Submission on the hijab defeated at AWL conference 29-30 April 2006.
The road taken by the British left has included several clear milestones, and a major one was their support for the campaign against the French ban on the veil in state schools.
It was correct to attack the motives, hypocrisy and the practical impact, leaving religious schools in place, of the ban. It was wrong for Marxists to oppose the ban on the veil in schools, which had in effect, been in place in French state schools.
The veil is the touchstone issue in the battle against Islamic reaction; its political use is central. Opposing the French, flawed but secular tradition marked a major capitulation by the British left especially in the context of a unanimous anti secular, cultural relativist consensus in Britain.
Marxists should not shy away from the truth for fear of being unpopular in this context. The veil is a tool and symbol of the oppression of women; it is the cutting edge of Islamic reaction and should not be allowed in schools.
(Note: the opposition to this text was motivated on the basis of reaffirming AWL 2004 policy as follows:]
1. We oppose the hijab as a social mechanism of female subordination, and we oppose pressure on girls to wear the hijab. Our priority is to help and support secularists and leftists in the mainly-Muslim communities who fight that pressure.
2. We are for universal secular education. We should seek to launch a counter-campaign in Britain against faith schools, the intrusion of religion in ordinary state schools, and the toleration, in the name of multi-culturalism, of Muslim girls being excluded by parental pressure from parts of education.
3. We do not support the new French law. It will probably be counter-productive. It fails to allow the necessary space for dealing sensitively and respectfully with teenagers’ desires to experiment in dealing with the world around them.
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1. The AWL should campaign for equal comprehensive and mixed secular education for all. This will include; Opposition to all religious and private schools and an end to all state funding and charity status for schools that are not secular state schools.
This state education system would be compulsory as would be the full curriculum ending the right of parents to withdraw children from any parts of the syllabus including sex education, sport science.
2. We should defend minorities against racism, standing shoulder to shoulder with ‘communities’ against racists but politically we aim to split ‘communities’ along class lines breaking workers and youth away from religious authority and reactionary tradition.
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The debate surrounding the French law on the hijab has exposed the unwillingness of the broad "far left" to stand up for democratic and socialist values in general, and secularism in particular. Combating this political degeneration is an essential part of regenerating an authentically socialist culture in the labour movement. Propaganda and agitation for secularism in both state institutions and the education system are a vital component of the socialist fight for democracy. We therefore reaffirm our support for - Complete separation of religion and the state.
Disestablishment of the Church of England; abolition of the Monarchy and the House of Lords - The abolition of blasphemy laws, not their extension to religions other than Christianity.
- A secular education system. Abolitition of private schools; all state schools to be fully secular and comprehensive.
Over the coming year, the paper should carry articles on the question of secularism; the teachers’, student, UNISON and other relevant fractions should investigate the possibilities for campaigns supporting secularism in education.