Batley Grammar School and the Absence of Goodwill

History stood still yesterday, Friday, 26th March. At around 1pm, I made my first ever phone-in contribution to the Jeremy Vine programme on BBC Radio 2. It lasted about five minutes, but I hope I had some impact. In fact, no-one I know has commented upon it, and, in all probability, no-one I know even heard it. It doesn't matter. What is of importance is the topic I phoned about: the controversy about an image of the Prophet Mohammed shown during a lesson at Batley Grammar School. I phoned about this topic because, as I said to Jeremy Vine, I was a Religious Education (RE) Co-ordinator in a West London primary school for 11 years, and taught many pupils of different faiths: Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and, of course, Muslims. Respectfully, I corrected Vine on one misapprehension common to many in the media, which is the belief that all Muslims oppose all images of the Prophet. This is true for Sunni Muslims, but not Shias. As Wikipedia says:

  "Most Sunni Muslims believe that visual depictions of all the prophets of Islam should be prohibited[19] and are particularly averse to visual representations of Muhammad.[20] The key concern is that the use of images can encourage idolatry.[21] In Shia Islam, however, images of Muhammad are quite common nowadays, even though Shia scholars historically were against such depictions.[20][22] Still, many Muslims who take a stricter view of the supplemental traditions will sometimes challenge any depiction of Muhammad, including those created and published by non-Muslims"

The picture above depicts the death of Mohammed. At the risk of seeming flippant, I would be interested to see how the pickets outside Batley Grammar School would react if they saw it. Sunnis and Shias have serious differences on many issues and this could well be one of them. The main reason why I phoned the Jeremy Vine programme was that I, while teaching, was involved in an incident broadly similar to that which has happened at Batley Grammar School. One year, about 17 years ago, I was gathering material for a corridor R.E. display. As part of the display, I thought it a good idea to include a symbol from the Koran. Instead of photocopying a page directly from the Muslim holy book, I photocopied an image, with explanatory text, from a text book. I put it up as part of the display, thinking it acceptable. I was wrong. Several days after I put up the display, two very nice Year 6 girls, both Muslim, came to see me. They explained that they were not happy at the image being photocopied and displayed. I discussed the matter with them, and they asked their mosque Arabic teacher to draw it by hand for me. I replaced the photocopy with the handwritten copy, and the matter was settled amicably. No angry parents, no calls for my suspension, no ill-will or demonstrations outside the school. I never even discussed the matter with senior management. Tensions have heightened over the years. As we know, people have been murdered over the issue of images of the Prophet. The Charlie Hebdo killings spring to mind, and the wrongly accused French teacher, Samuel Paty. Paty was killed following what has been proven to be lies by a 13-year old schoolgirl. His murder is called to mind when we hear the demands of Muslim parents for the Batley teacher's dismissal. Now, I don't know all the facts about the case at Batley Grammar, and I'm well aware that it's a different matter from the issue I had. But I do think that there could be parallels. I made a mistake in photocopying a text book page, thinking that as it was not from an actual Koran, I had done nothing offensive. It could be that the Batley teacher, as Jeremy Vine said, thought he or she was safe to use the image for a lesson on blasphemy. And Jeremy Vine agreed with me that you can't give a lecture on blasphemy without showing examples of blasphemy. This being the case, the teacher concerned might have made a mistake in not checking whether an image of Mohammed was appropriate or not. But as I found, it's only too easy to make a mistake; I meant no offence by what I did; the Batley Grammar teacher probably felt the same. We know that the teacher is now suspended and in hiding. This is a harsh punishment for what was probably human error - and I speak as a teacher who made a similar mistake. I can only wonder if prompt action by the school management could not have resolved this matter peaceably and without such rancour. Instead, we now have another divisive issue to be dealt with, and one which could spiral out of control. The saddest aspect of the Batley Grammar dispute is that battle lines are being drawn. While the Muslim demonstrators and parents may be implacable in their demands, the extreme Right are seizing upon this issue to stir up Islamophobia. As The Independent says: 

"Far-right groups including Britain First have been capitalising on the row, organising complaints to the headteacher and claiming that British schools are “being made to bow down to Sharia law”." Besides this, a petition has been launched to reinstate the teacher and, according to Yorkshire Live, is gathering thousands of signatures and has garnered moral support for the suspended teacher from Ricky Gervais.

