Religion & Politics

Rethinking Religion and Politics: Ten years of New Labour Achievements and drawbacks in the perspective of Anthony Giddens.

Pierre BESSES
Université de Toulouse-Mirail

A radical rethink on Religion and Politics for New Labour.
The tide of scattering criticism of a new labour doomed to defeat in 2010 keeps rising: for Martin Jacques (New Statesman. June 2009) Obama has exposed the timidity of Blair and Brown. At the heart of the British problem of the left is that New Labour is the incumbent government. As the financial crisis struck, Barack Obama was able to present himself as an alternative to the Bush years; New Labour had no such advantage. On the contrary, it had been the architect of a system that had culminated in the mother of all postwar crises. The party has paid a savage price for its enthusiastic endorsement of neoliberalism. There is nothing Gordon Brown can do to escape that responsibility – he is deeply culpable, just like Tony Blair before him.
The result is twofold: first, people’s discontent with the recession has inevitably taken the form of a turn towards the Conservatives; and second, there is virtually no credible and strong left-of-centre voice.
The net result of twelve years of government by New Labour (plus three years before that of leadership of the party by Tony Blair) is the disintegration of Labour as a radical force. The true cost of New Labour, in other words, is not just the imminent electoral massacre, but the undermining of the party as a progressive force”. [1]
Against the impact of such a radical critique one could first underline one New Labour achievement: a keen awareness that the relationship between Religion and Politics needs a basic rethink. Richard Reeves clearly assesses the scope of this new relationship.[2]
According to Richard Reeves, the existence of a secular state has made it possible for the left – and the right- to accommodate those inspired by religious conviction, as well as those whose political activism springs from godless ground. But the accommodation of the left and religion is under strain, for a mixture of personal, ideological and social reasons.
The personal problem lies in the character of Tony Blair. It may be that Downing Street didn’t “do God”, at least after 2003, but the PM certainly does. It really doesn’t matter that he goes to church. Indeed, it is probably welcome. It doesn’t matter if he prayed with George W. Bush: if it happened, it was in private and they are both consenting adults. It does matter if Blair believes, as he appears to, that this ultimate responsibility for sending us to war is ton his Maker. Blair’s responsibility is on earth to the families of those injured and killed.
In such a secular perspective, which is shared by the New Statesman, in 2006, ideologically, religion has risen in importance again because of the collapse of the old, competing systems of left and right. Even the Christian Socialist Movement isn’t socialist any more. This collapse has made the moral grounding of left politics less certain. That is a gap which, for many, religion can fill. The moral resources of faith are richer, at least for now, than the humanist and relationalist philosophy be-queathed by the Enlightenment. The left defines itself, ultimately, by a thirst for justice. And while there are intellectually ingenious formulations of a justice society – not least John Rawl’s – none of them has much capacity to inspire action or change. For most philosophers and scientists, rationalism has defeated religion. The problem, politically, is that philosophers and scientists are in the minority: about as many Britons define themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual as define themselves as atheist. Even if church attendance is low, most people agree with Tawney that we all have souls – and that one of the goals of progressive politicians is to SOS: to save, or at least protect, our souls from rapacious markets, poverty and discrimination.
But the greatest political challenge for the left, in terms of engagement with religion, is the rise of Islam. The instincts of centre-left politicians towards multiculturalism, freedom, secularization and a moral politics are in continual conflict when faced with e perceived threat from the militant wing of a system of belief with a wide following in the UK.
So far, the response of the government has been mostly correct: dismissing the crude secularization of the French ban on the hijab, allowing for the establishment of Muslim schools and working closely with the leaders of the Muslim community. The next step, probably imminent, is to remove the constitutional anomaly of bishops sitting in the House of Lords.
But there is a deeper, paradoxical problem. British Muslims are second-class citizens, but for reasons entirely unrelated to their faith. They are at a disadvantage in the labour market and wider economy because of their disproportionate levels of poverty and because of race discrimination. The loss of a clear political vehicle for addressing these injustices –such as socialism- means that their religion becomes both the mode of expression for anger, and the means by which redress is sought.
The intertwining of religious faith and social injustice is not going to disappear. The correct response is to create the necessary space for its peaceful expression. This applies most obviously to debates between religious groups. But it equally applies to the debate between atheist, Darwinist scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, and philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett, and their religious opponents. They seem to forget that one of the most important legacies of the Enlightenment, especially in Britain, was a conviction that the truth emerges from the continual collision of ideas. (Their own faith must be pretty shaky of the crazy creationists can get them so rattled).
“It is the time for the left to rethink the relationship between secularisation and politics. Religion continues to provide many of the raw materials for progressive politics. But it can do so without a particular link to the state. Disestablishment should clear the way for more realistic debate about the role of different, competing value systems: which is a pretty good definition of politics done properly. And with enough will and courage, the secularization of British Islam that is required will take place. This will not weaken Islam, or the left, but strengthen them both. What is certain is that the left serves the causes of both progress and peace ill by wishing religion away.”[3]
The first New Labour paradox: going back to the U.K. civil religion.
In such a specific British context for a new relationship between religion and politics, the British cultural and political exception of the pseudo secular Nation State is the clever choice made by Tony Blair in 1997: to take advantage of the ideological strength of Britain’s Civil Religion. The two New Labour leaders and the Tories share the political truth underlined by social scientists: Britain’s cultural identity lies in the fact that a series of institutions can be seen as linked together to make up a major component of British society’s patriarchal culture. These are: the nation, the armed forces, the family, the church and the monarchy. Together they could be said to constitute the main part of the archaic heritage of this society, or the central elements of its patriarchal culture. This culture is constituted by certain moral values, beliefs, rituals and symbols which operate within the institutions mentioned. It produces and reproduces the gender roles and definitions os sexuality which most peoples think of as natural and normal –the heterosexual, monogamous family.
