Dramatically shifting the terms of the debate over 'Britishness', Leader of UK's Conservative party David Cameron demanded a new language of community cohesiveness.
LONDON: Dramatically shifting the terms of the debate over 'Britishness', Leader of United Kingdom's (UK) Conservative party David Cameron demanded a new language of community cohesiveness on the controversial issues of faith, race and nationhood, suggesting Muslims end curbs on women's study.
In a ground-breaking article in today's Observer, the Tory leader lambasted the ruling Labour government for its aggressiveness and called for a 'calm, thoughtful, reasonable' approach to defining Britishness rather than hectoring ethnic minorities."
"It's no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn't understand what is being said," he said.
At the same time, he warned that such a stance must not mean tolerating injustices, such as Muslim women being prevented from studying or working outside the home.
In today's article Cameron attacked 'clunking' government ideas to shore up national identity, such as urging Britons to fly the flag at home, and the 'dangerous muddling' of community cohesion with the threat from terrorism.
New ways should be found to celebrate 'our sense of nationhood' instead, although it was not clear what those might be.
"A number of the interventions we have seen from ministers recently have spectacularly failed to do that. Instructing Muslim parents to spy on their children, offending our war heroes with the proposal of a new 'Veterans' Day' when we already have Remembrance Sunday, suggesting that we put flags on the lawn."
While promoting cohesion could be part of responding to the war on terror, it was "not just about terrorism and certainly not just about Muslims," Cameron said.
According to the newspaper, his argument will be underlined by a report this week from the party's policy commission on national security calling for a new thinking on community cohesion.
It will highlight the removal of teenage Asian girls from school and question whether some Muslim parents are supporting their daughters' desire for education, as well as calling for forced marriage to be made a criminal offence.
Cameron is of the firm view that no woman should be denied rights which both their religion and their country, Britain, support.
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