The teacher from Batley is still in hiding

[Nicetrynigel]

Teacher Batley
His life ruined because a bunch of thugs decided they didn't like what he was teaching in his RE lesson.
This and the Labour MP's request for bhalsphey laws against those of the Abrahamic faith have made me concerned.

People should be free to offer an view against another's religion. It's scary that we are being a country where people thing being offended gives them a right to made death threats.

The protesters were not even parents of children at the school. They have absolutely no right to meet with the head and explain their wholly imaginary 'concerns'.

The head was feeble enough as it is, suspending the teacher.

As an aside, these issues aren't going away. Muhammad is the most popular baby name. Islam presumably is a fast growing religion and church attendance declines. In 100 years things will really change.

Can you understand why that would make some people uncomfortable, when you state it on a thread about people having to hide for their lives due to not being respectful enough of Islam?
It sounds threatening.

Well, Samuel Paty's beheading surely was a warning? I mean, I don't know what the Qur'an precisely says but it is a rudimentary fact that you DON'T picture Muhammad.

I have to be honest, I don't get it. I don't understand how anyone can be passionate enough to put God above humanity. But if we have learned anything about Islam in the 21st century surely it is that a small minority are incited to backlash and extreme violence.

I rather like what Stephen Fry says about being offended but I can't remember it exactly and he's more eloquent than me, plus it's easily Googled. That should really apply to everyone.

Pointing out that changes in religion can be massive in 100 years isn't threatening. Look back 100 years from now and religion changed. Go back further and look at the how much of the world history changed off the back of religious differences and ensuing wars.

I'm of the tolerate each other but see no need to insult anothers beliefs when they don't affect me.

The ironic thing about that cartoonish Charlie Hebdo image is that it can’t be the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) because nobody knows what he actually looked like. So the blasphemers are actually the ones saying it is him! Instead of dismissing it for what it is, a crude characture of no worth, they themselves label it holy and sacred!

What a farce. And the kind of thinking that flies planes in to buildings. Nutjobs. And we are appeasing it. In Britain. Home of the magna carta and the idea that no one is above the law…

I'm of the tolerate each other but see no need to insult anothers beliefs when they don't affect me.

I have no personal desire to insult anyone's belief. I do however believe passionately that I should have the right to, and that it should not be unsafe for me to do so.

Well, Samuel Paty's beheading surely was a warning? I mean, I don't know what the Qur'an precisely says but it is a rudimentary fact that you DON'T picture Muhammad.

Taking the death of Samuel Paty as a warning and a need to modify behaviour is letting terrorism win.
You don't picture Muhammad if that is against your beliefs. It certainly isn't and should not be a rule for anyone who doesn't share your beliefs.

As crude and childish as the Charlie Hebdo stuff was, it made an important point. They should have had the right to do it.

Small minority are incited to backlash and extreme violence! And they are knocking about the streets of Batley - Lord help us

You do realise that only a tiny handful of laws in the magna carta actually still exist today?

Anyone saying the teacher brought this on himself or was foolish, is just the same tired argument as after a woman is raped. Oh she was drunk, look what she was wearing....
No. Rape is wrong, killing or threatening to kill someone for words or images is wrong.

I know. I do actually agree with your last point but sometimes things aren't just worth the hassle. But also, I suppose I fundamentally like the human beings in my classroom and I would be horrified if I offended any of them. Telling them off and having high expectations of behaviour yes. I don't care if I offend them in that respect. But it IS crude and childish and I couldn't bear it if I upset a child.

But death threats can never be justified.

We've agreed.

So causing offence isn't a justification for issuing death threats, or executing them.

So no teacher in a secular country, in a secular school should have to adjust their curriculum to accommodate for possible offence.

Because offence never justifies death threats

Does it?

Do you understand this is critical reasoning that we are doing here? That this is the skill the lesson was encouraging pupils to employ? To help pull them out of medieval, violent and vengeful behaviour in the name of religion.

If you keep saying the teacher was an idiot you negate everything you claim about death threats being unjustified. You are justifying the behaviour as a consequence of the teacher's lesson content. You are supporting this behaviour because you don't outrightly condem, under any circumstance, behaviour like this.

It baffles me that you can't follow your own line of reasoning. That you still come back to blaming the blameless party. Or maybe you weren't lucky enough to have lesson like the one that was being taught in Batley.

Btw please don't think I'm being anti-Muslim, I fully appreciate that the vast majority of Muslims in the UK are law abiding and wouldn't threaten anyone.

It's a point of principle to me that no group should be allowed to cause this level of alarm though.

Probably luckier as I ended up at Oxbridge. That's not to say some of the children in that class, or at that school, didn't - but I had top quality teaching thanks.

But really you are assuming that we have freedom of speech. Of course we don't. Because to respect others you sometimes have to conform. It's naivety to think we have free speech. We none of us are truly free.

You are right. Take religion away from this situation and one group are terrifying another. It isn't right and it isn't what any of want our children to know.

Which one?

I'd like to be vague. I've already ousted myself as an RE teacher of 30+ years. Graduating in the early 90s seems such a long time ago it's largely irrelevant. I am also not as clever as I once was. But with regards to the quality of my teaching I was very lucky, even though I didn't go to school in Batley or be taught with an image of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in front of me.

No, saying that a person shouldn't do something doesn't logically imply. that death threats against them are justified. One might for example complain that someone has parked inconsiderately, or is always late for work. This does not logically justify death threats,

Non sequitur.

I know you may not have specifically studied logic or ethics at Oxbridge, but I'd expect they'd be hot on critical thinking.

Come on! Do it properly if you know how.

That's exactly the point I was making. Thanks, it's nice to know someone else gets that point.

I would like the UK to be more accommodating of rights to burn the Koran or other holy books, in the way Sweden allows. We need more not fewer freedoms.

I am very hopeful. People come to the UK and usually fall under our benign influence and in a couple of generations tend to become like most of the 67m of us. So all will be well.

"Look what you made me do!"

So if Muhammed the prophet was a man then why the fuss over drawing a picture of him, an imagined picture since there's not one to go by, a best guess picture. Seriously, if that bothers people then they really have a problem, it's ridiculous.

This.

We need to stop appeasing nutjobs

Yes they seriously need to get a life and actually contribute to the UK in a positive way

Appeasement appears the order of the day 'Appeasing the protesters was the priority for both the school, the police and the local MP. Cllr Pandor was a Batley councillor (and still is).'.

I imagine that some Christians find the depictions of Jesus offensive but they don't get appeased in the same way, but then they don't threaten violence.

Why different. No one should bow down to violence.