Time to pull up the Drawbridge?

Dresden has been a good place to pursue hot issues that don’t seem to be able to air so openly in the UK. On Friday the Frauenkirche saw one of the world’s leading academic experts on Migration, Professor Klaus Bade, unpack the grounds of the fear some Germans feel about his subject.

This fear, Bade calls it “Hysteria,” finds many forms of expression from skinheads to the NPD, but its most public exponent of late has been former railway administrator and SPD Senator, now Bundesbank board member, Thilo Sarrazin. Last year he published a book called Deutschland schafft sich ab (“Germany abolishes itself”) claiming that immigrant Muslims don’t want to integrate and habitually depend on social services rather than honest t

oil. He calculates that in a few generations the Muslim population will grow and overwhelm Germany.

But there’s more. Sarrazin dives from

there into a murkier cellar when he suggests that Muslims are in some undefined way genetically less intelligent. The only answer, apart from pulling up the drawbridge, is to take away the social benefits that feed them. Offended? It’s hard not to be, especially if you remember the evolutionary eugenic theory that underpinned twentieth century Anti-Semitism. It cannot be wise to dance on the edge of this particular abyss.

Hysteria is a form of fear, the most powerful drive in the reptile brain that underlies everything we think. So this stuff matters. It is not enough simply to huff and puff about its moral shortcomings, or to draw historical parallels, although those are almost inescapable. We cannot address hysteria by embarrassed shuffling fro

m foot to foot as those who have just realised that our eccentric neighbour at a cocktail party is actually potty. Neither should the concern be suppressed, as that only amplifies it and may even seem to validate its more febrile imaginations. If you awake in the night fearing your brain is being chewed up by space monsters, best wake up. The only answer is a truthful analysis of reality. We need to engage the higher end of the Brain with reality.

In fifty minutes of fast paced German liberally sprinkled with hard facts and figures, Bade analysed the real trends in the German population — falling in many places, and increasingly in need of high capacity intelligence from anywhere in the world it can be got. It turns out that most German Muslims see themselves as German, and very much share the general aspirations them of fellow citizens for their children, but often lack to a greater extent the means to bring them about.

Reflecting on the unpleasant soft racism and Islamophobia that can be found in the English media, it strikes me that quality of analysis is very thin on the ground. Politicians run scared before the wind without the means, courage or resources to shine light into the murky cellar. And as was the case with doing God, the field of play is left to the forces of ignorance and tribalism. The whole up to date picture can be found in the Encyclopedia of European Migration and Minorities: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present, which the professor has co-edited. Cambridge University Press. £106.50. They may want to serialise it in the Daily Mail, but don’t hold your breath...

How papers feed bigotry about Islam

At the last census, High Wycombe’s population was 92,300, of whom 10,838 were Muslim (11·7 %). If you prick them, do they not bleed? Like the rest of us, Muslims die. Therefore it can come as no surprise that there is a demand for Muslim burials in High Wycombe. The Local Authority has to meet this. Population is growing, and room running out. It would suit Hysterical Islamophobics to be able to say space had been clawed back from consecrated ground in the local graveyard; but that would be barmy because the other 88% of the population also continue to die, so there's absolutely no sense in not extending the graveyard, and land is available.

Enter the Bucks Free Press with a story called “High Wycombe Cemetery Extension agreed for Muslim Burials.” This downpedals the fact that a cemetery extension was needed anyway, and points out Muslims like be buried facing Mecca whilst omitting, curiously, to point out

1. It doesn't cost any more to bury people in new ground facing any particular direction
   
   
2. The site in question snakes round a hillside in all directions, and where the majority orientation has been East, Mecca is basically East of High Wycombe anyway
   
   
3. Since 11·3% of the town’s ratepayers are Muslim, they surely have the same right to be buried according to their wishes, if possible, as everybody else.
   

