Faithlessons

The integration of minority communities, particularly Muslim minorities, into majority British society has been a hotly contested subject in recent years. For all the attention it has received in the press since 7/7, however, the role of faith schools in hindering integration in multicultural societies has been overlooked too long. Last year, the NUT finally took note of this in arguing for multi-faith religious instruction in schools. They could, however, have gone much further. They could have made the case for removing religious instruction from schools entirely, followed the French ends, if not their means, of having schools as secular public spaces free from overt religious influence beyond the neutral study of world religions and cultural traditions. What is most significant about the French case, however, is that France recognised decades before Britain the importance of the state in social integration.

France has long held a very different philosophy to Britain in regards to the integration of the diverse immigrant communities it inherited as a former colonial power. Historically, the British model has been the more decentralised of the two (Layton-Henry & Joly, 2001). Under this market-orientated philosophy, the social integration of immigrant communities has been, until recently, a secondary concern. The emphasis has instead been on leaving immigrants to their own devices provided they come to do ‘good business’, integrating vertically and economically rather than horizontally and socially. The decline of manufacturing industry and an organised, homogenous working class has been mirrored, however, by the rise of Generation X, second generation immigrants cut off from the homeland of their parents and alienated from British society where integration of communities has taken a back seat. Where this has been a causal factor widely attributed to the development of religious extremism, which has served to fill the identity-vacuum of some young Muslims, authorities have increasingly, since 7/7, come to recognise the importance of social integration and France’s more centralised model.

France’s approach to religion in schools came under the spotlight of the international media through the decision in 2004 to ban the wearing of conspicuous symbols of religious affiliation, particularly the Muslim hijab, in schools. This ostensibly heavy-handed measure – falsely justified in the name of women’s rights and using the language of secularism – stemmed not merely from a commitment to laïcité, but from a recognition of a need to better integrate France’s five million-strong Muslim community for whom religion had long been intrinsic to personal identity in a way that it was not amongst the majority non-Muslim population.  As such, the assimilation of Muslims represents a challenge to the secular state operating under the idea of laïcité. The question of how to integrate this minority and to ensure their identity as citizens of the Republic first and Muslims second has plagued French governments for decades. Where up until the mid-1980s the state’s policy towards immigrant communities was a socio-economic approach to assimilating the marginalised into the national society through welfare, unionisation and anti-poverty measures, this has been replaced by a more rigid idea of political integration as interventionist social democratic policies lost favour to the rise of a global neo-liberal consensus. The rise and electoral success of Le Pen’s Front National forced mainstream politicians to take on board some of the concerns of the far-right over immigration. As a result, the assimilation of the Muslim community into citizens of the Republic was placed squarely at the centre of the agenda.

The new philosophy that emerged emphasised the need for citizens to identify and engage with French nationality above individual cultural origins. Taking schools as neutral public spaces in which people learn citizenship, the removal of religion from these spaces was seen to be a key method of integration that went hand in hand with other methods to incorporate Muslims into national politics, such as the French Council for the Muslim Religion, established in 2003. The headscarf was not only treated as though it were a viral form of proselytising, encouraging others to identify themselves as Muslims before citizens of the Republic, but as a crucial symbol of difference undermining the unity of citizens.
The French approach, in banning the hijab, has been, of course, too rigid, too inflexible to the demands of multiculturalism and too insistent on stamping a seal of national identity on its citizens. Within reason, the sphere of state intervention into society should probably not include what is permissible for the individual to wear. Moreover, the beauty of multiculturalism is precisely in difference. Diversity without division. However, despite the controversial means it has employed, the ends recognised by the French state, and largely ignored by the British until recent years, are crucial here. How do you successfully integrate significant minority communities holding a distinct, powerful, totalising, self-defining belief system into wider society? Combined with growing radicalism, the Generation X factor, alienation and anger amongst Muslims over British foreign policy, and the war in Iraq in particular, the question of social integration has never been more significant. It can no longer simply be about doing good business.

Faith schools, by their very nature, are antithetical to the integration of communities. And whilst there are those on the left who will, quite fairly, argue in favour of faith schools on the basis of parity with Church of England state schools, I would make the case for their abolition. Individual faith cannot take priority over the pursuit of the very laudable aim of a diverse, but cohesive multicultural society. Schools, primary sites of early socialisation, should, as in the French case, be neutral public spaces in which people of all faiths and none can learn together without directed religious instruction. This is not an argument for the assimilation of minority communities into a hegemonic body or an attack on privately held or even publicly expressed belief. Rather it is an argument for public spaces where people from diverse backgrounds can come together from an early age without certain sections of the community being bracketed from the rest of society. The NUT’s case for multi-faith instruction in state schools is, perhaps, a step in the right direction. But the ideal, serving the causes of religious parity and integration, would be a disestablished church, a liberal form of laïcité in Britain and the abolition of faith schools.

Reference:

Layton-Henry, Z & Joly, D (2001) Philosophies of integration Basingstoke: Palgrave