Muslim Schools
OF COURSE, when we are putting forward our views on faith schools, socialists and trade unionists have to be extremely careful not to be seen to be part and parcel of a racist society that denies rights to one minority while allowing the established faith groups to maintain their privileges.
Such discrimination is particularly sharply felt within some Muslim communities, with their anger fuelled by the Iraq war, poverty and growing Islamophobia since 9/11. In areas of London, for example, Christian Church schools faith requirements operate at the expense of Muslim children’s access to local schools.
At this stage, most Muslims in Britain support multiracial, multifaith schools, understanding that further separatism would only lead to increased discrimination against the Muslim community. But some calls have been made for the setting-up of more state funded Islamic faith schools. However, socialists have to explain that this would be a retrograde step, both for workers as a whole and the Muslim community in particular.
Increasing the numbers of faith schools would only increase segregation and division in working-class communities. In contrast, multi-faith, comprehensive education, while insufficient on its own to overcome all the problems of society as a whole, enables youth to accept and recognise differences of faith and race, fostering a unity that can be built on in the wider community beyond the school gates.
This is particularly important at a time when, in the absence of a clear socialist alternative, poverty, wars and oppression have created the conditions for the growth of more fundamentalist interpretations of Christianity, Islam and other faiths. Unchallenged, these ideas could contribute to increasing religious and ethnic tensions that can dangerously divide workers and youth.
Rather than increase the numbers of faith schools, we stand for separate schools of any faith to become reintegrated as non-selective local community schools.
Such discrimination is particularly sharply felt within some Muslim communities, with their anger fuelled by the Iraq war, poverty and growing Islamophobia since 9/11. In areas of London, for example, Christian Church schools faith requirements operate at the expense of Muslim children’s access to local schools.
At this stage, most Muslims in Britain support multiracial, multifaith schools, understanding that further separatism would only lead to increased discrimination against the Muslim community. But some calls have been made for the setting-up of more state funded Islamic faith schools. However, socialists have to explain that this would be a retrograde step, both for workers as a whole and the Muslim community in particular.
Increasing the numbers of faith schools would only increase segregation and division in working-class communities. In contrast, multi-faith, comprehensive education, while insufficient on its own to overcome all the problems of society as a whole, enables youth to accept and recognise differences of faith and race, fostering a unity that can be built on in the wider community beyond the school gates.
This is particularly important at a time when, in the absence of a clear socialist alternative, poverty, wars and oppression have created the conditions for the growth of more fundamentalist interpretations of Christianity, Islam and other faiths. Unchallenged, these ideas could contribute to increasing religious and ethnic tensions that can dangerously divide workers and youth.
Rather than increase the numbers of faith schools, we stand for separate schools of any faith to become reintegrated as non-selective local community schools.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home