History > 2006 > UK > Religion, sects (II-IV)

Peter Brookes

The Times

October 17, 2006

Johnson backtracks in row

over faith schools

· Minister will not go to law to enforce 25% quotas
· Religious groups welcome change of heart after talks

Friday October 27, 2006
Guardian
James Meikle, education correspondent

The education secretary, Alan Johnson, backed off from a fight with faith schools last night by saying he would no longer try to force them to accept up to a quarter of their pupils from other faiths or with no religion.

Mr Johnson announced last week that he wanted to give local councils the power to introduce the requirement, provoking an outcry from Roman Catholic and Jewish authorities who feared it would force them to have to turn away members of their own faiths. The Church of England had said it would introduce the move voluntarily, but cautioned against requiring the same of other faiths.

But yesterday, Mr Johnson said a voluntary agreement between the Church of England and the Catholic church had been reached, making the legislation unnecessary. He said he had "made considerable progress" with faith groups and MPs in finding ways to ensure non-believers could be accommodated in new faith schools.

All school governing bodies would have a duty to promote community cohesion and to ensure that the schools inspectorate, Ofsted, could verify that this was happening, he said. Amendments would be made to the education and inspections bill already before parliament.

The education secretary said: "I have listened carefully to colleagues on this issue, and recognise we all share the same goal for a more cohesive society where faith schools play an important part in building understanding and tolerance of other faiths and communities."

The government had exchanged letters with the Catholic church setting out "an agreed way forward" to ensure that the 25% of places in new schools available to those of other or no faiths would be in additional to demand for faith places. "As we now have the support of the two major faith organisations in the country for our proposed way forward, I do not feel the legislative route is necessary," he said.

The U-turn came late in the day. Earlier, Mr Johnson had still been negotiating with the Catholics and promising extra government help to fund enough buildings both to meet Catholic demand and offer further places to non-Catholics.

The CofE accounts for the vast majority of faith schools - one in four primaries and one in 20 secondaries - but there are also 2,000 Catholic state schools. There are 36 Jewish state schools, and fewer than 10 Muslim ones.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham, who chairs the Catholic Education Service and had called the admission proposals "deeply insulting", welcomed Mr Johnson's change of heart. There had been "broad agreement about how future Catholic schools could be planned in ways that ensure that they always meet the needs of Catholic parents. This is of prime importance to Catholics and accepted by the secretary of state. In addition, further places can be planned for wider access to such new schools through consultation."

Catholics had argued that, unlike CofE schools, their schools had been set up specifically to educate members of the faith. Sir Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi, wrote in an article for today's Jewish Chronicle, printed before the U-turn was announced: "When a measure designed to promote social cohesion succeeds in antagonising so many people, something is wrong."

Canon John Hall, the CofE's chief education officer, said: "This will be seen as a watershed moment, when public confidence in faith schools and their role in breaking down walls within communities has been affirmed. We look forward to the further growth of church and other faith schools within the maintained system."

Nick Gibb, the Conservative schools spokesman, said: "It has always been our view that these issues are for schools themselves to decide. It is a matter of social responsibility rather than a matter for central government and legislation."

Sarah Teather, for the Liberal Democrats, said attempts to rush through "half-baked changes were never the right way to deal with the serious issue of faith education in Britain".

Mr Johnson's decision comes as the row over Muslim women covering their faces continues to cause debate over secularism in British society. Writing in today's Times, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says politicians should not interfere with a Muslim woman's right to wear a veil. "The ideal of a society where no visible public signs of religion would be seen - no crosses round necks, no sidelocks, turbans, or veils - is a politically dangerous one," he writes.

His comments reflect concern within the church that some members of the government want to see Britain move down a more secular path, similar to that in France. "It assumes that what comes first in society is the central political 'licensing authority', which has all the resources it needs to create a workable public morality," he writes.

Then and now

Alan Johnson, October 18

"We must be careful that, rather than driving people into defending their faith, we instead encourage an open celebration of our diversity. Schools should cross ethnic and religious boundaries, and certainly not increase them, or exacerbate the difficulties in this sensitive area."

and on October 26

"I have listened carefully to colleagues on this issue and recognise we all share the same goal for a more cohesive society where faith schools play an important part in building understanding and tolerance of other faiths and communities ... I do not feel the legislative route is necessary."

    Johnson backtracks in row over faith schools, G, 27.10.2006, http://education.guardian.co.uk/faithschools/story/0,,1932880,00.html

Muslim veil debate could start riots, warns Phillips

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian
Jeevan Vasagar


The "polarised" debate over Muslim women covering their faces could trigger riots, the head of Britain's race relations watchdog warned yesterday.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said divisions created by the row risked becoming "the trigger for the grim spiral that produced riots in the north of England five years ago". He warned: "Only this time the conflict could be much worse."

Writing at the weekend, Mr Phillips said: "All the recent evidence shows that we are, as a society, becoming more socially polarised by race and faith. The only place where this may not be true is in our schools and the main reason is that in many of our cities things cannot get any worse." Mr Phillips said Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, had been right to reveal publicly that he had asked Muslim women to remove their veils during his constituency surgeries. He criticised Muslims who had attacked Mr Straw, writing: "The so-called Muslim leaders who initially attacked Straw were wrong. They were overly defensive and need to accept that in a diverse society we should be free to make polite requests of this kind."

He said the debate was becoming polarised, and wrote in an article for the Sunday Times: "This is not what anyone intended and it is the last thing Britain needs." Mr Phillips, who claimed last year that Britain was "sleepwalking to segregation", told BBC1's Sunday AM yesterday: "I this morning really would not want to be a British Muslim because what should have been a proper conversation between all kinds of British people seems to have turned into a trial of one particular community, and that cannot be right. My job I guess is to be the referee here and to say stop. We need to have this conversation but there are rules by which we have the conversation which don't involve this kind of targeting and, frankly, bullying."

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the debate about integration had become "increasingly ugly and shrill" in recent weeks.

He said: "We have seen veils being forcefully pulled off Muslim women, a number of mosques subjected to arson attacks, and Muslim individuals, including an imam in Glasgow, badly beaten up by thugs. This cannot be described as being merely a 'debate'."

The Labour MP Shahid Malik agreed with Mr Phillips's comments that the veil debate could lead to the kind of riots seen in the north of England in 2001. He said: "Informed debate is obviously progressive and healthy but the raw and ill-informed debate over the last two weeks is becoming deeply corrosive."

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "Trevor Phillips is right. It is absolutely necessary that we have this debate but it is also absolutely necessary that it takes place in a civilised manner."

    Muslim veil debate could start riots, warns Phillips, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,,1928875,00.html

Let it rain: Scientology glitterati join followers to launch £24m centre in heart of the City

· Complex shows growing confidence of movement
· Top figures turn out but no sign of Cruise

Monday October 23, 2006
Guardian
Sandra Laville


The rain bounced off a podium fit for an Oscar ceremony, soaking the lavish red carpet, and pouring down the collars of celebrants sporting incongruous California tans and sunglasses. And still they smiled. Each wore a lapel badge marking them out as followers of one of the most controversial and fastest growing "religious" movements in the world, the Church of Scientology. For two hours yesterday Hollywood glitz supplanted British mundanity on the streets of London as the most senior figures within the movement joined 5,000 members from all over the world for the opening of their £24m "church" in the heart of the Square Mile.

City of London police closed roads and 10ft foot high screens either side of the building, a five-storey former bible centre on Queen Victoria Street, relayed proceedings to thousands of followers who stood beneath specially-designed Church of Scientology umbrellas to watch.

The opening of the vast complex, with its marble floors, stuccoed pillars and gold lettering, is testament to the growing financial strength of the Scientology movement which boasts 10 million members worldwide, including 123,000 in the UK.

Standing on the sidelines a handful of protesters chanting "Stop scientology ruining lives" were the only sign that not everyone welcomed the new and dominating presence in London of an association which has been investigated by the FBI since it was formed in the 1950s by the science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard and faces accusations that it is a modern-day cult. Statements by Hubbard adorn the inside walls of the London centre, although visitors yesterday were not enlightened by one of the often-quoted statements from the man they know as LRH: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

One demonstrator, who gave his name only as Stefan, claimed that during his nine years in the association, which asks all followers to donate a minimum of $450 (£240) a year, he had lost his home.

His complaints remained unheard from the podium where Chief Superintendent Kevin Hurley, the fourth most senior police officer in the City of London, welcomed the scientologists to their new home, just a stone's throw from St Paul's Cathedral. Mr Hurley said the scientologists were a "force for good" in London and were "raising the spiritual wealth of society", to applause and cheering from the gathered crowd. He paid tribute to the work of hundreds of the Scientology members in the aftermath of the July 7 attacks last year.

The standing ovation, however, was reserved for David Miscavige, chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Centre, the senior ecclesiastical structure which runs the religion. He promised scientology could "improve the grades of schoolchildren across the education system in one term, completely reverse 80-90% recidivist crime rates and cut drug addiction by 10-20% within a generation".

"This day will go down in history," said Mr Miscavige. "Of all the foreign lands where LRH lived and worked, he called England home. This is the city wherein he first defined the human spirit as an immortal being possessed of capabilities beyond anything predicted and so arrived at the axiomatic truths on which the whole of Scientology is founded."

