As this news comes from the Guardian:

Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on “Asian-looking” and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence

This news comes in at more-or-less the same time:

Two terror suspects put under control orders to restrict their movements have gone on the run.

There are a few things we can say.

Firstly, assuming the Guardian story is true, what are they playing at? It is not the job of university lecturers to “spy” on their students. These plans are an intolerable intrusion into the lives of both lecturers and university students. You’d have thought that with tensions between communities as they are, especially with the veil controversy, we wouldn’t see another “Muslims = Terrorists” style-assumption. It doesn’t do much for the British public’s perception of Muslims.

The other is, that even if it is proved a student society really is Al-Qaeda in disguise, and special branch rounds up all the members as possible terrorists… they’ll only be allowed to run away anyway.

-posted by Cory

In my post entitled In Defence of Secular Dogmatism I said that:

We must back the liberal wing of all religions simply because we can then convince them of the merits of atheism afterwards. You can’t argue with a man wearing an explosives belt. You can argue with a man who has admitted to himself that he is human and therefore has his built in bullshit detector turned on, rather than forcefully repressed by blind faith.

And then a few days later in The Fraught Politics of Integration I opined:

A pragmatic approach to religion within the framework of a secular constitution would be the ideal. Whilst religion (which is often expressed in culture) continues to wield such power over people’s lives, the government should address it and the problems it creates

A element of pragmatism is essential to any political worldview. I have been shouted at and (foolishly) labelled as ‘Reactionary’, ‘Thatcherite’, ’Fascist’ and ‘Stalinist’ for simply saying that seeing the world for what it is is itself a vital principle. Principles are important, and I would consider my opposition to organised religion and denial of the faith ‘impulse’ two of my most cherished. But principles must be accompanied with pragmatism, because if you do not see the world as it is but rather as how you want it to be then principles become meaningless.

It is all very well being opposed to all religion unremittingly, but at the same time a coherent and reality-based worldview must take account of the fact that very many people do believe this claptrap and, even more regretfully, have it at the centre of their identity. Ask a religious person to give up their faith and you are asking them to take a big knock to their pride. Expectations and policy views must then be adjusted accordingly to allow for this human stupidity.

In The Times today, David Aaronovitch takes this pragmatic view:

They are, even if they are anti-gay or backward on women’s rights. So, until very recently, was most of the British Establishment and almost all the churches. They are in, even if they hate my politics, excoriate Zionism, call me degenerate, loathe Darwin and want to build absurdly oversized mosques instead of social housing. To all of that we can say: “Very well, let the argument between fellow citizens commence.” All they — or we — have to do is obey the law. And in that regard the veil-wearer is far more a proper Briton than the veil-snatcher.

When I next blow on my birthday candles I shall wish that a million people would read Ian Buruma’s new book, Murder in Amsterdam, dealing with the killing of the Dutch controversialist Theo van Gogh by an Islamist terrorist. Exploring the impact of Muslim immigration into the Netherlands, Buruma concludes on the absolute necessity of making distinctions between who is an enemy and who needn’t be. It will be the Muslims’ choice, but, Buruma writes: “Such a choice depends partly on the way they are treated by the country in which they were born. And this depends on another choice: whether to accept an orthodox Muslim as a fellow free citizen of a European country.”

And of course, living in a free country means freedom of conscience, religion and speech. Obviously the veiling of women is a hideous thing, but trying to stamp it out a la France is only the road to more veiled women. No, as is always the case, the government should concentrate instead on facilitating the conditions whereby the debate within the muslims in Britain can be heard by all. This would neutralize the poisonous and quasi rascist rantings of Melanie Philips and Rod Liddle and also encourage the rest of Britain that muslims are genuinely talking about how their identity can be adapted for living in a free society. This argument will only have one result, of course. The reactionaries will lose and the veil will eventually come off; but it will take time.

