Middle East Policy has been one of the world’s most cited publications on the region since its inception in 1982, and our Breaking Analysis series makes high-quality, diverse analysis available to a broader audience.
Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor
Guest Commentary
Parents, how would you feel if your child’s teacher described himself as “an architect of minds”, encouraged those in his care to pray for the release of known terrorists, spouted jihadist doctrines, banned music and drama and taught young boys that men were entitled “to rape” their wives?
This kind of dangerous indoctrination that has nothing to do with the religion of Islam is happening now — and, no, I’m not talking about the madrassas of Afghanistan or Pakistan or those being founded in northern Syria by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It’s happening right under the noses of educational authorities in Europe’s multi-cultural, multi-ethnic European heartland — Britain.
This scandal, broken by the Daily Mail under the headline “Trojan Horse Files”, has become a topic of vigorous debate between extreme leftists unable to distinguish between the true Islam and a distorted version disseminated for political purposes, who consider the paper’s report to be Islamophobic, and the majority which fears, rightly in my opinion, that their country is en route to becoming a terrorist hothouse, spearheaded by anti-immigration parties such as UKIP.
The Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-supporting MP for Bradford, George Galloway, who has his own talk show on the Iranian English language channel Press TV, has described the Trojan Horse- (expletive) as “an Iraq War style shock and awe attack on British Muslims complete with dodgy dossier” and vowed to “defend the immigrant families from this racist Tory attack even if no-one will.” The poor man is deluded; he’s been mixing with the wrong crowd for so long that he’s blind to the fact that Islam is a religion of submission, moderation, tolerance and peace, which has, and is being, grossly misrepresented by his buddies and his bosses in Qom.
At the centre of the row are five schools in the city of Birmingham, which has a large Asian population. Now I’m all for immigrants retaining their religious beliefs and respective cultures while, at the same time, assimilating into the society at large, but when schools incite anti-Christian chants, cancel Christmas celebrations in a Christian country, invite extremist firebrand clerics to lecture pupils and send non-Muslim teachers packing, they’ve overstepped their brief. Indeed, when I first glimpsed photographs of the bearded ‘teachers’ of one of the schools, Park View, before reading the text, I thought the Daily Mail article was about Al Qaeda terrorists, not educators in a western democratic country.
Park View has an Islamist curriculum and provides lessons in jihad, advertised on the school’s website. Its head of extra-curricular activities, Abid Ali, rails against the western world on Facebook, writing: “All that occupies my mind is the reality, the hypocrisy, the mentality of the western world” while advocating “a Muslim Khalifa” movement…fighting to save our religion from the zalims (tyrants)." A senior teacher, Inam Ul Haq, has celebrated the early release of “the Terrorists’ Bookseller” Abu Bakr, on social media.
There are currently five government investigations ongoing into what’s being described as the ‘Trojan Horse Plot’ but, as yet, no action has been taken and the brainwashers still retain their jobs. Last week, the results of inspections of Birmingham schools were published galvanizing Minister for Education Michael Gove to issue a statement requiring Britain’s independent schools, academies and free schools to “respect British values” while announcing that consultations are ongoing to enforce new rules designed to ensure “all schools actively promote British values.” This may be too little too late. Britain’s extremists and wannabe jihadists are naturally up in arms screaming racism and bigotry.
Successive British governments have turned a blind eye to religious fanatics for too long — and one day, their neglect may bite them in the face, just as it did on July 7, 2005 when home-grown terrorists launched suicide attacks on the London transport system, killing 52 and injuring 770. You would think they’d learned an indelible lesson from that terrible tragedy, but, just the opposite. In recent years, the UK has become a magnet for members of the Muslim Brotherhood, branded “terrorist” by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who created a global nerve-centre above an abandoned kebab shop in north London that is now being relocated to Austria following a government investigation into their activities, an investigation which was aided by MI6, MI5 and supervised by Whitehall officials. It goes without saying that the Brotherhood’s well-oiled propaganda machine has gone into over-drive issuing heavily couched threats partnered with avowals of innocence.
British soil is also being used by hard line extremists as the place to launch satellite TV channels airing inflammatory sermons from preachers; one such as the Birmingham-based, misnamed Peace TV, owned by Dr. Zakir Naik, who is quoted as saying “Every Muslim should be a terrorist”. Takbeer TV, broadcasting from Nottingham, has been agitating against the Ahmadi sect, describing adherents as suffering from a disease or having monstrous intentions. There are 14 of these spewing hate, death to apostates and calls for jihad, yet, the television watchdog, OFCOM, does little more than issue nominal fines when breaches of its code come to its attention.
Come on Britain! Do something! Those pea-brained propagandists do not represent mainstream Muslims and are not fit to be in the same room as our Holy Book. Indeed, they should be rounded up and tried for desecrating our faith. Don’t listen to the ignorant rants of so-called human rights activists, more focused on preserving the rights of crazies than decent, devout people who work through their religion to better societies and further inter-faith understanding.
You’ve opened your doors with good intentions but now when you’re being turned into a favoured extremist dustbin, it’s time self-preservation kicks-in. It’s no accident of fate that over 500 Britons are known to be fighting alongside ISIL in Syria and Iraq, fuelled by the promise of an Islamist caliphate. That won’t happen, because the west won’t permit it, and then they’ll be back — battle-hardened and consumed with anger. Be warned, that unless this type of indoctrination is nipped firmly in the bud in schools, mosques and on TV, the jihadists could decide to make the UK their next playground, spawning a rise of fascism and neo-Nazism in response.