Among the celebrity guests at the event yesterday were Anne Archer, who starred alongside Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction and Golden Globe nominee Jenna Elfman. There was no sign of the Hollywood actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, the most high profile Scientology members. But according to staff who worked at the event, Cruise attended a lavish dinner on Saturday night at the British headquarters of the Church of Scientology in East Sussex which was held to give awards to those followers, known as silver, gold and platinum members, who donate the largest sums of money to the movement. Insiders who were at the event said the 2,000 guests paid from £500 for ordinary tables to £1,500 for the seats nearest to Cruise's table, which was situated in a sealed-off VIP area. After a meal of fois gras, Aberdeen angus beef and a dessert of chocolate, passion fruit and papaya tart, which took two weeks to prepare, awards were presented to the many elite donors in the movement. A donation of $100,000 entitles the follower to the patron of honour medal, $10,000 qualifies the member for the crusader medal and a $10m donation to the church earns the follower the ultimate accolade, the Patron Laureate medal. A blurb in the programme explains the laureate award is "for members who have donated the amount ... (or its equivalent in other currencies) to the association". Several of the patrons were seated in the VIP section at yesterday's opening, while up to 5,000 ordinary followers stood to watch proceedings.

One man who remained behind closed doors throughout, was Alan Griffin, vicar of St Andrews by the Wardrobe church, which is next door to the new Church of Scientology Centre. Rev Griffin, whose congregation numbers 40, watched the thousands of followers from his flat within the church yesterday.

Asked if he was worried, he said: "Oh, I don't think they are going to put Christianity out of business, do you? I mean, almost anyone can get 5,000 people out to support them. Can't they?"

Backstory

The Church of Scientology was formed in England in 1954 and has grown into an international movement which last year opened 1,300 new missions around the world. Scientology means "the study of truth". Followers believe that we are all descended from immortal aliens called Thetans who were brought to Earth 75m years ago. Humans are seen as temporary vessels who can only become Operating Thetans by exorcising painful memories through intensive counselling, known as "auditing", and having their mental pain measured by an electropsychometer, a device invented by L Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986. Critics claim it is a modern-day cult.

    Let it rain: Scientology glitterati join followers to launch £24m centre in heart of the City, G, 23.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1928956,00.html

British Watchdog Warns on Veil Debate

October 22, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:07 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LONDON (AP) -- The heated debate over veils that cover the faces of some British Muslim women is growing ugly and could trigger riots, the head of Britain's race relations watchdog warned on Sunday.

Britons are becoming increasingly polarized along racial and religious lines, and if they don't talk respectfully about their differences, tensions could fuel unrest, Commission for Racial Equality chairman Trevor Phillips wrote in The Sunday Times newspaper.

In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television, he said he didn't want Britain to suffer the kind of violence that exploded in the deprived suburbs of Paris a year ago, when disaffected young people, many from immigrant backgrounds, rioted for three weeks.

He warned there could also be a repeat of the rioting in several northern English towns in 2001 caused by racial tensions between white and mainly Muslim south Asian youths.

''Only this time the conflict would be much worse,'' Phillips wrote in the Times.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said some violent attacks already have occurred against Muslims in the country. He said some women's veils have been forcibly pulled off, mosques set on fire and Muslims beaten by gangs of men.

The debate over veils was set off earlier this month when former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, now leader of the House of Commons, said Muslim women visiting his office should remove their veils. A Muslim teaching assistant in northern England was then suspended from her job for refusing to remove a black veil that left only her eyes visible.

The issue touches on growing anxieties about Britain's diversity and the alienation of young British Muslims like those who carried out suicide bombings on London's transit system last year, killing themselves and 52 commuters.

Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the country needed to talk about how minority communities could better integrate into the wider society while maintaining their cultural distinctiveness. He called the veil ''a mark of separation.''

Phillips said he thought Straw's remarks had been polite and respectful, but he worried the debate had since grown ugly and rancorous. The commission he leads was created by law in 1976 to fight discrimination and encourage good race relations.

In the interview with BBC, he said ''what should have been a proper conversation between all kinds of British people seems to have turned into a trial of one particular community, and that cannot be right.''

''We need to have this conversation but there are rules by which we have the conversation which don't involve this kind of targeting and frankly bullying,'' he said.

    British Watchdog Warns on Veil Debate, NYT, 22.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Veil-Debate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Focus: Premature babies

Fight for life

Doctors can now save babies born at 24 weeks - or even earlier.
Ahead of a major new report on the ethics of saving ever more premature babies,
Gaby Hinsliff explores a debate that is splitting the world of medicine

Sunday October 22, 2006
The Observer

Shrieking gleefully, Sebastian Allan launches himself off the sofa with typical toddler gusto. It is hard to believe he was once a fragile baby whose prospects of survival hung precariously in the balance.

When his mother went into labour only 23 weeks into her pregnancy, her doctors were blunt: a child born now, they said, had barely a 1 per cent chance of living. The hospital managed to delay the birth for a few days with drugs, but Sebastian arrived at 23 weeks and six days - almost four months early - weighing only 1lb 5oz. He was rushed into intensive care and spent two months on a ventilator: it was 139 days before his parents could bring him home.

'You just live in hope, that's all you can do,' recalls his mother, Justina Shelley. 'It's not just taking each day as it comes: it's hour by hour, minute by minute. They can get sick very quickly, and make really quick turnarounds too.'

Two years on, Sebastian has definitively turned around. Babies born at 23 weeks have an 89 per cent chance of some lasting disability, but his only real legacy is moderate hearing loss. He wears a hearing aid and has speech therapy, but his mother says his quality of life is exactly that of his peers: 'What everybody else has got, he's got.' While it was clear sometimes that the treatment he endured was painful, she says, 'I am sure that in his future years he will understand that we let him go through quite an enormous amount of pain to let him have the life he's going to have.'

Sebastian illustrates how the NHS can get it resoundingly right for premature babies. He was found a bed in the intensive care unit of the hospital where his mother gave birth, the Royal Sussex in Brighton - unlike the 1,062 babies who had to be transferred out of their home region last year to find a spare bed, according to the premature baby charity Bliss, some of whom were moved hundreds of miles from home.

His parents are confident doctors assessed Sebastian on his own merits, rather than deciding on the grounds of his precarious age that nature should take its course. 'I don't believe there should be a deadline on anybody's offer of intensive care: babies need to be shown a chance,' says his mother. 'There were babies in hospital born weeks after Seb that were very sick, and did unfortunately die. I really feel passionately that a borderline can't be set.'

Babies born at 23 weeks are now routinely resuscitated in most hospitals, but if Justina had given birth a week earlier things might have been different. While a few clinicians will fight to save a 22-week-old baby, most consider them too small and too likely to suffer from the invasive treatment required to try and revive them: the risk of profound handicap, even if they survive, is also high.

Andrew Lyon, consultant neonatologist at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and honorary secretary of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, admits there are times when a baby is revived and it later becomes clear that letting it die would have been kinder. He knows parents who wanted a child resuscitated, but regretted it when they saw it suffering.

Each clinician finds their own line, he argues: 'If you said to people do you resuscitate a baby born at 18 weeks, everybody would say no. But the closer you get to 23 weeks, people have different views. I don't think that's a bad thing either: you don't progress unless you have slightly different views. What we want is good guidance on what are the problems of doing this.'

Faced with what seems like a postcode lottery for premature babies, there is a growing clamour for clearer guidelines on so-called viability - where to draw the line between a baby who deserves every chance to live, and one that compassion dictates deserves a peaceful death.

This debate took a darker turn following last week's revelations about Charlotte Wyatt, the profoundly disabled three-year-old whose parents fought a long legal battle to have her kept alive against clinical advice: they subsequently became estranged, and it emerged last week they can no longer care for her.

Some of the answers may emerge next month, when the Nuffield Council for Bioethics publishes a long-awaited report on fetal and neonatal decisions. Its research has stretched from the Netherlands - which sets a strict limit of 25 weeks on viability - to British special schools, where the panel weighed the arguments over how far disability affects a child's quality of life.

The panel is expected to reject a Dutch-style limit, with hospitals required to let a baby below a certain age to die, arguing that even two infants born at exactly the same age can vary widely. Lyon agrees, arguing that arbitrary judgments would be not only unfair but impractical when, even with ultrasound scanning, doctors can be several days out in pinpointing the length of a pregnancy. 'I don't think we can have absolutes,' he said. 'If you have an absolute gestation, you have to be absolutely certain that you know exactly what the gestation is.'

The shifting sands of viability have now opened a new front in an older argument - the one over abortion. As babies are saved who would once have been stillborn, abortion campaigners are increasingly arguing that the law on terminations should change to match. Abortion is currently legal up to 24 weeks, meaning that, theoretically, a 23-week-old baby may be resuscitated while an older baby's life is being ended in the same hospital.

The argument will be tested in parliament shortly, following moves by a Conservative MP, Nadine Dorries, to reduce the abortion time limit to 21 weeks - below the earliest age at which premature babies now survive. But if society cannot put an arbitrary limit on when life begins, can it so easily decide when life may end?

Dorries is not the obvious figurehead for a campaign regarded by some as the thin end of the wedge that will ultimately end in abolishing abortion outright.

A nurse who has worked on late terminations - a procedure she describes as 'horrific' - she uses the crisp language of feminism rather than the biblical rhetoric of pro-lifers: she supports a woman's right to choose in early pregnancy, speedier access to abortions where necessary and better contraception, including the use of three-year contraceptive implants for young women.

But she is adamant that past 21 weeks, a foetus is simply too human to be terminated: 'There is a stage when a foetus is a foetus: it's a multiplying mass of cells.But there comes a point where that foetus takes on human characteristics and human feelings and human sentience. We know it's fully formed, we know it responds to a mother's voice and to music.'

Her 10-minute rule bill, launched next week, is unlikely to become law but a vote would show, for the first time, where the Commons now stands on late abortion, paving the way for a more serious political assault on the issue next year.

