Tag Archives: Labor Party

News

A closer look at the Islamization of schools in the UK

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Here is a story from the UK Telegraph that should concern us all. (H/T Dennis Prager)

The news story:

The Birmingham school at the centre of an alleged campaign of “Islamisation” by Muslim radicals is to be placed in “special measures” by the Government’s education watchdog in a move that could see its head teacher and governors removed.

Park View, previously rated “outstanding” by Ofsted, will be downgraded to “inadequate”, the lowest possible score, in the category of leadership and management, senior education sources said.

This enables Ofsted to place the school in special measures, allowing the watchdog, if it wishes, to remove the school’s entire leadership.

The move, described as “seismic” by senior educational sources, follows a highly unusual two Ofsted inspections in the past three weeks at the school, the alleged victim of a campaign by Islamists called a “Trojan Horse” to remove secular head teachers and install Islamic practices in Birmingham state schools.

So why does the government have to step in?

Here’s why:

The disclosure comes as parents and school governors and staff describe in detail how the campaign has destabilised and undermined successful schools.

In extensive interviews with The Sunday Telegraph, more than a dozen sources disclosed how children at one supposedly non-religious primary school, Oldknow, were led in anti-Christian chanting by one of their teachers at assembly.

The school also conducts weekly Friday prayers, has organised at least three school trips to Mecca subsidised from public funds, and requires all pupils to learn Arabic — almost unheard of at a primary school.

It also runs its own madrassah, or religious school. Oldknow’s highly successful non-Muslim head teacher has been driven from her post for resisting this “Islamising agenda”, this newspaper has learnt.

The head of another successful primary school, Springfield, received death threats, had his car tyres slashed and is under “non-stop attack” by radical governors, according to parents, other governors and staff at the school.

And more:

Last year Mr da Costa recruited a new deputy head, Jahangir Akbar, from a Muslim faith school in Leicester. Soon afterwards, Jahangir’s younger brother, Khalil, was recruited as assistant head. No other candidates were interviewed for either position and the assistant headship was not even advertised, staff said. Jahangir Akbar is another colleague of Tahir Alam’s and has worked with him in the Association of Muslim Schools, of which Mr Alam is vice-chairman.

“Oldknow’s pupils are mostly but not entirely Muslim and it was always an equal-opportunity school,” said one former member of staff. “But then all of a sudden there were Jummah [Friday] prayers, and going to Saudi Arabia on government money, and the Arabic, and blatant belittling of Christianity.”

Hardline teachers were recruited who would “sow the seed of religion in every lesson,” said one source. “Some of the teachers told pupils that music was sinful in Islam and the children started to refuse to do music, even though it is compulsory in the National Curriculum. It is incredibly difficult when your own colleagues undermine your efforts to give the children a balanced education.”

Matters came to a head, three separate sources said, last December when all the normal Christmas activity, including a tree, cards and the pantomime, was cancelled because it was considered un-Islamic, and the school’s Arabic teacher, Asif Khan, delivered an assembly “ridiculing” Christian beliefs. “It was like a rally,” said one person present. “He was leading them in chants of, ‘Do we believe in Christmas? No! Do we give out Christmas cards? No! The seven days of Christmas, they [Christians] can’t even count!’

The UK was under Labour Party rule for a long time, and under the Labour Party, huge numbers of unskilled immigrants from Muslim countries were let into the country in the name of multiculturalism. The Labour Party is gone from office now, but the damage is still being felt today. Under Labour rule, the country seems to have taken a turn towards moral relativism and radical feminism, so that people seem to be terrified of making moral judgments or standing up to a centralized, powerful government. Even many Christians in the UK seem to struggle with holding to conservative morality and theology, and they even vote for the Labour Party and worse, the Liberal Democrats. There just seems to be a suspicion of individual liberty and personal responsibility that has weakened the country so that it is a shadow of its former self.

News

Islamic terrorists behead unarmed British soldier in London street in broad daylight

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The left-leaning UK Independent reports.

Excerpt:

Terrorism returned to the streets of Britain yesterday when a soldier was murdered by two suspected Islamists who attempted to behead and disembowel him as he left a barracks, in the first deadly attack since the 2005 London bombings.

One of the suspected killers, who addressed an onlooker who had a camera, said the pair had carried out the attack “because David Cameron, [the] British government sent troops in Arabic country”.

As pedestrians stood close by the armed men, he went on: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” according to footage obtained by ITV News .

The Independent understands the dead soldier – who was wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt – was a member of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, which is currently based overseas. He was ambushed by the men as he left the base in Woolwich, south-east London, who attacked him and then dragged his body into the middle of the road to pose for photographs while standing over him waving a cleaver and a gun, according to witnesses.

[…]One witness, identified only as James, said he and his partner saw two black men attack a young man aged about 20 with kitchen knives like he was “a piece of meat”.

“They were hacking at this poor guy, literally,” he told LBC Radio, adding that a group of brave women tried to shield the soldier from the two men.

“They were hacking at him, chopping him, cutting him. These two guys were crazed. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there.”

More politically incorrect details here from Sky News. (H/T The Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

Two attackers armed with meat cleavers filmed their deadly assault on a man in London, according to Sky sources.

A man reported to be a serving soldier died and two people have been shot in Woolwich, after what Sky sources understand is being treated as a terrorist attack.

Senior Whitehall sources said the two attackers asked passers-by to film them, and they shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great).

