Monday, October 21, 2013

Britain: Scandal-Plagued Muslim School "Dysfunctional"



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Britain: Scandal-Plagued Muslim School "Dysfunctional"

by Soeren Kern
October 21, 2013 at 5:00 am
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In a separate but related matter, the Al-Madinah School is being investigated by the government over alleged financial irregularities.
A taxpayer-funded Muslim school in England that was recently exposed for operating according to Islamic Sharia law has been condemned by government inspectors as being "dysfunctional" and "in chaos."
Ofsted, the official agency for inspecting British schools, launched an urgent investigation into the Al-Madinah School in Derby, an industrial city in central England, after it emerged that Islamic fundamentalists running the school ordered all female teachers -- including those who are not Muslim -- to cover their heads and shoulders with a hijab, an Islamic scarf.
In addition to the strict dress code, pupils at the school, have been banned from singing songs, playing musical instruments, or reading fairy tales, activities deemed to be "un-Islamic," according to non-Muslim staff members at the school.
When teaching children the alphabet, staff are prohibited from associating the letter 'P' with the word "pig." Female staff are banned from wearing jewelry and are instructed to avoid shaking hands with male teachers to prevent "insult."
The revelations about the un-British goings-on at the Al-Madinah School -- the working conditions at the school have been compared to "being in Pakistan" -- have fueled outrage over what some are calling underhanded attempts to establish a parallel Islamic education system in Britain.
The Ofsted inspection of Al-Madinah, which was originally scheduled to take place in late 2013, was brought forward to October 1-2 after it emerged that Muslim fundamentalists had taken control of the school.
On the first day of the inspection, officials found so many problems that they closed down the school entirely while the investigation continued.
Inspectors found, for example, that a one-hour-long arithmetic lesson consisted almost entirely of pupils cutting out and pasting different shapes. Inspectors also found that the only subject which taught crucial literacy skills was Islamic Studies.
Inspectors, however, cleared the school of allegations that it had been discriminating against girls by placing them at the back of the class. Inspectors also found that boys and girls had different lunch sittings due to the small size of the dining room.
The Ofsted inspection report, which was published on October 17, states: "This school is dysfunctional. The basic systems and processes a school needs to operate well are not in place. The school is in chaos and reliant on the goodwill of an interim principal to prevent it totally collapsing." The report continues:
This is a school which has been set up and run by representatives of the [Muslim] community with limited knowledge and experience. Leadership and management, including governance, are inadequate and have been unable to improve the school.
Staff have been appointed to key roles for which they do not have qualifications and experience. For example, most of the primary school teachers have not taught before and the head of the primary school is experienced in teaching secondary-aged pupils only.
The hard-hitting report rates the Al-Madinah School as "inadequate" in all four inspection categories -- achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behavior and safety of pupils, and leadership and management. It concludes:
In accordance with the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils and acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.
A school that is placed in special measures is subject to regular subject to regular short-notice Ofsted inspections to monitor its improvement. If conditions at the school do not improve within one year it may be closed. In the interim period, the school is eligible to obtain a significant increase in taxpayer money to help implement changes recommended by Ofsted.
The Al-Madinah School opened in September 2012 as a so-called free school, which is similar to a private school in that it operates beyond the control of local authorities, but is different from a private school in that its operations are paid for by British taxpayers.