Dorries's approach has, however, split old loyalties within the anti-abortion movement, now divided between pragmatists who believe a reduction in late terminations is at least a start, and those who think she is missing the point. 'An abortion can be wrong at eight weeks if it's being done for social reasons: it's not about viability,' says one leading pro-life campaigner, who wanted to remain anonymous because of the depth of the split in the anti-abortion movement.

The issue is one of perception. While the public may be struck by the issue of increasing viability, the militant pro-life and pro-choice movements unite on one thing; they do not want abortion law dictated by premature babies' viability.

For pro-lifers, it is about a moral belief that all life is sacred from conception; for the pro-choice lobby, it is about not denying options to women who only discover at their 20-week scan that their baby has severe abnormalities, or to teenagers too frightened to come forward early, or to those pushed over the threshold by long waiting lists for NHS terminations.

'Women often get tests at 20 weeks about foetal abnormalities and have to consider whether to continue or not. By reducing to 21 weeks, you are discounting these women,' said a spokeswoman for the Family Planning Association.

And even Dorries' argument is not about viability but sentience - the point at which a baby is capable not of life outside the womb, but of feeling. She will spend part of this week in an operating theatre staffed by abortion providers, and part with Professor Stuart Campbell, whose 3-D ultrasound images of babies in utero smiling and sucking their thumbs polarised the debate.

To pro-lifers, Campbell exposes the truth about what late abortion destroys: but to the pro-choice movement and many clinicians, his images reveal nothing about what the unborn actually feel. Given that newborn babies do not smile to express pleasure until around six weeks, is a smiling foetus experiencing emotion or exercising new muscles?

Campbell also favours an 18-week limit on abortion, well below the age a foetus could survive outside the womb. So if the issues of viability and abortion limits are not apparently inextricably linked, even by those at the heart of the debate, are more complex factors influencing the ethical dilemmas?

It hit the headlines last year. The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology apparently suggested in a submission to the Nuffield inquiry that very premature babies were 'bedblockers', consuming resources that could be spent on slightly older infants with better prospects.

The issue is, however, more complicated than it seems. At St George's, consultant neonatologist Sandy Calvert argues that the pressing problem is babies of all ages 'blocking' intensive care beds because of staff shortages in the lower dependency units they should graduate to as they recover.

There are three levels of neonatal care: intensive care for seriously ill babies who cannot breathe unaided; high dependency for less severe problems; and special care for babies who are simply underweight or need a little extra help. The worst shortages, according to Calvert, are in special care - which means babies get stuck in incubators they no longer need. Her own ward currently houses twins who are well enough to return to their local hospital, but its special care unit is full, so they are blocking two intensive care beds.

This problem is primarily not about age, but staffing. Last year, according to Bliss, three-quarters of neonatal units closed at least once to new admissions. Even those with theoretically empty beds sometimes simply lacked the nurses needed to use them.

While funding remains finite, demand is rising. The IVF boom means more twin and triplet pregnancies, which are more likely to end in premature births; advances in care mean that babies who would have died are surviving, but require months of intensive care. According to Lyon, obstetricians are also now readier to deliver babies prematurely to protect the life of a mother with a problem pregnancy, knowing the infants have a decent chance.

It might be logical to ask if the NHS can afford to keep reviving younger and younger babies. Lyon, however, argues that 23-week old 'births' are still rare - many die during delivery - so do not overly burden the system. Besides, he argues, for doctors it is not about money: 'If a baby needs care, you find care.'

Nonetheless, the service is at a financial crossroads. Elsewhere in the NHS, the government has introduced payment by results, a funding system involving a fixed tariff being set for every operation or procedure. Hospitals that can do it for less make money, but those with higher costs than the national tariff lose money every time they provide the service. There is no tariff yet for neonatal services, and hospitals are paid between £750 and £1,200 per day for neonatal intensive care. Those paid the least are often left struggling. A tariff is now being negotiated, but the British Association of Perinatal Medicine has been told it will be 'cost-neutral' - meaning there will be no new money, prompting suspicions that the tariff will be set low.

'If it's cost-neutral, it means that the problems we have got now are going to still be there,' says Lyon.

The government did also give an extra £70m for neonatal services last year, but Bliss's research suggests that, because it was not ring-fenced for the service, up to 60 per cent of it went on NHS deficits or other priorities.

Clinicians say underfunding means that not only can most hospitals not afford the one-to-one nursing care for babies which adults or older children in intensive care get, but they sometimes cannot afford enough staff to open all their beds. Which means it may only take one delivery of triplets requiring three beds, or staff off sick, before a unit must shut its doors, prompting a frantic search for wherever there might be a bed.

When Sarah Skates gave birth to twins aged only 26 weeks, she found her new family suddenly torn apart. Kiera and Cameron were too small to be nursed at Queen Mary's hospital in Sidcup, Kent, where she went into labour: the nearest hospital with room for both was the Norwich and Norfolk, 120 miles away. But by the time Kiera had been safely deposited in Norfolk and the team returned for her twin, another sick baby had taken his place: he was found a bed in Surrey instead.

While Sarah's husband, Andy, went to Norfolk to be with their new daughter, she stayed at home visiting their son. It was five days before she even saw her daughter: 'I know I bonded with Cameron a lot more to start with than I did with Kiera. When I went up to see her, I felt guilty I had left Cameron behind.'

During the week, she was alone at home with her eight-year-old daughter and admits times were tough: 'I had to go home at night without the babies, without anybody. I was lucky because I had quite a lot of close family, but most of the time I was crying all night because I wanted to bring them home and there wasn't anybody at home. I was constantly ringing the hospitals to see that they were OK before I could sleep.'

Fortunately, the twins are now 21 months, home and healthy. Cameron has some hearing loss, but their mother was able to bond equally with each once they were both released to the same hospital nearer home. The twins are also close to each other, despite being initially separated.

Their mother is now helping Bliss to campaign for more funding to avoid other families being similarly split up: 'I want all the hospitals to have the capability to take young babies like this - just enough space for them, and enough staff.'

Lyon argues that some transfers will always be necessary to reach specialist care, but thinks babies get a raw deal. 'If paediatric intensive care [for older children] or adults had these issues of transferring people all over the place, there would be screaming.'

There are signs of hope, however. At St George's, 518 admissions may have been rejected last year, but Calvert says it was as high as 700 in the past. Managed clinical networks, in which hospitals in one region work together to try and find beds nearby, have now been introduced. 'It won't stop babies being moved around sometimes, but it should mean they are moved closer to home rather than this random trying to find a bed somewhere,' says Lyon.

Nonetheless, his Edinburgh unit still occasionally sees babies from northern England.

No wonder Justina Shelley is still struck by her good fortune in having Sebastian. 'I am absolutely sure that the decisions that were taken [by his doctors] have given us this child,' she says.

The decisions now being reached about neonatal care, from its ethics to its funding, may help to decide whether future parents can all say the same.

A question of survival

The past

Twenty years ago, only 20 per cent of babies born weighing less than 2lb 2oz would have survived, according to the premature baby charity Bliss . Now 80 per cent do. When the current generation of neonatalogists were training, a 23-week-old baby would be left to die: now it is likely to be resuscitated. When abortion was legalised in 1968, the time limit was 28 weeks: it was reduced to 24 weeks in 1990 partly because of the increased viability of premature babies. In 1969, 5.3 women per 1000 aged between 15 and 44 had a termination.

The present

Babies are being resuscitated younger but the risk of disability is still high: a baby born at 24 weeks and given in tensive care still has an 80 per cent risk of some disability, according to the Trent Neonatal Survey. However, this can be as mild as wearing glasses or having some hearing loss. The abortion rate had tripled by 2003.

The future

The youngest premature baby to survive was aged 22 weeks and born in Canada : but a handful of 22-week-olds are now being successfully resuscitated in the US and more rarely in pioneering British units, raising the possibilty that this could become more routine.

    Fight for life, O, 22.10.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1928443,00.html

Muslim radicals to justify violence at student debate

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian
Suruchi Sharma

EducationGuardian.co.uk

Islamists will seek to justify the use of violence at a debate this week organised by students at Trinity College Dublin.

They will be opposed by moderate Muslims, including the Turkish ambassador to Ireland, at an event organised by the Philosophical Society on Thursday.

In an atmosphere where the UK government is seeking to clamp down on signs of extremism on campus the debate is guaranteed massive media interest.

The Trinity students have invited Anjem Choudary, a former spokesman for Al-Mahajiroun, to participate and make the case for violence. He will be joined by Sulayman Keeler, of al-Ghurabaa, Omar Brooks, religious leader of the Saviour Sect Islamist group, and Mohammed Shamsuddin.

Al-Mahajiroun, al-Ghurabaa and the Saviour Sect group have all been banned by Westminster.

"People are saying that we are giving the extremists a platform to preach hatred but to not allow freedom of speech is to go against everything that this society stands for and this country," said Daire Hickey, president of the society.

"This is obviously a hugely contentious issue, but like any argument has two valid sides to the story, which in this case is the views of the moderate and the extreme.

"The society is here to listen, to question and to understand and the open forum that we provide is the very best place for them to dispel any myths."

Opposing and speaking on behalf of moderate Muslims are Berki Dibek, the Turkish ambassador, David Pidcock, of the UK Islamic party, and Shaheed Satardien, of the Supreme Muslim Council of Ireland.

Mr Hickey said: "We have not deliberately chosen this topic to provoke an outcry, but to address the issue of violence and to give the students an opportunity to challenge both sides."

He added: "The issue of the veil will more than likely be raised because of Jack Straw's recent comments but it will all tie in well together."

