Anthony McIntyre has been watching the theocratic attempt in West Yorkshire to subvert the classroom.

This week, a cleric-led assemblage gathered outside Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire in a bid to dictate what might be used as a teaching prop in the classroom.

The protest had been sparked by a teacher who in the course of conducting his Religious Education class, showed pupils an image of the Muslim prophet, Mohammed. 

For two days siege was laid to the school, cops stood at every entrance and 980 pupils were told to stay at home on the second day.  There were demands for the teacher to be fired, and he was eventually suspended, with the school principal apologising "unequivocally". If the murder in France of school teacher Samuel Pepy figured in this decision to throw the teacher under the bus as an act of appeasement to the theocrats, nobody yet has said so. Pepy's fate most likely did figure in the teacher's decision to go into hiding.

The image shown was purportedly from  Charlie Hebdo. Seemingly,  
blasphemy was being discussed at the time.  The organisers behind a petition to have the teacher reinstated claimed he ‘was trying to educate students about racism and blasphemy’ and was ‘not racist and did not support the Islamophobic cartoons in any manner’. Although when the teacher talks about British values and free speech, it does raise questions about the appropriateness of such principles in a teaching environment. 

Whatever the motives of the teacher, often the opposition to such images is driven less by genuine feeling and more by theocratic manipulation. In the case of the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons in 2005 "some of the foulest images of Mohammed used to stir up outrage in the Middle East over the Danish cartoons were actually created by the imams themselves." The murder of  Samuel Paty came after a French teenager lied about what had occurred in a class she had never attended.   

So, the teacher aside, we are left with the sure knowledge that in the midst of the ranks of the offended stand those with a theocratic bent. 

One of the leaders of the Bately brigade, an imam, is reported to be a critic of Strictly Come Dancing, gay marriage and Covid-19 vaccines. In place of the vaccine he recommended that people pray three times a day. While a vaccine may not bring the type of success we might hope for, prayer has as much chance of combatting Covid as holy water. Logic and reason have never been known to be antidotes to religious lunacy. There is no reason to think that this particular imam will miss an opportunity to stand outside a school religiously ranting. 

The UK Department for Education has said it is "never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers" while the Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick, commenting on the protest outside the school which has a 400 year vintage, said teachers in class should be able to:

appropriately show images of the prophet … In a free society we want religions to be taught to children and for children to be able to question and query them.

You think? When have the theocrats ever wanted anything remotely like that?

In a Religious Education class cartoons, no matter how controversial, which have have some educational value, should have as much right to be shown as the Koran. The purpose of the classroom is to educate not indoctrinate.

 ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

That Cartoon Offends Me ... Again

Anthony McIntyre has been watching the theocratic attempt in West Yorkshire to subvert the classroom.

This week, a cleric-led assemblage gathered outside Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire in a bid to dictate what might be used as a teaching prop in the classroom.

The protest had been sparked by a teacher who in the course of conducting his Religious Education class, showed pupils an image of the Muslim prophet, Mohammed. 

For two days siege was laid to the school, cops stood at every entrance and 980 pupils were told to stay at home on the second day.  There were demands for the teacher to be fired, and he was eventually suspended, with the school principal apologising "unequivocally". If the murder in France of school teacher Samuel Pepy figured in this decision to throw the teacher under the bus as an act of appeasement to the theocrats, nobody yet has said so. Pepy's fate most likely did figure in the teacher's decision to go into hiding.

The image shown was purportedly from  Charlie Hebdo. Seemingly,  
blasphemy was being discussed at the time.  The organisers behind a petition to have the teacher reinstated claimed he ‘was trying to educate students about racism and blasphemy’ and was ‘not racist and did not support the Islamophobic cartoons in any manner’. Although when the teacher talks about British values and free speech, it does raise questions about the appropriateness of such principles in a teaching environment. 

Whatever the motives of the teacher, often the opposition to such images is driven less by genuine feeling and more by theocratic manipulation. In the case of the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons in 2005 "some of the foulest images of Mohammed used to stir up outrage in the Middle East over the Danish cartoons were actually created by the imams themselves." The murder of  Samuel Paty came after a French teenager lied about what had occurred in a class she had never attended.   