An important component of this ideological structure and set of social practices is the Royal Family. The rituals surrounding not only the monarch but others members of the Royal Family are central events in the “civil religion” (R. Bellah, 1970) which persists in modern Britain. The recent examples of such royal ritual occasions include the Silver Jubilee in 1977, to celebrate twenty-five years since the Queen came to the throne; the eightieth birthday of the Queen Mother in 1980; and the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981. There are, in addition to these specials events, the regular cycle of royal civic rituals throughout each year, such as the Christmas Day television broadcast by the monarch, the State Opening of Parliament, and the Remembrance Day events.
These rituals are a complicated mix of a number of analytical types of ritual action. The central ones are civic rituals by the Head of State, such as the State Opening of Parliament; life-cycle rituals such as Royal weddings and birthdays; military ritual such as the Trooping of the Colour on the Remembrance Day ceremonies. These could be said to constitute the civil religion of Britain, to use Bellah’s term, rather than being, strictly speaking, religion in the sense of beliefs and rituals which purport to be in contact with the “holy” or the “numinous” – as R. Otto, 1924) called the special sense of awe which he saw as typifying religious experience and ritual.
“Civil religion” in the United States and Britain is not itself Christianity, according to Bellah, even though it draws upon themes and symbols from Christianity. The “God” of American civil religion is unitarian, for example, not the complex Trinitarian God of Christianity, Bellah argued (Bellah, 1970). A civil religion focuses on a particular nation-state, whereas a major world religion is universalist and does not teach or claim that loyalty to any particular nation-state is a necessary prerequisite for “salvation”. Civil religions do focus upon generating loyalty to a particular nation state. The Church of England, for example, combines aspects of both types, being a civic religious organization focused on England, and part of the universal religion of Christianity. Tensions have actually resulted from this dual aspect from time to time, whenever church leaders have stressed universal values and used them to criticize politicians’ activities and policies. Politicians have typically expected legitimation from the Church of England, and certainly not criticism. The tension can erupt whenever the church leaders stress universal Christian values of reconciliation, love and the equality of all people in the eyes of God and find fault with particular political actions, for instance, the bombing of civilian targets in the Second World War, which was criticised by Bishop Bell; the criticism of the nuclear deterrent in “The Church and the Bomb” report in 1982; or the Tory government’s handling of unemployment and the 1984 miners’ strike criticized by a number of bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. (In this context, it is worth nothing that the Church of England still commands attention and retains a latent loyalty among many English people; there out of every five people claimed to be members of the Church of England in a National Poll carried out for The Times in 1978.)[4]
The New Labour case for the Bishops.
If going back to the U.K. civil religion must be interpreted as a reason of the Secular State, the second New Labour paradox and contradiction for the last ten years is the two leaders advocating the bishops’ presence in the Lords. Using the same rhetoric as the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford in March 2007 on the reform of the Lords Jack Straw brings his contribution to such a conservative rethink in the relationship between religion and politics when he refers to the essential constitutional reform: he has done more any other politician in recent decades to reform the House of Lords and to introduce a new elected second chamber. His white paper of July 2008 set out how an elected second chamber might and showed work. Yet, such a New Labour reform means a paradoxical justification of the Bishops now arguing for the continuation of their anachronistic and undemocratic presence in the legislature by suggesting for the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford, “the 21st century” has seen an awakening of consciousness in public life of the importance of religion, faith and belief in the pursuit of the common good.
Such are the threadbare, almost desperate arguments that are now being used by the Church of England to justify its continuing presence in any reformed upper house. But at least the bishops can find some consolation from a powerful and unexpected quarter. The Labour government, in its own proposals for reform, almost totally accepts their case for their retention. Its only concession to those who find the continued presence of the bishops an appalling anachronism has been to propose that their numbers be reduced from 26 to 16.
What could have possessed a modernizing Labour government to even entertain the idea of special treatment for the bishops, let alone enshrine their privileged position in an otherwise reformed House of Lords? That, in essence, was the question Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris addressed to Jack Straw in a Commons debate in February this year. Astonishingly, in his reply Straw appeared to suggest that not only was the presence of the bishops desirable: it was essential for the future of the country.
He did concede that, while many European countries have a state church, Britain is an exception in allowing it political representation. But, he added, “We are also an exception in being the only country in Europe that I can think of that has survived for three centuries without a bloody revolution, occupation or the humiliation of neutrality in a just war.”
For the last three centuries we have been the only country in Europe which affords its bishops a privileged place in the legislature. But for the last three centuries we have also been the only country in Europe which has not had to suffer a bloody revolution. Is Jack Straw suggesting that this is a logical link? Almost. We might not have a bloody revolution. If the bishops were removed but there could easily be all sorts of other trouble.
“My view”, he concluded, “is that Lord Wakeham and his fellow commissions were correct when they said: “While there is no direct or logical connection between the establishment of the Church of England and the presence of Church of England bishops in the second chamber, their removal would be likely to raise the whole question of the relationship between Church, State and Monarchy, with unpredictable consequences”.
Such nebulous scare tactics cut little ice with Labour Humanist Group supporter Lord Harrison. “As a working peer in the House of Lords, I am uncomfortable with the increasingly discordant and outdated note that the phalanx of bishops of the Church of England bring to our modern discourse in the debating of the Lords. They are there by right supposedly because we are deemed to be a nation with an established Church and so they, but not any other religious representatives, or indeed anyone from the atheist or humanist congregation, alone have the right to decide the laws of this country as they pertain to you and me and the vast majority of Britons who in their daily lives profess no religion, don’t go to church or who are indifferent to the blandishments of the Church”.
