balance at last - good old daily telegraph.
Discussion
maybe ted can immediately close this thread, just leaving this eminently objective and sensible summary from the wise and fair oracle itself, "the daily telegraph" - today's editorial lead:
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Religion and school rules must both be respected
(Filed: 03/03/2005)
Shabina Begum, 16, spouted a great deal of nonsense yesterday after the Appeal Court upheld her right to wear the full head-to-toe jilbab, in defiance of her former school's policy on uniform. Every word that this Muslim schoolgirl uttered smacked more of politics than of true religious feeling.
The court's decision, she said, was a victory for all Muslims against prejudice and bigotry. "The decision of Denbigh High School to prevent my adherence to my religion cannot unfortunately be viewed merely as a local decision taken in isolation. Rather it was a consequence of an atmosphere that has been created in Western societies post-9/11, an atmosphere in which Islam has been made a target for vilification in the name of the 'war on terror'."
To portray Denbigh High School in Bedfordshire as a hotbed of bigotry and prejudice against Muslims would be outrageous and absurd. No fewer than 79 per cent of its 1,000 pupils are Muslims. Its head, Yasmin Bevan, was herself born into a Bengali Muslim family. The school rules allow pupils to wear the hijab head-dress and the trousers-and-tunic shalwar kameez. As the court acknowledged, one of Denbigh High's reasons for refusing to allow Miss Begum to wear the full jilbab was that other Muslim girls did not want to be put under pressure to wear it, while non-Muslim pupils were also afraid of its associations with extremism. Here was a school doing everything it thought best to allow all its pupils, from every background, to get on together. When Miss Begum confronted the school, accompanied by her brother and another young man whose behaviour the assistant head teacher found "unreasonable and threatening", it is pretty clear that she was out to make a fuss.
We cannot blame Lord Justice Brooke, however, for ruling in favour of this bloody-minded 16-year-old against the school. His job was simply to interpret the disastrous Human Rights Act as it applied to Miss Begum's case - the very Act now cited by this Government as its reason for having to take the power to put Britons under house arrest without trial. Nor, indeed, do we see anything wrong in principle with allowing pupils to wear the dress that their religious beliefs require - as long as their purpose in dressing differently is not simply to provoke ill-feeling or to stick two fingers up at the school authorities.
The sooner the Human Rights Act is repealed, the sooner British justice will be able to re-establish its contact with common sense. Meanwhile, we hope that as Miss Begum grows up, she will begin to realise how lucky she is to live in a tolerant society.
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gentlemen (and ladies) start your engines!!
ttfn
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Religion and school rules must both be respected
(Filed: 03/03/2005)
Shabina Begum, 16, spouted a great deal of nonsense yesterday after the Appeal Court upheld her right to wear the full head-to-toe jilbab, in defiance of her former school's policy on uniform. Every word that this Muslim schoolgirl uttered smacked more of politics than of true religious feeling.
The court's decision, she said, was a victory for all Muslims against prejudice and bigotry. "The decision of Denbigh High School to prevent my adherence to my religion cannot unfortunately be viewed merely as a local decision taken in isolation. Rather it was a consequence of an atmosphere that has been created in Western societies post-9/11, an atmosphere in which Islam has been made a target for vilification in the name of the 'war on terror'."
To portray Denbigh High School in Bedfordshire as a hotbed of bigotry and prejudice against Muslims would be outrageous and absurd. No fewer than 79 per cent of its 1,000 pupils are Muslims. Its head, Yasmin Bevan, was herself born into a Bengali Muslim family. The school rules allow pupils to wear the hijab head-dress and the trousers-and-tunic shalwar kameez. As the court acknowledged, one of Denbigh High's reasons for refusing to allow Miss Begum to wear the full jilbab was that other Muslim girls did not want to be put under pressure to wear it, while non-Muslim pupils were also afraid of its associations with extremism. Here was a school doing everything it thought best to allow all its pupils, from every background, to get on together. When Miss Begum confronted the school, accompanied by her brother and another young man whose behaviour the assistant head teacher found "unreasonable and threatening", it is pretty clear that she was out to make a fuss.
We cannot blame Lord Justice Brooke, however, for ruling in favour of this bloody-minded 16-year-old against the school. His job was simply to interpret the disastrous Human Rights Act as it applied to Miss Begum's case - the very Act now cited by this Government as its reason for having to take the power to put Britons under house arrest without trial. Nor, indeed, do we see anything wrong in principle with allowing pupils to wear the dress that their religious beliefs require - as long as their purpose in dressing differently is not simply to provoke ill-feeling or to stick two fingers up at the school authorities.
The sooner the Human Rights Act is repealed, the sooner British justice will be able to re-establish its contact with common sense. Meanwhile, we hope that as Miss Begum grows up, she will begin to realise how lucky she is to live in a tolerant society.
--
gentlemen (and ladies) start your engines!!
ttfn
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