In the aftermath of the brutal murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich yesterday, questions have ‎surfaced on how best to describe the events – are labels such as “terrorism” either warranted or ‎even accurate? While the facts are still emerging, it is now clear the attackers were both British of ‎Nigerian heritage, with one named as 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo who, prior to adopting radical ‎Islamic views, is alleged to have dabbled in petty crime. The men attacked Lee Rigby in South East ‎London with a range of knives before being shot by police officers, as they attempted to turn on ‎them.‎

Many have questioned why the murder has received such unprecedented coverage, with some ‎pointing out that the equally brutal murder of 75 year old Mohammed Saleem, stabbed to death as ‎he returned home from his local mosque in Birmingham earlier this month, received comparatively ‎little attention. In both cases, a violent minority may be implicated in a murder with political ‎dimensions, in one case politically radicalised Muslims, in the other, the Far-Right. Both could be ‎dubbed a form of ‘terrorism’ and yet, only one has been.‎

It is a rather trite observation to state that the term ‘terrorism’ has become eminently politicised, ‎used much more readily and easily to refer to violence by certain types of political dissidents, such ‎as those whose violence targets the majority, than to refer, as it was originally devised, to states, ‎or groups targeting minorities. ‎

And yet, there are significant aspects of this case which appear to fit the ‘terrorism’ label. Amongst ‎these, the nature of the target – A British soldier – and the identity of the perpetrators – radical ‎young Muslims – as well as the stated motivation. When asked about his motive by an eyewitness, ‎one of the men responded, “because he has killed Muslim people in Muslim countries”, “I killed ‎him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan”. He ‎added: “You will never be safe. Remove your government”. What’s more the style of the attack, ‎undertaken and filmed in full public view with the objective of publicising the actions to a wider ‎audience, is reminiscent of a strategy employed by the media savvy loose network, often referred ‎to as Al Qaida. While there is evidence to suggest Michael Adebolajo became radicalised through ‎the now-banned al-Muhijaroun, the group is well known to security services who monitor it closely ‎and it treads a fine line between espousing hate and undertaking violent actions. Though the ‎group may have laid the foundations for a binary and simplistic worldview, it is likely other ‎inspiration was involved in the move to action.‎

‎ “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. We must fight them as they fight us. ‎An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” one of the attackers told onlookers. To those familiar with ‎Al Qaida’s discourse, this is all too familiar. A veneer of Islamic rhetoric dressing up opposition to ‎the presence of Western troops in Muslim majority countries. The perpetrators need never have ‎met anyone vaguely even affiliated to Al Qaida, they may have simply imbibed the rhetoric, easily ‎accessible online and in the pamphlets and clips of extremists distributed in a murky underground ‎network. ‎

In a posting on a jihadist website in January this year, Al Qaida said ‘coming strikes’ would target the ‎‎’heart of the land of non-belief’ and that attacks would be ‘group, lone-wolf operations and booby-‎trapped vehicles’. If indeed the men turn out to be self radicalised Al Qaida groupies, the attack ‎would seem to suggest that the security services have become much efficient in countering more ‎elaborate plots and that extremists are now left with the “last resort” tactic advocated by Al Qaida ‎and its satellites – rogue attacks by individual foot soldiers – basic and simple to undertake, ‎requiring little planning or logistics and hence less likely to be foiled. The most recent “lone wolf”, ‎self-radicalising extremist was Frenchman Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers as well as ‎three Jewish schoolchildren and a teacher in March 2012. If this indeed the trend of the latest Al ‎Qaida attacks, they indicate just how weakened the network’s reach in Europe as become.‎

So should the Woolwich attack be dubbed terrorism? Yes, it appears to fit into the evolving pattern ‎of Al Qaida inspired attacks. But should we be worried? Not really. If Al Qaida style terrorism in ‎Europe peaked with the coordinated attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London on 7/7, the most recent ‎plots, from a foiled crude bomb plot at Glasgow airport in 2007, to yesterday’s knife attack on a ‎soldier, are an indication of just how limited their scope has become in Europe. ‎

The fact is the perpetrators want this to be perceived as an act of terrorism. Doing so would put ‎them in a league with the Al Qaida aficionados they have idealised and ultimately, vindicates their ‎sense of purpose, having “succeeded” in etching their names on the wall of terror, alongside the ‎Bin Ladens and Mohammad Sidique Khans of this world. That’s precisely why they requested the ‎public film their actions and why they appeared to relish a dramatic confrontation with the police. ‎Like all Al Qaida attacks, the force of the attack lies in the ripples of fear and division created as a ‎consequence. A successful attack against European targets is measured not in victims but in the ‎pandemonium and fear fostered. ‎
Thankfully, the British “keep calm and carry on” attitude has largely prevailed. Despite a worrying ‎spike in attacks on Muslims centres in the immediate aftermath, the message from the political ‎class has been broadly reassuring. Cameron was right not to return too promptly from Paris and to ‎advise soldiers to keep wearing their uniform in public. Muslim organisations have vocally ‎condemned the attack and stood united with their fellow citizens, a blow to the intended wedge al ‎Qaida seeks to place in order to attract its recruits.‎