Free schools were introduced by the ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2011 based on the argument that such schools would create more competition for public schools and thus drive up educational standards.
The new free school policy makes it possible for parents, teachers, charities and businesses to set up their own schools, along with the freedom to decide the length of school day and term, the curriculum, teacher pay and how budgets are spent.
Nevertheless, British Education Secretary Michael Gove has explicitly stated that Muslim fundamentalists would not be allowed to set up free schools, and the Department of Education has established guidelines to discourage Muslim separatism. As a result, many Muslim groups seeking to establish free schools have been marketing themselves as "inter-faith" schools in an effort to qualify for government funding.
The Al-Madinah School -- which originally marketed itself as an "inter-faith" school to qualify for taxpayer monies -- promised that at least 50% of its students would be non-Muslim. After it obtained £1.4 million (€1.7 million; $2.25 million) in government financing, however, the administrators of Al-Madinah switched gears and began operating the school according to Islamic law, apparently to ensure that the school would be 100% Muslim.
In an interview with the BBC, the Al-Madinah School's interim principal, Stuart Wilson, said, "Obviously the report doesn't make pleasant reading for anybody. We don't want to be in this position -- we wish we weren't in this position -- but what we need to do now is to accept the report in full and use it to move the school forward."
Wilson, a non-Muslim hired by the school apparently in an effort to assuage fears about Islamic fundamentalism, added that he believes the Al-Madinah School still has a future. "The school is on a journey," he said. "There will need to be a school here for 412 children."
The opposition Labour Party -- which is staunchly opposed to the government's free school program because it competes with the public school system -- has seized upon the problems at Al-Madinah.
In an "urgent debate" at the House of Commons on October 17, the Labour Party's shadow education secretary, Tristam Hunt, told MPs: "What today's Ofsted report exposes is that the government's free school program has become a dangerous free-for-all -- an out-of-control ideological experiment…. It is a devastating blow to the education secretary's flagship policy."
But Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking on BBC Radio Derby, countered his critics: "Let's not use this as a stick with which to beat the whole free school movement, because actually there are now hundreds of schools in our country that are set up as free schools and on average they have more outstanding ratings and more good ratings than established schools. So they are good things, but when it goes wrong -- just as when a state school goes wrong -- you've got to get in there, sort it out or close it down."
In a separate but related matter, the Al-Madinah School is being investigated by the government over alleged financial irregularities. Speaking at the House of Commons debate, the minister for state schools, David Laws, told MPs: "At the end of July [2013] we began a wide-ranging investigation into the financial management and governance of the [Al-Madinah] school. Our investigations did indeed find significant and numerous breaches of the conditions in its funding agreement."
The local MP for Derby, Chris Williamson, has called for the school to be closed down completely: "Frankly, the position of Al-Madinah school is now untenable and I would fully expect the school to close and for the children to be found alternative places in the council schools in the city."
But the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission says critics of the school of are guilty of "appalling Islamophobia." The emphasis on "ostensibly illiberal Islamic practices is proof of a continuing witch-hunt against Islamic faith schools in general that has as its aim the discrediting of the whole Muslim school sector," the group said in a statement.
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook
Related Topics:  United Kingdom  |  Soeren Kern

