02.11.2006

Secular schools, not religious indoctrination

Communists fight for the equality of believers and non-believers, says Jim Moody

Separation of church and state is a basic democratic demand. It has yet to be achieved for the educational system in the United Kingdom. In fact under the pious Tony Blair more religious schools are set to open, and a whole tranche of them are to be state-aided. To make matter worse, this is implicitly welcomed or passively accepted by parts of the left.

As we all know, education secretary Alan Johnson announced that each new faith school would be required to take a quota of 25% of its students from outside its own particular religion. Almost instantly, though, he backtracked, faced as he was by the Roman catholic hierarchy and the combined forces of the main Jewish denominations. They lobbied furiously against the proposal.

This must have been all the more galling as the prime target of the quota was the 120-150 muslim schools that are due to be brought into the state system, not the existing religious schools. Over a quarter of state primary schools, 5,800 of them, are Church of England, as are nearly six percent of state secondary schools; in total there are 2,075 Roman catholic, 36 Jewish, six Sikh and so far only five muslim state schools in the UK.

Not insignificantly the November 4 edition of Socialist Worker chose not to comment on the issue. We are told that the political committee must agree the line. After all, given Respect and the alliance with "muslim activists" and the catholic George Galloway, this is a particularly knotty and sensitive issue for the Socialist Workers Party. Seemingly, Chris Bambery, Socialist Worker editor, is not trusted to comment on the issue uninstructed.

That does not mean that the SWP has no established approach to religious schools. Last year Kevin Ovenden argued for a series of compromising stages in education. And in the name of equality, he effectively gave the thumbs-up to faith schools: ""¦ any position which smacks of denying parents of minority groups equality with those of the established Church of England will be seen as lining up with an unjust status quo. It is only by making explicit the right of muslim parents to have state-supported muslim schools that it is possible to advocate not separation and the embrace of the government's destructive proposals, but a common struggle for common comprehensive schools" (Socialist Review December 2005).

How the demand for separate muslim schools can be dressed up as furthering "a common struggle for common comprehensive schools" is anybody's guess. Leaving that aside, comrade Ovenden's argument is totally at variance with the Marxist approach.

The SWP merely calls for equality between different faiths. What we should be demanding, however, is an equality between religious believers, of whatever faith, and those of no religion. This can only mean the complete separation of church and state and an end to all state subsidies for religious institutions.

In fact, when writing about the attitude of Marxists to religion, in the past the SWP has been quite clear in its support for this principle. But that was before Respect.

Jonathan Neale, for example, discussed at some length how to tackle islam and islamism in the specific circumstances of Palestine back in 1984: "A straightforward denial of islam usually means a break with all your family and often political isolation as well. It may mean death. It is no wonder that most revolutionaries either fudge their beliefs or try to develop a form of 'pro­gressive islam'. But in doing so they put themselves hopelessly on the defensive. The ayatollah and the Muslim Brotherhood are, after all, right about what the Koran and islam stand for. To meet them on that ground is to concede defeat. Revolutionaries have to stand out for a secular and anti-religious politics "¦ To maintain Pales­tinian unity the leadership argued that the movement had to be rigidly secular" (Socialist Review April 1984).

Since then, of course, the SWP has adopted a diametrically opposed line - at the October 2004 Respect conference Chris Bambery virtually accused those who called for secularism - in particular the CPGB - of islamophobia. In fact comrade Bambery's parody of the CPGB position seems to be pretty similar to comrade Neale's views in the passage above.

Another example of this is its about-turn over islamism. In 1994 SWP leading light Chris Harman warned against those who "give support to the islamists". He wrote: "That would be to call for the swapping of one form of oppression for another, to react to the violence of the state by abandoning the defence of ethnic and religious minorities, women and gays, to collude in scapegoating that makes it possible for capitalist exploitation to continue unchecked providing it takes 'islamic' forms. It would be to abandon the goal of independent socialist politics, based on workers in struggle organising all the oppressed and exploited behind them, for a tail-ending of a petty bourgeois utopianism which cannot even succeed in its own terms."

To conclude, wrote comrade Harman, "The islamists are not our allies. They are representatives of a class which seeks to influence the working class, and which, in so far as it succeeds, pulls workers either in the direction of futile and disastrous adventurism or in the direction of a reactionary capitulation to the existing system - or often to the first followed by the second" (International Socialism autumn 1994). The SWP's 1994 position was undoubtedly better than its 2006 polar opposite.

We are clear about our attitude. We resolutely oppose any infringement of religious freedom, including the right to observe traditional religious dress codes, but we are equally opposed to granting any privileges to religion by the state. This is the essence of our call for equality, for secularism - a call that many believers themselves also support.

The disestablishment of the Anglican church, and the abolition of the role of Anglicanism as the official religion of the UK state, would be a body blow not only against what Walter Bagehot called the "dignified part" of the constitution, but the "efficient part" too. In that spirit we demand the secularisation of the education system.

The division between children and young people in education on religious lines has to be ended. While parents must be free to send their unfortunate offspring to Sunday schools or other after-hours institutions specialising in indoctrination, that must be completely separate from the state education system.

Unsurprisingly, the Scottish Socialist Party is no better than the SWP. The population in Scotland has for well over a century been riven by division between Roman catholic and protestant. Mostly, the left in Scotland has remained politely but disgracefully quiet about it.

For the SSP, though, it is 'live and let live'. In a document made available on the Socialist Unity website, Alan McCombes and Eddie Truman admit that, "The SSP is opposed "¦ to enforced desegregation in the form, for instance, of the closing down of catholic schools against the wishes of the local community "¦ parents who wish their children educated from a different religious or faith perspective must have the right to do so, subject to a statutory system of rights and standards for their children" (www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/reports/faithschools.htm).

Naturally we are opposed to a Blanquist 'war on religion' or any such anarchistic nonsense. There can be no closing down of catholic schools at the point of a bayonet. Nevertheless, we insist that the equality of all citizens can only be achieved on the basis of secularism. McCombes and Truman might run scared of bringing down the wrath of the Roman catholic hierarchy over secular education, but this is no different from abandoning the right of a woman to have an abortion, homosexual equality and other such 'shibboleths'.

Communists oppose state subsidies to religious schools. That is our main point. If the catholic church is willing to pay out for the buildings, staff, etc, that is its business. But there should be no state handouts, no tax breaks, no charity status.

It should also be emphasised that the education system we fight does not involve the universalisation of the 'bog standard comprehensive'. There must be a revolution in education and a radical shift from education as a preparation for wage-slavery, to an education system as a preparation for active, fully informed citizens. That means democratisation, a completely different ethos and far higher standards.

Of course, religion should be studied as part of the school curriculum. The history, role, ethics and comparison of religions are vital, just as are subjects like English literature or music. What is objectionable is the normalising of Christmas nativity plays, Chanukah dreidels, Diwali lamps or the Eid takbir. School and education must not be the sites for religious festivals, celebrations "¦ a form of indoctrination.