I fear Islamic extremism in these schools is just the tip of the iceberg By MANZOOR MOGHAL, chairman of the Muslim Forum, who warned 10 years ago in the Mail of militants targeting our schools
The Ofsted report on Islamic extremism in Birmingham schools is profoundly disturbing.
Anyone who believes in liberal values will be outraged at the revelations of institutionalised intimidation and brainwashing by a network of zealots, bent on promoting their narrow ideology.
As Ofsted demonstrates, within the education system of England’s second largest city, there are now alien practices that should have no part in an inclusive, cohesive society, such as a ban on music, gender segregation, the cancellation of Christmas events, the bullying of non-Muslim staff and restrictions on the teaching of subjects that do not match fundamentalist doctrines.
In one primary school, western women were reportedly described as ‘white prostitutes’, while a session of anti-Christian chants was organised at assembly.
Yet, although these revelations are appalling, they hardly come as a surprise to me.
As chairman of the Muslim Forum, a think-tank on Islamic issues, and a long-standing community activist in the East Midlands, I have warned for more than a decade about the insidious spread of radicalism through our civic institutions.
Ten years ago almost to the day, I wrote in this newspaper about the dangers of giving into the demands made by a self-appointed group of Muslim academics and ‘community activists’ who complained of Islamophobia in our education system.
They demanded state funding for separate Muslim schools and insisted on substantial changes in the culture, teaching methods and even curriculum of mainstream state schools to accommodate the special needs, ‘real and imaginary’, of Muslim pupils.
Where bigotry existed, I said, it should be fought as vigorously as possible. I also warned that to accede to all the demands in their report would create only division and disharmony.
Yet in the years since then, there has been concession after concession as a small minority of Muslim hardliners have aggressively exploited the British tradition of tolerance in pursuit of their own agenda in our education system.
Filled with misogyny and bigotry, the radicals’ approach is the very opposite of the world of social cohesion that our political leaders claim to be striving for.
The failure to stand up to extremism in state schools exactly matches the disgraceful reluctance for much of the past two decades to tackle hate-preachers such as Abu Hamza, who was treated with kid gloves by the security services before he was finally extradited to the U.S.
The lavish welfare benefits given to Hamza’s family have their equivalence in the taxpayers’ funding for Birmingham schools run by Islamic extremists.
There have been other factors behind the radicals’ success.
One is the increasingly fragmented nature of the education system, with a plethora of new institutions having been created, such as academies, city technology colleges and free schools. This has made it harder for central and local government to enforce basic standards of teaching.
Governing bodies have also been given much greater powers, becoming almost autonomous entities even though governors often lack professional expertise or experience in education.
Greater influence for school governors was meant to be a vehicle for enhancing local democracy, but in Birmingham it has become a weapon of radicalism.
Modern Britain’s fixation with multi-culturalism has also played its part.
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of hard-working Muslim citizens in Britain would be appalled at the thought of their children being radicalised.
Any reasonable parent would prefer their child to be reared in a school environment of freedom and intellectual inquiry that leads to decent job prospects, than inculcated with the destructive influence of religious separatism.
For me, this is all deeply worrying. As an East African Asian, I first settled in this country in 1972, having fled Idi Amin’s brutal, racially intolerant regime in Uganda.
I found Britain a wonderfully open, welcoming nation, devoid of the kind of lethal prejudice that I had experienced in Uganda.
Here, I could practise my faith and enjoy family life without any totalitarian state intervention.
It would have seemed utterly bizarre when I first arrived to learn that, 40 years later, schools here would be scarred by segregation, intimidation and anti-white, anti-British sentiments.
Sadly, what is happening in Birmingham schools is just part of a wider pattern of radical Islamic extremism gaining ground in Britain, reflected in the spread of Sharia courts, the prevalence of the female veil or burka and the incidence of forced marriages.
Almost a century after women first won the vote in this country, a growing number of British Muslim women are treated as second-class citizens thanks to the growth of radicalism.
