Today’s Times contains a report entitled ‘Universities join battle against terror as guidelines’. It tells of how Britain’s university chiefs have finally agreed ‘to inform the police of any extremist behaviour by students or visiting speakers that they suspect may lead to terrorism’.
The announcement of their long overdue agreement coincides with the publication today of university guidelines issued by Universities Minister Bill Rammell on what they can and should do to combat the on-campus radicalisation of students to the point they enlist to commit or otherwise support acts of violent extremism.
As well as calling on universities to report students who are suspected of being drawn into terrorism, the guidelines include a number of other sensible and timely proposed measures.
These include asking them to draw up a nationally agreed list of proscribed visiting speakers; to maintain greater vigilance over whom they let in to speak; to give preference to multi-faith over single-faith religious facilities and Chaplaincy, thereby better to promote student integration and prevent the formation of pockets of religious extremists; to translate into English all literature distributed on campus; and to train their Muslim chaplains better to support any vulnerable Muslim students otherwise in danger of intimidation or grooming by extremists.
Clearly and rightly, the threat these guidelines are designed to combat comes from possible acts of violent extremism undertaken by Muslims in the name of their religion, albeit, doubtless, a deeply perverted version of it.
Since last week, however, we have been instructed by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith that we do better to speak of this threat as coming, not from Islamic extremism, but rather from ‘anti-Islamic activity’.
If, by so referring to it, the goodwill and more active cooperation of Muslims can be better obtained in the fight against this threat, something I do not for one moment truly believe, then this piece of Newspeak will have been well worthwhile.
However, over and above so referring to the threat and their fully complying with the new guidelines, there is something else universities could do that, in the long run, I believe would have more effect in helping to combat it. What that additional thing is was obliquely hinted at in something Bill Rammell is quoted today as saying, although I doubt it was in his mind or that he would have had the courage to say it even if it were.
Oblique allusion is made to what this further role our universities could be made to play in the fight against ‘anti-Islamic activity’, when, in response to the present demands of some Muslim students for special facilities at universities, Bill Rammell is reported to have said:
‘Britain technically is a Christian country with many secular features. It’s those two things. It’s not anything else. If you expect that you would have the same response to your faith needs in Britain as would happen in a Muslim or Islamic country, [you] would be disappointed’.
This is a remarkably courageous and profound statement, as well as highly unexpected coming as it does from someone in the present administration.
What is so remarkable about it, and the further great step on behalf of social cohesion at which it hints, albeit probably unwittingly, universities to be singularly well-placed to take, is that it does not say Muslim university students should be denied any special facilities because Britain is now a secular country, but rather because it is a Christian one, although one possessing secular features.
This privileging of Christianity in present-day British life and culture is something many political and religious leaders and social commentators today fight shy of acknowledging or even sometimes appear to seem comfortable with. I believe their discomfiture with the notion to be a profound mistake.
Failure to acknowledge Britain’s Christian character as a society, and the true significance of its being such, has in my opinion inflicted enormous damage on the country. Indeed, it has been among the principal causes of its present-day social fragmentation and of the rise within it of Islamic violent extremism -- sorry, of 'anti-Islamic activity' I meant to write.
Basically, the reason why is that this failure has lay behind many of the changes in personal morality and life-style that Britain has undergone during the last half century that together have served to alienate so many of its more recent immigrants and deter them from integrating as enthusiastically as they might otherwise have done.
Although Britain could not be a Christian country without having a church that their different faith precludes them from joining, British Muslims would, I believe, feel far more at home in this country and more welcome here, if they knew more of their compatriots shared a belief in the same God of Abraham as that in whom they believed, and if the implications of their sharing that belief were more visibly acknowledged and reflected in the country’s culture and daily life.
This is where I think our universities could be made to play a far more effective and constructive role in promoting social cohesion than they can simply by following the largely negative and preventative role assigned them by the new guidelines.
Instead of simply offering shared on-campus Chaplaincy facilities and prayer rooms, how about all British universities making a compulsory part of all undergraduate studies a module about Britain whose syllabus would be identical in all universities?
Included within its syllabus would be a brief synoptic history of the country in which emphasis woul be given to the role Christianity has played in determining its political and cultural complexion, including, most importantly, the great latitude and toleration it has extended towards religious minorities. It would also seek to familiarise students with what churches are for and explain what went on in them and what role they have historically served.
Britain possesses no greater or more glorious heritage than its cathedrals and churches. All its inhabitants, no matter their faith or background, should ideally be provided through their education with the wherewithal to appreciate the great beauty and magnificence of their architecture, music, literature and liturgy.
