UK 'Must Tackle Ethnic Tensions'

BBC ^

[blam]

UK 'must tackle ethnic tensions'

Segregation problems were blamed for 2001's Bradford riots

Tensions between people of different ethnic groups and faiths in British society must be tackled, says Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly. Ms Kelly launched a Commission on Integration and Cohesion, calling for a "new and honest" debate on diversity.

The body, which will start work next month, will look at how communities in England tackle tensions and extremism.

But Ms Kelly says it will not look at whether faith schools are a good thing as parents should have a choice.

"The government is aware that society is fragmenting into tribes - but if they are talking about creating common values for different faith groups, what are they?"

Munira Mirza, multiculturalism researcher

The government plans to have more faiths schools but critics say they increase segregation between people of different beliefs.

Ms Kelly said Church of England Schools were among the most "diverse" in the country.

And she said Muslim parents should not be denied the same opportunities offered to Christians and Jews in sending their children to faith schools.

But she did suggest faith schools could be encouraged to play sports matches against each other, or twin themselves with schools of a different faith.

Communities divided

The launch of the commission comes amid growing fears of alienation, especially among young Muslims.

The Commission on Integration and Cohesion starts work in September and will tour the UK before reporting next June.

Muslim leaders have said they need help in fighting radicalism

It will look at how towns, cities and communities tackle challenges such as segregation and social or economic divisions between different ethnic groups.

The commission is designed to carry on some of the research that followed riots in northern towns in 2001.

Following that violence, experts warned the government some communities were leading "parallel lives" with little or no contact with each other.

Tensions and benefits

In a speech in London, Ms Kelly said the UK had moved away from an era of "uniform consensus" about multi-culturalism.

People were now questioning whether multi-culturalism instead encouraged separateness, she said.

But the new debate had to be based on "fact, not myth".

Ms Kelly promised the commission would not be a "talking shop" and would not focus on tackling the ideology of a "perverted form of Islam" - something the government was examining in other ways.

Instead, it would look at building ways for people to get to know their neighbours and to stop people feeling a sense of "separateness".

Ms Kelly said northern English towns like Oldham had made significant progress in bringing people together since the 2001 riots.

Ruth Kelly met Muslim leaders last week

She said: "Multi-culturalism, different communities in Britain, the fact that Britain is open to people of all faiths and none, has been a huge strength of this country.

"But what we have to got to do is recognise that while there have been huge benefits, there are also tensions created.

"The point of the commission... is to try and examine how those tensions arise and what local communities can do on the ground practically to tackle those and make a difference."

Ms Kelly said she accepted there were "elements of the Muslim community that profoundly disagree with British foreign policy".

But she said foreign policy was not a "root cause" of extremism and could not be tailored for any one section of the community.

For the Conservatives Damian Green said: "There is a huge and vital challenge to be met in helping Britain's Muslim communities integrate fully with the rest of society.

"We hope that this latest government initiative has more substance than previous initiatives which have tended to grab a headline but then achieve very little in the long term."

[blam]

"There is a huge and vital challenge to be met in helping Britain's Muslim communities integrate fully with the rest of society."

They don't want to integrate, they want you to submit to Allah...and if you won't, they'll kill you.

Not hard to understand at all.

[AZRepublican]

If ya don't want ethnic tensions then don't mix different ethnic classes togeter and expect the native ethnic class to be all smiles. For a great piece on the root of diversity conflicts see here.

[Vaquero]

'Communist' Secretary Ruth Kelly has her head up her @ss.

They need to do what we need to do here in America. Call Islam a murder cult (which it is) and run it out of town on a rail.

[reformedliberal]

Looks like it is hard for some to comprehend.

They are just going to insist on more of the same, even if it is the problem, not the solution. Multi culti is good. Just let the tribes play it out on the soccer field.

At some point, Islam will be strong and pervasive enough that people like this will be told by the Muslims, to their face, just who is in charge and it isn't going to be pleasant for the true believers to understand that they are dhimmi.

[AdAstraPerArdua]

'They need to do what we need to do here in America. Call Islam a murder cult (which it is) and run it out of town on a rail.'

There are more than 6 million muslims here in America - I don't see them being run out of town.

I don't know whether she is a communist or not, but she definitely is a member of the catholic sect Opus Dei which has 500 members in Britain with catholics making up only 8% of the British population.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/catholic/opus_dei/

[sgtbono2002]

This one will get me in trouble.

At one time England had no ethnic or racial problems. There were few or no ethnics in the country.

Allowing them in is what caused the problem.

Diversity causes its own problems.