could you have thought anything other than the fact that what you were doing in reviving it in your poster advertisements was nothing more and nothing less than a calculated campaign of sly anti-Semitism?”

Jumping the gun?

Since this is The Independent’s version of what The Sunday Mirror reckon he said, so something may have got a garbled, but this seems a bit OTT and certainly premature:

Phil Woolas, Communities and Local Government minister, whose brief includes race relations, said that teaching assistant Aishah Azmi had put herself in a position where she could not “do her job” at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. The suspended 24-year-old was “denying the right of children to a full education”, and her refusal to work unveiled with men amounted to “sexual discrimination”. “She should be sacked,” he told the Sunday Mirror. Ms Azmi admitted she had not worn a veil at her job interview.

Since there appears to be some dispute (at least according to Ms Azmi) about what Ms Azmi and the school had agreed about her veil, and quite possibly about other matters too, wouldn’t it have been better for Mr Woolas to wait until the Employment Tribunal to which the matter’s been referred has had the opportunity to hear both sides of the story and makes its decision before jumping in with both feet?

I’m not expressing a view one way or the other; she certainly didn’t come over particularly well in the TV interview she gave (link here), particularly when it transpired she didn’t wear her veil at the job interview where one of the panel was a male governor.

But she’s only 23 or 24 and has presumably never been on national TV before, so maybe it’s not fair to judge her on that 2 or 3 minute performance. I’d rather be in full possession of the facts, including both her and the school’s account of what they’d agreed or not about her veil, her contract and terms and conditions of employment and a copy of the school’s disciplinary proceedures, before making a judgment. That’s what the Employment Tribunal will investigate. I’m just rather surprised that a government minister doesn’t share my caution in employment disputes.

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Technorati tags: UK, Religion, Veils, Aishah Azmi, Employment Tribunal

You know things are bad when …

… you find yourself agreeing with Karl Rove

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ridiculous, out of control, and just plain goofy,” Mr Kuo wrote, according to MSNBC television, which obtained an early copy of the book. In particular, he quotes Karl Rove, the president’s long-serving political adviser and mentor, as describing evangelical Christians as “nuts”.

The more serious allegation, though, is not that politicians were disingenuous and insincere in courting people’s support — as if! — but that the Bush administration’s policy of encouraging ‘community’, particularly ‘faith-based’, social projects rather than initiatives directly sponsored by government, as part of its ‘compassionate conservatism’, was abused to channel funds to get out the Christian conservative vote in particular contests;

Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “non-partisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush’s 2004 Ohio victory “at least partially … to the conferences we had launched two years before. [....]

… when Bush asks Kuo how much money was being spent on “compassion” social programs, Kuo claims he discovered the amount was $20 million a year less than during the Clinton Administration.

The money that was appropriated and disbursed, however, often served a political agenda, Kuo claims, with organizations friendly to the administration often winning grants.

Which, to my mind, provides a useful backdrop to Sunny’s excellent discussion, in Pickled Politics and Comment is Free, of ‘some of the motivations that drive our so-called “community leaders”’. It may also provide something of a warning about the implications of Gordon Brown’s enthusiasm — in a speech completely overshadowed by Jack Straw’s views on veils — for ‘Cultural action against terrorist extremism’ as outlined in pages 12 and following of his Chatham House speech.

I intend to write about this at some length later, but Mr Brown recalls how

from 1945 the united front against Soviet communism involved not only deterrence through large arsenals of weapons, but a cultural effort on an extraordinary scale.

Newspapers, journals, culture, the arts and literature sought to expose the difference between moderation and extremism.

Foundations, trusts, civil society and civic organizations – links and exchanges between schools, universities, museums, institutes, journals, books, churches, trades unions, sports clubs, societies – all formed a front line in this cultural effort.

This I find somewhat alarming because, as I recall, many of these foundations, trusts and so forth were, in fact, founded and funded by intelligence services (notably the CIA), thus co-opting — and thus discrediting, in the eyes of many — perfectly respectable and genuine voluntary organisations and enterprises to a particular government’s political agenda.

Needless to say, to return to Mr Kuo and the American Evangelicals,

With the exception of one reporter from the Washington Post, Kuo says the media were oblivious to the political nature and impact of his office’s events, in part because so much of the debate centered on issues of separation of church and state

Issues like the separation of church and state — or the wearing of veils — are, of course, far easier to write about than boring old money and politics, which is doubtless one reason why journalists like writing about them.

Like Karl Rove, though, but for rather different reasons, I think we should keep our eye always on the money and the votes; that’s where the power is, after all.

