Posted on 02/22/2007 6:05:36 PM PST by Mount Athos
DEMANDS for a ban on “un-Islamic” activities in schools will be set out by the Muslim Council of Britain today.
Targets include playground games, swimming lessons, school plays, parents’ evenings and even vaccinations.
And the calls for all children to be taught in Taliban-style conditions will be launched with the help of a senior Government education adviser.
Professor Tim Brighouse, chief adviser to London schools, was due to attend the event at the capital’s biggest mosque.
His presence there was seen as “deeply worrying”, and a sign that the report was backed by the Government.
Tory MP Greg Hands said: “The MCB needs to realise it has to move closer to the rest of the community, not away from it.
“The presence of Tim Brighouse implies Government backing of this report. This is very worrying.”
Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society said the report was a “recipe for disaster”.
He added: “Schools with even just a handful of Muslim kids will find they have to follow these guidelines because there aren’t the staff to have one set of classes for Muslims and another for the rest.
“The MCB shouldn’t try to force its religious agenda on children who may not want it. The Government needs to send the MCB packing. Schools should be about teaching, not preaching.”
The report, Towards Greater Understanding – Meeting The Needs of Muslim Pupils In State Schools, says all schools should bring in effective bans for all pupils on “un-Islamic activities” like dance classes.
It also wants to limit certain activities during Ramadan. They include science lessons dealing with sex, parents’ evenings, exams and immunisation programmes.
The holy month – when eating and drinking is not allowed in daylight hours – should also see a ban on swimming lessons in case pupils swallow water in the pool.
When swimming is allowed, boys should wear clothing covering their bodies “from the navel to the neck”, even during single-sex pool sessions, while girls must be covered up completely at all times, apart from the face and hands.
The MCB adds that schools should ensure contact sports, including football and basketball, “are always in single-gender groups”.
Even school trips are targeted in the report, which wants them all to be made single-sex “to encourage greater participation from Muslim pupils”.
It wants Arabic language classes for Muslim pupils, and says the Koran should be recited in music classes. And all schools should ensure they have prayer rooms with washing facilities attached, it says.
In art classes, Muslim children should not be allowed to draw people, as this is forbidden under some interpretations of Islamic law.
And while the MCB insists that all British children should learn about Islam, it wants Muslims to have the right to withdraw their children from RE lessons dealing with Christianity and other faiths.
The MCB says special treatment and opt-outs are necessary because otherwise Muslim pupils will feel excluded from school activities and lessons.
The MCB claims to be the voice of Britain’s 1.5million Muslims and was heavily courted by politicians including Tony Blair following the September 11 attacks. Its former secretary-general Iqbal Sacranie was awarded a knighthood in 2005.
But other Muslim groups criticised the report. Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain said: “There has been no discussion on these issues in the Muslim community.”
And the Sufi Muslim Council – which claims to represent far more British Muslims than the MCB – said the report misunderstood Ramadan.
It added: “This is not what Islam or Ramadan is about. Ramadan is about training yourself while carrying on with everyday life.”
The Department for Education tried to distance itself from the report last night, and insisted Professor Brighouse was attending the launch only in a “personal capacity”.
A spokesman said it would read the report “with interest”.
The MCB did not comment.
It came as Britain's first Muslim peer called for women to stop wearing veils, claiming that they represent “a barrier to integration”.
Reigniting the debate over the face veil, or niqab, Lord Ahmed of Rotherham said there was no religious reason why Muslim women should wear them – and claimed that veils now cause society more harm than good.
The peer, who has urged the authorities to clamp down on preachers of hate, spoke during a debate held in the heart of the Arab world.
He told a mainly Muslim audience in Doha, Qatar, that he does not want a legal ban on the veil being worn in public – as many other nations are introducing, including Muslim Turkey and Egypt.
But he said: “The face veil is a barrier to integration in the West. The veil is now a mark of separation, segregation and defiance against mainstream British culture.
“There’s nothing in the Koran to say that wearing a niqab is desirable, let alone compulsory. It’s purely cultural. It’s an identity thing which has been misinterpreted.
“They were supposed to be worn so that women wouldn’t be harassed. But women, and communities as a whole, are now being harassed because they are wearing them."
The Muslim Council of Britain’s assistant secretary general, Inayat Bunglawala, said yesterday: “Peoples’ attitudes are responsible for harming integration, not veils.
