artistic
freedom at stake By Terry Conway As Salman Rushdie begins his second year in hiding, sentence of death the pronounced against him, the fatwah, is renewed. It is clearly outrageous that his life should be endangered freedom curtailed. and his Rushdie is right that artists must be allowed the freedom criticise societies and to religions. The paperback should be published - indeed the delay in doing so has only fuelled both the fundamen- talists and the racist backlash. But what is at stake is more than one man and one book. And the issues cannot be analysed, or the problems con- fronted, by dealing with this as a debate about art. The renewal of the fatwah demonstrates the continuity be- the Iranian present tween regime and that of Khomeini. It is true that President Rafsanjani, over his looking shoulder in terms of attempting to increase Western investment in Iran, sought to temper the impact of Khomeini's original pronounce- ment by stating,on February 16th, that this was only the view of 'one expert". But this was swiftly followed by a pronouncement from Ayatollah Yazdi, head of the Iranian judiciary that Khomeini's original 'unchangeable and was pronouncement irrevocable', and that indeed is was sinful for Muslims who had the opportunity to carry out the command not to do so. The power of clericalism is still a key fac- tor within the Iranian state, and its relationship with the masses. The state has been respon- sible for doing rather more than issuing death threats - they have been responsible for the murder, torture and imprisonment of countless Iranian dissidents: artists, women activists, trade unionists and socialists of all hues. Be- hind such actions, and behind the fatwah lies continually reinforce the the need „to legitimacy of the regime and crush any form of opposition. The fact that most leaders of the Muslim community in Britain have endorsed the fat- wah is a consequence of their ambitions for Page 26
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Iranian women, wearing the chador, demand Rushdie's death Britain. They wish to construct a Muslim identity", and so undermine more political identities such as "black" or even Indian, or Iranian.
Their task is made easier both because of the racism of the British state and British society, but also because the state is in no sense a secular one. The role of religion in education is key, but other factors such as the presence of bishops in the House of Lords ( which should anyway be abolished) are also important.
Thus they are able to play on the real anger of practitioners of Islam both against racism as such and against the privileged position of christianity. The fatwah is a useful tool in this, but the divisive ambition of the Muslim leaders predates this, and will continue beyond it.
The question of policing dissent and dissidents is key for the British fundamentalists as for the Iranian. So, for example, we have seen the increased demands for state funding for separate schools for Muslims (paralleled of course, as many of these processes are, by demands for funding for other religious schools by other religious communities). While the proliferation of racist attacks within schools is used as one of the arguments in
Itsalmanushdik favour of such schools, for the fundamentalist leaders this is a cover.
This is demonstrated quite clearly by the fact that the leaders are much more concered about separate schools for girls than for boys. This is despite the fact that the reality of all women's lives - but particularly the lives of women from Muslim communities - is that they are less likely to become influenced by "western culture' than men. Even within many "progressive" schools, where children lear English as a second language, far more aftention is likely to be paid to the need for young men to become fluent than young women, since they are more likely to be destined for employment outside the home. This is compounded by the fact that boys get more general attention from teachers than girls anyway!
The fundamentalists focus on girls" educa tion because they understand that young women may well rebel against the role that fundamentalists would like to set out for them. It is really a dead end debate - and one which gives fuel to racism — as to whether women are more oppressed in Islamic or Christian society. Feminist ideas and women's self organisation have been important features of political mobilisation in countries where Islam
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
WHILE POWER nOVENENT. RALLY ЗАТ ПАУС» CARVOOD BEI 5P2 is powerful.
However the fundamentalists' understanding of feminism as a challenge which must be crushed is shown not only by their programme for education, but also by the hatred and violence shown towards the Women against Fundamentalism picket of last year's anti-Rushdie demonstration.
When the Asian women's movement in this country began to campaign for Asian women's refuges, the first response of the religious leaders was that these were not necessary as violence did not occur in Muslim families. When it became clear that such arguments were being bypassed and that a number of councils were beginning to fund such refuges, the leaders changed tack. Instead they put forward proposals that refuges should be set up on a religious basis and run by religious leaders. In doing so, they sought to undercut the feminist principles on which refuges are run, posing instead the need for them to be a 'conciliation' service.
The response of many Labour authorities to these debates, as to the debate on separate schools, demonstrates the paucity of understanding of either feminism or anti-racism. If changes have occurred over the last ten years or so, in general it has been in terms of the notion of multi-culturalism and women's rights rather than more profound changes.
Multi-culturalism is dangerous because it ignores the power relations which exists between cultures, is opposed to anti-imperialism and secularism and, enhances the power of SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
FEATURES Dill Big ell * THE JEW KNOWS VERY WELL THAT HE CAN UNDERMINE THE EXIST ENCE OF EUROPEAN NATIONS BY A PROCESS OF RACIAL BASTARD IZATION-MEIN KANPF BA MOLLOS ENESDA 2) BLEEP BOE Fascists are ready to take up Rushdies cause - for the wrong reasons self-appointed "community leaders" rather than fighting for self-organisation for black people and women. The recently published Burnage Report indicates the profound dangers of playing politics without a clear anti-racist and feminist strategy for education.
The response of the Inner London Education Authority, probably the authority in which there had been the most coherent moves towards anti-racist practice, to the Highbury Quadrant "Mandela Assembly" is yet another chilling indication of the state of the problem. While it is true that there were problems in the school, not least because of the absence of a permanent head for several years, the staff were carrying out Education Authority policy to the best of their ability considering the limits of resources. The fact that committed teachers were redeployed from the school against the wishes of parents and governors for daring to mention the nature of the apartheid regime to school children is a gross indictment of Labour's policy and practice.
Incidents such as the situation at Altringham Grammar school, where two young Muslim women were excluded for a period for wearing headscarves to school, demonstrate the way in which even multi-culturalism has failed to penetrate the whole of the education system. The young women were seen as defying school rules, even though they were prepared to remove their headscarves in situations where there might have been health and safety implications. Eventually the governors decided to support the girls, but the fact that
ROCK NIGHT I Thus: WHITE POVER
MOVEMENT RALLY% SAT TAS Carl Taylor such a situation could arise in the first place shows the depth of the problem.
This liberal framework not only gives succour to the fundamentalists, but also to racism. The fascists have used the Rushdie affair to claim that Britain is no longer a christian country - an assertion that unfortunately is far from true. In doing so they are appealing to the right wing of the Tory party, the forces that support the Education Reform Act which further entrenches the place of christianity in schools, as well as attacking other limited moves that have been made towards progressive education. It is clear too from the debate over the Embryology Bill in the House of Lords, as it was with Section 28, that the "moral majority is on the offensive.
While the fundamentalists are seeking the creation of a Muslim constituency, the extreme right are happy to conflate "Muslim' and black together, and to use the pronouncements of the fundamentalists to further whip up racism. The popular press have taken up Rushdie's case, conveniently omitting to mention that the key focus of the novel is a damning indictment of British racism, rather than of Islam or of individual muslims.
The fight to defend Salman Rushdie is a key task for socialists. This can only be carried through on the basis of an understanding of the role of fundamentalism, fighting for secularism and combatting racism wherever it appears.
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