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Amazon.co.uk10 February 2008
Religion’s problem with the truth
A UK Government minister is in trouble - for telling the truth. While religions may like to glory in their revealed, universal verities, they often have problems with run-of-the-mill facts. Because when myth conflicts with reality, religion demands you choose the myth.
Phil Woolas is an environment minister and MP for Oldham East and Saddlewort, an ethnically diverse constituency. He’s also a former race relations minister, and therefore one might reasonably expect a degree of cultural sensitivity from him. Indeed, the statement that has landed him in trouble demonstrates a large measure of concern and compassion for a particular section of the community.
According to a report by the BBC, there seems to be a problem with first-cousin marriages among parts of the Asian community in the UK. Woolas has pointed out, quite rightly, that such marriages can lead to genetic problems. This is not speculation: the increased likelihood of birth defects resulting from first-cousin marriages is scientifically proven and universally accepted. It is, in other words, a fact.
Anyone from any community and of any ethnicity runs the same risk. It just so happens that first-cousin marriages - while legal in the UK - are rare outside of certain cultures. One of those cultures happens to be the Pakistani community. Studies have shown that a child born into that community is 13 times more likely than the average population to have a ‘recessive disorder’. First-cousin marriages - often arranged marriages - are common among Pakistanis in the UK, especially those originating from rural parts of Pakistan.
One might imagine that the Pakistani community would welcome the interest being shown in their welfare. Indeed, for all we know, the majority may feel precisely that way. Arranged marriages among fairly close family members may be part of the culture, but surely no culture should resist the benefits of modern science and medicine. Many traditions were forged in more ignorant times. It is senseless to cling to those traditions that our ever-increasing store of knowledge has revealed to be dangerous, and the cause of much heartache and misery.
Alas, this is the point at which religion enters the picture.
A spokesman for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) has said that the statement by Woolas “verged on Islamophobia” and has called for him to be sacked. This is ludicrous, sad and arrogant in equal measure.
It is arrogant because it has effectively hijacked the issue in the name of Islam. What Woolas was citing is a cultural issue, not a religious one. By conflating the traditional practices of Pakistanis and Islam, MPAC is attempting to ‘own’ the issue and use it for its own ends.
It is ludicrous because it suggests that a government minister is not allowed to comment on an issue simply because it touches (or is alleged to touch) on Islam. Our elected representatives have a duty to pursue every avenue for improving the lives of their constituents. Woolas was doing his job. The reaction is also ludicrous because it ignores the fact that Woolas is dealing in facts - an observed and documented phenomenon affecting part of his own constituency that is leading to misery and suffering.
And it is sad because MPAC’s behaviour suggests that muslims should accept that misery and suffering rather than examine their traditions to see if, in the light of modern knowledge, they should be amended. There is a deep intolerance to any suggestion that things might have to change.
Of course, religion doesn’t sully itself with anything as mundane as facts. The faith must be protected. The problem lies in the inflexibility of religious dogma allied with a hair-trigger sensitivity on the part of some of its defenders. One presumes that an organisation calling itself the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is concerned with the welfare of muslims. It seems that, in this case, MPAC cares more for Islam than it does for muslims, and its overreaction to Woolas’ comments can only serve to prolong suffering among its own community.