The immense media attention to the debate promises a crowd of high proportions, but organisers say they will not change venue.

"We have enough capacity for 250 people and it's going to be crowded, but we didn't want to change venues simply for the reason that we always have it in the same place and the subject matter shouldn't affect that."

The university has given permission for the debate to take place, but a spokesman added: "This event is being organised by the Philosophical Society, which is a student society. The College authorities have no part in the organisation of these debates or the choice of speakers."

The debate will be held at the Graduates Memorial Building, Trinity College, Dublin, at 7.30pm.

    Muslim radicals to justify violence at student debate, G, 17.10.2006, http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1924367,00.html

2.45pm

Blair backs school in veil row

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent

The prime minister today took sides in the debate over Muslim women's right to wear the veil, saying he backed the school which suspended a teacher for refusing to take off her niqab.

Mr Blair also described the veil as "mark of separation" which made people from outside the Muslim community "uncomfortable".

Speaking at his monthly press conference in Downing Street, the PM refused to be drawn on the detail of the row in Dewsbury, but said he backed the school and the local education authority's handling of the case - which saw them suspend Aishah Azmi.

Mr Blair told reporters: "They [Kirkless council] should be allowed to take that decision."

But he added: "I do support the authority in the way that they have handled this."

Asked whether he specifically backed the teaching assistant's suspension from Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, he added: "I simply say that I back their handling of the case.

"I can see the reason why they came to the decision they did."

Mr Blair said the issue of the veil, and the larger issue of the integration of Muslims in society, was an issue facing almost every country in Europe.

"Difficult though these issues are, they need to be raised and confronted," he said.

Perhaps most controversially, Mr Blair said there was also an issue, which was apparent across Europe, about how Islam "comes to terms and is comfortable with" the modern world.

When asked at the news conference if a Muslim woman wearing a veil could make a contribution to society, he replied: "That's a very difficult question. "It is a mark of separation and that is why it makes other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable.

"We have to deal with the debate," he said. "People want to know that the Muslim community in particular, but actually all minority communities, have got the balance right between integration and multiculturalism."

Mr Blair added: "No one wants to say that people don't have the right to do it [wear the veil]. That is to take it too far. But I think we need to confront this issue about how we integrate people properly into our society."

The PM did say it was regrettable the way that the debate had come into the public arena.

The row - sparked by an article by Commons Leader Jack Straw in his local newspaper in Blackburn, where he revealed that he asked female constituents to remove their veils - has now lasted more than two weeks and shows no sign of ebbing.

Mr Blair said it was now a debate taking place across "every village, town and city in the British nation". A poll of Daily Express readers today claimed 98% wanted to see the veil banned.

The PM was quizzed on the government's recent decision to force newly founded faith schools to admit 25% of pupils who were not of that faith.

The move has been interpreted by some as being targeted at Muslim schools, as they form the bulk of new schools in the pipeline.

Mr Blair pointed out that it was his decision to end the ban on Muslim faith schools in the first place.

"We would not be having this debate were it not for people's concerns about this question to do with integration and separation of the Muslim community," he added.

    Blair backs school in veil row, G, 17.10.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1924473,00.html

Catholics and Jews attack controls on faith school intakes as veils row goes on

· 'Quota' for pupils from other religions opposed
· Kelly stands by criticisms of Muslim council

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian
Stephen Bates and Tania Branigan

The Catholic church signalled its outright opposition last night to government proposals requiring new faith schools to admit as many as a quarter of their pupils from families of other faiths or no religions. The Board of Deputies of British Jews also expressed concern, saying the amendment to the education bill would be "nonsensical" if it prevented Jewish children from going to Jewish schools.

There was little sign of a dying down of the wider controversy over faith communities and their integration with other Britons, as the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, defended her criticisms of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and new voices joined the row over veils.

The amendment to the education bill is designed to encourage communities to mix. But the Catholic church's education service voiced strong opposition to the measure, which would require it to accept a substantial proportion of non-Catholic pupils in its 2,000 schools. Unlike Church of England schools , Catholic schools were set up specifically to educate members of the faith.

In a letter to Alan Johnson, the education secretary, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham, who chairs the education service, insisted that individual school governors should remain the admissions authorities, without political interference. He added: "Schools with a religious character are part of the solution for society, not part of the problem."

The church's schools included many non-Catholic pupils, whose faiths were respected, he said. It would be unfair if such pupils were in future "there by a new entitlement, and possibly even hostile to the religious aspects of the school".

But Rabbi Jonathan Romain of the Maidenhead Reform Jewish synagogue said the plan did not go far enough, adding: "The very existence of faith schools is a mistake. They have the effect of dividing children of different communities from each other, sowing seeds of ignorance and mistrust."

MPs warned yesterday that existing divisions were becoming more entrenched as rows over faith and its public expression continued. John Denham, the influential Labour chairman of the home affairs select committee, said comments by ministers were exacerbating tensions.

"In a situation where there is, frankly, too little understanding between the Muslim community and the wider community and vice versa, it seems to be producing a defensiveness and lack of willingness to debate on the Muslim side, and in the majority a sort of generalised feeling that Muslims as a whole pose some sort of threat to our entire way of life ... that is not a debate," he told BBC Radio 4.

The Liberal Democrat communities spokesman, Andrew Stunell, said the government was "chasing votes", adding: "It is no solution to demonise a whole faith because of the actions of fanatics."

But Ms Kelly, who yesterday met council chief executives and police representatives to urge further action against extremism, fought back against the MCB, which has accused the government of stigmatising Muslims and seeking to deal with groups which will not publicly attack its foreign policy. In an open letter to the MCB, she said: "It is possible for Muslim organisations to take a proactive leadership role in tackling extremists and defending our values - even while we disagree on policy ... I don't accept that those in leadership positions can be passive in tackling extremism and yet expect government support."

Mr Johnson yesterday refused to be drawn into the row over a Muslim teaching assistant's refusal to remove her veil. Phil Woolas, the race minister, has demanded that Aishah Azmi should be sacked, accusing her of "denying the right of children to a full education".

The Tory leader, David Cameron, also suggested that it was unwise to comment on individual cases, telling Radio Forth: "Everyone in Britain has a right to wear what they like ... [but] it's a perfectly reasonable debate."

    Catholics and Jews attack controls on faith school intakes as veils row goes on, G, 17.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1924061,00.html

'Even other Muslims turn and look at me'

Muslim journalist Zaiba Malik had never worn the niqab.
But with everyone from Jack Straw to Tessa Jowell weighing in with their views on the veil,
she decided to put one on for the day. She was shocked by how it made her feel - and how strongly strangers reacted to it

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian
Zaiba Malik

'Idon't wear the niqab because I don't think it's necessary," says the woman behind the counter in the Islamic dress shop in east London. "We do sell quite a few of them, though." She shows me how to wear the full veil. I would have thought that one size fits all but it turns out I'm a size 54. I pay my £39 and leave with three pieces of black cloth folded inside a bag.

The next morning I put these three pieces on as I've been shown. First the black robe, or jilbab, which zips up at the front. Then the long rectangular hijab that wraps around my head and is secured with safety pins. Finally the niqab, which is a square of synthetic material with adjustable straps, a slit of about five inches for my eyes and a tiny heart-shaped bit of netting, which I assume is to let some air in.

I look at myself in my full-length mirror. I'm horrified. I have disappeared and somebody I don't recognise is looking back at me. I cannot tell how old she is, how much she weighs, whether she has a kind or a sad face, whether she has long or short hair, whether she has any distinctive facial features at all. I've seen this person in black on the television and in newspapers, in the mountains of Afghanistan and the cities of Saudi Arabia, but she doesn't look right here, in my bedroom in a terraced house in west London. I do what little I can to personalise my appearance. I put on my oversized man's watch and make sure the bottoms of my jeans are visible. I'm so taken aback by how dissociated I feel from my own reflection that it takes me over an hour to pluck up the courage to leave the house.

I've never worn the niqab, the hijab or the jilbab before. Growing up in a Muslim household in Bradford in the 1970s and 80s, my Islamic dress code consisted of a school uniform worn with trousers underneath. At home I wore the salwar kameez, the long tunic and baggy trousers, and a scarf around my shoulders. My parents only instructed me to cover my hair when I was in the presence of the imam, reading the Qur'an, or during the call to prayer. Today I see Muslim girls 10, 20 years younger than me shrouding themselves in fabric. They talk about identity, self-assurance and faith. Am I missing out on something?

On the street it takes just seconds for me to discover that there are different categories of stare. Elderly people stop dead in their tracks and glare; women tend to wait until you have passed and then turn round when they think you can't see; men just look out of the corners of their eyes. And young children - well, they just stare, point and laugh.

I have coffee with a friend on the high street. She greets my new appearance with laughter and then with honesty. "Even though I can't see your face, I can tell you're nervous. I can hear it in your voice and you keep tugging at the veil."

The reality is, I'm finding it hard to breathe. There is no real inlet for air and I can feel the heat of every breath I exhale, so my face just gets hotter and hotter. The slit for my eyes keeps slipping down to my nose, so I can barely see a thing. Throughout the day I trip up more times than I care to remember. As for peripheral vision, it's as if I'm stuck in a car buried in black snow. I can't fathom a way to drink my cappuccino and when I become aware that everybody in the coffee shop is wondering the same thing, I give up and just gaze at it.

At the supermarket a baby no more than two years old takes one look at me and bursts into tears. I move towards him. "It's OK," I murmur. "I'm not a monster. I'm a real person." I show him the only part of me that is visible - my hands - but it's too late. His mother has whisked him away. I don't blame her. Every time I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrored refrigerators, I scare myself. For a ridiculous few moments I stand there practicing a happy and approachable look using just my eyes. But I'm stuck looking aloof and inhospitable, and am not surprised that my day lacks the civilities I normally receive, the hellos, thank-yous and goodbyes.