What is needed is for cooler heads on both sides to prevail. The matter must be investigated, the teacher concerned given a chance to explain himself or herself, and a willingness must be shown by both sides to resolve this matter rationally. There have been similar incidents before, and they have been characterised all too often by a distinct lack of goodwill. We owe it to the next generation to show them that other people's points of view are worthy of respect.

Sarah Everard: A Call To Action

(Allegedly)

We'd like to think that as a society we'd do something simply because it's the right thing to do, but regrettably that is too often not the case. On the other hand, sometimes a single incident can trigger a wholly unanticipated mass response to a problem that previously hadn't been foremost in most people's minds. To give just a few examples:

    • The Dunblane school massacre, 25 years ago this month, caused around three quarters of a million people to sign the petition that ultimately led to the almost total prohibition of private ownership of hand guns in the UK - this in the days before convenient on-line petitions.
    • The murder of George Floyd by a US police officer triggered the international spread of the Black Lives Matter movement.
    • The exposure of the widespread sexual allegations against Harvey Weinstein in 2017 prompted the worldwide Me Too movement.

So it is with Sarah Everard, assaulted and murdered by (allegedly) a police officer. She was a young woman who just a fortnight ago would have had no idea that she was about to become a household name for the worst of reasons. Her brutal death and the disposal of her body in a builder's bag like unwanted rubbish has shocked many women to recount their own experiences. On Facebook alone, I have read accounts written by some of my female friends of almost routine sexual harassment, sexual assaults, domestic violence and even rape. 

Even though in my last job I was simultaneously an equal opportunities training officer for my employer and an equality and diversity spokesperson for my trade union, and while I have long been aware that such abuses occur, I've been somewhat taken aback by how prevalent they are.

Regrettably, the police response to the vigil opposing violence against women in Sarah's memory was misjudged and excessively heavy-handed. The sight of burly male police officers pinning down a young woman who had simply wanted to show solidarity with another young woman who had been assaulted and murdered was an extremely serious lapse in judgment.

Home Secretary Priti Patel expressed concern about the incident and demanded reports by the end of the day but undermined this prompt response by expressing full support for Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, thereby suggesting that she had already made up her mind concerning the incident and that anything else she said was mere tokenism.

The government's immediate response includes an additional £25 million for better lighting and CCTV as well as a pilot scheme which would see plain-clothes officers in pubs and clubs. While this funding will replace only a fraction of cuts imposed upon the police over the last decade, it's welcome as far as it goes but it's really no more than a pittance and doesn't address the heart of the problem: the danger to women does not come from the streets themselves, but from some of the men in them. CCTV and plain clothes police officers will not change the thinking of a single misogynist who regards women as commodities for their pleasure and convenience rather than autonomous fellow human beings entirely deserving of respect.

That last phrase would be patronising, except for the fact that there are males who simply don't view women that way; I've heard such sexists protest that they love women but therein lies the problem - a proprietorial view of women as creatures to be 'loved' often doesn't have much to do with respect.

Some men have already reacted with the slogan 'Not All Men', which is true but entirely misses the point in much the same way as the 'All Lives Matter' hashtag missed the point about Black Lives Matter. As some women have commented, men should not expect praise for not raping women in the park: such behaviour should be normal. 

I have read a couple of comments on Facebook that men are also often in danger on the streets: to a very limited extent this is true, but since the 1970s I have usually gone to the pub several times per week, and I always walk home on my own after closing time without any fear for own safety. I don't ever recall suffering harassment or worse, which is a distinct contrast to the worries and experiences reported by many women in response to Sarah Everard's murder. 

