In my first article, I wrote that:
… there are many political battles in various European countries which appear to be between “native” Europeans and Muslim immigrants. In fact, these political issues are argued between left and right within the native political community, with the immigrants themselves as interested but largely powerless bystanders.
As a case in point, Wretchard at Belmont Club today picks up the story of Islington Council in London wanting a school to change its name to remove the word “saint”.
At first glance, this backs up Wretchard’s point about Europe abandoning its Christian roots, but there is more to the story than meets the eye.
First, Islington Council is about as representative of European culture as the UC Berkely Student Government is of America. James Kempton, the “children spokesman” who was quoted in the story, was elected to the council with 1129 votes, on a turnout of 29%. Local government in Britain is a complete joke; with virtually no powers, elections are treated purely as opinion polls on the national government, and corruption and incompetence are rife. The current Islington council is moderate compared to its predecessors, who declared Islington a “nuclear free zone”, and were notable mainly for running children’s homes in which the children were routinely sexually abused by staff. (In a sick twist, the leader of the council at the time is now “Minster for Children” in Tony Blair’s government).
Second, this story is really about the state education system in Britain. The government does such an appalling job of running schools that atheist parents all over the country are turning up to church to qualify their children for church-run schools. The ideal for a parent is a school that is paid for by the state (so they don’t have to pay), but run by the church, to protect it from the malign influence of the state system. The school in question is one of those. Because it is a decent school, the local authority wants to claim it as theirs, whereas the Church of England, which has made it a decent school, doesn’t see why it shouldn’t get the credit. Hence the argument over the name. The people who would supposedly be “offended” by the school being called the “St Mary Magdalene Church of England Primary School” are nowhere to be seen.
Update: Of course, this sort of thing is not seen here as “typically European”, it is rather seen as importation of American-style political correctness. There is some truth in this, as this post The War On Christmas on Chigago Boyz shows.
I picked up your blog from Belmont Club, and I find it interesting and informative. I used to live in England when I was young, so I have a more than passing interest in the country.
Can you address the demographic issue in Britain as raised by a commenter in an earlier Belmont Club post? That is, whether Britain has the largest proportion of Muslims among European countries. If this is true, I had not realized it. I haven’t been able to locate trustworthy statistics.
Baron: Kevin can post some of the most perverse rants.
To the best of my knowledge, he has yet to address Europe’s Demographic bomb, which is not a figment of anyone’s imagination as he likes to portray many of our concerns.
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The two “Western” countries (besides Bosnia and Albania of course) with the largest Muslim minorities are Israel and Great Britain. The vast majority of new Muslim immigrants to Europe want to traverse the “old” part as quickly as possible, heading to Belgian and French ports so they can sneak on to lorries heading to England. Every month, thousands of these new immigrants sneak into slums up and down the British Isles. The mosque in Finsbury Park in North London has some of the most radical clerics to be found anywhere.
There is much concern here for Sweden, France, Belgium and Holland while not a word about Britain or Israel. Why is that?
# posted by Kevin : 11:40 AM
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004/11/death-in-antwerp-andrew-sullivan-links.html
Ms Hodge would be proud of our NEA here.
(National Education Association)
Debra Haffner, a former head of SIECUS, strongly promotes “outercourse” for younger teens, which includes everything but vaginal sex (e.g. oral sex, masturbation, mutual masturbation, showering together, watching erotic movies together, etc.) She actually believes such behavior will delay the onset of vaginal intercourse!
Most parents and grandparents are undoubtedly unaware of the explicitness involved in sexuality education SIECUS-style. Worse yet, the National Education Association formally joined forces with SIECUS last year to host a breakfast for members of Congress. About 100 attended the briefing entitled: “Back to School: the Most Important Thing Our Young People WON’T Learn at School This Year — How Censorship, Fear and Shame in Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Messages Put Youth at Risk.”6
http://www.family.org/focusoverfifty/articles/A0034204.cfm
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Most seriously, it also slammed an equal opportunities policy that was political correctness gone mad, where the investigation of people from gay or ethnic backgrounds was blocked. ‘This is a recipe for disaster,’ the report said. The report concluded that responsibility for the disaster within social services lay with the council and senior officers. The buck ultimately stopped with Hodge, who had been council leader since 1982.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,992705,00.html