Terrorism it might be, but the critical concern now should be to avoid the politicisation of public ‎fear, to further unnecessarily impinge on our civil liberties. In 2009, former head of MI5 Dame Stella ‎Rimington denounced the exploitation of public fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties, while ‎campaign group Liberty have repeatedly warned that “the risk of terrorism has been used as the ‎basis for eroding our human rights and civil liberties”. Several peers have already pushed for the ‎government to resurrect the communications data bill, rebranding it a tool to fight terrorism and ‎John Reid has called for the total observation of all our data communications. Although Cameron ‎has said he wants to avoid “kneejerk responses”, we must remain vigilant. For our security, yes, ‎but also even more crucially, for our freedoms.‎

France’s distinctive take on secularism is once again making headlines. A sacred virtue of the ‎Republic, it is unquestionable within the hexagon where political careers are built on its defence. ‎But a recent case is causing controversy. The decision by France’s High court (Court of Cassation) to ‎overturn the dismissal of Muslim nursery nurse, Fatima Afif for wearing a headscarf while working ‎at a Paris crèche in 2008, has placed the spotlight on the increasingly politicised use of the term.‎

On March 19th, the court ruled that the private nature of the crèche rendered her firing a ‎‎”discrimination on the basis of religious convictions”, overturning two earlier rulings by an ‎employment tribunal in 2010 and a court of appeal in 2011, and ordering the crèche pay her 2500 ‎euros. Many French Muslims viewed the decision with muted optimism, hoping that the ‎precedent set by the court would protect French Muslim women from misapplications of the law ‎on laicite and unfair dismissals. In 2012, a report by Amnesty international found that Muslim ‎women are routinely “denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because ‎they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf.” The report also found that legislation ‎prohibiting discrimination in employment is not being appropriately implemented, despite ‎contravening European Union (EU) anti-discrimination legislation.‎

But in a sign of just how politicised Islamic issues have become in France, within days of the ruling, ‎Socialist Interior Minister Manuel Valls responded by expressing his “regret” at the court’s verdict, ‎while former Prime Minister Francois Fillon took the opportunity to call for an extension of the law ‎on laicite to all work places, including the private sector. Within days, the case had reignited the ‎‎”laicite debate”, fuelling endless discussions over French identity and the alleged intractability of ‎Muslims. ‎

From the late ’80s when the first case concerning Muslim women’s dress became a political issue, ‎the reach of laicite has crept ever more worryingly into the private sphere. The 2004 ban on ‎‎”ostensible religious symbols” in schools, has been followed by the 2010 ban on face veils in “public ‎spaces”. For its opponents, such legislation has bolstered various forms of anti-Muslim prejudice, ‎apparent in a range of worrying developments, from discrimination in housing and employment, ‎through to attacks on Muslims and their places of worship.

Many perceive the discourse on laicite ‎as a cover for a stigmatisation of French Muslims who already face widespread discrimination and ‎racism. A 2010 report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) found ‎discrimination in access to employment, education, housing, and goods and services. A young activist ‎currently lobbying MPs to reject any new legislation, told me that the discourse on laicite now ‎allows for the expression of a respectable form of racism which specifically targets Muslims.
‎
In his election pledge, President Hollande promised to be a figure of unity, decrying Sarkozy’s ‎divisive policies, pandering to the Far-Right, and portraying himself as a president for “all French ‎citizens”. According to one poll, 93% of French Muslims voted for the Socialist candidate, but many ‎have been left disappointed.‎

In 2012, then spokesperson for the Socialist party, Benoît Hamon expressed surprise at support ‎from socialist senators for the “anti-veiled nanny” law, as it has come to be known, describing it as ‎‎”collateral damage from the debate on national identity” initiated by the Right in 2009 and affirming ‎that the Socialist party would not support such a law if it came to power. But within a week of the ‎High court ruling, and following a petition by public figures calling for a new “law on laicite”, ‎President Hollande added his voice to the clamour, venturing that “where there is contact with ‎children, in what we call public service nurseries, in a crèche which benefits from public funding, ‎there must be a certain similarity with what occurs in schools”, referring to the 2004 ban on ‎‎”ostensible religious symbols.” Worse news still for French Muslim women was his apparent ‎willingness to consider an extension of the law to all companies “in contact with the public or ‎undertaking a mission of general interest or of public service”, just as MPs on the Right are pushing ‎for the law to cover all work places, public and private. ‎

In response, 40 public figures, academics and intellectuals published a statement on March 28th, ‎which gathered over 3000 signatures, opposing the law and calling for a commission on ‎islamophobia. ‎