So, the teacher aside, we are left with the sure knowledge that in the midst of the ranks of the offended stand those with a theocratic bent. 

One of the leaders of the Bately brigade, an imam, is reported to be a critic of Strictly Come Dancing, gay marriage and Covid-19 vaccines. In place of the vaccine he recommended that people pray three times a day. While a vaccine may not bring the type of success we might hope for, prayer has as much chance of combatting Covid as holy water. Logic and reason have never been known to be antidotes to religious lunacy. There is no reason to think that this particular imam will miss an opportunity to stand outside a school religiously ranting. 

The UK Department for Education has said it is "never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers" while the Communities Secretary, Robert Jenrick, commenting on the protest outside the school which has a 400 year vintage, said teachers in class should be able to:

appropriately show images of the prophet … In a free society we want religions to be taught to children and for children to be able to question and query them.

You think? When have the theocrats ever wanted anything remotely like that?

In a Religious Education class cartoons, no matter how controversial, which have have some educational value, should have as much right to be shown as the Koran. The purpose of the classroom is to educate not indoctrinate.

 ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

18 comments:

  1. I think it was Ricky Gervais that said 'you can believe what you want, but people are also free to find it's ridiculous' I understand people's aversion to debate with violent fanatics, but we kowtow to this repression of facts and ideas at our own intellectual demise.
    Proper education should be a reporting of facts and encouragement of debate. You should be free to say there are over a billion Muslim who believe any representation of Mohammed is blasphemous but there are also people who find that absurd, this what Hebdo published and this was the consequences. Failure to stand up for an educators' right to educate is a dark road.

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  2. Call it for what it is T, Islamofascism.

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    1. I think it is better used against Isis and the likes rather than parents of schoolkids. No doubt, that element exists and I usually term it theocratic fascist. Think it would have been overstating the case to use it in the above piece.

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    2. These families are showing extreme intolerance to an alledged affront to their religious sensitivities. A showing of a artwork in the form of a cartoon no less. If you would know who controls you first see who you are not allowed to critcise, isn't that the old saying?

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    3. Without doubt there is an intolerance.
      The image should be used as a teaching resource when the purpose is to teach.
      A teacher operates within a confined and structured environment. It is a classroom and not a public forum and therefore the response offered - British values and free speech - would suggest something more than educational might have been a factor.

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    4. AM

      I agree with Steve, call it for what it is. I understand your reasoning but tempering your language is not always the thing to do. The sense if shock and horror groups like ISIS have ccreated this sense that we should be softer on the moderate extremists lest they become extreme extremists. The moderate extremists are more dangerous in the long run than the extreme extremists. No version of Islamic extremism should be tolerated because it all has the same aim.

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    5. Christy - I have not tempered my language.

      I have avoided using a description I don't think fits. If I thought it was theocratic fascist (a term I have often used) I would apply it. I don't think it is accurate to call all the protestors by that term when there are parents who probably have objectives other than those the theocratic fascists have.

      The teacher's role in this might yet prove crucial. I am already suspicious that he is reported to be offering as a reason for his actions British values and free speech.
      Had he said something like democratic secular culture and free inquiry acknowledges his approach as being proper, I would be less concerned. There may be parents who were not angry over the cartoon as such but over what they felt was the purpose he used it for.

      No religious extremism should be given a free pass not just Islamic. The Christian right in the US at present is particularly dangerous and influential.

      The fact that you refer to moderate extremists and extreme extremists is in itself a distinction which does not lend itself to labelling everybody a theocratic fascist.

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    6. AM

      Fair point but I am still not persuaded. Maybe the teacher had ulterior motives for using the images, maybe not. On the flipside those protesting are trying to impose their religious strictures on everybody else. I understand that the images were those published by Charlie Hebdo and the opposition to them has been largely theocratic fascism --in the extreme. The protestors are not saying that the images could have been used in more respectful way but that they should never be used -that to me is just theocratic fascism. If Charlie Hebdo had a right to publish their cartoons then they should not be censored after the fact just because Islamicfascists still do not like them.