-posted by Adam

Muslim women have every right to wear the niqab. This simple affirmation of western freedom of expression must be made before any discussion about the merits of Jack Straw’s latest pronouncement begins. What is important, however, is that we apply this principle of free expression without fear of causing ‘offence’ and not capitulate to insidious demands for ‘respect’. Causing offence is not a crime. People living in a free society should be prepared to be lampooned, ridiculed, criticised and mocked; it is not the States place to give a damn whether a citizen has been offended or not.

            We are capable, therefore, of having a free and open debate about the cultural and religious practices of the communities who live in this country. Jack Straw was right to raise the particular issue of Muslim women and veils. He makes the entirely reasonable point that a veil, which creates a barrier between two people, stymies discourse and social interaction. Much of our communication is non-verbal; and facial expression is a vital tool in our conversational repertoire. A smile or smirk or grimace can say as much as any monologue or hasty utterance. If you remove the ability of one person to see another persons face, you take away one of our best (and most immediate) ways of forging empathy with another human being; and we could all do with a lot more empathy when it comes to community dialogue in this country.

At this point (rather ironically considering my last sentence), I must declare that I find the niqab discomforting. A woman veiled from head to toe in cloth, with only the eyes showing, is a statement of difference which I cannot comprehend in any positive fashion. It seems to me that the veil is a symbol of the patriarchal nature of many Muslim communities. This assertion is borne out by the simple observation that, in the vast majority of conservative Muslim societies, women have to wear the vale and men do not. The veiling of women is a suppression of individual identity and it turns the wearer into a blank space. The point must also be made that, undoubtedly in many cases, women have no choice in the matter.

My discomfort (or anyone else’s) with the niqab is, for the over-arching reason given above, no reason for a ban. Instead of using the sledgehammer of the law to address this issue, we would be better off, as is nearly always the case, using the scalpel of dialogue and debate.

The niqab controversy is just the tip of the iceberg. How government can use policy to effect a successful integration of immigrant groups into British (or any Western European) society is an extremely important question. On the one side are the proponents of multiculturalism who have shaped public policy for the better part of three decades in this country; and on the other the absolute secularists who find their most powerful advocates in (for example) the French establishment. Both approaches are flawed.

 Social pressures, which are defended under the tenets of the doctrine of ‘multiculturalism’, mean that women are often dismissed or shunned by their communities if they refuse to don the chador.

Multiculturalism, the policy by which all cultures are to be afforded equal ‘respect’ (there’s that word again), is implicitly implicated in this tyranny over women. Fashioned with the best of intentions, it has now become a counter-productive way of welcoming people to our country. It promotes not a melting-pot where we all mix together but a segregated society of sealed off cultures, each sticking to its own. This results in such horrors as state funded faith schools and ethnic community centres, which are the wellsprings of sectarian strife.  A good illustration of this is the segregated townscapes of places like Burnley and
Bradford; places which erupted in inter-communal violence not 5 years ago. Multiculturalism affords too much respect to reactionary immigrant traditions and, what is worse, results in the often elderly and gaunt proselytizers of these traditions being backed by tax payer funds.

             The approach of some other countries, most notably the fanatically secular France, is to ban, by force of law, all religious statements from the public sphere. So, for example, women are not allowed to wear headscarves in public schools. All religion is equally powerless. This approach, perhaps best expressed in the first amendment of the US constitution, is the only guarantee of religious freedom. The French, however, needlessly extend things too far when insisting on a de facto dress code for French citizenship. This extreme application of the principle of Laïcité does absolutely nothing to help immigrant groups integrate into society. Because the government takes no position on religion (an extremely admirable principle in theory) it can have no policy on religious groups. The sad fact is that, for many communities, religion is a symbol of identity and a pie-in-the-sky approach, whereby it is completely ignored, does little to help with integration and the creation of harmonious neighborhood relations.         