But going on from there, the problem is not confined to stranger danger. Many women have in the last week or so been recounting casual sexist comments, usually passed off as a joke, through to sexual assaults, both in workplaces and in social and domestic situations. If a woman objects, she is often accused of having no sense of humour, exaggerating or of being a ranting Leftie Women's Libber. In other words, it's her fault. 

I don't dismiss any of the accounts that I've been reading. As a male, I myself have been on the receiving end of domestic violence, on-line harassment and actual stalking in the real world and I know how hard it is to 'come out' and recount your experiences. As I wrote on my own blog in June last year:

During the height of the 'Me Too' movement, I became sick of reading comments by people - mostly but not exclusively male - asking why it had taken so long for some of the accusers to tell their stories, with more than a few sarcastically suggesting the motive was money. I was so incensed by such stupidity that I 'came out' myself in a post on Facebook about my own experiences of being on the receiving end of sustained domestic violence. In response to anyone who questioned why it had taken some of these women perhaps 10 or 15 years to come forward, I pointed that my own 'coming out' had taken nearly 40 years.

Some of the experiences reported by female friends of mine were distinctly worse than what happened to me. 

I do not claim to have all the answers, but ultimately education must be a large part of the response, more than the money allocated for improved lighting and CCTV which, while helpful, is no more than a sticking plaster solution. Education in the broadest sense: not just in schools but across all society. It's a huge, long-term task, but then so are the problems that we're trying to address. If we wish to create a safer society for women, we have to make that substantial commitment, otherwise our sympathy is no more than lip service.

Nothing can compensate for the loss of Sarah Everard, but I do hope the vehement and heartfelt response to her death will not be a flash in the pan, forgotten as soon as the headlines diminish. It would suit the Establishment for the issue to fade away, thus letting it off the hook in terms of addressing the deep-rooted problems associated with the attitudes of too many men towards women in our society. It rests with ordinary people, women and men, to ensure that that doesn't happen.

Democracy Under Attack: From the Capitol to the Mash Report

 2021 hasn't been a good year for democracy. On January 6, we saw the appalling invasion of the US Capitol by anti-democratic demonstrators who could not accept the result of the bitterly-contested US Presidential Election. I have a lot of good friends in the US, and I know that many Americans thought this disgraceful event made them a laughing stock around the world. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing to laugh at; this attack on American democracy heralded the rise of an organised force that was willing to resort to violence for political ends. What I did not realise was that this was the beginning of an assault on democratic freedoms around the world. 

Dawn on February 1st saw an even more violent onslaught against democracy: the military takeover in Myanmar which saw the deposing of the democratically elected government headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was forcibly detained, along with around 400 MPs. To the credit of the people of Myanmar, there have been widespread protests, both within and outside Myanmar. The military regime has responded by using lethal force. 38 protesters were killed on one day, the BBC reported on March 3rd. So far, despite internal opposition and foreign condemnation, the regime has not relaxed its grip. As the BBC says:

"The coup and the violent suppression of protests that followed have led to international condemnation, which Myanmar's military has so far ignored."

Switching continents, we don't need to look too far to find a parallel to the Myanmar repression in the land of Venezuela. I had already been told that Christians were being victimised, but Human Rights Watch has stated this year, following a visit from the United Nations Human Rights Council in September last year:

"The government of Nicolás Maduro and its security forces are responsible for extrajudicial executions and short-term forced disappearances and have jailed opponents, prosecuted civilians in military courts, tortured detainees, and cracked down on protesters. They used a state of emergency implemented in response to Covid-19 as an excuse to punish dissent and intensify their control over the population."

Now, of course, there are many other states around the world that violate human rights. Off the cuff, I can think of far too many - starting with Iran. However, these countries have continuing histories of such violations; the three countries mentioned above were regarded as exceptions. Venezuela was celebrated as a shining example of socialist democracy; Myanmar was regarded as an emerging democratic Asian state; the USA is thought of as  the world's great home of liberty and democracy. Fortunately, the anti-democratic forces in the USA are (hopefully) held in check. We can only hope that matters improve in Myanmar and Venezuela.

