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.

I am old enough to remember Batley when first generation immigrants were arriving. They were really keen to assimilate, didn't want work places and employers to change their practices. Now we are 3 or 4 generations on, everything has changed and there is a demand that everyone in the local area conforms to religion and culture. Female teachers have a really hard time in local schools. It isn't that long since a terrorist attack was carried out by a young man who was a teaching assistant in a local school and another by a junior doctor. It is a sad state of affairs.

If you ask me, every school needs to show things that are offensive to the main religions. Teach the children that it’s ok to not agree with someone, it’s ok to offend someone’s religion, we can still build a cohesive society on the basis of shared humanity. Otherwise we as a society will in future end up with groups of adults who cannot live together in peace.

We still have Islamic preachers calling for Jihad in the UK and 75% of MI5’s counter terrorism workload is Islamic extremism which is pretty mind blowing since Muslims only make up 6% of the population

Well that's something I've learned today, and you have to feel for MI5 in light of the endless enabling and minimisation that goes on, including on threads such as this

And BTW while some imams doubtless enjoy corrupting the concept, the greater meaning of jihad has nothing to do with killing people; it's actually an internal struggle to be a better muslim/person

Typo

That’s why I don’t agree with the term Islamophobia. Phobia is an irrational fear. Fearing the growth of the type of Islam which has resulted in a teacher in France being killed, a teacher in the UK forced into hiding, both for doing nothing wrong, isn’t irrational.

Totally agree. This is what schools are for. To question religion and dogma.

Well, Samuel Paty's beheading surely was a warning?

That’s like saying “Wasn’t Sarah Everard a warning?” to women who want to be able to go out by themselves without being attacked.

I mean, I don't know what the Qur'an precisely says but it is a rudimentary fact that you DON'T picture Muhammad.

But it shouldn’t matter in a Western, non Islamic country what the Quran says when it comes to deciding what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour whin this society.

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.

I think this is such in important point, to teach kids how to live peacefully in a society where not everyone shares their beliefs, where questioning and criticism of such beliefs is permitted rather than seen as an excuse for threats and intimidation.

Never heard of any Jewish students, parents or other community members threatening a teacher and forcing them into hiding over the way they spelled “God”.
If such thing happened, I wouldn’t have much understanding for them either.

To my knowledge Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists don’t threaten violence or behead people if their religion is insulted in the UK. The issue we should be focusing on is not being fearful of offending Muslims but why they think their religion is so important that they shouldn’t be offended. Religion is a set of beliefs, it has no basis in fact.

Exactly. How do all these other people manage not to issue death threats if someone’s not taking their beliefs seriously?

A massive clampdown on religious fundamentalism should have taken place then.

Also agree with this. Clampdown and clear boundaries, rather than appeasement and all that “we should really know better” and “didn’t we learn anything from that other teacher being beheaded”.

Yes, this is it.

Religious tolerance means we can all practice our own religion, or none, in accordance with our personal convictions.

The minute offence in one religion has to be appeased by non-adherents we have all lost that religious tolerance and freedom.

I don't know it as a fact, this is purely supposition, but I imagine the extremists who have issued these threats do so for just this reason.

Liberty is what allows for freedom of worship in the UK and other liberal democracies. The suppression of this liberty pathes the way to authoritarian rule.

Beware of lending your support to those who do not support your liberty. This is not tolerant or benevolent. Quite the opposite.

So the 6% you quote isn't really relevant.

Of course it’s relevant if we’re talking about the situation in the UK!

Which maths lesson did you miss? 6% of UK population have managed 67% of terror attacks in UK since 2018. There are around 40,000 islamists on the uk watch list that's 95% of the whole list.

That’s really interesting and I wonder why that is.
You’d expect it to be the other way round - for the first generation to struggle with integration while the following ones just assimilate.
You often hear how people find the question 'Where are you from?' offensive because they were born here.
On the other hand, it seems like for some people being born here doesn’t actually mean they’re happy to embrace local values and they rather stick with the cultural norms of their ancestors.

Muhammad is the most popular boys name for the simple reason that Muslim parents are spectacularly unimaginative when it comes to naming boys. You don’t see any traditional Muslim names in the top 10 list of girls names.

"Muhammad is the most popular boys name for the simple reason that Muslim parents are spectacularly unimaginative when it comes to naming boys."