Next, as is the way with Flat Earth News, this scoop (that Muslims in High Wycombe die like everybody else — Shock! Horror!) is routed, via This is Local London, to the Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph spins the story, by adding an anonymous local resident saying “Yet again many thousands of pounds [are] being spent pandering to the local Muslim community.” Apparently burying the dead is pandering to them.
I disagree. I don’t think High Wycombe is ready for Sky Burials quite yet.

The Telegraph also carries, final killer element, a quotation from the Bishop of Buckingham — oh, that’s me! — pointing out that people of all faiths and none are regularly buried in consecrated ground. This is hardly news, since it’s an obligation laid on the Church since time immemorial and legislated in the Burials Act 1880. The established church is delighted, of course, to fufil this basic civic obligation.

But, final link in the chain, the Telegraph story fulfils its purpose. On Saturday evening I receive a furious email from a gentleman in the North West. He had the character and decency to give his name, but can’t have expected me to use it publicly, so I won’t. I believe my correspondent is a good and decent man. This is his reding of the Telegraph:

Having just read an article where it states you are delighted to serve the Muslim community in allowing an extension of Muslim graves facing Mecca into the main graveyard in High Wycombe, Bucks. I would like to express my disgust at your support of such an action given how Christians throughout the world have and are still being persecuted by Muslims on the instruction of Islam.

I would ask you Sir, where was your support for Christians when Muslims desecrated the graveyard in St. Johns Church, Longsight, Manchester by destroying all the gravestones to make way for a mosque car park. The silence of the media and the Church on this issue, has been absolutely deafening.

By your appeasement and support for Islam you are feeding a hungry lion and when there is no more food to give it, it will turn on you, as can be seen in how Coptics are treated in their own cities in Egypt, a once Christian country. Not only are Muslims taken over our Churches they now want to invade our graveyards and the Church is sitting back and not only saying nothing but encouraging such actions.

It is an absolute disgrace and a very sad day for Christians in this once Christian country

I have to point out to him that I didn’t actually say what he thinks I did. This isn’t a churchyard so it’s none of my business who is buried there. But then my eye is caught by his tale of St John’s Longsight, which I had never heard of before, not being a recipient of Manchester BNP publicity. A video has been posted on the Internet of what I believe is called hard nogging being used as substrate for a carpark, with the strong implication that it is made up of Christian gravestones. This is the message my friend in the north West received, that Muslims have been “destroying all the gravestones to make way for a Mosque car park.”

Trouble is, the gravestones are still there. Indeed, you can see them here. The basic answer to my friend’s question (“where was my support for Christians...?) is that the whole story was a canard, a fiction designed to whip up inter-religious hatred. My correspondent, good and decent man that he is, bought the lie. The Daily Telegraph story in its sexed up form catalysed a response in him, and so the panjandrum of fear, suspicion and hatred gathers momentum.

I had to remind him, as the Christian he professes to be, that the Ninth Commandment is a Christian value. He does not care to admit that he bore false witness, although he patently did, and he goes on to suggest “the bottom line is not about this or any other story put out by the British press.” Really?

Extra Mural education at Eton College

Amazing things lurk in vestries — medieval faces at Newton Longville, or the massive Dormer memorial at Quainton.

Yesterday I visited Eton College, to confirm 35. Music as fabulous — the Langlais Messe Solonelle. There, in the room being used as a vestry, I noticed an extraordinary full mural, one of the earliest secular paintings in England.

For over 350 years it was hidden behind Tudor panelling. Dating from soon after Eton’s foundation in 1440, It shows William of Wykeham’s foundation at Winchester (Left) and Henry VI’s at Eton (the two coats of arms), with a 15th century schoolmaster and pupils.

There is writing on this wall. I may be wrong, but I think I caught a significant bit of Terence “Aliud legunt pueri, aliud viri, aliud senes” (“boys, men and elders learn in different ways.”). Some aspects of education have changed, like the stick with which the master drives his pupils, but one basic principle shines through 568 years — connecting with the potential of the pupil as the person they are. Everyone, at all ages, learns in their own way.

