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Are they demanding too much?

Irish Stones

Don't you think that they demand too much?

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/muslims-in-ireland-seek-integration-not-assimilation-1.1917937

I mean, when they get what they ask in this issue, won't they come up with some more demanding requests?
In my opinion, integration means dealing with the lifestyle of the place where you live. How can one integrate into another community if they don't start living the same way and sharing the same moments of aggregation?
No wonder that immiigrants keep on living in closed groups.
It happens the same over here too, but nobody talks about it and no newspaper has an article about this matter.

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smash

seamus wrote: »

90% of Irish people aren't Catholic, yet have to endure Catholicism being imposed on their children because they have no other choice for schooling.

But you don't see Irish people up in arms about it because lets face it, they're at school for education and most people will school their kids at home about religious beliefs.

seamus

smash wrote: »

But you don't see Irish people up in arms about it because lets face it, they're at school for education and most people will school their kids at home about religious beliefs.

I don't see Muslims being up in arms about it either.

This one guy has been quoted in the paper criticising the Catholic-centric Irish education system, but so too have Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland and Brian Whiteside of the Humanist association.

So if you think it's only Muslims complaining about the lack of non-Catholic schools, you're wrong. Non-muslim people too are complaining about it.

Interesting BTW that you draw a difference between "Irish" and "Muslim". Are you sure Dr. Selim isn't Irish?

FTA69

This is a load of toss out of your man to be honest. I work in a community centre in Tower Hamlets in East London, the immediate area I work in is 85%+ Muslim. A significant part of my job is helping get Muslim women into training and education and we also have free, community-based English lessons which I help teach occasionally. Our classes are mixed between gender and everyone really enjoys them. No eye-contact with members of the opposite sex?? F*ck right off. It's not my experience in dealing with literally hundreds of Muslim women anyway. When I brought my mother in one weekend, all the men shook her hand and were very friendly.

The type of Islam that this fella is advocating represents the worst tendency in religious fanaticism and repressive conservatism; it is a message of disempowerment of women dressed up as protecting modesty and respecting culture. I know plenty of Bengali and Pakistani women who would think he's talking out of his hole and have no bother in telling him that either.

I agree with him that religious symbolism shouldn't be stamped all over the education system. The French have the right idea, ban the lot of it. Any Republic should have a fair and inclusive non-denominational system for all. That also applies to Islamic symbolism in education as that.

If he has a problem with that then tough sh*t.

Dravokivich

smash wrote: »

That's a completely separate issue though. Non dom or multi dom schools are popping up more regularly these days. There are of course issues that they generally don't have an associates secondary school but if there's no other option than a catholic junior school, then suck it up and let your kids have their own beliefs, but don't try and make a whole catholic school change it's beliefs or teaching just because you can't find an alternative. Next thing they'll be requesting schools to change their names because St. Bridgets or whoever, is 'Offensive'.

In a catholic school? No it's not.

The issue of the Catholic schools being in such an overwhelming majority, is that they are Public/National schools. As such present an endorsement from the state that this is what the state promotes as the public/national ideal.

It's easy to tell a kid to disregard any significance to the Catholic stories, but it shouldn't have to come to that. I doubt it's changed much, but when I was in primary school from the 80's/90's a large portion of time was taken up by preparing for confession/communion/confirmation. Sure now the Sacraments are done outside of school time. But all the prep work is done throughout a couple months beforehand during it.

It's not taught as a belief system, but as something one does. This is part of the point the guy was making in the article. however instead of looking for it to be taken out of schools, he wants to add more into it. Which I think makes a mess of his point.

average hero

To answer the question - are they asking too much? Yes and no.

There is no problem with Islam or for any other religion for that matter. The thing is, I don't hear of Buddhist or Hindi people making similar demands. Islam is growing throughout Europe - fair enough you may say as I do viewing that as a standalone fact.

The problem I see is the bending over backwards of some countries (see Swedish example above) to do their utmost not to offend Muslims. This is admirable in one way. In another way it could be viewed as Muslims failing to integrate into a society that has accepted them and hoped that they integrate fully and respect the history and traditions of their host country.