But the bishops don’t spend all those years in seminaries for nothing. Their theological ability to prove the divinity of Christ and the validity of the resurrection can come in very useful when it comes to arguing the case for the maintenance of their own privileges. Instead of defending their religious monopoly in the Lords, the bishops have started to agree, with nods towards the new multi-faith character of Britain, that other religions should be accorded similar privileges. What the House of Lords needs, proclaim the bishops, are not fewer but more members representing religious groups.
“I fully support what was said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford”, declared Lord Harries of Pentregarth in the same debate on Lords reform. “I urge that the statutory Appointments Commission takes very seriously the question of appointing distinguished people who can be seen in some way to be representative of Christian denominations other than the Anglican Church and of other faith communities. I know that the religious dimension is not welcomed by all your Lordships, but the fact is that religion is now a major player on the public stage of both this country and the world as a whole and it is vital that voices who want to be heard are connected with this House in some way”.
A similar tack was taken by Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay. “What a boon it would be”, he enthused, ‘to have the Chief Rabbi or an equally authoritative voice of Judaism in our House. A statutory commission should work hard also to let more Hindu and Muslim voices be heard –and I do not believe that we have a single Sikh”. Interestingly, Lord Oakeshott then went on to reveal who had prompted this part of his speech. “I was encouraged, in church last Sunday, to make these points by a retired occupant of the Bishops’ Bench”.[5]
In spite of these two major drawbacks shared by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown agreeing with Jack Straw in their common consensus on the scope of an elected second chamber for 2010, in the perspective of Anthony Giddens, the third requirement for a rethink of this relationship is clearly stated in the advice to New Labour: “No going up on multiculturalism”[6].
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown perfectly understand the case for Muslim immigration viewed by Philippe Legrain. He argues for the opening of borders to let Muslims migrants come and go as they please. He quotes the celebrated economist J. K. Galbraith, who once wrote:”Migration selects those who most want help. It is good for the country to which they go; it helps break the equilibrium of poverty in the country from which they come. What is the perversity in the human soul that causes people to resist so obvious a good?”. Legrain wants to make the “missing link” with globalization. The case for free migration, he says, follows on logically from the case for free trade. Those who want to help the poor countries of the world could do so best by allowing freer international migration. Don’t try to keep them out – on the contrary, let them in!
Free migration, according to Legrain, would benefit everybody, for the reason given by Galbraith, and for other reasons too. Virtually all forms of migration, he says, bring economic benefits to the host country. Immigrants work hard and pay their taxes. The diversity stimulates creativity and innovation. Unskilled immigrants do jobs that natives often wouldn’t do, while skilled ones fill gaps where there are labour shortages. Contrary to popular prejudice, immigrants contribute more to welfare systems than they take from them. On average they tend to have more children than the host population, offsetting, to some degree, the dramatic drop in birth rates in some areas. Legrain gives short shrift to the idea that cultural minorities are a threat to the core values of the West.
Many Muslims in Europe, he points out, are not religious at all. Most are not socially conservative and do not hold antiquated views about women. Among those holding culturally conservative views, the majority want integration without assimilation: they wish to be active in the wider society, but without discarding their religious views and practices. There are not in fact many ultraorthodox Muslims in Europe. And we should remember, Legrain concludes, that the Christian churches have their share of the ultraorthodox, as do Jews; we do not judge these religions by their ideas, and we should not do so in the case of Muslims either.
It is not remotely likely that the developed countries will open up their borders to all and sundry. Nor should they. The immigration of lows-skilled workers is problematic, especially at a time when unskilled work is drying up. Such migrants come into poorer neighborhoods, and it is clear that they might add to the pool of unemployed, or lower the wages of workers already in the area. Where their children do not speak English, there are significant costs incurred to provide the special needs training that might be required. If they are from a peasant background, where the rhythm of work is variable and seasonal, it may be difficult to adjust to a quite different work discipline. The anxieties that many feel about immigration might be stoked up by the tabloids, but it would be quite wrong simply to see the public as irrational and leave it at that. When large numbers of immigrants move into an area, the nature of the neighbourhood can change massively as far as local residents are concerned. Think of how different Bethnal Green is now works from how it was half a century ago. One of the most famous works of social science, Family and Kinship in East London, written by Michael Young and Peter Wilmott, published at that time, described the nature of working-class life there.
When Young and Wilmott carried out their research, in the 1950s, virtually all the inhabitants of the area were white, although there were certainly some immigrants among them. Geoff Dench and Kate Gavron spent twelve years studying the borough of Tower Hamlets. They carried out well over a thousand interviews with people of different ethnic groups living in the area, to try to trace the experience of the white families that had been studied by Young and Wilmott years before.
Today, there is a large and youthful Bangladeshi community in the area, amounting to a third of those living in the borough, as wall as other ethnic groups. These all coexist reasonably well, but there are also significant tensions, and a good deal of simmering resentment on the part of the indigenous whites. They complain about the habits and customs of the Bangladeshis. Their main resentments, however, concern the rights of the Bangladeshis to housing and other benefits provided by the welfare system. Some of these complaints, the authors accept, come from misunderstandings about how welfare entitlements operate. Others, they say, are based on a real sense of social injustice.
