It’s all over the news this morning, as is Michael Gove with his irritatingly nasal rallying cry, that schools in Birmingham may be being targeted by radical Islamic fundamentalists.
After an inspection by Ofsted of several schools in the area, which appeared to be alienating non-Muslim pupils and excluding them from school events, the government has launched a counter-attack on what Ofsted is calling the promotion of a “culture of fear and intimidation” within the education system in Birmingham.
That counter attack is taking the form of a drive to promote British Values in schools, in the hope that this will quell any recruitment drive disguised as a Trojan Horse. But this strategy is both ill-conceived and highly dangerous in a world where abysmal economic realities have already heightened tensions around the immigration debate.
Whilst Gove’s latest stance on “Being British” will no doubt go down well with those already wading in on the immigration row, any victory is bound to be Pyrrhic and most likely, short lived. Because this battle should not really be about restoring outdated Christian values, or trying to show them to be superior to Islamic ones. This battle should, and must, be a war against intolerance, whatever guise it takes. Left unchecked, the government’s current rhetoric will only serve to alienate large swathes of the British population and breed ill will and apathy towards any action which might need to be taken in the future. The knee-jerk reaction to as yet unproven allegations of extremist recruitment too needs to be justified or left alone, sooner rather than later to avoid more finger pointing and head shaking by already disgruntled voters.
Debate still rages around whether or not these schools were being targeted by Fundamentalists seeking to recruit children for their cause, but it is clear that non-Muslim children were being excluded from Islamic events and were even forbidden from putting on nativity plays because they were considered un-Islamic. Our government then, should be focusing on ensuring that schools teach children about every aspect of humanity, including religion, and the message should be a clear one – being British does not mean being defined by a narrow set of rules (which is exactly what Ofsted have criticised these schools in Birmingham for). Being British means being Broad Minded.
Michael Gove
Researching Reform 
It isn’t ‘Michael Gove with his irritatingly nasal rallying cry’ but the persistently nauseating wheezes of do-gooders and ‘liberals’ (who don’t have to live inside Islamic communities) that have got us into this situation.
It was priceless to see Ch 4’s Jon Snow left lost for words at the attitude of the Asians he tried to interview. He never got a straight answer out of any of them and the indigenous white communities have been putting up with this slight of hand and verbal double speak for decades.
Their self-imposed cultural apartheid is at the root of this problem together with their deigning to live among humans of a lesser religions.
They know nothing of British values nor of Christian values, which by the tenor used by the author is also something they do not subscribe to. But in a Christian value society she can have those agnostic views and no one thinks the worse of her (or him). She can even wear a short skirt and change her religion should she feel so inclined without incurring any form of penalty. Try that as a Mohammedan !
In my experience Islam is very good at playing the victim’s role of “You don’t understand our special needs.” This has been left unchecked and its simply grown to a point where a battle may have to take place not against our intolerance but Islamic intolerance of everything that they don’t agree with.
Ten years ago I was a Governor at a Church of England primary school and the only white faces you could count on your hand. Morning assembly even then had been banished along with morning prayers and any form of singing or thanking God – any God – for one’s existence. That Church of England school had, even then, moved beyond the point of being merely agnostic and secular.
I wonder how many of your readers are simply unaware of G K Chesterton now prophetic book “The Flying Inn” published in 1914. Not many, I would suspect.
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As a [former] school governor, I just find it a real shame that you were ever aware of the colours of the faces of the children. They were children. Do you adopt this approach to the selection of the England football or cricket team? Or the GPs at your local medical centre? And, while we are on the subject, how many white faces would you have liked to have seen to make it more ‘acceptable’ to you, in percentage terms?
The frothing at the mouth over ‘trojan horses’ in schools and the hysteria that certain sections of the media, in particular, seem to enjoy attempting to whip up could be solved in a heartbeat; all schools should be secular. No more ‘C of E’, Roman Catholic, ‘faith-based’ or any other religious labelling (yes, including Islamic schools). Schools are institutions for education, and not for expressing religious belief. Every religious belief system is based on a closed mind to a greater or lesser degree. The clue here is in the word ‘faith’. Children’s minds should be as free as possible to explore and learn about the world, their place in it (to include the spiritual views others may, and do, hold) and certainly within the state education system. I know this may ‘offend’ the Christians who consider their own belief system as somehow superior or more cultured and tolerant, but the long history of Christianity and its expression in both state affairs and personal lives is overwhelmingly unpleasant and bigoted. Maybe once we remove the religious labelling, we can then start a real discussion about how best to provide children with the tools for critical, intelligent and creative thinking. If that leads them to a ‘god’ they wish to worship, that will be their free choice.