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Technorati tags: Community, Politics, UK, USA, Karl Rove, Faith-based groups

Community Courts

The Times reports that

Ministers are shortly to announce ten centres in England and Wales where courts are to be set up. If successful they will be introduced nationally. The move comes after the success of the Liverpool community justice centre, which was modelled on a centre in New York.

The idea is for the public not only to be involved in choosing the judge or magistrate but to give advice on penalties and discuss community problems in meetings with the judge. The judges and magistrates themselves oversee the effect of their sentences.

This seems bizarre. The idea behind sentencing in the UK is that the law, and the penalties for breaking it, should be known and consistent. Parliament indicates the seriousness of the offence by fixing a maximum penalty or sentencing range and then the Sentencing Guidelines Council and the Court of Appeal determine the appropriate sentences given various aggravating and mitigating factors. The sentencing tribunal then looks at the facts of the individual case and the circumstances of the individual defendant, and fixes an appropriate penalty. For magistrates, there’s a whole compendium on the subject.

The idea is that your sentence shouldn’t depend to any great extent on what sort of mood His Honour or His Worship is in that morning. Any departure from this seems bizarre. What is the public supposed to do — what have they been doing in Liverpool — other than follow the sentencing guidelines? And if they do depart radically from them and either the defendant or the CPS appeal against the sentence, what are the Court of Appeal supposed to do — uphold the law or allow themselves to be trumped by ‘community representatives’?

The report continues,

Harriet Harman, the minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs, said that the criminal justice system was the last public service not to engage adequately with the public. Ms Harman told The Times: “If magistrates’ courts are to command confidence, they have to engage the local community.”

and Bystander JP ain’t at all amused. He writes, not unreasonably,

This particular magistrate is insulted by the insinuation that some self-selected “community” representative knows the turf better than I do. I was born in my court’s area. I grew up in it, went to school there. The local council paid for me to go to university, and I have worked in the area as a businessman and latterly as a magistrate for the whole of my life. Is that “community” enough for you, Ms Harman?

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Technorati tag: law, UK, community courts, magistrates

Don’t understand this one at all (inc Telegraph watch)

Philip Johnston, in today’s Telegraph, complaining about the new Sexual Orientation Regulations:

Here is an advert from a local newspaper. “Retired couple wanted to look after large country home while owners abroad. Small salary payable. Married quarters available.”

As of yesterday, the potential employer has committed an offence. Under the new EU age discrimination rules, it is unlawful to restrict a job to older people, or to younger for that matter. However, you may be surprised to learn that, under separate legislation, the final sentence of this advert will also soon be illegal because it implies that the applicants should be married, and could, therefore, be considered discriminatory against homosexuals.

The Sexual Orientation Regulations, to be introduced at the EU’s insistence within the next few months by the Equality Act 2006, make it an offence for anyone providing goods, services, facilities, education or public functions to discriminate on the grounds that someone is heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.

Try as I might, I cannot see what goods, services, facilities and so on are referred to in the advertisement. It’s a job advert and, as such, is covered under The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, which came into force December 1st of that year. That is, if adverts like the one suggested by Mr Johnston were to be a problem, we’d have known about it some time in the last three years.

Furthermore, nowhere could I find online a copy of these regulations that so concern him. I found a consultation document about them, issued in March of this year, which gave examples of the sort of things they might cover — provision of goods and services, as the title suggests, and nothing to do with job adverts — explains the proposed exemptions, and asks people for their comments.

I phoned

Fiona Walker, Women & Equality Unit, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET, tel: 0207 215 6696, email: fiona.walker@dti.gsi.gov.uk

whom the document gives as the main contact, to ask where online I could find these regulations.

They’ve been delayed for various reasons. They’re due to be published shortly, she doesn’t really know when, but she confirms that they’ll on the lines described in the consultation document (i.e. nothing to do with job adverts including ‘married quarters’).

Given that Mr Johnson’s clearly so wildly ill-informed about the nature and scope of the regulations, why on earth should we take seriously the rest of his column, in which he attacks what he thinks might be their consequences? He may well be right, as he discusses the possible alarming implications, when he says

For instance, teachers may fall foul of the law if they do not give homosexuality equal prominence in sex education lessons to heterosexuality

but there’s nothing I can see in the consultation document — which is all we have to go on — that suggests it’s a realistic fear:

3.29 We need also to consider whether teaching in schools should be covered by the Regulations. Requirements are already placed on maintained schools in relation to the subjects that are taught to children at different stages of their education. For example, at Key Stage 4 (taught in maintained schools to pupils aged 14-16 in England and Wales), schools are obliged to provide education in a range of subjects including citizenship, religious education, and sex education, although parents may choose to withdraw their children from religious education and sex education.