Since the 1980s there has been a struggle over housing, which is in short supply. The housing shortage in the area was exacerbated by a policy of selling council houses to their occupants, without any replacement building programme. The waiting list for social housing was once based on giving priority to applicants with established connections to the area, but now it is allocated according to whoever is deemed most needy – a policy that the white inhabitants feel unduly favours the Bangladeshis families. One of the consequences is that the networks of support and community among the whites that Young and Wilmott found are breaking up.
Of course, there are larger social processes involved in all this too, but the sense of social injustice comes from what the whites experience as a dismissal of the investment that they, their parents and grandparents had put into the area – often, as they see it, against the odds, since it was always a place where people struggled to make ends meet. Their attitudes don’t seem to stem from racism. Few respondents saw the immigrants themselves as being at fault and few denied that many Bangladeshi families live in greater poverty than themselves. Many who resented the system of housing allocation were friendly with their Bangladeshi neighbours.
The white working class might be in steady decline statistically, but it still comprises millions of people. There has always been a streak of authoritarianism in working-class communities, and xenophobia too. But Dench and Gavron’s argument that there are well-grounded resentments among the ‘forgotten white working class” is important. Such feelings fuel a disengagement from politics, and a turn towards far a right populism among white groups. We will not be able to respond to these problems effectively if such feelings are not properly understood or dismissed as rank prejudice.[7]
Jack Straw, in his Blackburn constituency, is the best example illustrating the achievement of the New Labour policy for Islam in a multicultural society advocated by Anthony Giddens. In the old mill towns of Preston, Bury, Bolton and Blackburn, Jack Straw knows the attendant problems of high unemployment, urban decay and social fragmentation. There are large British Muslim populations in each of these towns and, to the occasional visitor at least, their separation from wider society becomes more obvious with each passing year – more girls and women are choosing to wear the hijab, niqab or burqa, young men are becoming more devout, and there is a sense of greater atomization.
In central Blackburn, Jack Straw can witness what is known by some locals as the “Khyber Pass”, a parade of shops and red-brick terrace houses, owned mostly by Muslims. He asked some of those working in and visiting the shops about life in the town. There is understandable resentment from these people, many of them third-generation Britons, at how they hear themselves being referred to as “them” or “they” – as being stigmatized, in effect, as the hostile Other. Across the divide, there is sadness at how some Muslims are choosing to reject western pluralism. Straw remains popular in the town – his majority increased slightly at the 2005 election, when nationwide anger about the occupation of Iraq was most intense – but some Muslim women have not forgiven him for describing the niqab, or full veil, as a “visible statement of separation and of difference”.
“I stand by those remarks” Straw says now. “I defend the right of women to wear what they want, but equally I defend my right to comment freely and honestly on social issues”.
If some moderate Muslims are critical of Straw, there are those among the pro-Iraq war left who think he has appeased Islamists, refusing when he had the chance to ban His but-Tahrir, the London operation of which was set up by Omar Bakri Brotherhood who later went on to found al-Muhajiroun, or distancing himself from the work of the Muslim Council of Britain. “The Muslim Council of Britain is a good thing” Straw tells. “Iqbal Sacranie (the council’s former general secretary) is a good friend of mine; As for His but-Tahrir, I want to see evidence that tells ma the organization should be banned. It’s absurd to say I’m soft on Islamism. To ban organization, you first need evidence.”
On the issue of Switzerland’s outlawing of the building of minarets on mosques, Straw says:”This is preposterous, a form of religious persecution….we should be worried about. We have seen this kind of thing before in Europe, with the banning of the Star of David. We all know about the levels of anti-Semitism in the late 1930s and where that led us.”
Straw’s position in relation to Islam – criticized by moderate Muslims but considered by some to be soft on Islamism – must be taken as an example of how, too often, he seems to find himself occupying a shaded, ambiguous space between conflicting standpoints, if never quite seeking simultaneously to hold two contradictory positions. His friends say that he opposed the invasion of Iraq and did “everything he could to prevent it”, and yet he did not resign in protest from the government, as Robin Cook did, and will go before the Chilcot inquiry in an attempt to justify retrospectively an illegal war in which he did not believe and about which he speaks, not with the zeal of a liberal internationalist or nation-builder, but in the evasions of opaque legalese.[8]
For Anthony Giddens, such a rethink of the relationship between Religion and politics eventually involves for the two leaders a belief in the achievements of the Canadian paradigm theorized by Charles Taylor. In his opinion, New Labour should defend multiculturalism especially in the face of the more ignorant attacks to which the idea is subject. However they should distinguish between naïve and sophisticated multiculturalism. Naïve multiculturalism is the thesis that different ethnic or cultural groups should be left alone to get on with their lives as they see fit, no matter what the consequences for others; and the notion that their beliefs and practices should not be challenged. Naïve multiculturalists see a society as simply an aggregate of different cultural communities, in which the majority or host population is just one ethnic community among others.
In a recent book, Amartya Sen makes a similar distinction, using different labels. He separates multiculturalism as such from what he calls “plural multiculturalism”. The first refers to “two styles or traditions coexisting side by side, without the twain meeting”. This version “seems to get most of the vocal and loud defence from alleged multiculturalists”. Plural multiculturalism involves active interaction between cultural communities. For instance, there was no chilli in India until it was brought there by the Portuguese, but now it is used very widely in Indian cooking. Hence, “Indian food…can genuinely claim to be multicultural”.
As Anthony Giddens puts it, sophisticated multiculturalism has its origins principally in Canada. It emphasizes the overarching importance of national identity, with its symbols, laws and ceremonials. Rather than encouraging the development of separate cultural communities, there should be an insistence upon fostering connections between them, and with the overall national community. National law and international law override all specific cultural beliefs and practices. Political correctness is rejected in favour of policies that promote social solidarity across cultural divisions.