    What is the solution? The government, instead of its current pusillanimous approach to questions of this kind, should be more assertive in articulating, with a view to encouraging (I almost wrote engineering, but that would be a touch totalitarian), the kind of mixed up society we want to see exist here. No more faith schools and no more respect for reactionary elements in immigrant communities. No more pretending that the Muslim Council of Britain, a deeply conservative body, comes anywhere near to reflecting the views of Muslim Britains. But equally, no resorting to State power and the law courts to try to force communities to mix.            

A pragmatic approach to religion within the framework of a secular constitution would be the ideal. Whilst religion (which is often expressed in culture) continues to wield such power over people’s lives, the government should address it and the problems it creates. Jack Straw’s remarks will hopefully create a debate which can generate some light, as well as the usual furious heat.

-posted by Adam

Jack Straw has balls. No matter what your views are on this rather sensitive topic, credit should be given to him for bringing this issue out into the open.

For those people who have been asleep or missed this story for one reason or another, in a column for the Lancashire Telegraph (reprinted here in Comment is Free), Mr Straw said:

I decided that I wouldn’t just sit there the next time a lady turned up to see me in a full veil, and I haven’t.

Now, I always ensure that a female member of my staff is with me. I explain that this is a country built on freedoms. I defend absolutely the right of any woman to wear a headscarf. As for the full veil, wearing it breaks no laws.

I go on to say that I think, however, that the conversation would be of greater value if the lady took the covering from her face. Indeed, the value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or phone call, is so that you can - almost literally - see what the other person means, and not just hear what they say. So many of the judgments we all make about other people come from seeing their faces.

Which is fair enough. He has the right to ask whether the lady in question wishes to take off her veil. Just as said lady can refuse to lift the veil. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking. The simple matter is that it does feel there is a barrier to communication if you are speaking to someone whose face you can’t see. Facial expression plays a huge part in transmitting what we say, and in our interpretation of what others say. It could help them get whatever message they have over more persuasively. The other simple matter is that if someone chooses to wear the niqab for religious reasons, there is absolutely no reason why they should be prevented from wearing one.

Interestingly, most women Mr Straw asks take the veil off:

I can’t recall a single occasion when the lady concerned refused to lift her veil; and most I ask seem relieved I have done so. Last Friday was a case in point. The veil came off almost as soon as I opened my mouth. I dealt with the problems the lady had brought to me. We then had a really interesting debate about veil wearing. This itself contained some surprises. It became absolutely clear to me that the husband had played no part in her decision. She explained she had read some books and thought about the issue.

I can’t help feeling that there has been some overreacting to Jack Straw’s comments. To take one example on Comment is Free:

Not only are Muslims right to be up in arms at Mr Straw’s suggestion but we hope the rest of society will join us in opposing his attempt to curb basic freedoms such as how we dress; surely a step too far even for this nanny state. It appears Mr Straw has not listened to nor understood the reasons for why women choose the veil as he clearly disregarded any reasoning when he requested that they remove it; and in all likelihood he has abused his position of power when making the request. Perhaps it is time for some more dialogue on the issue Mr Straw.

Also, here’s Patricia Hewitt’s take:

She said that in the past she had regarded the veil as a symbol of women’s oppression, but changed her mind after a meeting with a Muslim woman in her constituency. “She’d made the decision — not her parents or anybody else — that she wanted, as part of her statement of her faith, to wear the veil.”

I think the point is that Jack Straw isn’t saying it’s wrong to wear a veil in public, but in a private face-to-face conversation in his office he has every right to ask politely if they want to remove their veil. Just as they have a right to answer “no”. Either way, nobody gets hurt.

While we’re on the subject of veils (and hopefully it’ll be a while before they return) the article I mentioned above from today’s Times is worth a glance:

A MALE suspect in a major anti-terrorist investigation in Britain escaped capture by allegedly disguising himself as a Muslim woman dressed in a burka…

The man, who was wanted in connection with serious terrorist offences, evaded arrest for several days as police searched for him across the country…

It is the first time that a male suspect has allegedly disguised himself as a Muslim woman in Britain. However, the tactic has been used frequently by Islamist fighters — including suicide bombers — in Iraq and Afghanistan. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, often dressed in a burka to evade American forces hunting him.