That is actually what this extraordinary place is all about. Laying aside inverted snobbery, visits to Eton College always intrigue me. Many of those whose names are carved in the school room have shaped our national life over more than 500 years. Yet Eton is a thriving, and surprisingly effective, evolved community. Nobody today would require a full time chair of governors, a fomer head, to share a stately home with his successor... However, it works.

It’s is a phenomenally subtle, understanding and humane learning environment. For all the strange traditions, there is deep commitment to developing people as they are (à la Terence). Stability, deftly worn, begets creativity. This place remains an antidote to the silly end of contemporary education — the tickbox mentality, churning out clones by the yard.

There’s also a real desire to deploy the strengths of a mature community (or rather network of communities — 25 houses and College) creatively and positively for the future. There is a fudamental commitment to excellence, a big community development programme, and an awareness that people come out of themselvess in completely different ways. Eton has Muslim, Hindu and Jewish Tutors alongside its Christian chaplains. College and diocese are working together to make this country’s first open residential centre for interfaith dialogue among young people. We are actively recruiting a director, and hope to get going in earnest next year. The more this partnership rolls, the more passionately I feel this project has a unique potential for connecting people and offering hope at a point in our national life where there is a lot of ignorance, foolery and hype. I’m sure it will facilitate real learning for life; and suspect that Henry VI, King behind the plaster, would appreciate what we’re trying to do here...

Hazlemere: Remembering, Learning

Remembrance this year helping with a village war memorial service in Stewkley, orgainsed deftly by the very lively village Royal British Legion, ably led by Dusty Saunders. On the day itself, I was with children at Hazlemere CE Combined School, where years 5 and 6 put on a remarkable Remembrance community service, with guests including local councillors and members of the RAF, as well as RBL.

What really shone through was the depth of thinking and reflection behind the poems, songs and presentation. Children had written their own wartime “letters home”, and I had to check afterwards they hadn’t copied from originals! As well as a great all-age community event, the whole morning showed me the great value of “whole school” working. I know it demands amazing amounts of hard work and co-ordination from staff, but I could see how memorable and moving this all was for the pupils. Congratulations to Nick Waldron (Head) and especially Andrew Sykes and colleagues.

In passing, I also noticed some really engaging story boxes in year 4 (like storyboards but 3D). I was a numeracy governor at the time the numeracy hour came in, and I noticed how consistent working with number lines is producing a whole new quality of work in Maths, in this instance in year 4 (with Mr Rademacher). In the old days people just thought if you were good at notation you understood Maths (why? It’s like saying if you’re good at Crosswords you understand literature). Using number lines over extended periods really builds childrens’ feeling for, and understanding of number in itself. Here’s a subtraction exercise — I’ve blanked the name, but look at the way she’s really getting engaged with numbers, breaking them down, playing with the maths of it, and enjoying herself. This would never have happened in the bad old days, when maths was simply treated as voodoo for clever kids.

I may have disappeared down a slightly anoraky hole! But it’s wonderful to see children enjoying learning together in a great school with their friends. Hazlemere’s a real gem. It isn’t a small school, but somehow it feels like one when you’re there. It’s something about the good relationships, and the ways people treat each other.

As with other Church of England schools in the Thames Valley, it is our privilege to be trusted by many Muslim parents here with their children’s schooling. They don’t, of course, expect technical Quranic learning, just a broad and balanced RE syllabus that builds understanding of all religions. One Muslim parent told me how they appreciated their children to be somewhere God’s name was loved and honoured, so that their Muslim faith is simply respected, shared and nurtured as a way of life, rather than patronised or treated as an exotic hobby.

I asked, in Guardianspeak, “had they ever felt their children were being indoctrinated, narrowed or ghettoised by the experience of being in a faith school?” The parent just fell about laughing.

Faith speaks to Faith. That’s how you build understanding. That’s how schools help build community; and that’s where real hope lies. My Muslim parent did not want compulsory secularism shoved down their child’s throat as the only way, by people who won’t take responsiblity for doing this, and are sniggering at you behind their hands for believing anything more substantial than their own vapid secularism. It was quite an impassioned encounter, and made me realise how different things look in most of this country’s Church schools to how they are often portrayed by Metropolitan élite journalists, projecting their own fears and fantasies from the London experience...

