“For too long we have been urged to ‘celebrate diversity’. How can it be helpful to highlight the differences between us?”
Ann Cryer makes her usual helpful contribution to the defence of multiculturalism. Mind you, compared with some of her other interventions (see here and here) her Evening Standard piece is relatively restrained.
Who speaks up for the women?
By Ann Cryer
Evening Standard, 9 August 2005
A conspiracy of silence has surrounded ill-treatment of Muslim women in Britain for too long. One Left-wing MP says that the hypocrisy must end
THERE is no more graphic proof of our failure of integration than the emergence of home-grown suicide bombers. And yet I don’t believe the talk about the “death of multiculturalism”.
We have a multicultural society. The question is how we integrate communities so that they do not act as a breeding ground for extremism.
After the Bradford riots of 2001 Lord Ouseley issued a report which called for “open and frank debate to be conducted without fear”. Yet there has been almost no debate and none of the report’s recommendations have been acted upon.
I represent a West Yorkshire constituency with significant Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. They remain patriarchal, controlled by small groups of older men.
Women are almost invisible, shut out from power despite that fact that many of them now work outside the home, and are increasingly successful in the workplace. And despite the fact that Asians have been in Keighley since the late 1960s, they and the majority white community remain as segregated as ever.
Yet until now, it has been extremely difficult for anyone to raise such questions. For years I have trodden a lonely path trying, on the one hand, to raise sensitive issues affecting the Asian community in the UK, with a view to improving their lives, and on the other, to fend off attacks from both Left and Right.
For despite my record – I am an old-fashioned socialist with an absolute commitment to equality and a long history of working with the Asian community – I have been attacked by the over-politically correct. They have accused me of being an Islamophobe, or even a racist. As the grandmother of three half-Indian grandchildren, I am hurt by such slurs.
Meanwhile, the Right has distorted my views for its own ends, to legitimise its racism and to attack migrant communities.
Yet if the political Left, Asian and white, does not have the courage to challenge such inequality when it sees it, how can it ever expect others to do so?
The teaching of a perverse interpretation of Islam that fuels hatred is clearly unacceptable. But a patriarchal society that treats women as of no importance, tolerates socalled “honour crimes” and forces its children into marriages they do not want should be equally unacceptable to a modern democracy.
Are we now ready as a society – and in the Labour Party – to have this kind of discussion? It appears that after 7/7, issues that were once taboo are now open for debate.
For example, we must question our policy of allowing religious teachers and imams to come to the UK from rural communities in the Indian subcontinent, untrained in our schools’ teaching practices, especially our child protection laws, and inexperienced in the culture of a modern, Western society.
Likewise, we must question the need to arrange marriages between British-born and educated Muslims and first cousins from the subcontinent. Marriages within the settled community would strengthen the principle of compatibility and ensure that English was used alongside – rather than second to – other languages. The underachievement of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in school, as well as their political disenfranchisement, poverty and problems finding decent jobs, could all be improved by a greater use of English.
And above all, we must try to improve the position of women so that they are empowered to assume responsibility on mosque ruling bodies and in the community generally.
Not only is a greater role for women a question of equality; it would also go no small way to blunting extremist versions of Islam. Indeed, it is hardly surprising that when women are excluded from community power and decision-making, the community’s more macho tendencies grow. If these cultures remain male-dominated, young men will learn that they can only forward their cause through bullying – and sometimes even violence.
Any society or culture that fails to subscribe to the basic belief that we are all equal is anathema to everything we hold dear. And if we shy away from challenging unacceptable practices, then we are as guilty as those who live by them.
We cannot afford to have double standards, excusing bigoted behaviour dressed up as cultural difference. To do so doesn’t just demean our values; it also plays into to the hands of the far Right. For rather than protecting the Asian community, overzealous political correctness has helped fuel the growth of the British National Party.
BNP leader Nick Griffin stood against me at the last general election; he was beaten into an ignominious last place. Nevertheless, his vile organisation has garnered some support by playing on the perception among some white voters that minority groups are somehow above the law. I do not believe this is the case – but the way that perception has been allowed to fester unchecked by open debate has been used by the fascists.
Can it really be helpful, for example, for some student organisations to insist on “safe spaces” for discussion where the rantings of the BNP are – quite rightly – excluded but the dangerous teachings of Islamic fundamentalists given a hearing?
Meanwhile, at last year’s Bradford Mela festival – a celebration of multicultural society – the fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir were allowed by the organisers to operate a stall to advertise their extremist views. It is pointless to oppose the BNP but turn a blind eye to Hizb ut-Tahrir. They need each other to survive.
For too long we have been urged to “celebrate diversity”.
How can it be helpful to highlight the differences between us? We all acknowledge our society’s diversity. But it is what we have in common that brings us together. Rather than celebrating diversity, perhaps we need a greater emphasis on celebrating our common interests – our humanity, social justice, and our affection for the cities we live in.
And if the Left and centre of British politics fail to rise to that challenge, it will be the extremists – both white and Asian – who gain.