Attending and passing assessment in such a module should be a made a condition of graduating, at least in the humanities and social sciences. Students should be tested on how well they had learned the basic facts covered in the module, as well as required to make a presentation on which what they said would not be graded as such.
Should it wondered where universities would find the faculty to teach the module, undergoing the training to teach it could be made a compulsory part of the probationary period for all new teaching staff, as well as of the programmes of study of all research degree students in the humanities and social sciences
Not only would such a compulsory undergraduate module give all students the benefit of having learned something in common, they would all have been made to study something that, if taught sensitively and rightly, will have helped foster in them a common positive appreciation of Britain, regardless of their faith or lack of it.
I am increasingly beginning to think that current educational efforts to promote citizenship and social cohesion have started at the wrong end of the educative process. Learning how to negotiate the complexities of present-day life in Britain is a task best left to the end of student days, not attempted at their start.
Not only would such a mandatory module serve a beneficial civic role, it would also restore to universities a dimension that has progressively been removed from them over the last half century. This is their serving the purely non-vocational educative function of exposing their students to the very best in human thought and accomplishment.
Requiring all British university students to learn about Britain in the way suggested would, I think, be the perfect way to go about ensuring that none misses out on such an edifying educative experience. It would, I believe, have the potential to bring about far greater social cohesion in Britain today than anything else currently being taught in the country's lecture-halls or classrooms.
Comments (8)
Even if Bill Rammell was only dimly aware, or even totally unconscious, of what he was saying, it might be taken as an encouraging sign that the zeitgeist is at last turning from those who would sacrifice our culture and traditions on the altar of relativism and multiculturalism. The question is, how to further encourage and propagate this shift, so as to give our children the country / institutions which we inherited, and for which our forebears fought, rather than a diluted mess of alien ideologies? If such little changes, such small signs of growth, are not nurtured, they may not continue. It's all very well to be angry about 'things' - but without concrete action, 'things' will just continue.
Posted by anon | January 24, 2008 2:55 PM
Posted on January 24, 2008 14:55
It's all very well to see Rammell giving out these bromides now. What would he have said as little as - say - five years ago? He and his kind are numbered among the authors of this problem. It is outrageous that they should now pose as Mr Fixit. Moreover, their prescriptions have a dated air. Britain may be Christian by origin but many Britons have become atheists or agnostics. Are they all to return to their ancestral faith just to make a number of new arrivals feel better? I quite agree about the cathedrals and the churches, but I'm not sure that many moslems do. Their religion is indifferent if not hostile to art. It sees churches as houses of idolatry and the pleasure we take in their musty antiquity as simply one of idolatry's most subtle manifestations. There will be little or no cohesion there. The fact is that the various chunks of our ghettoised society are lurching off in radically "diverse" or opposed directions. For the natives, faith is draining away - not least because the ancient structures and the established demography which supported it have been pulverised. Many on the philistine left think that the customs and ceremonies of religion are dispensible outward flourishes. They echo that idiot Paine attacking Burke for pitying the plumage, not the bird. But the plumage tells us much about the bird's general health and so the ritual vitality of a religion betrays the hold it has on its people. Such vitality can only be maintained in a society willing to maintain its exclusivity; its rooted connection to its forefathers. Mass immigration and multiculturalism are the natural solvents of this sort of society and whatever religion it once cherished will be washed away with all the traditions. Who now says "Merry Christmas" in a way that was second nature only thirty years ago? Who now toasts the Queen? Therefore, even the Christianity which, with its belief in charity and welcome to the stranger, might have helped to bind the people into one, is weakened by the very same forces which have enfeebled every other form of togetherness. Religion can survive as a doctrine only among a very small number. By far the majority of believers have come to their conclusions through custom. Outnumbered in their own homeland and prevented by all sorts of inhibitions and prohibitions from clubbing together more privately, their custom and their religion are dying. They have only emptiness to offer.
Posted by Simon Denis | January 23, 2008 9:54 PM
Posted on January 23, 2008 21:54
One last thing David, what is so remarkable about Rammell's statement? It is a statement of the bleeding obvious. Foreign religions only make up about 4-5% of the population but they are grossly over-represented in the media and elsewhere where some people seem to thing they should have equal time with Anglo-Saxon Christians. We do not live in a multi-faith or multi-cultural society. Historically and culturally it is overwhelmingly Christian with a few recent secular loud mouths who haven't contributed much that is constructive. They, not Muslims, are the ones behind the demand to take Jesus out of Christmas. The idea that politicians or anyone else should pay much attention to Muslims over school meals or foreign policy is a case of the tail wagging the dog.