In the same vein, the British democratic system — once the most robust in the world — has been increasingly debased by the import of corrupt practices from parts of the developing world, such as the abuse of postal votes and the excessive obedience to tribal elders.
The cesspit of Tower Hamlets council in East London, currently the subject of eight official investigations (into alleged vote-rigging), is a monument to this political degradation.
And in the context of education, Birmingham may just be the tip of the iceberg. If Ofsted were to investigate places such as Dewsbury, Oldham, Derby and Bradford, I imagine it would find much the same trends.
If we are really to deal with this issue, the climate of denial in the educational establishment has to end. Instead of hiding behind the usual apologies and appeasement, we have to face up to the challenge of Islamic radicalism at the heart of our schools.
The government does, belatedly, appear to have got the message. But its plans for a more robust regime from Ofsted, including the introduction of snap inspections, should be just the start.
Teachers and school governors who claim this is unfair — and many in Birmingham already have — know that retail premises, from restaurants to corner shops, face official inspections without notice so that dangerous practices cannot be covered up. Why should schools be any different?
Personally, I would also take religion out of state schools altogether, as happens in France.
I know Britain is a Christian country and that some Catholic and Church of England schools are among the best in the land. But, for me, faith should belong to the private realm rather than the educational structure.
It is wrong, I feel, for the taxpayer to be required to support different types of religious ethos.
True, not one of the schools in the Ofsted Birmingham report is a faith institution and each is run by the local authority.
But the very fact that Muslim faith schools exist has been eagerly used by the radicals to further their campaign. If we had an entirely secular state system, it would be much harder for the zealots to gain ground.
We cannot allow the Islamic radicals to use their pernicious influence in our schools to deepen divisions in modern Britain. We should be pushing in the opposite direction — towards a harmonious Britain, irrespective of faith.
That is why the senior members of the Cabinet, especially Education Secretary Michael Gove and Home Secretary Theresa May, should be presenting a united front against extremism rather than indulging in point-scoring as they jostle for position.
As Ofsted’s chilling report has shown, this issue is far more important than the ambitions of two Cabinet ministers.
Anyone who believes in liberal values will be outraged at the revelations of institutionalised intimidation and brainwashing by a network of zealots, bent on promoting their narrow ideology.
As Ofsted demonstrates, within the education system of England’s second largest city, there are now alien practices that should have no part in an inclusive, cohesive society, such as a ban on music, gender segregation, the cancellation of Christmas events, the bullying of non-Muslim staff and restrictions on the teaching of subjects that do not match fundamentalist doctrines.
Yet, although these revelations are appalling, they hardly come as a surprise to me.
As chairman of the Muslim Forum, a think-tank on Islamic issues, and a long-standing community activist in the East Midlands, I have warned for more than a decade about the insidious spread of radicalism through our civic institutions.
Ten years ago almost to the day, I wrote in this newspaper about the dangers of giving into the demands made by a self-appointed group of Muslim academics and ‘community activists’ who complained of Islamophobia in our education system.
They demanded state funding for separate Muslim schools and insisted on substantial changes in the culture, teaching methods and even curriculum of mainstream state schools to accommodate the special needs, ‘real and imaginary’, of Muslim pupils.
Where bigotry existed, I said, it should be fought as vigorously as possible. I also warned that to accede to all the demands in their report would create only division and disharmony.
Yet in the years since then, there has been concession after concession as a small minority of Muslim hardliners have aggressively exploited the British tradition of tolerance in pursuit of their own agenda in our education system.
Filled with misogyny and bigotry, the radicals’ approach is the very opposite of the world of social cohesion that our political leaders claim to be striving for.
Indeed, it is precisely because our politicians and bureaucrats — from local education authorities to the Cabinet — have been in denial about the problem until recently that the extremist brand of Islam has been allowed to take root in our schools.
