To think that the mother/daughter duo who took Michaela to court should face some natural consequences?

That is the interesting point. When I become - the other - the different thing here in the part of the UK where I live there are more people who are nothing like me than there are those like me (which is true where I live which is not too far from the Michaela school) - the issue (or if you believe Islam is the true faith the wonderful thing) that the German school might be 80% muslim or Michaela school is 50% muslim. I could of course like many people like I am go with a white flight to white areas of the UK or London but I stay and most of us all live in harmony most of the time.

The Uk has chosen to import a lot of people whose values are similar to those women fought against in the 1800s and early 1900s and won. I remember one of my sons, the only white boy in his class, telling me about one lunch when he was the only boy on the table who was not sexist and not homophobic and I joked that I was paying school fees so he could inculcated in the values of rural Pakistan. Mind you plenty of groups of white teenage boys are often very sexist and homophobic.

it is not surprising that newcomers want to live with others who are like they are and has happened with waves of new entrants to the UK including those of my ancestors who were Irish and moved to the UK about 1838 to work in coal mines who originally tended to congregate with others who were like them, ld to booming Catholic churches etc but then gradually married English protestants and now you couldn't tell who is who as they completely mingled in.

That is not a problem for me! Make him king of all the sky pixies or none.

I think the law is going to be tested in future unfortunately with maybe requests schools separate boys and girls.

I find some arguments about gender segregation and not through personal choice similar to separate but equal in historical rulings within the US.

Through long hard battles through the centuries Britain has moved away from patriarchal systems and we need to continue that struggle.

I think free will is at the heart of this and I am yet to be assured people practise religions purely out of choice and Islam does not seem a religion which offers faith/non faith choice to it's young people. I think a test of the strength of faith is its observance without coercion.

The oxymoron of Islamic feminism I think can be jarring and I suspect many (not all) young Muslim women are subjecting themselves to restriction in order to avoid ostracism and abuse.

Figures on Muslim apostates are hard to gather but it is significant. The removal of faith though has social damage akin to leaving a cult so we have to be minded how difficult it is for people of devout parentage to explore atheism and liberal values. I would fear any teacher supporting critical examination of faith may be hounded out of a job.

Tolerance does not mean acceptance either. We tolerate other people's religion but that does not mean we accept the ideology or a way of life associated with it I suppose this is another argument for secularisation of schools in that the school is not beholden to any one groups religious viewpoints

This is also about respect which is fundamental to a working society. We respect people being able to practise a faith in private so people should respect a school's decision to have secular values. A court has ruled on the validity of not offering prayer time so we have to respect the rule of law.

Maybe it comes as a surprise to some who immigrate that their host culture is different but it shouldn't. I think this is why explaining British values e.g. democracy is important e.g. the law overides and religious law that exists independent of it

Yes.

I don't know if anyone remembers the Festival of Light. They too were godly negotiators with government and institutions. They failed. These little social negotiations should also be rebuffed in the same terms. The law is equal: let's keep it that way.

@bombastix

The law is the law. Also law is passed by parliament in our democracy. The legal system indirectly administers the will of the people.

I owe my country a lot. Many have sacrificed much for it.

Actually it is to misunderstand what is in the law as it stands.

To say "Muslims don't owe me anything" is wrong. If they are UK citizens then they do. They are bound by English law as am I. That is not some sort negotiable element as the case appeared to suggest.

Very religious people want to claim social negotiation all the time. The law makes it clear they can't expect this. I would like schools to be explicitly secular actually, and think it would be a good outcome for the UK.

@toomanyy

Isn't that shutting down a conversation.

I think we should be able to be critical of any religion and that is fundamental to free speech in the UK.

There are many that criticise Christianity but it's influence on modern life is much less than previous generations

Anyway the opinion of a religion was of little importance at the school in question and maybe that is why we have law?

@Xenia

I think it is the idea of schools becoming faith schools by default because of local demographics that has to be a concern

There must be pressure on schools to adjust their ethos if there is a significant Muslim cohort and I think Michaela is an example where has to resistance and an assertion of secularity if that is the schools' perspective.

I doubt you talk to any Muslims.

I think you need to accept that your opinion is irrelevant to religious people, of whatever religion.

