Does faith unite or divide communities?

28 November 2006

Speech by Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director, at Race Convention, QE II Conference Centre

Let me say at the outset that I would fight to preserve Freedom of Religion, but also the freedom to change religion — an act still punishable by death in some religions — and the freedom not to have a religion, and not be discriminated against because of that.

Religion is massively more important to the identity of those in minority communities than it is to the rest of the population. Perhaps in such communities religion is regarded as a defence against an uncaring and sometimes hostile world, but that defence is also a barrier.

In recent years, minority ethnic identity has been redefined from being predominantly geographically-based to being religiously-based. This tends to alienate the millions who are not religious (including those within minority communities). It also entrenches a sense of separateness and, in some cases, religious superiority. Few religions do not preach “my religion is better than your religion” either directly or by suggestion. For some, the religion also extends to an ideology which should be spread as widely as possible. “Keep with us”, they say, “not with the heathens, infidels, or the kaffirs” – meaning of course everyone outside their religion.

And often, religious adherents are expected to dress or eat in a certain way (as is their right) to reinforce their identity, in essence their difference from others. Those drifting away and integrating are generally subjected to peer pressure in order to force them to come back into line. I am told that there is now much more pressure to wear religious clothing in the UK than there is in Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey – or even Iraq.

It is no coincidence that schools have always been a major focus for religious groups. They know very well that the best and perhaps only chance they have of inculcating religious belief and identity is at a very young age. This applies to the Church of England as well as to Catholics and those of other faiths.
Many of you will remember with horror the scenes a few years ago at Holy Cross Catholic Primary School in Belfast where frightened infants were being stoned by their Protestant neighbours. Although it doesn’t hit the headlines as much now, sectarianism is still alive and well in Belfast. Twenty foot walls remain to keep the Protestants and the Catholics apart. Some Protestants have never had a conversation with anyone from the Catholic community and vice versa. And they are both Christian and white. Even if the root cause of the conflict is cultural, tribal or political, religion is the marker and that was why the so-called faith school was the focus of the attack. And what better place than schools to reinforce that tribalism, the separation — the idea that children who were born no more than two streets away from each other — are somehow fundamentally different because their parents cleave to a small variation of the same religion.

Multiply that by ten and you have Iraq.

But wouldn’t it be a better idea if schools were for teaching everyone together, rather than preaching apart?

I oppose the idea of all state-funded religious schools for that reason, among others.

But if we open many more minority religion schools that are likely to be predominantly mono-ethnic and in communities that are already apart from the mainstream, are we not missing out on perhaps the only opportunity for cohesion?

Will these schools not just reinforce separateness by their very existence? Separateness of religion, culture and even perhaps ideology?

In his Report on the west Yorkshire riots in 2001, Lord Ouseley wrote of Bradford:
"...fear of confronting all-white and/or all-Muslim schools about their contribution, or rather lack of contribution, to social and racial integration."

And this is not just about minority faith schools but some Christian schools too. The Chief Inspector of Schools in England, observed in 2005 that:

"Many young people are being educated in faith-based schools, with little appreciation of their wider responsibilities and obligations to British society...we must not allow our recognition of diversity to become apathy in the face of any challenge to our coherence as a nation".

I shall now draw my contribution to a close with some extracts from the gospel according to Professor Irene Bruegel of South Bank University. I commend to you her excellent study Sharing Crisps with someone different? Social Cohesion, Diversity and Education Policy. She says:

• Friendship at primary schools can and does cross ethnic and faith divides wherever children have the opportunity to make friends from different backgrounds
• The positive benefits of mixed primary schooling particularly for white children, extend into the early years of secondary school. They were more likely to make new friends from a different background, [and] were more aware of racial discrimination
• … parents learned to respect people from other backgrounds as a result of their children’s experiences in mixed schools.

Drawing on the large body of research into the social psychology of prejudice, she argues that day-to-day contact between children who can more easily see each other as equals has far more chance of breaking down barriers between communities than school twinning and sporting encounters. …If [the Commission on Cohesion and Integration] is to address the questions of integration effectively, [she says it] has to consider (among other matters) how far the retention of existing faith schools have hindered integration.