Like so many elderly lefty feminists I’ve found myself on ground politically shiftier in recent years – months – than any I’ve tread for decades, if ever. Mainly thanks to the so-called ‘Gender Wars’; that huge betrayal of so many of us former loyalists by the trad left, expected to accept Trans Women Are Women along with its grotesque implications as a no-debate axiom of truth-universally-acknowledged, in a way unthinkable around any other nominally underprivileged identity.
From that Ur-betrayal sprang other doubts, always festering I guess, about the wisdom of other applied DEI/EDI mantras and liberation-struggle sacred texts, until gradually the credibility of the whole progressive project turned to dust before my eyes.
None of it, when I thought about it properly, bore any relation to my by now decades-long, closely observed and very diversely lived experience at all. Mostly, it achieved the opposite of its declared aims.
What it looked like, more than anything else, was a white-middle class attempt to feel good about inherited snobbery; to pay lip-service to equality while doing nothing beyond tokenism to enable it. The only others nominally falling for it were those self-declared representatives of the ‘marginalised’ with a good nose for an exploitable scam.
Wembley headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh’s high court victory over a parent protesting her prayer-ban during her multi-faith intake comprehensive school’s day is a new case in point. Back in the mid-2010s, I would have considered her north London Michaela school – silence in corridors, supervised ‘family’ lunches – too strict for my good-natured, generally amenable child. I would have worried about lack of freedoms to explore creativity and so on. I would have worried it might oppress high spirits; and I’d have had my doubts about its overt British patriotism.
Nonsense. Without trust and confidence all round there can be no creativity, or high spirits. Anxiety about bullies and disruption help nobody, and to feel confident, the quiet and the boisterous child needs 100% faith in the adults on duty to stay in charge at all times. As for the patriotism – God Save the King every morning and so on – it serves like American pledging allegiance as a unifier – a ‘welcome’ almost - for a school intake whose parents herald from every corner of the globe.
A multi-faith and multi-cultural school like Michaela needs this and a prayer ban so that no one of ten or more religions represented gets the idea it can take precedence over the others, irrespective of numbers. What takes precedence instead is loyalty, and mutual respect, with exclusive religious and cultural observance kept for home. It’s the only way multi-culturalism can work; and is actually very popular with Muslims, now Michaela’s biggest religious grouping.
My child’s modern CofE comprehensive shares some of the same techniques, and is also, it so happens, popular with local Muslim families, I’m guessing for many of the same reasons. They must know strictness, orderliness, respect, and no-tolerance of bad behaviour works in their favour. Michaela’s stellar results and reputation just prove it. ‘Progressive’ works for the already privileged. It is the last thing the genuinely marginalised need.