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Racism and the Contemporary Politics of Belonging: Muslim Women in the UK 33 Haleh Afshar

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Racism and the Contemporary Politics of Belonging: Muslim Women in the UK 33 Haleh Afshar 4WPP[OGFG2GTURGEVKXGU 5GEWNCTKUO4CEKUO CPFVJG2QNKVKEUQH $GNQPIKPI 'FKVGFD[0KTC;WXCN&CXKUCPF2JKNKR/CTƃGGV Disclaimer Runnymede: This publication is part of the Runnymede Perspectives Intelligence for a series, the aim of which is to foment free and exploratory thinking on race, ethnicity and equality. The facts Multi-ethnic Britain presented and views expressed in this publication are, however, those of the individual authors and not necessarily those of the Runnymede Trust. Runnymede is the UK’s leading independent thinktank ISBN: 978-1-906732-79-0 (online) on race equality and race Published by Runnymede in April 2012, this document is relations. Through high- copyright © Runnymede 2012. Some rights reserved. quality research and thought leadership, we: Open access. Some rights reserved. The Runnymede Trust wants to encourage the circulation of its work as widely as possible while retaining the • Identify barriers to race copyright. The trust has an open access policy which equality and good race enables anyone to access its content online without charge. Anyone can download, save, perform or distribute relations; this work in any format, including translation, without • Provide evidence to written permission. This is subject to the terms of the support action for social Creative Commons Licence Deed: Attribution-Non- Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & change; Wales. Its main conditions are: • Influence policy at all levels. • You are free to copy, distribute, display and perform the work; • You must give the original author credit; • You may not use this work for commercial purposes; • You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. You are welcome to ask Runnymede for permission to use this work for purposes other than those covered by the licence. Runnymede is grateful to Creative Commons for its work and its approach to copyright. For more information please go to www.creativecommons.org Runnymede 7 Plough Yard, London, EC2A 3LP T 020 7377 9222 E [email protected] www. runnymedetrust.org Contents Foreword 3 Rob Berkeley Introduction 4 Nira Yuval-Davis and Phil Marfleet 4 SECTION I: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 6 1. Secularism and Conflicts about Rights 6 Chetan Bhatt 2. Conservative Pluralism and the Politics of Multiculturalism 10 David Feldman SECTION II: SECULARISM, RELIGION AND SOCIAL COHESION 13 3. Beyond ‘Social Glue’? ‘Faith’ and Community Cohesion 13 Rob Furbey 4. Faith Organisations and Migrants Today: The gender question? 23 Pragna Patel 5. The Diversity of Muslims and the Necessity of Secular Rule 31 Sami Zubaida SECTION III: THE GENDERED DEBATE ON SECULARISM 33 6. Secularism Racism and the Contemporary Politics of Belonging: Muslim Women in the UK 33 Haleh Afshar 7. Having Our Cake & Eating It: Women’s Quest for Justice and Equality in the Family in Britain’s Muslim Communities 38 Cassandra Balchin 8. Headscarf Debates as a Prism for Conceptions of National Identity 42 Sawitri Saharso and Doutje Lettinga 9. The Struggle of French Women of Migrant Muslim Descent in the Defence of Secular State Schools 47 Marieme Helie Lucas SECTION IV: FAITH COMMUNITIES AND ANTI-RACISM 53 10. The Return of the Grand Narrative – Relating Secularism to Racism and Belonging 53 Gita Sahgal 11. Faith Communities and Racism: Some Reflections from the Anglo- Jewish Experience 57 Ben Gidley 12. Racism, Religion and Community Action: The work of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE) 60 Edie Friedman 13. Resisting Racism and Racialisation: The Case of Ireland’s African Pentecostals 63 Abel Ugba 14. Religion and Refuge 69 Phil Marfleet 15. Nationalism, Racism and the Secularism Debate 73 Nira Yuval-Davis Biographical Information on Contributors 78 Secularism, Racism and the Politics of Belonging 3 Foreword This collection of papers is a reflection of an ongoing debate about the relationships between religion, the citizen and the state. It is a debate that is far from settled, and indeed one which may be unsettling, but a debate which too often generates more heat than light. It is, however, a crucial discussion since it goes to the heart of our understanding of modern citizenship, the role of the state and the struggle for equality. Runnymede was especially pleased to partner with colleagues at the Centre for Refugees, Migration and Belonging (CRMB) at the University of East London in co-hosting the two conferences from which these papers are drawn. CRMB’s serious and engaged approach to relating political theory to political action enabled academics, commentators and practitioners to share a platform where disagreements were aired and constructive debate and discussion enabled. We hope that the conferences act as a model for the deliberations which are necessary to address the thorny challenges raised by the authors. Many of these disagreements are reflected in the papers presented here. The collected papers discuss faith-based