Support for Catholic, but not Islamic school in Australian town
Sep 9th, 2008 | By Sindh Today | Category: WorldSydney, Sep 9 (IANS) A proposed Catholic school near here has been supported by the residents’ group, who had earlier this year rejected a plan to build an Islamic school on Sydney’s south-western fringes, raising uncomfortable questions of double standards and racism in this historic Australian town.
But the Camden/MacArthur Residents’ Group rejects any suggestion of racism.
‘What we have in Camden is we have Catholics, we have Anglicans and we have non-religious people. We do not have Muslims living here and if you put a Muslim school in Camden all the Muslims have to be transported from outside of our area,’ a spokesman for the group, Andrew Wannet, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
‘You can’t have a small country town with a high community ethic having a large institution where there are no people of that particular religion living within 20 or 30 kilometres of that area,’ Wannet said.
Camden is a historic town, located less than an hour’s drive from the Sydney Central Business District, and is the birthplace of the Australian wool, wheat and wine industries. It has a semi-rural feel with sandstone buildings and jacaranda trees. According to census figures, it has about 150 Muslim families.
The Catholic school is proposed on an existing school site with all the infrastructure available.
Camden councillor David Funnell told the ABC: ‘The school that we’re talking about, the Catholic school, is already on a site that has a 40 kilometre zone. It’s an existing school, all the infrastructure is there ready to go.’
In May, a development application for a 1,200-student Islamic school was rejected by Camden Council on planning, which includes increased traffic and lack of public transport, and environmental grounds.
However the developers of the Australian $19 million ($15 million) Islamic school, the Quranic Society, says the decision was racially motivated and it has appealed to the Land and Environment Court against Camden Council’s rejection.
‘We have complied with the law, we have done everything right, we hired master planners. There was no reason for it to be rejected. Even the council could not say what was wrong with the plan,’ Quranic Society board member Fouad Chami had told The Australian newspaper.
The Quranic Society has said the school for primary and secondary students on a 15-acre block would cater to both Muslim and non-Muslim children and would follow the New South Wales State curriculum.
Allaying accusations of racism, Camden mayor Chris Patterson said religion had nothing to do with the Council’s decision. The proposal for the Catholic school will be treated ‘exactly on the same grounds’ as the Islamic school, ‘taking into account traffic, amenity, noise’.
Five years ago, the Baulkham Hills Shire Council in Sydney’s north had rejected a businessman’s plans for building a Muslim prayer hall on the grounds that it did not fit with community characteristics. The decision was overturned by the Land and Environment Court.
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Muslim Youths
Muslim youths are angry, frustrated and extremist because they have been mis-educated and de-educated by the British schooling. Muslim children are confused because they are being educated in a wrong place at a wrong time in state schools with non-Muslim monolingual teachers. They face lots of problems of growing up in two distinctive cultural traditions and value systems, which may come into conflict over issues such as the role of women in the society, and adherence to religious and cultural traditions. The conflicting demands made by home and schools on behaviour, loyalties and obligations can be a source of psychological conflict and tension in Muslim youngsters. There are also the issues of racial prejudice and discrimination to deal with, in education and employment. They have been victim of racism and bullying in all walks of life. According to DCSF, 56% of Pakistanis and 54% of Bangladeshi children has been victims of bullies. The first wave of Muslim migrants were happy to send their children to state schools, thinking their children would get a much better education. Than little by little, the overt and covert discrimination in the system turned them off. There are fifteen areas where Muslim parents find themselves offended by state schools.
The right to education in one’s own comfort zone is a fundamental and inalienable human right that should be available to all people irrespective of their ethnicity or religious background. Schools do not belong to state, they belong to parents. It is the parents’ choice to have faith schools for their children. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental periods. There is no place for a non-Muslim teacher or a child in a Muslim school. There are hundreds of state schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be designated as Muslim community schools. An ICM Poll of British Muslims showed that nearly half wanted their children to attend Muslim schools. There are only 143 Muslim schools. A state funded Muslim school in Birmingham has 220 pupils and more than 1000 applicants chasing just 60.
Majority of anti-Muslim stories are not about terrorism but about Muslim
culture–the hijab, Muslim schools, family life and religiosity. Muslims in the west ought to be recognised as a western community, not as an alien culture.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk
As with all arguments where the Musim minority think they can impose their needs on the general community, blaming others is stupid. Id Mulsim kids are confused that confusion is forced upon them by their own families and so called leaders inability to accept the fact they are living in a majority Christian country. If these parents don’t want their kid’s to frow confused allow them to be a proper part of the community and stop filling their heads with hatred and disappoval of the very country they are being raised in.
London School of Islamics is an educational Trust. Its aim is to make
British public, institutions and media aware of the needs and demands of the
Muslim community in the field of education and possible solutions.
The demand for state funded Muslim schools is in accordance with the law of
the land.
I do not blame the parents, Imams and Masajid for the plight of the Muslim
youths. All Muslim youths suffer from identity crises because they find
themselves cut off from their cultural roots, literature and poetry. All of
them lack self-confidence and self-esteem. British education has made them
stupid. They have become economic slaves of the British society. They do not
know where they belong. They are unable to enjoy the beauty of their
literature and poetry. A man is a product of his culture, language and
faith. They go hand in hand.
The solution of all the problems is state funded Muslim schools with
bilingual Muslim teachers as role models right from nursery classes. The
Charter of Islam teaches true tolerance and equality and indeed is more
acceptable to all people of the world than the United Nation Human Rights
Charter. Islam does not just mean a beard, a cap and a bunch of
self-interpreted fatwas.
Accoding to a research by Goldsmiths, university of London, bilingual
learning can provide substantial benefits for second and third generation
children whose families speak a language other than English. Even when
children have grown up in the UK with English as their stronger
language,using both languages aids cognitive development and strengthens
their identity as learners. It is crucial that schools support c hildren’s
mother tongue through bilingual learning activities connected with the
mainstream curriculum. Now Primary National Strategy recognises the value of
bilingualism and promotes early language learning. Policy makers need to
encourage good practice in schools, otherwise, the potential benefits of
bilingual leaning will be lost to future generations.
The research also discovered that many second and third generation children
are in danger of losing these skills if they do not have opportunities to
develop their mother tongue through academic work at school. Bilingual
children who learn in their family’s language as well as English do better
at school. It is very important that parents continue to talk to their
children in their first language.
It is absurd to say that Muslim schools threaten the social cohesion of the
nation. Diversity is a blessing and we should feel proud of diversity. The
real threat to social cohesiondoes nt come from Muslim parents but from
government that seeks to force these parents to conform with the state’s
ideas about how and what their children should be taught. There is no
evidence that Muslim schools are undermining social cohesion.