“And wearing them is very much a matter for individual Muslim women.”
Here's a much easier solution: if the muslims don't want to assimilate, and find British customs so horribly objectionable, let them haul their butts back whence they came.
england, no. you used to be tough. do not, i repeat, DO NOT wuss out on us
This is funny and would make a great comedy sketch.
When did the Muslims conquer England? Did I miss that one?
He and his European ilk make nothing. They can only invest their money. They do the bidding of those totalitarian states that will provide them cheap labor, failed communist states. This way, the rich lower investment risk and realize quick turn around. A more patriotic way would be to invest in technological innovation for the homeland making manufacturing more rewarding for an educated society. This requires longterm expectations on investment returns. This is the Japanese way. Jug Ears and his ilk also do as the American aristocracy does, import cheap labor for the same reason. We get Mexicans. They get Muslims. The masses are screwed. Our nation's ability to manufacture is lost and we will have to compete with slave wage workers.
When the end comes, the aristocrats will pack their bags and move to Switzerland to be near their gold just like the Saudi king intended when he was ready to flee a few years ago during Saudi unrest. This is your new world order, short term gain for the aristocracy at the expense of the masses. Vote Bush to uphold the new world order and screw yourself. Unfortunately, the Democrat Marxists have worse designs on you, your liberty.
We need leaders who champion the people and cherish liberty. Unfortunately, they will only come when the pot boils over. In the meantime like the yeoman of old, hone your self reliance.
I wonder how much he paid for his peerage.
***Targets include playground games, swimming lessons, school plays, parents’ evenings and even vaccinations. ***
Congratulations! You said the secret word! TARGETS!
What would the same people say to accomodating the concerns of Christians and Jews? They would call it establishmentarianism and sue the living crap out of you.
Time to be afraid, Britain. Be very, very afraid.
My point is exceedingly simple.
The British authority is attempting to remove all offense to other religions from schools. (Clearly)
Within the proposals of the Muslim authority is no restraint on memorizing the Koran. (Obviously)
Simply bringing up an absolute ban on the Koran in British school by the British authority should be the flashpoint where this nonsense comes clear to the Brits.
We have already seen bans on Christian books and symbols to placate the Muslims.
"I lived in England in the late 70's, as a young teen.
It shocks and bewhilders me what has happened to that country."
I lived in the US in the 50's, as a young teen. It shocks me when I see what is happening to my country. By the way, you would have preferred the US in the 50's over England in the late 70's.
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.
The same article on Antimullah with an intro by Alan Peters
http://noiri.blogspot.com/2007/02/moslems-demand-school-ban-on-all-un.html
Mind boggling, isn't it?
You may substitude "The US" for "Britain".
This provides everyone an excellent opportunity to demostrate the positive effect of tolerance. /s
"We need leaders who champion the people and cherish liberty. Unfortunately, they will only come when the pot boils over."
By that time it is too late for a constitutional leader to be effective unless he is the American equivalent of the Chilean Pinochet.
"I'll bet the Muslims have guns....."
No, you're not allowed to have guns in England. /s
Ban the un-assimilated Muslims!
Okay, now us Orthodox Christians will put in demands: no meat, poultry, fish, olive oil, diary products, eggs, or wine (even as a flavoring added before cooking) should be served in British schools on Wednesday, Fridays (with a certain few exceptions), or during Great Lent. No meat or poultry should be served the week before Great Lent, etc.
You get the idea. Let's enforce the Orthodox fasting canons on everyone in the schools so our kids have an easier time keeping *our* religious discipline.
The Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs can chime in with their demands too.
I'm not serious advocating this, but it might be an interesting exercise as a reductio ad absurdum of the Muslims' demands for groups representing all of the other religions with a reasonable number of children in British schools to make parallel demands.
Actually I may be advocating it, not because I want 'accomodations' for my coreligionists in Britain, but because, it may be the only way to torpedo this nonsense if the government has backed the Muslim report.
Vaccinations? Muslims want to ban vaccinations? Ah the irony. Britain actually got the idea of vaccinations from their 1717 ambassador to the Ottoman Empire--then a Turkish Muslim country. Islamic civilization then clearly began its regression to the Stone Age barbarism common in Muslim lands today. Perhaps the present state of the Arab world offers a window into the conditions that liberals desire for our own future under the Kyoto Stone Age Restoration Treaty.
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