In the academic world, there has been a long-running debate about multiculturalism, one that is still continuing. However, no one of any intellectual standing argues that multiculturalism implies denying overall values, the need for a common identity in a society, or advocates the separation of society into distinct cultural segments. The leading advocate of multiculturalism is the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. Taylor says that two concepts are involved when we discuss equal rights as applied to minority groups. One is that all people should have equal dignity, whatever culture they might belong to or lifestyle they might follow – this is a principle of universal citizenship within a society.
The second, just as important, is respect, or what Taylor, following Hegel, calls “the politics of recognition”. Acceptance from others, Taylor argues, is crucial to a sense of self-worth. Our identities are defined in interaction with others. Multiculturalism is not about separate identities, but about mutual recognition, and therefore interaction. It is exactly when members of minority groups are treated as “separate and lien” that problems arise. A democratic society cannot possibly be a patchwork of disconnected cultures. As Taylor puts it: [T]he societies we are striving to create-free, democratic, willing to some degree to share equally- require strong identification on the part of their citizens.”
Commitment to equal respect is therefore an elemental part of multiculturalism. Equality of status, however, does not in any sense imply uncritical acceptance of beliefs and practices of others. “It is how we do things” is an acceptable defence of cultural principles where they don’t impinge upon those of others, but not where they do. The clearest case is that of the law of the land, which has to be accepted by all. In Britain, for example, like other citizens, Muslims cannot by law practice polygamy, engage in honour killings, practice female circumcision or prevent freedom or speech.
Practices that are perfectly legal, but which impinge on public space, have to be open to critical discussion, whatever is eventually decided about them. Around the edges of such encounters, it will always be difficult to take decisions, since there are grey areas where the different principles can collide. For example, should a woman who works in public settings, where there is constant interaction with others-such as a teacher in a classroom- be able to wear the full veil, in which her face is almost completely covered? Interaction with others is only open and free if one can see the face of the other, since facial expressions are so important to communication. The value of preserving public space should override other considerations.
All sorts of people have attacked multiculturalism over the past few years. Among the most surprising of such broadsides was that by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality. He has argued that multiculturalism is out of date and no longer useful. Such a view seems simply to be out of touch with what the concept actually means. Discussing Phillip’s speech, Tariq Modood quite properly pointed out that:”Those who say multiculturalism means separatism clearly are not talking about the multiculturalism that is found in the main texts of academics or public policy practitioners”.
How should New Labour define multiculturalism? It must not be confused with cultural diversity as such. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown cannot call a society “multicultural” simply because it contains people of many different cultures. People talk loosely, for example, of “multicultural London”, but this usage is not helpful. (Sophisticated) multiculturalism refers to a set of ideals, backed by policies:
· Valuing diversity, as a means of enriching the life of all members of a societ;
· Recognition, in Taylor’s sense - respect for others whose way of life is different from one’s own, and getting similar respect back;
· Interaction between diverse cultures, fostering mutual understanding;
· Acceptance of a common overall identity as members of a national community, as a “community of fate” – that is, being bound by laws and collective decisions that affect everyone.[9]

Tony Blair’s Catholic new Gospel.
If the rethinking of the relationship between Religion and Politics should be seen as an ideological achievement, thanks to Anthony Giddens illuminating the significance of the British melting pot and its Canadian model, it cannot hide their major cultural divide: the Lords spiritual, the Muslim immigrants, the ethnic minorities, in this new cosmopolitan society are seen according to different perspectives. For Tony Blair they must be understood in the light of his new Faith Foundation. For Gordon Brown their secular identity means they are first citizens of the good society as permanent labour utopia. In the context of the Great Global Catholic Revival preached by Benedict XVI, and interpreted by Richard Dawkins, the Tony Blair Foundation is built on five basic tenets which are meant to stand against the fallacies of Samuel Huntington on the clash of the eight religious civilizations. The great benefits of faith that it seeks to promote are first a firm commitment to Diversity will lead us to source new networking partnership opportunities with the many hundred of African tribal religions.
Sacrificing goats may present problems with the RSPCA, but we hope to persuade them to adjust their priorities to take proper account of religious sensibilities.
1. “We are working across religious divides towards a common goal – ending the scandal of deaths from malaria”. Plus, of course, we mustn’t forget the countless deaths from Aids. This is where we can learn from the Pope’s inspiring vision, expounded recently on his visit to Africa. Drawing on his reserves of scientist and medical knowledge – informed and deepened by the Values that only faith can bring. His Holiness explained that the scourge of Aids is made worse, not better, by condoms. His advocacy of abstinence may have dismayed some medical experts (and the same goes for his deeply and sincerely held opposition to stem-cell research). But surely to goodness we must find room for a diverse range of opinions. All opinions, after all, are equally valid, and there are many ways of knowing, spiritual as well as factual. That, at the end of the day, is what the Foundation is all about.
2. “We have established Face to Faith, an interfaith schools programme to counter intolerance and extremism”. The great thing is to foster diversity, as Tony himself said in 2002, when challenged by a (rather intolerant!!!!) MP about a school in Gateshead teaching children that the world is only 6000 years old. Of course you may think, as Tony himself happens to, that the true age of the world is 4.6 billion years. But in this multicultural world, we must find room to tolerate – and indeed actively foster – all opinions: the more diverse, the better. We are looking to set up video-conferencing dialogues to brainstorm our differences. By the way, that Gateshead school ticked lots of boxes when it came to GCSE results, which just goes to show.
