Schools are allowing Muslim families to withdraw their children from music lessons because learning an instrument is forbidden according to some Islamic beliefs.
Hundreds of pupils are thought to have been removed from state school music classes despite the subject forming part of the statutory National Curriculum.
Parents have no automatic right to withdraw their children from subjects such as music, although legal exemptions exist for religious and sex education.
However, in one London primary school about 20 pupils were removed from rehearsals for a Christmas musical and one five-year-old girl remains permanently withdrawn from mainstream music classes.
The details, which emerged after a BBC investigation, provoked concerns from Ofsted and education experts. Some Muslims believe that playing musical instruments is forbidden in the same way that alcohol is banned.
See “Muslim parents ‘banning children from music lessons'”, BBC News, 1 July 2010
So a tiny minority of Muslim parents withdraw their children from music lessons. Is that revelation of such importance as to qualify it to be the lead item on this evening’s BBC London Tonight programme? Viewers were invited to send in their comments, which were of course uniformly negative. You can just imagine the sort of racist opinions the report must have provoked but which were not read out on air. This sort of irresponsible reporting just feeds an Islamophobic narrative that depicts Muslims as an alien presence in British society.
See also Indigo Jo Blogs, 1 July 2010
Update: And see Inayat Bunglawala’s piece at Comment is Free, 2 July 2010
Further update: And check out the comments below the Evening Standard report. Some examples:
“Islam is their politics and entirely counter to democracy. It controls their lives entirely and supersedes the Laws of the host nation and society that they choose to abuse…. It acts in a slow drip feed fashion, no music lessons here, illegal Sharia court their, until naive Liberal-Lefties suddenly find that they do not have a society to give away any more. No music for their children now, no music for the rest of our society later.”
“If I was a nazi sympathiser would it be OK if I took my children out of history lessons? No, thought not.”
“Groups who seek EU shelter but reject its culture imply it is not good enough for them. They should adapt or be repatriated by law.”
“These weirdos from the third world are here to stay, just get used to it!”
“The first victims of Islam are the Moslims. A joyless, dehumanising creed, it conditions the adherents of the cult into believing that all things that make life interesting (music, art, dance, literature, etc.) are haram.”
“Multiculturalism is the most destructive force to have assailed our nation since World War 2.”
“Frankly, if Somalis want to continue to be ignorant and uncultured, let them. Did you every meet a Somalian with a degree? Me neither.”
“Good it just makes more room for Christian children in this once Christian country.”
“This is proof if we needed it how the islamification is getting its grips on society.”
And so on. The BBC must be really proud of its success in unleashing this wave of bigotry.
One more update: Predictably, the story has been taken up by Jihad Watch, which comments:
“… the ban on music, as distasteful as it is by itself, is part of a much broader agenda, and thus a symptom of a much broader problem regarding the widespread unwillingness of Muslim immigrants in Europe to assimilate as equals in society, rather than as a privileged class whose every whim and hangup must be accommodated – or else.”
Again, well done BBC.