The Influence of Common Law

At a Berlin conference, which was recently organised by Germany's Heinrich Böll Foundation, Paul Weller, professor of inter-religious studies at the University of Derby, argued that the British have an entirely different starting point for their approach to dealing with Muslims from that of the French or the Germans.

And that's not because of Britain's colonial experience. "During the French Revolution," he said, "France created abstract ideals, like equality and laicism, which the citizens had to adopt. England is more influenced by the tradition of common law."

British pragmatism

The result is that the British deal with issues more pragmatically.

Common law draws on a tradition of precedents which may be hundreds of years old. The London-based legal expert, Jons Flemming Lehmann, pointed out that the precedents allow for exceptions:

"A judge can decide in a specific case that a current interpretation of the law is no longer relevant and he can reach a different decision," he said. "If this decision is repeated in other similar cases, then the exception will eventually become the rule."

British Sikhs, for example, have profited from this flexibility. They still don't have to wear helmets, either as motor-cyclists or as policemen: their long hair and their turban are an essential part of their belief, and so the judges have made an exception in their case.

Each to his own

Sikh policemen wear a black turban with a black-and-white check band. Jons Lehman points out: "There is no law in Britain which says that everybody is the same."

But it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that, as a result, anything is permitted. In north London, for example, a schoolgirl was prohibited from wearing a jilbab which would have covered her entire body: the authorities considered that wearing school uniform with an integrated headscarf adequately fulfilled the requirements of a believing Muslim.

No law against religious discrimination

British law protects people from discrimination on the grounds of skin-colour. "But theoretically," says Weller, "people can suffer discrimination on account of their religion, since there's no law prohibiting that."

Arzu Merali of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in London points out that a disproportionately high number of Britain's Muslims live in poorer areas, find it harder to work and have a poorer education.

Those, however, are problems with which immigrants from southern Africa or the Caribbean also have to cope. Merali says they stem from a latently racist society.

Muslims' strong ties to British citizenship

Muslims in Britain want equality with white Britons. Merali says she's not interested in a self-defined Muslim community. She says Muslims in Britain identify themselves first and foremost as citizens of the United Kingdom.

"The communities divide themselves up by nationalities," she says. The Islamic community consists of 25 nationalities and includes people with an endless variety of languages and cultures.

All the same, not everything in Britain runs harmoniously. Not so long ago, there were serious riots in Manchester in which many people from Bangladesh were involved. And there also cases where young people from immigrant families carry out racist attacks on white people.

State-sponsored Muslim schooling

Many conservative Muslims would like their children to go to Muslim schools which separate boys from girls. So far, there's only one state-sponsored Muslim school in the country. Girls there can choose for themselves whether or not they wear a headscarf.

Mohamed Aziz of the Commission for Racial Equality and Human Rights calls on the Muslims to get more involved in society as a whole. He quotes examples of where Muslim neighbourhoods have collected money for charitable projects for the whole of society, such as hospitals and social centres.

In this way, he says, Muslims can reduce mistrust by making it clear that they too are an important part of society.

Lennart Lehmann

© Qantara.de 2004

Translation from German: Michael Lawton