Tony Blair has recently called for religious respect lessons in education systems across the globe in order to tackle today’s ideologically driven wars, as well as to prevent religion-based violence in the future.
This approach seems problematic for several reasons. Firstly, it’s debatable whether this mission is practically feasible. It would certainly be difficult to implement religious respect lessons in secular states such as France, which do not tolerate religion of any kind in their education system.
There is then the question as to whether it would actually work: The faith-school legacy that Blair left as Prime Minister has been criticised for contributing to a more segregated society. More recently, the Trojan horse scandal suggested that teaching religious values can be a dangerous game, especially with an increasing number of free schools and academies that have more freedom in their teachings and greater influence from single personalities.
“Religious respect” is perhaps different to religious education but it still evokes problems – facts about religion are easy to teach; subjective content becomes far more difficult. A Muslim’s definition of religious respect, for example, is going to differ from that of an atheist.
The Trojan horse scandal suggested that teaching religious values can be a dangerous game, especially with an increasing number of free schools and academies that have more freedom in their teachings
It could be that France-style secularism is in fact the way forward. Here, contrary to Blair’s desire, religion and education would be separate, with the morals of tolerance and respect taught outside of the religious realm in other forms of education. Involving religion more in society arguably misses the point and would cause controversy in many communities.
However, Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, argued this summer that “aggressive secularism” had in fact helped contribute to conflict in the Middle East. He stated that Britain’s Christian status means that it has historically produced a tolerant society with good moral values.
Whether this is true is somewhat debatable: Christian Britain has seen an increase in anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic attacks this year much greater than in secular France, so it’s hard to see how the participation of religion within our education systems really makes a difference. It is also interesting that Blair does not mention the rise of anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic feeling in Britain but instead focuses his argument on trying to curtail religious extremism. Surely the former is just as dangerous as the latter and potentially a prerequisite for political extremism?
In suggesting religious respect lessons as an antidote to extremism, Tony Blair has made some fundamentally questionable assumptions: Although education could be key in dispelling an array of religious prejudices, which can feed extremism and conflict, tackling this issue would be merely touching the tip of an iceberg wrought with graver problems. The profound roots of global conflict – inequality, poverty, greed and a lack of general education, amongst many others – are what allow people to manipulate religion for their own ends.
It is also interesting that Blair does not mention the rise of anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic feeling in Britain but instead focuses his argument on trying to curtail religious extremism
Indeed, having led Britain into an illegal war with Iraq and recently advocating troops on the ground against IS, it is hard to grasp whether Blair truly believes that religious respect lessons are the answer. It seems equally likely that he is compensating for the chaos which has unfolded over the last 20 years, partly due to his own political actions, by pinning the blame on religion instead of politics.
Therefore, although religious respect lessons may help us to understand other religions and expel prejudices, setting a global agenda institutionalises a personal opinion about the value of religion that would not respect every country’s views. What’s more, Blair’s proposal, whether intentionally or not, scapegoats religion as a root cause of global conflicts and calls for greater religious involvement, when in fact the focus should be elsewhere.
Rachel Winterbottom
Image courtesy of Reuters via cfr.org
This is all about destroying religion in the name of ‘respect.’ Every faith must evangelize hard to be a nation’s majority and every nation must have an official religion reflecting its majority that gives the society a fighting chance for coherence among the various organs of state, churches and schools and courtrooms and hospitals and so forth. It is chaos now and all the people are suffering, and the vacuum left with no God is what ISIS is trying to fill. No nation can ignore God–it is unjust to fail to give thanks to our creator and it makes a bitter people. That doesn’t mean lack of tolerance, tolerance was practiced toward minority religions throughout Europe, and in the Middle East as well in the past, before this big secular push. It is secularism that is causing the problem in the world by declaring a false and incoherent equality among all religions, thus rendering all equally irrelevant, and forcing the state to substitute fake, weak, and even silly ‘morals’ in place of those tried and true ones successfully used to platform fabulous cultures in the past.