Historically, the Left’s record is no more tolerant than the Right’s on Muslim issues. The Left ‎overwhelmingly backed the 2004 law banning religious symbols in schools and it was a French ‎socialist minister who proposed the criminalisation of face veils. In 2010, First Secretary of the ‎Socialist Party Martine Aubry voiced that unlike the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) which had put ‎forward a Muslim candidate who wore the veil in regional elections, the socialist party would not ‎have accepted such a candidate.‎

However a number of dissenting voices within the Socialist party have begun to make themselves ‎heard, seeking to distance themselves from anti-Muslim rhetoric viewed as the legacy of the ‎Sarkozy era. Among them, MPs Razzy Hammadi, Alexis Bachelay and Christophe Caresche have ‎already spoken publicly, emphasising that laicite comes with responsibility, but also rights, including ‎the right to freedom of conscience. Caresche denounced any extension of the ban on religious ‎symbols to private companies, arguing that “French universalism, in the name of which republican ‎principles are invoked, is less and less universal and more and more French” and warned that ‎proposals put forward by the Right to extend the ban to all work places and even in public spaces, ‎could produce greater exclusion.‎

Marwan Muhammad, from the Collective against Islamophobia in France says a grassroots ‎campaign started by his organisation is beginning to change attitudes in France’s national assembly, ‎including that of up to 20 predominantly Leftist MPs: “Public opinion is progressively realising the ‎abuses occurring under the pretext of laicite and an increasing number of people are realising that ‎you can’t ban people from workplaces or you risk affecting social cohesion. There is no French ‎cultural exception which can justify racism towards Muslim women.”‎

As it stands, Muslim women who wear the veil struggle to find any type of employment, with few exceptions. The spread of intolerant attitudes using the cover of laicite was recently ‎illustrated in the case of 15 year old student Sirine Ben Yahiaten, expelled from school for wearing ‎a headband and long skirt, deemed “too religious” by her teachers. Some within the Left have ‎expressed concerns that the instrumentalisation of laicite to create increasingly stringent ‎guidelines prohibiting people of faith from exercising their religion, will contribute to ghettoization ‎and marginalisation, as faith groups are pushed to forge separate schools and companies willing to ‎accommodate their religious needs. ‎

But with some polls suggesting a majority of over 80% would support a ban on the extension of ‎religious symbols in places involving contact with children, it seems Muslim women’s struggle ‎against employment discrimination is far from over. Having expressed his support for the new law, ‎any backing down by Hollande now will be painted by his rivals as a capitulation to ‘Muslim radicals’ ‎at a time when his popularity is already at an all time low. But with growing dissension within his ‎own party and the government, the ‘laicite debate’ won’t be ending any time soon.‎

France’s latest scandal involving a case of alleged discrimination against black and Arab employees at state-owned rail company, the SNCF, indicates just how little the climate has improved for Muslims under Francois Hollande’s Socialist government.

Last month, ahead of a state visit by Israeli president Shimon Peres to discuss the Middle East peace process, the SNCF issued a request for its baggage-handling subsidiary Itiremia to provide three porters to the Israeli delegation. Zachée Lapée, Itiremia’s staff representative says he received instructions that there be “no blacks or Arabs” among them, because “no Muslim employees should greet the Israeli head of state.” Secular restrictions do not allow for the identification of people’s religion, but it was assumed “black or Arab” employees might be Muslim. The director of Itiremia has confirmed that “the criteria of selection to welcome M. Peres was based on the appearance of workers.” The SUD-Rail transport union has called for the SNCF to publicly condemn the actions and denounced the discriminatory selection of workers.

An internal investigation is currently underway by the CHSCT, a committee charged with evaluating working conditions in France, to determine who was responsible. According to a statement by Sud-Rail, upon questioning from employees concerning the directives, a manager informed the staff the measures reflected “security concerns” and that the instructions were coming from “protocol from Gare du Nord, then from the Israeli embassy, and then from the Ministry of Interior and the Israeli embassy.” The Israeli embassy has categorically denied making such a request, indicating that the very purpose of Shimon Peres’ arrival in Paris was dialogue with Muslim counterparts. Meanwhile Laurent Trevisani, the SNCF’s strategic director says she did not receive such a request from the Israeli President’s entourage, nor from the French ministry of foreign affairs, and denies issuing the request.

Whatever the outcome of the investigation, issues of institutional racism have long plagued French society. In 2009, the French equality body, the High Authority against Discrimination and for Equality (HALDE), received 259 complaints of discrimination on the ground of religion or belief, most of which involved Muslims, typically in education, private employment and access to public services, findings later corroborated by a 2010 report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).