schooling, the veil, honour based violence, religious arbitration, and the delivery of public services by faith communities. All of these issues remain very much alive in contemporary public policy debates in the UK and beyond. Since the conferences were held we have seen further attempts in the UK of politicians and policy makers seeking to address the relationship between state, religion and the citizen. Most notably, using the vehicle of a British government delegation to the Vatican, the only Muslim cabinet member, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, made a speech seeking to recalibrate the relationship between religion and state, arguing: … to create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds…. My concern is when secularization is pushed to an extreme, when it requires the complete removal of faith from the public sphere. So I am calling for a more open confidence in faith, where faith has a place at the table.1 This collection of essays and papers critically engages with the question of what ‘a place at the table’ for faith means in practice and what it means for efforts to promote equality. The relationship between faith and state is increasingly seen through the lens of multiculture and the exemplar nodes of the discussion regularly focus on issues that impact on people from minority ethnic communities. This makes it a debate which is vital in Runnymede’s ongoing mission to support the creation of a successful multi-ethnic Britain. While I doubt that this collection will be the last word in this debate, I hope that the approach that it suggests of evidence based, well argued, engaged discussion between theoreticians, researchers and those working within communities will be a welcome addition to our understanding. Rob Berkeley Director, Runnymede April 2012 Note 1. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, ‘We stand side by side with the Pope in fighting for faith’, The Daily Telegraph, 13 February 2012. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9080441/We-stand-side-by-side- with-the-Pope-in-fighting-for-faith.html 4 Runnymede Perspectives Introduction: Migration, Racism and Religion Philip Marfleet & Nira Yuval-Davis University of East London We are very pleased to introduce this publication, those advanced by hegemonic government which follows annual conferences in 2010 and policies and by the extreme Right. 2011 co-organized by the Runnymede Trust and CMRB - the Centre for Research on Migration, We wished to relate matters of racism and Refugees and Belonging at the University of East migration to another issue which has been London. The concerns that brought us together, prominent in contemporary discourses and attracting large audiences of academics, activists, practices of racialization and the struggles against professionals and policy makers, are focused on them – that of religion. Since the 1988 ‘Rushdie ways in which issues of migration, racism and Affair’, and even more so after September 11th religion have recently been interrelated in practices 2001, religion in general and Islam in particular and experiences of migrants and in public and have occupied a special role in constructions of policy discourses. the racialized ‘Other’. These developments are associated with increased In Britain, the three areas of racism, migration emphasis in official discourses in Europe and North and religion have been viewed as distinct – less America on culture as a source of tension and in terms of social and political realities than in conflict. With the end of the Cold War, influential the ways that groups and organizations which academic analyses and strategic assessments address them have developed along separate, if in the United States argued that global affairs not separatist lines. For many years, groups and would be influenced profoundly by problems of organizations which formed to contest racism, cultural difference. Huntington’s proposition that such as the Commission for Racial Equality and the international politics would be dominated by a Institute for Race Relations, focused on what Stuart ‘Clash of Civilizations’ was taken up by a host of Hall called ‘new ethnicities’ - immigrants among conservative theorists, for whom problems of world whom most had entitlement to British citizenship, order were to be understood as confrontations as they and their families originated in what were between a progressive Western bloc and a once called NCWP (New Commonwealth countries recalcitrant Islam. This refurbished Orientalism and Pakistan). In 1981, a British Nationality Act had its impact in Europe, where ideologues of the deprived many of them of this entitlement, while European Union and those associated with local the character of migration to the UK started to nationalisms found a ready means of addressing change, becoming closer to that of other European increased social tension at a time when ‘new countries in which rights were withheld even from migrations’ from conflict zones of the Global South those able to gain legal entry. At the same time, were bringing large numbers of people in search of organizations such as the Joint Council for the sanctuary.
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