BATTLING BELIEF

The Right should embrace secularism, writes Guy Stagg

Some arguments are whispered when they should be shouted. If the Right criticises multiculturalism, too often they are satirised. Equally, when conservatives speak out against religious extremism, their concerns are drawn in cartoon. Both arguments are lost to caricature, made to sound like the Carlton Club choir warming up for a verse of Rule Britannia.

These criticisms, these concerns, are real, yet perceived by many as ideological prejudices. But there is another language in which they may be articulated, one free from political parody. That language is secularism.

From a secular perspective, multiculturalism discourages the integration of immigrant communities. In promoting ethnic disparities, it deepens ethnic divisions. In celebrating spiritual differences, it intensifies them. The Right can agree that the basic principle of multiculturalism – that immigrant communities can be defined as homogenous groups that are fundamentally different – is a mistake.

But crucially, religion is the means by which this mistake is enforced – and secularism is the strongest position from which to expose this fact. Therefore, when local funding is organised along religious lines, and sponsors faith schools and faith-based community centres, authorities propagate this mistake. When the Archbishop of Canterbury claims that Sharia Law is both inevitable and desirable in this country, he threatens to enshrine the mistake.

However religion holds a protected position in debate which prevents these grievances from being fully addressed. Religion expects a level of respect that we afford no other intellectual position. Indeed, it is doctrinally demanded. When criticism is equated to blasphemy, all manner of sins – misogyny, homophobia and abuse – are privileged with immunity.

With extreme religion this becomes not a matter of academic theology but of political policy. But until debate frees itself from the rhetoric of reverence, the political process will be hampered. Moderate religion has a responsibility here. Moderate religion, in failing to confront its more prejudiced bedfellows, gives them unvoiced acceptance, and even provides unintended support. And yes, Islam is most culpable in this respect. Yet so is the Left, which for the sake of tolerance condemns not the perpetrators, but the victims of extremism. Too few Conservatives expressed disgust at those on the Left who proposed that the US was responsible for the terrorist atrocities on September 11th.

Indeed, the Left’s relationship with secularism is surprisingly fraught. Socialism was once considered the breeding ground for secularism, and to this day it is the left-wing press that gives atheism a platform. But for the likes of Christopher Hitchens their condemnation is frequently turned against the Left, against what Johann Hari characterised as the ‘tolerance of the fanatically intolerant’.

On the other hand, the historical yoking of the Tories with Anglicanism means that Conservatives feel they should support religion, at least in its politest forms. So atheists on the Right stay quiet: arguing that religion is a comfort to others, and the values it teaches are a benefit to society. Such silence is both cowardly and patronising.

There is a chocolate box picture of England which would be incomplete if the pint of warm beer and the figures on a cricket green did not have a village church as their backdrop. And there is a monument to Toryism somewhere in the imagination of Middle England built on the pillars of God, King and Country. But Conservatism in this form slides from sentimentalism to intellectual sloth. Religion is not fundamental to the Right, as Hume realised two and a half centuries ago.

At the last Conservative Party Conference Baroness Warsi blamed a state-sponsored secularism for the ills of multiculturalism, and proposed more religion as the solution. This was an extraordinary confusion of the disease for the cure, and yet passed without comment. Conservatives need a strong secular voice to correct multiculturalism and to protect us from extreme religion. The time has come for atheists on the Right to stand up for what they don’t believe in.

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Transition

Critically acclaimed multimedia performance company Transition are presenting a week of concerts at Kings Place this month in their 'Darkness and Light' series.

Combining integrated and interactive video and film, and a handful of international artists, Transition explore innovative and exciting new ways to present seminal works of music, creating a new experience for regular concert goers, and an accessible, exhilarating experience for new audiences - without compromising the music or 'dumbing down.'

The signature King’s Place 45 minute concert structure allows the listener to attend multiple performances in a single evening, or individual events. Led by Claire Booth, Netia Jones and Ryan Wigglesworth (pictured), the short season includes evenings which combine Dowland with Stravinsky, Bartok with Couperin, and Berio with Scarlatti.

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A Symbolic Ban?

In the Daily Mail today, Michael Burleigh, the historian (and member of the NCF Advisory Committee), writes about the cultural significance of the Swiss ban on the building of minarets:

'...far bigger and more dangerous issues are also behind the vote. Indeed, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have already acknowledged that the Swiss vote represented widespread anxieties across Europe about the erosion of traditional cultural identities. And in many countries, such as Britain, these concerns are simply not being addressed.

Concerned they will be branded racist if they raise the issue, many 'liberal' politicians would rather brush the immigration debate under the carpet. That means that radicals can capitalise on their silence...'

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Who Pays the Piper

In a piece on Comment is Free this week, NCF supporter David Cox reported on the Sheffield Doc/Fest debate about the future direction of documentary-making; should they be impartially factual, or author-driven?

'In the eyes of the journalists, committed films don't deserve to be called documentaries. They're propaganda, corporate video or advertising. The campaigners, however, refuse to yield up the cherished label. For them, a documentary that carries an emphatic message is probably the better for it.

The campaigners are winning and the journalists are losing. It's not intellectual argument that's deciding the issue; it's economics. The money for objective documentary-making is drying up, just like the money for print journalism. Yet committed films can find financial backers, so long as the film-maker's commitment matches the backer's.

The appearance of independence makes documentaries ideal vehicles for promoting corporate interests. Nowadays, NGOs, charities, single-issue lobby groups and the like sometimes have lots of money. Co-opting documentarists can prove an effective way of spending it. Plenty of film-makers are only too willing to play ball. After all, they want to make films. As Nick Fraser, the editor of the BBC's Storyville strand, said at the heated Doc/Fest session: "If Dr Goebbels appeared with a huge sack of money, there would be documentary film-makers queueing around the block to take it." '

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