Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360-379)
MR NICK
JOHNSON AND
DR MARC
VERLOT
7 JUNE 2006
Q360 Chairman: How do we merge with
sex and disability and everything else?
Mr Johnson: We are merging with
all the various anti-discrimination strands. We are going in three
years' time, so I think amending our statute now is probably not
worth doing, because the new body is coming on and having "faith"
in there.
Q361 Mr Marsden: In terms of your
practical work, is there more focus on that than there would have
been, say, two or three years ago?
Mr Johnson: Absolutely, just in
relation to the mergers, and so I think it is a fundamental issue
that the anti-discrimination side of things is important and needs
concentration. At the moment, there is a danger of a sort of vacuum
in institutional arrangements for how you manage community relations,
both at a local level but also in terms of a national strategy
and the issue of faith work. A load of work we did, without it
being sort of a cliché, it was black and white, it was
quite straightforward, there were good guys and there were bad
guys, and now you cannot say that necessarily to the same degree,
there are misunderstandings, misrepresentations and tensions because
of a lack of knowing other people. I think the complexity has
changed and really we need to think about how we start addressing
that, and the old systems and ways of doing it do not necessarily
work.
Q362 Mr Marsden: Marc, can I come
to you for a final point, because obviously I was interested in
your CV, and before you came to the CRE you spent I think 16 years
very closely involved in some of these issues in Belgium. Nick
has already alluded to the different concepts of liberty perhaps
between Britain and continental Europe, as a result of our history.
I wonder what lessons you think we in this country should take
from not even necessarily Belgium but from the way in which perhaps
Western Europe has treated citizenship issues in recent years
and what lessons we should avoid?
Dr Verlot: Where to start; to
summarise that last 150 years and 17 countries. First of all,
I do not think there is that much of a continental and British
divide. The Benelux countries have a very different tradition
than Germany and France, for example. Just on Belgium, I always
joke with my colleagues, we have got six parliaments and seven
governments and one of the smallest countries in Europe, because
they try to make it work. I think it is very important that, we
have had a tradition of authoritarian citizenship almost, really
by the state apparatus, it brings it down and translates it.
Q363 Mr Marsden: Top down?
Dr Verlot: Top down, very much
like in the French Republican tradition, where every 50 or 60
years they reinvent it and then everybody is supposed to bring
it down to everybody; in a lot of other countries it has been
an ongoing discussion. The discussion of Belgian citizenship in
itself has been going on for the last 150 years, so I think it
is important to have institutions which are aware of tensions,
not necessarily hide them but try to work with them and try to
solve them on a daily basis. I think, in that sense, schools have
quite an important position, just looking at Belgium, where segregation
and the far right have been quite important issues.
Q364 Mr Marsden: You would say that
school segregation has helped organisations like the Vlaams
Blok?
Dr Verlot: I think the Vlaams
Blok would love to have segregated schools. The work from
the more democratic parties actually has been to try to desegregate
schools and build up, from bottom up, understandings on a daily
basis between pupils and students from different communities;
to see that as black and white messages, first of all, does not
reflect their realities in the playground, where it is an ongoing
work in schools. I think it is very important that democratic
parties make this an ongoing topic of work, otherwise, as I have
already mentioned, where segregation is left to roll itself out
people become more vulnerable in terms of influence and in terms
of opposition which, when tensions rise, becomes more palpable.
I think there is clearly an understanding in countries like Belgium,
where the divides are great between different groups, that schools
have an important and pivotal role in bridging these tensions.
Q365 Mr Carswell: Given the problems
there have been in the past over national identities being in
conflict, do you not think that the Commission for Racial Equality
has a role to try to promote some sort of European identity and
do you see that as part of your remit?
Dr Verlot: In my former job I
did some work on European identities and I recall one French researcher
who called it a UPO, an Unidentified Political Object. European
identity is something you construct and for the moment it is little
in people's minds unless it becomes something practical. European
identity will never gloss over the differences that are there,
so even within the European identity we will have to learn and
deal with diversity as it comes.
Q366 Mrs Dorries: My question is
to Marc. When the Chairman was asking you questions in your initial
introduction, you talked about parallel lives and you were talking
about Bradford and Oldham and citizenship in that context. You
were talking about political unrest and tensions coming into the
area. Do you think really that citizenship lessons in schools
are going to stop tensions arising within communities and stop
riots in the streets?