Just this month, Air France was found guilty of discrimination and ordered to pay €10,000 fine to Horia Ankour, a student nurse who was escorted off a plane heading to Tel Aviv on the basis that she was “not Jewish”. In another controversial case earlier this month, 15 year old student Sirine Ben Yahiaten was permanently excluded from her secondary school for wearing a combination of a headband, a few centimetres wide, and a long skirt, deemed to be ‘religious’ in character. The decision was validated by the French Council of State, despite concerns expressed by an administrative tribunal that the exclusion was negatively affecting the young woman’s education. Critiques of the decision point to the fact that many young girls wear headbands and bandanas in tribute to pop stars and fashion icons but that such style choices are only deemed problematic when worn by Muslim women.

Despite some hopes that a socialist government would herald a less divisive atmosphere than that fostered by Sarkozy, who’d played into Far-right repertoire, very little seems to have improved for French Muslims since Hollande’s victory in May. According to one poll, 93 per cent of French Muslims voted for the Socialist candidate, but many have been left disappointed.

Fateh Kimouche, of Muslim website Al-Kanz.org believes the recent controversy fits within a broader atmosphere in which Muslims are dealt with through a security approach, fostered by minister of interior, Manuel Valls, whose portfolio includes managing religious groups. Valls is a controversial figure who was caught on camera in June 2009 bemoaning the lack of “blancos” or “whites” in the neighbourhood of Evry where he was then mayor, and who forced the closure of a local halal shop, claiming that the refusal to stock alcohol or pork reflected evidence of “communalism”. Addressing an audience of police officers last year, he described working class neighbourhoods as a breeding ground for the “enemy within”, while in February, he announced that Muslim women’s headscarves “will remain for me and for the Republic, a central struggle.” The statement has been deemed all the more discriminatory given his public declaration that French Jews “can wear their kippa with pride”.

More recently, Valls expressed his “regret” at a ruling by France’s Court of Cassation which overturned the dismissal of Muslim nursery nurse, Fatima Afif for wearing a headscarf while working at a Paris crèche in 2008. The case has been viewed as particularly significant in light of the employment discrimination experienced by Muslim women who wear a headscarf. A 2012 report by Amnesty international found that Muslim women are routinely “denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf.”

The controversy involving the SNCF has emerged in the same week that the site of a new mosque in Seine-et-Marne was vandalised with nazi tags and a pig’s head, while two other mosques were also defaced in the region in early February. According to the Islamophobia Observatory, 201 anti-Muslim actions were reported in 2012, representing a 28 per cent increase compared with 2011. This latest evidence that institutional racism is rife within one of France’s best known state-run companies, will do little to appease tensions.

Faced with a record low in popularity, corruption scandals and accusations of political ineptitude, Hollande has chosen to play to centre-right concerns lately, in order to regain public approval. His current silence concerning the SNCF saga is testimony to his unwillingness to confront widespread anti-Muslim sentiment and evidence he’s reneging on yet another political promise – that of being a “president for all.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rn2nd/The_Big_Questions_Series_6_Episode_12/

You can read this on my Huff Post blog here

When news broke that Lord Ahmed had allegedly blamed Jews for his 12-week stint behind ‎bars for killing a man through reckless driving, I tweeted my disgust with his blatant expression ‎of prejudice. Many Muslims echoed my sentiments. ‎

That’s why Mehdi Hasan latest blog “The sorry truth is that the virus of anti-Semitism has ‎infected the British Muslim community” has left me feeling uncomfortable. ‎
A critical factor in Lord Ahmed’s statement was his audience. Speaking in Pakistan where ‎radical groups regularly peddle anti-semitic libel, he thought his words would find resonance. ‎Do I think he would have made that same statement to a British Muslim audience , even if he ‎thought the cameras weren’t watching? No I don’t. Because regardless of the anti-Semitism of ‎certain elements among British Muslims, anti-Semitic discourse is not considered acceptable ‎and does not routinely go unchallenged.‎

On one hand, Mehdi is absolutely right to point out that anti-Semitic attitudes are not ‎uncommon in Muslim circles and have become somewhat normalised, concealing the ugly face ‎of hate behind objections to Israeli policies and spurious claims of Jewish conspiracies. The ‎Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the stumbling block in much Jewish-Muslim dialogue. As one ‎interfaith activist told me, “we’re fine as long as we steer away from Middle East politics.” The ‎single biggest issue which fosters animosity towards Jews, whom some erroneously fail to ‎distinguish from expansionist Israelis, is the Israel Palestine conflict. This doesn’t make the ‎intolerance any less inexcusable of course. The other significant factor fostering anti-Semitism ‎is conspiracy theories, an unfortunate import from many Muslim majority countries, where ‎opaque and autocratic governing structures lend themselves to an unhealthy fixation with the ‎machinations of “dark forces”. Both tensions over the Middle East conflict, as well as conspiracy ‎theories go some way towards explaining the existence of anti-Semitic attitudes. They ‎certainly don’t excuse them. ‎