In footage that has emerged, one of the attackers wields a bloodied meat cleaver and says: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”

The black man, dressed in a grey hooded jacket and black woolly hat, apologises to members of the public who witnessed the horrific scenes before making a number of political statements.

In the footage, he is heard to say: “We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

“I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe.

“Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”

Witnesses also described seeing the “crazed” Woolwich attackers “hacking” at their victim and posing for pictures before charging at police wielding meat cleavers.

Here’s a still shot of one the murderers at the scene:

Islamic terrorist murderer
Islamic terrorist on camera: how will the liberal media spin this?

If this happened in the United States, I have no doubt that the fools on the secular left would be blaming this on the Tea Party conservatives and evangelical Christians. I have no doubt that the Democrats in the Obama administration will look at the video and the still images of the murderer and come away thinking that a crackdown on evangelical Christians who are pro-life and believe in limited government is needed. In addition to going after Bible-believing Christians, they would probably want to double welfare payments for people who are in the country illegally.

One other point. A lot of very stupid secularists see stories like this and then have the view that there is something wrong with certainty and conviction in religion. There is nothing wrong with certainty and conviction in religion provided that the religion is not Islam. I have a friend who is a Christian who is very firm in her convictions and she carried groceries Wednesday to an atheist who was sick and on crutches. She is very convinced about the truth of her beliefs and acted on them. Being certain of your views and acting on them is fine as long as the views are rooted in truth.

News

New study: fewer than one in ten women staying home with children

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Dina sent me this article from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

Fewer than one in ten women stay at home to look after their children

  • Latest census figures show 300,000 fewer staying home than thought
  • Concerns for well-being of mothers and impact on toddlers in day care
  • Stay-at-home figures dropped from 17 per cent of women 20 years ago

The stay-at-home mother is fast becoming consigned to history, according to the latest census figures.

Returns showed there are 300,000 fewer than officials  had previously estimated, with those who devote their lives to bringing up families now reduced to a tiny minority.

Fewer than one in ten women of working age are stay-at-home mothers.

The collapse follows a decade in which governments urged mothers to take jobs on the grounds that working is the route to fulfilment for women and that families with two incomes are much less likely to fall into poverty.

Critics, however, are concerned for the well-being of mothers who might prefer to be with their families, and the impact on increasing numbers of toddlers who spend long hours in day care.

The 2011 census results found there are 1,598,000 women who do not work because they are looking after their home and family – 298,000 fewer than estimates from the Office for National Statistics.

Note that this is applauded by feminist groups, like the UK Labour Party:

The decline in numbers of stay-at-home mothers will be welcomed by ministers as the Labour drive to push mothers into work has continued under the Coalition.

Childcare minister Elizabeth Truss has made a priority of providing cheaper day care to help mothers into jobs.

In an article earlier this year  she said it was ‘vital’ for mothers to work, adding: ‘To power ahead Britain needs to look at best practice from overseas to discover how to increase women’s participation, especially for those who are parents.’

But critics say the sky-high level of house prices and the lack of help for two-parent families in the tax and benefit systems means most mothers have to work, whether they like it or not.

Earlier this week I blogged studies that showed the importance of fathers to children. But it’s important to remember that mothers are also important to children, especially in the first few years of the child’s life. And we have studies to back that up as well.

Brain scans of 3-year old children: normal vs neglected
Brain scans of 3-year old children: normal vs neglected

This was discussed before in another article from the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

Both of these images are brain scans of a two three-year-old children, but the brain on the left is considerably larger, has fewer spots and less dark areas, compared to the one on the right.

According to neurologists this sizeable difference has one primary cause – the way each child was treated by their mothers.

The child with the larger and more fully developed brain was looked after by its mother – she was constantly responsive to her baby, reported The Sunday Telegraph.

But the child with the shrunken brain was the victim of severe neglect and abuse.

According to research reported by the newspaper, the brain on the right worryingly lacks some of the most fundamental areas present in the image on the left.

The consequences of these deficits are pronounced – the child on the left with the larger brain will be more intelligent and more likely to develop the social ability to empathise with others.

But in contrast, the child with the shrunken brain will be more likely to become addicted to drugs and involved in violent crimes, much more likely to be unemployed and to be dependent on state benefits.

The child is also more likely to develop mental and other serious health problems.

Professor Allan Schore, of UCLA, told The Sunday Telegraph that if a baby is not treated properly in the first two years of life, it can have a fundamental impact on development.

He pointed out that the genes for several aspects of brain function, including intelligence, cannot function.

[…]The study correlates with research released earlier this year that found that children who are given love and affection from their mothers early in life are smarter with a better ability to learn.

The study by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, found school-aged children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.

The research was the first to show that changes in this critical region of children’s brain anatomy are linked to a mother’s nurturing, Neurosciencenews.com reports.

The research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

Lead author Joan L. Luby, MD, professor of child psychiatry, said the study reinforces how important nurturing parents are to a child’s development.

If we are really interested in providing for the needs of young children, then we have to voluntarily limit the freedom of adults. Traditional marriage is the way that societies have provided for the needs of young children. Marriage puts boundaries on sexual activity (premarital chastity, post-marital fidelity) that are beneficial to children. Children need to have access to their parents over the course of their development.

We should be promoting behaviors and policies that strengthen marriage, like chastity and low tax rates. We should be opposing behaviors and policies that weaken marriages, like hooking-up and no-fault divorce. That’s what we would do if we really had the best interests of children at heart instead of the best interests of adults.