Rising East Online

The Place of Faith in a Multicultural Society

What place for faith in a multicultural society? Contributions culled from home secretary Charles Clarke, Professor Tariq Ramadan, philosopher Jonathan Ree, and others.

• For Society and Against Terror, Charles Clarke;
• Islam and the Public Sphere, Tariq Ramadan;
• In Place of Politics, David Blunkett;
• Intelligence Problems, Jonathan Ree;
• Reflections of a Perplexed Muslim, David Cheesman.

For Society and Against Terror

—Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP, the Home Secretary

Faith needs to be carefully thought about. There has not been the level of attention to faith as there needs to be.

Faith and values are essential to our cohesion. Faith communities are a valuable part of our society. For each individual, faith provides a set of values by which they will live and be judged. For millions of people faith is based on an idea of god, but millions of others live by a faith which does not include god. In any case the first contribution of faith and faith communities is to offer a set of values.

The nature of value systems varies across the world, but the values of the main faiths reflect the tenets of British society: the rule of law, democracy, freedom of expression based on tolerance and respect, one community for the next. This is a range of values which is fundamental and respected in main faiths, and the main faiths not only respect these values but also contribute to them.

These relations are by no means straightforward, yet the central tenet is that faiths do accept the essential democratic framework. Only extremists do not. And after 7/7 it was heartening to see the coming together of leaders of faiths in support of this framework.

The second contribution of faith communities is to bind society together on a basis of mutual respect. Thus the social care of faith is the antithesis of the idea that there is no such thing as society. Faith proves otherwise. As we build up social capital the contribution from people of faith is demonstrable.

Faith should not be in the shadows of our public discussion, but should walk tall, and I want to see people confident in their faiths. But this does mean isolating those who do not accept democracy. We support faith which upholds democratic values in order to weaken those isolated faiths who do not. There are groups of people who have political views, who are abusing a particular faith – and it is incumbent upon the main faiths to ensure that their faith will not be hijacked in this way.

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Islam and the Public Sphere

—Professor Tariq Ramadan, St Antony’s College, Oxford

The perception is that there is per se a problem between Islam and secular society. Some people say that Muslims should reform in order to fit secular society. My understanding is that this understanding is wrong.

Apart from understanding that secularism comes from encounters between Islamic and Christian philosophers in Spain, it should also be understood that the whole Islamic tradition distinguishes between two fields, one dealing with God and the other dealing with human beings, and this second field is characterised by rationality, creativity, democracy and collectivity. The majority of Muslims do not bring to the public sphere something which is dogmatic, because the public sphere is a field of negotiation and we know the difference.

We only ask that European principles should be applied on an equal basis, not amended when it comes to Islam. But underlying the whole process of citizenship is mistrust and fear – there is a great deal of mistrust and it needs to be addressed.

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In Place of Politics

—David Blunkett MP

Very often it is about faith replacing what politics doesn’t do – providing a sense of mutuality.

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Intelligence Problems

—Jonathan Ree, philosopher

Politically salient religious belief has been on the rise, and this requires us to think out of the Enlightenment box.

The rise of religious belief poses an ideological problem for the Left. The Labour Left viewed organised religion as the enemy. Now the left is embarrassed by the take-up of religion as a sigh of the oppressed. Whether in the form of evangelical Christianity or radical Islam, it is not what the Left expected.

The rise of religious belief is a political problem for democrats. Liberal democracy presupposes that people will vote out of self-interest, or, if they are magnanimous, for the human race. But religious behaviour introduces a joker into the pack, since it means demonstrating obedience to a higher principle. Democracy requires voters to think about the future of this world, and to defend democracy requires us to hold the line: keep religion out of politics. Politics cannot work if race, identity or belief hold the trump card.

It also poses a philosophical problem for secularists. Non-believers have tended to treat religion as a pointless, outmoded accessory like a wig or tiara. But now there is a deep crisis in secularism, a division between those who maintain this view, and those who pay attention to what religion provides, and how it allows people to lead lives of more panache.

