Cabbages & Kings: Religion twist in Brexit debate

“It takes a long time to make a story short
They say that enough rope will cut a victim short
There’s greater joy in union for the sheep who stray
Embrace the double negative, it’s the only way.”
From The Korma of Karma
by Bachchoo

Wander out in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Dewsbury, Luton, Bradford or 50 other cities in Britain on a Friday and witness the pious heading for their prayers in significant numbers. Very many of them, mostly male, will be dressed in imitation-Arab attire, the loose white long shirt and pyjama-like white trousers or even the skirt-like lungi wrap. On Saturdays, particularly in parts of London and elsewhere, the similar but much smaller congregations, the men in long black coats and wide-brimmed black hats with twisted plaits of hair down the sides of their faces, the women with modest dark dresses and wigs covering their natural hair, can be seen making their way to the synagogues.

On Sundays in the cities of Britain Christians go to their worship. No, they are not dressed in frock-coats and bow-ties or what used to be called their “Sunday best”; the majority of the urban flock are dressed in African robes, the men in dashikis and women in long patterned skirts and turbans, the young for the most part in Western attire, going to prayer. Their churches are not called St. this-or-that. They are called the “Balm of Gilead”, the “Ministry of Everlasting Kindness”, “Church of Divine Revelation” or some such inspiring designation. These congregations are black, the African churches distinct from the West Indian ones.

In the countryside, where almost every English, Scottish or Welsh village is built around a church, the congregations on a Sunday are small. The great and good make it a point to attend the Anglican service, confirming the adage that the Anglican Church is the Tory Party at prayer. No longer the whole Tory Party, but a fragment of it that still believes or can be bothered to attend. For the first time since such statistics were recorded, Britain has more non-believers than believers. Forty-eight per cent of Britons say they have no religion, whereas 44 per cent say they are Christians.

The remaining eight per cent are followers of other religions. Of these five million, three million are Muslims and the rest Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and minorities of religions, which believe, for instance, that God is a spaceman. The statistic does not go on to examine the strength of faith of any of those questioned. It would be safe to say that those who don’t follow any religion may have some residual faith in the presence of a God and may be agnostic rather than blatantly atheistic — hedging their bets, just in case — but gauging the strength of faith of professed Christians has to be entirely speculative.

So let’s speculate. The majority of the 44 per cent who call themselves Christian almost certainly don’t observe the Sabbath. If they did, Britain would be stultified on Sundays with walkers and drivers (and bikers) heading to their nearest St. Trinian’s or other parish church. The only places thronged on Sundays in this manner are the out-of-town shopping centres, which attract weekend browsers and buyers. Nevertheless, the professed Christians will, I guess, have their children baptised, nominate a friend or two as godparents, allude to their children’s first names as “Christian names” and celebrate Christmas.

But then I am equally certain the 48 per cent who profess not to have any religion also celebrate Christmas with trees, presents, turkeys and a great deal of alcoholic merriment in the increasing number of days-off from work that the allocated birth date of Jesus Christ allows. I know of several Muslim families that celebrate in the same way but have to be cautious about guessing that all Muslims do. The reason for such caution is that last Christmas an Ahmadi shopkeeper in Glasgow wished his clients a Merry Christmas and was stabbed to death by some maniac who professed to be carrying out his Islamic duty of putting such an “infidel” to death. There might well be others, perhaps numbering a handful, who would condone such a murder.

This division in religion has in a thin disguise been brought into the current hot debate in Britain, on the referendum to be held in two weeks’ time on whether the British public will vote to remain in the European Union or to leave it. When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister she raised the bogey of immigration by playing upon the latent xenophobia of the ignorant. She made a statement about the British way of life being “swamped” by alien cultures as the country was admitting too many foreigners. The spokespersons of the campaign to leave the EU are using the anti-immigration argument as their main appeal to the electorate. Of course they talk of autonomy from the bureaucracy of “unelected” commissioners of the EU.

They also argue that leaving will save money which could be used profitably in Britain. And yet the strongest and most calculatedly deceitful argument they use is to say immigration from Europe is putting intolerable pressure on the medical, educational and housing resources of the country. And for good measure they boldly spread the untruth that Turkey will soon join the EU and 80 million Turks will have the freedom to migrate to Britain and swamp it with their Islamic, oriental culture.

Turkey has applied to join the EU for 30 years and it will be 50 more before they can fulfil the criteria to do so. Nigel Farage, one of the leaders of the “Leave” campaign, has gone so far as to say that staying in the EU would mean allowing thousands of potential rapists into the country. He points the finger at potential Muslim migrants — Syrian refugees and Turks. And the world thinks Donald Trump is mad!