Bright Blue

I am a Muslim woman who is observant of Islam. I also believe ‘veiling of the face’ is an un-Islamic practice. I reject the niqab as part of my personal battle against Islamism – Islam’s totalitarian imposter – and because Islam has raised me to be a feminist and humanist. Wearing the niqab is to affiliate with Islamism, and reject secular values. Defending it as an Islamic rite is an act of idiocy – and worse, it can lead to ground being yielded in the battle of political ideas to a totalitarian ideology.

As a Muslim, I am not alone in rejecting the false idea that the niqab represents Islam. Morocco, which has a Muslim majority, has banned the sale and production of the burqa. Turkey – whose population is also majority Muslim – has banned all head coverings. Pluralist Ahmadi Muslims – renowned for their profound commitment to interfaith tolerance, and rejection of violence – have affirmed that Muslim women must reveal their faces. They consider concealment of the face to be a threat to national security.

Of course, the veil – including the niqab – carries different meanings depending on context. And that context is critical for meaningful contemporary debate in Britain.

As a doctor, I treated Pathan grandmothers of jihadist families in Pakistan’s Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtoun province. Wearing the burqa allowed them to leave their mud-walled homes in the mountainous hamlets where they lived their limited lives. They could enter public space, travel to the market, and come (escorted by their eight year old grandsons) to the government clinic for treatment. Even though there is no mandate for the burqa in the Quran, cultural pressures had hermetically sealed it in these communities over time. By wearing the niqab and burqa, these women could have some sort of personal agency. Without cultural change beforehand, denying these women their niqabs or burqas would be an anti-feminist act of oppression.

In Britain, circumstances are completely different. Muslim women in Britain are among the most empowered and liberated Muslim women today. Legislation protects them from forced marriage, honour violence and female genital mutilation – all grotesque human rights violations, wrongly imposed on women in the name of Islam. Muslim women in Britain hold political and public office. In Britain, therefore, the veil should be banned.

Islam never intended women to be unseen, unheard, or denied personal agency. Consider Hazrat Khadija – the Prophet Mohammed’s first wife with whom he had his longest marriage. She was a wealthy merchant, who owned property and traveled internationally to trade. She was neither immobilised nor concealed. She was sufficiently independent to approach the young prophet with a marriage proposal. The first Muslim woman was therefore a self-made, socially mobile entrepreneur, financially self-reliant and fully autonomous in her decision to marry. A thousand years ago, our female predecessors fought in battle, and personally challenged the Prophet Mohammed for their fair share of the spoils of war.

But the niqab mocks this proud tradition of Islamic feminism. We see the veil enforced by coercion and violence. In Afghanistan, acid attacks forced Muslim women to adopt the burqa. In Pakistan, Muslim women concealed their maimed and mutilated noses behind the veil. The windows of their homes were blacked out on the Taliban’s orders. In Saudi Arabia, women are compelled to wear black abbayahs and hijabs. Women in Iran continue to be silenced by the regime. Advocating a dehumanising garment like the niqab empowers extreme Islamism at the expense of Muslim womanhood.

The Quran mandates veiling the gaze – for both women and men – and the covering of secondary sexual characteristics. But I denounce the suggestion that erasing women from view is mandated by Islam. Naive intellectuals – profoundly ignorant of the history of veiling – may criticise me for such strident refutation of the niqab. They do not realise they have been deceived. They believe the niqab to be a religious rite, and not a cultural practice which has been recently appropriated by Islamism – a doctrine so misogynistic that women barely exist in Islamist literature.

In short, British secularists have been cowed into yielding to extremism. Protected by the British fear of appearing ‘Islamophobic’, Islamists exploit British tolerance in order to destroy it. This is the cunning game of the Islamist: the exploitation of pluralism to thrust extreme, misogynistic practices into the mainstream, while denying their critics the right of reply.

It is imperative that those who defend the niqab understand that they are not advocating feminism. They are advocating totalitarianism based on invented Sharia. Extreme Islamism claims legitimacy from Islam, while it is locked in mortal combat with secular democracy.

