U.K. Muslims Tell Dhimmis How To Run Schools

The Muslim Council of Britain has just released Towards Greater Understanding — Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools. It's a document (PDF) that contains no fewer than 69 demands recommendations about everything from school meals to dress codes. Among many other things, the MCB wants school staff to undergo "Ramadan awareness training," lessons that will presumably make it clear why schools must never schedule exams during the holy month, nor teach the regular science curriculum if there's the slightest chance that sexual functions will be mentioned. Schools must teach Arabic to Muslim pupils, and ensure that those same pupils are never asked to paint or draw the human form (nude or clothed) in art class, as such images are sinful under some interpretations of Islam.

Large parts of the report are dedicated to stressing the need for strict boy/girl apartheid. Schools must make provisions for the sexes to "swim in single-gender classes and ensure that teachers and attendants are of the same gender as the pupils." Girls must be entirely covered "except for their hands and faces." Contact sports like soccer and basketball are verboten unless the players are all of the same gender.

Scott Burgess of the Daily Ablution blog neatly fisks more of the exhaustive MCB decrees than I have the heart or the patience to do here. For instance:

Dance is a touchy area as well — since "most dance activities, as practised in the curriculum, are not consistent with the Islamic requirements for modesty". In fact, music is also problematic — some Muslims "may wish to avoid it altogether, not wishing their children to participate in school music lessons". In such cases, "alternative musical learning opportunities" should be provided. It should be no problem to come up with some "musical learning opportunities" that "avoid it altogether" (repeated study of the John Cage work 4'33" seems the only option here).

In the West, the U.K. included, such rules are widely recognized as repressive, sexist, and deeply objectionable — as long as it's, say, the Taliban imposing them on Afghani schoolchildren. But coming from a [cough] "moderate," London-based group like the Muslim Council, all of a sudden they're bona fide policy proposals that deserve to be taken seriously, even welcomed with multiculturalism's soft, inanely indiscriminate embrace.

Oh: I'm sorry to say that it looks like the MCB guidelines are implicitly backed by Tony Blair's government, or at the very least legitimized by the presence of a Blair appointee at the report's launch.

Burgess' spot-on conclusion:

What's truly astounding is the organisation's chutzpah (hah!) in insisting that implementation of this long list of measures — most of which serve only to segregate and isolate — actually encourages "positive integration" and "inclusion".

Comments

[Myrtle]

I must join the Secret Brotherhood of the Pythagoreans and declare that current K12 math practices are against our family's religion.

[jSpin]

Greetings! Just found your site in my wanderings. We actually agree on some things...
I read this piece right after reading another piece (sorry, didn't keep the URL) that was eerily similar. That piece was about a different group, though. They were also preaching that society, especially schools, MUST allow them access to all students and they couldn't do this and must do that as the group found acceptable, even if the majority of the children and especially their parents disagreed. Same tactics and all - but this group was pushing the homosexual agenda, rather than Islam.
Gee, the schools could really get weird with both, yeah?

[George Arndt]

It should be noted that not all Muslems want to take thing this far. However, if they don't want to paint nudes, mixing genders or too much touching, they should this attend thier own skills. Why should non-believers be forced to avoid "offending" people's relgions anyway?

[ORourke]

jSpin, the same darned thing happened in my children's school, except that this was a religious group that called themselves Christians. The teachers didn't seem to think it was a problem at all. Funny how these splinter groups get footholds.

Myrtle, back in high school I would have joined that group myself. Unfortunately my father decreed that math was a must and here I've had my whole life ruined by algebra.

[TC]

Hey don't they teach in said manner back home?

yeah I think they do!

So go home, we will be happy , you will be happy!

No I do not give a shit that someone of your own tribe will blow your ass up. If such is a problem handle it, gawd know I can't speak you language, or for that matter even tell you apart from one another.

Just take all your shit back to your own homeland! We fought and died for this one! Go do the same for yours!

Then you can run it any daumed way you please!