... and rightly so, on this occasion. From the BBC:
Swimming lessons in some Staffordshire schools should stop during Ramadan to ensure Muslim pupils "do not swallow water", a council has suggested...
The council guide states: "Schools with a significant number of Muslim pupils should try to avoid scheduling swimming lessons during Ramadan to remove unnecessary barriers to full participation."
It also suggests re-scheduling sex education classes during the holy lunar month, as Muslim followers who have reached puberty are required to avoid sexual thoughts during this period...
Schools have been advised this can disrupt pupils' sleeping patterns and it suggests internal examinations could be re-scheduled to reflect their lower levels of concentration.
The council said the document, produced by its Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education, was based on information from the Muslim Council of Great Britain, an umbrella organisation that claims to represent up to 500 Muslim groups in the UK.
"The overriding consideration should be that children do not feel disadvantaged in school activities because of their religious observance," the council added.
Monday, 12 July 2010
The Daily Mailexpressgraph will have a field day with this...
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39 comments:
Why have you tagged this post with "dictatorships"?
GC, because Islamism is dictatorship, isn't it? Heck knows why we are rolling over like this.
This is a recycled story from three eyars ago! Google it and you'll find that it's three years old. For example:http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/feb/20/schools.uk2 The BBC is jumping on the "bash Islam" bandwaggon. The document from which this story is taken makes it clear that: "In general, participation in swimming is an acceptable activity whilst fasting" http://www.mcb.org.uk/downloads/Schoolinfoguidancev2.pdf
Muslims are less than 5 per cent of the UK population, so there's no chance of them seizing control of the country and establishing an Islamist tyranny.
Anyway, in most places where Islamists are actually in power, the local population want to live under such a government. (Unlike the Nazis or the Communists, who of course both ruled captive nations by force.)
My thought on the school swimming matter -- don't stop the lessons, but don't force Muslim pupils to take part...
It doesn't matter if it's three years old or not. The point is, as Mark says, why oh why do we ever see this sort of drivel in the first place?
Just to let Mark know, the Islam-bashing thing is probably the main reason why I wouldn't vote UKIP. (Even though I'm not Muslim myself...)
actually it was a splash in the Daily Express on 21 Feb 2007: "MUSLIMS TELL US HOW TO RUN OUR SCHOOLS". The BBC is recycling rubbish from Richard Desmond
Here's the URL to the Express story, which says Muslims want kids to be "taught in Taliban-style conditions": http://tinyurl.com/34e5zh5
@George Carty
3% now
50% in four-six generations unless the Catholics/Protestants/Hindus/Sikhs in the country give up contraception
Here is the URL of the Express story, which claims Muslims want kids to be "taught in Taliban-style conditions": http://tinyurl.com/34e5zh5
It probably didn't need much more than 5% of the population to be Anglo-Saxon to bring an end to hot baths in Britain for more than a thousand years.
The BBC's story comes barely a week after an Express front page claimed: "Muslims face pool cover-up", about Muslims wanting swimming pool windows to be blacked out. This was demolished and lampooned on the "Now" show this weekend, and also here: http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/2010/07/non-story-about-local-pool-forces.html
George Carty,
It's not about "islam bashing". I have no problem with muslims in Britain, and I have worked with a number of muslims and have at least 1 muslim friend.
We have spent centuries in this country gradually trying to remove special favours for religious groups by the state. Major and Thatcher did a thoroughly good job over licensing laws and Sunday trading which left them with little more than a few Bishops in the House of Lords.
I have no problem with people worshipping whatever sky fairy they want to worship. It's when their sky fairy worship starts interfering with others that I have a problem.
DavidC,
The council in the case of that swimming pool said that the complaints were predominantly from the muslim community in the town, who only make up about 10% of the population.
But of course, it had absolutely nothing to do with councils giving special attention to one religious group over another...
Well, who are we gonna believe, George Carty, DavidC and the loons at Tabloid Watch or our own lyin' eyes..?
Swimming lessons in some Staffordshire schools should stop during Ramadan to ensure Muslim pupils "do not swallow water", a council has suggested...
I'll refrain. I'm not going to begin.
GC, DC, what you link to is when the MCGB first set out its shopping list of "freedoms they would like to curtail" of three years ago - local councils are only now starting to dave in to these ridiculous demands.
Freewoman of England - go back 400 years and you will find they were saying exactly the same things about Catholics. Same political scare tactics, same bullshit, different religion.
MW - "local councils are only now starting to dave in to these ridiculous demands." as opposed to the completely rational demands of central government, like the smoking ban, I suppose. Christian puritans are every bit as bad as Muslim ones, if not worse.
B, I hotly oppose smoking ban, but to be fair a lot of people - maybe even a majority support it. I'm not going to speak up for Christianity either, but this is a 'Christian' country and none the worse for that. You cannot compare this with islamism, which is completely off the scale.
MW. Islaminism? Does that equate to the irrationality of home-owner-ism?
@bayard Exactly, but I am citing the case of Uttar Pradesh in India a populous state with about 110 million inhabitants now.
