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One of the hardest consequences of immigration, whether planned or forced by circumstances, is that all the values and behaviours you thought normal are shaken up. What's more, the locals believe that their ways are the best. Just as you think yours are. The clashes and conflicts between these two begin right away even when there appears to be little to divide the immigrants and the populations of the receiving countries.

It happened strikingly with the immigrants from the Caribbean when they sailed over in their Sunday best in ships in the summer of 1948 and after. They were more English than the English in many ways, as Trevor Macdonald always points out, many immersed in Shakespeare and the history of their Motherland, which is how they thought of this country.


They were also Christian. Yet, by the early 1960s when child-centred education was all the rage, parents from the Caribbean found themselves unable to relate to the lack of discipline in schools, the decreasing use of corporal punishment, the apparent collusion of teachers against the ways of the parents. There are stories of teachers giving children telephone numbers of social workers to complain about alleged maltreatment by their parents. It was a tricky time but eventually black parents came to accept that teachers beating children was unacceptable. Today few of them would take it if such treatment was meted out even to the most disruptive children. They still fight, as then, for better education and expectations for their children, but corporal punishment has disappeared into history.

This is a reminder that the emerging questions about Muslim children being sent to religious schools or other institutions (important for them to learn Arabic and the Koran) where physical punishment by teachers and Imams is both permitted and expected, even when the children are very young. Similar concerns are being raised about some black churches and strict white Christian sects. First it is important to understand why this is going on. For the parents strict discipline is an expression of care. They want the children to follow the right path and can only reproduce what they went through without questioning any of it. It is also true that in two-thirds of the world, including in the UK, millions of people believe it is their right to chastise children with slaps, sticks, canes, slippers and other weapons of assault. They believe that children are spoilt and losing their way because parents have stopped being authoritarian. This might even be true, in part.

But beating and terrifying children is still wrong and especially if it happens in places where children are being guided into a faith. It is horrifying to discover priests have been abusing children. And there is no doubt at all that Muslim children and others are being punished and driven in ways that our laws no longer allow. But how does the state regulate places of worship or religious training without appearing to be fundamentalist secularist or totalitarian? How do you carry out inspections and assessments of mosques, temples and churches of non-Church of England followers without making them feel prejudice is really behind the concern? Not easy at all - cries of racism are sure to be raised. After centuries of exploitation, black and Asian Britons can be forgiven if they always suspect white-dominated authority.


But those who claim immunity from such regulations on grounds of cultural and religious integrity cannot be allowed to get away with ignoring standards that should apply to all children in the UK. That itself is another kind of racism - allowing Muslim children no protection from corporal punishment is discriminating against them.

The solutions are not insurmountable. After all, social workers or GPs or policemen who are Muslim, Sikh or from the Caribbean apply the same standard assessments to people from their backgrounds. The Children Act 1989 and the Human Rights Act 1998 make it clear that there are some children's rights that take priority over all considerations. And there are many Muslims themselves who would be grateful for a little less indulgence of orthodox leaders and traditionalists on the part of the state. They, we, see ourselves as both Muslim and part of Europe and we have come to understand that this means changing some of the ways we used to think and behave.
But that vital process of change cannot happen if the authorities are too scared to assert basic, non-negotiable rights that we as a society are trying to provide for children.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a journalist and broadcaster