      The US Christian brigade is getting more scary by the day.

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    7. Christy - an intolerance of something would not in itself amount to theocratic fascism. The anti-abortion lobby is very intolerant of a woman's right to choose but I would not go as far as to describe it as fascist. There are many republicans who would take offence at the hunger strikers being mocked and would object most vociferously to the point of censoring such mockery. That is a long way off from being a fascist response.
      I think the CP strategy of labelling too many people as fascists allowed the Nazis openings which they poured through in Panzers.
      As of yet, I am unsure that we attribute a one size fits all motives to the protestors. There is definitely a strong theocratic element fronting for them and maybe they do all agree with that to the letter but at present there is not enough there to allow me to make that judgment.
      Nor do I know if the protestors are at one on the cartoons being objectionable in every circumstance or in this particular one. I suspect the first but even then an objection does not amount to theocratic fascism. That is more to be viewed in terms of how far an objection might be pushed.
      There is no compelling reason to frame the protest only in terms of censoring a Charlie Hebdo cartoon. Schools are not a free speech forum for teachers to vent on whatever they like. Free speech is always constrained by venue: it would be abhorrent to me if people went to Muslim funerals and stood brandishing Charlie Hebdo images. I would view them much as I viewed the Westboro Baptist Church.

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    8. AM

      You make persuasive points but where is the bordering line between intolerance and fascism? And some republicans I have found disturbing and as little religiously fanatical as they might be they pull back a bit from completely forcing their crap -as soon as any religion starts dictating what others, not of the same belief system, can or cannot do then that is the threshold for me.

      - I can get abortion being an issue of personal conscience (religion aside) but not cartoons.

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    9. Christy - fascism is always intolerance.
      Intolerance is not always fascism.
      The liberal dilemma about the need to be intolerant towards intolerance is not because it would make fascists out of liberals.
      Society is filled with intolerance. The Catholic Church's intolerance of abortion does not make it fascist. Those republicans who turn up in town to knock over book stalls and chase the far right are being intolerant but hardly fascist. There are people who we might call attitudinally fascist and I think there has been quite a bit of that within the school of republicanism we have both referred to.
      I happen to think it is difficult to label all those people who turn up anti-Lockdown protests as fascists.
      Fascism is a well defined project but one that has been elasticated to the point of it being used as Brendan O'Neill said to call someone a bastard.
      I very much object to religion dictating to others and make no excuses for it (liberation theology in action is how somebody described 9/11). Secularism is probably the only republican value from back in the day that I remain seriously interested in.
      Anti-Abortion is a matter of personal choice and conscience, but not something to be imposed on others who do not share that conscience. It should not be imposed on a person any more than they should be denied the right to draw or publish a cartoon.

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  3. The coverage by the BBC of this incident is also very worrying. Not once did they give the alternative viewpoint or any context in which the cartoon was being used.

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  4. I agree with that imam re Strictly come dancing ,but the power of prayer ,well if it worked then all those punters who lost their shirts at Cheltenham would now be running around in Rollers ,isnt it long past the time for fucks sake 2021,the 21st century, and still fighting the Crusades, lets teach children the truth that all gods are a figment of a deranged mind /s or to much magic mushrooms ,stop teaching that shite completely in all schools ,and yes look at the funny side of religion ,that more people have been killed in name of one god or another over the centuries than any other reason,it really is time to turn our backs on this shite and make that compulsory in schools ,

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  5. This can't be viewed outside the environment in which it has taken place, and that it one of sustained, unremittent, pretty much state (and definitely media) sponsored vilification of Muslims and Islam, for over 20 years.

    This has been alluded to, when discussing the teacher's motives, but to me provides much needed context. I'm not a Catholic, but then, I don't need to be to be on the receiving end of anti-Irish abuse in the North, or here in Scotland. Most of the people writing on this forum will have some experience of being other'd and stigmatised.

    This is not to condemn the teacher, or do condone the protestors, but it is a very important point to make.

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    1. This raises the issue of how much of context is alibi.