Posted by william | January 23, 2008 5:43 PM
Posted on January 23, 2008 17:43
My reaction is also that Bill Rammell's affirmative statement is principled and courageous.
The debate, I think, is shifting, as politicians, the media, and the general public are becoming more theologically literate.
Not so much 'the war on terror' as 'the war on error'.
The theological war on warped versions of Islam which are entirely incompatible with social cohesion in a pluralistic context, with world peace, or indeed with civilsed values.
Posted by devorgilla | January 23, 2008 11:30 AM
Posted on January 23, 2008 11:30
To James,
You note:
"Why do think that Islamic violence is a perversion of Islam? It is mainstream, it's part of Islamic theory.
Most muslims don't commit violent acts; most Conservative voters don't join the Conservative Party, but they share its goals from a distance without getting out to work for them. (The same for Labour voters and LibDem voters of course.)
All muslims, whether violent or not, share the ambition for Islamic dominance of the world; they have to share that ambition, it's an explicit goal of Islam."
It seems you have no idea about what you write about. Conservative voters may not become members of their party, but they do, as you mention, go out there and vote for them. This constitutes tangible support which of course becomes registered. I continue to have difficulty, however, with finding the evidence that has led you to believe the entire Muslim population of the UK has submitted their support for the Islamist agenda. Getting out there and voting equates with active support, rather than tacit, and the only active support for the Islamist agenda that exists within the Islamic community in the UK is the one concocted in your mind.
Of course, it is fortunate that the entire country does not support your claims since otherwise I for one would be wary every time I stepped into a shop, bus, tube, or hospital, for I must be wary of the Muslim that walks towards me.
Wake up.
Posted by Ralph Aldin | January 22, 2008 10:30 PM
Posted on January 22, 2008 22:30
David,
While agreeing with much you have written, I think you have started at the wrong end of the educational system. I cannot imagine universities being able or willing to teach such a course. I cannot imagine that students who tend to be rebellious would cooperate. I also think that such a violation of the freedom and independence of universities would set a dangerous precedent. No doubt such a module would soon be co-opted to include indoctrination into Europeanism to make people compliant and enthusiastic supporters of the EU.
A better option would be at school level through RE which is already a compulsory subject from years 1-13. The RE curriculum is supposed to be 50% about Christianity. This must also be made the case in Muslim voluntary aided schools.
Posted by william | January 22, 2008 10:20 PM
Posted on January 22, 2008 22:20
I think James you need to read a little theology and philosophy of religion. Do you think there is more than one God? Do you think there is a Muslim God, a Christian God and a Jewish God? Are you then a polytheist? Do you think people create their gods?
The same God may be presented differently in different scriptures just as different newspapers present the same event differently, just as different biographers reveal different facets, aspects and stories of the same subject.
Apart from that the idea that God is presented very differently in the three faiths is mistaken and based on a superficial and simplistic reading.
Such a misreading doesn't make it easier to engage in argument with Muslims as you are attacking a straw man and so your criticisms miss the mark.
Posted by william | January 22, 2008 8:21 PM
Posted on January 22, 2008 20:21
'violent extremism undertaken by muslims in the name of their religion,albeit,doubtless,a deeply perverted version of it.'
Why do think that Islamic violence is a perversion of Islam? It is mainstream, it's part of Islamic theory.
Most muslims don't commit violent acts; most Conservative voters don't join the Conservative Party, but they share its goals from a distance without getting out to work for them. (The same for Labour voters and LibDem voters of course.)
All muslims, whether violent or not, share the ambition for Islamic dominance of the world; they have to share that ambition, it's an explicit goal of Islam.
'Muslims would, I believe, feel far more at home in this country and welcome there if they knew more of their compatriots shared a belief in the same God of Abraham as that in whom they believed.'
No.
The God of the Old Testament does not have the same character traits as the God of the New. Even less does the God who 'revealed' the Koran
to Mohammed share the character traits of the New Testament God.
These deities are not the same; it's a mistake to accept that because each of the monotheistic religions claims that there is only one God their God is the same one.
Bill Rammell's description of Britain's Christian/secular nature is correct, and it's a pleasing surprise to read of a politician saying it.
My initial reaction to the suggestion of a mandatory university course is to reject it.But it deserves more thought than just an immediate rejection; it might be an, unfortunate, necessity.
Posted by James Strong | January 22, 2008 5:52 PM
Posted on January 22, 2008 17:52