A heartening display of common sense in Italy. From AP, with thanks to Susan:
ROME - Education authorities in Milan have blocked a plan by a local public school to create a separate class for Islamic students, a decision that fueled an ongoing debate over the role of Muslims in this predominantly Catholic nation.The decision Tuesday came after days of raging controversy in Milan. Over the past months, two other cases have made headlines in Italy: that of a Muslim activist who went to court to have a crucifix removed from his son's public school classroom; and a kindergarten that asked a Muslim trainee teacher to remove her headscarf.
The plan by the Gaetana Agnesi school called for 20 high-school students of Egyptian origin - three boys and 17 girls - to study together. The girls would have been allowed to wear headscarves in class, and would have had Friday off for Muslim prayer services.
"The possibility of creating classes with students of the same language, culture and religion must be ruled out, because it would be in contrast with the constitutional principles and values aimed at overcoming all forms of discrimination," said Mario Giacomo Dutto, the head of school programs for the Lombardy region that includes Milan.
Giovanni Gaglio, the school principal, argued he was trying to guarantee the children a right to an education while preserving their cultural and religious identity.
"Our project was one of real integration, a challenge that I and all of us teachers believed in very much," he was quoted as saying Wednesday in the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.
How can he achieve integration through segregation?
Public schools should be religion free. There are religious schools of different denominations that students can attend if they or their parents choose that type of education. Public schools are a mix of people from different backgrounds and to give one group preference is unfair. I remember that during the pledge to the flag, or during any type of holiday parties the Jehovah Witnesses would leave the room and stand in the hallway, without making a scene...there were no "special" classrooms with soundproof walls fr them, no special considerations (other than being able to leave the room during those activities) and to ny knowledge they never asked for any.
I dont feel that a small gold cross or star of david on a necklace (or a crescent even) is a big deal as long as that person is not preaching to others in school. Wearing a headscarf is a much bigger statement, and what if they didnt stop at headscarf but covered fully in a burka type garment....in addition to being demeaning to women, large shapeless garments are a security risk in schools. My oldest is in high school and he is not allowed(per school rules) to wear extremely baggy clothing as a weapon could be easily hidden (thankfully I hate that baggy crap the kids wear today) How would muslim students feel if a Christian student came in dressed as Jesus dragging a huge wooden cross with him, or a Jewish student dressed as Noah driving an ark into the student parking lot bringing his animals in two by two...they would whine and moan about how "uncomfortable" that made them, because lets face it lately everything bothers them.
Let us see what the clear-sighted analyst Magdi Allam writes about this in the Corriere della Sera, or when he appears on the RAI.
Not every country in Western Europe is the same. Oriana Fallaci, once the most dashing of female journalists, specializing in the Third-World and especially, the Arab countries (interviews with Khaddafy, Arafat, Khomeini, and so on), a free-thinker, a foe of the Vatican, by birthright anti-clerical and Republican in the line of Garibaldi, fighting the Germans in Florence at the age of 14, , has written two books: La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio (which she insisted on translating, badly, herself -- which may explain its performance in the United States), and La Forza della Ragione, which has not yet, I think, been translated. They have been bestsellers, and have helped to make many Italians -- not only the devout, of whom there are fewer and fewer, but precisely those post-Christian freethinkers, even the anti-clerical who, thanks to Fallaci and a few others, expressed their fury at the attempt by Muslims (the lawsuit of Adel Smith) to have all crucifixes removed from schools. It was fascinating to see people who would in another context, or an earlier day, have wanted to remove those crucifixes themselves, now stoutly defending them -- for they understood that what was at stake was not the crucifix itself, but the very idea of Italy, of its heritage, of its art, of its sense of itself.
There is a wide gulf between the pious interfaith nonsense that a few priests, who seem to be more interested in making Italy safe for their Muslim legal and illegal immigrants (Fallaci is furious about those goody-goody priests who seem more interested in Islam than in defending their own Christian flocks, and who were quick to offer church sanctuary to illegal Muslim immigrants; the generous offer was accepted, and the Muslim immigrants proceeded to vandalize the churches they lived in, even defecating all over the floors, demonstrating their complete contempt for their places of refuge). Not everyone in Europe is an appeaser or a fool, and Italy, in particular, is thanks to Oriana Fallaci, to the intelligent commentary of Magdi Allam, to the example of lucidity set for journalists by the late Indro Montanelli, much better off than France with its Jean Daniels and Eric Rouleaus.
Where I formerly lived in the USA, I sent my son to a private Christian school, paid for by parents. If Muslims want separate schools, let them pay for them themselves.
Hugh, I've read some of Fallacci's reactions to 9/11 online, and my guess is that when she knows her cancer treatments aren't working anymore, the great "freethinker" will probably have a priest come, make confession, and take extreme unction. I figured this out from her comments about Somali immigrants pissing on the Duomo in Florence--which was simply following in the footsteps taken by the friends of the French Revolution and the Bersaglieri when they were young and single (once they sought wives, those same folks found that there were scarcely a half dozen "freethinking" women in all of Catholic Europe, so figure out what happened next). Really, life would lose all meaning for the typical European "freethinker" if his grandparents' faith--whether ROman, Constantinopolitan, Protestant, or Jewish-- wasn't there to kick around anymore. It makes me think they're like the proverbial Midwestern river that's six inches deep and a mile wide at the mouth, with a youthful passion for violent politics added into the bargain. In short, they're a bit like the initial 7th century Islamic eruption out of the Arabian peninsula.
The wonderful oriana backs the crucifix and yet is known for her secularism.
how many of us who would agree now have changed our views of Christianity, as indeed a barrier to the infiltration of Islam in our society.
Why as an agnostic do i know approve Christianity ?
simply because the modern hedonism which we follow is so morally nihilistic that it will surely lead to our downfall.
better to have morality taught, even if one does not believe in the God religion exposes to us, than to descent into decadence.
Islam has already shown us how it can exploit the secularism of left wing thinking.
It seems to me that when the christian religion was strong, for all its faults, men recognised the onslaught of islam on the west far more than today in spite of our thousand fold improved telecommunications
the problem is that now religion has gone and nothing has filled its place in society.
they say that only one who has fought for freedom can know its value and those who fight for our freedom are continually stabbed in the back by people who have never even had to kill their own chickens.
A friend this mornig reminded me of his reception as a pariah of society when he returned from Vietnam. it ruined much of his life and brings shame to us all.
Chevalier,
Very, very interesting post. I do agree with you on a number of your points.
...or a Jewish student dressed as Noah driving an ark into the student parking lot bringing his animals in two by two...they would whine and moan about how "uncomfortable" that made them, because lets face it lately everything bothers them.
Posted by: USAgirl at July 14, 2004 09:57 PM
Actualy, a muslim can dress up like Noah as well, except they would mostly likely drag a corpse into the class to divide the men from the women.