Belfast Telegraph: For the Prime Minister and Government, the key hindrances standing in the way of the emancipation of hundreds of thousands of British Muslim women are firmly set in a cultural-religious epidemic characterised by poor literacy, oppressive segregation and the face veil.
These obstacles, long unchallenged and wildly out of control, have given rise to a wave of Muslim women and their ‘’oppressive’’ husbands who simply do not understand the very essence of ‘Britishness’.
To address this void in understanding, the Government has been working tirelessly behind the scenes on its chef d’oeuvre, which it hopes will bring enlightenment to a very dark situation. So what was the Government’s main answer? Tackle the poor level of women’s literacy within the Muslim community, which he puts at a staggering 22%!
On this point, one has to say bravo to Mr Cameron, he is absolutely right; the importance of English to immigrant women, be they Muslim or otherwise, is fundamental to integration and self-empowerment. To this end, any policy that supports enhanced literacy is positive.
However, the figure of 22% is problematic, as is the stated motivation of the new policy. To begin with, the 22% figure is accurate in so much as it is what you will discover in the national census. However, the devil is always in the detail. Those questioned in the census were offered three levels of literacy to choose from:
Categories: Accepting Islam, Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, The Muslim Times