Within the secular liberal democracies of Western Europe, the niqab is a cultural symbol. It must be stripped of the false religious legitimacy it has been afforded by Islamists and well-intentioned, but naive, non-Muslims.

Dr Qanta Ahmed is author of ‘In the land of invisible women: A female doctor’s journey in Saudi Arabia’. This article first appeared in our Centre Write magazine Staying Faithful?. The views expressed in this article are those of the author, not necessarily those of Bright Blue.

It is a strange fact that as Britain has become more secular its Prime Ministers have become more religious. In the decade or so after the Second World War we had: Clement Attlee, who claimed he was “incapable of religious experience” and thought theology “mumbo-jumbo”; Churchill, who described himself as a buttress of the church (that he supported it from the outside); and Anthony Eden, who was closer to his father’s atheism than his mother’s Anglicanism.

Thereafter, things warmed up a little. Macmillan was a devout Anglo-Catholic, Douglas-Home a private Scottish Episcopalian, Wilson was influenced by his nonconformist background, Heath by his Anglican one, and James Callaghan once served as a Sunday school teacher, but thereafter lost his faith. Certainly, a more religious bunch than the first three, then, but hardly (except for Macmillan) fervent. Since then, however, we’ve enjoyed/endured (delete according to political and theological tastes) a more robustly faithful lot.

Margaret Thatcher was devout believer, whose fierce late-Victorian Methodism was foundational to her politics and delivered, twice while leader of opposition and once in power, some of the most significant theological lectures ever offered by a leading parliamentarian. John Major was all but agnostic, but his successor Tony Blair was an adult convert, his communitarian thinking of the 1990s grounded in the personalism of Christian philosopher John Macmurray, filtered through the Revd Peter Thompson at Oxford.

In his wake, Gordon Brown was a son of the manse, a believer but one who was apparently more comfortable talking about his father’s faith than his own. David Cameron’s Anglicanism was cultural and undogmatic, famously coming and going like Magic FM in the Chilterns. And now Theresa May, as everyone knows, is a clergyman’s daughter, a practising Anglican and someone who claims Christianity as foundational to her political worldview.

All in all, the arc of post-war British Prime Ministers may be long but it tends towards faith. What are we to make of this?

The first point is that it is not anomalous. A recent book I edited, The Mighty and the Almighty: how political leaders do God, charts the theo-political lives and tactics of 24 Prime Ministers, Presidents and Chancellors from around the world since about 1980. Some of these come from countries where ‘doing God’ is obligatory (the US, obviously) but many (Australia, France, Germany, South Korea) do not. Few now imagine the world is going secular, as sociologists once confidently predicted. Nor, it seems, are its leaders.

Second, this is dangerous. I work for a religion and society think tank, which has for 12 years argued for faith in public life. Rightly understood and embodied, it is part of the solution not part of the problem. Religious belief and practice is positively associated with mental and physical health, wherever you go in the world. Religious groups offer vast and irreplaceable resources of practical, social, and pastoral support in the most secular West, to which may be added economic, medical and educational support everywhere else. And religious thought – specifically Christian thought – has proved a powerful justification for human rights, dignity and equality, the rule of law, and various forms of political accountability. Moreover, those societies that have tried to eradicate the religious beliefs and practices of its people, in the conviction that they were mere giving history a bit of a helping hand, have invariably ended up a nightmares of misgovernment and persecution. All in all, societies and polities, need faith.

But – and here’s where we find the ointment housing not so much a fly as a Giant Weta (look it up) – religious commitment is also risky, threatening to animate, divide and subvert the proper processes of public debate if not handled with appropriate care. To be clear: I’m not simply rehearsing the exhausted and unpersuasive claim that religions are simply incompatible with liberal democracies or that they – yawn – “inevitably cause war.” It’s rather that religious belief and practice taps into the deepest human desires and concerns and operate near the reactor core. They needn’t destabilise and divide but they self-evidently can and do. They need to be handled with care.

