There is a double standards in the UK with regards to religion in schools. We don’t mind the teaching of “Christian” values. See Christian values are seen as local and from places that are near to us. So if we hear Christian hymns being sung in schools, we turn a blind eye to it.

If someone utters Allahu Akbar then religion has gone too far.

This one’s about Project Trojan Horse or the plan to infiltrate a mainly Muslim school and create enough changes to provide fundies with a system of recruitment of children turning it into a “Madrassa”. A word here? Madrassa means school. It doesn’t mean religious school explicitly. I went to a “madrassa” when I was younger myself.

But when we discuss it in the west we specifically refer to the madrassas that teach the “Koran”. Part brainwashing, part cram school, part philosophy class, the majority of these are designed to get kids to recite the Koran. The original “korans” were people. It was an oral tradition written down as oral reciters had a bad habit of getting killed in wars. But the problem here was that this school had a fantastic reputation, and they wished to use it to sneak nonsense under the radar. The plan failed. It was a stupid plan (since we have inspectors to ensure schools are doing their job and it would show on the results when you suddenly replaced evolution with Islamic Creationism as a subject). But needless to say it was a plot, no matter how incompetent and silly. [Read more...]