Middle East Policy has been one of the world’s most cited publications on the region since its inception in 1982, and our Breaking Analysis series makes high-quality, diverse analysis available to a broader audience.
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Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor
Guest Commentary
Parents, how would you feel if your child’s teacher described himself as “an architect of minds”, encouraged those in his care to pray for the release of known terrorists, spouted jihadist doctrines, banned music and drama and taught young boys that men were entitled “to rape” their wives?
This kind of dangerous indoctrination that has nothing to do with the religion of Islam is happening now — and, no, I’m not talking about the madrassas of Afghanistan or Pakistan or those being founded in northern Syria by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). It’s happening right under the noses of educational authorities in Europe’s multi-cultural, multi-ethnic European heartland — Britain.
This scandal, broken by the Daily Mail under the headline “Trojan Horse Files”, has become a topic of vigorous debate between extreme leftists unable to distinguish between the true Islam and a distorted version disseminated for political purposes, who consider the paper’s report to be Islamophobic, and the majority which fears, rightly in my opinion, that their country is en route to becoming a terrorist hothouse, spearheaded by anti-immigration parties such as UKIP.
The Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-supporting MP for Bradford, George Galloway, who has his own talk show on the Iranian English language channel Press TV, has described the Trojan Horse- (expletive) as “an Iraq War style shock and awe attack on British Muslims complete with dodgy dossier” and vowed to “defend the immigrant families from this racist Tory attack even if no-one will.” The poor man is deluded; he’s been mixing with the wrong crowd for so long that he’s blind to the fact that Islam is a religion of submission, moderation, tolerance and peace, which has, and is being, grossly misrepresented by his buddies and his bosses in Qom.
At the centre of the row are five schools in the city of Birmingham, which has a large Asian population. Now I’m all for immigrants retaining their religious beliefs and respective cultures while, at the same time, assimilating into the society at large, but when schools incite anti-Christian chants, cancel Christmas celebrations in a Christian country, invite extremist firebrand clerics to lecture pupils and send non-Muslim teachers packing, they’ve overstepped their brief. Indeed, when I first glimpsed photographs of the bearded ‘teachers’ of one of the schools, Park View, before reading the text, I thought the Daily Mail article was about Al Qaeda terrorists, not educators in a western democratic country.
Park View has an Islamist curriculum and provides lessons in jihad, advertised on the school’s website. Its head of extra-curricular activities, Abid Ali, rails against the western world on Facebook, writing: “All that occupies my mind is the reality, the hypocrisy, the mentality of the western world” while advocating “a Muslim Khalifa” movement…fighting to save our religion from the zalims (tyrants)." A senior teacher, Inam Ul Haq, has celebrated the early release of “the Terrorists’ Bookseller” Abu Bakr, on social media.
There are currently five government investigations ongoing into what’s being described as the ‘Trojan Horse Plot’ but, as yet, no action has been taken and the brainwashers still retain their jobs. Last week, the results of inspections of Birmingham schools were published galvanizing Minister for Education Michael Gove to issue a statement requiring Britain’s independent schools, academies and free schools to “respect British values” while announcing that consultations are ongoing to enforce new rules designed to ensure “all schools actively promote British values.” This may be too little too late. Britain’s extremists and wannabe jihadists are naturally up in arms screaming racism and bigotry.
Successive British governments have turned a blind eye to religious fanatics for too long — and one day, their neglect may bite them in the face, just as it did on July 7, 2005 when home-grown terrorists launched suicide attacks on the London transport system, killing 52 and injuring 770. You would think they’d learned an indelible lesson from that terrible tragedy, but, just the opposite. In recent years, the UK has become a magnet for members of the Muslim Brotherhood, branded “terrorist” by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who created a global nerve-centre above an abandoned kebab shop in north London that is now being relocated to Austria following a government investigation into their activities, an investigation which was aided by MI6, MI5 and supervised by Whitehall officials. It goes without saying that the Brotherhood’s well-oiled propaganda machine has gone into over-drive issuing heavily couched threats partnered with avowals of innocence.
British soil is also being used by hard line extremists as the place to launch satellite TV channels airing inflammatory sermons from preachers; one such as the Birmingham-based, misnamed Peace TV, owned by Dr. Zakir Naik, who is quoted as saying “Every Muslim should be a terrorist”. Takbeer TV, broadcasting from Nottingham, has been agitating against the Ahmadi sect, describing adherents as suffering from a disease or having monstrous intentions. There are 14 of these spewing hate, death to apostates and calls for jihad, yet, the television watchdog, OFCOM, does little more than issue nominal fines when breaches of its code come to its attention.
Come on Britain! Do something! Those pea-brained propagandists do not represent mainstream Muslims and are not fit to be in the same room as our Holy Book. Indeed, they should be rounded up and tried for desecrating our faith. Don’t listen to the ignorant rants of so-called human rights activists, more focused on preserving the rights of crazies than decent, devout people who work through their religion to better societies and further inter-faith understanding.
You’ve opened your doors with good intentions but now when you’re being turned into a favoured extremist dustbin, it’s time self-preservation kicks-in. It’s no accident of fate that over 500 Britons are known to be fighting alongside ISIL in Syria and Iraq, fuelled by the promise of an Islamist caliphate. That won’t happen, because the west won’t permit it, and then they’ll be back — battle-hardened and consumed with anger. Be warned, that unless this type of indoctrination is nipped firmly in the bud in schools, mosques and on TV, the jihadists could decide to make the UK their next playground, spawning a rise of fascism and neo-Nazism in response.