Leicester's Hindus asked to help family stay in Britain
Members of Leicester’s Hindu community are supporting an Afghan family’s battle to stay in this country.
Arti Kumar and her two sons, Akash and Ravi, fled the war-ravaged country in September, 2007 after being targeted by the Taliban.
The Hindu family claimed asylum in Britain but have now been told they face being deported back to Afghanistan.
A meeting is being held in Leicester tonight to raise awareness of the family’s plight.
Mukesh Naker, spokesman for the Leicester-based British Hindu Voice, said: “We are very surprised at how the Government has treated this family because all religions – Sikh, Hindu and Christian – face persecution in Afghanistan.
“We want people in Leicester to sign a national petition opposing the family’s deportation, and we also need to raise money to help pay the family’s legal challenge.”
The Kumars say their lives in Afghanistan were torn apart when 16-year-old daughter Rekha was abducted by Islamic extremists and her kidnappers brutally assaulted eldest son Ravi, who was left with brain damage and behavioural difficulties.
Arti, 42, had to leave her husband Ram behind. She has not heard from him since.
Arti, Akash, 18, and Ravi, 21, who are living in Middlesbrough, had their asylum status withdrawn following a review by the authorities.
The British Hindu Voice’s meeting takes place at the Shree Wanza Community Hall, Pasture Lane, Leicester, tonight at 7.30pm. It will be attended by the Baroness Sandip Verma, of Leicester.
We must find a better way to live together
Allan Hayes argues that the non-religious are being ignored in the Big Society
Bishop Tim has expressed concern at David Cameron's Munich speech and Suleman Nagdi has responded admirably to the piece by Fr Pereira. However, both suffer from a serious limitation in the way they approach the issue of how we can live well together: they both see it as a matter of arriving at a modus vivendi between religions, and for the Bishop, of ensuring that the Church of England is on top.
The Bishop comments that Muslims "are proud of the Christian heritage of our nation, and their place within it".
I invite our Muslim friends to be proud of our secular heritage and the freedoms to practice their religion and take part as equals in our politics that have had to be fought for against the Church of England.
Mr Nagdi refers to the European Renaissance, but that Renaissance crucially involved freeing us from the domination of the church.
The Bishop talks of avoiding parallel lives while his church pursues a calculated strategy of gaining control of our state schools to shore up its own influence, a strategy that is the main driver in the division of our school system and our children along religious lines. The Church of England can be an asset to this country, but only if it stops using the state for its own ends.
The Big Society, which is supposed to put local people in control, is passing control of more schools, and now other services, to unaccountable religious organisations. Between them, the Church of England and the Catholic church already control one third of the schools that we pay for.
The new Hindu school in Evington is an early warning of what lies ahead: an outside body comes in, puts a proposal to the Secretary of State with minimal local consultation, and gets approval. What is to be done?
Mr Nagdi refers to the "interfaith ethos" of Leicester. He mentions the "Faith Leaders Forum chaired by our Bishop of Leicester", a Catholic document that "anchored Muslim commitment to our Christian Family", he could have added the Leicester Council of Faiths.
These have a role to play, but the list starkly illustrates the religion-limited perception I referred to earlier – democracy demands better – the non-religious and those who want to live with others simply as people are being ignored.
There is a real danger of turning what should be a mature and informed political discussion about how we organise our country into a clash of religions, and of religion against the rest – this would be a disaster.
We must find a better way before it is too late.
Referring to events in Egypt, President Obama has pleaded: "We need not be defined by our differences; we can be defined by our common humanity.'' We need a new Renaissance, a Twenty First Century Renaissance, not just for Europe, but for the world and all its people.
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.
Programme examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics.
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.
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.
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.
THE QUESTIONS
Our Prime Minister's recent salvo at the Muslim community and multiculturalism at the Munich Security Conference seemed to be somewhat gratuitous and very disingenuous. Multiculturalism as a policy supported by the state for several years has indeed been showing signs of fatigue and failure because of the way previous governments have been imposing their will on the communities through large amounts of funding which was misspent.
The recipients of such funding, who were encouraged to promote multiculturalism, were in turn expected to provide political support in electoral terms for the government. This has been the main weakness of the government's misguided policies on multiculturalism, but that does not mean that multiculturalism should cease to exist in the United Kingdom.
It is an undeniable fact that we are a multicultural society and will continue to be so, as indeed are many other countries in the world. What needs to change is the government's and society's attitude towards it. Our multicultural society should be allowed to evolve naturally through the inevitable interaction of these different cultures in all aspects of our lives in the UK, which would then result in a more cohesive and integrated society. It is the interference from government policies which is a problem, and not multiculturalism.
