… notes Huma Yusuf in the New York Times, and indeed this blog has followed with amazement the mandatory gender segregation at a number of university-sponsored events in British universities.
In February, during the annual Pakistan Future Leaders’ Conference at Oxford, which brought together student delegates from more than 40 colleges, a Pakistani friend who is on a fellowship at the university joined a panel discussion on Pakistani politics. During the debate, he was taken aback to hear some participants champion the role of religion in state affairs and call for the revival of an Islamic caliphate. “The only revolution that can work is one brought through Shariah law,” one participant said. Another speaker dismissed the Pakistani Constitution as “human law” that is irrelevant in the face of “divine law.”
It took my friend some time, and several conversations with pro-democracy students who recognized them, to understand that his fellow speakers were [radical Islamic] Hizb-ut-Tahrir activists. “Their interventions were meticulously planned and very disconcerting,” he told me. “It’s clear that they’re very committed to their cause.”
British universities are being remarkably indolent about dealing with the problem. Or maybe they don’t think it’s a problem.
April 21st, 2013 at 12:06PM
Given Muslims make up 2.7% of the British population, or 1.5 million we don’t tend to see very much to worry about. I teach in a UK university and the last radical muslim student I had became close friends with an out lesbian. Ideology tends to flag in the face of the multi-cultural reality of actual people.
The fourth largest religion recorded on the census by the way was Jedi Knight.
Furthermore, the idea that religion should *not* have a role in political affairs would baffle many British people. We’ve only just got rid of the Lords Spiritual after all. They might be upset about which religion, but only a small proportion of us would argue for a complete disestablishment.