3.30 Guidance is provided on what should be taught in these subjects and, to some extent, how that teaching should be delivered. This makes clear that teaching, particularly in subjects such as Personal, Social and Health Education, should meet the needs of all young people whatever their developing sexuality. The guidelines also allow schools to exercise appropriate flexibility to ensure that the subjects they are obliged to teach can be taught in a way that is relevant and appropriate to the school’s ethos and with which the individual teacher feels comfortable. In the context of the new regulations, we intend to use the current statutory and non-statutory framework to ensure that schools in the maintained sector deal appropriately with subjects and situations where sexual orientation is a relevant issue.

3.31 We will also consider whether any special provision needs to be made to enable faith schools in both the maintained and the independent sectors to balance the new obligations that they will have under these regulations with their need to operate in a way that is consistent with their school’s ethos.

That reads — to me, at least — as if they propose to leave things pretty much as they are when it comes to sex education in schools. As I say, he may be right, but he hardly fills me with confidence that he’s particularly well-up on the subject.

He doesn’t, after all, seem even to have read the proposals in the first place.

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Technorati tag: UK, press, Daily Telegraph, Sexual Orientation Regulations, Philip Johnston

Shakespeare Day? Reid ‘just doesn’t get it’

The Telegraph reports that

Senior Cabinet ministers are backing a campaign to create a National Shakespeare Day, to celebrate the life and work of the playwright.

	William Shakespeare’s birthday could become an annual celebration

Under the plans, the commemoration of the Bard would be held on April 23, the commonly accepted day of Shakespeare’s birth in 1564 and the day he died in 1616, and the date on which St George, the patron saint of England, is celebrated.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, and Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, have both lent strong support to the idea and hope the celebrations would develop into an English version of Burns Night, when Scottish revellers mark the anniversary of their national poet.

Scots-born Mr Reid has told colleagues that while his fellow countrymen have Burns Night – normally held on or around the poet’s birthday on January 25 – he “cannot understand” why there is no English equivalent on April 23. He has indicated that he would strongly support a Shakespeare Day to celebrate “England’s greatest playwright”.

Last night, Miss Jowell told The Sunday Telegraph: “As a huge fan of Burns Night celebrations myself, I think this is a really interesting idea and certainly well worth exploring.

I fear no good will come of this.

Westminster Cathedral Demo against Pope

Joee Blogs, A Catholic Londoner has some photos of a pretty offensive demo, comprising about 100 people and organised by Omar Bakri Muhammad’s sidekick, Anjem Choudary, which confronted him and other worshippers on Sunday at Westminster Cathedral; he writes

Best defence against terrorism is a split with US, say voters

From The Times

MOST people believe that the Blair Government’s foreign policy has increased significantly the risk of terrorist attacks and now want Britain to distance itself from America and set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, according to a poll for The Times.

The Populus poll was undertaken over the weekend as news came of the death of 14 British servicemen on board a crashed Nimrod aircraft in Afghanistan.

The results underline the unpopularity of Tony Blair’s Middle Eastern policy and how a majority of voters believe there is a direct connection with terrorist plots and attacks at home.

Nearly three quarters of the public (73 per cent) believe that “the British Government’s foreign policy, especially its support for the invasion of Iraq and refusal to demand an immediate ceasefire by Israel in the recent war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, has significantly increased the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain”.

Moreover, three fifths (62 per cent) agree that “in order to reduce the risk of future terrorist attacks on Britain the Government should change its foreign policy, in particular by distancing itself from America, being more critical of Israel and declaring a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq”. Women (66 per cent) and Liberal Democrat voters (74 per cent) agree with this view particularly strongly.

Furthermore,

voters are also sympathetic to Muslim concerns. Just a half (52 per cent) believe that “even though there is no justification for terrorism, the British Government’s foreign policy, especially towards Iraq and the recent attacks on Lebanon by Israel, is anti-Muslim and it is understandable that many Muslims are offended by it”.

However, I wasn’t too sure what to make of this:

Nonetheless, a similar proportion of voters (63 per cent) believe that “Muslim extremists hate democracy and the Western way of life, and if Britain’s foreign policy were different they would find another excuse for their terrorist activities”. This is a widely held view, backed by two thirds of Labour and Tory voters, but only just over a half (53 per cent) of Lib Dems.

Sort of, ‘They’ve got good reason to be unhappy, but they’d hate us anyway’.

I think it’s because we’re got two questions bundled up in one there; how was someone to answer the question if he thought — which is an entirely reasonable view (since it’s pretty much mine) that there are clearly some Muslim extremists do hate democracy and the Western way of life — Abu Hamza, for example, even though he doesn’t hate it enough not to want to live here — but that they’d amount to very little if they weren’t able to exploit the far more widespread resentment about US policy in the Middle East and our support for it.