Let's bash Muslims for that as well. It's terrible about the threats the Batley teacher experienced but most ordinary Muslims do not behave like that. I really think this is one of the most Islamaphobic threads I have ever read.

Of course most ordinary Muslims don’t behave like that, but what happened to the Batley teacher is also not unique.
Samuel Paty, the people from Charlie Hebdo, Theo van Gogh, threats (and in one case attack) against Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, just to name a few of the more prominent cases.

Most ordinary Muslims will say “the death threats are unjustified but..” and therein lies the problem.

As I explained above, fear of this type of medieval behaviour fuelled by a religious belief is rational, and by definition therefore, not a phobia. You want to tell Samuel Paty’s family, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and others that their fear is irrational?

inamarina, there are a number of reasons. Sometimes when people first move somewhere and are the only person who is different they want to fit in more but when numbers change they don't. Eg where I live when I first married it was a London borough about 30% non white and now is it 70% nonwhite. That is quite a change. I am not a minority as I am white (I am not suggesting colour and religion of course necessarily go together but just illustrating the point).

Secondly some teenage girls decided to express rebellion (*as all teenagers like to do) by being different from their mothers eg covering their head (or in a few extreme cases running off to ISIS).

A third reason may be the spread of more radical islam in UK mosques eg see https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/london-bridge-terrorist-attackers-british-muslim-man-islam-saudi-mosques-wahhabi-different-a7775116.html

A fourth reason is that unlike a lot of very well educated hindu newer immigrants quite a lot of the recent muslim immigrants and their parents were not doctors expelled from Africa by Idi Amin from very well educated families and if you are not very well educated, come from poverty and are in a culture which perhaps solves issues other than through the civil courts you might be less likely to write an academic paper about representation of your prophet in drawings or otherwise and instead take more direct action.

Anyway hopefully we all including UK muslims can fight very hard to ensure death threats are never made even when someone mocks a religion. No one group is above the law.

I really think this is one of the most Islamaphobic threads I have ever read

Really surprised and would like to understand why you feel that?

Posters are saying - it is acceptable to feel upset by an image of mohammed. That's a faith and reaction based on someone beliefs. Some Christians felt similar outrage over TV shows about Christ.

However it is never acceptable to tolerate or justify violence or death threats based on religious beliefs. Never, no excuses.

I would feel the same about Christians and would be critical of any community who thought death threats were tolerable. Criticisms of a religion or community isn't "phobia"...it's criticism.

In the case of Batley,those people, individuals who claimed they were acting for Islam, should be heavily criticised for accepting death threats.

That criticism should also come from the Muslim community, including voices on MN. It's the only way to defeat extremism

Well why don't ordinary Muslims take to the streets denouncing this sort of behaviour? Drive these medieval hateful people out and make it known they are dragging Islam through the mud, and ordinary Muslims won't have it?
Muslims are not shy about demonstrating and taking to the streets for other reasons, so that can't be the reason they don't do this. The reasons I can think they don't shake these 'protesters' off their back is -

1. They agree with them.
2. They are also scared of them.

I really think this is one of the most Islamaphobic threads I have ever read.

And this right here is part of the problem. Why is it islamophobic to talk about what is clearly an issue?

It is not Islamaphobic to be appalled that in this day and age certain groups use religion as an excuse to terrorise others.
In the 70s 2 family members were murdered by the IRA. Neighbour's 2 sons were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the IRA. The UDF were just as bad. Unspeakable things still go on in that part of the world.
I have huge issues with the Catholic Church and the C of E as institutions. I despise terrorists who use religion as an excuse for intimidation and murder.
That does not mean I hate Christians. My late mother was a Christian who lived her faith in every way, all her life. I know many good people who have a faith.

First family member witnessed a murder and was killed to prevent them giving evidence. Second was in a building that was bombed.
People are afraid to report the thugs. This is all the more reason for the government and the police to act hard and fast and NOT pander to the thugs.

I completely agree.

I don’t think the thread is Islamaphobic but I do think some comments were (eg anything that assumes “all Muslims” think and act the same)

I didn’t like it in the 1970’s when people assumed my family were IRA terrorist supporters because they are Irish. I don’t think it’s fair to make those assumptions about Muslims.