On the other hand, I do not see such views as being tolerated, considered acceptable or even ‎being ignored – on the few occasions I have witnessed anti-Jewish sentiment, I have seen it ‎robustly challenged usually by the “mild-mannered and well-integrated British Muslims” Mehdi ‎refers to. That said, I’ve also witnessed an elderly Muslim man remonstrating an over-zealous ‎youth by reminding him that our forefather Prophet Abraham, whom we praise alongside ‎Prophet Mohamed in all five of our daily prayers, was the Patriarch of the Jewish people. So while I support Mehdi for ‎taking a stand against anti-semitism and urging Muslims to be as diligent in denouncing it as ‎they are islamophobia, I reject the presumed community complicity implied by his reference to ‎‎”our dirty little secret”. ‎

It’s disheartening to hear Mehdi’s been witness to so much anti-semitism, but it is important to ‎recognise that his, like mine, is just one experience amongst many. More reliable indicators of ‎Muslim-Jewish relations are the sheer number of cooperative initiatives and evidence of ‎mutual solidarity. In 2009, following the Israeli onslaught against Gaza, British Muslims rallied ‎together to denounce anti-Semitic attacks amid fears of a backlash against Jewish communities ‎in Britain. In March last year when Mohamed Merah opened fire on a Jewish school in ‎Toulouse, killing seven, Jews and Muslims marched together in a show of solidarity against ‎hate. The Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders regularly brings together over 70 ‎religious leaders as part of an effort to develop good Muslim-Jewish relations across Europe. ‎Such displays of camaraderie are not anomalous. ‎
Mehdi’s presumption of group guilt undermines the valuable work being done by many ‎interfaith groups – the MUJU Comedy Crew, the Joseph Interfaith Foundation and the Three ‎Faiths Foundation, among others – in recognition of our shared heritage. It also unfairly tares ‎the vast majority of Muslims who do in fact reject anti-Semitism and who risk henceforth being ‎viewed with suspicion. ‎

‎ Commenting on a Gallup poll which showed that in the US, the single most powerful predictor ‎of “a great deal” of prejudice toward Muslims is equivalent negative bias toward Jews, James ‎Carroll wrote: “Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are halves of the same walnut. That is ‎surprising because Jews and Muslims are widely perceived–and often perceive themselves–as ‎antagonists occupying opposite poles in the great contemporary clash of cultures.” The reality ‎is that Jews and Muslims share the same struggle against intolerance and prejudice and many ‎are united in opposing regressive legislation which affects the practice of rituals central to both ‎faiths.‎

When Baroness Warsi stated that islamophobia had “passed the dinner-table test” in Britain, ‎she referred to the way in which anti-Muslim sentiment is increasingly perceived as normal. It ‎is a misnomer to argue that anti-Semitism has passed the same threshold in the British Muslim ‎community. Any intolerance is too much intolerance and so I applaud Mehdi for highlighting ‎the critical importance of standing against bigotry in all its forms. I just hope his somewhat rash ‎generalisations won’t be used to validate anti-Muslim prejudice, and we can all move beyond ‎notions of ‘the other’, in order to find ways to work towards the common good.‎

Myriam Francois-Cerrah and Symon Hill approach the debate from different perspectives

As part of the Perspectives series, BBC Religion and Ethics asked two contributors to BBC One’s The Big Questions to develop some of the issues.

Myriam Francois-Cerrah is a writer, academic and a Muslim. She believes that the UK today is largely a secular society and that this is already reflected at the level of the state.

He is author of The No-Nonsense Guide to Religion and believes that the church and the state should be separate.
A secular state?

Myriam: Britain is already a deeply secular country. The exception is the Church of England and the privileges it continues to enjoy, including unelected Bishops in the House of Lords. There is certainly public support for a reform of the House of Lords, and that is a good thing.

A moderate inclusive secularism is evolving in Britain, rather than a reactionary secularism, such as is found in France, which seeks to banish religion entirely from the public sphere.

Do we need to banish all Christian symbolism, rooted as it is in British history, in order to become ‘truly’ secular – I’m not sure we do.

What is critical is that the state evolves in a manner which reflects the changing makeup of its citizenry. Prince Charles suggesting he’d rather be referred to as “defender of Faith” rather than defender of ‘the’ Faith is one such example of this.

However I am deeply wary of the trend which seeks to hijack arguments for greater secularism, ie: more equal access to the state by all, in order to seek to marginalise religious people and their presence and voice in the public sphere.

This is an intolerant strand within the secularist movement which misinterprets secularism and seeks to redefine it to advance an anti-religious agenda.

Symon: I agree that Britain is in some ways a more secular society than it once was, but it is not a secular state. The monarch promises to uphold Christianity. The Church of England’s leaders can vote on legislation in Parliament. Religious schools are allowed to discriminate in selection and recruitment.