3. “Children of one faith and culture will have the chance to interact with children of another, getting a real sense of each other’s lived experience”. Thanks to Tony’s policy of putting as many children as possible in faith schools where they can’t befriend kids from other backgrounds, the need for this interaction and mutual understanding has never been so strong. So strongly do we support the principle that children should be sent to schools which will identify them with their parents’ beliefs, that we think there is a real opportunity here to broaden it out. In Phase 2, we look to facilitate separate chools for Postmodernist children, Leavisite children and Saussurian Structuralist children. And in Phase 3 we shall roll out yet more separate schools, for Keynesian children, Monetarist children and even neo-Marxist children.
4. “We are working with the Coexist Foundation and Cambridge University to develop the concept of Abraham House”. I always think it’s so important to coexist with our brothers and sisters of the other Abrahamic faiths. Of course we have our differences. But we must all learn mutual respect. For example, we need to understand and sympathise with the deep hurt and offense that a man can feel if we insult his traditional beliefs by trying to stop him beating his wife or setting fire to his daughter or cutting off her clitoris (and please don’t let’s hear any racist or Islamophobic objections to these important expressions of faith). We shall support the introduction of sharia courts, but on a strictly voluntary basis – only for those whose husbands and fathers freely choose it.
5. “The Blair Foundation will work to leverage mutual respect and understanding between seemingly incompatible faith traditions”. After all, despite our differences, we do have one important thing in common: all of us in the faith communities hold firm beliefs in the total absence of evidence, which leaves us free to believe anything we like. So, at the very least, we can be united in claiming a privileged role for all these private beliefs in the formulation of public policy.[10]
On the other hand, for Gordon Brown, the believer in Adam Smith’s puritan values, such a rethink of the relationship between religion and politics in a Progressive Manifesto for 2010, means a return to the labour standard ideal of the good society. Such old labour values imply a common belief in the basic tenets of a left communitarianism: the New Labour reborn Puritan shares with his progressive fellow travelers the view that neoliberalism rests on an atomic picture of the individual as an isolated competitive profit maximiser. But human beings are social creatures: we need to recognize our interdependency and make a virtue of it. We need a social vision that emphasizes solidarity and mutuality. This is the “good society”. Concretely, this points to a renewed emphasis on economic equality and collective action, albeit with a stronger role for civil society than in the past. The market must be kept firmly in its place, which is not in the public sector. Among Gordon Bronw’s supporters, one could quote the Labour MP Jon Cruddas; Jonathan Rutherfors, academic and chair of the Compass Good Society working group; Neal Lawson, chair of Compass; and Madeleine Bunting, Guardian columnist and former Demos director. And among his guiding spirits, the communitarian philosopher Charles Taylor, figures of the “culturalist” new left such as Raymond Williams; and ethical socialists such as R. H. Tawney. The emphasis on cultural renewal also suggests a link to Antonio Gramsci. [11]
Such a rethink of the relationship between Religion and Politics required by Richard Reeves might be easily seen as the very condition to find a cure for its basic flaw: its lack of creed…It was clearly perceived by Tawney whose words echo down the years when writing about the debacle in 1931. Tawney describes how the government “did not fall with a crash, in a tornado from the blue. But crawled slowly to its doom.
The Labour Party is hesitant in action, because divided in mind. It does not achieve what it could, because it does not know what it wants. He does not pull his punches. There is a void in the mind of the Labour Party which leads us into intellectual timidity, conservatism, conventionality, which keeps policy trailing tardily in the rear of realities.
Hardie and Tawney were part of a tradition that gives us hope and vitality, and charts a way out of the trap of orthodoxy. Now is the time for that tradition to be rediscovered.[12]

Yet if these accomplishments in the New Labour rethink of Religion and Politics can be assessed as positive in the light of Anthony Giddens, they must also be questioned for their impact on the U.K. multicultural society in 2010: for the camp of the Humanists, Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation reveals an ominous acting as the Pope’s spokesman in his speech at Rimini, cultural revolution to be read as a conservative counter revolution for the New Labour secular values, described by Jon Cruddas as an ethical socialism. In her editorial, Laurie Taylor clearly assesses the dangerous scope of this return to catholic conservative values. For her, no one, with the possible exception of Osama Bin Laden, has done more to bring the toxic certainties of religious belief back into politics and public culture, and this has had nothing but a destructive influence on our hard-won secular settlement. Ever since he surfaced – the young lawyer with the good hair and intense eyes – there’s been something of the evensong about him. Something earnest and preachy and frankly off-putting. What looked at first like a bold new vision, and certainly inspired devotion in a generation of voters and party hacks, turned out to be a mirage.
Tony Blair has dominated politics in this country for a decade and his preacherly tones has emboldened all manner of scriptural bureaucrats and self-appointed faith leaders eager for a public voice – from Iqbal Sacranie to Jonh Sentamu to Cormac Murphy O’Conner – to believe that religion is squarely back on the agenda.
Politics, the balancing of competing claims and limited resources, the art of the possible, of compromise and consensus, has been fatally distorted by the reintroduction of Holy Book-inspired moral certainties, most egregiously in relation to the Iraq war. Though Blair never actually said “God make me do it”, all his talk of it being “what I believed to be the right thing”, and something for which he would be judged by his “maker” smacked of exactly the kind of divine certainly which underpins a crusade.
That a democratic leader feels he is answerable only to a supernatural being smacks also of a misunderstanding of how elections work. It could be that the country is gearing up to remind New Labour who does the judging.
