| Academic freedom, religious freedom and progressive political leadership |
| 10/10/2007 |
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Speech to the annual conference of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies As outlined elsewhere in my blog a little while back Kat Stark, Ama Uzowuru and I were invited to talk about our roles within NUS at the Federation of Student Islamic Societies’ (FOSIS) annual conference. I’ve blogged it below because while some of the content is similar to the speeches I’ve done recently on students as consumers it gave me the chance to talk about academic and religious freedom and I thought it might generate some discussion. In this blog I refer to a report by FOSIS on the ‘Voice of Muslim Students’. You can find it on the FOSIS website and I really recommend that you read it and identify outstanding issues that need to be tackled on your own campus. Why not think about inviting the heads of all religious societies in for a chat early next term to see if they need your support with anything. Enjoy. Wes wes.streeting@nus.org.uk 07738477353 --My speech –- As the Vice-President for Education of NUS, my role is a particularly broad one. From fees and funding, access and admissions, through to qualifications and curriculum, representation and feedback, my priority is to ensure that every student – whatever their background – can realise their ambitions and their potential. I want to focus my contribution today on the challenges facing our educational experience and the impact that debates and developments within wider society are having on campus life in both Further and Higher Education. I believe the very nature of our education system, our academe, is under attack like never before as we struggle to come to terms with the stresses and strains of post-modern life in the 21st century. During the past couple of weeks I’ve been speaking at various conferences about the dangers of growing consumerism in education. The introduction of variable fees in Higher Education across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as the cynical way in which fees and entitlements in Further Education are calculated, has led me to believe that we are in danger of sleepwalking into a system where students become customers and qualifications become commodities to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Nelson Mandela once said that ‘education is the most powerful tool by which you can change the world’. Education isn’t just a means to an end, but an end in itself. As I told delegates at our recent Higher Education conference in London, it should involve:
Students have a hugely important role to play in enhancing our own learning experience – and that of others – which becomes ever more important as we seek to collectively meet the equality challenge in Higher Education and this where I believe the role of FOSIS – and Islamic societies – has never been more important. One of the biggest challenges facing Higher Education today is how we response to the increasing diversity brought about by expansion. While we still have some way to go to ensure fair and equal admissions to our universities, I believe we have even further to go in terms of equality in the student experience. A mass Higher Education experience – and the longstanding diversity of the Further Education sector for that matter – requires us to think differently about the way in which the curriculum is designed and delivered; both to ensure that courses cater for a range of learning styles and that the curriculum is culturally diverse and internationalist in its outlook. It also requires students’ unions to seriously question whether the broader student experience still contains barriers that prevent some students from having an equal chance of social and cultural reward as well as academic success. For these reasons, the publication of FOSIS’ 2005 report ‘The Voice of Muslim Students’ was so important. It provided a platform and an amplifier for muslim students to talk freely and openly about their experiences. It was a wake up dcall for institutions and students’ unions who’d barely noticed that the barriers obstructing the muslim student experience were even there. All of these barriers directly affect the learning experience of muslim students and each an every barrier is an intolerable obstruction that prevents students each year from realising their full potential. We’ve made some progress since then, but you don’t need me to tell you that there is much more to do. It’s for this reason that I believe that the publication of Dr Siddiqui’s report to the Department for Education & Skills earlier this month was a positive step in the right direction, reinforcing some of the key recommendations of FOSIS’ own report made two years ago. Dr Siddiqui’s recommendations included: We also learned this month that the government will be underpinning this agenda with significant public funding through the funding council to ensure that Dr Siddiqui’s recommendations are properly resourced. With the right emphasis by universities and the constructive engagement of NUS and FOSIS I think we’ve got a real opportunity here to transform the experience of muslim students and destroy the remaining barriers you face in participation. If the Siddiqui report can realise this opportunity, then it will have been a landmark achievement for advocates of progressive politics and multiculturalism. But it cannot be used as a trojan horse to attack the freedom and integrity of academics and our universities in designing and delivering Islamic Studies courses on our campuses. One of the central tenets of our higher education system is the principle of academic freedom. Our campuses must be safe havens for open, discursive, robust and intelligent debate, where students and academics are free to explore ideas, concepts and values without the interference or constraints of the state. And we must defend that academic freedom just as passionately and vigorously as we defend our own religious freedoms. My faith is very personal to me. I don’t speak about my Christianity very often because my religion and my relationship with God is my own and not always very easy. So I cannot imagine what it’s like being a muslim in 21st century Britain, constantly finding your faith the subject of intense scrutiny and misrepresentation by the media and at the centre of some of the most regressive public policy statements in the last 10 years. I can offer you this advice. When people want to attack faith and religion, let them. It’s typical of the west that everyone from the muesli eating liberal intelligentsia to Sun readers think that libertarianism and free speech was a long forgotten ancient Greek tradition that lay dormant until they were rediscovered by 19th century liberal intellectuals like John Stuart Mill. They’d do well to look up a 12th century giant of Islamic philosophy called Ibn Rosh’d or Averroes. He said you should always cite the views of your opponents because silencing them is an implicit weakness of your case. Averroes was cited four centuries later by a Jewish sage called Rabbi Loewe who said that ‘curbing the words of an opponent in religious matters is nothing more than curbing and enfeebling religion itself’. Universities and colleges must remain places where ideas and beliefs can be debated and challenged freely and openly and they must remain places where Muslim students can study free from discrimination and free from fear of being spied on by their peers and lecturers! As we meet the challenges of today’s world it’s vital that Isocs and FOSIS engage actively with students’ unions and NUS as active players so that we can meet these challenges head on. And when we’re under pressure by regressive voices in Parliament or dangerous mindsets within our own communities let’s respond to political challenges with a proactive and progressive political leadership of our own. 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