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Ethical Record the Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 112 No. 2 £1.50 February 2007 CONFIDENT ANSWERS FROM TWO SHARIA EXPERTS I happened upon a meeting of the Islam Society of Kings College, London, last Friday, when two expert speakers were discussing the Sharia law. Britain was described as a police state, its democracy was ridiculed, it was rife with theft (which would soon cease, it was said, if the Sharia remedy - chopping off of hands - were introduced) and paedophilia. I found their answers to the simple questions below quite awe-inspiring Q. Why is the minimum age at which a girl may marry only nine in Iran whereas it is sixteen in Britain? A. Your (British) laws are always changing but Sharia law is constant...eg homosexuality used to be illegal in Britain, now it is not. Who knows what your law (on minimum age) will be in twenty years time? Q. Why did the Taliban blow up a girls' school in Afghanistan recently? A. Because the streets are dangerous and the girls would be attacked on their way to school. It was done for the own safety. But girls' schools are not a priority in such a poor country. Q. Islam claims "there is no compulsion in religion" and yet the penalty for ) apostasy is death. How can these be reconciled? A. Does Britain not have the death penalty for high treason? Islam is not just a religion but a complete way of life. When someone leaves Islam, the damage caused is a form of treason to those left behind and is thus a capital offence. That is why, in recent times, there has only been one apostate out of a billion Muslims. These replies were received with deferential silence by the students present. If Islam does have any more enlightened exponents, I trust the Kings College Islam Society will invite them one day. AGAINST FAITH SCHOOLS Roger Marples 3 IS FAITH UNDER FIRE? Jennifer Jeynes 11 POST-WAR ANTISEMITISM IN THE UK Daphne ladle 12 REVIEW A DICTIONARY OF ATHEISM, SKEPTICISM AND HUMANISM by Bill Cooke Robert Morrell 19 VIEWPOINTS: Chris Brateher 21 NORMA HAEMMERLE (1931 - 2007) Derek Marcus 23 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac Elected Officers Chairman: Terry Mullins Hon. Rep.: Don Liversedge Vice-chairman. Terry Liddle Treasurer: Chris Bratcher Registrar: Edmund McArthur Editor: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Acting Admin Secretary: Miranda Perfitt Tel: 020 7242 8034 Librarian/Programme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes M.Sc. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Hall Manager: Peter Vlachos MA., MBA Lettings Assistants: Carina Kelsey, Kim Chung Tel: 020 7242 8032 Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova, Shaip Bullaku, David Wright Tel: 020 7242 8033 Maintenance Operative: Zia Hameed New Members We are pleased to welcome the following new members to the Society: John R. Catt, Loughborough, Leicestershire; Barbara White, Altrincham, Cheshire; Richard J. White, Altrincham, Cheshire. DONATION OF BOOKS TO THE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Society is grateful to SPES life member John Dowding of Nayland, Suffolk, for the donation to the Society of several hundred books. included were a large number of the Thinkers Library, other humanist material and many works on Christian origins, the Dead Sea scrolls etc. Those not required for the Humanist Reference Library (because it already has them) will be available for sale to members visiting Conway Hall library:John Dowding, a retired research chemist, is also a life member of both the NSS and the RA. It was while doing his National Service in 1952 at an RAF base in Singapore that he came across Abdul Gaffar's bookshop in Changi village and saw the Thinkers Library books; this began his interest in Archibald Robertson, H.Cutner and freethought writings. SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Reg. Charity No, 251396 Founded in I 793. the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the renowned South Place Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal. Ethical Record, is issued eleven times a year. Funerals and Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is f 18 (L I 2 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65). Ethical Record, February, 2007 AGAINST FAITH SCHOOLS Roger Marples Lecture to Ethical Society 19 November 2006 Roehampton University, Froebel College, Roehampton Lane, London SWI5 E-mail: [email protected] If it were not for the Church of England: through the Anglican and National Society and the non-conformist British and Foreign School Society's concern for elementary schooling in England in the early years of the nineteenth century, there would, in all probability, have been little in the way of formal education for the vast majority of children before 1870. Since then the number of Church schools, including Roman Catholic schools, has continued to grow with approximately one in five of the nation's children attending state-funded faith schools. During the twentieth century Britain was transformed into a multi-faith and multi-ethnic society while at the same time becoming a largely secular society. Church schools today are therefore in a remarkably privileged position. If it is acceptable for the state to subsidise schools with a Christian foundation, why should not other faiths enjoy the same privileges? Abolish All Schools With A Religious Foundation In 2001. as part of its concern for diversity of educational provision, the British Government proposed that religious minorities should be encouraged to open their own faith schools, for which there would be state funding. (MEE, 2001). It is all too easy to welcome this decision with cries of 'About time too!', but there is another equally valid and equally consistent response, and that is to abolish all schools with a religious foundation. I shall argue that this is the most appropriate course of action for a liberal democracy to take. Every society has a legitimate interest in the kind of education its young people receive. What happens to children in school, in terms of the curriculum content and the teaching they receive, has a major causal role in affecting the kind of society in which we all live. A system of schooling may be designed for many reasons, not all of which are morally acceptable. Children have been forced to attend schools, whose specific intentions included producing Christian gentlemen or committed communists, where any reference to the potentially liberating possibilities afforded by schooling have met with incomprehension or hostility. Those who have wished to indoctrinate the young into particular conceptions of the good life have all too frequently found schools willing to accommodate them. Part of what is involved in assessing the moral acceptability olf a system of schooling is the extent to which children are manipulated or controlled for purposes other than those they would freely endorse. If teachers were indifferent to children possessing relevant information as well as the ability to critically evaluate it, they would be in breach of their moral responsibilities towards them. But children also have lives beyond school, as children and as adult citizens. They will have to relate to countless other people and institutions and it is for this reason that the wider society of which they are a part, has a stake in the kind of education they receive. Those of us who wish to abolish faith schools are frequently accused of being in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whereby parents have the right 'to ensure (an) education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.' Before exploring the extent to which faith schools might be incompatible with the legitimate interests of children and the society of which they Ethical Record. February, 2007 3 are members, I hope to be able to demonstrate that the argument for faith schools by reference to parental rights is far weaker than its defenders would have us believe. It goes without saying that (most) parents conceive of their parental status as part of their personal identity and find parenthood to be a source of profound satisfaction and fulfilment. But it is one thing to recognise this and quite another to conclude that it provides sufficient justification for the claim that the interests of parents and children are coincidental and harmonious, or that simply in virtue of occupying the role of parent, one is optimally equipped to determine a child's best interests. A child has interests in being able to formulate her own values and life plans and this is true whether or not she happens to be interested in any such thing. If children are mere appendages of their parents, their moral status as independent persons is both disrespected and undermined. It would be foolish to underestimate the extent to which the argument from parental extension is invoked in discussions of so-called parental rights to faith schools, especially when it is couched in the more appealing language of familial intimacy. According to Ferdinand Schoeman 'it is the significance of intimacy, and not just a concern for the best interests of the child, that is essential to understanding the basis of the parents' moral claim to raise their biological offspring in a context of privacy, autonomy and responsibility' (Schoeman, 1980, p.
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