Rowan Williams and the SWP lies

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Thursday February 21, 2008 14:42

by John Cornford

James Turley writes on how in Respect Chris Bambery claimed that Secularism ‘justifies’ islamophobia. Yet now Socialist Worker demands separation of church and state.

Bambery writes on islamophobia in media and establishment reactions to the speech. The Sun’s “bash the bishop” campaign and David Blunkett’s reference to something “external to this country” is a breath away from “there ain’t no black in the union jack”. The article implies that the pro-islam stance of the SWP has hardened since the break with Galloway. He writes that in spite of talk of muslim ‘backwardness’, many of the foundations of science were commonplace in islamic culture by the middle ages. True -science would not be doing well without the concept of zero. But it buys into the logic of the ‘clash of civilisations’. The idea of religions competing in some cosmic dog-show for the prize of ‘most progressive’ is ridiculous in itself without Bambery on the judges’ panel.

On the web you find: “The following should be read alongside this article” - with a link to ‘Living under an alien law’, written by Richard Seymour. “Britain,” we are told, “already has a system of alien laws.” These are the laws of the ruling class, who have an “alien culture - and values most of us don’t share”. You don’t hear that from the SWP when it is supporting the introduction of religious hatred legislation, then the laws do not appear to be so rigidly class-demarcated; nor when Unite Against Fascism conference delegates demand that the “BNP be sent to HMP”. it is clear that the SWP’s political method of quasi-populist rabble-rousing leads it into hopeless contradictions.

Seymour says: “… the trouble with the archbishop is not that he ‘went too far’, he didn’t go far enough. He rightly challenges the state’s monopoly on public identity, but does so primarily in order to carve out a larger space for religious power.” This is strange from a party which, not long ago, was demanding the National Union of Teachers support the introduction of more islamic faith schools (Weekly Worker April 13 2006). What is that apart from the educational equivalent of localised sharia courts?

Williams is criticised for defending the “homophobic” catholic ban on adoption by gay couples, and for calling on the state to discriminate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sorts of islam. Seymour’s conclusion is startlingly agreeable: “… it is quite right that muslims should have the same rights that any other religious group has - but the best way to ensure that is for the state to keep out of our moral lives.”

James Turley ends his analysis of the SWP pieces by saying:

Communists must do better than Seymour’s correct (as far as they go) conclusions. The state must keep out of religious affairs. But the corollary: It must treat all its citizens equally - believers and non-believers alike. That means no privileges for a given religion or its followers - not only the disestablishment of the C of E, but the rejection of any special place for sharia.

Of course, religious practitioners must be free to follow on a voluntary basis whatever guidelines they like, provided they do not cause harm to others. They must be free to accept (or reject) the judgement of a priest or imam on questions of religious morality. But religious bodies can have no legal right to impose a particular practice on the unwilling.

Full article at:

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Comments (3 of 3)

Religion in GB

by cropbeye - None

Mon Dec 15, 2008 23:36

cropbeye at yahoo dot com

Like most posters here I would like to see the disestablishment of the C of E in G.B.

Yet mehinks that the idea religion or more specifically Christianity has a lot of power in G.B is a tad paranoid.

The most powerfull man operating in G.B (amongst other places)

is probably Rupert Murdoch who is the first person in history to purport to be a Papal Knight and a Presbyterain at the
same time.

It would seem to be more religion as slapstick.

With such wollieness about religious identity in the realm surely this is a sign of weekness.

One can overly parse any article written by any leftist and read too much into it.

That said I am not making any excuses for Galloway.

Not privileged nor persecuted

Thu Feb 21, 2008 15:41

In this article Jim Moody shows that Britain is far from secular in its constitution.

In the current version of the CPGBs Draft programme (which is in the process of being redrafted) the CPGB say: “… though communists want to overcome all religious prejudices, we are the most consistent defenders of the individual’s freedom of conscience and freedom of worship.

“Communists therefore demand:

Separation of the Church of England from the state. End all state subsidies for religious institutions. Confiscate all Church of England property not directly related to acts of worship.
Freedom for all religious cults. Freedom for atheistic propaganda. Religious organisations and individuals have the right to propagate their ideas and seek to win converts. Opponents of religion have the same right.
End all state-sponsored religious propaganda and acts of worship. Religion is a private, not a state, matter. Religion can be taught as a subject of academic study, not as a means to indoctrinate children” (www.cpgb.org.uk/documents/cpgb/prog_demands.html#3_16).
This is the basis of a secular approach, which opposes both religious privilege and anti-religious discrimination, and which ensures equal treatment by the state for believer and non-believer.

In his article Jim Moody writes:

Many of the Church of England’s Anglo-catholics, moral crusaders, arch conservatives and other such reactionary diehards - as with the neo-traditionalist wing of islam - claim to stand for the timeless values handed down from god himself. In fact theirs is an entirely mythical past which is projected onto the present as a holy rejection of women’s equality, class solidarity, commodification, the ‘excesses’ of turbo capitalism and secularism. True, Williams grudgingly accepts the enlightenment. In his concluding remarks at the Royal Courts of Justice he described it as “a necessary wake-up call to religion”. But he clearly intends to roll back secularism.

Britain is, however, far from being a secular country, at least in terms of its constitution. The Church of England survives to this day as the established or official church, with the monarch as its titular head, its bishops sitting in the House of Lords, and its governing body framing legislation.

Full article at:

Hard to know

by Disinterested anarcho

Thu Feb 21, 2008 14:55

Which is more pathetic - the total and predictable disintegration of the SWP after getting into bed with the arch-opportunist Galloway and the Imams, or the fact that the CPGB still follow them around and spend so much bloody time analysing them, even after their collapse.

Personally, I'd opt for the CPGB, at least the SWP make some attempt to make themselves relevant to people outside of the tiny far-left, no matter how much of a disaster they've made of it.

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Rowan Williams and the SWP lies

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