Campaigning Against Sectarian Education in Scotland<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Scotland does not suffer the Protestant/Roman Catholic sectarian terrorism of its neighbour, Northern Ireland, but it does share some of the tensions. In Scotland as a whole, Catholics are now well integrated into society, social attitudes are becoming more liberal, and religious affiliation declining rapidly. But despite all this, sectarianism stubbornly refuses to die. The most public manifestation is played out, literally, in football games between two leading teams, one Catholic, the other Protestant. The games are marred by sectarian chanting and songs, and the parading of provocative regalia, despite efforts to eradicate them. Worse still, violent incidents (sometimes amounting to murder) soar wherever these teams engage each other.

 

Historically, many Catholics emigrated from Ireland as labourers, and were poorly treated by the mainly Protestant Scots. Catholic children were victimized in schools to the point that the law was changed nearly a century ago to provide for separate publicly funded schools for them. These schools remain today, but we argue they should no longer do so because of concerns about sectarianism. This is in addition to our historical objection that children should not be indoctrinated, especially not at the state’s expense.

 

Roman Catholicism is the only religion in Scotland that has schools funded by the state. Naturally, the Church is very jealous of this privilege and it did not react well to a recent onslaught by the National Secular Society, which has been campaigning to have these schools converted to non-denominational status.

 

“Churches unite to declare war on secularism!” screamed the front page of the Sunday Herald.

 

This latest offensive in our campaign had been prompted by a debate on sectarianism. We challenged the Scottish First Minister with a letter to The Scotsman, observing that politicians seemed unwilling to acknowledge that existence of Catholic schools fuelled sectarianism. The Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, responded swiftly. “Any proposal to end separate Catholic schools is equivalent to a proposal made by the Church of Scotland in 1923 that Irish people should be repatriated,” he said, drawing the harshest criticism (“crass and stunning stupidity”) from a major, usually pro-Catholic, national newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.

 

Conti’s response to our argument was that sectarianism originates at home, not in schools. He seemed unwilling to grasp that the very existence of rival schools could perpetuate the split in communities. Catholics form a powerful voting bloc, which generally supports the First Minister’s party, Labour. The Archbishop advised Scottish Catholics to take into consideration the extent of their candidates’ support for RC schools when voting at the forthcoming elections, prompting us to accuse him of electoral blackmail. Wide media coverage of the dispute ensued in the national newspapers and on radio. We were further assisted by the intervention of NSS Honorary Associate Prof. Richard Dawkins, who wrote: “Today Catholic desperation is prompted by ... falling church attendance and catastrophically plummeting recruitment to the priesthood. Keeping their grip on education is their last hope. No wonder they fight so aggressively for it ... There is no such thing as a Protestant child, Catholic child or Muslim child and we should stop the mental child-abuse of labelling them.” The Humanist Society of Scotland lent sterling support too. NSS President Denis Cobell had the last word on the “war” article in the Sunday Herald: “It is historically typical that the Church should call for a war on secularism: war between faiths has marked the Christian era as two millennia of bloodshed.”

The Church is clearly now on the defensive: it has even appointed an official whose sole raison d’être is to support retention of their schools. Conti has since described as “offensive” newly built schools that share facilities between Catholics and others. Shamefully, one bishop even complained that one of these schools did not have a separate entrance for Catholics or separate facilities for Catholic teachers. The First Minister eventually came out in support of the schools, saying they performed well and were popular with parents. We will never know how much of what he said was from conviction and how much from perceived electoral advantage. On the other hand, the issue is now well and truly out in the open, and an opinion poll shows that only 42% of Scots believe that separate RC schools should be retained.

 

What can be learned from this exercise? We face a formidable task in challenging the deeply entrenched and unquestioned privileges of the major religious groups. But by effective, focused, and well-timed campaigns, and with the much-valued contributions of our many distinguished supporters, we can achieve high- profile airing of these issues at the national level.

 

Keith Porteous Wood, National Secular Society