I've been pondering awhile on Bishop Michaell Nazir-Ali's comments on "no-go areas" in our inner city created by Muslim communities, and trying to make sense of the range of opinion out there. The issue, not surprisingly, gained some energy in Birmingham where a number of clergy, including our own and the diocesan interfaith adviser published some comments in the local press that have generated their own stir.
The debate is exceedingly complex and is in danger of being held hostage on the one hand to the paralysis of political correctness and on the other to the cultural supremacism of Christendom. The thing is, and this is where Bishop Michael is correct, a debate is needed. My concern is that brandishing words like "no-go" and coupling this with a seeming return to church hegemony in society is no way to deepen the quality of the debate.
What kind of society do we want? Are we happy for Britain to continue apace with ever-widening economic, cultural and religious separation? These questions are vital for the church and for the whole of society. And these questions are not merely social, political and economic. Factors like poverty, housing and education policy all contribute to the vast chasm in the values and aspirations that exists between sections within even one city like Birmingham. In these, non-Muslim communities are arguably more culpable because the motor for such separation is greed (witness the "white-flight" from our city centres, a flight that the church sometimes aids and abets).
However, and this is where I take a gulp, there are some very definite cultural and theological features to much of traditional Islam that give an added dimension of concern to the debate. There is an undercurrent in orthodox Islamic theology that aspires to self-governance and majority and accentuates the need for self-reinforcing communities and to some extent, self-referencing. Care needs to be taken here because this is by no means inevitable nor necessary, but the trajectory of Islamic understanding tends towards separation. At the extreme end of this separation, there are the voices of terrorism and arcane attitudes to women, science and education. There are harsh realities littered among the ideals that do need to be faced. For the vast majority of Muslims in communities like ours in Birmingham, though, the self-referencing provides for mosque worship, halal butchers, family networks and sharia business practices. These, of themselves, are not problematic, but we do need to provide for a for mixing and sharing our stories, for a public square that offers mutual challenge to faith and secular alike that can enhance our contribution to the whole.
Big complex questions. And fab questions for the church. Basically, if we dare to pose these questions to Muslims and secular multiculturalists, we need to have answered questions about our own contribution to the good of the whole of society. It is perhaps this latter deficiency that Bishop Michael lapses into that undermined so much of his contribution to the debate.
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