Friday 30 May 2008

Institutionalising Islam in our schools

The other day, Bernard left a comment with a link to an editorial in the Church of England Newspaper, warning of the encroachments of Islam into our national life. The editorial has now been replaced with a more recent editorial, although you can still read it at a couple of blogs, such as Jihad Watch. One of the interesting points that the editorial made was this:

At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local...we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging ‘Muslim women only’ sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds to face Mecca five times a day — a Monty Pythonesque scenario of lunacy, but astonishingly true. Prisons are replete with imams who are keen to inculcate conservative Islam in any inmates who are deemed to be culturally ‘Muslim’: the Prison service in effect treats such prisoners as a cultural block to be preached to by imams at will. Would the Prison service send all those with ‘C of E’ on their papers to confirmation classes with the chaplain?! We could go on.

The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates.
Today, we see yet more evidence of this phenomenon of Islamic institutionalisation:

Imams will teach in state schools under Government plans for tackling extremism to be announced next week.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, admitted today that a minority of children could be “at risk” from extremists and said that schools must be able to deal with radicalisation.

British-born imams will be drafted in to schools to instruct children about Islam and the Koran as part of the Government’s “Prevent” strategy, which aims to weed out extremism before it takes root.

Lessons will include teachings from the Koran and discussions about equality between the sexes, the sanctity of life and the rights of the individual. Mr Balls said the citizenship lessons would help young people to feel “part of their society, and resilient to those who seek to divide rather than unite”.

The battle against radicalisation in schools is a major plank of the Home Office’s wider policy on extremism but the National Union of Teachers (NUT) met fierce opposition when it suggested a similar scheme in March. The NUT proposed that Muslim clerics and other faith leaders should go into every state school as an alternative to faith schools. Critics warned this could allow extremists to target pupils.

But the Government believes that if the imams are British-born they will imbue children with the multicultural values.

Because, of course, no British-born Muslim has ever turned to extremism, have they? And "multicultural values" (whatever they may be)? They're just what we haven't had enough of lately!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

But FR, this is surely a result of our glorious Leader (and his apostles) "listening" after the local elections and the Crewe by-election. Unfortunately, in my excitement at getting my vote in on 1 May, I missed the bit on the ballot paper where apparently all the other voters put an "X" requesting that British-born experts in an alien theology attend our schools to teach the wonders of Islam to the children of British-born dhimmis.

Iftikhar Ahmad said...

Education of Muslim Children

London School of Islamics is an educational Trust. Its aim is to make
British public, institutions and media aware of the needs and demands of the
Muslim community in the field of education and possible solutions.

Slough Islamic school Trust Slough had a seminar on Muslim
education and schools in Thames Valley Atheltic Centre. The seminar was
addressed by the education spokesman of MCB. I could not attend the seminar
but I believe lot of Muslims from Slough and surrounding areas must have
attended. Very soon, the Muslims of Slough will have a state funded Muslim
school but there is a need for more schools. A day will come when all Muslim
children will attend state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim
teachers as role model.

Muslim schools are not only faith schools but they are more or less
bilingual schools.

Bilingual Muslim children need to learn standard English to follow the
National Curriculum and go for higher studies and research to serve
humanity. They need to be well versed in Arabic to recite and understand the
Holy Quran. They need to be well versed in Urdu and other community
languages to keep in touch with their cultural roots and enjoy the beauty of
their literature and poetry.

Bilingualism is an asset but the British schooling regards it as a
problem. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not
want to become notoriously monolingual Brit. Pakistan is only seven hours
from London and majority of British Muslims are from Pakistan.

More than third of British Muslim have no qualifications. British school
system has been failing large number of Muslims children for the last 60
years. Muslim scholars see the pursuit of knowledge as a duty, with the
Quran containing several verses to the rewards of learning. 33% of British
Muslims of working age have no qualifications and Muslims are also the least
likely to have degrees or equivalent qualifications. Most of estimated
500,000 Muslim school-aged pupils in England and Wales are educated in the
state system with non-Muslim monolingual teachers. Majority of them are
underachievers because they are at a wrong place at a wrong time.

Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual
Muslim teachers during their developmental periods. There is no place for a
non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school. As far as higher education
is concerned, Muslim students can be educated with others. Let Muslim
community educate its own children so that they can develop their own
Islamic, cultural and linguistic identities and become usefull members of
the British society rather than becoming a buden.

We are living in an English speaking country and English is an
international language, therefore, we want our children to learn and be well
versed in standard English and at the same time well versed in Arabic, Urdu
and other community languages. Is there anything wrong with this approach?

It is not only the Muslim community who would like to send their children to
Muslim school. Sikh and Hindu communities have started setting up their
schools. Last week. British Black Community has planned the first all black
school with Black teachers in Birmingham.

Scotland's first state funded Muslim school could get the go-ahead within
months after First Munister Alex Salmond declared he was sympathetic towards
the needs and demands of the Muslim community.

Iftikhar Ahmad
London School of Islamics Trust

Anonymous said...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2058935/Police-advise-Christian-preachers-to-leave-Muslin-area-of-Birmingham.html

...and yet on the other hand spreading the Christian message could result in a beating.

Anonymous said...

As ever I fail to understand why, for example, people of Pakistani descent, whose parents and grandparents came here presumably for a better life, greater opportunites and perhaps even personal freedom want to recreate the cultures they left. Why not go back to the real thing?
The whole thing is shocking!

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I started him off again!

GW said...

Great post. Is there a more discredited philosophy than multiculturalism? As to the locally trained Imams, there was this in the Times a few months ago:

Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.

Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.

The Times investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain’s mosques and its policy of enouraging the recruitment of more “home-grown” preachers.

Mr ul Haq, 36, was educated and trained at an Islamic seminary in Britain and is part of a new generation of British imams who share a similar radical agenda. He heaps scorn on any Muslims who say they are “proud to be British” and argues that friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion”. . . .

See http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/01/hardline-deobandi-takeover-of-britains.html

At any rate, great post. Linked.
http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/06/interesting-posts-from-around-web-1.html

Fulham Reactionary said...

Anon:

Thanks for that link - I'll write a post on it now.

GW:

Thanks for linking, and for the Times article.

Ymarsakar said...

Muslim parents do not like their children to be intgrated into the barbarity of western culture, consits of institutional racism, anti-social behaviour, incivility, knife and gang culture. binge drinking, drug addiction, teenage pregnancies and abortions.

Another reason why socialism and Marxism are inevitably the precursors to totalitarian and mass murder regimes.