This is one reason why the US is so successful at integration. EVERY child pledges allegiance to their flag and their country. They are proud of being from one place, with one citizenship while respecting and tolerating each others diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds (on paper anyway). I am not advocating this style of nationalism in Europe, but we take the complete other route, which is to allow others to change OUR traditions, our ways of life, for fear of being called intolerant.

As stated, no problems with Islam or Muslims. I do however feel that we should cut back on the bending over backwards style of conforming to their wants and to have a happy integration of them to our countries, our cultures and ultimately where they have chosen to come.

padd b1975

Itzy wrote: »

It was said best on the Right Hook on Newstalk, the Irish have become a Liberal PC nation who won't say anything in fear of being called racist.

All of us??

Gatling

My eldest goes to a gael scoil it's a Catholic like the majority of schools here .
But they don't celebrate St patricks day instead they have green day after one non national parents complained about it .
One of the funniest moments came when during Green Day teachers painted polish flags on 8/ 10 pupils who's parents were polish , only for the parents complain about there kids are irish and shouldn't be treated as been from Poland .

People complain about lack of choice but yet it's still a fairly new dilemma 20 years ago there wasn't a major issue with schools now everyone wants choices after choices ,
But what does it matter as long as there getting the best education

Frynge

Most of what is laid out in the article is a non issue. Over the years I've read many treads on boards wher the line "if irish were in their country we would have to conform to their way of life" is spewed out. This may come as a shock to many people but for the majority of Muslims in Ireland do conform to our way of life.

Having about 40 Muslims work for me in Ireland over the last number of years, the biggest issue we have encountered is simply pronouncing their names correctly.

I have never once had any expierience of them treating women any different to how everyone else treats women. Never witnessed any wear burqas. Only know of one who doesn't drink or eat pork because of their religion, and only know one other who makes sure to say his prayers during the day ( he only does it as long as we are not too busy).

Their May be 65000 Muslims in Ireland but I would reckon a high percentage of them are about as Muslim as most irish are catholic.

FTA69

Frynge wrote: »

Most of what is laid out in the article is a non issue. Over the years I've read many treads on boards wher the line "if irish were in their country we would have to conform to their way of life" is spewed out. This may come as a shock to many people but for the majority of Muslims in Ireland do conform to our way of life.

Having about 40 Muslims work for me in Ireland over the last number of years, the biggest issue we have encountered is simply pronouncing their names correctly.

I have never once had any expierience of them treating women any different to how everyone else treats women. Never witnessed any wear burqas. Only know of one who doesn't drink or eat pork because of their religion, and only know one other who makes sure to say his prayers during the day ( he only does it as long as we are not too busy).

Their May be 65000 Muslims in Ireland but I would reckon a high percentage of them are about as Muslim as most irish are catholic.

Interesting enough your experiences, were they Turkish out of curiosity? The vast majority of Muslims I deal with are pretty doctrinaire about their religion, I've only met one Bengali man who has a very occasional drink and he only took that up when he moved to Waterford! The vast majority of Muslim women I deal with wear the hijab and some wear the niqab (face veil). Nearly all of them fast, only eat halal and generally pray five times a day.

Donkey Oaty

From the IT article:

When it came to music some Muslims would see it as prohibited but “if music is performed using non-tuneable percussion instruments such as drums, most Muslims will have no problem”.

How very broad-minded of them.

Who elected this guy as a spokesperson? He's not doing Irish Muslims any favours at all.

the_syco

Where the wearing the hijab by Muslim girls in Irish schools is concerned he says this “shouldn’t cause any more debate than other religious symbols worn by either male or female students in Irish schools do.”

I think a few schools ban all jewelry... so no hijabs there either?

As for the rest of the rules, there's a nice Islamic school in Dublin. He doesn't seem to want integration, he seems to want to impose the will of some cult upon the schools in Ireland. And as we're getting rid of the last cult finally, IMO he can eff right off. We need less cults in our school, and not just replace one cult with another nastier cult.

Oh, and as for no male staff member in the same room when the kids are having a lesson, are you having a f**king laugh mate?

