Category Archives: Secular

Muslim school run by ‘theocrats’ claims NSS

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim school has been given state funding to save it from closure. Teachers at Iqra primary in Brixton have been working for free because of a cash crisis. But now it has received £250,000 from Lambeth council and joined the state sector. It has become one of six state-funded Muslim primaries in England. Pupils will follow the national curriculum but have lessons in Quranic studies and be taught in accordance with their beliefs.

Campaigners who oppose faith schools condemned the move. Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “Not only has Lambeth ensured these children will be taught in isolation from the mainstream, and will therefore find it difficult to function in a diverse society in later life, they have delivered them into the hands of theocrats who will drill religion into their heads.”

But Iqra’s supporters stressed it would work closely with the local community. Acting headteacher Firdos Qazi said: “The parents, pupils and the community are pleased Lambeth has accepted them as part of their family of schools. We are looking forward to working with our friends and neighbours to make a school of which they and we can be proud.”

Lambeth cabinet member for children’s services Paul McGlone said: “We’re pleased we can provide a free education at this popular school.”

Evening Standard, 28 October 2008

Death for apostasy?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Reading AC Grayling’s latest article and listening to the protestations of the Council of Ex-Muslims, you would think that the death penalty is being gratuitously and frequently applied to those who renounce Islam or harbour thoughts of apostasy. As a Muslim who has lived most of my life in Muslim countries, this picture is hard to recognise.”

Nesrine Malik at Comment is Free, 17 October 2008

Shari’a law called ‘racist, backward’ at meeting of ex-Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Council of ex-MuslimsLondon — Sweeping legal challenges must be made against the creeping introduction of Islamic law (shari’a) in the United Kingdom, the head of a new body of former Muslims said here Friday. The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, a group bringing together former adherents of the Islamic faith as well as humanists, held its first international conference in London. Several speakers decried the rise of what they called “political Islam” across Europe.

CNSNews.com, 13 October 2008

That would be this so-called Council of Ex-Muslims. Its conference brought together members of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran (who were responsible for launching the organisation) along with militant atheists and secularists. With the exception of Ibn Warraq, there was scarcely an ex-Muslim in sight.

Update:  See also the Guardian, which for some reason has given space to A.C Grayling to promote this fraud.

France bans immigrants wearing burqas in state language classes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In secular France, it is illegal for hotel owners to turn away women wearing Muslim headscarves but OK to ban those wearing head-to-toe burqas from state-sponsored French language classes.

Two recent decisions have demonstrated how tough and touchy it is to legislate religious expression in a country that has a long-standing separation between church and state – and an increasingly multicultural society with a growing Muslim population.

“Religious freedom is not absolute,” the head of France’s government anti-discrimination agency, Louis Schweitzer, said in an interview with the Catholic daily La Croix, published Thursday. He said authorities are trying to find “the most reasonable compromise.”

His agency ruled last month that it was acceptable to ban women wearing the burqa and niqab – billowing clothes that cover the body and face worn by pious Muslim women – from state-sponsored French language classes for immigrants.

Earlier this year, a national agency responsible for dealing with new immigrants complained that the presence of the veiled women “hinders the proper functioning” of the language classes and asked the anti-discimination agency, known as Halde, to examine the matter.

In its Sept. 15 decision, Halde called the burqa a symbol of “female submission that goes beyond its religious meaning” and said it is “not unreasonable, for public security requirements … or the protection of civil liberties” to bar it from the publicly funded language classrooms.

USA Today, 9 October 2008

Via Islam in Europe

Let Muslim women speak

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The last few weeks have been particularly eventful for Muslim women on Comment is Free. We would have felt extremely exhausted by all the excitement, were it not for the fact that – with the notable exception of Samia Rahman and Reefat Drabu – we were spared the ignominy of having to participate in the debate ourselves.

“AC Grayling started us off by equating the headscarf with an iron shackle and stating that Muslim women are complicit in their own oppression. In the process of attacking the abhorrent denial of freedom that Muslim women can wrongly suffer, Grayling (in)advertently takes away the very same freedom of choice to decide to wear the hijab if we choose.

