Welcome to the EO family Andy. The whole, is only as good as the sum total
of its parts and I would like to acknowledge the value you are going to add
to those of us who are already "in the house"

Regards
Mannie.



Mannie Kusemamuriwo
Policy Adviser: Ethnicity & Cultural Diversity
Equality Challenge Unit
3rd Floor, 4 Tavistock Place
London  WC1H 9RA

Tel 020 7520 7063
Fax 020 7520 7069
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-----Original Message-----
From: Lie ASJ [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 30 July 2002 16:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Religious and Cultural Diversity - discussion


Dear Colleagues,
I have followed with much interest the discussion on religious and cultural
diversity in the past few days. In particular, though I do not agree with
everything said, I found the exchange among Mannie, Ged (apologies for not
knowing your full name), Barry Dicker and Geoff Smith to be enlightening -
I'm pleased that the inevitable subject of secularism was raised and the
need to safeguard the positions of the humanist, agnostic (though this may
be difficult) and those who profess no religious faith. I myself would not
use 'non-believer' as I think everyone believes in something.

First of all, I am grateful to Naseem of JMU for making so readily available
his creditable EO Policy on Cultural and Religious Diversity - I'm sure that
both HEIs and other public sector institutions could meaningfully adapt it
for their individual situations. And thanks for the timely reminder that we
should acknowledge where credit is due.

Although I have no strong objections to guides on religious and 'cultural'
communities, I am generally wary about producing and using them.
Historically, and I speak from recent experience of the health service with
its fairly voluminous production of these 'factfiles', the link between the
information in these 'factfiles' and improvement in attitude, behaviour and
service delivery is at best tenuous. The information in these 'factfiles'
are basic and if one is not careful, they give the false impression that
that is all one needs to know. Hence, the likely situation is engendered
whereby faiths and communities are conveniently compartmentalised. The
information in each section is deemed all-sufficient. In reality, this
reductionism simply means that the information serves little purpose except
to pigeon-hole people into neat categories and attendant behavioural
patterns. Reductio ad absurdum?

Hence, Naseem, I hope you would not mind my saying that I personally would
not recommend your 'factfile' on the different religions - it does require
much more thought and work. The sections under each religion is quite
artificial. Eg. is the Prophet Muhammad really the founder of Islam? Under
Christianity, I'm not sure if the (essentially Roman Catholic) Immaculate
Conception is a theological doctrine subscribed by all Christians. There are
far better guides in the market which we can use, and we need to use any
guide/'factfile'/resource alongside appropriate and rigorous cultural
awareness training, tailored for each particular context as far as possible.
This is not to discount the value of generic training.

[Having said that, I did contribute to the development of a religious
resource folder primarily tailored to the needs of Birmingham Women's
Hospital. Having produced them, we constantly contact the wards and
departments to see what they have done with their folders and offer
training/briefing sessions on their use. If you do produce a resource pack,
make sure they do not sit and collect dust on the shelves!]

In the course of the past few days' exchange, we have somewhat veered from
Virginia's original questions. Yes, I do think that terminology is crucial
and hence as EO officers, diversity advisers, etc., we ourselves need to be
both confident and careful in our use of language. I personally would not
use 'ethnic' or 'non-ethnic' and would simply use religious minorities to
designate as many groups as possible. This would therefore include the
occasional Brahma Kumari or the Wiccan or even the Norwegian Pentecostalist
Christian. But clearly a difficult question is where do we draw the line as
far as diversity of religious groups is concerned. I have no easy answers on
this.

However, a more basic question concerns categories and monitoring. Bearing
in mind my earlier points about not neatly compartmentalising people and
groups, there is nevertheless a need to produce a system which is
manageable. The underlying principle is diversity within a group. Again,
taking my previous health service experience, there is currently a Patient
Administration System which until very recently had 25 or more different
Christian categories but one each for Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish,
etc.! In fact, until recently, you cannot even find the categories Baha'i or
Jain.

This won't do from equality and diversity perspectives - we need to accord
the diversity that is inherent in one group to the others. While I would
like to have reduced the number of Christian categories to a decent minimum,
I would like to see eg. under Buddhist (Mahayana, Theravada, Tibetan, etc),
under Jewish (Orthodox, Reform, Progressive, Liberal) and under Muslim (at
least a basic recognition of Sunni and Shi'i).

This leads to my next point and that is, we have a very long way to go
before attaining any semblance of a level playing field. In reality, in most
of our public institutions, the Christian Church (especially the Church of
England/Anglican) is dominant. Yes, historically, owing to the established
church and so on, we still have the Anglican Church as primary religious
gatekeepers in our public services, and this is clearly manifested in the
traditional forms of chaplaincies as we have them. Most chaplaincies in the
NHS, prisons and universities are predominantly CoE/Anglican. Although we
have seen the development of ecumenical Christian chaplaincies, religious
care for other religious groups (be it among patients, prisoners and
students) is far from developed. But there are signs of hope - we are
beginning to see eg. Muslim chaplains in hospitals (and I myself was
instrumental in getting my former NHS Trust in mainstreaming part-time
Muslim chaplaincy) and prisons. But the way they have come about is far from
ideal and by far, Christian chaplaincies still retain much of the financial
cake.

What I'm trying to say here is that we can have the best policies on paper
but the reality is far from the rhetoric. What happens everyday at
grassroots level does matter though - to the patient, prisoner or student.
And I do not wish to give the impression that chaplains are the sole
purveyors of religious and spiritual care. This matter is further compounded
by the fact that religious care or chaplaincies are settled in different
ways - the NHS provides the money and employment (hence there's room for
drastic change) while in the universities (except for Kingston University I
think), chaplains are appointed by their respective churches. As for
prisons, we wait for the day when the Prison Act of 1952 is amended!

It certainly behoves us in the modern secular university to accord religion
its rightful place and not pay lip service, alongside the other key
dimensions of equality.

Last but not least, if you have not come across her research (on the Church
of England and civic life, on prisons, etc.), I would recommend Sophie
Gilliat-Ray. She has also published a small booklet entitled:
"Higher Education and Student Religious Identity" (1999)
Published by the Department of Sociology, UNiversity of Exeter, in
association with the UK Inter Faith Network. ISBN 1 871597 01 3. £4.95

I've glossed over much detail and I've gone on long enough. Apologies for
making statements rather than engaging some of your views! (I'm new to HE -
excuses, excuses!!) Many thanks for your patience.

Andy Lie
Assistant Registrar (Equality and Diversity)
University of Salford
Humphrey Booth House
The Crescent
Salford M5 4WT
tel 0161 295 2840

e-mail  [log in to unmask]

Formerly Multi-Faith Facilitator, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust,
and Birmingham Women's and Children's Hospitals.
Abandoning modesty (!), for those who may be interested, please see my
article:
"No Level Playing Field: The Multi-faith Context and its Challenges" in
Spirituality in Health Care Contexts, Helen Orchard, ed.
(London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2001)