We must confront the challenge of Islamism

Just as troubling as the suggestion of an Islamist conspiracy in Birmingham schools is the refusal of the local non-Islamic establishment to do anything about it

At least six Birmingham schools accused of harbouring a Trojan horse plot run by Muslim fundamentalists will be placed under special measures by Ofsted. The action is understandable. The unsubtle attempts to insert Islamist ideas – representing an extremist, politicised form of Islam – into the curriculum of those schools makes for frightening reading. Equally unsettling was the liberal establishment’s failure to correct it.

According to a special report by the Education Funding Agency, radical Muslims have tried to take control of teaching by first taking control of school governorships. Excellent head teachers were either reduced to the status of figureheads or forced out of their jobs. Girls at Park View and Golden Hillock were made to sit at the back of the class. At Park View, loudspeakers were used to “broadcast the call for prayer across the school” and a person known for loathing Jews and admiring al-Qaeda addressed an assembly. At Golden Hillock, some Christian pupils were left to “teach themselves” in RE classes. At Oldknow, Christmas activities were stopped, there were subsidised trips to Mecca and one teacher led an anti-Christian chant in assembly. At Nansen, there were “no lessons in the humanities, arts or music” for an entire year group. Arabic, however, was compulsory learning across the entire school.

As secular staff were marginalised (particularly female ones), power passed into the hands of people such as Tahir Alam – the radical Muslim Council of Britain activist who is accused of masterminding the plot. In 2008, Mr Alam publicly argued “against advocating that desegregation [in schools] should be actively pursued” and stressed the “obligatory nature” of the hijab for Muslim women and girls. The findings of the Ofsted report will presumably mean that he loses his influence over some of the schools identified.

The suggestion of an Islamist conspiracy is bad enough. Just as troubling is the refusal of the local non-Islamic establishment to do anything about it. The city council knew about the pressure on head teachers almost six months ago, but only acted after an anonymous letter in the local press claimed to reveal details. Teachers say their complaints were ignored, while Mark Rogers, Birmingham’s chief executive, described what was happening as “new communities” raising “legitimate questions and challenges” to the way the schools were run. The city council describes Mr Rogers’s role as promoting “prosperity, fairness and democracy, ensuring Birmingham continues to live up to its status as a growing, international city”. We fear it will be difficult to achieve those objectives if Birmingham’s schools are allowed to adopt a syllabus more appropriate to 16th century Arabia. Only now has the council frozen the recruitment of new school governors and set up an inquiry of its own.

Tolerating the rise of Islamism in our schools lets everyone down, not least the great majority of Muslims, who are moderate and simply want their children to get a solid, broad education in a Britain that is comfortably multi-faith yet still informed by the country’s Christian heritage. Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, has rightly condemned the emergence of extremism and called for tougher oversight. Yet government education policies designed to give schools greater freedom to pursue educational innovations that work for them surely need not lead inexorably to conspiracies, as the critics of those policies suggest. Can we not have greater academic freedom while ensuring that schools remain untouched by Islamism? Experience indicates that parents – Christian, Muslim or otherwise – want schools to have individual character and greater liberation from bureaucracy, but they also want an education that will teach their children the basics of humanities, science and maths without sectarian poison. Why should that be so difficult to accomplish? This is the balance that policymakers should be seeking to reach.

Islamism and myopic political correctness are the two jaws of the same trap. One subverts the educational system and risks turning it into a recruiting tool for fundamentalism. The other tolerates this process because it is excessively fearful of undermining community relations – relations that risk being torn asunder anyway, if the religious mavericks are empowered. This troubling situation needs an old-fashioned dose of British common sense. Reason is surely a principle that good people of all faiths, or none at all, can agree upon.

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