The school as a battleground
by Ben Cobley, Artillery Row:
Michaela defeat will not deter Islamist designs on schools.
Nowadays we often hear talk of public sector workers being “at the front line” or sometimes “in the trenches”, as if they are soldiers fighting a war in the most exposed and dangerous positions.
No doubt the metaphor is sometimes warranted given the violence and abuse emergency services, NHS staff and teachers can face. Progressive identity politics adds another layer to the feeling of conflict by treating institutions as places where relentless restorative practice is needed to eliminate discrimination and oppression — resulting in constant campaigns to enforce group-think and punish dissenters. For DEI commissars and those they oversee, it can appear that just by turning up for work in the morning they are indeed going to war.
In fact schools are appearing to us more and more to us as sites of conflict and sometimes violence (as in recent disturbing attacks on teachers in Wales and Scotland). The politics of identity is also a constant presence. And, attached to the progressive industrial complex yet separate from it, political Islam is having an increasing impact, skilfully using the language of human rights and discrimination to gain support, while pursuing its own agenda which is often very different to that of their liberal and left-wing allies.
The campaign against Michaela Community School and its headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh over their ban on massed prayers is just the most high-profile recent example of this alliance at work. The campaign showed a considerable level of sophistication, with the know-how to access £150,000 of taxpayer-funded legal aid to fight a legal case and boasting a schoolgirl as an anonymous victim figure to fight it. The case was only part of a wider trend which started with pressure on Muslim students to join prayers in the playground and escalated through social media pressure, accusations of Islamophobia, abuse of staff members plus death threats and a bomb hoax.
Far from dissociating themselves from such behaviour, many Muslim leaders and their allies have fallen in with the motivations behind it. London Central Mosque released a statement refusing to accept the eventual verdict in favour of Michaela, saying the decision was “a violation” of Muslim children’s “religious and human rights”.
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