Islamists Target Islamists

by Douglas Murray
October 21, 2013 at 4:00 am
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The thought that the lot of us -- both Muslims and "Islamophobes" -- are all finding our way onto the same death lists might suggest to some of the Islamists that the problem is not everybody else's, but their own.
A couple of years ago, in fascinating debate in New York, the title of which was "Islam Is a Religion of Peace," the great Ayaan Hirsi Ali was on my side; and against us were two distinguished reformist Muslims of great charm, intelligence and seriousness. The debate was engaging and the audience engaged. And there was a single moment of congruence.
At the prompting of the chair, Ayaan Hirsi Ali mentioned something about the terrible threats to her life which have existed ever since she started to speak out against the fundamentalists in Islam. The audience were clearly reminded what a brave and extraordinary woman she was; you could feel them warming ever more to her. The other side must have sensed the same and in a fatal moment -- for their argument, that is -- one of them pointed out that they had al-Qaeda and other death threats on their heads too. Even though, strangely, the audience applauded, the other side, in revealing this truth, had fallen into a trap that no one had even intended to set. If everybody on each side of the debate -- those arguing Islam is indeed a religion of peace as well as those arguing that it is not -- had these death-threats hanging over them, then why were we even debating the matter? As I recall, once this was pointed out, a sort of collective groan of realization went up in the hall and the debate was over.
It is one of the strangest things in the debates around Islam that even the most vociferous progressive or moderate Muslims, who spend all their days talking about how everyone misunderstands Islam, now also find themselves coming to the attention of people not moderate.
This strange rule has just been proven again in Britain. Two Muslim commentators as well as the now stepped-down founder of the English Defence League have recently -- in one 24 hour period -- apparently all been visited at their homes by the police: they appear to have been named as targets in a new video released by the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which carried out last month's Westgate shopping-mall atrocity in Kenya. The threat is obviously most serious, and serious security precautions will have to be followed by all of them from now on.
There is, however, a horrible irony about all this. I will not name him here, in order not to add to his woes. But one of the Muslims who has apparently featured on this al-Shabaab target list is a notorious loudmouth who regularly poses as a very moderate cleric but in fact appears to have sympathies with some of the most regressive groups and ideas around. He has been repeatedly caught papering over the violent aspects not just of certain of his co-religionists but of the religion's sources. His greatest hobby of all is to spend inordinate amounts of his time -- almost adding up to a full-time job -- describing any and all of his critics as "Islamophobes." The problem in his view of the world seems not so much the Islamic extremists as the motivations of the people who criticize them.
Another Muslim apparently on the al-Shabaab hit list is another figure who has spent much of the last few years attacking all his critics as "Islamophobes." He runs an organization that has had some pretty serious Islamists on board, but it is the people who point such things out who have found themselves on the receiving end of his ire. He has nevertheless -- and perhaps this is why he has been targeted now -- been exceedingly critical, indeed superbly critical, of one issue in particular. In the now regular cases of the systemic rape of non-Muslim girls by Muslim men who have singled the girls out because of their non-Muslim religious and racial origin, this individual has been repeatedly outspoken. As pointed out before, it should be not regarded as immensely brave for a Muslim to speak out against the gang-rape of children: that says something in itself. Nevertheless he deserves credit for it, although it does not, or should not, also give him the right to describe all his critics in a manner that suggests they suffer from some irrational mental deficiency.
That these two men are now joined on an apparent hit-list by the former leader of the EDL -- a person who both the above would doubtless still describe as one of Britain's leading "Islamophobes" -- is no small irony.
These three have gone to-and-fro in recent months and years. They have almost completely opposite views of Islam. One is fiercely critical, the other two insistent that he is wrong and some variety of bigot. But once again, it does not matter what the personal disagreements and fall-outs are because historically, as in the French Revolution, in which eventually its founder Robespierre was guillotined as well, people of violence put you all in the same category. And if the people who think that the religion is violent, and the people who believe that the people who think that it is are all bigots, all end up on exactly the same death-lists, doesn't that tell us something about the subject under discussion?
There are many people who will still insist that exactly the same situation could have arisen after a discussion of Quakerism. But one cannot help getting the feeling that bit by bit, as the death-lists lengthen in scope, moderates, progressives, regressives, "Islamophobes," the lot of us, all strangely find our way onto the same lists. This thought might suggest in the end, even to some of the Islamists, that the problem is after all not everybody else's, but their own.
Related Topics:  Douglas Murray