If what I have written above sounds like finger-pointing, it is meant as nothing of the kind. There is a fourth country where democracy is under pressure, and that's here in the United Kingdom. We were brought up sharp over the weekend by the clumsy police action against the London vigil for the tragic young murder victim, Sarah Everard.

Unlike most commentators, I regard the events of last Monday as a PR disaster, rather than a direct assault on democratic rights per se. Unlike other vigils, the London protest was badly handled, as opposed to vigils elsewhere which went well. Nonetheless, images of the police action now stand as images of the right to protest being trampled upon.

Far more concerning for civil liberties is the Police Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament. Some of the new laws are not repressive in principle, but could well become  so in practice. As The Good Law Project says:

"Clauses 54 and 55 amend sections 12 and 14 respectively of the Public Order Act, which deal with public processions and public assemblies. These raise two grounds for concern – first, they significantly expand the police’s ability to place conditions on the right to public processions and assemblies and second they leave entirely open what those conditions can be."

My understanding of the public order sections indicates that the police will have the right to close down a protest if it becomes too noisy. Anyone who has attended a demonstration knows that this is absurd; chanting slogans is an integral part of public protest.

The interpretations of these new laws will be very much up to the police officers on the spot. The implications of this are huge:

"As Professor David Meads (who specialises in the law of protest and public order) observed: “Th(e) real problem for protesters and activists is not (always) so much the law – the legal rules and position – but how this is implemented and interpreted on the ground by officers; generally speaking the wider framed the law, even more widely used will be the operational power”.

Turning to the TV programme, "The Mash Report", which is being axed by the BBC, it might seem almost frivolous, compared to the outrages perpetrated in the Capitol and the shooting down of unarmed demonstrators in Myanmar. It might be the thin end of the wedge, but is still part of what I regard as a right-wing campaign against public dissent. The Mash report is a satirical programme, and is hated by the right-wing press. The Sun says it is:

"preachy, self-righteous [and] left-wing".

Knowing "The Sun" like we do, it is the last of those three that concerns them the most. Now, this government does not like criticism, and regards the BBC as a thorn in its side (if only it was!). The new director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, was favoured candidate for the job by Boris Johnson, and seems to be showing us why. As the "Daily Telegraph" said last year:

"The BBC’s new director-general is planning to tackle perceived Left-wing bias in the corporation's comedy".
 "Have I Got News For You", a star programme for 30 years on BBC 1, which satirises political figures of all hues, will inevitably be a future target for Johnson and Davie. It will not stop there, but will continue until the present government renders the Beeb "impartial" (aka, neutered). 

All told, then, a bad year for democracy, and we need to consider: how can we protect it?

Harry, Meghan and Elephants in the Room

 

As lockdown continues, television has become even more important for keeping us informed. Now, as the world knows, the Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan has aroused massive media activity which has divided the British public and pundits into three broad opinion groups: Harry and Meghan Partisans (HMP), Buckingham Palace Loyalists (BPL) and Not Very Interested (NVI).

I personally belong to the latter group, but am not so naïve as to ignore this matter altogether. The Harry/Meghan issue raises the problem of several elephants in the room when it comes to wider British society. At first, I thought there was just one (racism), but reflection on Meghan's words ( yes, I watched some of the interview) pointed to two more. I shall look at these three elephants in turn. It's a mistake to ignore elephants without seeking to control them...

The first is the issue of social media. The evidence of direct racism against Meghan is disputed. Piers Morgan, the now ex-presenter on Good Morning Britain, said he could find none, as has the Society of Editors. This is challenged, of course, by many journalists. As The Independent says: 

"Even before the wedding, Harry had complained in 2017 about the “racial undertones” in British media coverage of his then-girlfriend. One tabloid columnist referred to Meghan’s “exotic” DNA. A Daily Mail headline described her Los Angeles roots as ”(almost) straight outta Compton” and claimed she came from a “gang-scarred” neighbourhood. A TV host described Meghan as “uppity.”