After a few hours I get used to the gawping and the sniggering, am unsurprised when passengers on a bus prefer to stand up rather than sit next to me. What does surprise me is what happens when I get off the bus. I've arranged to meet a friend at the National Portrait Gallery. In the 15-minute walk from the bus stop to the gallery, two things happen. A man in his 30s, who I think might be Dutch, stops in front of me and asks: "Can I see your face?"

"Why do you want to see my face?"

"Because I want to see if you are pretty. Are you pretty?"

Before I can reply, he walks away and shouts: "You fucking tease!"

Then I hear the loud and impatient beeping of a horn. A middle-aged man is leering at me from behind the wheel of a white van. "Watch where you're going, you stupid Paki!" he screams. This time I'm a bit faster.

"How do you know I'm Pakistani?" I shout. He responds by driving so close that when he yells, "Terrorist!" I can feel his breath on my veil.

Things don't get much better at the National Portrait Gallery. I suppose I was half expecting the cultured crowd to be too polite to stare. But I might as well be one of the exhibits. As I float from room to room, like some apparition, I ask myself if wearing orthodox garments forces me to adopt more orthodox views. I look at paintings of Queen Anne and Mary II. They are in extravagant ermines and taffetas and their ample bosoms are on display. I look at David Hockney's famous painting of Celia Birtwell, who is modestly dressed from head to toe. And all I can think is that if all women wore the niqab how sad and strange this place would be. I cannot even bear to look at my own shadow. Vain as it may sound, I miss seeing my own face, my own shape. I miss myself. Yet at the same time I feel completely naked.

The women I have met who have taken to wearing the niqab tell me that it gives them confidence. I find that it saps mine. Nobody has forced me to wear it but I feel like I have oppressed and isolated myself.

Maybe I will feel more comfortable among women who dress in a similar fashion, so over 24 hours I visit various parts of London with a large number of Muslims - Edgware Road (known to some Londoners as "Arab Street"), Whitechapel Road (predominantly Bangladeshi) and Southall (Pakistani and Indian). Not one woman is wearing the niqab. I see many with their hair covered, but I can see their faces. Even in these areas I feel a minority within a minority. Even in these areas other Muslims turn and look at me. I head to the Central Mosque in Regent's Park. After three failed attempts to hail a black cab, I decide to walk.

A middle-aged American tourist stops me. "Do you mind if I take a photograph of you?" I think for a second. I suppose in strict terms I should say no but she is about the first person who has smiled at me all day, so I oblige. She fires questions at me. "Could I try it on?" No. "Is it uncomfortable?" Yes. "Do you sleep in it?" No. Then she says: "Oh, you must be very, very religious." I'm not sure how to respond to that, so I just walk away.

At the mosque, hundreds of women sit on the floor surrounded by samosas, onion bhajis, dates and Black Forest gateaux, about to break their fast. I look up and down every line of worshippers. I can't believe it - I am the only person wearing the niqab. I ask a Scottish convert next to me why this is.

"It is seen as something quite extreme. There is no real reason why you should wear it. Allah gave us faces and we should not hide our faces. We should celebrate our beauty."

I'm reassured. I think deep down my anxiety about having to wear the niqab, even for a day, was based on guilt - that I am not a true Muslim unless I cover myself from head to toe. But the Qur'an says: "Allah has given you clothes to cover your shameful parts, and garments pleasing to the eye: but the finest of all these is the robe of piety."

I don't understand the need to wear something as severe as the niqab, but I respect those who bear this endurance test - the staring, the swearing, the discomfort, the loss of identity. I wear my robes to meet a friend in Notting Hill for dinner that night. "It's not you really, is it?" she asks.

No, it's not. I prefer not to wear my religion on my sleeve ... or on my face.

    'Even other Muslims turn and look at me', G, 17.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1924101,00.html

Rammell backs university's Muslim veil ban

Wednesday October 11, 2006
EducationGuardian.co.uk
Staff and agencies

Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, today weighed into the debate over Muslim women wearing the veil by offering his support to universities that banned the full-face veil.

He repeated the views he expressed on EducationGuardian.co.uk last month after a year of visits to university campuses to talk to Muslim students.

Muslim students were entitled to ask for tolerance and consideration but there were limits to what they could and should ask for, argued Mr Rammell.

He said that Imperial College was wrong to attempt to ban women students from wearing the hijab, which covers their heads. The university's proposed code was amended after protests. But Imperial was right to insist on banning the niqab which covers the face, argued Mr Rammell.

Today he told the Evening Standard newspaper: "I'm not dictating hard and fast rules, as dress codes are a matter for university authorities.

"But Imperial College recently banned the face veil and I think that this is arguably the best decision. Many teachers would feel very uncomfortable about their ability to teach students who were covering their faces."

Mr Rammell added: "And I doubt many students would feel it was acceptable to be taught by someone who had chosen to veil their face."

The National Union of Students (NUS) condemned Mr Rammell's comments as "unproductive".

Ruqaayah Collector, the NUS's black students officer, said Imperial was considered a bad example of how to tackle the issue among other universities. "As a Muslim woman who wears the hijab, I'm worried the debate will go the same way as in France and other countries in Europe. It starts off with this and could move onto other forms of clothing.

"We need the Muslim community on board if we are going to fight extremism. Muslims should feel comfortable going to their MP, however they want to dress. It's important to respect personal choices. It is a woman's right to choose how they dress and not be told by men," said Ms Collector.

Mr Rammell's comments came as universities are being encouraged by the government to help tackle extremism on campus.

He added: "There is also a leadership role for universities to engage in that way and build up the confidence and the capacity to challenge the extremist minority."

Last month Mr Rammell argued for compromise and said there were difficult choices. "So in this case, what might be seen by some as the cultural-religious desirability of allowing faces to be fully covered needs to be measured against another cultural expectation: in this case, our reliance on good personal communications and the need to build personal trust," he said.

He added: "The way we reach such decisions can't simply be predicated on saying yes to every demand, adjusting our society's norms in order to reflect and accommodate a variety of religious or cultural practices. All such demands need to be weighed against other factors in our contemporary, pluralist society. Religious or cultural needs cannot automatically trump all others and it is, in my view, fundamentally unreasonable to argue that they should."

The demands of some Muslim students were "unrealistic" in a secular, historically Christian country, he said. "If young Muslims are led to expect that their religious needs can be addressed as fully as would be the case in a Muslim country, then they will be disappointed.

"It follows from this that there is a risk that for some young Muslims - and indeed people from other faith groups - disappointment about the degree to which their needs will be met can and does lead to deep disillusionment with our society and a risk that this provides fertile recruitment grounds for extremists," he warned.

    Rammell backs university's Muslim veil ban, G, 11.10.2006, http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1896776,00.html

Dangerous attack or fair point? Straw veil row deepens

Minister's remarks fuel claims of Islamophobia crisis

Saturday October 7, 2006
Guardian
Martin Wainwright, Tania Branigan, Jeevan Vasagar, Matthew Taylor and Vikram Dodd

The issue had been troubling Jack Straw, and though he must have known that it might cause offence, he decided to raise it regardless.

One of Labour's most experienced politicians, Mr Straw addressed a gathering of Muslim leaders, sharing his disquiet over women who veiled their faces, and recalling a meeting he had had at a constituency surgery in Blackburn with a woman wearing a niqab.

It was a strange matter to raise at talks which had been dominated by a debate over Iraq's role in swelling British extremism, and his intervention stuck in the minds of those who were there. "He said, some of my constituents who have been accepting of the hijab are greatly concerned about the niqab," said one who was there. That discussion was almost 12 months ago. Mr Straw was warned at the time that any attempt to publicise his concerns would provoke anger. But a year later, and apparently unprompted by Downing Street, he chose to do so again, this time to the media.

If Mr Straw had any doubt over the news value of his views, editors at his local paper did not share them.

When the Lancashire Telegraph received his column on Wednesday morning, they knew straight away it was in a different league from his standard offerings. The front page for the next day was cleared and staff began approaching local community leaders to get their response.

Taking over the news

By yesterday morning, there was a gathering sense of crisis at Westminster and beyond over the government's attitude to multiculturalism, coming at the end of a week in which problems seemed to coalesce.

Anger over a Muslim police officer who asked to be excused guard duties at the Israeli embassy combined with tensions in Windsor, where plans to build a mosque sparked three nights of violent clashes, giving British Muslims a frustrating sense of once again being the whipping boy.

"This Muslim police officer taken off-duty was a routine thing, but it was blown totally out of proportion," said Dr Reefat Drabu of the Muslim Council of Britain. "The same with the niqab. It is a matter of choice but it seems to have taken over the news. We seem to be all the time defending ourselves and we haven't got the opportunity to evolve within the culture we're in."

It was the timing of the remarks, as much as the content, that was baffling Muslim leaders yesterday. Quietly, and unnoticed, the issue of the niqab has been raised on university campuses and in schools over the last few years, without causing ripples.

In the wake of 7/7, a dress code drawn up by Imperial College outlawed the niqab in the interests of security, saying staff had to be able to check students' faces against the picture on their ID.

The ban was resisted by the Imperial's Islamic Society, but has already been supported by at least one minister.

In a speech made at South Bank University in May, the higher education minister Bill Rammell said: "Many teachers would feel very uncomfortable about their ability to teach students who were covering their faces. And I doubt many students would feel it was acceptable to be taught by someone who had chosen to veil their face."

