Quran School Incident

[Everanewbie]

The reaction to this non-incident is shameful. We're effectively charging this poor autistic boy with blasphemy and his mother is begging for his life.

I get the point you're trying to make but nobody damaged a significant piece of art or work of literature here so it's hardly comparable. This is more akin to damaging a mass produced beatles CD or a replica England top.

If you went around damaging other peoples copies of those things I'm sure they would get upset, however no sane person should get angry if you decided to damage your own. Unfortunately, when it comes to religion sanity seems to be severely lacking.

In this case if the kids deliberately damaged a copy of the Quran they didn't own then they should be punished the same as if they'd damaged a Harry Potter or Goosebumps book. If it was their own copy then they should face no punishment at all unless they did it to deliberately antagonise a Muslim pupil, in which case they should be punished in the same way they'd punish any other form of harassment of bullying.

That said, under no circumstances should any adult be making threats or getting involved in this (other than teachers and those related to those involved if it was a case of bullying).

Muslims societies were absolutely viewed as ‘primitive’ and aspects overly sexual by European colonialists.

It’s about significance. Every Quran is significant to Muslims - every Quran matters to Muslims the way that every World Cup ball is significant to footballers and every Jane Austen manuscript is significant to Austen fans.

There are billions of trees but some people are still offended by people who cut them down or destroy them needlessly or burn them etc. England flags are produced en masse but if you destroyed one on purpose then I’d imagine there would be some pretty hefty kick-back to that.

The overly sexual stuff is often levied by one culture at another though, isn't it.

I'm an immigrant and in the culture I grew up in, the tropes about the Brits are that they are cold-hearted, drink too much and don't really care about their children. Also that their children are sexualised too early.

As a young person growing up in the UK I would hear my relatives say this stuff all the time. However I knew it was overgeneralised rubbish because I was well assimilated with my UK peers. At the same time I can absolutely understand how some of these tropes came to exist.

It's like the Asian racist tropes that Western people are all fat and stink of gone-off milk.

Most racist tropes have some kernel of fact based on pattern recognition that is then twisted until it becomes grotesque and bears no inflation to the truth. As seems to have happened with this so-called Koran story. But it is only by interrogating racist tropes that we can see them for what they are.

Perhaps but I was making my point that islamaphobia is tied to racism. Islam is viewed as the religion of the ‘brown man’ (Arab predominantly and to a lesser extent Indian subcontinent) This primitive ‘Other’ culture and Muslim men are portrayed as being sexually aggressive and to be feared.

It's a book. Words on a page.

I think it would do the Country as huge benefit to have a public burning of the Bible, Quran, Torah and all Roald Dahl books to show nothing at all will happen. You can reprint them to your hearts content. As the Bee Gees said (and Ronan Keating) - they're only Words.

And I say that as a practicing Christian.

Yes and my point is that it is more complex than that. The racist trope of sexual aggression is applied by lots of different cultures to other cultures they don't like. There is also a long recorded literature especially post-Renaissance of Western thinkers and elites admiring the 'strength' and 'warlike nature' of the Ottoman 'Moslems' and later, Sikh and Hindu warrior elites. It's a lot more multi-faceted than 'brown man sexually aggressive', in fact that's such an overgeneralisation as to be totally false, the Ottomans for example were criticised more for having their eunuch caste than they were for being sexually aggressive.

Also what do you mean by 'brown'. In the 1900s Greeks and Italians were described by Brits as 'brown'. It's only later in the 50s when there started to be migrations from India etc that those migrants were classed as 'brown' and Greeks and Italians were half heartedly upgraded to 'white' (sort of).

Are Jewish people white? Racists are genuinely split on the matter. I mean, really. It's a big debate.

The overemphasis on colour is specifically imported from the antebellum South and is a current obsession of postmodernist anti-racist academia of the US West Coast.

I feel we'd have a much better discussion if you would pinpoint which historical eras and 'colonialists' you're talking about when you talk about 'brown men' and 'sexual aggression'. You sound quite influenced by early 90s West Coast theories around the Other and the Subaltern but the scholarship has moved on a bit since then (not always in good directions) and I'm confused as to what you mean.

Well said.

the sexually aggressive Muslim male trope I’m referring is a present day one. That is so common in todays print media, i don’t feel that needs much further clarification.

ive never heard Italians or any other Europeans referenced as brown, at least now, brown is commonly understood as people from MENA region and Indian subcontinent, although I guess you could make the case for a non European, non white, non black, non south East Asian other. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to place Greeks and Italians in that category.

the question on Judaism is interesting because I guess it brings up if they are of European heritage or ME heritage. I’m reminded of a quote by Akala on this.

my phd is from late 20 teens so perhaps scholarship has vastly advanced in the time I left academia. I merely dipped my toe in the genre of post colonialism and decoloniality so it wasn’t my speciality, although I did find spivak was still highly influential.

