Activist Kasim Javed sets out what mosques and madrassas can expect if Ofsted regulations become mandatory.
As the Government consider its proposed system for registering and inspecting out-of-school education settings, which will disproportionately target Mosques and Madrassas, it is worth pondering on what this will look like.
We already know that the “out-of-school settings” is a politically correct attempt to cover up the reality and intent of the policy which is to identify “Islamic extremism” from within the Muslim community. Something that MP’s in a recent parliamentary debate implied when raising concerns about why Christian out-of-school settings will be pointlessly dragged into this legislation. The Christian and Jewish communities have also made the point that they should not be scapegoated for a problem that concerns Muslims and Islamic “extremism”.
We also know that the proposals are an extension of Prevent and clearly framed within the context of the “radicalisation” debate which can be seen in the “Call for evidence” document that the Government published for the consultation period back in December 2015.
In addition to this, we have witnessed from the Trojan Horse hoax how Ofsted degraded schools simply for accommodating Islamic rituals such as calling the Adhaan, Segregation of boys and girls, teaching Islam as a superior value system, upholding the Islamic views on homosexuality, and criticising actions of the illegitimate state of Israel and British foreign policy. All of which the mainstream Muslim community doesn’t have any problem with irrespective of their Islamic persuasion.
Moreover, we have seen the national criticism against Prevent and even calls to repeal the legislation from all sectors of society, including the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the National Union of Students (NUS), intellectuals and academics, doctors and health professionals, social workers, and of course the Muslim community in general such as some stand-alone Council of Mosques and the northern coalition of mosques who strongly rejected Prevent in the consultation response to the out-of-schools legislation.
The main reason why the country has rightly so expressed unequivocal rejection of the Government’s Prevent strategy is because it is in reality an insidious attempt to liberalise normative beliefs, values and practises of Islam as well as to systematically impose political loyalties to Britain. Hence, anyone that opposes the idea of “British values” (a euphuism for secular liberal values) or opposes democracy, believes in the supremacy of Islamic law or criticises British foreign policy such as it’s support for the illegal state of Israel or it’s carnage in Syria or its relationship with dictators such as the dictatorial monarchy of the Saudi regime e.t.c are all susceptible in failing to meet the so called preventative anti-terror measures.
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Prevent has also been criticised for it’s neo-McCarthyite like approach suppressing the proclamation of alternative ideologies and closing down debate and discussion, but the most worrying of course is the insanity of spying on children as young as 3 in case they become terrorists. We know this from lots of case studies that have come to the surface of the media including;
- Teachers’ extremist fears over boy, 10, after he complains about lack of prayer room
- 12-Year-old suspected of being vulnerable to radicalisation in a row over Halal Chicken
- Schoolboy Reported to Prevent After Palestinian Kids Appeal
- Muslim boy interrogated at school for saying ‘eco-terrorist’
- Four-year-old who ‘mispronounced the word cucumber’ threatened with counter-terrorism measures
- Fury after Primary pupils are asked to complete radicalisation-seeking surveys
- Three-year-old child from London placed in Government Anti-Extremism programme
So what can Mosques and Madrassas expect if the Government push through Ofsted style inspections?
Such proposals will radically alter the political landscape of then Muslim community for generations to come. Mosques and Madrassas will be pressurised to secularise their curriculums so that they are compatible with Western liberal values.
There will be countless cases of innocent Muslim children and teachers who are accused of being extreme. Imams will be forced to conceal the normative Islamic values and beliefs on issues such as segregation, homosexuality, extolling the virtues of the Shari’ah and the superiority of Islamic values, discussing the history and legacy of the Islamic Caliphate, as well as the de-politicisation of the Islamic Aqeedah.
If mosques and madrassas are registered, it will lead to the beginning of the end of traditional Islamic ideas that most Muslims in this country were taught and the race to reform Islam in accordance with British secular liberal values would gain momentum.
What should we do? Irrespective of the proposed legislations, Mosques and Madrassas should have a plan to Keep Mosques Independent. This doesn’t simply mean to be independent from state bureaucracy, but to have a vision that is predicated on the preservation of the Islamic identify and propagation of the Islamic Da’wah to both Muslims and the wider society.
The Keep Mosques Independent campaign is working with Mosques and Madrassas around the country in order to develop Islamic culturing programs such as parenting schemes, mentoring programs, non-Muslim exhibitions, media training on answering difficult questions as well as developing standards for self-regulation which is transparent and accountable to the community it serves. Email [email protected] to find out more on how you can keep your Mosque independent.