Religion is a rich repository of human intelligence, and there is a closer connection between intelligent belief and intelligent secularism than there is between intelligent and unintelligent secularism.

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Reflections of a Perplexed Muslim

—David Cheesman, researcher

I do not consider myself a convert to Islam. Realising a few years ago that I was effectively a Muslim, I made the shahada (declaration of faith) to formalise my commitment. Without rejecting Christianity, into which I was born, I had never embraced it. I had not converted, but became more true to myself.

This gentle journey of self-discovery took place in August 2001. Within a few weeks, the 9/11 attacks devastated New York and the religion with which I was newly affiliated became synonymous with terrorism. Islamophobia had been simmering for years but the launch of the War on Terror intensified the sense that Islam was under siege. President Bush memorably proclaimed that everyone must decide whether they were ‘with us or against us.’ This was a unique challenge. Never before has the entire human race been required to swear allegiance to a single power.

And the test of loyalty applies most stringently to Muslims. Ever since 9/11, Muslims have been expected to make a shahada of loyalty – ‘I am a Muslim and I condemn terrorism.’

A curious vocabulary has developed. Commentators refer to ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ Muslims, as if Islam was a political philosophy. Surely the Pope would not call himself a ‘moderate’ Christian. Does this make him an ‘extremist’ Christian? Politicians lecture Muslims about tackling extremists within their community, mixing up messages about religious devotion and political extremism. When an atrocity takes place, TV news will show a clip of bearded young men shouting outside a mosque. Unconsciously, viewers develop a sense that a Muslim who attends a mosque and prays five times a day will be a red-eyed fanatic desperate to destroy civilisation. One who is more moderate in the faith, perhaps avoiding pork and alcohol but skipping the prayers, might be more likely to be on the right side of the terrorist debate.

Following reports that some of the 7/7 London bombers had attended madrassahs in Pakistan, I was astonished to discover that a colleague was under the impression that a madrassahs were terrorist training camps. He had been horrified to learn that Muslims in Britain were sending their children to such sinister institutions. He did not know they were religious schools.

The structure of the debate plays into the hands of those who, like Osama Bin Laden, want to use Islam as a political weapon to generate a clash of civilisations between ‘Muslims’ and ‘the West.’ The language of religion gives them access to a large audience, in a way that old-fashioned fascism would not; but religion is just a vehicle for them, a means to an end. The rest of us should not fall into their trap. There is no problem with Islam. Islam has a problem with extremists on both sides of the War on Terror who define the world in apocalyptic terms – with Islam against the West or with the West against Islam, with democracy against tyranny. It is all the same – a means to demonise one’s enemies and justify atrocities against them: shock and awe, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo on one side, suicide bombings, kidnaps and assassinations on the other.

As someone who is by definition quintessentially ‘western’ (white, English, male, middle class – how mainstream western can you get?), I find it depressing to hear politicians and journalists talking about ‘our’ relationship with the Muslim world. According to the 2001 Census, there are 1.6 million Muslims in the United Kingdom. That is nearly equivalent to the entire Province of Northern Ireland (1.7 million). The Muslim world is not external to Britain – Britain is part of it.

Religion needs to be taken out of the War on Terror. Northern Ireland is instructive. When the Troubles started in the late 1960s, the talk was all of Catholics versus Protestants. Nowadays we speak of Loyalists and Republicans. On the ground, the old passions may still rule, but the language has changed to defuse the destructive potential when power politics manipulates religion.

The same should happen with the War on Terror. The battle-lines must be drawn in secular terms. That means taking a cold hard look at the real social and political challenges, avoiding glib demands for Muslims to sort themselves out. This in turn would force us to reach a conclusion on our war aims and answer the great riddle of the age: how will we know when we have won the War on Terror? What is the victory we are supposedly fighting for?

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