Which brings me to my third point and back to British Prime Ministers. ‘Handled with care’ does not means handled with silence or hidden away in the ‘personal but not public’ box. Post-war British Prime Ministers may have been increasingly notable for their Christian faith, but few have felt free to speak about it openly. Thatcher was one exception, and even she was rather more silent in power than in opposition. Cameron, perhaps oddly, was the other, speaking saying more about Christianity than both his predecessors and his successor put together – although that was probably because no one ever imagined he took it very seriously.

By contrast, Blair stopped doing God after a Sunday Telegraph interview at Easter 1995 that unfairly implied he was claiming God for Labour. Gordon Brown’s recent memoir explains how he felt unable to talk about his motivating faith while he was in Number 10, and Theresa May (hardly the most confessional of public figures in any case) would not dream of talking God.

Good, the secularists say. God doesn’t belong in politics. They are wrong. And not just for the reasons outlined earlier. It is because religion is so powerful and so central to human identity and hopes that it needs a political voice. Suppression leads to resentment, not some kind of alleged rational consensus. Ultimately, the best antidote to bad theo-politics is good theopolitics, not some kind of secular wall of silence.

Nick Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos. This article first appeared in our Centre Write magazine Staying Faithful?. The views expressed in this article are those of the author, not necessarily those of Bright Blue.

What role should faith have in a liberal public square? A quick trawl on Twitter of the phrase ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ predictably brings up a largely negative view: “Keep religion out of politics”, and “Religion and politics are a toxic mix.”

Much of this suspicion is from liberals who believe that the absence of faith is somehow a neutral position in politics; if you hold a faith you are at best eccentric and, at worst, intolerant and intolerable. This view holds that faith is acceptable if it is practised as a kind of private hobby, and if it has no bearing on your public actions or pronouncements.

As a liberal politician, and a Christian, I have been encouraged many times to leave my faith at the door when I engage in public debate. But, even if that were possible, why would it be desirable? I don’t want policymakers to be empty-headed and value-free. I want people to feel comfortable with expressing their views – and defending those views – in robust but respectful debate.

For a start there is no such thing as a neutral public square. We all approach life with a particular world view and set of values. These are developed, often subconsciously, from our parents, peer groups, teachers, the media and our culture. Society is formed of people with a myriad of beliefs and outlooks.

Second, the reality of faith is that it is not a private world view, but one that inspires action. Look at the response to the horrific Grenfell Tower fire last year. The local faith groups – churches, mosques, synagogues and gurdwaras – stepped in and provided food, accommodation, counselling and support over the following days and months. They were able to do this because they were already embedded in the local landscape, trusted and visible, and committed to serving and supporting the community.

This demonstrates faith that goes beyond the cultural and surface niceties of religion. This kind of faith is what drives many people, and it comes with a holistic world view, which in the Christian faith often includes an emphasis on the teachings of the Bible.

This is what liberals often find hard to stomach. But it has been largely forgotten that many of the values held by today’s liberal secular society are built upon Christian foundations.

The Biblical narrative centres on the idea that we are all created in the image of God, and that Christ died for each one of us. This powerful belief confers on every individual an innate worth. It carries with it the fundamental requirement to treat others with respect and dignity, no matter who they are. This is a truly ‘lofty equality’ on which the secular liberal concept of human rights is based.

Yet today’s debate is so often defined by the concept of ‘us and them’. If we view someone as fundamentally different to us, for example because of their race, religion, sexuality or language, it is then only a small step to justifying treatment of them that we would never tolerate if it was being meted out to our own family or friends.

There is an argument that the resurgence of nationalism in the UK, USA and across Europe has been in part due to the intolerance of ‘liberal elites’ shouting down any views that diverge from their own. And liberals should be ashamed of this sort of behaviour. John Stuart Mill believed that the greatest threat to freedom is the tyranny of opinion, using social pressure to freeze out certain views. Instead, liberalism should seek to promote conscience above conformity, and oppose the idea of society being beholden to any particular worldview.

A truly liberal society involves fighting for the rights and freedoms of people you don’t agree with. It means holding in balance the views of a pluralistic population by upholding freedom of speech, religion and conscience. It requires more religious literacy from our institutions and political classes. It also needs us to put aside personal attacks and learn how to listen respectfully and disagree well with one other

Tim Farron is MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale and the former Leader of the Liberal Democrats. This article first appeared in our Centre Write magazine Staying Faithful?. The views expressed in this article are those of the author, not necessarily those of Bright Blue.