Shift since 7/7

A prominent academic agreed yesterday. Jean Seaton, professor of media history at the University of Westminster, said she would be reluctant to teach a student who covered their face. "You can't teach somebody if they can't communicate, without seeing the response. Teaching is not like stuffing a goose with corn - its utterly reactive. In a social situation, everybody else's faces are giving away stuff left right and centre."

Professor Seaton added: "I remember the first time I saw a Saudi in Holland Park and being viscerally terrified of this image."

But the government's perspective on relations with the Muslim and other ethnic minority communities appears to have shifted significantly since the London bombings. Its immediate reaction to 7/7 was to reach out to community representatives to discuss how the problems of extremism might be tackled.

But in August, Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, called for a "new and honest debate" on the merits of multiculturalism. At last week's Labour conference the home secretary John Reid said Britain would not be bullied by Muslim fanatics, and he would not tolerate "no-go" neighbourhoods. The government has also appointed Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality and a man who has warned that Britain is "sleepwalking towards segregation", as the chair of the new single equalities body.

Dr Drabu said attempts at rapprochement with Muslims were a "charade".

"They had these working groups, but when it came out that they would like an inquiry, that was totally ignored. When they said this was all to do with foreign policy, that was ignored."

It was not clear whether Mr Straw canvassed opinion within government before writing his column. He does not appear to have spoken to Tony Blair. The prime minister's official spokesperson said only: "He believes it is right that people should be able to have a discussion and express personal views on issues such as this."

Nor does he appear to have consulted members of the community in Blackburn. Lord Patel, a long-term supporter, said he would request a meeting to discuss the matter. Hamid Qureshi, chair of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, described it as "blatant Muslim bashing".

Shahid Malik, the MP for Dewsbury, said: "It's not so much about what he has said as the climate in which he has said it, in which Muslims - and non-Muslims - are getting tired of Muslim stories. The veil isn't the problem; the problem is that people are frightened of it - they've never spoken to someone with a veil. This cannot and must not be about blaming one group, but about saying, we have all got to take collective responsibility. "

The veil has been a lightning rod issue since Turkey banned headscarves as a rejection of Ottoman conservatism. In France, which has the biggest Muslim population in Europe, the 2004 ban on "conspicuous" religious symbols in schools was seen as a means of shielding the secular state from the perceived threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Feminists have opposed the veil as a symbol of patriarchy.

The niqab is a Gulf Arab tradition which has been adopted by young British Muslim women even when their traditional cultures do not prescribe it.

Talk in Blackburn

Ghulan Choudhari of Radio Ramadan Blackburn said that only a small minority of women in Blackburn wore the full veil, but numbers were growing. He said: "It's partly down to the increased interest in our religion, especially among young people. But I can see Jack's point about the veil making some people uneasy. To be honest, I get uneasy talking to people who are wearing sunglasses. I don't like not being able to see their eyes."

Talk in the town was linking the column to Mr Straw's possible ambition to be Labour deputy leader - or, conversely, to a theory that he was not planning to fight Blackburn again and had things to get off his chest.

Mr Straw's constituency party secretary Phil Riley said: "Jack always has a word with me in advance about what he'll be saying in the Telegraph and I know this subject's been on his mind for a while.

"The big worry here is that Blackburn is becoming a divided town. Either you stand by and watch that process, doing nothing, or you engage people in a debate about it. Jack's started a conversation. He and I have talked about it quite a bit in the last few months. I know he's worried about the number of Blackburn-born girls who are taking it up. As he says, in the context of cultural cohesion it's something which just doesn't help."

Muslim opinion on the streets was not unsympathetic to Mr Straw, but hardly anyone put other communities' feelings before the religious right - duty in the eyes of a sizeable minority - to wear the full veil. A self-employed electrician waiting for the end of lessons at St Nicholas and St John infant and junior school - which is overwhelmingly Asian - said that the roots of social division were much older than veil-wearing.

"It's all to do with the way we were treated in the Seventies - I was regularly chased along here when I was a kid by white lads. Other communities just didn't want to know about us - funny that they're all so interested now in things like veils. I was a soldier in the British Army for 11 years and I can tell you very clearly how I couldn't get anywhere because I wasn't white but brown."

Several other parents waiting to collect children said that an increase in wearing the veil followed much better-organised Islamic teaching locally. One mother wearing a headscarf and shalwar kameez, but not a full veil, said: "When our mums and dads came here, it was all work, work, work for them, no time to study and no mosques. Now we have lessons in English, Urdu and Arabic and women are learning what their religion really asks them to do."

Mounting tension

Tuesday British National party distributes leaflets with cartoon picture of Muhammad in south London

Wednesday David Cameron wants Muslim schools to ensure a quarter of their intake comes from other faiths. Confrontations between white and Muslim youths in Windsor

Thursday Met commission orders inquiry into decision to excuse Muslim PC Alexander Omar Basha from duty outside Israeli embassy. Jack Straw says Muslim women who wear the veil make positive inter-community relations more difficult

Friday Mr Straw defends his position and again urges women not to cover their face with the niqab

The view from Blackburn

Asma Mirza, 29, housewife

"I certainly don't agree with Jack Straw because my religion demands that I wear this I have taken the full veil for 16 years now and I am much more comfortable wearing it. It is a matter of modesty as well as religion. I hope that it will not put other people off. Once they talk to me and get to know me, I think that problem disappears."

Masood Rahi, owner of telecom shop

"I think Jack Straw is probably right, especially in these days when security matters so much. It's all very well for someone to have your photograph and a form with your details on. But what use is that if they can't glance at your face to check? People should be ready to discuss it and to read what he actually said, rather than the headlines which give a rather different impression."

Jahangir Hussain, 16, student

"I disagree with Straw. It's these women's religion. They should all be wearing the veil according to the proper teaching. Yes, maybe it puts some people off but look at nuns or people from other faiths which get people to do things with their clothes ... Nobody goes around telling them what they can and can't wear, they just get used to it."

Young woman in full veil. No name given

"OK, it's religion first but modesty comes into it a lot for me. I started using the full veil eight months ago and it's done so much for my self-respect. It's comfortable, I feel protected and I happily eat out at McDonald's in it. I've devised this special way of getting the food up behind the material."

Daniel Coine, 16, student

"I'd go further than Jack Straw and say they should all take off their veils. You need to see people face to face. It's weird not knowing who it is you're passing in the street, specially late at night when someone might jump you."

Rachael Ashhead, 20, business student at Manchester Metropolitan University

"It's their choice to wear the veil and they've an absolute right ... I've no problem with it all when I meet one - there are loads of them at uni. A more important issue is the way these things are discussed in the news, how they get simplified and people set against each other."

    Dangerous attack or fair point? Straw veil row deepens, NYT, 7.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1889846,00.html

10.15am

Straw: I'd rather no one wore veils

Friday October 6, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke and agencies

The row over whether Muslim women should wear veils intensified today when Jack Straw said he would rather they were not worn at all.

The Commons leader insisted that he did not want to be "prescriptive" of Muslim women's dress but said the increasing trend towards covering facial features was "bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult".

The row ignited yesterday after the Blackburn MP revealed that he had made clear to women wearing the niqab [full veil] at constituency surgeries that he would prefer them to remove the facial garment because face-to-face conversations were of "greater value".

But the Lancashire Council of Mosques said Mr Straw had "misunderstood" the issue and it was "deeply concerned" by his "very insensitive and unwise" statement.

"For such a seasoned and astute politician to make such a comment that has shocked his Muslim constituents seems ill-judged and misconceived," a spokesman said. "Many of these women find Mr Straw's comments both offensive and disturbing."

In an article for his local paper, Mr Straw yesterday revealed that no one had refused his request, and most "seemed relieved".

Asked today if he would rather the veils be discarded completely, Mr Straw said: "Yes. It needs to be made clear I am not talking about being prescriptive but with all the caveats, yes, I would rather."

Mr Straw said he was concerned about the development of "parallel communities" where different religious groups did not mix.

"You cannot force people where they live, that's a matter of choice and economics, but you can be concerned about the implications of separateness and I am," he told the BBC's Today programme.

Mr Straw later told GMTV: "It is about personal choice and I think it's quite important that we should think about the implications, because seeing people's faces is fundamental to relationships between people."

He added: "I've been struck by the discussions I've had with Muslim ladies - only a few but it's an increasing, if low, trend - about why they wear the veil and about whether they've thought about implications for race or religious relations - it's their decision.

"Interestingly, the Muslim Council of Britain have made it clear there's great controversy among Muslim scholars about whether it is obligatory or not; you obviously have to respect all these schools of thought. I just thought it was quite important to put out on the table something which is there in any event."

Mr Straw insisted that he respected those who wear the veil and would never demand it was removed, but added that in conversation it was important to "not only hear what people say but see what they mean".

The Conservative policy director, Oliver Letwin, said it would be a "dangerous doctrine" to start telling people how to dress, while the Liberal Democrat party chairman, Simon Hughes, dubbed the remarks "insensitive and surprising".

The Islamic Human Rights Commission said Mr Straw was "selectively discriminating". Rajnaara Akhtar, who chairs the Project Hijab organisation, said Mr Straw had shown a "fundamental lack of understanding about why women wear the veil".

George Galloway, the Bethnal Green and Bow MP, called on Mr Straw to resign, saying he was effectively asking women "to wear less".

But Dr Daud Abdullah, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he understood Mr Straw's views.

"This [the veil] does cause some discomfort to non-Muslims. One can understand this," he said, adding that Muslim opinion was divided on the wearing of the veil.

Labour party colleagues, including chair Hazel Blears, gave their backing to Mr Straw, saying his request to constituents was "perfectly proper". Downing Street said Mr Straw was expressing a private opinion.

