Yesterday Jayne & I dragged the kids down to the launch of the Crawley Interfaith Network. On the one hand I feel a bit of a fraud going, not having any faith at all personally, but on the other hand I know a lot of the people involved, and support what they are trying to do.

We had a talk from Michael Coughlin, the Chief Executive of the Borough Council, and a talk from Dr Indarjit Singh OBE, some dancing from the Masti dancers and the Bhangra Boys and talks from Imam Muhammed Ashraf and the Ahmadiyya community.

Actually it was only one Masti dancer. Sapna had a fall and hurt herself, so Shrina had to dance on her own, but she did well. The Bhangra boys were as entertaining as ever.

There was a good turnout, with a few new faces, and that has to be a good thing. There is a danger that these Interfaith things can stagnate and be just the same crowd talking to each other – preaching to the converted you might say.

But its not all perfect. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something is not quite right with the Interfaith project in Crawley. I think the Labour party needs to help where it can. I say that because we are the only party which seems to be taking an interest. At yesterday’s event we had the Labour MP, the Lablour leader of the borough council, two other exective members and a Labour backbench borough councillor. We also had a Labour county councillor and 7 other Labour party members there. There was a single Tory borough councillor and nobody I recognised from the Lib Dems.

I don’t mean to suggest that we should interfere or try to influence the organisation unduly, or even that the party acts formally as a party, but as party members we do get to know a lot of people of all types and may be able to help with some of the aims and objectives, as individuals who are interested.

Just for reference the aims are:

• To Encourage an atmosphere of goodwill and peace between different faith communities and reflect on common beliefs as well as acknowledge differences and celebrate diversity.
• To help create understanding and respect between faith groups

and the objectives are:

• To promote and celebrate cultural diversity and unity
• To work towards creating common ground
• To provide a means for everyone to be involved in multi faith activities
• To be an initial contact point whenever there is a need for consultation or assistance on multi faith issues
• To arrange annual/regular activities which are religious, cultural and social gatherings, in order to foster understanding and build upon differences
• To create dialogue to support bridge building amongst faith and secular communities in Crawley
• To create sustainability of the Network through partnership working and realising potential funding opportunities

So whats wrong with that? Well I think it is a combination of complacency and lack of ambition. Everyone who spoke talked about how well-integrated the population of Crawley is and how well the different religious and ethnic groups get on. While it is true that we do all get along better here than most other places, there are problems and I feel they were being ignored. Obviously at a launch people want to be positive, but its no good talking as if all the aims have been acheived before you start.

As for a lack of ambition, the aims and objectives talk about creating common ground and achieving social cohesion, and there seems to be a sort of unspoken agreement that this will be enough in itself and that any tangible benefits from this will then happen spontaneously when the circumstances enable them. This is like a social version of the trickle-down theory of economics. Well, maybe not, but I like the phrase.

One problem which I can see with actually getting better understanding is a reluctance to communicate openly for ‘political correctness’ reasons and what may be a patronising attitude from the white/christian element.

For example, after Indarjit Singh had spoken the Masti dancers got ready to start dancing and nearly all the (Indian) men got up and went outside. Now there may be a very good reason for this, but without knowing what it is, those that are left will just be thinking they are being extremely rude. Someone needs to find out why all the blokes went out and make the rest of us aware of whatever that reason is. Also those men ought to be made aware of what sort of impression they are giving. That alone would help ‘create understanding and respect’. Lets face it, if some people perceive a lack of manners in some others it can lead to background attitudes and thoughts of negativity.

Likewise, there was a distinct lack of Christian input to yesterday’s events. Perhaps this is strange when a lot of the organisers are christians, and the Roman Catholic church supplied the venue and a facilitator. Why is this? Is there an assumption that the hindus, sikhs and muslims already know all about christianity and need telling nothing? Isn’t there a danger that those christians who were taking part will feel left out? Although at least we were spared Irish dancing, which is something.

The biggest problem in the whole thing is the continuing strange attitude of the local muslims from the Broadfield and Langley Green mosques. Islam was represented by the Ahmadiyyas (who are always very involved in community events but only have about 150 members in town) and by an Imam from the Croydon mosque. They seemed to be the only muslims present. At previous similar events it has been the same. One time the muslim cleric made a decent presentation, but left straight afterwards without waiting to listen to all the others and mingle and socialise afterwards.

Again, there may be very good reasons for this, but if the rest of us do not know what they are, we might draw our own conclusions. In Broadfield the three local churches are organising a clean-up event at the pond on July 16th. The mosque was invited to join in but seemed to be not interested. Someone needs to have a talk with the two mosques to find out why they appear to be detached.

Our new vicar in Broadfield is very community-minded and has tried to start a dialogue with the mosque, but its early days yet. I hope that this is all down to a lack of mutual understanding and that the Interfaith Network will make getting an involvement from the mosques one of their priorities.

As far as ambition is concerned, I would personally like to see more joint ventures. Maybe at the next event we could have a christian band providing music for hindus to dance to? Also I would like to see Sri Lankan hindus involved. I know there are differences between the predominantly Indian GHU and the Sri Lankans, and between the majority of Crawley muslims and Ahmadiyya, but as we can see in Northern Ireland the protestants and Catholics don’t always get along. In Crawley they do work together well, and should encourage other religious groups to get along with their different branches as well as they do with outsiders.

As a very secular person myself, I am just hanging around waiting for the ‘bridge building amongst faith and secular communities’, and I would like to see some suggestion of how the whole thing is going to have a positive impact on some of our local issues like teenage pregnancies, antisocial behaviour, local environment or whatever.

I don’t want to end on a negative vibe, because although I’m a self-confessed heathen I have a lot of good friends in this organisation and in all the religions and would like to see it achieve things.