What was not noticed by Oprah, or anyone else, was the fact that Meghan spoke of horrendous racist abuse and death threats on social media. As this type of harassment and trolling is a worldwide problem, we should remember how distressing it can be for the victim. If Meghan was stuck in a palace all day, feeling isolated, it could well have affected her mental well-being. As such, she illustrates a problem that we must deal with. Online persecution is bad for anyone's mental health.

Which leads me to the second elephant in the room; the fact that Meghan spoke of feeling suicidal. Piers Morgan, among others, said that he did not believe her claim. I find it unlikely that she would invent something as traumatic as this, but I don't have any evidence either way. Whatever we believe , this is a serious matter, which impacts upon every society, not just the UK. If a member of the Royal Family can admit to mental health problems - and suicidal feelings are just such a problem - we need to recognise that mental illness is a fact of our lives that we must stop trying to hide. It is far more common that we care to admit, and this must change. Mentalhealth.org.uk points out: 

"Mixed anxiety & depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain, with 7.8% of people meeting criteria for diagnosis.
4-10% of people in England will experience depression in their lifetime.
Common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety are distributed according to a gradient of economic disadvantage across society. The poorer and more disadvantaged are disproportionately affected by common mental health problems and their adverse consequences.
Mixed anxiety and depression has been estimated to cause one fifth of days lost from work in Britain.
One adult in six had a common mental disorder."

Meghan might have done us all a favour by owning up to problems of this kind. Hopefully, more people who suffer in silence will now feel empowered enough to talk about their problems and seek professional help.

The final elephant, as if you hadn't guessed, is racism. This, of course, is a wider issue than the racism directed against the Duchess of Sussex. The Oprah interview went out on Monday evening on ITV, but another programme went out on Monday on BBC 1 which dealt with this issue in more detail: "Let's Talk About Race", presented by BBC breakfast host, Naga Munchetty.  As a white guy in a mixed marriage, I was pretty depressed at some of the stories I heard in the programme. There was Munchetty's own experience when younger: 

"I have experienced racism. You never forget the first time you hear that painful and distressing word. I was seven, when someone I thought was a friend at school, told me we could no longer hang out. They used the P-word, making clear the reason was because of the colour of my skin".

There was a chilling contribution from a black East ender, Jason: 

"I also met Jason, a black man born and raised in east London. He remembers his mum being chased by the National Front and shot with a pellet gun in her leg. He says she still has a scar. He tells me that the racism he experiences today is different, not as overt or blatant, but more under the surface, and no better. "There's no way you can feel or live my life unless you have that shade of skin."

"The Conversation.com" points to some evidence of the persistence of racism in our society from a survey it conducted: 

"We asked whether interviewees agreed that “some races or ethnic groups are born less intelligent than others” and found that 18% of the British public agreed with the statement. We also asked whether “some races or ethnic groups are born harder working than others”, to which a substantially larger percentage – 44% – said yes".

This former statement angers me. As someone who taught for the better part of 34 years in multicultural schools, I know that the first trope is complete rubbish. As for the second, the bigots who hold this ignorant, racist view should reckon with the fact that many of our dedicated NHS staff who have behaved so magnificently during the pandemic come from BAME backgrounds.

These are the three main issues arising from the Oprah interview that I believe have relevance for us. It was interesting how Thomas Markle, Meghan's father, said that he did not believe that the Royal Family or the British people were racist (he thought that California was, but didn't say how he knew). He might be correct about the Royal Family but, as I know and the evidence shows, racism does have a presence in our society. I believe that it powered the Leave campaign  and has increased since the referendum. As one young activist said in the Naga Munchetty programme:

"It's no longer enough to be non-racist; we must all become anti-racist".