Turkey: A House Divided

by Robert Ellis
October 21, 2013 at 3:00 am
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There is, in the EU report, no mention of the campaign of vilification led by the Prime Minister against the protestors, or of reprisals against public employees who supported or took part in the demonstrations, or of measures taken to prevent mass protests.
There is no doubt that the Gezi Park demonstrations in May and June, which spread to most of Turkey, represent a seismic change in Turkish society and have opened up fault lines which earlier may not have been apparent. What began as a demonstration against the "development" of a small park in the center of Istanbul ended as a widespread protest against the AKP government -- and particularly Prime Minister Erdoğan's authoritarian rule.
The European Commission in its latest progress report recognized this change when it writes of "the emergence of vibrant, active citizenry;" and according to Turkey's President Abdullah Gül, who in the report is praised for his conciliatory role, this development is "a new manifestation of our democratic maturity." The Turkish government, however, has chosen to see these demonstrations as a challenge to its authority and has reacted accordingly.
The report mentions various repressive measures taken by the government, including the excessive use of force by the police, columnists and journalists being fired or forced to resign after criticizing the government, television stations being fined for transmitting live coverage of the protests and the round-up by the police of those suspected of taking part in the demonstrations.
However, there is, in the EU report, no mention of the campaign of vilification led by the Prime Minister against the protesters, or reprisals against public employees who supported or took part in the protests; also, measures taken to prevent the recurrence of mass protests, such as tightened security on university campuses, no education loans for students who take part in demonstrations and a ban on chanting political slogans at football matches.
Not only the demonstrators themselves have been targeted but also the international media, which Prime Minister Erdoğan has accused of being part of an international conspiracy to destabilize Turkey. The "interest rate lobby" and "the Jewish diaspora" have also been blamed. As the Commission noted, the Turkish Capital Markets Board launched an investigation into foreign transactions to account for the 20% drop on the Istanbul Stock Exchange between May 20 and June 19, which had more to do with the U.S. Federal Reserve's tapering than the Gezi Park protests.
In August, however, a report on the Gezi Park protests by the Eurasia Global Research Center (AGAM), and chaired by an AKP deputy, called the government's handling of the situation "a strategic mistake" and pointed out that democracy-valuing societies require polls and dialogue between people and the local authorities.

Polarization

The Commission is correct, therefore, when it concludes that a divisive political climate prevails, including a polarizing tone towards citizens, civil society organizations and businesses. This conclusion is reinforced by the observation that work on political reform is hampered by a persistent lack of dialogue and spirit of compromise among political parties. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the need for systematic consultation in law-making with civil society and other stakeholders.
This division was underlined by Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek in June, when, at a conference, he deplored the lack of a spirit of compromise in intellectual or political circles. This hostility is not only illustrated by the occasional fistfight between parliamentary deputies, but also when the AKP government in July voted against its own proposal in the mistaken belief that it had been submitted by the opposition. Or when the opposition two days later passed its own bill while the government majority had gone off to prayers.
President Gül, in a message of unity to mark the start of Eid al-Fitr (in August, at the end of Ramadan), had called on Turkey to leave polarization behind and unite for the European Union membership bid. But unifying will be difficult, given the attitude of the present government. Even the democratization package presented by Prime Minister Erdoğan at the end of September does not indicate any substantive change in the government's majoritarian approach to democracy.
Irrespective of the Prime Minister's reference to international human rights and the EU acquis [legislation], both lifting the headscarf ban for most public employees and a number of concessions to the Kurdish minority can be seen as a move to boost Erdoğan's popularity ahead of the local elections in March.
A curious addition to the package, an amendment to the Penal Code making it a punishable offence to intervene in people's lifestyles, was nullified a week later when a TV presenter was fired after the AKP government's spokesman, Hüseyin Çelik, complained that her cleavage was "extreme." The sense of outrage driving the Gezi Park protests was, in fact, directed at the government's intervention in people's lifestyles, in opposition to Erdogan's avowed aim to create "a religious generation".
On October 22 the EU's General Affairs Council will discuss the opening of a new negotiating chapter with Turkey on regional policies; negotiations had been delayed after Turkey's crackdown on the Gezi Park protesters. The EU's commitment to continuing Turkish accession talks, however, is no longer matched by a corresponding interest from Turkey.
Polls indicate a waning support for EU membership -- only 19% now believe Turkey will become a member -- and only recently in the Turkish daily, Star, Prime Minister Erdogan's chief adviser, Yiğit Bulut, argued that Turkey should abandon its bid, in favor of becoming a leader of "the new world order" emerging in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.
In October at the Istanbul Forum, another of Erdoğan's chief advisers, Ibrahim Kalın, dismissed the Eurocentric world vision and spoke of the conscious decision of Turkish policy makers to redefine Turkey's strategic priorities in the 21st century. Turkey's decision to adopt a Chinese air defense system, rather than one from another NATO partner, can be seen as a step in this new geopolitical orientation.
Robert Ellis, a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute, is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish and international press.
Related Topics:  Turkey  |  Robert Ellis

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