In 2010, the House of Lords narrowly passed an amendment to the Equality Act exempting employees of religious organisations from some aspects of homophobic discrimination. The amendment was passed so narrowly that, without the bishops, the vote would have gone the other way.

I reject all this, as a Christian committed to religious liberty.

I don’t support French-style “secularism” in which religion is marginalised and privatised.
Faith in schools

Myriam: I think we agree that the state is not yet fully secular. The vestiges of a Christian state in Britain are symbolic. The monarch promises to uphold Christianity, true, but in practice the future king Prince Charles has shown himself very committed to giving real value to modern Britain’s multi-faith identity (while being politically impotent!)

What does it mean to be a secularist?

A secular state is a neutral state – it should provide for the needs of all its citizens, religious or not.

It is the right of tax-paying religious citizens, as all citizens, to access facilities suited to their needs. Discrimination would principally be a problem if these were the only schools on offer, which clearly they are not.

I’m in favour of a broader selection process so children of all faiths and none can benefit from faith-based education.

You claim to oppose people being forced to adopt certain values and yet it seems you wish to do exactly that.

Liberal mores are not neutral – they are one of many ethical perspectives which a neutral, secular state must accommodate.

Symon: I’m pleased we agree on some things! For example, faith schools should not be allowed to discriminate.

You say that faith schools are not the only ones on offer. For some people, in rural communities, they really are. I went to a Church of England school as a child because it was the village school.

The religious teaching that I got there put me off Christianity and turned me temporarily into an atheist, though I later turned to Christ in spite of it!

Some of the vestiges of Christianity are indeed symbolic, but symbolism can be important. As a Christian, I am disturbed by what these symbols say about Christianity. During his life, Jesus took the side of the poor and marginalised. He reserved his harshest words for the rich and powerful and for religious hypocrites. In contrast, the monarchy and House of Lords represent privilege and inequality.

The radical, subversive message of Christ has been hijacked.

Myriam: The lack of non-faith schools available in rural areas suggests we need more schools to cater for different choices, not that faith schools themselves are problematic. I agree with you that the socially hierarchical Christianity represented by the royal family seems at odds with the message of egalitarianism promoted by both our faiths.

My main concern with a desire to do away entirely with Christian symbolism is that it contributes to the fostering of a sense of national identity and culture.

If Christianity can be inclusive and embrace the changing nature of British society, then I wouldn’t object to its continued presence in the public sphere .

Symon: National symbols tend to change over time. There are many people trying to cling on to symbols while forgetting what they represent. There are those who talk of the right to wear a cross, but forget that the cross represents the execution of Jesus by a brutal empire whose power he challenged. It symbolises resistance to oppression.

Yet there are right-wing lobby groups that talk up the idea of “preserving Britain’s Christian heritage” or insist that “Britain is a Christian country”.

They overlook the fact that the British Empire was claiming to be Christian while engaged in the slave trade and while committing genocide in Tasmania.

While Christian symbols are still attached to an outdated and reactionary idea of what it means to be British, Christian language can be misused as an excuse for homophobia and racial prejudice.

Myriam: Like you, I would like to see religion siding with the poor and disenfranchised rather than seeking to perpetuate privilege and an antiquated social hierarchy based on class.

But I hope to see more religion, rather than less religion in the public sphere in the future, including voices with which I may profoundly disagree.

A secular state – in other words, a neutral state – shouldn’t seek to impose a particular vision of morality beyond the very basic bounds of avoiding direct harm to others.

Today, religious voices are often ridiculed and derided as outmoded, with little value for the modern world. But this is throwing out a rich inheritance – we shouldn’t throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water.

Religion is about fostering compassion, love and kindness towards others – it seems tragic that we as a society have virtually relegated religion to the history books.

A secular state and a rich religious life are absolutely not in contradiction, but I do hope secularism isn’t used as a Trojan horse to advance anti-religious intolerance, which fails to recognise the true value of religion and religious individuals to the greater good of our society.

Stories like Sarah’s are increasingly common. A report released today by the group Working ‎Families has revealed high levels of maternity discrimination for the third year running, ‎reinforcing recent research suggesting this is a growing trend. ‎

Despite this, very few women take any formal action. According to the most recent national ‎research in 2005, of women who lost their jobs due to discrimination, 8% took action, while ‎only 3% went to tribunal. The vast majority (71%) did nothing, a statistic advocacy group ‎Maternity Action put down to women being “very cautious out of fear, they’ll be labelled ‎trouble makers – a lot of women simply go quietly”. Sarah Jackson, chief executive of ‎Working Families stated “we have far too many callers who, even when advised about their ‎rights, are reluctant to take action for fear of losing their jobs”. And as of this year, women ‎taking a pregnancy discrimination claim to an employment tribunal will face fees of £1,200, ‎deterring many more. ‎