Blair’s bowing to religious thinking and active support for the burgeoning of the faith industry in the political arena is having all kinds of negative consequences. Last issue we highlighted the way Blair’s City Academy policy provided a back door into education for religious special interests. This issue our cover story reveals how bishops are now arguing for the continuation of their anachronistic and undemocratic presence in the legislature by suggesting that it is the idea of the separation between church and state that is the anachronism, and that, in the words of one Lord Spiritual, “the 21st century has seen an awakening of consciousness in public life of the importance of religion, faith and belief”.
That acceptance of religion as a benign political force is largely due to the style and disastrous faith agenda of our outgoing premier. Such new-found confidence in religion as an alternative to politics has become de rigueur internationally too.
Blair has found common cause with several leaders of putatively democratic countries who seem happy to accept scriptural explanations, and propose spiritual solutions, for critical social or environmental problems. George Bush’s response to the Virgina Tech massacre was to suggest that solace, and the resolution of the battle between good folks and baddies, lies in prayer rather than, say, a frank discussion of American gun laws. In Australia John Howard, another active Christian who has overseen the return of religion to the public sphere, has spent years pooh-poohing climate change warnings only to find his country facing the most serious drought in its history. His solution? “Pray for rain”.
Back in Britain Humanists look forward to the end of the Blair era signaling an end to the fallacious idea that the solutions to the intractable problems of the current time – inequality, social disengagement, environmental disaster – are to be found through prayer or divine intervention, rather than in the grubby, compromised human world or real democratic politics and evidence-based argument.
Humanists yet know what Gordon Brown might do with the faith agenda, or how long he might have to do it. But they hope he, or whoever in the long term comes after Blair, has noticed that the British people don’t like preaching.[13]

Back to the U.S. paradigm: the Anglicization of Islam.
If the insights of Anthony Giddens and Richard Reeves cannot be more illuminating to assess the achievements of New Labour in the new relationship between Religion and politics in the last ten years, one basic fact remains: one of the greatest challenges of the left is the rise of Islam. In the context of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most efficient policy is that discussed by John Denham as the Fabian Secretary of State, keenly aware that the first political duty and mission of New Labour in the 2010 general Election will be to advocate the Anglicization of Islam in the new multicultural society, threatened by the islamists rejoicing over the Coffins of the military, back from the two wars in the Middle East.
For the Secretary of State for communities and local government, in this speech on October 22 2009, the first target is the British Muslims. New Labour should copy the mission of Engage, fighting for their political participation: the Secretary and this progressive press in the Midlands should be dedicated to promoting greater media awareness of islamophobia, and civic engagement amongst these new citizens. Hence rhetoric for a new relationship between faith and government for 2010, again John Denham stresses one basic fact: in the context of Media tired of seeing Muslims vilified in the British Press, “Politicians are interested in shaping society for the better. Faith is one of the powerful forces shape society”. Most people of faith are concerned for the human experience today, as well as spiritual welfare in the future. It is natural and inevitable that we should be interested in each other.
“However, the starting point has to be respect for faith itself; for the powerful meaning which faith has for many individuals. For many people, their faith plays a defining role in their lives. It runs to the heart of their character and is a central part of their identity. At different times, it can inspire and give purpose; it is a source of consolation and comfort. It brings duties and responsibilities; often challenge – but also an immense source of joy and hope.”(speech 22 October 2009)
In the perspective of the Secretary of State, it has inspired a response at times of humanitarian and political crisis. In the way, for example, that faith communities responded to apartheid in the 1980s, to casualties of the Bosnian war in the 1990s, to victims of the Tsunami more recently.
John Denham thinks that one does not need to have faith to recognize the way people we know have been sustained by their faith through grave illness, through caring and nursing responsibilities, or unemployment.
“Of course, throughout our history, many people have been inspired by these private convictions to enter politics and public life. In Europe, social democracy was often constructed in opposition to religious faith, and could even be actively hostile and militantly anti-religious. I am going to make the crass mistake of claiming faith for my political party. But the influence of faith is well illustrated by its influence on and involvement in Labour history.” (ibid, 22 october 2009)
Many early social reformers – like Sir Thomas Buxton, Elizabeth Fry, William Wilberforce, Charles Wesley, and William Booth – were inspired by their religion to speak out against the social injustice crushing poverty and unspeakable living conditions they saw around them.
“Those if us who politically share that history can hardly fait to respect the importance of faith in the lives of those with whom we work. I know some of those who recognize the importance of engagement with government, nonetheless believe that government has an instrumentalist view of faith. That we are only interested in you when we have a problem to solve.” (ibid, 22 october 2009)
By contrast, they want faith to be respected in its own right; not as a prop to government. I agree. I believe that respect has to be the starting point. Government should respect – should value, prize, and celebrate – those things which matter to its citizens. And as I have acknowledged, for many citizens in this country, their faith shapes and defines who they are. Any government which treats that lightly will govern badly.
Whether New Labour wishes to promote greater environmental awareness and sustainable behavior, reduce obesity, raise parental aspirations, or sustain support for international development, good government frequently returns to the question of what really makes people tick. So good government is understandably and sensibly interested in the factors which influence and shape people’s behavior. What motivates and drives them to behave as they do; and how their behavior, in turn, has an impact and effect on other people, for good or ill.
The Secretary of State is convinced that politicians and policy makers must have a deeper appreciation and understanding of the other factors which motivate people’s attitudes and values – and how that is reflected in their behavior. Now, it would be quite wrong to suggest that faith organizations alone are responsible for defining, shaping and transmitting values in these key areas. It is not necessary to have faith to be deeply moral and profoundly altruistic. But the reality is, of course, that for millions of people, faith has an enormous influence in these areas of life.