Yes….but so what? We can’t stop people wearing veils for that reason. By that logic, we should ban balaclavas, as well. And hoodies. And large hats. And tights, in case would-be bank robbers wear those on their faces as well…

Cory

Straight off the back of my recent post about the London-only nature of much of the media in this country, the ever reliable Harry hits the nail on the head in a way I could never hope to do:

I’m not optimistic. Every single national newspaper in Britain has it’s editors and main staff at headquarters in London. Every single television channel has it’s news operations run from London by people who live in London. The vast majority of national media journalists live and work in London. If you are a decent journalist from the North who wants to enjoy a successful career you know that means you will have to move to London eventually - those who, for various reasons, choose to stay in the North have to accept that they will always be paid a fraction of what their collegues in the capital earn and will never receive the same recognition and are condemned to work at underfunded outlets which despite their local title and focus are often controlled by London based companies.

To most people this seems perfectly normal but it really isn’t. Take two of the biggest media markets in the world -the USA and Germany. American and German newspapers and television stations are spread out across the country. There is no way that Germans or Americans would accept their main media being produced entirely by people living in Washington or Berlin.

Of course there are a number of explanations for the differences between German and American media and the centralised British model but I would suggest the fact that both the US and Germany are federal republics is a pretty major one.

It is a terrible state of affairs. As long as London remains the perceived honeypot financially, politically and culturally the flys will continue to swarm around it.

-posted by Adam

 The first of a new series of posts detailing the ramblings of Respect, Socialist Worker, George Galloway et al. It’s just about distinguishable from “Looneywatch” - only just. We’ll try and keep Looneywatch home of the religious looneys, rather than political ones.

Below is an article from the Socialist Worker website:

A terror raid that doesn’t make the headlines - despite chemical explosives and a rocket launcher online only

Here’s a police seizure of weapons that wasn’t splashed all over the front pages.

This week a British National Party election candidate has been accused of possessing the largest amount of chemical explosives of its type ever found in the country. That’s right, the largest ever - imagine if he’d been an Asian man. Home secretary John Reid would have held a special press conference and it would have led every news bulletin.

The home of another man charged with similar offences contained a rocket launcher and a nuclear biological suit as welll (sic) as BNP literature and chemicals!

Robert Cottage of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Bolus Jackson of Trent Road, Nelson, made separate appearances in court charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose.

Cottage was arrested at his home on Thursday of last week, while retired dentist Jackson was arrested in the Lancaster area on Friday.

The 22 chemical components recovered by police are believed to be the largest haul ever found at a house in this country. Cottage stood as a BNP candidate in the Pendle council elections in May.

Christiana Buchanan, who appeared for the prosecution in Jackson’s case, alleged the pair had “some kind of masterplan”.

Now compare it to a more detailed article in the Burnley Citizen on the story.

1) Although Robert Cottage used to be a member of the BNP, he isn’t any more. His membership has since expired. Surely he would have renewed it if he was a committed member of the party. This fact is something not made clear in the Socialist Worker article.

2) According to Superintendent Neil Smith, Robert Cottage “is not a terrorist and it’s (his house is) not a bomb factory”. Whereas the heading on the Socialist Worker site screams “terror raid”. A gross distortion of the facts.

3) As the Superintendent said, Cottage’s house was not a bomb factory. The chemicals could make bombs, but there was no actual explosive stuff found. More from Neil Smith:

“He was arrested under the Explosives Act on suspicion of possessing chemical substances that aren’t in themselves an offence to possess but if combined may be capable of making an explosion.”

So there were no “chemical explosives” - yet - just stuff that could be combined to make explosives. A trifling difference maybe, but the SW article implies there were substances at Cottage’s house. And there were none.

4) “Well” is spelled with two “L”s not three.

