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Britishness

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Warwick, for introducing this important debate, which certainly relates to my experience. In the past couple of years, I have been to more conferences on Britishness than I care to remember. The difficulty is that, as yet, I have not found out what it is or what it is supposed to be, as opposed to what it is that we live and understand. By some measures I think that I am more British than the British. I have lived in the same village for more than 30 years. My children went to the local school and still see the children with whom they went to school. We are part of the community, working with the church; when the roof falls in, we collect money and take part in the church fete. Of course, we have the Sunday roast every week when the family gets together. On the other hand, even today, when my children, who were born and raised in this country, say that they are British, they are asked, ““Where do you come from really?””. When my son insists that he comes from Heslington, people do not believe him. There is a problem about the identity that the British have ascribed to those of us who come from a different place. I will talk particularly about the ascribed identity of Muslim women. When I stand up and say that I am a Muslim woman, people say that I am not, because I wear a short skirt, I do not have a cover and I can stand on my own two feet. As to arranged marriages, one of which I am supposed to have had, I chose my own husband, chose the venue and the menu and presented my father with the bill. My daughter did exactly the same two years ago. The whole idea of Muslim women as silent, subdued and dominated is something that I have not experienced. I might add that I am not in a minority; just look at the Muslim women in this Chamber. You will see that we are uppity, capable and, at the same time, different. The idea that, somehow, there has to be a cohesion that makes us like everybody else is extremely problematic. I chose to become British in my adult life. I left a well paid job in the Iranian Government and came here because I admired Britain. I admired it because of the freedom, the liberty and the ability to function. In Iran I was a journalist, based in the same building as the press censor. I never knew whether the articles that I had written would be cut or not. It was wonderful to come to a country where you can not only speak out but disagree with the establishment. The most extraordinary thing for me was that the establishment thought that I could be part of it, whereas I had always thought that I was a dissident on the side, fighting against everything. The problem seems to be the way in which some people choose to define Britishness. For me, Britishness has been about inclusiveness and freedom. The British are the most well travelled people of all nations. They have a long tradition of crossing the world and bringing back the best: the best plants, the best ideas and even the system of examination, which I worry about but have to live by. They have included all this in what it is to be British. It is the eclectic, wide-ranging and open nature of Britishness that is important. As minorities, we have better rights in this country than anywhere else. I am familiar with France, where being a Muslim is very problematic, particularly for women who choose to cover. The freedom to dress and speak as one pleases is, for me, very much part and parcel of Britishness. Here is, perhaps, a note of disagreement. I am pleased about legislation that forbids discrimination on the grounds of creed. It is important not only to celebrate and be inclusive but to recognise that many British-born citizens suffer because they are labelled ““Muslim””. We live in a context where Islamophobia is encouraged and adopted by such groups as the BNP as a badge of honour. We need to think about why Muslims, specifically, are asked to choose between being British and being Muslim. As many of us who have spoken know, we have fluid identities. We are Muslim when we pray but British when we stand in the classroom or in this House. Having identities that change according to where we are is part and parcel of our lives. Asking us to choose is one of the important problems that we face. The second problem that we face is the notion that Muslims as a category—in particular Muslim youth—have a tendency towards terrorism and towards looking elsewhere. I have a long conversation going on with members of Hizb ut-Tahrir about the idea that Sharia law should be implanted here. The discussion is vigorous, important and sustainable. We need to think about why British-born and British-educated youngsters choose to look elsewhere and see themselves as closer to the Ummah—the people of Islam everywhere—than to this country. That cannot be resolved by deciding what Britishness is and categorising Muslims as the other. We need to look at education, opportunities and the ability of young, educated Muslim men and women to participate fully. Britain can be fantastic in this respect. Your Lordships’ House is a wonderful example of best practice. However, places such as Bradford have experienced some of the worst practice. It may not necessarily be negative that people are ghettoised, living in their own communities. In recent research, one of my students talked to young Muslim women who had been in tertiary education and to young non-Muslim women. She found that young working-class Muslim women went to university but tended always to come back home, home being, in this case, Bradford or Leicester. They aimed to put something back into their communities. They worked with other Muslims but were committed to their locality, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is to Birmingham and I am to Yorkshire. The interesting thing that my student found was that non-Muslim young women of working-class backgrounds saw education as a way out, left where they were born and abandoned their background because they felt that they could find more. It seems to me that we can teach one another a great many things. Just as beer and curry has become a national dish, so we can find that we can learn from the best among the minorities and the best among the British without having to delineate where Britishness stops and other people start. We are part of this community and, to quote the Parekh report, we are a ““community of communities””. That is what is so enriching in this country in this context. Many of us are grateful to be here. If Britishness is about being part of the community, it is wonderful, but let us not try to say who is not British, because the lines get narrower, tighter and harder to live with.