[Deleted User]

Drums can be tuned

Dravokivich

bluewolf wrote: »

Drums can be tuned

Shush!

I was adjusting the skins on a few to get them to play out twinkle twinkle little star to rile'em up!

dissed doc

Irish Stones wrote: »

Don't you think that they demand too much?

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/muslims-in-ireland-seek-integration-not-assimilation-1.1917937

I mean, when they get what they ask in this issue, won't they come up with some more demanding requests?
In my opinion, integration means dealing with the lifestyle of the place where you live. How can one integrate into another community if they don't start living the same way and sharing the same moments of aggregation?
No wonder that immiigrants keep on living in closed groups.
It happens the same over here too, but nobody talks about it and no newspaper has an article about this matter.

I think we should be weak minded needy, eager to please losers who should plan the direction of our republic based on the ejaculate cultural export from the UK and US.

We should not be bothered, when no cares of gives us gold stars, that the need to appear non-racist trumps the ability, unawakened as yet, to simply do and say and direct our communities and country at will.

We should also remove as much as possible any hint of influence from non-Anglophone countries, as it would risk the creation of a national identity beyond the one that is the anxious avoidant attachment to mother monoglot while remaining constantly dissatisfied, as there is no reward at the end, which doesn't ever have a defined point.

Donkey Oaty

bluewolf wrote: »

Drums can be tuned

I'm sure there is a way of tampering with a darbuka to make it fixed-pitch, resistant to temperature fluctuations, etc., and therefore untunable and Sharia-friendly.

Maybe we could slip a xylophone into the mix under some theological loophole as well.

Irish Stones

Dravokivich wrote: »

What about the locals themselves, not the imports? The state is supposed to have an obligation to us overall in reference to human rights. Not just impose the popular consensus upon us.

Locals have no particular problem at attending places where religious symbols are displayed, afaik.
Some parents argue that schools should not be imposing any religious mindset on pupils, but the probelms ends right there, it's just their opinion.
Several sentences following the cases of those people who made those strange requests stated that a crcuifix on a wall is not an imposing of a religious belief and is part of the cultural ground of the people native to that area.

FTA69

Yeah they hate music the Muslims:

This fella is a grade A w*nker. I wish these religious loopers would just f*ck off and let normal folk get on with their lives without breathing down their neck with a pile of reactionary b*llocks.

Annasopra

seamus wrote: »

That's not a feasible option for a large majority. 90% of the schools in this country are run by the Catholic church and funded by the State, despite freedom of religion being a fundamental part of our constitution.

90% of Irish people aren't Catholic, yet have to endure Catholicism being imposed on their children because they have no other choice for schooling.

I think that 90% refers to Primary schools?

Grayson

Gatling wrote: »

So how will it work in a classs where a teacher says boys and girls are equals and a Muslim child tells mammy and daddy who in turn take offence to the idea and start complaining that there religious beliefs are been offended ,

Now on the other side of the arguement would irish non muslims be given the same response to been in a predominantly muslim school's

To be fair when if a muslim says that men and women aren't equal they could reference catholicism as their justification. They could point to the fact that women were air brushed out of the new testament, the only woman who survived was then called a whore. That's besides the fact that women weren't allowed talk in church till the 60's and they had to cover their hair. they locked up pregnant, or even just attractive, women. Oh and they can't become priests. The catholic church is not an example of an equal opportunities organisation.

I think religion, both christian and muslim, should be gotten out of schools. It should be there as a comparative religion course. All schools should teach that evolution is correct and teach tolerance (ie, specifically call out that homosexuality is natural and discriminating against gay people etc is wrong) .
Schools can help local religions by providing classrooms for Sunday schools etc. No religion should be excluded from this unless it's promoting a message of hate.

But the school should be non denominational and shouldn't promote any religion.

osarusan

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

Who elected this guy as a spokesperson? He's not doing Irish Muslims any favours at all.

This is what I thought too.