They can be offended if they want, no issue with that. What they can't do (or shouldn't be allowed to do) is threaten, harass, or attack because they're offended.

If I want to go into my local Waterstones, buy a copy of the Quran, Bible, Torah, or Emma and kick it down the street and into a bin, then I should be able to do so without fear of being harassed or attacked. Although I'm 99% sure Jane Austin fans wouldn't give a toss if I did that tbh

If you think that me damaging or disrespecting a book / flag / replica / random whatever, no matter how "significant" it is to you, is worthy of physically harming a person then you need to fuck of to the far side of fuck and then fuck off some more.

I should say I learned from an art history point of view as exemplified through primitivism

Interesting that people on MN don't realise schools, especially secondary schools, often involve the police to talk to children involved in serious incidents in school (damage property, threats etc) This decision is not taken lightly but surprisingly common. Normally the police are better placed to talk to the children and they see the seriousness of the issue.
I'd imagine the local mosques leaders were involved by the school to diffuse the situation and restore calm. As like any story it can quickly become distorted.
Personallly I think the school dealt with it well. Any threats made to the children involved and their families should be investigated by the police.

ive never heard Italians or any other Europeans referenced as brown, at least now, brown is commonly understood as people from MENA region and Indian subcontinent, although I guess you could make the case for a non European, non white, non black, non south East Asian other. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to place Greeks and Italians in that category.

Yes, but in the 1920s they definitely were. They were wops. They were not white. My point being, that understanding of culture through the lens of skin colour is unreliable and changes over time.

the question on Judaism is interesting because I guess it brings up if they are of European heritage or ME heritage. I’m reminded of a quote by Akala on this.

Urgh, are you kidding? You'll start mentioning phenotypes next. That way antisemitism lies, don't go there...

Again, the point I was trying to make was that understanding of culture through the lens of skin colour is unreliable and changes over time.

Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC, thoguht that the most interesting physical thing to mention about Africans was that they had 'woolly hair'. He doesn't even mention skin colour. Not every culture throughout history has been as obsessed with skin colour as one-drop white supremacists (or modern anti-racists like Akala).

Spivak! Now that takes me back. I'm disappointed to hear that she's still influential.

the sexually aggressive Muslim male trope I’m referring is a present day one. That is so common in todays print media, i don’t feel that needs much further clarification

I agree there is a trope but it mostly concerns the racist idea that Muslim men prey on white girls. I have not seen a trope regarding sexual aggression in the round. That is very much a trope level at Black men and has been abused by everyone from Carolyn Bryant's husband to Taylor Swift.

Ah, I see you’ve resorted to inventing things.

Point out where I said “damaging or disrespecting a book / flag / replica / random whatever is worthy of physically harming a person”. I didn’t, did I?

I said that I don’t believe the PP on here who are pretending that they don’t understand why it’s offensive to damage a Quran. I’m glad you now agree. Everyone does, in fact, recognise why it’s offensive.

That doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable to be a dick about it or behave like a violent thug - I never made any such assertion. I simply stated that everyone here does actually, in reality, understand why destroying things that matter to other people on purpose is offensive to other people.

It was a very disrespectful thing to do - bringing in a holy book as a dare. Secular schools will act on religious discrimination the same as faith schools - it's totally unacceptable. How would a Muslim student at the school feel seeing their holy book being used in a dare. The fact the pupil is autistic is not a reason for them to be exempt from opportunity to re-educate - especially as they are more vulnerable to being influenced by extremist views they may see on the Internet.

You’ve not? The human trafficking and sexual slavery of isis and the grooming gangs (that was abhorrent but has been weaponised into a beating stick against all Muslims)

I don’t think phenotypes or anti semitism was akala’s point it was something along the lines of the race of a black or non white person is the first piece about them that is seen.

have you read the price of whiteness? I believe that talks about the transformation in European consciousness that led Jews to be considered white.

i fear we are derailing here but it’s really interesting to chat with you! But I do still stand by my point That islamaphobia is tied up with racism

Agree to disagree then but it's been lovely to chat with you too and has enlivened rather a dull Tuesday afternoon :-)

If you disagree with something I've said, could you maybe explain it rather than writing "what?"

Impossible to comment on the detail without having been there, but two thoughts occur: firstly why, if it's true there was "no malicious intent", it was deemed necessary to suspend the pupils

And secondly, that this is a good example of why it may be wise to keep all religious practice well away from schools

Anyone issuing a death threat should deal with the legal consequences. It should be taken seriously as a crime. Its funny how many would be violent people hide behind faith

Another voice of reason, amidst the bigotry.

It's awful we are not an Islamic state and I hope we never will be.

Yes, our kids should be free to make fun of Muslim kids without consequences. They are just brown kids after all, who cares? 🙄