Islam Under Scrutiny by Ex-Muslims

The Tragedy of Islamic Indoctrination In British Schools


>>Part 1: Shocking Islamic Indoctrination in American Classrooms


America is fortunate to have the separation of "church and state" enshrined within the "Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment. No one religion can be promoted, or denigrated, within public schools. Despite this, Islamist indoctrination has crept onto the curriculum of many American schools.

 Britain has no written constitution to guide its policies. Worse, Britain has an unelected monarch as its "constitutional" head of state. This monarch is also titular head of the Church of England or "defender of the faith" - a title stemming from the time of Henry VIII. Queen Elizabeth II has never interfered in politics or policy. Since her heir, Prince Charles, declared in 1994 that he was going to support alternative religions as a "defender of faith" - he undermined his role as future monarch and weakened the constitutional authority of the Church of England. His open support for Islam has further undermined his traditional role as "defender of the faith" in waiting.

 Since 1992, all state (publicly funded) schools in Britain have had to adhere to the educational strategies laid out in a National Curriculum. This set of standards has been modified over the years. The National Curriculum includes compulsory lessons on religious education. Children in "Key Stages 1 and 2" (up to 11 years of age) are taught in ways that insult teachers' integrity. When a Koran is presented to 10-year old children, the teacher is ordered to wash his or her hands before touching the book, "to show the children the respect with which Muslims treat the holy book. " Note the words - "the holy book", as opposed to "their holy book". The children are urged to wash and dry their hands too, even though they are not expected to touch the book.

The demons of political correctness have so deeply infiltrated the National Curriculum documentation that each time Mohammed's name appears, the Arabic symbol for his name is displayed afterwards. Unit 5B Section 2 is intended to indoctrinate children thus: "Children should learn: why Muslims have instructions for worship, how Muslims show concern for others, how Muslims care for people in the community, that abstinence from food plays a part in religious observance." In Unit 5A, Section 2, teachers are told that their pupils must learn " to understand that the Qur'an is fundamental to Muslims because it is the 'word of God'." Note the characterization: the Koran "is" the word of God, not "it is believed by Muslims to be" the word of God.

Unit 5A, Section 1, instructs teachers to: "Ask the children to copy the Shahadah and write a short explanation of the beliefs it expresses." The Shahadah is the statement of belief that signals conversion to Islam. To make young children write out this declaration is a blasphemy against any other faith the child may belong to, including atheism.

This government-sanctioned political correctness led my sister, a teacher for 30 years, to tell her school that she would no longer teach the National Curriculum's version of religious education, and would teach only her specialist subject, history.

The National Curriculum deals with Christianity and Islam, with smaller segments on Hinduism and Judaism. Sikhism, Buddhism and other faiths are entirely excluded from Key Stages 1 & 2.

Independent schools do not have to comply with the terms of the National Curriculum, and usually manage to provide a good standard of education without it. At age 16 and 18, pupils from these schools take the same national tests as do students from state schools. Some of these independent schools provide comprehensive religious education in one religion above others - so-called "faith schools". Of these schools, 114 are Muslim. 18 of these were established since 2002. The first Muslim school in Britain was the London School of Islamics, founded in 1981.

After Tony Blair came to power in 1997 he promoted the idea of public money being spent on increasing the number of "faith schools". In September 2001 he published a government "white paper" outlining these plans. In October 2006 within the state (publicly funded) system there were 4,646 Church of England schools, most of which cater to children aged 8 or under. There were 2,041 Catholic state schools, 37 Jewish ones, 8 Muslim "faith" schools, and 2 that are Sikh. Three of the state-funded Muslim schools had been established since 2005.

In November 2001, a poll of 5,979 people found that 80% of respondents opposed any increase of "single-faith" schools. Only 11% of males and 13% of women polled supported an increase of such institutions.

In August 2005 another poll was carried out, and here 64% of respondents said that "the government should not be funding faith schools of any kind". In September 2006 a local poll found that 44% of Londoners wanted all faith schools to be banned, and 43% thought the basics of Islam should not be part of the National Curriculum.

In April 2006 the Association of Teachers and Lecturers demanded that no further public funds should be spent on faith schools.

Blair's hypocrisy in encouraging Muslim schools to gain state funding is highlighted by his statement from March 2005 that religion should be kept out of politics: "Politics and religion - it is not that they do not have a lot in common, but if it ends up being used in the political process, I think that is a bit unhealthy." If he believes that, then he should not be making political demands that tax-payers should fund single-faith schools.

The 114 independent Muslim schools in Britain, which Blair has tried to make available for public funding, have a poor track record. The only Muslim school in Scotland is the Imam Muhammad Zakariya girls' boarding school, established in 2002. An inspection of the school found at one stage that none of its teaching staff had qualifications, and the girls were forced to remain on the grounds for two-week stretches.