In 2005, the Equal Opportunity Commission found that 30,000 women each year were losing ‎their job as a result of pregnancy discrimination. Today, campaigners describe increasing ‎levels of unfair selection of pregnant women and new mothers for redundancy and described ‎the discrimination as increasingly “blatant”. Figures show that one in seven women in a recent ‎survey by OnePoll had lost their job while on maternity leave. The Fawcett Society believes in ‎times of austerity, when employers cannot afford to take any perceived risks to profits and ‎growing business, discrimination against women in the workplace is likely to rise. The ‎downsizing and restructuring of many companies due to the economic recession has meant a ‎hike in redundancies, with many pregnant and new mothers adversely affected and those in ‎less skilled jobs perceived as dispensable.‎

In many cases, pregnant women or new mothers are made to feel they no longer have a place ‎within the company, with attitudes towards pregnancy increasingly hostile. Just last month, ‎Mark Thomas, the former chief executive of BBC Studios & Post Production, was accused of ‎declaring that “female workers of child-caring responsibilities should not hold senior ‎management positions”. Businessman Lord Alan Sugar, who’d previously stated that the way ‎to get round the laws protecting pregnant women was not to employ them, has also criticised ‎laws which ban interviewers from grilling women about whether they want children. And ‎such attitudes are not restricted to a few renegades, with a government survey indicating that ‎‎24% of men thought that women on maternity leave should be made redundant before ‎anyone else. ‎

For Rosalind Bragg, whose organisation Maternity Action has also recorded a hike in ‎discrimination, media coverage of pregnancy leave negatively affects women’s perception of ‎their rights: “Media coverage of maternity leave increasingly represents this as a burden on ‎business, and this has definitely influenced women’s approach to their maternity rights”. The ‎consequence of these misrepresentations is women often feel unsure about their entitlements, ‎and guilty for demanding their rights. She added: “Many women are unaware of the law ‎prohibiting pregnancy discrimination and do not recognize their experiences as ‎discrimination.” From the notion of ditzy mums ill-equipped to handle the pressures of work ‎through to portrayals of ‘yummy mummies’* unabashedly enjoying iced Frappuccino’s while ‎their employers foot the bill, feminist writer Glosswitch notes “almost all mummies – no ‎matter who they are or what they’re doing – are perceived to be a bit rubbish.” ‎

The very perception of pregnant woman betrays assumptions concerning their abilities and ‎reliability. A 2007 study found that “visibly pregnant women managers are judged as less ‎committed to their jobs, less dependable, and less authoritative, but warmer, more emotional, ‎and more irrational than otherwise equal women managers who are not visibly pregnant”. ‎What’s more, research published in the Harvard Business Review suggests bearing children ‎means women are “judged to be significantly less competent” and were “least likely to be ‎hired or promoted”. Such perceptions are born out in the cases handled by charities like ‎Working Families. One caller who was four months pregnant was sacked following her three ‎month probationary period with her employer stating that she “would be focusing on other ‎things and that she wouldn’t be capable of doing the job”.‎

Among the core concerns listed in Working Families’ report is “employer imposed changes to ‎working patterns which undermine parents’ ability to combine work and childcare”. The ‎organisation found many more employers in 2012 were too quick to turn down a request for ‎flexible working, which combined with the impact of childcare tax credit cuts, ‎disproportionately and negatively impacts women. Britain has some of the highest childcare ‎costs in the world, in an economic climate which renders the cost of childcare relative to ‎wages so disadvantageous as to push women towards non-remunerated work within the home ‎‎- even when they’d rather be out working for a salary.

Among the incidents handled by the ‎group was an employer insisting that a female staffer work a late night rota. If she did, she ‎could not pick her child up in time from nursery and it would cost her between £60 and £80 ‎in charges for every late night worked. Despite informing the employer that she was ‎struggling to feed her children and was feeling “completely and utterly desperate”, her ‎employer responded that it was “her choice to have children”. For many women, flexible ‎hours are not simply a luxury, they are a basic necessity allowing them to remain in the ‎workplace. ‎

Liz Gardiner, head of policy for Working Families believes the government’s Children and ‎Families Bill, which seeks to promote a system of shared parental leave, including extending ‎the right to request flexible working to all employees, could help tackle pregnancy related ‎discrimination. “Improving rights for fathers to take paternity leave, would make it harder for ‎employers to view women of child bearing age as the problem”. She also believes it is high ‎time an EHRC review was conducted to document what she deems a ‘hardening of attitudes ‎among employers’. At a time when the UK ranks 18th of 27 countries on job security and ‎pay for women, the ‘motherhood penalty’ perpetuates the glass ceiling and fails to recognise ‎the true contribution of mothers to society. ‎

I’ll also be speaking at the Unite Against Fascism Conference this Saturday 2nd of March alongside Ken Livingstone, Owen Jones, Daniel Trilling, Marwan Mohamed and others – more details here