In 1947 there was a small Muslim minority who were allowed to stay. I don't know the figures ( perhaps I will google right now) 10% was the total figure of Muslims when partition had occurred and the lines had been drawn and the population migrated. ( total India figure)
Now in this particular document
http://www.indianmuslims.info/documents/courts/allahabad_muslims_no_longer_minority.html
and this one we can see that the percentage has grown somewhat exponentially, causing the minority to cease being a minority.
I take on board your argument about the Catholics 400years ago but the plain fact of the matter is that you have a live breathing example in front of you over the last 63 years in India of how the minority Muslim population in some areas is now the majority
I do not say it without cause. The majority of Muslims are peace abiding, nice people but forcing their customs upon us and actually making the country different to the one I grew up in the 1970's and 1980s makes life somewhat difficult
When in Rome etc
L, I hate Home-Owner-Ism more than you can imagine, but to be fair, it is Our Way Of Life. What the Islamists have planned is not only a zillion times worse, it is not Our Way Of Life.
FOE, a bit like Gaza Strip, pop in 1950 = 240,000, pop nowadays 1,400,000 or thereabouts?
Well, I guess an internal examination could certainly disrupt your sleeping patterns...
Oh sorry, I see. You meant...
;)
MW 'Our Way of Life' has developed from successive invasions, admittedly not sinec 1066 and all that. Our language is lttered with invasive words garnered from the most extensive empire the world has ever seen that encompassed all types of society and Faiths. I have no problem with Islam. I do have a problem with Islamist fundamentalists who set about to misinterpret their Holy writings and use their distorted versin of their Faith to further their own particularly nasty version of totalitarianism. They are no worse and no better than some of the weird fundamentalist Christians.
Overall I have great faith in the greatest civilising force on the planet, Trade. Free trade will erode the authority of the totalitarians (not excluding the EU, who know this, which is why they are dead against it). Islam cannot deliver the toys that capitalism does. Everyone wants a frig. and you can get friges from capitalism. Islam is doomed.
The BBC's story comes barely a week after an Express front page claimed: "Muslims face pool cover-up", about Muslims wanting swimming pool windows to be blacked out. This was demolished and lampooned on the "Now" show this weekend, and also here: http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/2010/07/non-story-about-local-pool-forces.html
Since I'd imagine any female Muslim swimmers would be wearing a "burqini" or something similar, what right do they have to insist on blacking out the windows as well?
Lola, I suspect the Minaret of Freedom Institute may take issue with your claim that Islam is inherently anti-capitalist.
In my view there are three main reasons why the Middle East (note: not the Muslim world in toto) is so backward and repressive: oil, Israel, and lack of water.
George C - I did not mean to imply that Islam is anti capitalist. I did mean to say that militant islam is anti capitalist. Islam has not delivered the toys, but it can and will, if the extremists get out of the way. But such trade will lead to liberalisation which will lead to more consumerism (for want of a better word) and that will lead to more agnosticism. It's happened here with our established church. Why would the pattern be different in Islamic countries?
L, I didn't realise you did religion as well. Islam is inherently anti-progress, anti-knowledge and anti-free trade, and as you say, it does not deliver fridges.
GC, the whole Islamic world is entirely backward. See previous comment. Free speech and women's rights and democracy and so on are just as important as anything else. Don't blame it all on oil (what about Norway or USA or the UK?) or Israel (there are more Jews in the USA than in Israel, I think) or lack of water (Japan has next to no raw materials, no steel, no coal, no oil and is still a modern capitalist democracy, Nevada has no water either).
Why do all the cars outside the top London hotels have Arabic number plates?
I don't understand people who say 'I have no problem with religion per se just with people who interpret their holy book wrongly.'
This assumes that the correct interpretation of religious texts is all sweetness and light and acceptable to your presumably post-modern/liberal/humanist values. What if the correct interpretation of the koran is hostile to gay people?
To the extent that inconvenient true interpretations can't be fobbed off as incorrect interpretations or merely cultural practices there is an unstated assumption that these unwelcome interpretations will be diluted or ignored over time in the same way that Christian texts have been progressively diluted to such an extent where one can't even be sure that an Anglican priest even believes in a god.
However, Islam claims to be the absolute more or less unchanging truth and its followers demand not only that you respect their right to their beliefs but also that you respect their beliefs are serious, valid and to a certain extent unchallengeable.
Pretending all religions are equally bad (a la Dawkins) is to my mind rubbish. I'm an atheist who takes great strength from the teachings of my weakly protestant schooling. Equating fundamentalist Christians with fundamentalist muslims is fundamentally incorrect way of looking at things. It holds out the promise that their is a moderate happy clappy islam that we could all live with if we just tinker with society on the margins a bit.
Mark, exactly. The radical Islamists' version of the Koran is probably the correct one, and hurray for weakly Protestant schooling.
MW and Mark. Yep. But. Muslim and Christian teaching have a lot of commonalities, and as you say the 'bad' interpretation could be the 'correct' one.