I agree that what has been found is pretty scary, and that the story does seem woefully under-reported. The only articles I could find about it are from the local, not national, media. Still, four errors in a 224 word article (including the headline and all). Not bad for Socialist Worker!

Cory

UPDATE - the article on the SWP website has now been changed and expanded, and can be seen here.  Ta for those who have pointed it out. I still stand by what I said in my original post. It’s amazing this story hasn’t received more coverage, as far as I can see the only “major” paper to highlight this story is this news in brief in the Times.

I am a Provincial. A hick. A rustic. I have never lived in London; instead dividing my time between Manchester and Birmingham - Englands two other great metropolitan centres.

The London based media is hideously insular. The Today program and the broadsheet newspapers especially seem concerned solely with what happens in a two mile bubble centred around the palace of Westminster. The London-centric attitude of many commentators (Johann Hari especially) is particularly sickening.

Therefore, any attempt by a major columnist to pierce the bubble and shine some light on the hitherto darkened provinces is more than welcome. Simon Jenkins has an excellent article today in the Guardian about how the political class completly ignores the country outside of London except for its pathetic and supine party conferences. The record of both the political parties when it comes to urban redevelopment has been nothing short of scandalous:

I like so much about Manchester that I hesitate to point out that, after Liverpool, it must be the worst advertisement for Labour caucus government that has dominated Britain’s cities for a third of a century. The council’s destruction of the inner suburban ring of Victorian properties in the 1970s (now being repeated under Ruth Kelly’s “pathfinder” programme) was class-cleansing on a scale that dwarfed what Shirley Porter was doing in Westminster. The rebuilding of Hulme, described in Clare Hartwell’s excellent city guide as “one of the most notoriously defective and dysfunctional estates in Europe”, has had to be completely flattened. Moss Side is a testament to Jane Jacobs’s thesis that architects, not people, make slums. Today these are among the worst places in Britain for guns and drugs crime, truancy and health service deficits. I wonder how many starry-eyed delegates bothered to visit them.

Manchester is littered with the carcasses of failed redevelopment projects - think especially of the awful ‘Hulme Crescents’.

Urban planning is a tricky issue. Manchester city centre still has more character than Birmingham’s, which is just a mess of glass and steel; and some of the redevelopment in the city centre has been a vast improvement on the 60’s monstrosities that loomed before the IRA bomb. But unless something is done soon, Manchester will lose all its old buildings and be left looking like one big Bullring.

Unfortunately, Manchester city councils are notoriously incompetent. Just recently, they chopped down all the trees along my road because they were afraid of being sued when people tripped over their roots. The roots of these grand old trees had been forcing up parts of the pavement, creating bumps and humps in the tarmac. Naturally, instead of trying to save the trees, the council took the cheap and easy route and chopped them all down; planting some sad little saplings in their place.

London may be the countries’ economic powerhouse and a ‘world city’, but Manchester and Birmingham are great too. They (Manchester especially) have as much rich history and culture to offer as London. Their historic buildings should be protected and cherished, not smashed and burned and replaced with perspex monstrosities that look like something out of 1984.

It’s probably too much to ask of the London media bubble, but paying mroe attention to the provinces and bringing their issues and anecdotes to national (and international) attention would be good for Britain.

-posted by Adam

It’s nice to see the Tory party self-destructing again, after all Labour’s been through over the past few weeks.

Now we have right-wingers like John Redwood and Norman Tebbit banging on about tax cuts. Why do they want lower taxes to be part of Tory policy? Basically, because that’s what the Tories have always argued. Like in the 2005 election. And the 2001 one. The fact the Tories lost both these elections seems to have escaped Messrs Redwood and Tebbit.

They come armed with some papers from Thatcherite think tanks - including one slightly confusing one from the Taxpayer’s Alliance:

All the evidence shows that if you cut taxes, people work harder, you generate more growth and you get more money in the government’s coffers.