Taliban method, Jesus method

Yesterday Gayle Williams, a British/South African Aid Worker, was gunned down on the streets by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The way they do business pretty much indicates what they really stand for, and the fear, and fantasy and hatred. Christians are subject to fear, fantasy and hatred too — some may recommend fighting fire with fire — an understandable angry reaction, but exactly the opposite of the way Jesus preached and lived.
What’s the Christian way do business?

One of the workshops at Swanwick was led jointly by the Area Dean of Tower Hamlets (Alan Green) and Hussain Ali of the Southwark Islamic Forum. Alan and Hussain led us as brothers and friends through the complexities of life in Tower Hamlets, with its waves of immigration over the past 400 years, and the significant efforts of people of goodwill to discern a way together.

Trying to scope how Christians can help build cohesion in a diverse community, Alan quoted a sermon of Thomas Ken, preached at Little Easton in Essex in 1682:

Not only are we by grace made like to God, but he is also pleased actually to dwell in us, and to consecrate our souls to be his temples... So, when in gracious souls, we discover all the fruits of the Spirit, a kind of glory brightening their conversation, and a sacred amiableness breathed on them from heaven, we are sure that God inhabits there, and cannot but reverence his temples.

In other words our duty isn’t a matter of politics, or being nice to people in the hope of getting something out of them, but an expression of how are called to be in Christ — Christlike.

Disraeli in the Sky with Diamonds

Very pleasant arm-in-arm lovey-dovey walk with Lucy over to Mary Ann Disraeli’s obelisk near High Wycombe, followed by lunch together at Disraeli’s old home, Hughenden Manor. The lambs were gambolling with their mumsies in the fields, the sun shone, and Bucks looked verdant and glorious in spring.

Unusually, when I got my camera home and downloaded the pictures onto my computer, close examination of a chance shot revealed a miracle, on a par with the Nun-Bun, and the last Pope’s appearance on a Polish bonfire last year. There, miraculously (no Photoshop, I promise), his face clear as daylight in the clouds, was Benjamin Disraeli himself! Watching over his beloved High Wycombe from the great beyond, was Queen Victoria’s favourite Prime Minister, large as life and twice as natural!

This miraculous appearance by the Earl of Beaconsfield is particularly pleasing to me, as a nineteenth century historian. My medievalist colleagues at Balliol had subjects pulling this kind of stunt all the time, but I think this appearance is probably a first for a jobbing Victorian politician.

And so tastefully done! It’s probably a sign. Of what? Why would Disraeli be appearing in the sky over High Wycombe yesterday? A sign for Saint Boris’ Day? A portent of Tory resurgence?

It could be a warning. Perhaps he’s cross with us all for thinking Sharia has only been recognised and incorporated in UK law since the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act 0f 1939. In fact, the first Westminster Statute effectively to establish Sharia in a British Jurisdiction was one of his. Exactly 150 years ago, Disraeli as Leader of the Commons steered through Lord Stanley’s India Act of 1858. Of course. And there are still pig ignorant hacks out there who think Sharia hasn’t ever been recognised in English law.
The Earl of Beaconsfield and I wonder if the rest of their news is 150 years out of date?

Bishop of Rochester does his job

This week’s Sunday Telegraph carried an interview boldly headlined “Bishop of Rochester reasserts ‘no-go’ claim.” Oh goody, I thought. Now I can find out where some of these places are. We have very significant Muslim populations in Slough, Wycombe and Aylesbury. If one of them’s a no-go area, I can get on down there and find out what it’s really like. Sorry, mate. Turns out the headline bears no relation to anything Bishop Michael actually said. This is the old “Pen an outrageous headline, and they ignore the rest” trick that was played on Archbishop Rowan the other week.

