Now poirot this is for Iftikhar.

Iftikhar, you know, if I was unhappy with a place I lived I would move. I really don’t understand why someone would immigrate to a place where they are infuriated& horrified by the local customs & people. If I was a Muslim I would move back to a place where I didn’t have to witness the disgusting behaviour of the locals.

Would it not be better if the entire Muslim population of Britain moved back to the Middle East or Pakistan where they would feel more at home & their children safe from the terrible corrupting influence of the British way of life?

You are absolutely correct, Jayb, that I've only addressed Iftikhar's opening post.

.........

Loudmouth,

When I made the distinction that Iftikhar was referring to the teaching of Quranic Arabic in schools, you immediately put up a post wherein you questioned the viability of teaching any language "in school time".

You wrote (amongst other things):

"But whether any language should be taught using state funding, in school time, is another matter....as a teacher will point out, there is only so much time in the school day, so what do you teach above and beyond the essentials like the three R's....And what children want to learn in their own time is up to them. I have no quarrel with the state funding Saturday morning community language teaching...."

I then pointed out that tuition in languages is well-entrenched in most curricula across the country "in school time".

So your view that languages were beyond the scope of school tuition appeared to me to be a hastily concocted argument to counter the inclusion of Arabic among "languages" to be considered for school tuition.

You post, of which I have quoted from above, addresses questions of language taught in school in Australia, and so have mine. They both relate to the initial post of this thread.

I apologise if I haven't got down into the usual gutter of mud-slinging that takes place regularly on these threads - no wonder you keep accusing me of diversion. I'm obviously not bigoted enough to get stuck into it.

Poirot: You are absolutely correct, Jayb,

Why is that? It seems to me that there would be a lot that you could respond too in his 2nd. post, unless, of course you agree with what he says. I don't know. Is it that you only find Loudmouths & my posts offensive to you?

Poirot: that I've only addressed Iftikhar's opening post.

I don’t seem to remember you addressing the first post directly. I do remember you addressing & criticizing Loudmouths & my replies then diverting anything we have queried you about when trying to find out how you feel about the post. I am flummoxed.

Hi Poirot,

Forgive me for clumsy expression - I meant to say

"But whether any particular language should be taught exclusively, using public funding, in school time, is another matter.... "

i.e., in parochial schools, Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim - a range of languages should be taught, not just one. It should not be the business of the state, i.e. public funding, to promote cultural or linguistic exclusivity.

We have to distinguish between language-teaching in schools - i.e. provision of a range of languages - and community language teaching which, as I noted above somewhere, should be better funded, but it should be voluntarily engaged in, a function of community & pupils' own time, Saturday mornings etc. It should not be the business of the state to take functions away from communities.

I guess I'm not a Strong Multiculturalist, but a Moderate Multiculturalist - I'm happy when people all mix together, rather than foster differences: a just and happy society should not be like a Soccer match.

But a lot of this discussion is confusing 'culture', language and ideology. It's a pity that we spend so much time sniping and nit-picking, and defending, rather than tackling these complex issues.

Iftikhar,

You write: "A civilisation is measured not by the rights it grants its majority but the privileges it allows its minorities."

Says who ? What privileges ? For whom within a minority ? How do non-Muslim 'minorities' go in relation to Muslim 'civilization' ? Are Christian privileged in any Muslim country ? No, and why should they be, BUT neither should they have FEWER rights - the mark of any civilization is how well it protects the rights of all of its citizens, with privileges for nobody.

Please, no more of this thin edge of the wedge stuff: say what you mean. What privileges are you talking about ?

Joe

Well to be honest with you, Loudmouth, it seems I was being a tad naive and pedantic nitpicking that Iftikhar was merely on about language.

From the looks of his latest thread it appears he has a much broader agenda.

Cheers

I think you're right, Poirot - I'm beginning to think that the concept of equality - no more, no less - equal rights, however they unfold, no more but no less - is often incredibly difficult to grasp:

- for many people, perhaps people who have culturally been subordinated to the total power of an absolute monarch (however termed: king, sultan, pope, elder) from beyond memory, the notion of being equal with anybody else outside their own group, is nearly impossible -

- either you are superior, crushingly superior, to somebody else, and you can do what you damn-well like to them,

- or you have to put up with being subordinate to them, at their beck and call at best, at their mercy in worse times.

Until it's your 'turn'.

The notion that all people, rich and poor, Black and white, male and female, educated or from Victoria - should have the same rights, eludes many people. With the wonderful virtue of hindsight, and the advantage of history, we can understand now the value of the ever-imperfect Enlightenment in moving slowly and painfully over centuries towards concepts of equality, the common worth of all humanity, that we now tend to take for granted without thinking about.

Maybe most of us are embedded in Enlightenment values without knowing it fully - that's you and me, Poirot. But the thinking of other people is still locked into very-much pre-Enlightenment ideologies of domination-subordination, revelation-not-discovery, acceptance-not-critical-evaluation, and certainty-of-authority-not-perpetual-indeterminacy, and they may have problems even unerstanding the underlying principles of a dynamicmodern society.

Does that make sense ?

Bottom line, so it seems: should 'society' fracture into its 'natural' components, tribal, ethnic, racial and - above all - gender-based - or should people in our society - we, us - strive to co-operate and get along while, in a live-and-let-live spirit, we recognise each other's rights to be different, always in the context of (and predicated on) our equal rights, men and women, from this country or that, following this religion or that ?

Can we agree on any of that, Poirot ?

Joe