“We should acknowledge and welcome the contribution faith makes to shaping these behaviours and transmitting these values. Anyone wanting to change society in a progressive direction would ignore the powerful role of a faith at their peril.” (ibid, 22 October 2009)
All the great religious faiths share a common commitment to community, social justice and peace – and many members strive tirelessly to achieve those goals. Faith groups have been prominent in international efforts like the Jubilee Campaign, and campaigns for Fair Trade. Faith is a strong and powerful source of honesty, solidarity, generosity – the very values which are essential to politics, to our economy and our society.
Sometimes, faith groups will express those values in a critique of government policy. Back in the 1970s, faith groups formed the backbone of the campaign to achieve our first anti-homelessness legislation. In the 1980s, the Church of England’s faith and the City ‘report made a stark assessment of the impact of neo-liberal policy in inner cities, which helped spark a wider social debate about unemployment, inequality, and urban decline. More recently, others have spoken out about the Iraq war and the gap between rich and poor.
In this New Labour and Fabian perspective, this has not always been comfortable for governments – and nor should it be. A legitimate criticism, grounded in faith and drawing on your experience in practical work in the community is part of the unique perspective that people of faith can bring to the debate.
The New Labour and British way suggest that a confident democratic society should not only permit but welcome and celebrate the expression of faith in the public sphere. It is clear that New Labour should all be equal citizens under the law. As principle of the Jewish religious courts says “the law of the land is the law” – the law of the land takes on the same status as a religious obligation; so in Jewish tradition a person of faith is obligated by religious as well as national law to adhere to the law of the land.
The law can accommodate alternative procedures, voluntarily entered into, for resolving disputes. Sensitivity to religious concerns, such as the introduction of Sharia compliant financial products, can increase choice for all.
But it would never be acceptable to undermine or weaken people’s rights on religious grounds. No one can lose their rights under the law because they may be of a particular faith. Faith groups have a strong and proud tradition of working together without government involvement, driven by a desire to better understand each other and to tackle areas of mutual concern.
Back in 1942, the “Council of Christians and Jews” was founded to promote religious and cultural understanding, and combating religious discrimination. More recently, faith communities in the UK have collaborated on the innovative and influential “Living Wage” which could not have operated without the support of churches and mosques in East London. Make Poverty History may have had rock stars at the top but there were an awful lot of unsung believers sustaining the campaign. Faith groups joined together to condemn the atrocities of 9/11 and 7/7. Today, inter-faith activity stretches from social action and campaigns for human rights to education and arts projects.



Martin, J., New Statesman, June 2009
Denham, J., CLG Secretary, for Communities and Local Government. Speech delivered on October 22. In ENGAGE. November 2009.
Reeves, R., New Statesman, April 2006, “Showed the State “do God”?”
Bocock, R. and Thompson, K., Religion and ideology, a Reader, Open University Set Book, Manchester University Press, 1985, reprinted 1987.
Taylor, L., New Humanist, May/June 2007, vol.122, n° 3, editorial “He did God”.
Bromberg, J., New Humanist, June 2007, Holy Relics, “what are the bishops doing in the Lords?
Giddens, A., Over to you, Mr Brown, ch.7, “no giving up on multiculturalism! ” Polity Press, Cambridge, 2007.
Legrain, P., Immigrants: your country needs them, London, little Brown, 2006.
Buchanan, P., The death of the West, New-York, St Martin’s, 2002.
Huntington, S., Who are we?, Free Press, 2005, Huntington concentrates upon the possibility of a divided America, separated into Anglo-Protestant and Hispanic cultures.
Sen, A., Identity and violence, New-York, Norton, 2006.
Taylor, C., Multiculturalism, examining the politics of recognition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994.
Roy, O., Britain: home-grown terror, Le Monde Diplomatique, 5 August 2005.
Cowley , J., New Statesman, December 2009, “the Great Survivor”, Jack Straw as New Labour self-styled radical on moderate Muslims in Blackburn and on constitutional reform for an elected second chamber together with Anglican bishops.

For a comparative sociology of the political integration of the Muslim citizens in the two societies of Great-Britain and the United States :
Revue Française d’Etudes Américaines, n°109, septembre 2006, Parcours de recherche : modèles, terrains, frontières. Paris Belin.
Malinovitch, Nadia, The Americanization of Islam in the Contemporary United States, p.100-112.
Key words : Islam, United States, Integration, Minorities, Religion. Muslims in the United States : between acculturation and isolation.
Raising Muslim. American children. Keeping the Faith through Progressive child-rearing.
Islamic Day Schools and the Debate on values.
Islamic Day schools as a Vehicle of Americanization.
Past September 11 and the emergence of New Muslim American voices.


[1] Martin Jacques, New Statesman, 8 June 2009. « We need an earthquake »

[2] Richard Reeves, New Statesman, April 2006.
[3] Richard Raves, New Statesman, April 2006, « Should the state »Do God »? »
[4] R. Bocock, Religion and ideology, p.219-220, « Reader open university Set Book”
[5] Laurie Taylor, The New Humanist, « He did God », May-June 2007, p.3.
[6] Anthony Giddens, « Over to you, Mr Brown », How Labour can wing again. P.145
[7] Anthony Giddens, Over to you, Mr Brown, p.151
[8] Jason Cowley, « The Great Survivor ».
[9] Anthony Giddens, Over to you, Mr Brown, pp.154-155. “No giving up on multiculturalism.”


[10] Richard Dawkins, The Tony Blair Foundation.
[11] Stuart White, « Thinking the future ».
[12] Jon Cruddas, New Statesman, September 2009.
[13] Taylor Laurie, New Humanist, June 2007. « He did God ».