Muslim schools are a "security problem" and should close

Apologies that I'm posting on this quite a bit after the event. I could not let this one go totally uncommented on however.

Sir Cyril Taylor, of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, and key government adviser on education has said:

In some parts of the country, for example, where children only speak Bangla at home and do not mix with other communities at school, it has become a real strategic security problem.

They would be much more likely to collaborate with the police and tell them [whether] people within their own community are doing things they shouldn't be doing if they were better integrated.

Where you have two schools, one that is predominantly white and the other that is majority Bangladeshi or Pakistani, the answer is to close them both and put them together in a new academy operating on a multifaith basis.

A number of issues with this analysis:

1. The implication that those who speak other languages at home (note the issue is not whether they speak English at all) do not know the difference between right and wrong is hideous.
2. This link between the people that Muslims mix with and terrorism is ridiculous. I've written about this before, but briefly, Al-Qaeda inspired bombers do not care who they kill - they murdered a Muslim on 7/7 and many hundreds more around the world. They don't check whether people passing by testify to the faith before killing. All the 7/7 bombers spoke English and passed a variety of the usual integration tests.
3. What Taylor has done here is defined the Muslim community by the fight against terror. Communities Minister Ruth Kelly also recently did this when allocating funds - only those seen to be battling against extremism to the government's pleasure would get any. It's no longer good enough just to be Muslims and get on with life. Even schooling arrangements first and foremost according to Taylor should be formed on the basis of terrorism.
4. Many schools are predominantly Muslim/Asian because non-Muslims/white people have moved out. Quite how you force them to go to schools they don't want to go to, will be intriguing moving forward if Taylor gets his way.
5. Taylor ignores Home Office funded research that showed that pupils at predominantly Muslim schools were more liberal and tolerant than others. Perhaps those who have engaged in "white flight" may actually be the principle beneficiaries of Taylor's proposals.

Comments

[Ruh]

Great comments and response

[aineliva]

The article is in the Daily Mail!*!

Not sure that I'd trust their reporting of anything or their intrepretation of someone's words.

[Yakoub/Julaybib/Drown]

Didn't Bradford try bussing children around it's authority to ensure schools were 'mixed'? And as I recall, the policy failed.

As for it being a security issue - what twaddle! But I agree with those schools who have a 99%+ Muslim intake with a second language issue insisting on English only, even in the playground, providing it is done sensitively. But that is an educational issue.

[joe90]

This reminds me of the cliches peddled by the yankee mass-media about urban African-Americans, who they portray as a bunch of no-good dope-addled prone-to-criminality junkies etc

The reality is that African-Americans use and abuse drugs far less than middle-class white Americans - on average, are far more academically gifted, more motivated and more socially 'integrated' than their equivalents in the wider caucasian community.

I am sure when the great Abu Sinan (or even my local The Fanonite) comes round, he'll be able to add some flesh to my skeleton thoughts, with solid refernces and facts etc, as per usual.

[Yusuf Smith]

As-Salaamu 'alaikum,

Cyril Taylor's ideas were in the news a few weeks ago and I was contacted by the Evening Standard for my views on them. I blogged them, at length, here.

[Infidel & Kafir Watch]

Sir Cyril Taylor should be careful in what she is saying. If this happened then few years down the road we might be reading the following headlines in the Daily Mail:

"Muslim extremists mix and convert communities around UK"

or

"Muslims work hard to convert communities and increase terrorism"

[scotsguy]

Blame the radicals for all your negative pr!..are you guys blind?...ovbiously.