This month, it was reported that more than half of private Muslim schools have not been inspected for five years, with some not being visited for an entire decade. Seventeen of these schools have never been registered with Ofsted, the official school inspection body.

 Ofsted is not immune from extremism. It recently promoted Israr Khan to a post as one of its inspectors. In 1996 Khan had interrupted a school choir singing carols at Washwood Heath School, Birmingham, berating Muslim children for taking part. His aggression caused some children to go home in tears.

The material taught at some independent schools is divisive and hostile to non-Muslims. In August 2006 one government minister, Ruth Kelly, said that Islamic schools which promoted extremism should be closed. As is typical of Blair's ministers, nothing has been done on this front.

 Even when extremist schools are found, they are allowed to continue operations. The Jameah Islamiyah school in East Sussex, founded in September 2003, has been linked with terrorism. It had only 9 pupils, and Ofsted inspections in 2005 found it seriously below expected educational standards. In November 2006, Ofsted recommended its being declassified as a school, but at the end of January, this recommendation had not been acted upon.

 In 2004 the Saudi-funded King Fahd Academy in west London was criticized for instilling hostility to outsiders and providing girls with inferior education. Most classes are in Arabic. As recently as December 2006 the school was promoting hatred according to a teacher who said: "The schoolbooks in use describe Jews as 'monkeys' (or apes) and Christians as 'pigs'."

Another Muslim school in west London is the Hawza Ilmiyya, where non-Muslims are described in its literature as "filth". The school is closely tied to the Islamofascist regime of Iran.

There are 700 unofficial Muslim schools or "madrassas", usually classrooms attached to mosques, in Britain. These have about 100,000 children under their care. The Muslim Parliament claimed last year that half of these use illegal corporal punishment, and annually at least a dozen pupils are sexually abused.

Where Islamic schools become publicly funded, their intolerance of British values does not disappear. The Madina school in Leicester will become publicly funded this year. Girls will be segregated from boys, and though 10% of its pupils will not be Muslim, all girls will be forced to wear Muslim headscarves.

The standard of teaching in some Muslim schools is so poor that in Birmingham half the pupils at a Jewish school, King David, are Muslims. Parents are attracted by the high educational standards on offer. In some areas, demographic change has led to pupils in Christian faith schools being predominantly Muslim. One such school is the Catholic-run St Albert's Primary in Pollockshields, Glasgow, where 90% of its intake is Muslim. Osama Saeed is a Muslim who has campaigned for this school to become officially converted to a Muslim school. Saeed is a member of the Muslim Association of Britain, a group linked to the terror-supporting Muslim Brotherhood.

The appeasing of Muslims continues without the interference of government. In Bordesley in Birmingham, a school has been named St Andrews Junior and Infants for 150 years. The city council has suggested changing the name to one that sounds less "Christian", even though it stands next to the well-known St Andrews soccer ground.

Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley, West Yorkshire has imposed a ban on stories about pigs for its youngest pupils, imposed by the principal, Barbara Harris. She said: "Recently I have been aware of an occasion where young Muslim children in class were read stories about pigs. We try to be sensitive to the fact that for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive."

When one teacher at Bayliss Court Secondary School in Slough, west of London, recently told his pupils the true statement that most suicide bombers are Muslims, he was promptly sacked.

Within this unhealthy climate, the extreme opportunists of the Muslim Council of Britain have stepped into the fray. They have suggested that ALL state schools abandon policies of integration and equality to give Muslim pupils special privileges. Their recommendations can be found in a 72-page pdf document.

The MCB's suggestions, such as excluding Muslims from drama or musical presentations associated with celebrating aspects of other religions, even though ALL pupils are bound by the National Curriculum to write out the Shahadah, have been widely condemned. The MCB wants all girls to be allowed to wear Muslim attire, even if this conflicts with school uniform policy. No parent/teacher meetings should be held during Ramadan, and Muslim pupils should not be encouraged to participate in art classes where they must make representations of humans.

Even Blair's government condemned the MCB report. In Britain, the National Curriculum encourages children to visit mosques. Here, parents have stood up and won their right to prevent this happening. In November 2006, protests by the parents of 10-year olds at Atwood Primary School, Croydon, south London, prevented such a visit. This month, Hampshire Council admitted that some parents and pupils objected to school visits to mosques.

The chaotic situation in Britain can be blamed on many factors, particularly upon Tony Blair's continual quest to impose multiculturalism upon a reluctant population. With no written constitution to refer to, there are no measures to counteract the insane whims of policy-makers. Many of those who formulate policy, such as the authors of the National Curriculum, have never been elected.

As Americans, I urge you to consider how lucky you are. The First Amendment guarantees you and your children certain rights. No one religion can be imposed upon pupils in state schools. If only Britain were to be so fortunate.


Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Family Security Matters, Spero News and Faithfreedom.org. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.

 
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