It is a well known fact that there are some misguided and very vulnerable Muslim youth in the country who have been and will continue to be beguiled by preachers of hate against the West. Some of these elements have killed innocent citizens through their violence and caused huge damage, but that does not mean that the whole community should be directly or indirectly maligned – especially at a time when the likes of the English Degfence League are on a warpath against Islam and Muslims simply because they hate them through their ignorance and racism.
Our intelligence and security services seem to have brought extremist elements under control through their vigilance, and one would like to hope that these extremists are prevented from committing any further acts of violence. However, whilst combating violent extremism and endeavouring to abate extremism from misguided Muslim youth, the government should also feel obliged to review our foreign policies towards Muslim countries, which have been a very significant contributory factor in the radicalisation of Muslim youth both in Britain and in other parts of the world.
Simply to suggest that the illegal war against Iraq and the offensive against Afghanistan were in the past and therefore we should learn to move on, as suggested by Baroness Warsi at her lecture at the Univesity of Leicester, is naïve and supercilious. The alarming drift in Britain and Europe to right-wing politics should be a matter of great concern for all those who espouse democracy, liberty and equality. This alarming trend needs to be checked, and we need people of political maturity to do so.
TOLERACE
The semantics of tolerance and (anti-)racism in Europe: Public bodies and civil society in comparative perspective
Tolerace starts from the assumption that public policies in Europe do not adequately take into account racism, resulting in precarious anti-racist measures. The project proposes a comparative analysis that explores how the different meanings of racism/anti-racism and tolerance/intolerance have been historically embedded in wider ideas and discourses on citizenship and identity in different European contexts (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark and UK). We defend that a historically informed approach is required to question widespread views of racism as a matter of beliefs or attitudes arising from specific (extremist) ideologies and that fail to challenged discriminatory social structures. The project focuses on two key life spheres with a strong level of regulation concerning the processes of social integration and where denunciations and public issues often emerge: employment and education.
Who Tolerace addresses
National policy-makers from public institutions focusing specifically on integration and anti-discrimination practices.
Mediation agents networking on local and regional levels: local public servants, NGOs, anti-racis activists, religious organisations, immigrant grassroots organisations.
European policy-makers and policy practitioners, particularly those working on justice and citizenship, education and culture, employment and social affairs.
European monitoring bodies: the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) and the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).
The media: journalists specialised on issues concerning racism and discrimination, religious and cultural diversity and immigration policies.
European added value
The Tolerace project aims at:
Developing an interdisciplinary and comparative approach for the understanding of contemporary racism/anti-racism that it is grounded in the specific cases under study and that takes into account the relevance of racism within the historical formation of the European national states.
Exploring the extent to which the idea of tolerance/intolerance in European public political cultures is related to anti-racism/racism.
Adding relevant knowledge both to public bodies and grassroots organisations committed to anti-racism.
Elaborating proposals regarding anti-racism policies within a multiple discrimination approach, jointly with public bodies and civil society representatives working at local and regional level.
Thematic research fields
Academic narratives, public discourse3s and polices on racism/anti-racism and tolerance/intolerance. The analysis of the different meanings of these concepts and political processes within the academic production (e.g. history, sociology, political theory, anthropology and social psychology), and its interrelations to current public discourses and polices in the national and wider European context under study.
Local policy responses, discrimination and employment. The empirical study of cases regarding employment, to analyse the role and effectiveness of local mediation agents (e.g. city council, grassroots organisations) and to examine how the localisation of (anti-)racist measures is shaping conception of racism and related discriminations.
Difference and integration in education. The analysis of official policies and school responses to situation of complex cultural diversity (particularly, linguistic and religious). The empirical study of cases will be used to understand how questions of tolerance, integration and (anti-)racism are deployed in everyday discourses and practices.
Public issues and denunciations. To examine the role of the media in the construction of racism as a public issues and thus as a key social and political problem. This will be achieved through the analysis of the framing of cases in each national/regional context.
Expected results
A toolkit for the analysis of racism and related discrimination and institutional response, with a specific emphasis on education and employment. A web-based resource aimed at promoting and informing the development of anti-racist policies, illustrated with examples from the Tolerace case studies.
An online database with the most representative mass-media coverage of the cases selected for the study of public issues and denunciations in each European context.
Scientific publications in national and international social sciences journals, and in different languages, making available the main findings to wider academic audiences.
Policy briefs that will emphasise the key policy messages that emerge from both the analysis of public bodies and empirical case studies.
Participatory workshops, to promote discussions between state-endorsed institutions and civil society representatives and academics. These policy dialogues will focus both on provisional research findings and on measures being proposed by public policies regarding racism and related discriminations.