Could easily be assumed (and will be assumed by plenty, I'd say) that this guy speaks for all Muslims, and they all want all of these things.

pickarooney

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I didn't see anything wrong with their concerns till the point where he said he didn't see any problem with talk or preparations for Christmas in schools so long as the talk and songs etc didn't contain anything which may conflict with Muslim beliefs at which point I stopped reading. If they don't believe in Christian faith that's fine, send your children elsewhere. Why should traditions and beliefs be stifled for fear of upsetij ing or offending a child/person of a diffetent religion especially when that religion is not native to this country!

I would have absolutely no problem in my children hearing and leArning about Muslim beliefs and traditions as it would be educational for them but it seems that the same doesn't work the other way around. The vast majority of Muslims are not irish by descent and chose to come and live here. They should be simply informed that this is the way it is here just like a catholic would have to acceot life age traditions/beliefs in a Muslim country and get on with it. If they do t agree then they're free to leave and go elsewhere.

What he said was

To encourage Muslims’ participation “a portion of these activities should be neutral and avoid religious references and connotations,” he suggests.

which is not unreasonable. There's be no harm adding in a few songs that don't refer to Christianity (Frosty the snowman? hard enough to think of any with no santy or jesus references) so that the Muslim kids can join in; the Christian/non-Muslim children don't lose out any there, and it's important for them to be able to share activities with their friends.

A lot of what he's asking for would be of benefit to non-Muslim children who find themselves surrounded by state-sanctioned religious iconography and teaching which is of no relevance to them - a huge number of boards posters are in opposition to the current Catholic-themed classrooms which dominate the Irish education system and should see this man more as an ally than anything else in that respect.

As regards what the kids can wear, a bit of even-handedness is not much to ask for. If crosses and pioneer pins are allowed, a hajib is no harm. Otherwise ban the lot, French style.
The water bottle thing for the toilets - I can't see how that would impinge on anyone and it sounds like good hygiene.

I just can't see how the kind of practices which are highly offensive to Western culture (overt sexual discrimination) and divisive in the extreme could fit in an Irish context.

Grayson

Irish Stones wrote: »

Locals have no particular problem at attending places where religious symbols are displayed, afaik.
Some parents argue that schools should not be imposing any religious mindset on pupils, but the probelms ends right there, it's just their opinion.
Several sentences following the cases of those people who made those strange requests stated that a crcuifix on a wall is not an imposing of a religious belief and is part of the cultural ground of the people native to that area.

Don't disregard something by calling it "just an opinion". You hardly support your own argument. according to the criteria you use, your opinion is "just an opinion" and can be disregarded. It's the worst type of lazy relativism.

It means it's not right or wrong to do something like hang a crucifix on a school wall, paint a swastika, maybe the letters KKK in big writing. That's all down to opinions. Wear a school uniform saying "death to fags"? that's grand, just an opinion.

If you're going to argue for or against something, then at least make an argument.

Frank Lee Midere

Gatling wrote: »

My eldest goes to a gael scoil it's a Catholic like the majority of schools here .
But they don't celebrate St patricks day instead they have green day after one non national parents complained about it .
One of the funniest moments came when during Green Day teachers painted polish flags on 8/ 10 pupils who's parents were polish , only for the parents complain about there kids are irish and shouldn't be treated as been from Poland .

People complain about lack of choice but yet it's still a fairly new dilemma 20 years ago there wasn't a major issue with schools now everyone wants choices after choices ,
But what does it matter as long as there getting the best education

St Payticks day is a national holiday. Maybe we should replace it with an Independence Day but there it is.

I thought he was fairly ok on Christmas. Basically leave the religious stuff out.

Dravokivich

Irish Stones wrote: »

Locals have no particular problem at attending places where religious symbols are displayed, afaik.
Some parents argue that schools should not be imposing any religious mindset on pupils, but the probelms ends right there, it's just their opinion.
Several sentences following the cases of those people who made those strange requests stated that a crcuifix on a wall is not an imposing of a religious belief and is part of the cultural ground of the people native to that area.

