Cameron - friend of Muslim women?

Does anyone know how much the NHS spends per year on interpreters?

I can remember reading it was a huge amount but I can't remember exactly. Surely this is money that could be/should be better spent.

ab, I've read what Cameron said. I don't agree that what he said can "easily" be interpreted in the way you say. I think that interpretation is a distortion of what he said. I guess we just have to agree to differ on that.

Thanks, nelliem. The trouble I have is that I'm not sure "community leaders" are always the right people to talk to. I accept what you're saying in general terms, but I still think that more onus is on immigrants to an alien culture to engage with the new one. I felt this when I was an immgrant in an alien culture myself so please don't suppose that it's something I wouldn't apply (haven't applied) to myself as well as others. It's the basis of the old adage: When in Rome do as the Romans do. It's an important idea.

I am not, of course, criticising people who, for whatever reason, cannot engage very well in the way I've suggested. I honestly think that it's a very tricky problem that Cameron's idea is attempting to tackle. I honestly think there is goodwill behind what he has announced and a real attempt to improve things in this country. I guess the thing is that I don't immediately assume something is a bad idea just because it has come from a Tory.

Eloethan I think the idea is to get to the sort of women who didn't go to your classes surely? There seems to be quite a large percentage of women who don't speak English and they presumably are the target.

I can see why it is possible that women who don't speak English and are not integrated could be persuaded into radicalisation if the only people they communicate with are of that mind. Surely if a person can understand radio, TV and newspapers they are more likely to have a wider viewpoint? I have no idea if this has happened but can see the possibility.

thatbags and anniebach the article's in The Times which I don't subscribe to so I can't give a direct quote. I believe what he said was that inability to speak English led to segregation and this encouraged (or could encourage?) radicalism. He also admitted that funding for community-based English classes was severely cut two years ago. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any convincing evidence that inability to speak English leads to radicalism. The people going off to Syria seem mainly to be well educated, British born. Ditto the terrorists operating in and around Europe; locally born and/ or locally educated. One Muslim woman on Radio 4 said, 'Who is advising him?'.

TerriBull This is a thread where some people disagree with Cameron on this issue. If you wish to call it "Cameron-bashing", so be it, but there has been plenty of "Corbyn bashing" on other threads. You perceive Gransnetters on the left to be more vocal on various threads than those on the right. That may or may not be so - without examining and logging every contribution it would be difficult to say. However, even if that were to be the case, nobody is stopping anybody from posting. Perhaps some people don't feel strong enough to comment, or only comment on issues that affect them personally.

I disagree entirely with Cameron's stance on this and I don't know how everyone is so well versed on how Muslim families operate. When I re-trained as an adult literacy teacher, my class consisted, I would say, of around 80% Muslim women. They didn't appear to me to be particularly oppressed. They were not professional, middle class women but were cheerful and chatty and keen to learn. My next door neighbour is of Pakistani origin and she is a very assertive woman who takes an active role in her children's school (the same non-denominational school my son went to many years ago), helping with school fetes, etc. There are no doubt people within different communities - not just Muslim communities - whose ideas in some areas conflict with our own. I don't think singling out a particular community is at all helpful. English language classes should be available to anyone who needs them. It was this government that stopped them.

I agree with Nelliemoser, in order to connect with people and encourage them to become more engaged in mainstream society, you don't do that with constant criticism and threats.

thatbags, read his speech and I did not say it was the women's fault , his words could easily be taken as such , why mention anything other than the scheme is set up to help women learn to speak English, and he needs to visits universities around the country and speak to the Muslim women studying in them

Whilst on MN a week or so ago someone posted a link to an article about life in Afghanistan for women in the 1950s/60s and '70s, what it showed was quite breathtaking, women at university lectures, mixed graduations, uncovered heads, mothers in parks with their children, women shopping all going freely about their business generally, wearing the clothes of the time. Whilst I suspect that in rural areas it may have been different what it illustrated was a society that was not so different to our own, now it's a million miles apart. It also occurred to me that many of first generation Pakistani Indian sub continent immigrants to our country, after a period of time assimilated. We have to accept for various reasons there has been a metamorphosis back to a hard line and intransigent form of Islam which is very much at odds with our society, which I don't perceive was there from the outset. I think whoever is in power, be it right or left curbs need to be put into place to make sure that insidious practices don't become the norm here. Cameron's initiative does feed into a wider picture.

I'd like to think we could "win hearts and minds" but I don't know how you can convince deeply ingrained male retrograde attitudes hell bent on subjugating their female population from such an early age to change.

I completely agree with thatbags assertion about having regard for the cultural norms. To flout them shows a disrespect/disdain for the host country, not by the cowed women, but often by the arrogant men. Westerners living in Muslim cultures know that they have to abide by the draconian laws of say Saudi, or pay the penalty that's it no if's, or buts!

Thatbags If that was my remark about "others cultural norms" you were referring to, what I meant was that if you really want to change people's attitudes and to succeed, you need to "engage with them with regard to their current cultural norms." However wrong you think those norms.

