We have got ourselves in quite a pickle on the issue of religion, Islam in particular. I speak here mainly of youths of Pakistani origin. As I have observed before, this has been a multicultural society from time immemorial - an alliance of several ethnicities. We blacks are excluded from this alliance because of the colour of our skin.
Two points must be made clear. First, this is a secular society and that is irreversible. Religion is a private matter between the individual and whomsoever he or she designates the Supreme Being. As such, state-supported institutions do not recognise quaint medieval practices.
The second issue turns on the treatment of women. I read recently that a Saudi Arabian school in London had a separate curriculum for women and that the school authorities claim this is particularly Islamic.
We cannot enter the multicultural alliance raising flags for the inferior position of women. Theirs has been a long march to freedom and that, too, is irreversible.
Among Pakistani youth, there is a mass revolt against the social restraints of Islam. They drink alcohol, smoke ganja, inhale cocaine, chase the dragon, abjure celibacy and speak the language of their urban peers. They also visit violence upon young West Indians, Sikhs and other youths of overseas origin. And they continue to disrespect the rights of white women.
They people British jails in large numbers, having broken with the requirements of Islam. To refer to all of them as Muslims, as their elders also define them, is wrong. The role models for these young men are not imams, but the older hustlers who drive around in cars with souped-up engines and huge wads of cash from the drug trail that stretches from Afghanistan to the Punjab and on to Britain's Pakistani communities. The effects have filtered deeply into schools.
The Muslim Association of Britain is desperate to keep the youths in line. It may succeed, but that is not the responsibility of the school authorities or of anybody else in state authority. Anti-Muslim prejudice in schools is not responsible for the revolt. Secular society offers freedom, and young Pakistanis, boys and girls, young men and women, are grabbing it en masse.
Let us stick to the definition "Pakistani youth" and keep the religious definition private. As Christians do.