Terrified of accusations of racism, obsessed with the official state creed of diversity, our political class has wilfully turned a blind eye to the dangerous fundamentalism in our midst.
The lavish welfare benefits given to Hamza’s family have their equivalence in the taxpayers’ funding for Birmingham schools run by Islamic extremists.
There have been other factors behind the radicals’ success.
One is the increasingly fragmented nature of the education system, with a plethora of new institutions having been created, such as academies, city technology colleges and free schools. This has made it harder for central and local government to enforce basic standards of teaching.
Governing bodies have also been given much greater powers, becoming almost autonomous entities even though governors often lack professional expertise or experience in education.
Greater influence for school governors was meant to be a vehicle for enhancing local democracy, but in Birmingham it has become a weapon of radicalism.
Modern Britain’s fixation with multi-culturalism has also played its part.
Instead of greater integration, this political creed has promoted separatism by emphasising differences and encouraging minority ethnic groups to cling to the customs of their homeland.
In Birmingham, this has resulted in the rejection of western values by the governing bodies of too many Muslim-dominated schools.The fact is that the overwhelming majority of hard-working Muslim citizens in Britain would be appalled at the thought of their children being radicalised.
Any reasonable parent would prefer their child to be reared in a school environment of freedom and intellectual inquiry that leads to decent job prospects, than inculcated with the destructive influence of religious separatism.
For me, this is all deeply worrying. As an East African Asian, I first settled in this country in 1972, having fled Idi Amin’s brutal, racially intolerant regime in Uganda.
Here, I could practise my faith and enjoy family life without any totalitarian state intervention.
It would have seemed utterly bizarre when I first arrived to learn that, 40 years later, schools here would be scarred by segregation, intimidation and anti-white, anti-British sentiments.
Sadly, what is happening in Birmingham schools is just part of a wider pattern of radical Islamic extremism gaining ground in Britain, reflected in the spread of Sharia courts, the prevalence of the female veil or burka and the incidence of forced marriages.
Almost a century after women first won the vote in this country, a growing number of British Muslim women are treated as second-class citizens thanks to the growth of radicalism.
In the same vein, the British democratic system — once the most robust in the world — has been increasingly debased by the import of corrupt practices from parts of the developing world, such as the abuse of postal votes and the excessive obedience to tribal elders.
The cesspit of Tower Hamlets council in East London, currently the subject of eight official investigations (into alleged vote-rigging), is a monument to this political degradation.
And in the context of education, Birmingham may just be the tip of the iceberg. If Ofsted were to investigate places such as Dewsbury, Oldham, Derby and Bradford, I imagine it would find much the same trends.
If we are really to deal with this issue, the climate of denial in the educational establishment has to end. Instead of hiding behind the usual apologies and appeasement, we have to face up to the challenge of Islamic radicalism at the heart of our schools.
The government does, belatedly, appear to have got the message. But its plans for a more robust regime from Ofsted, including the introduction of snap inspections, should be just the start.
I know Britain is a Christian country and that some Catholic and Church of England schools are among the best in the land. But, for me, faith should belong to the private realm rather than the educational structure.
It is wrong, I feel, for the taxpayer to be required to support different types of religious ethos.
True, not one of the schools in the Ofsted Birmingham report is a faith institution and each is run by the local authority.
But the very fact that Muslim faith schools exist has been eagerly used by the radicals to further their campaign. If we had an entirely secular state system, it would be much harder for the zealots to gain ground.
We cannot allow the Islamic radicals to use their pernicious influence in our schools to deepen divisions in modern Britain. We should be pushing in the opposite direction — towards a harmonious Britain, irrespective of faith.
That is why the senior members of the Cabinet, especially Education Secretary Michael Gove and Home Secretary Theresa May, should be presenting a united front against extremism rather than indulging in point-scoring as they jostle for position.
As Ofsted’s chilling report has shown, this issue is far more important than the ambitions of two Cabinet ministers.
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