I'm a local. Native to the area. There's quite a few others too. But they tend to get shoo'd about. The state has an obligation but they choose not to uphold it. The opinion you just dismissed, is one's right to religious belief. In a public/national school endorsed by the state, which caters to a religion and has religious events occurring during school term, that is itself imposing.

Frynge

FTA69 wrote: »

Interesting enough your experiences, were they Turkish out of curiosity? The vast majority of Muslims I deal with are pretty doctrinaire about their religion, I've only met one Bengali man who has a very occasional drink and he only took that up when he moved to Waterford! The vast majority of Muslim women I deal with wear the hijab and some wear the niqab (face veil). Nearly all of them fast, only eat halal and generally pray five times a day.

No, the majority of them would have been from Malaysia, some from Iran, Pakistan and a few from different places in North Africa and one from bangledesh.

I accept that there are going to be a fair few who are indoctrinated in their faith and way of life, but there are irish people with similare indoctrination. A quick example is three weeks ago before I got married, one of my uncles who happens to be my godfather sent my now wife an email telling her how he felt sorry for me for losing my way and that he prays for me everyday that I will return to the joys and celebration that is the Catholic Church. All because we were getting married with a civil ceremony.

On a side note we went for a civil ceremony after having many discussions with a priest about the matter.

smash

seamus wrote: »

I don't see Muslims being up in arms about it either.

This one guy has been quoted in the paper criticising the Catholic-centric Irish education system, but so too have Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland and Brian Whiteside of the Humanist association.

So if you think it's only Muslims complaining about the lack of non-Catholic schools, you're wrong. Non-muslim people too are complaining about it.

He's not complaining about the lack of non Catholic schools, he's complaining about the uniforms and rituals of schools... which are catholic! I don't know what he expected!

seamus wrote: »

Interesting BTW that you draw a difference between "Irish" and "Muslim". Are you sure Dr. Selim isn't Irish?

The reasoning is because Ireland is, as it's core, a catholic nation. I don't care if he's Irish or not to be honest.

Dravokivich

smash wrote: »

He's not complaining about the lack of "non"Catholic schools, he's complaining about the uniforms and rituals of schools... which are catholic! I don't know what he expected!

The reasoning is because Ireland is, as it's core, a catholic nation. I don't care if he's Irish or not to be honest.

I'm guessing you meant nonCatholic schools there? The thing is, you don't get one without the other. Those of us who do are all going to complain about the Catholic Schools for the sake that there's so bloody many of them! Within the mess of his agenda he does make a very valid point.

At it's core, Ireland should not be a Catholic nation. The majority or however many people who consider themselves Catholic can go all for it. But it should not be how the state is perceived, nor identifies it's population. It even further undermines Human Rights in doing so.

Frynge

That first video of Arab idol is very funny, especially when someone crashes the stage.

Grayson

smash wrote: »

He's not complaining about the lack of Catholic schools, he's complaining about the uniforms and rituals of schools... which are catholic! I don't know what he expected!

That it might be possible to go to school without being bombarded by catholicism. Most of the schools which are funded by the state are catholic.

Someday if I have kids, it'll be next to impossible for me to find a state school which is not catholic.

You canhave catholic education, but i don't think the state should pay for it. And pretty soon they won't. The number of catholics drops with every census. I pass a church on my way home and the vast majority of people i see going in and out of mass are well into their 60's. Pretty soon there will be a majority of people who will question why the state is paying to promote catholicism.

State schools should be non denominational and should not promote religion, any religion.

smash

Dravokivich wrote: »

I'm guessing you meant nonCatholic schools there?

Yep, fixed.

Dravokivich wrote: »

At it's core, Ireland should not be a Catholic nation. The majority or however many people who consider themselves Catholic can go all for it. But it should not be how the state is perceived, nor identifies it's population. It even further undermines Human Rights in doing so.

Every country in the world has a religion at it's core. There's not one who doesn't and while I don't follow or even like the catholic church it's a necessary evil which puts barriers in place to stop more extremist religions to take over or throw their weight around, which would happen.

Grayson wrote: »

State schools should be non denominational and should not promote religion, any religion.

Then they'd have to impose a non-religious dress code which would include that students can't wear a hijab or burka.