Thomas Markle - now a neighbour to Harry and Meghan. A 70-mile drive lies between them

Shamima Begum - Justice and Revenge

 

Well, I must begin by owning up to a mistake. Back in February, 2019, I was waffling away confidently about how sure I was that Shamima Begum (pictured above) would eventually return to Britain. I confidently declared that: 

"...no person can be made stateless. This, together with her family's impassioned appeals for her return, some sympathetic voices in Parliament and some of the media surely points to the probability of her return in the near future".

Well, I got that wrong. As we know, the Supreme Court has ruled that her human rights were not breached when she was refused entry to the United Kingdom and that she cannot return to fight her citizenship case. The president of the Supreme Court, Lord Reed, said: 

"The Supreme Court unanimously allows all of the home secretary's appeals and dismisses Ms Begum's cross-appeal."

Commenting upon the Court of Appeal's verdict allowing her return, he further said, according to the BBC: 

"He said the Court of Appeal's judgment "did not give the home secretary's assessment the respect which it should have received" given the role's "responsibility for making such assessments" and accountability to parliament".

So, for the time being, and perhaps for the rest of her life, Shamima Begum and her child remain in a Syrian detention camp. Now, I am well aware that many people will welcome the Supreme Court's ruling. However, to my surprise, I have found that there is a cross-section of political opinion from Right to Left that is disturbed by the court's verdict. Amanda Platell, the Daily Mail columnist , showed surprising compassion when she said: 

"Begum has now lost three babies to starvation and pneumonia. She is living under armed guard, in conditions far more squalid than she would face in any British prison. Her husband — an equally idiotic Dutch-born jihadi — is in jail. Her family cannot see her.
Lord alive, what kind of risk does this 21-year-old — who would surely be watched closely by the authorities and the country at large were she ever to come home — pose?"

Quite right - but I never expected to agree with a Daily Mail columnist! Even David Davis, M.P. (no liberal) was quoted in the Hull Daily Mail as saying on Twitter:

"Disappointing verdict in the Supreme Court. Regardless of what individuals like Shamima Begum have done, the UK cannot simply wash our hands of Brits in the Syrian camps. The correct approach would be to return them to the UK to answer for their crimes".

That statement came as another surprise to me. Perceptively, The Guardian commented:

"While the UK government believes that Ms Begum’s return would go against the public interest, the opposite is true. To prevent similar things from happening in the future, it is important to understand how a schoolgirl became radicalised..."

If Begum has violated UK law, she should be tried here. It is immoral to expect other countries to take responsibility for our criminals. In future, when we try to deport foreign criminals, their countries of origin would be perfectly entitled to deny them entry, quoting the Shamima Begum case as a precedent.

But to return to the public interest - if we refuse entry to Shamima Begum, she must go somewhere. She could rot in a refugee camp - or she could escape, as so many others have done, to rejoin ISIS and serve their vile cause once again. Her child, and others that she might have, could grow up hating Britain and actively seek revenge - as terrorists. So much for public safety being protected.

To revisit what I said two years ago, I must point out that at that time, 400 former Jihadis were thought to have returned to the UK already. I have no current figures. I also pointed out that, at the end of WW2, the UK rehabilitated 57 former traitors who had fought for Germany in what was called "The British Free Corps" (BFC). The most odious of these fascist turncoats was one Thomas Cooper. who, before joining the BFC, had actually served in the SS on the Eastern Front. In 1941, libcom.org says:

"Finishing his training in May he was posted to SS Totenkopf Wachtbatallion Oranienburg stationed near Krakow, it was here that he would later boast that he participated in massacring both Polish Jews and Russian Prisoners of War."

To be exact, he bragged of murdering 200 Poles and 80 Jews in one day in Warsaw. And yet, after being tried for treason after the war, his death sentence was commuted and he was released in 1953. Most of the BFC never faced treason charges and were allowed back into British society.

The question, then, is obvious: if we can rehabilitate an avowed murderer and war criminal like Thomas Cooper, together with his fascist comrades, why can we not do the same for Shamima Begum, whose alleged crimes bear no comparison?