    Straw: I'd rather no one wore veils, G, 6.10.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1889173,00.html

Blaming the veil is wrong

October 6, 2006 10:14 AM
The Guardian
Rajnaara Akhtar


Why oh why can't we Muslims just take some constructive criticism for a change? We live in ghettos, we can't accept that terrorism is our fault, our Mosques are recruiting centres for jihadis and now Jack Straw has "sensibly" pointed out that women who cover their faces are a hindrance to social cohesion, we're up in arms again ...

On the face of it, the response of Muslims to Mr Straw's suggestion seem extreme, especially as the only thing he said was that failing to show the mouth and nose was "a visible statement of separation and of difference." An innocent comment surely, and an invitation to engage in dialogue with members of the Muslim community?

While it is commendable that Mr Straw has taken the steps to educate himself about the face veil and understand why some women choose to observe this practice; I find it somewhat perplexing that he would then ask women who wear it to remove it in his presence. This shows a lack of understanding of its purpose and total disregard and disrespect for the religious practice observed by some women.

The fact is that the face veil is something that is not taken lightly by the vast majority of women who observe it. His suggestion that the women who removed their veils in his office were "relieved" to do so is nothing short of demeaning. This wholly insensitive episode may unfortunately be perceived by the Muslim community as a step towards constraining the freedom of choice for Muslim women in how they choose to dress. Hardly a great exercise in promoting community dialogue and cohesion.

A more deeply worrying issue is the apparent abuse of his position as an MP by Mr Straw in his constituency. By his own admission, most of the women who met him were in need of his assistance. For him to ask them to remove their veils in such circumstances would surely put them in a difficult position and exploit their vulnerability. How many women would refuse in such circumstances? Furthermore, what right does he have to request that any woman remove any item of clothing?

On the point of community relations, the face veil is worn by millions of women around the world and their societies function perfectly well and they are able to conduct their daily affairs without any problems. Though their communities don't have the same freedoms as we have in Britain, I do not buy Mr Straw's argument that they have less social cohesion because of the face veil. I also think it is wrong to restrict the freedoms which form the foundations of our society over misplaced concerns over community relations. We must remember that less than 5% of Muslim women observe the full veil, and it is not prudent to lay the blame of the lack in social cohesion at their feet.

Not only are Muslims right to be up in arms at Mr Straw's suggestion but we hope the rest of society will join us in opposing his attempt to curb basic freedoms such as how we dress; surely a step too far even for this nanny state. It appears Mr Straw has not listened to nor understood the reasons for why women choose the veil as he clearly disregarded any reasoning when he requested that they remove it; and in all likelihood he has abused his position of power when making the request. Perhaps it is time for some more dialogue on the issue Mr Straw.

    Blaming the veil is wrong, G, 6.10.2006, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rajnaara_akhtar/2006/10/jack_straw_misses_the_point.html

'I felt uneasy talking to someone I couldn't see'

This is Jack Straw's column in the Blackburn-based Lancashire Telegraph, which prompted the debate

Friday October 6, 2006
The Guardian

"It's really nice to meet you face-to-face, Mr Straw," said this pleasant lady, in a broad Lancashire accent. She had come to my constituency advice bureau with a problem. I smiled back. "The chance would be a fine thing," I thought to myself but did not say out loud. The lady was wearing the full veil. Her eyes were uncovered but the rest of her face was in cloth.

Her husband, a professional man whom I vaguely knew, was with her. She did most of the talking. I got down the detail of the problem, told the lady and her husband that I thought I could sort it out, and we parted amicably.

All this was about a year ago. It was not the first time I had conducted an interview with someone in a full veil, but this particular encounter, though very polite and respectful on both sides, got me thinking. In part, this was because of the apparent incongruity between the signals which indicate common bonds - the entirely English accent, the couple's education (wholly in the UK) - and the fact of the veil. Above all, it was because I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone "face-to-face" who I could not see.

So I decided that I wouldn't just sit there the next time a lady turned up to see me in a full veil, and I haven't.

Now, I always ensure that a female member of my staff is with me. I explain that this is a country built on freedoms. I defend absolutely the right of any woman to wear a headscarf. As for the full veil, wearing it breaks no laws.

I go on to say that I think, however, that the conversation would be of greater value if the lady took the covering from her face. Indeed, the value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or phone call, is so that you can - almost literally - see what the other person means, and not just hear what they say. So many of the judgments we all make about other people come from seeing their faces.

I thought it may be hard going when I made my request for face-to-face interviews in these circumstances. However, I can't recall a single occasion when the lady concerned refused to lift her veil; and most I ask seem relieved I have done so. Last Friday was a case in point. The veil came off almost as soon as I opened my mouth. I dealt with the problems the lady had brought to me. We then had a really interesting debate about veil wearing. This itself contained some surprises. It became absolutely clear to me that the husband had played no part in her decision. She explained she had read some books and thought about the issue. She felt more comfortable wearing the veil when out. People bothered her less.

OK, I said, but did she think that veil wearing was required by the Qur'an? I was no expert, but many Muslim scholars said the full veil was not obligatory at all. And women as well as men went head uncovered the whole time when in their hajj - pilgrimage - in Mecca. The husband chipped in to say that this matter was "more cultural than religious". I said I would reflect on what the lady had said to me. Would she, however, think hard about what I said - in particular about my concern that wearing the full veil was bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult. It was such a visible statement of separation and of difference.

I thought a lot before raising this matter a year ago, and still more before writing this. But if not me, who? My concerns could be misplaced. But I think there is an issue here.

    'I felt uneasy talking to someone I couldn't see' , G, 6.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1889081,00.html

Take off the veil, says Straw - to immediate anger from Muslims

Cabinet minister opens debate with claim that veil is a symbol of separation

Friday October 6, 2006
Guardian
Matthew Taylor and Vikram Dodd

Jack Straw provoked anger and indignation among broad sections of the Muslim community yesterday after he encouraged Islamic women to stop wearing veils covering their face, saying the practice hindered community relations.

The former home secretary said the full veil - known as a niqab - made "better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult".

He added it was "such a visible statement of separation and of difference".

A likely candidate for the deputy leadership, whose Blackburn constituency has a large Muslim population, Mr Straw said last night that he had chosen his words carefully. "We are able to relate to people we don't know by reading their faces and if you can't see their faces, that provides some separation," he told a local radio station. "Those people who do wear the veil should think about the implications for community relations."

His aide added that this was an important issue that needed to be debated.

But his comments surprised British Muslim leaders and fellow Labour MPs, who pointed to a series of statements from ministers which have challenged attitudes towards multiculturalism. At the launch of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, questioned whether multiculturalism was now encouraging segregation. At the Labour conference last week John Reid insisted Britain would not be bullied by Muslim fanatics, and he would not tolerate "no-go" neighbourhoods. He had already been criticised after telling Muslim parents in east London that fanatics were "looking to groom and brainwash your children for suicide bombing".

Muslim leaders accused the government of destabilising already precarious community relations, which have been buffeted by clashes this week between white and Muslim youths in Berkshire. Scotland Yard's withdrawal of a Muslim officer from duty at the Israeli embassy is now the subject of an inquiry ordered by the Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair.

Reefat Bravu, chair of the Muslim Council for Britain's social and family affairs committee, said yesterday that Mr Straw's comments had exacerbated existing tensions. "We had John Reid first and now we have Jack Straw ... This is going to do great damage to the Muslim community, again we are being singled out by this government as the problem. Women have a right to wear a veil and this is just another example of blatant Muslim-bashing by this government."

Mussoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said he found Mr Straw's comments distasteful. "Would he say to the Jewish people living in Stamford Hill [in London] that they shouldn't dress like Orthodox Jews?"

Mr Straw, who made the comments in the Lancashire Telegraph, said he had asked women wearing the niqab to remove it when they visited his constituency surgery because face-to-face conversations were of "greater value".

Recalling a conversation with one women, he wrote: "I said I would reflect on what the lady had said to me. Would she, however, think hard about what I said - in particular about my concern that wearing the full veil was bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult."

Political allies of the leader of the house said yesterday that they thought Mr Straw's sentiments were misjudged.

Lord Patel, who helped Mr Straw win his Blackburn seat and has known him for more than 20 years, said: " I don't agree with Jack that he should ask women to take off their veil."

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said: "I think Jack is at risk of providing succour to people who hold anti-Muslim prejudices. Someone of his stature and understanding of the community, he needs to look at this a bit more in depth and not stereotype a small minority in the Muslim community."

But the Muslim peer Lady Uddin defended Mr Straw's decision to raise the issue, although she said Muslim women should be able to choose what they wore. "I think there needs to be a debate," she said. "He should have the right to raise this question and people should have a right to disagree. I think the Muslim community needs to address this, not just throw its hands up."

    Take off the veil, says Straw - to immediate anger from Muslims, G, 6.10.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1888872,00.html

Leap of faith

An important initiative by the Archbishop of Canterbury

September 07, 2006
The Times

In disconcerting times, when terrorism dresses itself up as faith and conflict abroad is used as cover for violence at home, there is a premium on enlightened leadership. In Lambeth Palace this week, with a stroke of his pen, the Archbishop of Canterbury provided such a moment. It could echo down the years.

The accord that Dr Rowan Williams signed with the two chief rabbis of Israel is evidently “historic”, given the complex history between the two faiths and the Church’s past complicity in fostering anti-Semitism. It is also well timed. It coincides with the 350th anniversary of the return of Jews to Britain after their expulsion in 1290. And it helps to put to bed the profound ill-feeling generated by the General Synod’s vote to divest its shares in companies used by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The timing of that decision, shortly after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the election of a Hamas-led government, was guaranteed to inflame Jewish opinion.