So what was the authentic substance of the piece? Bishop Michael’s personal courage and faith shone through, along with a characteristically sharp, thoughtful and uncomfortable question he’s challenging us all to consider. Christianity has shaped our laws, culture and history in a fundamental way. Do we really want to blow all that? If we don’t, we need to commit to it and nourish it. The positive message I heard was “use it or lose it.”

No no-go areas. In a pathetic attempt to cover up, the journalist lobbed in a random anecdote, nothing to do with anything +Michael said, about the home secretary being heckled by a crazy in the East End last year. Apparently that’s what has to happen for your street to become a “no-go area.” And if that’s all that Fleet Street’s finest can come up with in three weeks of trying, you may safely assume that, whilst there are a small number of nutters out there, the whole “no-go” thing is essentially provocative tosh, designed to prop up dwindling newspaper sales.

Meanwhile the searching question +Michael raised deserves a serious answer from the secular elites who like to think they form our culture. In the present superheated climate, I wouldn’t hold my breath for it, though...

Sharia/Archbishop pre-postmortem

Various people this week have told me about the Archbishop and Sharia Law, and the hot emerging truths seem to be...

1. The Archbishop has got Funny Eyebrows and a Beard
   
2. His academic lectures are Academic, and this is a Bad Thing for which he should apologise. Unlike the Welsh, who do poetry and stuff, the English idolise unreflective pragmatism. It’s the only country in the world where “Academic” is generally a withering term of abuse. Everywhere else, stupid is stupid. In roadhouse Telegraph it’s cool.
   
3. I phoned the student loans company the other day, and they wouldn’t talk to me until I gave them my secret answer. I asked them what my secret question was, and they said it was a secret. In that spirit, nobody’s quite sure what exactly the question is, but many people have told me they don’t believe any of our politicians would have had the moral courage to raise it. It's good that it has been raised, but it should certainly never be raised again. England is made of inward facing rings within rings — nobody likes turning outwards.
4. Jesus talked about Pearls ’n Swine. Bishops seeking a quiet life need to remember at all times how new model hi-profit lo-cost media actually work:

This particular revelation is from Mr Show. Bear it in mind also as you enjoy breathless tales about gays ’n schisms — enjoy, but don't inhale.

Abdul the Bogeyman

White heat Brouhaha over the Archishop of Canterbury and Muslim Law. You wouldn't think a densely packed academic law lecture would be much good for soundbites, particularly given general public ignorance about jurisprudence theory. You’d be right. One of the few things less understood in Fleet Street than jurisprudence is religion. Ignorance plus Hysteria equals juicy heat. Among the commentators, Andrew Brown hits the nail precisely on the head:

Dr Williams, characteristically, is interested in the arguments over what sharia law actually says. The rest of the country is more interested in whether and how it might be enforced. Only if Islamic law can be reduced to a game played between consenting adults can it be acceptably enforced in this country; and that's not, I think, how it is understood by its practitioners.

English law is a funny old thing. Its very purpose is unclear — For fifty years there’s been a fascinating row (known in the trade as Hart/ Devlin), about whether English law is designed to secure minimal social cohesion (Hart) or enforce morals (Devlin). At the time of Roman Catholic emancipation back in 1829 we experienced big social hysteria about how people who theoretically owe allegiance to other systems of law could be completely part of English society. We've pretty much managed to work that one out — the whole idea that Roman Catholics are a sinister fifth column is just wrong, though this crazy notion has deep roots in English history. Loyal is as loyal does. Within the overarching framework of monarchy we’re all still here, and the deep fried hysteria from 1780 (the Gordon riots) or 1685 (the Popish Plot) seems, frankly, potty. From this we learn that the English sometimes do hysterical kneejerks. Best check that the bogeymen really are bogeymen. In a country containing people who don’t know the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile, this is particularly important.

Fast forward. Muslims, in fact, represent 3% of the UK population. In the cold light of day, fear that Bearded Ayatollahs are about to march up Whitehall and Take Power is utterly ridiculous. It’s particularly babyish when you remember 99% of actual British Muslims live decent, law abiding lives, according to rather conservative standards of family life. Forget that fact, and we make big fools of ourselves. Muslims know the UK is not a Muslim nation, and don't either expect or want it to be. They just expect basic standards of decency and respect towards their faith; which they are entitled to do, because decency and respect are values we all profess, secured by basic charters of human rights.