      The reverse side of the coin is that there has been a theocrat sponsored or driven vilification of secularism which at its core is a demand that those who do not practice the religion should be subject to its strictures.

      I think there may be a question that the teacher has to answer about the purpose of the image. But the right for these images to be shown in public and discussed should be firmly in place while there should be no right in place for them to be suppressed.

      Blasphemy law is a thing of the past and should remain as such.

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  6. "This raises the issue of how much of context is alibi."

    This makes me think of the discussion around Holy Cross - which gave me cause to reflect.

    What the context in this case does, in my opinion, is elevate it from a discussion about theocratic intolerance, which would garner little national attention if those protesting were white rather than brown or Christian rather than Muslim, into what can feel like another piece of evidence to Other a class of people.

    "The reverse side of the coin is that there has been a theocrat sponsored or driven vilification of secularism which at its core is a demand that those who do not practice the religion should be subject to its strictures."

    This is more widely known as the "Islamification of Britain" - a term which became de rigueur during Blair's terms in office, and which I thought was blatant scaremongering, scapegoating and Othering: a crass attempt to justify Blair's wars and assauts on civil liberties.

    But, it is true, a statistically tiny, but very noisy, group of theocratic malcontents oppose secularism and want an Islamic Republic of Great Britain. The level of publicity incidents like this give them must delight them.

    In a nutshell, I think that increasing hostility to those considered Muslim will increase support for theocrats. Simply: the theocrats can't lose with stories like this. And ordinary Muslims can't win.

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    1. Brandon

      There is no contradiction from a secular viewpoint in opposing the othering of Muslims and opposing the caving into theocratic or confessional demands on public goods of which education is a major one.

      Open societies are as comfortable with immigration from Muslim majority countries and the visibility of mosques and Islamic culture as they are with the promotion of free inquiry, intellectual and artistic freedom and the promotion of those values and skill sets in schools free from pressure from theocrats.

      Islamists have not more right to be offended by depictions of Mohammed than does the Christian Right have over abortion rights and equal marriage or the Sikh fundamentalist lobby who sought to ban a play in Birmingham (cannot remember the name).

      Liberal democracies have to preserve public spheres from the encroachment of sectarian religious agendas and not to facilitate the policing of minority communities by "faith leaders."

      The fatwa on Salman Rushdie casts a long shadow.

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    2. What Holy Cross did was demonstrate the existence of competing contexts. Which means context is invariably interpretive, following the event rather than preceding it. The context battle then becomes one of trying to make one context fit better as a causal explanation than another.

      I don't feel that if the protestors were white rather than brown there would have been no interest. We have experience of the Marie Stopes clinic being picketed by white people, gay people denied services by a white run bakery - all of it got huge news coverage.

      Where white Christian intolerance has sought to impose its will on the normal day to day functioning of society, it catches attention. This is something that the context you favour appears to overlook.
      Otherising people is not always a unilateral act although it would be foolish to argue that a power symmetry exists. Multiculturalism does not lead to otherising groups but cultural relativism certainly does. The extent to which Muslims want sharia law might also be seen as a measure of how much there is a preference for being the other. Maryam Namazie has worked tirelessly to highlight the extent to which the state has facilitated this trend which ends up allowing the idea to develop that there is one Muslim community which can have one voice speaking on its behalf.
      I no more believe in the Islamification of Britain theory than I do the Great Replacement in Ireland theory. Just crap the right makes up. Blair's law and order government - one offence a day created during his tenure which was twice the rate of what the Tories had been doing - had its roots in something other than Muslims. Jack Straw lashing out at the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons gives some indication of the civil liberties that were being attacked.

      Islamic Republic of Great Britain is another religious crackpot idea but the theocrat sponsored vilification of secular society is vastly wider than what a few imams in the UK might want. It is evident in Isis, the response to the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons inter alia.
      Increasing hostility to secularism cannot be explained away as a response to discrimination or anti-religious bias. It has its own ideological roots. There is a glaring need to curb hostility towards Muslims. But a hostility towards Muslims is not the same as a hostility towards attempts by some Muslims to coerce others not of the Muslim faith to comply with Muslim precepts.

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