Peace Hassan,
So what is your opinion on Faith Schools, TT? Should they be banned? Allowed to teach what they like? Restricted or monitored in some way?
My mother worked for a number of years in a (full time) Islamic school in Australia. I actually showed her your blog on Islamia last time she came to visit, and a lot of it resonated with her -- the outer show, the inner conflicts and those pesky hardline parents, etc.
Her school was I think modelled on Islamia in part and lessons in hand chopping were never on the agenda and integrationist rhetoric was firmly in place. The main problem was serious behavioural problems on the part of students and a VERY unimaginative curriculum. (Also no music, for instance, which is a sort of blasphemy to me and my mum, given that we grew up in a musical household and my brother ended up training as a concert violinist). Quranic recitation was impeccable though.
She did get some reward from it -- one of the ways was to bridge the gap between normal society and some lunatic parents. I think that was your argument, right? I believe it does hold, for schools like Islamia. Remember that there are people out there who have genuine mental problems dressed up as Islam and sometimes in order to heal that damage (or at least save their children), you have to dress up in Islamic garb. Think about what kind of a difference you made to the kids of those loony parents at Islamia -- just by being a little bit more groovy and still wearing the beard.
In the end, my mum quit though: it was all pretty depressing for her, coming from a 70s style freeschool Ivan Illych/Idries Shah perspective, where she was used to educating little Tailors. Her objective in teaching us was to make us question authority at all levels: religious, governmental, economic and metaphysical. As a Sufi she was drawn to the Muslim environment because of the common vocabulary, but it was pretty crazy for her because it is, ultimately, worse than the state with respect to questioning.
I think Islamia types do the "healing" job they are meant to do and are probably about as good as anything else on offer. The state system is pretty dire in this country in many areas (I send my kids to a posh Christian private which is breaking me financially -- BUY MY BOOK!).
But there are some other schools that seem absolutely nuts: in our area, for example, there is one Islamic school that boasts not only a music free zone but also art classes and picture books that involve no human faces. As a parent, knowing how much my kids love art and how vital it is for their creative development I actually feel physically ill contemplating such an environment for any child -- and can't believe the government permits it.
Forget Saudi curricula and anti-semetism -- ban any school who sanctions
that child abuse!
You see, I'd argue the Panorama programme misses the point. ALL schools are teaching us to cut hands and feet -- in some form or another -- all are enforcing unquestioning obedience to some kind of law (governmental, religious, metaphysical).
Muslim schools are often the worst examples of this.
But all schools teach us to cut hands and feet and, even worse, make us
consent to a world in which hands mean hands and feet mean feet -- a materialist world devoid of creativity and imagination -- what they ought to be listening to the children and learning from
them.
Cue hippie moment (my mum's anthem):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az9Az6S1nusI'd like Sufi madrases in which the teachers sing this song before assembly. In a Tailorite world, man ...
L&L,
TT
Topic: Saudi funded schools in the UK teaching hatred & extremism