A brief exchange with the Lord Mayor of Leicester (Cllr Colin Hall) on Twitter today alerts me to some unexpected media coverage for the city and its faith communities:
LeicesterMayorWelcomed BBC Radio 4 to #Leicester Town Hall today - interviewed on work of faith groups + others to promote community cohesion in city.
counciloffaiths@LeicesterMayor Now that sounds interesting! Do you know which programme & when it will go out?
LeicesterMayor@counciloffaiths The Radio 4 programme is called Analysis - should be broadcast around mid-March. Will post details here when I get them.
If you're not familiar with Analysis, here's how it's described on the programme's website:
Programme examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics.
This edition of Analysis, entitled "Muscular Liberalism", was broadcast on Monday 14 March 2011 with a repeat on Sunday 20 March 2011. Here's a summary of the programme content:
The prime minister has proposed a new "muscular liberalism", aimed at better integrating Britain's Muslims. It aims to counter the alienation that has led to a few young British Muslim men being prepared to mount terrorist attacks. David Walker asks what the new policy will mean on the ground, and how easily it can be reconciled with government plans for more local diversity and faith schools.
As well as featuring a contribution from Cllr Hall, the programme includes an interview with Suleman Nagdi, speaking about the Federation of Muslim Organisations and the Muslim Burial Council of Leicestershire. Here's a transcript of the section of the porgramme featuring Cllr Hall:
Leicester’s majority, as elsewhere, is neither Muslim nor Christian
but largely non-believing, secular and, usually, silent. Integration
might require putting less emphasis on religious faith. The Lord
Mayor of the city, Councillor Colin Hall, wants to get religion out of public life and has dispensed with prayers before council meetings.
HALL: In the area which I represent in New Parks, the proportion of the population who identify actively with the faith groups is actually quite low.
WALKER: So you would say most Leicester people are secular?
HALL: I think they don’t identify with or actively practice a particular faith.
WALKER: But if you look at sort of policy, particularly policy under
the previous Labour government, policy under the present government, faith schools have been pushed. I mean how do we interpret that?
HALL: Under the previous government, the last two prime ministers
felt that faith was important to them and they were perhaps a bit more susceptible than the party as a whole or the country as a whole to the arguments that some of the faith groups were putting forward.
And here's the part with Suleman Nagdi:
Influential figures in the Muslim community may be more interested in securing greater recognition for their faith and its practice in Britain than allowing young people to get together freely. In Leicester, Suleman Nagdi has published guidelines for the local NHS on what to do when Muslim patients die. They include avoiding contact between the dead body and menstruating women doctors and nurses.
NAGDI: I run something called the Muslim Burial Council of
Leicestershire. We signed the first historic document in Europe
allowing a section of the community to bury their deceased within 24 hours or over Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays. We are working
with the health service, we are working right across the board.
WALKER: Sorry to interrupt, but what happens if that work of
negotiation isn’t being done within the community? Who should act
then?
NAGDI: I think that’s a challenge for my own community. They need to reflect and they need to create visionaries from within their own community. We can no longer become armchair critics and complain that we do not have certain services provided to us by local authority if we do not articulate what we need. And also the articulation does not necessarily result in you getting what you want. There has to be a compromise. Sometimes there are ridiculous claims made by certain sections of my community and other community. And that, I’m sorry, is just unacceptable and we need to learn to be more mature to understand that we are privileged to live in this country, we are grateful for being given a home in this country, and we are working within the framework of the law of this country, and the law of this country is supreme.
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