“Julie Burchill bigged up Christianity, and in the process scathingly dismissed Islam and Muslim women. The only “Muslim” women she suggested as role models – Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji – were those she claimed had rejected Islam and were no longer Muslim….

“Islamic theology has a strong framework for a blueprint of gender equality…. we may say, believe and do things which don’t fit in with the caricature of a Muslim woman who would be desperate to be ‘liberated’ from Islam if only she knew it.

“You may find our voices reverberating with the view that we like being Muslim women, we just want to make our lives better and in line with true Islamic principles. It would be nice if those who debate vociferously about Muslim women would therefore move over and give us the seat at the table that we’re demanding.”

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at Comment is Free, 2 September 2008

Julie Burchill on the superiority of Christianity over Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When one considers the shocking plight of British Muslims who seek to convert to Christianity, it seems to me quite offensive that Christianity should be dismissed by Dawkins and his like in the same breath as Islam.”

Julie Burchill in the Guardian, 14 August 2008

In fact, Dawkins shares Burchill’s views on the superiority of Christianity over Islam. Still, why let facts get in the way of anti-Muslim bigotry, eh Julie?

Growth of Islam at expense of Christianity would be ‘poor exchange’ – Dawkins

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Imagine no religionThe scientist and secular campaigner Professor Richard Dawkins yesterday said that Europe was a “haven of civilisation” trapped between the Islamic world and the US.

The writer of The God Delusion, speaking at a packed session of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said that in his view religious belief was not on the wane, even if attendance at churches in the UK was declining.

He said that organised religion in the US – in particular the “mega-churches” of the evangelical denominations – and the world of Islam are having increasing influence.

After saying there was an “increasing Islamic element in this society” in Britain, he added: “It is possible to see Europe as a haven of civilisation, with the pincer movement of Islam on one side and the US on the other.”

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Hijab-wearing women complicit in their own oppression – A.C. Grayling

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When I hear or read an eloquent Muslim woman defending the headscarf or the more extreme forms of covering which, they say, are so liberating, I am reminded of that dangerous idea: the idea of complicity in one’s own repression, the state of willingly accepting and enacting what the oppressor, or the oppressive mindset, dictates….

“Tradition and religion between them – such partners – make shackles of iron. And the shackles are mainly worn by women. They are forged as much in the fires that burn down girls’ schools as in the cool conceit of those who celebrate the fact that an iron shackle can look like a piece of cloth draped over a head.”

A.C. Grayling in the Guardian, 7 August 2008

Dawkins blames Muslims for ‘importing creationism’ into classroom

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dawkins God DelusionDevout Muslims are importing creationist theories into science and are not being challenged because of political correctness, one of the country’s most famous scientists said tonight.

Professor Richard Dawkins argued that as a result teachers were promoting the “mythology” of creationism over the science of evolution.

Professor Dawkins, a geneticist and author of the best-selling book The God Delusion, said:

“Islam is importing creationism into this country. Most devout Muslims are creationists – so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught. Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more but it doesn’t want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come.”

He added: “It seems as though teachers are terribly frightened of being thought racist. It’s almost impossible to say anything against Islam in this country because if you do you are accused of being racist or Islamophobic.”

Daily Mail, 4 August 2008

On the other hand, there are those of us who would argue that paranoid delusions about the impact on educational policy of a minority faith community who comprise less than 3% of the population of the UK are quite accurately categorisable as Islamophobia.

See also the Daily Telegraph, which reports: “Prof Dawkins said the failure in classrooms meant religious fanatics had a chance to get hold. ‘Because we are all brought up to respect faith, it leaves open a gap through which fanatics can charge’, he said.”

Update:  Predictably, Dawkins’ views are approvingly reproduced by the British National Party. Of course, the BNP’s own position is that they’re defending “Christian civilisation” against Islam. But they’re prepared to overlook minor differences like that when it comes to whipping up hatred against Muslims.

Update 2:  See Terry Sanderson, “Is Bob Pitt a new McCarthy?”, National Secular Society, 8 August 2008