Certainly any Faith cannot brook challenge. It has to be absolute and autocratic, and this will lead to fundamentalist views. people don't like their beliefs challenged and get very hostile when they find that they are in an impossible position, especially when they are relying on the arguments of an invisible friend.
Nevertheless in both Faiths a more humane interpretation of their Holy writings is logical in that it reinforces sociable human cooperation. Mises human action with a God philosophy if you will. People will accomplish more and improve everyone's lot if the 'good' interpretation is the 'correct' one.
Me? I'll stick to Meccano.
Arab countries are shit holes because the culture is not reciprocal.
You only have to discover the word Jizya to realise the whole society is one of near apartheid.
No wonder they cannot create wealth, merely swap oil for wealth created by others. When the oil is no longer needed, these countries will become Africa version 2.
Socialism isn't reciprocal either.
Freewoman of England: Britain is not India. Here we have a welfare state. There they have children. Can you offer any evidence that British Muslims have more children than any other religious group? Even if they do, we need those children to work and pay taxes in the future when we are drawing our pensions. If you look at the overall birthrate, you can see that any overprovision of children by Muslims must be matched by a corresponding underprovision by non-Muslims.
"they are less likely to be in work later on"
Given the importance Muslims attach to education, an the high proportion of other ethnic groups like Afro-caribbeans out of work (not to mention the home-grown native Brit dole-bludgers), I find that hard to believe.
"they are more likely to be terrorists"
One could also say that your children are more likely in later life to run amok with a gun, on the basis that all the people who have done so recently have been white Brits.
"and so the cycle continues."
Well, no it doesn't. The fundamentalists to which you refer are are a tiny minority within the Muslim community, (albeit one that has a disproportionately large press presence). The evidence is that most Muslims (remember the Ugandan Asians?) integrate fairly seamlessly into Our Way of Life after a generation or two.
Anyway, my point stands: until our native Brit women start producing more babies, we need all the children we can get, Muslim or not.
B, according to the first stats I found by Googling:
"Unemployment statistics for 2001-02 UK Economy:
* White 4%
* Pakistani 16%
* Bangladeshi 22%
* Black Caribbean 12%
* Indian 7%
* Chinese 6%
Official for National Statistics, Annual Local Area Labour Force Survey 28 March 2003"
Things may have changed since then but not dramatically, I guess. See also what AC1 says.
@MW:
GC, the whole Islamic world is entirely backward.
Probably due to colonialism. Muslim countries aren't notably more backward than others in their region. Malaysia and Indonesia don't seem to be worse off than Thailand or the Philippines, and while Pakistan lacks India's rising middle class, it also lacks the extreme poverty which is all too common in rural India. (And note that the ex-Muslim bits of India are better off than the never-Muslim bits.)
It's the Middle East where the worst problems are.
Don't blame it all on oil (what about Norway or USA or the UK?)
All those were well-developed economies BEFORE they struck oil. Anyway, I'd suggest that North Sea oil may have contributed to the decline of British industry in the 1980s.
or Israel (there are more Jews in the USA than in Israel, I think)
What the hell does that have to do with anything? My point is that Israel is a nation-state formed by outside colonists on land that was largely ethnically-cleansed from the locals, and that this act caused an explosion of hatred and fear in the region.
The fact that the colonists just happen to be Jewish is irrelevant. (A Christian neo-Crusader state would probably have had an even worse effect.)
lack of water (Japan has next to no raw materials, no steel, no coal, no oil and is still a modern capitalist democracy, Nevada has no water either).
Japan (like many other East Asian countries more recently) ran a very weak currency so that it could sell manufactured goods competitively. An oil-rich country doesn't have that option, due to the "Dutch disease".
And I don't think Nevada would be doing too well if it weren't part of a larger political entity, most of which is NOT desert.
GC: you admit that "the whole Islamic world is ... backward" and say that this is "Probably due to colonialism."
You then list Malaysia and Indonesia as positive examples, but these countries were colonies too until half a century ago, just like most of the Middle East.
I take your point on a Neo-Crusader Christian state (see Lebanon).
Your counter-argument to Japan does not stack up. The Yen has not been undervalued in the long run. And it takes a lot of economic power to be able to depress your own currency - where did Japan get that economic power from? They got it from being organised and hard working - and relatively atheist - that's where.
My point about Malaysia and Indonesia is that they disprove the argument that Islam causes backwardness -- if if did, then they'd be more backward than the non-Muslim countries in the region.
I already mentioned that the Middle East (unlike the wider Muslim world) suffers the triple whammy of oil, Zionism and aridity.
As far as Lebanon goes, its problem was that it was deliberately destabilized by Israel. A country where roughly equal Muslim and non-Muslim populations lived in peace with one another was by its very existence subversive to the Zionist project of creating a exclusive Jewish nation.
I don't think it's too difficult for a country with no natural resources (like Japan) to lower it currency. The main problem is that it means no more cheap imported luxuries for the ruling class (which is probably why so many Third World countries since have got it wrong).
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