On Church and Government

I caught an interesting snippet on Radio 4 the other day while driving: an interview with Aziz Tamimi and Hazel Blears about the proposed expert board of Muslims that the Government are trying to set up. The board, albeit allegedly independent and set up with the assistance of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, is to interpret matters and then disseminate their findings to help 'guide' Muslims in this country to stop "Islamic beliefs being misused by those seeking to promote extremism or reinforce certain cultural practices".

Why am I writing about Islam when I'm a Witch? The thing that struck me is the sheer arrogance and manipulation of the Government in this matter - and it has parallels for The Craft. While arguing that the board can help interpret such things as wearing the veil, the major thrust is to persuade youngsters away from radicalism. This small, disenfranchised group are supposed to take note of the guidance and then change tack. Aziz Tamimi made an interesting point that even by instigating the set-up of the board, it would make the very people it was intended to influence suspicious of the advice and all that goes with it - which made sense to me.

It seems that the Government have a huge difficulty with Islam because there is no "church", i.e.the centralised hierarchy that more familiar religions offer. Islam doesn't have an Archbishop of Canterbury or a Jonathan Sacks, and the Government can't cope. So, rather than deal with the real problems and take away the root causes and problems that radicalise youngsters, our wise leaders have decided to try to mould Islam into something more familiar and recognisable.

My understanding of Islam is that each Imam is independent; he teaches within the faith and uses the Quaran, but will work with the people for whom he has pastoral responsibility as adviser and interpreter. If an Imam should appear to the Government as too uncomfortably radical or not towing the line they want, at the moment there's nothing they can do, because there isn't an Islamic Big Cheese who can deal with the 'dodgy' Imam. I do believe that current moves are the thin end of the wedge in attempts to reshape the form of Islam in this country. And if I think that, I'd guess that the very people this board is meant to reach may be thinking similar things.

So what's it got to do with me? Well, there have been extensive discussions on The Green Witch here and here and on Star of Seshat, as well as Magicfortherealworld about making The Craft more organised and structured.

While Islam had functioned rather well over past decades as a loose community of believers and their immediate spiritual leaders, there are moves afoot to try to turn Witchcraft into another clone of western religious structure. And here's the danger: if the Government can control the Big Cheese at the top of any system, or bring to bear the sorts of pressures that only governments can, they will not only do so, but in the act blur the clear line between secular and spiritual.

Many people I know have argued that The Craft should not go the same way structurally as, for instance, Christianity, for the simple question of who regulates the person at the top? There has to be a system of checks and balances and in creating a pyramid structure, the apex is vulnerable both to pressure and to corruption. It may be that many Muslims would feel uncomfortable with the thought of having their religion compared to Witchcraft, but in terms of a loose, flat structure and the ability to remain an amorphous, fluid mass that is flexible, able to balance itself out and adapt, there are parallels.

There is an insidious danger in allowing government to interfere with religious life - in this case, they are fudging the issue of extremism, even with the experience of Northern Ireland and hundreds of years of history, and by setting up the Islamic board, they can effectively wash their hands of the problem in the future and roundly shift the blame. The only way to stop people becoming radicalised is to deal with the desperation and feeling of disempowerment and disenfranchsiement that allows it to happen in the first place.

In the meantime, we see the beginnings of an old religion being shoe-horned into a more malleable format and that does not bode well for Witchcraft.