Dr Verlot: If citizenship lessons
would address these things and these realities which are out there,
certainly it can be a place or a forum where these things can
be taken up. Of course, if citizenship tends to gloss over these
realities and these tensions it will not affect it. I think citizenship
education in general and even within the curriculum might well
be a place where you take these subjects up. For example, you
can imagine where, in terms of a project, pupils look at the admission
policy of the school, look at the wider contacts in the city and
can wonder why the school is composed as it is composed and what
types of discussions are not taking place in the school which
are taking place outside the school. I think it is definitely
a possibility to have these discussions in the school and start
working on them and reflecting on them from different perspectives.
Q367 Mrs Dorries: I have been round
Hollinwood and places in Oldham where the riots started, and I
spent a few days there actually, and I do not think that any of
the people who were involved in what happened there particularly
even went to school. I cannot see what relationship an hour's
teaching a week on a subject will have on what happened in areas
like Hollinwood?
Dr Verlot: It brings me back a
bit to what happens in Antwerp, in Belgium. You are right, when
people fight on the streets it is not necessarily the people who
are in the schools. However, you do have people who are looking
and who are watching and who are the silent majority and schools
can touch them and they can influence and they can look at these
events in a different view and be more critical or more supportive
of a certain stance. I am not saying you can put an actual relationship
between what happens on the street and what happens in the curriculum
in the school, however it does make a difference in the long term,
I think.
Q368 Mrs Dorries: You are hoping
then that the citizenship lessons will have a cascading effect
by the strata of the community towards the people who are actually
creating riots and tensions within communities? You are not actually
hoping that will have a direct effect on the people who are being
taught it, but there will be this cascading or this imbued knowledge
into other people as a result?
Dr Verlot: I think it might have
a wider impact in the longer term, which is quite crucial, yes.
Q369 Mrs Dorries: Is there not a
better way of doing it?
Mr Johnson: I think there are
issues. I think some of the people who were rioting in the north
country were at school, or had been at school, and in the school
process; some of the ring-leaders may not have been. I think it
is about an environment that is prone to exploitation by extremists
and people who want to riot and part of having a good citizenship
education, both in terms of specific subjects but also in a school
ethos, and its inclusion in other subjects is to make areas less
prone to extremists going in there and exploiting them.
Q370 Mrs Dorries: In that case, do
you think that in areas like Hollinwood and Oldham and Bradford,
and various areas, there should be a more focused intensity on
citizenship in school and less of one in areas where there are
no tensions and where there is not an issue in terms of problems
in the communities? Perhaps those areas need more; because what
we have at the moment is this one hour a week, whichever school
you are in, wherever it may be. Do you think perhaps those areas
need more?
Mr Johnson: I do not know whether
you need more. I think the hour a week and having a forum to discuss
it is just as relevant in an area that is more diverse, perhaps
more deprived, as in a leafy suburb or a rural area. I think it
is just as important to know about issues of citizenship, that
it is not just about conflict between communities. I think the
way in which it is done clearly will need to differ in different
parts of the country and the issues talked about will be different
in different parts of the country, therefore there needs to be
a degree of a sort of national framework. Clearly, any citizenship
curriculum needs to be able to respond to local circumstances.
Q371 Mrs Dorries: Nick, you said
a moment ago, actually you said this phrase, that it was being
taught in schools, their faith leaders are coming into school
and doing general community work, and it was not known as citizenship;
although it was successful, it was known as general community
things that were being taught in the schools through faith leaders.
Are there different ways of teaching citizenship then, other than
in this sort of confined subject title and curriculum coursework
as citizenship? If you yourself are saying that faith leaders
are coming into school and having success with it, is it not better
to be taught through religious instruction, through history, through
other lessons and to be taught in a more general way?
Mr Johnson: I think it is both.
As Marc said earlier, you are making a false choice between either
having it as a subject or having it in other subjects. I think
it should be in both. I think having a specific subject on citizenship
is important because there are some things that we need to be
taught which perhaps do not fit into other subjects, or would
fit so far below other priorities in those subjects. I agree with
you that a lot of the really good ways in which citizenship can
be taught is by making sure that it is included in other subjects
and other ways in which the school operates.
