A very good spiel from the Archbishop. I think the matter needs to be pressed a little harder though.
We have a secular liberal ideology; forms of evangelical Christianity; forms of traditional Christianity (which themselves subdivide into smaller, usually acquiescent groups); and we have forms of Islam. These different groups have co-existed in our de facto multicultural society governed by norms of political liberality (with virtues of tolerance, respect, distance from those who are different such that you don’t invade their own cultural space with your ideas, etc.).
Now, what the incidents with the college Christian Unions represent, I think, is the beginning of the end of this liberal multiculturalism. And the irony is that the problem is not really with the Muslims (who are usually the ones pilloried as being the problem case). The real problem – and the biggest threat to our British ways of life – are the secular liberals.
For the secular liberals (as is reflected in their name) deliberately misrepresent themselves within the framework of multicultural British life. De facto, they remain one ‘community’ (perhaps ‘interest group’ is better) within British society, with their own values and agenda. However, they present themselves as the guardians of political liberality itself, which is to say, as the guardians of the social-legal fabric which constitutes the structure of our multicultural society itself. And what they are doing – whilst pretending to defend our multiculturalism – is in fact forcing the values of their community/interest group onto British society as a whole. Thereby forcing other people and other groups to accept (at least in public), not a standpoint of political multicultural liberality and respect, but instead the values of secular liberalism.
This, it seems to me, is what is at stake in the issue over the CUs. The right to meet in a particular public context as a public group is being denied them by secular liberals who – when they have power – will not allow communities which do not share their values to meet together as a publically recognised body.
Whilst pretending to safeguard multicultural liberality, they in fact impose their own form of secular liberalism. Essentially their argument is: ‘You are being unjustly descriminatory unless you accept our values; since you don’t accept our values, we do not permit you to exist as a public body.’
Now, let’s face it, hard-line Muslims are not going to be writing public policy; nor are they going to be voting on its acceptance in the House of Commons. But already, and over the coming years, secular liberals, with exactly the same attitudes as displayed by the student politicians who have outlawed CUs will be forming and passing public policy in Government. This is the biggest threat to our British ways of life, and its beginnings are seen quite clearly with the controversies over the CUs.
