Dress and liberty

There has been a lot of talk about how we Muslims dress. Perhaps we are being loosened up for some legislative intervention. Perhaps wearing the veil will be banned in education and, in the long term, in other public buildings. Perhaps it will also be banned while driving, on the health and safety pretext that it can interfere with the peripheral vision. We will just have to wait and see- by turning up the heat in the debate, perhaps some people hope that they will be able to influence behaviour and avoid the need for intervention.

I know at least 3 people who changed how they dressed after July 2005. A number of others altered their sartorial preference after Straw’s anti-veil outburst last year. The debate has focussed on the veil, but many men have also donned their shirts and trousers and discreetly retired their shalwar kameez suits. Some have also trimmed their beards; others, torn between cultures, are trimming their beards in stages, so that eventually it will cease to exist, by which time they hope no one will notice.

All this is a far cry from the case for liberty presented in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. Mill argued that the only reason society should intervene in regulating behaviour is to prevent ‘harm’ to others. Over their own bodies, individuals are sovereign. As long as the harm to others principle is borne in mind, people could be as eccentric and offbeat as they wished. In fact, Mill argues, eccentricity is a good thing. A vibrantly liberal society depends on such difference.

Now Mill’s essay is elegant and powerful. But the word ‘harm’ is slippery It can be applied to whatever you like. Politicians can argue that the shalwar kameez, or the veil, ‘harms’ integration (just as in some traditional societies conservatives argue that westernisation harms society). Anything that goes against your idea of how society should be organised can be regarded as ‘harmful’. Yet the whole idea of liberty is to keep the concept of harm limited. If harm is continuously expanded- for example to include how you dress- then liberty becomes an empty phrase. It no longer becomes the default position, but whatever can be saved from the ever expanding domain of regulation. For Mill, liberty was definitely a default position.

Law and psychology: creating needs

Figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service show that after law, psychology is the most popular subject. As of 15 January, 77,040 people had applied to study psychology later in the year- an increase of 3.9% from last year. Perhaps that explains why we are becoming an increasingly litigious and therapeutic society. The lawyers and psychologist coming from the universities need something to do.

There is more than a modicum of truth in this apparently simplistic link. Two examples will suffice to show what I mean.

An acquaintance was recently stopped in the street by a clever ‘personal injury claims’ salesman from a law firm. My acquaintance has never had an industrial accident, but, after a long discussion, was persuaded by the salesman to attend a private medical examination. The examination would test things like hearing, sight, agility etc. If anything was found lacking, an attempt would be made to link the deficit with the various jobs this person had done in his life by putting in a personal injury claim. My acquaintance cancelled the appointment, but you can see my point- lawyers putting in dubious claims to create work and money for themselves.

The second example is less dramatic, but real enough. In every job I have started, the induction has included a bit about the availability of counselling. This may sound innocuous enough, but the omnipresence of counselling does suggest that, by default, we are now being considered as weak and unable to cope. After all, the induction said nothing about the local cancer specialist.

Integration and language

The Commission on Integration and Cohesion has rightly identified lack of language as the single biggest barrier to integration. It is easy to see why this is the case- not being able to speak the language of your host country is an obvious disadvantage. Your career prospects are limited. In many cases, you become permanently locked into low paid jobs and you are less aware of your rights. Integration is further hampered because your colleagues are unlikely to speak English as well. You have minimum contact with the majority community.

So it is perfectly reasonable that migrants, whether here for work or to join a spouse, should be required to learn English. That means quality courses in English should be provided free of charge and at flexible times to cater for working patterns. Migrants should commit to learning the language. The government’s side of the bargain should be to provide quality learning and training.

To be frank, things have been a little too easy for migrants for too long. The easy availability of translation has removed any motivation to learn English. Yet the problem with translation is that although it gets you through a particular transaction, in the longer term it does not help your position in the host country. Many public sector organisations have been particularly over-zealous in their approach to translation, making available a large number of leaflets and documents in various languages. It is a concrete indicator of the duty to be ‘inclusive’. At the end of the year, when reporting on the performance indicators relating to inclusion, organisations can count the minority language leaflets and pat themselves on the back. This misguided approach to inclusion actually perpetuates exclusion.

Dumbing down

For some years a change has been going on in education at all levels. Universities, traditionally centres of learning and intrepid scholarship, fiercely independent, are at the forefront of this change. The change involves emphasising process of learning over substance. It involves different pedagogies and learning styles. E-learning, portfolios, student-centred learning, problem-based learning, collaborative learning: these are just some of the words in the vast lexicon of learning processes. A recent addition is ‘sustainability literacy’, which looks at how concern about the environment can be incorporated into your discipline.