Are there other areas of UK life where the rule of law is apparently compromised or even suspended? In theory, no. The Queen’s writ runs throughout the realm, and that is a basic principle that secures civil society. But in practice, English law is sensibly pragmatic. Take a boxing match, a lawful activity, as long as the (non statutory, private) Board of Control rules are followed. This always involves acts which would otherwise be considered Common assault contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Particularly bloody rumbles in the jungle would also appear to contravene section 47 of the Act, by occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH). There’s a fascinating wavy line here, and assault cases have been successfully brought arising from incidents on the rugby field. Does that mean sports arenas are “no go areas” for the law? Of course not. In all kinds of areas of life, simple and obvious requirements of general law are, if you like, superseded in a particular context. Sensible pragmatism, common sense, sorts it all out. In a well-worn groove like sports, we know instinctively where to go and how. In virgin forest like Sharia law, we don’t.

Now consider a Jewish couple divorcing. Their faith lays down legalistic procedures for interpreting their behaviour towards one another. If they chose to bring evidence or decisions from those procedures into civil courts in the UK, they will, of course, be taken into account for what they are. This isn’t replacing the law by Jewish law, just sensible pragmatism within the overarching framework of the Queen’s justice. In the same way, 18th century marriage law made provision for Quaker marriage. If religious procedures were to transgress the law, or deprive either party of equity, of course, the rule of law and the principles of equity would apply. Hysteria about Bogeymen is a great British Tradition. It gets people talking. But when they do, historically, they usually talk rubbish.

India — La Vie en Masse

I could be getting this all wrong, and please help if I am, but... India is a crowd. From school assemblies for 2,000 to heaving streets and village roads, you see people everywhere at pretty much all times of day and night. Life is lived on the pavement. Sheer size leads to paradox — For example, Muslims are a small minority in this largest Muslim nation on earth. One training specialist points out that 8 people meeting actually have 56 interrelationships. Now pile a billion people into the room, and imagine the subtlety and complexity that results.

It's embarrassing to be helped in the shops by a helper. The Western Bourgeois response is to do it all yourself and “be helpful.” But actually this may not be as helpful as you think. People are amazingly tolerant of Western Cultural Imperialism and won’t hold it against you, but when you reject help offered, you are potentially rejecting the person in role and making them look like a klutz. Of course if you accepted all offers of help, you would go mad and end up broke. This calls for sensitivity and graciousness all round. Everyone is someone, but not quite what they seem to Western eyes.

In a crowded and complex society you relate personally to others in a million ways, and develop finely tuned social antennae. Dress is an important signal for others’ social antennae, not an expression of ego and taste, as in the West. Declassé clothes are foolish and insulting. It's a long way from the top of the pile to the bottom, and social placing matters, caste or family. The more the system becomes attenuated, the less well it works so that, for example, family arranged marriages work less well the more distributed the family becomes. As Indian cities develop they grow new kinds of abject poverty and bourgeois wealth, but most people still feel a higher level of attachment and belonging than in the West. Hospitality matters, along with curiosity (but not too much) and respect. The Indian politics of everything are almost infinitely refined and complex. India’s the most socially and technically ingenious place on earth, and most things get done in the end, but not in quite the way they would in Surbiton.

Back in the UK, crowds look less crowded, and public spaces look empty — people finding designer ways of not relating to each other, aloofness, families that don’t speak to each other. Most Indians, most of the time, have far less opportunity or inclination, to be self-centred or egotistical. Brits tend to be awkward and stand-offish about anything corporate — it's amazing we manage to do Church at all, really. We think this is a crowded island, but it feels as crowded or spacious as our capacity or inability to manage social space makes it for us. This, perhaps, lies somewhere near the root of our awkwardness about diversity and multicultural living. Well there’s a hypothesis, anyway...