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.

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