Featuring: Colm O’Gorman; Tim Stanley; Francis Beckett; Caroline Farrow; Lavinia Byrne; Fr Paul Keane; Alain de Botton; Rabbi Pete Tobias; Deborah Hyde; David Herbert; Jasvir Singh

You can watch it on i-player here for a week: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01qxrzw/The_Big_Questions_Series_6_Episode_7/

Is France’s military intervention in Mali a neo-colonial enterprise, dressed up in the conveniently ‎nebulous language of the ‘war on terror’? France’s less than gleaming record in the region – ‎with 50 military interventions, since the 50 years of independence in 14 francophone African ‎countries – has left many questioning the official narrative of restoring order to the country.

In the midst of its economic woes, cynics might look at France’s intervention in Libya which brought ‎home lucrative oil and reconstruction contracts and point to Mali’s significant natural resources. ‎Others speculate that Hollande’s shaky political standing and the virtually unquestioned support ‎bestowed upon any leader opining to combat Al Qaeda and its associates, offers motivations closer ‎to home. Few things can ensure political consensus on the French political scene the way ‎‎’operation Serval’ has. A few renegades not withstanding – including former PM Dominique de ‎Villepin who drew parallels with Iraq and Afghanistan – the Socialists, UMP and even the National ‎Front have approved Hollande’s decision. But surely if the decade has taught us anything about ‎defeating highly motivated guerrilla groups, it is that short interventions turn into protracted, ‎bloody battles which can only actually be resolved at the diplomatic table. ‎

So why has France decided to intervene and why now? Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has ‎been a longstanding concern in the region and the suggestion it has teamed up with criminal and ‎militant elements in the lawless region in northern Mali is bound to create some concern. This is ‎particularly true as these elements take advantage of the power vacuum which has followed Mali’s ‎military coup in March 2012, to expand control over greater parts of the north, emboldened by the ‎government’s unresponsiveness. Indeed, in October last year an EU official warned “”We consider ‎AQIM the growing, and maybe the leading, threat against us.”‎

In the last few years, the northern region has become a haven for criminal activity and a key transit ‎route for cocaine trafficking. A recent United Nations mission in the Sahel region described ‎northern Mali as a dangerous crossroads of drugs, crime, terrorism and rebellion. Until recently, ‎Mali’s disaffected ethnic tuaregs, a nomadic people at odds with the Mali government, had ‎teamed with jihadists to take control over an area the size of France, in a marriage of convenience ‎which soon ended in infighting. Criminal activity has funded the purchase of weapons used to ‎impose an extremist form of control, which has included public executions and the use of child ‎soldiers. ‎

This growing militancy in northern Mali has occurred alongside the demise of one of West Africa’s ‎hopes, as the military overthrow of a democratic government has left the country as just another ‎‎’failed state.’ Given broader instability in the region, namely that of the indigenous militants of the ‎Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, arms floating around following NATO support to rebels in Libya, ‎and the predominantly Algerian AQIM, a small but dangerous group involved in the hostage crisis ‎on an oil plant in alleged retaliation for France’s “crusade”, the implications of Mali’s instability are ‎far reaching for the region. Popular support for French intervention among African leaders should ‎be understood in light of the instability wrought by extremist elements and more cynically, to the ‎Western aid which may also ensue.‎

On one hand, the extremist alliance at work in northern Mali, which includes AQIM, Mali’s ‎homegrown Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Ansar Dine rebels suggests an ‎emboldening of jihadist elements in the face of West Africa’s struggling states. Though a military ‎solution will likely defeat this threat, although perhaps not as quickly as the French might hope, ‎Foreign minister Laurent Fabius having optimistically predicted the intervention would last “a ‎matter of weeks”- it is unlikely to resolve systemic political instability. A military intervention looks ‎a lot like a quick fix solution to a much deeper problem which involves a legacy of failed states, ‎poverty, ethnic tensions and corruption. Northern Mali has never been properly integrated into ‎the state, with poor social indicators across the board, leaving an alienated ethnical tuareg minority ‎willing to forge insalubrious alliances. Oxford researcher in African studies, Harry Verhoeven ‎described the problem, saying: “the jihadists are a symptom, veiling a deeper crisis of ‎underdevelopment, failed nation-building and faltering public services delivery in Mali and the ‎Sahel more broadly.”

Comparisons with Afghanistan have their limitations, but after 11 years of armed conflict, the ‎realisation has dawned on many that the political stability of any nation cannot be secured through ‎strictly military means. French President François Hollande has described the goal of the operation ‎as “to ensure that when we leave (…) Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process ‎and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory.” A unilateral military approach alone is ‎unlikely to achieve any of these goals. Without addressing the endemic problems which contribute ‎to the fragility of Mali’s state, France’s actions could simply be adding fuel to the fire. ‎