The truth is [I know it hurts but try facing up to it anyway] that the media has whipped up this issue once again [we’ve heard it all before over decades], and now politicians concerned about votes in less than twelve months, and the rise of Ukip, are surfing the zeitgeist and needing to make the ‘right’ noises to be in step with what is, after all, a minority of people in the country (5 million or so) who voted Ukip at the recent European elections; a minority who seem to shout nice and loud, but we all know about empty vessels, don’t we. Mrs Merton would be disappointed. We don’t have a heated debate; we just have the heat.
I have lived in ‘immigrant’ communities in both Wolverhampton and Bradford. In each case, I found the vast majority to be welcoming, community-spirited, and non-threatening to my ‘values’ (which did not involve labelling anyone living here by right or choice as ‘Asians’, even though I am sure many were proud of their heritage). What most of ‘them’ (your divisive language speaks as powerfully of your own internal apartheid) have brought to this country is a welcome difference; an addition to the existing culture which should be embraced as an opportunity to learn and understand. You are, of course, correct that some people who live in this country want to impose their own views on others, and are intolerant of others but that is not something that is limited to religion, although all religion could, and should, be scrutinised far more than it currently is.
Of course, the current round of media-generated fearmongering is nothing we haven’t seen before. It really offers two alternatives: start screaming ‘British culture is being eroded and our way of life is under threat, or use it as an opportunity to debate the issues. Time and again, the media prefers the former approach because it appeals to emotion and not reason. It also knows that a significant number of people in this country still consider themselves as ‘Christians’, even if they really aren’t and have no deep religious belief. But those old habits and prejudices die hard, and those who wear a tattoo of ‘Christianity’ (ie skin deep only, if that) would then (if they adopted the second course) need to start confronting some of their own beliefs again, and it is much easier to bring out and dust off your old ones, however absurd and flaky; and that would be a very salutary and unpleasant experience.
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Thank you for your insightful comment, Mark.
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Do I adopt this approach you ask vis-à-vis football or cricket teams etc ? No, I don’t, but you see how easy it is for someone (you) to get all upset and at the same time how difficult it is to explain another point of view or perceived/actual problems. The colour of the faces is pertinent since it was a C of E school and the vast majoirty were not. Do madrasas have this inversion ?
This is the legacy of Political Correctness with which we will have to live for years to come.
You may be surprised to learn I agree with you – “schools should be institutions for education, and not for expressing religious belief’ – however, a little injection of religion to reinforce morals and values is no bad thing. Whether you believe or always disbelieve as a child, or whether you change your mind as an adult, it is a right all citizens should have but do not.
Could I also draw your attention to the ‘English’ run schools in China, HK, Malaya, and India ?
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Paradox: tolerating the intolerant means the intolerant end up disempowering the tolerant. Ofsted found teachers who refuse to shake hand with female colleagues – because they are female. Do we tolerate that? No easy answers as suggested in this article. How did the CofE primary school celebrate Atheists, or were they simply not tolerated? “Any G*d” does not equal “No G*d”.
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Hi Vox, thank you for your comment. I think we need to define tolerance, and that has always been a bone of contention, highlighted by the different nuances in the word liberal, for example. We have liberal with a small ‘l’ and Liberal with a capital ‘L’ and there are fascinating distinctions to be made within each.
To my mind at least, being tolerant is about accepting that all views must be aired, but it does not follow, for me at least, that all views should be adopted. Society has to make choices in large part for practical reasons, so whilst tolerance is important, I don’t think it should be defined as complete submission.
Britain’s greatness, if we can ever find it again, lies not in its oppression of values, or peoples (think the Colonial era and today’s various skewed war on immigration for example), but in its courage and dedication to truth, liberty and understanding, all underpinned by, I would argue, a strong secular state that is sure of itself.
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Right on the money. This is another of Blair’s legacies – that we should have tolerance shoved down our throats in the name of tolerance. The state dictates what we are allowed to think, if we want to avoid sanctions. Are we more Soviet than the CCCP ? Or is Orwell’s “thoughtcrime” now embedded in our culture ?
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