Q372 Mrs Dorries: Do you think that
the history curriculum, as it is taught within our schools now,
could be adapted in a way to make it more broad spectrum and more
all-encompassing, which in itself would incorporate more issues
with regard to citizenship and patriotism and identity with the
UK and local communities?
Mr Johnson: I think, to some extent.
I am not an expert on the details of the history curriculum as
it stands currently, but I think history clearly is a fundamentally
important part of learning about citizenship, to have a knowledge
of history and how some of the values that we were talking about
earlier came to mean different things in Britain over time. I
think the way that history and citizenship are linked is of fundamental
importance. I think perhaps history needs to be raised in importance,
it needs to be seen as a more important subject than it is, in
many places, at the moment.
Q373 Mr Wilson: The Government has
been doing a lot of rethinking about citizenship, and you will
know that Bill Rammell announced last month that they are doing
a review of the National Curriculum's coverage of diversity issues
and how you can incorporate cultural and social British history
into the curriculum. Do you think that review he has announced
is necessary?
Mr Johnson: I think partly the
discussion we have been having today shows that there is the need
to look constantly at how you are doing things, to see whether
they can be improved and whether they are fit for purpose, as
it were, in Britain as of today, because circumstances are different
from 12 months ago, from five years ago, in terms of the issues
and the challenges that are being faced, and we talked at the
very beginning about some of the changing nature of migration.
It is always good to review it; whether you do that in a one-off,
six months' review or whether you have a constant process of review
is not necessarily something that we would have a strong opinion
on, but I think the need constantly to review and adapt is important
to consider.
Q374 Mr Wilson: One of the key points
in this is, is there some sort of agreed work or narrative of
British social history that you can incorporate into the citizenship
curriculum?
Mr Johnson: I think, there are
clear facts and developments in social history that are not open
for contest, and you can debate whether they are good or bad or
what their impact has been, and having that kind of discussion
within the classroom would be an important thing to have, whether
it is part of history or citizenship or wherever you fit it into
the school life. You could say there was a clear narrative of
what has happened and there are clear facts. You can talk about
the numbers, if you have got them in front of you, of people coming
in and out of the country, or size of different communities, or
patterns of movement within Britain and segregation between communities
and facts about faith groups.
Q375 Mr Wilson: How are those facts
going to engender a feeling of Britishness?
Mr Johnson: I think you are looking
at what those facts and what those developments, which have happened
to other countries as well, have meant in Britain and how Britain
has adapted to them; looking at, for instance, Britain's history
of always having migration at different times, in different ways,
and that has led to the development of Britain as it is today
is important.
Q376 Mr Wilson: One of the other
reasons for this review is the impact of the terrorist attacks
back in 7/7, and do you think that terrorism and the prevention
of terrorism agenda should have any influence on citizenship education?
Mr Johnson: I think, to some degree,
yes, of course it should, because citizenship education, if it
is to work, should be about all issues affecting the country.
Surely the point of being a good citizen, as it were, is to have
an awareness and an understanding of all the issues; the prominence
will change according to circumstances and times, but I think
it is important that these issues are discussed and debated there.
Otherwise, if you do not have a forum for those discussions, as
Marc said earlier, in relation to some of the northern towns,
then those debates will take place on the street, often in open
conflict rather than in discussion in a safer environment.
Q377 Mr Wilson: Taking that just
a stage further, do you think that citizenship education can do
anything to prevent a home-grown terrorist attack?
Dr Verlot: Who is to say?
Q378 Mr Wilson: If that is the purpose,
the spin that is being put on it by the Government, and you are
saying "Who is to say?" it does not give much support
to it, does it?
Dr Verlot: I think it is very
difficult to presume that giving citizenship lessons will have
necessarily an immediate effect on what people decide to do. I
do think it will affect a lot of people how they react to it.
I am not sure what the motivation was for these people to do what
they have done and it is very difficult to assume a causal relationship
between citizenship teaching and the acts of a number of individuals.
It is just impossible to establish.
Q379 Chairman: Has your organisation,
for example, taken all the people that were arrested for rioting
and found out where they went to school, what their education
was, did they go to school; it is very clearly ascertainable,
is it not? What is the relationship between those actually identified
on videotape rioting?
Mr Johnson: Are you talking about
the northern riots of five years ago, or Oldham?
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