 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Feb. 23, 2007
/ 5 Adar, 5767
Should Muslim students get special treatment in U.K. schools?
By
Diana West
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I saw something eerie this week. It wasn't an apparition exactly, but rather a head-spinning blur of headlines about global jihad that, rather incredibly, began to take on the unmistakable shape of a British old school tie.
How? Maybe I should start by explaining it was the old school tie that came to mind first in the form of a new publication on British education: Namely, a 72-page manifesto (sorry, "guidance") from the Muslim Council of Britain on how British state schools might better accommodate children from the Muslim community, which, according to the 2001 census, makes up 2.7 percent of the British population.
Did I say "better" accommodate their Muslim pupils? I mean accommodate them much, much better. In fact, if the British were to adopt half of the MCB's recommendations for making British schooling Muslim-friendly, they might as well re-issue the 19th-century boys' school classic as Abdullah Brown's School Days. At the crux of the MCB document is a call for special treatment for Britain's Muslim students that is so special as to reorient the entire British system according to Islamic law.
The report kicks off with a British poll finding that religion "appears to be more important" to young Muslims than to young people of "white British or mixed heritage." It seems to follow, then, at least according to MCB logic, that Muslim religious requirements should also supersede those of "white British or mixed heritage young people," not to mention those of the Church of England. And, so, in this report, they effectively do.
Muslim girls should be allowed to wear the hijab instead of regulation uniforms — of course, "schools may wish to specify the colour." (Thanks awfully.) Muslim boys should be allowed to grow beards "following the example of the Prophet Muhammad," not school grooming guidelines. Muslim children should receive "halal meals," a suggestion which entails a slew of other "suggestions" for staff training and food preparation and storage, and Muslim children should be allotted prayer rooms, perhaps segregated by sex.
That's not all. "Muslim pupils who wish to pray will need access to washing facilities to perform Wudu, which includes the washing of the hands, mouth, arms to the elbow and feet." Washing facilities?
The guidelines continue. "This state of purification becomes nullified when one goes to the toilet or breaks wind." Heavens. Such, er, nullification calls for more washing — "private parts," this time. "Hence pupils will need to use water cans or bottles that are easily accessible from a storage area in or near the washing area."
Then comes Ramadan. Rather than simply informing schools how to accommodate pupils' private fasting, the MCB also explains how schools might participate in the holiday. Urging them to schedule tests, meetings, swimming ("the potential for swallowing water is very high") and sex education — even reproductive science lessons — some other time, the report also urges schools "to build on" the Ramadan spirit and participate in nightly fast-breaking meals.
Muslim students should be allowed to take Arabic as a foreign language, and perhaps study "the art of Qur'anic recitation" instead of music. And on and on. The MCB isn't asking the British taxpayer to create the perfect sharia state exactly, but rather the perfect sharia state school system.
And what does all of this have to do with that blur of jihad stories mentioned at the top of the column? First, consider the headlines. In Pakistan, a liberal-minded minister (and wife and mother of two) was assassinated for not wearing a veil. (The shooter reportedly said, "I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah's commandment.") Also in Pakistan, barbers received threatening letters warning them against continuing their "anti-sharia work"— cutting customers' beards. (One barber told the Associated Press that two dozen barbers have responded by asking customers not to request shaves.) In London, a Muslim father killed his wife and four daughters (ages 16, 13, 10 and 3) because, according to the Telegraph, "he could not bear them adopting a more westernised lifestyle."
What is quite eerie about these horrific crimes is the striking fact that the perpetrators, who acted to avenge various infractions of Islamic law, would likely feel right at home in a British state school that had adopted the MCB's recommendations. In other words, the outlaws and the advocacy group are working in their different ways to enact Islamic law. Which should teach us all a lesson — if we bothered to learn it.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2007, Diana West
|