It was also argued that if tax rates were lowered, the super-rich would spend less time trying to evade paying tax. I’m sure it would, but don’t evade paying tax in the first place, you slimy selfish creatures of flith! Especially when director’s pay is up 28% this year - seven times the average wage increase.

The simple fact is that lower taxes means less schools and hospitals. It’s time the Tebbits of this world stopped tub-thumping. Not that I mind a huge schism in the Tory party that much…

Cory

Pants on fire etc 

Presumably Cherie Blair’s habit of saying crass things out of lines comes from her parents. When asked by Newsnight, Mr and Mrs Booth said that she wasn’t Gordon Brown’s biggest fan. Who nees enemies with friends like these? Or is it stretching it a little to describe Gordon Brown and Cherie Blair as friends? Good to see that number 10 did at least deny the story - only a mere seven hours after it was first reported by Bloomberg. And Peter Hain says we should take that denial at face value. So that’s alright then.

Arctic Monkey Watch 

In his speech, Gordon Brown mentioned the Arctic Monkeys again:

It will not be a surprise to you to learn I’m more interested in the future of the Arctic circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys.

Can any politician make a speech without referring to the Arctic Monkeys? Brown’s been at it almost since day one. Ming Campbell has also mentioned them - but in typical Ming style he got it wrong, saying the Arctic Monkeys had outsold the Beatles already. As far as I know, David Cameron hasn’t mentioned the Arctic Monkeys; but putting “David Cameron Arctic Monkeys” into Google gives you 250, 000 hits. Watch this space…

Is it cos I is Scottish?

In a polling session conducted by Frank Luntz for Newsnight, rumblings were made about Gordon Brown’s unsuitability to become Prime Minister because he is Scottish. About four or five people out of the thirty people in the session had concerns - because of the too-large influence (as they see it) Scotland has on the politics of England. My usual reaction would be “Who gissa crap?”

But from Frank’s little session, the overwhelming choice for the group to be next Prime Minister was John Reid. And guess which nationality he is…! It seemed strange that Mr Luntz didn’t push the group more on this issue, but there have been problems with the reliability of his findings before. So it’s probably more a problem with Gordon Brown personally, rather than an outburst of petty nationalism.

For general interest, when asked who they wanted to be PM from the six people Frank Luntz picked, the results were:

Gordon Brown - 3

Alan Johnson - 0

John McDonnell - 3

Alan Milburn - 0

David Miliband - 6 (breathe Adam!)

John Reid - 18 (!)

Well, well, well…

Cory

I’d be rather surprised if no readers had actually seen this. 24 people have been arrested, on suspicion of blowing up nine planes over the Atlantic ocean. Obviously, these 24 people are suspects, and could well be innocent. This seems unlikely though. If these suspects were innocent, the police would have shot them (possibly in the head) during the raids.

Often it seems the best way to try and shape out your thoughts when you hear about events like these, is to think about how not to react. There seems to be two main schools of leftish thought that are good examples of how not to react.

The first, is to say that somehow the fact that this story has “leaked out” when there is a crisis in the Middle East shows the whole story is a big conspiracy and cover up. Commenters on CIF seem to use this line a lot. This doesn’t make sense - there has been a crisis in the Middle East for the past 800 years. By that logic, every news story was released to divert attention from the goings-on there. Furthermore, this particular view is dangerous, and tries to minimise what was a very, very serious threat.

The second is to say that this is all our fault. Because, of course, blowing up innocent civilians is a legitimate response to government policy. It’s like saying that a legitimate response to your neighbour planting hedges on your half of the boundary gives you the right to blow him up as he drives to work.

So, after all that, what is my reaction? Wait and see. If that’s too boring for you, how about this from the Drink-Soaked Trots:

This all seems a counter-productive effort really. I mean actually arresting them before they actually carry out the attack may alienate these oppressed young men and further radicalise them. Not to mention that their civil rights have probably been infringed in the process of the investigation.

-posted by Roy