Islamic Terror Threat

So far, the government has refrained from introducing more Draconian legislation. Instead, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his ministerial colleagues have promised to reinforce the government's campaign "to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim community."

However, like Tony Blair's sterile appeal to moderate, mainstream Islam, this strategy is bound to fail because of two fatal assumptions. First, that every culture and every religion wants to become like the secular West. Second, resistance to Western secularization is fueled by false grievances and as such can be legitimately ignored.

The IHT has an interesting analysis on the Government's response to the recent failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow. Noting that "Those who have abandoned terrorism did so not as a result of secular injunctions or indeed horror at what they were doing. Rather, it was the realization that the variant of Islam they were killing for was itself Western, modern and secular," it concludes that given we are losing the battle of hearts and minds, we should instead encourage an Islamic renaissance and revive Muslim traditions that the fundamentalists have so violently suppressed.

Stand Up For Unbelief

We, non-believers, atheists, and Ex-Muslims, are establishing or joining the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain to insist that no one be pigeonholed as Muslims with culturally relative rights nor deemed to be represented by regressive Islamic organisations and "Muslim community leaders".

Those of us who have come forward with our names and photographs represent countless others who are unable or unwilling to do so because of the threats faced by those considered "apostates" - punishable by death in countries under Islamic law.

By doing so, we are breaking the taboo that comes with renouncing Islam but also taking a stand for reason, universal rights and values, and secularism.

Whilst religion or the lack thereof is a private affair, the increasing intervention of and devastation caused by religion and particularly Islam in contemporary society has necessitated our public renunciation and declaration. We represent a majority in Europe and a vast secular and humanist protest movement in countries like Iran.

So begins the manifesto of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, a new group launched last Thursday. If their demands were limited to "freedom of religion and atheism" and "unconditional freedom of criticism and expression," I believe they would enjoy the support of the majority. If their desire were to give an alternative platform to the Muslim Council of Britain, to provide a voice for the many nominal Muslims whose more moderate and inclusive opinions go unheard by this Government, then they would not be so easily dismissed by the Muslim Council of Britain. However, while accepting that the ex-Muslims in the group have been courageous in publicising their rejection of Islam, I suspect the ex-Muslims will quickly lose out to the atheists in their midst.

For, they oppose "the tolerance of inhuman beliefs" and call for the "separation of religion from the state and legal and educational system" and "prohibition of any kind of financial, material or moral support by the state or state institutions to religion and religious activities and institutions." Yet, faith-based schools and charities are increasingly recognised as providing a service unrivalled in their excellence — in the words of a recent report from The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, helping "to define a sense of place and contribute to community well-being." Any modern, British Bill of Rights will therefore need to accept the contribution that individuals and groups motivated by their faith make to their communities, not attempt to obliterate them.

Hat-tip: Archbishop Cranmer

Crucifix Ban Controversy Renewed

Once again, the issue of religious double standards has bubbled to the surface following inflammatory headlines in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph ("School ban for crosses but not Muslim lockets") and today's Daily Express ("Outrage Over New Ban On The Cross") reporting on draft guidance issued by Croydon Council to help teachers deal with issues relating to different faiths and beliefs.

The draft guidelines included a section on jewellery stating that, while schools should operate a no jewellery policy, teachers should be sensitive to the needs of children from faiths in which religious symbols cannot or should not be removed, listing as examples the Hindu rahki bracelet and the Sikh Kara bracelet.

At first glance this appears to be a repeat of last year's row after British Airways suspended check-in worker Nadia Eweida for wearing a cross necklace, despite allowing employees from other faiths to wear hijabs and turbans—a dispute that lasted three months and ended up with the airline changing its policy to allow religious symbols on a chain or lapel pin.

However, giving Croydon council the benefit of the doubt, the guidelines were in fact simply a draft and the document is still being developed in consultation with schools and will not be considered by the independent Standing Advisory Committee on Religious Education until next month. Moreover, it claims the reports were inaccurate, maintaining that headteachers were not told to ban religious symbols, and has complained, "It is deeply disappointing that elements of the national media have chosen to present a provocative and mischievous slant on such a sensitive subject."

Yet, if they genuinely intended no slight against Christians, then they should have themselves been sensitive to the need to treat all religions equally, and not to presume that "headteachers know about Christian traditions"—particularly in light of the case of Lydia Playfoot, the teenager who is taking her school in Horsham to the High Court after it banned her for wearing a Christian chastity ring, even though it has no issue with Muslim and Sikh pupils wearing headscarves, shalwar trousers, and Kara bracelets as a cultural expression of their religion.

Quite clearly there are issues of religious inconsistency that need to be dealt with in the country, just as there is also a clear determination by secularists to undermine and deny Britain's Christian heritage (see Secularism and Islam Vs Society and Humanism Vs Religion). If these matters are not to become a perennial bone of contention, then we need soon a public discussion involving leaders from all walks of life and sensitivity on all sides, not least on the part of the media who are responsible for reporting on such controversies — and more often than not for inflaming people's passions over such religious disputes.

Secularism and Islam Vs Society

"There is a version of secularism going around which is antireligious, which wants to banish religion from the political public forum."

Developing the recent denouncement of the EU's Berlin Declaration made by the Pope, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham says in today's Times:

“The deep roots of our contemporary secular culture lie in Christianity and there is, in Christianity, an instinctive understanding about the notion of the rights of the human person.

“There is now a clear understanding that politically democracy is the best way of organising the use of power in this society. There is, devolved from Christianity, a notion of justice and courts, of the police and supervision of society, of hospitals and of education.

“All of these things come, if you like, from the root of the Christian heritage of Europe and of this country. But Islam is a newcomer and therefore the whole process of welcoming and integrating and understanding needs to be far more explicit and far more open and far more measured. At the same time, society without its roots will lose some of those qualities.”

Did he believe that Islam threatened those deep roots? “I think it remains to be seen.”