But the accord amounts to more than an attempt to paper over the past. Dr Williams’s hope that it may presage a time when he can walk around the grounds of Lambeth Palace in the company of conservative rabbis and radical imams, the better to understand each other, should not be dismissed summarily. It may be easy to lampoon the idealism of Dr Williams in regarding himself as a bridge between clashing faiths, but such leadership is what he should be offering. A multifaith garden stroll may not bring peace to the Middle East overnight. The symbolism, though, of such civil- ity and sincere openness to dialogue would help to undercut the inflammatory rantings of fringe elements who purport to speak for their faiths.

The visit to Britain of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis coincides with today’s important parliamentary report into anti-Semitism. The all- party inquiry is right to put its findings in context. The level of anti-Semitism experienced by Jews in Britain is probably less than that faced by Jewish communities in some other European countries, and other British minorities also face prejudice and discrimination. But that is no reason to ignore a problem that statistics suggest has been on the rise since around 2000.

The committee is concerned that anti-Jewish themes and remarks are gaining in acceptability and threatening to encroach on the mainstream. This is a delicate area. It ill-serves the forces of enlightenment for the charge of anti-Semitism to be used as a device to curtail criticism of Israel’s policies. But there is understandable concern that the defence of political discourse can too easily be used to justify flirting with ethnic and religious stereotyping. To help to guide Britain in the right direction, the committee makes a number of sound recommendations, none more so than the establishment of interfaith groups for young Jews and Muslims. A meeting of minds in a community centre can be just as important as in the grounds of Lambeth Palace.

    An important initiative by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ts, 7.9.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-2346205,00.html

Trident is evil and against God, bishops warn Blair

Published: 10 July 2006
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
The Independent

Nineteen bishops have joined the row over the replacement of Britain's nuclear weapons by warning the Prime Minister that the possession of Trident is "evil" and "profoundly anti-God".

In a letter published in The Independent today, the bishops give weight to the growing opposition among Labour MPs to the plan to approve the Trident replacement by the end of the year.

Religious arguments against the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons could unsettle Tony Blair, who is a regular churchgoer.

Mr Blair is likely to feel on firmer ground when faced with the practical, moral and economic arguments for opposing Trident raised by the bishops.

The letter says: "Trident and other nuclear arsenals threaten long-term and fatal damage to the global environment and its people. As such, their end is evil and both possession and use profoundly anti-God acts."

The signatories to the letter include the Rt Rev Peter Price, the Bishop of Bath and Wells; Dr David James, the Bishop of Bradford; Jack Nicholls, the Bishop of Sheffield; and Colin Bennetts, the Bishop of Coventry.

They challenge Mr Blair over his commitment at the Gleneagles summit a year ago to make poverty history. "The costs involved in the maintenance and replacement of Trident could be used to address pressing environmental concerns, the causes of terrorism, poverty and debt," they said.

Labour MPs are likely to challenge the Secretary of State for Defence, Des Browne, over the Bishops' letter when he speaks to Labour backbenchers at a private meeting at Westminster tonight.

Mr Blair is also facing growing unrest among his MPs over his failure to guarantee a vote in Parliament on replacing Trident. A Commons motion calling for a vote has been signed by 122 MPs, including many senior Labour members.

It was tabled by Michael Meacher, the former environment minister, who welcomed the intervention of the bishops, saying: "It is essential that a decision of this magnitude be taken with a debate in Parliament.

"I support the arguments by the bishops but I would add to them - it is not an independent nuclear deterrent because if the Americans don't approve it, we cannot use it; and on non-proliferation grounds - it is impossible to say to countries like Iran you should not have nuclear weapons but we must have ours."

Church leaders have a long tradition of opposing Britain's nuclear arsenal and many senior church figures joined marches to ban the bomb in the 1960s with Labour stalwarts such as Michael Foot, later the leader of the Labour Party.

But this is the first time senior church figures have entered the debate on replacing Trident since the Prime Minister confirmed the Cabinet was about to carry out its review.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, has appalled some of his supporters, including Clare Short, by saying he would support the deployment of a new generation of nuclear weapons.

    Trident is evil and against God, bishops warn Blair, I, 10.7.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1169722.ece

Anglican Plan Threatens Split on Gay Issues

June 28, 2006
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and NEELA BANERJEE

In a defining moment in the Anglican Communion's civil war over homosexuality, the Archbishop of Canterbury proposed a plan yesterday that could force the Episcopal Church in the United States either to renounce gay bishops and same-sex unions or to give up full membership in the Communion.

The archbishop, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, said the "best way forward" was to devise a shared theological "covenant" and ask each province, as the geographical divisions of the church are called, to agree to abide by it.

Provinces that agree would retain full status as "constituent churches," and those that do not would become "churches in association" without decision-making status in the Communion, the world's third largest body of churches.

Conservatives hailed the archbishop's move as an affirmation that the American church stepped outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy when it ordained a gay bishop three years ago.

The archbishop wrote, "No member church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship."

Leaders of the Episcopal Church — the Communion's American province, long dominated by theological liberals — sought to play down the statement's import, saying it was just one more exchange in a long dialogue they expected to continue within the Communion.

The archbishop said his proposal could allow local churches in the United States to separate from the Episcopal Church and join the American wing that stays in the Communion. But that process could take years, and some American parishes are already planning to break from the Episcopal Church. Entire dioceses may announce their intention to depart, as soon as today.

The 38 provinces that make up the global Communion have been at odds since 2003, when the Episcopal Church ordained Bishop V. Gene Robinson, a gay man who lives with his partner, as bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire.

The archbishop's statement is the most solid official step yet in a long march toward schism. Twenty-two of the 38 provinces had already declared their ties with the American church to be "broken" or "impaired," but until now the Communion had hung together, waiting for guidance from the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is considered "the first among equals" in the Communion but does not dictate policy as the pope does in the Roman Catholic Church.

For the proposal to be enacted would take at least half a dozen major church meetings spread out over at least the next four years, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, said in a telephone interview.

What should be included in a covenant could become the next focus of debate. The idea of a covenant was first proposed in the "Windsor Report," issued in 2004 by a committee commissioned by the archbishop. Canon Kearon said, "Many churches welcome the idea of a covenant, but they didn't particularly welcome the text that was proposed." He said he did not regard the archbishop's proposal as a step toward schism but as a means to clarify "identity and common decision-making procedures" in the Communion.

Church liberals said that any "covenant" would be crafted with the participation of the American church and other provinces that favored full inclusion of gay people.

"I think the archbishop takes a long view and underscores the fact that we are involved in a process rather than a quick fix," Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold of the Episcopal Church said in a telephone interview.

Several church officials in communication with the archbishop's office said he wrote his six-page communiqué, which he called a "reflection," after the close of the Episcopal Church's convention last Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio.

At the convention, the church fell short of the demands in the Windsor Report for an explicit apology and a full "moratorium" on ordaining gay bishops. Instead, the church approved a conciliatory statement encouraging American dioceses to refrain from ordaining gay bishops.

But the convention also offended the conservatives by electing a new presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada, who has been an outspoken advocate of full inclusion for gay people and who allows gay union ceremonies in churches in her diocese.

Bishop Jefferts Schori, who takes office after Bishop Griswold retires in November, will represent the American church in meetings with the world's primates, some of whom do not approve of women as priests or bishops.

She said in an interview yesterday that she was heartened by Archbishop Williams's comments in the letter that he would not be able to mend rifts over sexuality single-handedly.

"There were expectations out there that he would intervene or direct various people and provinces to do certain things, and he made it quite clear that it's not his role or responsibility to do that," Bishop Jefferts Schori said.

The Anglican Communion has about 77 million members in more than 160 nations. Members in conservative provinces far outnumber those in the liberal provinces. The Episcopal Church has about 2.3 million members but contributes a disproportionate amount to Anglican Communion administration, charities and mission work. The Anglican Communion Network, a group leading the conservative response, said it had 200,000 members last year.

The archbishop's proposal was greeted with satisfaction by conservative leaders in the United States, who had formed a powerful alliance with prelates in many of the provinces in Africa and in Asia, and in some parts of Latin America. The conservatives have insisted all along that it is the American church that destabilized the Anglican ship and should be pushed overboard if it will not relent.

The Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, president of the conservative American Anglican Council, said: "We really believe that the Episcopal Church wants to follow a course that takes it out of both Anglicanism and Christianity, as Christianity is historically known. So a two-tier approach looks good in theory."

Canon Anderson said the plan could be difficult in actuality, because many parishes and dioceses were ready to sever ties with the Episcopal Church now, years before the archbishop's plan for reorganization could take effect. He said that churches and dioceses had already asked to be put under the authority of bishops in Africa and Latin America and that many more would do so in coming months.

"The floodgates are starting to open," he said.

The division has already led to legal battles over church property. Under Episcopal Church bylaws, parish assets belong to the dioceses, but churches in some states have challenged that in court.

Archbishop Williams said in his statement, "The reason Anglicanism is worth bothering with is because it has tried to find a way of being a church that is neither tightly centralized nor a loose federation of essentially independent bodies."

But that decentralization will continue to be a cause of conflict unless it is addressed, he said, adding, "What our Communion lacks is a set of adequately developed structures which is able to cope with the diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a world of rapid global communication and huge cultural variety."

    Anglican Plan Threatens Split on Gay Issues, NYT, 28.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/us/28episcopal.html?hp&ex=1151553600&en=c430e21d859b78d0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Related http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/41/50/acns4161.cfm