@bombastix

Christianity obviously has less impact on the country as opposed to four centuries ago and we should be glad of escaping the thrall of authoritarian religion.

The C of E in it's limited form has many women priests and a few bishops.

We want to keep this direction of travel so in a religion should stay at home and with some exceptions not impact out national life.

@toomanyy

I talk to many Muslims about many things but I have had conversations where it was expressed western lifestyles were ultimately sinful and as a community some (not all) rejected integration.

I think you just need to accept living in the UK in 2024 means living in a liberal democracy where religion as a whole is declining but there is a rich Christian heritage. If the value set is different you make peace with it. I would do the same if I moved abroad to a different culture

Maybe at an individual level Muslims don't owe me anything but can you say the same about the country as a whole?

This is exactly the same thought I have about Christianity thanks. And that too can remove itself from public life

‘Islam’ is not a sentient being, it does not think anything of you.

And no, religion won’t stay at home. Does it stay at home in churches?

If you don’t like it, move to a different country.

I like those liberal values myself. They were hard won. It's always amusing how those who prescribe strict rules re conduct assume that is some sort of decadent thinking which is weak.

It is not. I'm well aware of Islam's contempt for me in how I live. It is not going to be resolved by having a cup of tea at a community event.

Religious life can stay at home. The state does not have a role to play in supporting the eternal religious need to replicate itself. If you remove the social enforcement of religion it diminishes.

🎯

When was the last time you invited a Muslim to tea?

If you want to integrate with Muslims, make some effort.

They owe you fuck all.

I saw this and thought of this thread, as the Mich.. school is 50% muslim already.
It is from Bild. I did German A level but won't post the German link here as probably most mumsnetters don't know German; so just a British one - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13339659/Schoolchildren-converting-Islam-fear-German-schools.html
"Schoolchildren are converting to Islam in German schools as Christian students feel like outsiders and are desperate to try and fit in, a new study has warned.
'More and more parents of German children are turning to counselling centres because the Christian children want to convert so that they are no longer outsiders at school,' a state security officer told German tabloid Bild.
A study by the Criminal Research Institute of Lower Saxony found that 67.8 per cent of the surveyed students believe that the Koran is 'more important' than the laws in Germany.
Nearly half of them (45.6 per cent) think that 'Islamic Theocracy is the best form of government'.
In several schools in large cities like Berlin or Frankfurt, Muslim children make up more than 80 per cent of the student body, which the expert claims is due to the strong immigration in the last eight years."

Yes, the judgment says or implies it was a threat to stab not a stabbing, even so that kind of threat should never be made and my children would never threaten to stab someone in school ever. Anyway the one disciplinary upheld by the court still means the girl goes to the school and apparently she is managing okay despite not having her prayer time at lunch time. I presume she could pray in her head anyway and I doubt god would object too much.

There are 67m people in the UK and about 3m are muslim so it would not be surprising if there were not many on TV screens. The main issue in the UK is that unlike the days when muslims were often millionaire arabs from Saudi showing off expensive cars or race horses some of the new comers unlike well educated Indian doctors etc tend to be less well off so usually have the problems of poverty. They are likely to become better educated - particularly if they go to this particularly school and over a few generations become more secular so it will all be fine in the end as long as we do not kow tow to changes for the worse and which damage girls due to pressure from some newcomers to the UK.

Probably. But then the same goes for Christanity. The (ironically named) Free Church of Scotland consider pretty much all other branches to be on the way to hell for their liberal behaviours.

There is a dearth of Muslim female talent on our screens, in the performing arts and positions of governance. One has to ask why female Muslims aren't taking these roles?

@Aaron95

Agreed to an extent but how many of branches of Islam allow women to wear what they want?

Ultimately Islam like Christianity is underpinned by religious text. I would hazard a guess that the more tolerant versions of Islam are viewed as deviation from the true faith by others?

@mids2019 Islam by its nature is a religion that subjugates women and no amount of hiding behind religious freedom can remove this fact

Islam is not one single religion. In the same way that there are hundreds of branches of Christianity each with their own set of values, teachings and behaviours, there are hundreds of branches of Islam. Some are very tolerant, others are not.