Although I used to wear one as a compulsory part of my uniform (many, many years ago, you understand, in my un-reconstructed youth), I never did feel comfortable with the woggle - that little band of bone or plastic or wood or metal or string for holding your scarf (neckerchief) around your neck. I could understand Baden Powell wearing one around the campfire at the start of the twentieth century, but even in the nineteen sixties they seemed to be a bit, well … naff. Despite the compulsory uniform which still survives with some limited modification, the Scout movement seems to be thriving and adapting and doing ‘good things’ with ‘young people’.
I was saddened therefore to read of a discriminatory, exclusive, reactionary, inflexible move by the Scouting leadership this week. On more than one occasion in this blog I have remarked how to me it has appeared more difficult to be an atheist in the United States than in Britain. I was therefore surprised to learn about discrimination in the UK Scout movement.
I quote from the NSS Press Release:
The senior executives of the National Secular Society and British Humanist Association met their counterparts at Scout HQ on 24 January 2008, having previously sent them a well-argued submission. Our main demand was for the Scout religious oath to be made optional. The Chief Executive of the Scout Association made clear at the meeting that the Scout Association was not prepared to reconsider their stance on this. The NSS offered to fund a poll of Scouts to find out if they supported the continuation of the ban on non-believers, but this offer was turned down.
Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society said: “The Scout’s exclusion of the growing number of children and young people without religious beliefs flies in the face of the reality of religious adherence in the UK. Two-thirds of teenagers define themselves as non-religious, and the only way they can join the Scouts is to lie. It is intolerable that they should be put in this position to join what is often the sole youth organisation in many areas.
“On their website, Scouts claim to be ‘open to all’, but they are not; and ‘inclusive’”.
Mr Porteous Wood added: “We acknowledge the Scouts do a tremendous job, and are convinced that, if asked, most Scouts would not want to continue to exclude their non-religious comrades. Keith Porteous Wood has now raised the matter directly with Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, to put pressure on the Scouting Association to change its policy and come in line with modern thinking on discrimination.
You can read the letter written to the Scouting Association and the submission by the NSS and the BHA here.
I hope that the movement will either declare itself religious, or be forced to remove the discrimination it is currently practising against those of no faith. After all, despite opposition from many countries, it did remove discrimation against homosexuals. If they are able to (reluctantly) reject the notion that all right minded men should be heterosexual, why insist on them swearing an oath to god in an age when most do not actively believe?
It definitely seems a bit ging-gang-goolie to me.
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See also: Towards the Light
As I was myself in the Scouts once upon a time, I will be interested to see the outcome.
Whatever one thinks of the original ethos and aims of Scouting, times have moved on and I think the movement has to make itself relevant to modern or become obsolete.
Very good point this.
I too was a Guide and guiding helped me enormously in team skills, projects and confidence. I was proud of being a Girl-Guide and loved my uniform.
I was not of the woggle era but of the little gold imitation badge to hold my tie. I have both this and my Queen’s Guide badge to this day.
I agree it has to change this- taking one’s owth and duty to God. I could still happily say this but I appreciate others can’t with truth.
The wording should change. I know it is tradition and both Scouting and Guiding leaders need commending for their work but they need to change. Most young people would not believe or understand what they were swearing allegance too.
I am dismayed by the Scouts’ intransigence on this issue. I didn’t realize that this issue was a live one in the UK too.