What is the driving force behind this obsession with teaching process over substance? There are several reasons, but I think the main force is the wish to be inclusive. Sitting in a library studying bulky tomes and writing essays is considered elitist and old fashioned. So in an attempt to open up, new learning processes are introduced that are less taxing, like e-learning, with its drag and drop and copy paste exercises; or portfolio-based learning, with its emphasis on crediting prior experience and knowledge. By thus opening up with bite-sized learning, all can have prizes. But it comes at the expense of intellectual rigour.

Generation gap

A report recently claimed that young Muslims, born and bred in the UK, are being more radicalised than the older generation, some of whom barely speak English. I think this makes sense; the experiences of the different generations are different.

The elders, especially those in their 70s, arrived in the UK when they were teenagers or older. They therefore still have memories of what life was like in Pakistan, or Mirpur, before large numbers of people started coming to the UK. And the memories they have are not all pleasant. Many elders recall the extreme poverty. Extreme poverty, as distinct from relative poverty, is where you do not have enough food to eat. It is where what you do have to eat is very basic. Many people recall the days when all they had to eat were corn chapattis and water. Meat was a luxury.

For people of that generation, arriving in the UK has been a life changer for which they thank their lucky stars. Here there were plenty of jobs and a good wage. And frankly, if you fall on hard times, the state looks after you anyway. What harm could a few racist taunts do compared to the hardships and struggles of existence left behind in the motherland, for which they still have an affection?

The experiences of the generation born here are different. They have not suffered extreme poverty. They do not know what it is like not to have enough to eat or to go bare foot to school. Their problems are problems of life here- poor educational attainment, ignorance, lack of job opportunities, drugs, crime and welfare dependency. It is this void in their lives which forms a breeding ground for extremism for a tiny minority, as it does for crime and anti-social behaviour in the wider community.

Therapy culture

As I browsed through the new books section at my local library recently, I was struck by the number that were about therapy and counselling. There were books about anxiety and stress, and about various phobias, including social phobia, otherwise known as shyness. There was a chunky hardback on how to be happy and contented. The library now has a large number of popular therapeutic books. What can be the reason for this? At the superficial level, the reason is that more such books are being written, therefore it makes sense that more are being bought.

There is, however, a cultural reason why more and more popular therapy books are being churned out. The prevailing culture encourages us to feel vulnerable and delicate, unable to cope with life without help and support. Even life’s everyday challenges are pathologised. Notice how fortitude and bravery are words very little heard these days. Even in the army, a profession that should represent the ne plus ultra of fortitude and bravery, we have Gulf war syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder.

Given this trend, it is not surprising that self therapeutic books have become so popular. I am not interested in the chicken and egg question, whether the books created the culture or the culture created the books. It’s fair to say that the more such books are written, the more the culture of vulnerability becomes entrenched. A quick search on Amazon and ebay confirms just how popular these books are.

A quick browse through several of the books at the library confirmed my prejudice- they are full of pap. Much of the advice is repetitive and commonsense dressed up as something better and original. There is no analytical or critical perspective of any sort. Books of this genre make no addition to accumulated knowledge. I suspect they do not make people happier either, as they fork out more money to buy the ‘Also available’ titles listed at the back, about a condition they were hitherto unaware they had.

Raids in Brum

My city and local area is abuzz with activity following yesterday’s anti-terror raids. All day, journalists, cameramen, politicians, police officers and curious members of the public could be seen along the Stratford Rd. By the time I got home from work, the only people around were the police in fluorescent jackets and the Newsnight team, with the intrepid Richard Watson presenting from outside a barber shop.

The two policemen guarding the mobile phone shop looked bored. A man passed by and asked them whether it will re-open, as he had given the shop a ‘very expensive’ handset for repairing. He was assured it would. Whereas the police had finished with the bookshop down the road when I went for a stroll in the evening, the policemen in fluorescent continued to guard the phone shop at 6:30 am when I drove by to work today.

It is difficult to gauge what local people think. People are clearly scared and concerned, but there is a hint of scepticism that anything will come out of this. Friends and relatives of some of those arrested have fiercely protested their innocence. We will just have to wait and see what comes out of it.

If no charges are brought and this turns out to be another Forest Gate, then, alas, I fear the media will not return with the same force and damage to the reputation of the area would have been done.