I, along many others, was taken by surprise when the murder of three girls by a 17 year old child (we don’t know anything of his story) in Southport triggered riots across our nation. How are we to respond? Agreeing with Baroness Warsi, I tweeted that first we need to respond to the immediate law and order situation and second we need to address the long term and underlying issues. The first we can leave to generally respected law and order system and services. The challenge for us all lies as to the second. What are the underlying issues that we need to attend to, in order to rebuild our multicultural communities.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has posed the same question about the way forward; how “to dismantle these divisive and violent forces and instead pursue a path towards peace?” I agree with him that we need to “encourage religious literacy in education and in government, to equip people to live in a faith-filled world.” This was also a recommendation of the report of the Butler-Sloss Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, in their report ‘Living with Difference’ report, whose focus was community, diversity and the common good.
Not long ago I was part of the Bishop of Birmingham’s Peace and Reconciliation group, for which I produced a paper. Referring to several past world ethnic conflicts, in the conclusion I asked:
I have to admit that the last thing on my mind when writing those words was what is facing our nation now. I did speak about the pre-conditions of conflict but I was not thinking that the preconditions that have been developing over the past decade would suddenly blow up with the murder of three innocent girls at the hands of a child who is suffering from who-knows-what as a trigger.
The Archbishop reminds us of the Bible’s teaching on living well together by loving our neighbour especially one who is different from us. There is much damage done to our community relations. I’m reminded of the Church’s own Near Neighbours programme. We desperately need to improve our neighbourliness across our multicultural and multi religious communities. Organisations such as The Feast should be brought centre stage, with experience of ‘dialogue with difference’. Then there is the Church’s Difference course. Can that be rolled out across our nation; not just churches but other faiths and non-religious spaces! There is much the Racial Justice Unit can do here, especially in partnership with the National Estates Churches Network.
The Archbishop drew attention to the importance of providing for the needs of our deprived and disadvantaged communities- good housing, health and education. This brought to mind the Social Exclusion Unit that had been established by Labour the last time it was in power. Could such a unit serve our nation in the current situation! Another easy win would be for the Government to bring back Community Cohesion that was deprioritised by the Conservative Government.
Many of the rioters were not just objecting to the new immigrants but any immigrants over several generations; no one has explained to me how far back they want to go. I was born in another country but I have been in England 54 years. That is longer than some of the rioters have lived. Is that long enough for me to justifiably call this country my home!
We are currently in the middle of the South Asian Heritage Month. I was invited to write a blog for it. I decided to write it under the title ‘We are here because you were there’. Do the many who left home with their children, families and communities to go and riot appreciate understand how our small island become the diverse community that it is? Do they know the much that we share in common, including our history? We have shed blood together in the world wars. One of my great uncles was in the Burma Campaign on the same side as the rest of Brits. Surely that counts for something!
As an educator over many decades it has particularly upset me to see young people taking part in the riots. When I was involved in my work ‘championing’ the white working class, especially in their education needs, I remember quoting the Ajegbo Report in its comment that not enough multicultural education work had been done with white children. Teachers returning from their summer holidays have got their work cut. Preparing young people for our multicultural society and world is more important than ever before. Race and multicultural literacy will need space in the curriculum. Resources are being gathered for this, by groups such as the excellent BAMEed Network. Funding and time for training will need to be made available; not just school teachers but also youth workers, college staff and adult educators.