Denis Healey coined the classic ‘First Law of Politics’: “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” As a guide to dealing with a crisis, it’s almost always the best advice. Almost.

Because sometimes it’s simply irrelevant. Sometimes it’s not you doing the digging. Sometimes the hole is so great that there can be no end to the digging.

Which brings us to Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism. Barely a day goes by without new evidence emerging of the Labour leader’s support for or appearance with an antisemite.

I’m writing this in early September. So far, the most damning single video has been his reference to British Zionists not understanding English irony – a classic of that oh-so-refined English antisemitism that holds that the Jew is, for all his or her qualities, somehow ‘the other’ and alien.

But the hole is so vast – so full of unexcavated evidence just waiting to be brought up – that this will clearly not be the last to emerge.

It can’t be, because this is the milieu in which the Labour leader spent decades of his political life until his elevation in 2015. He spent that time actively courting and being courted by the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and assorted other antisemites. There is decades-worth of this stuff to bring to light.

But obvious as it has been since Mr Corbyn took office that this crisis could never go away – it can’t because it centres on Mr Corbyn’s core beliefs – this summer has been spectacularly bad.

Labour has, consciously and deliberately, gone out of its way to troll the Jewish community – for example, telling 68 rabbis from across the religious spectrum that their view that the party should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism counted for nothing and only Labour was qualified to define it.

Then, almost beyond parody, the Corbynites were sent out to attack Lord Sacks – Lord Sacks! – as a “far right extremist.”

My newspaper, The Jewish Chronicle, posed seven questions for Mr Corbyn to answer concerning his relationship with and support for a variety of antisemites. He gave no serious answer then, and he hasn’t done so since. At no point has the Labour leader said or done anything other than mouth the words that he is against antisemitism – and, as he usually adds, all other forms of racism.

But as the evidence that contradicts that drips out picture by picture, word by word, video by video, not once has he offered a moment’s self-reflection to address why it is that, as Dave Rich has put it, he seems to be the world’s unluckiest anti-racist, constantly offering support to antisemites.

The truth is that he cannot, because this is his political DNA. In the hard-left mindset, antisemitism is not real racism. Real racism is discrimination against black people and ‘oppressed’ minorities.

Far from being ‘oppressed’, Jews are part of the powerful elite. That’s the view of Ken Livingstone, for example, who said in 2012 that Jews wouldn’t vote for him because they are too rich.

There are some ‘Good Jews’ – the Jews who oppose imperialism (in other words, Israel) but the rest are, by definition, ‘Bad Jews’.

Opinions like these are why antisemitism is a unique form of racism. Most racists regard the object of their hatred with contempt as lesser human beings – such as the Ku Klux Klan in the US or the National Party in apartheid South Africa.

But antisemites see Jews as clever, sly and wily. They think Jews secretly run the world. Hence the constant references to the supposed Rothschild control of the world’s banks, Jewish control of the media and wars fought to further Jewish interests. The hard-left regards the world as being run by a Western elite and powerful interest groups, which need to be broken up by revolution.

It also explains part of the visceral hatred of Israel – and why, for example, enemies of Israel are the people Jeremy Corbyn turns to as friends. As a Westernised capitalist democracy they regard Israel as another arm of oppression to be smashed. This is the milieu in which Jeremy Corbyn has existed for decades.

This is a crisis that cannot end, because Mr Corbyn is in some ways simply a stooge. He has his personal issues with Jews, but the real issue is the hard-left cadre he represents which now controls the Labour Party.

Mr Corbyn may stay, he may go. He may say something, he may not. It’s all irrelevant. The real point is that Labour is now run by politicians who divide Jews into ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, who see them as the class enemy and who choose to ally with organisations which exist to wipe Jews from the face of the earth.

Stephen Pollard is the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. This article first appeared in our Centre Write magazine Staying Faithful?. The views expressed in this article are those of the author, not necessarily those of Bright Blue.