By this I did not mean that we accept those norms alien to our society but by discussion education and negotiation. Which is why I thought get the community leaders engaged with your reasoning and work at change
by "winning hearts and minds." Not by using napalm potential intimidation.

I make no apologies for the link. I assume most of us are old enough to know what I mean.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_hearts_and_minds

Can someone point me to what Cameron said about radicalisation and that being Muslim women's fault, please? I haven't seen any actual quotes of that kind of thing.

I taught some Bangladeshi children in Oxford, helping them with English and Maths so that they could do well at school. Their mother, via the father or uncle, would ask me to go along to parent-teacher meetings with the mother (the men, who spoke English, didn't go). I used to wish the mother would come to the lessons I gave too. Admittedly, she did have other young children to look after, and I wasn't there long enough to see if she was able or allowed to have lessons in later years with the younger children.

But she'd been in Britain for about nine years already at that stage.

Similarly, the Ugandan-Asian mother of a friend I knew at uni had been in England for twenty-five years but still didn't have the confidence (i.e. the language) to answer the phone in her own home. That is what Cmaeron's proposal is trying to address. What is wrong with that?

How about some regard for our cultural norms, anyway? Like speaking English in Britain. Is it so outrageous to want that? Carry on speaking whatever other language you speak too but learning to communicate in the main language of the country you live in is not too much to ask of anyone. And, since some Muslim women don't seem to have any help at the moment, offer them some help. What's not to like?

Another thing that Cameron said that needed saying (and needs saying again and again) is that in Britain women and girls are free to live as they choose. I don't think it's wrong to point this out to people from cultures where that isn't the case. One can agree with the man on this without being an out and out Tory.

You cannot fully 'live' or integrate into any country unless you speak the language. You cannot discuss your health with a doctor, talk to your child's teacher, or ask for help. You become isolated and only mix with those who speak your tongue.

A bit like some of the Brits in Spain

Helping people to learn to speak English is for the good, bringing radicalisation into to it was uncalled for and make the women seem a threat , why not just say it is provided to help women

I think there can be too much "regard for other cultural norms" (paraphrased from another post). It is not insensitive to try and help people, who appear to have no help currently and so can be isolated from the dominant culture they live in, to learn the local language.

OK, it may not work, but it also may. We could just give it a chance before damning it.

TerriBull. Have to agree. I noticed that they were noticeable by their absence on that thread.

I read the whole speech and it made sense to me. It certainly wasn't 'Muslim bashing'.

I don't understand why some posters likening learning English in Britain to us learning another language, it is not the same. The people choosing to live here will be living alongside people who also speak English. If I decide to learn another language there won't be people around me speaking it. DS got D for French at GCSE but a couple of months after moving to Lausanne he was fluent.

If people choose to live in the Netherlands no one pays for Dutch classes for them and no one panders to their lack of Dutch. They have to pay for their own lessons, they do and integration is better than here. More is expected of them so they do what is expected.

With all the calls on our money it seems to me we could learn a lot from the Dutch. £20 million could be spent in so many other deserving ways. Maybe if hospitals and local authorities stopping publishing in several languages there would be more incentive to integrate?

Does anyone have any figures on the number of other immigrants who fail to learn English? It would be interesting to know if there is a difference and why that might be.

I very much doubt it would come to deportation if they were unable to speak English. I do think it is immensely important for them to learn to speak our languaged as it can only be of help to them and us to encourage intergration. Women who are unable to speak our language are totally dependant on others and at a great disadvantage. If they cannot understand the news and read the papers, how do they know what is going on? Their only information is what they are told. All women should be independant and well informed enough to make up their own minds. Women are usually more natural communicators and can help so much in broadening childrens' minds. We go to Greece frequently as we have a house there and whilst not in any way fluent we are able to get by and communicate. I do not expect the Greeks to speak English ( although of course a lot do!).

There was a discussion on Womens Hour on Radio this morning, didnt hear all of it, but a speaker was bleating on about the rights of muslim women to work, be educated, etc., and that this was more important to integration than being forced to learn English.....duh.....it is rather difficult to access education or employment ( other than exploitative) if you dont speak English. Stupid woman. I hate to say this, but in principal I agree that all people wishing/choosing to live in UK should be obliged to learn English, for their own advantage, for the benefit of their family, and for the benefits of society as a whole.

TBH I can't help thinking that this is just another thread to "bash Cameron" that's OK, it's just interesting to note that there are far more threads having a go at the right rather than the left, although there was a noticeable deathly silence from those same voices on the recent mass female assaults in Cologne on the thread on GN. Disenfranchised Muslim women are destined to live wretched lives, irrespective of whether money is stumped up for English lessons or not. Their cross to bear is more about their male relatives and how they control them then their lack of English.

Yasmin is the only one who tells it like it is. It was a very good piece in the DM.

Yes, good post Terribull.

Good post TerriBull yes, it's a real problem.

Some people systematically 'rubbish' any idea/ policy from a political party that they themselves are opposed to.

Yes the new leader Tim Farron