A few days ago, a teacher who taught the Ethics and Religious Culture course lost his teaching certificate. This is because, two years previously, he had made remarks in class which were considered discriminatory and insulting about Islam, “Islamophobic” remarks.
Known facts and issues
According to information circulating, the teacher would have hidden the one representing Islam on the walls of the class where there are posters illustrating various religions. To students who asked him to justify this action, he allegedly said that the prophet had married a child and that he did not want to promote such behavior. He would also have spoken of an Islamist plot hatched to invade Quebec.
Students protested, the affair caused a stir and parents filed a complaint against the teacher.
Before the investigative committee which suspended his teaching certificate, he continued to recall the dangers that, according to him, Islam presents and requested that a national commission of inquiry be created on the subject.
The teacher appealed the judgment against him.
You can guess that this is a matter of debate. To get an idea, I suggest you read the comments on this affair found on the Atheist Freethinkers website..
At stake here are many questions as delicate as they are polemical, such as the possibility of criticizing, even very strongly, religions; respect for students and their beliefs, of course modulated according to their age; the right of children to a future that is open and possibly different from that of their family environment; the role of the school in all this; and many others, without forgetting the definition of certain words which are vigorously debated, such as “racism” and “Islamophobia”, precisely.
The political context in which we find ourselves does not help in any way to see things more clearly, with these calls from the Canadian representative responsible for the fight against Islamophobia to hire Muslim professors in universities. And the terrible war underway…
Due to not knowing the facts well, and pending the appeal judgment, I will not comment on this specific case, even if I admit to being very happy that this course has disappeared. I also remember being a big supporter of secularism. And I would like to say that, if very harsh comments about Islam (and other religions…) are banned at school, there are a large number of brilliant authors who will have to be censored, starting with Bertrand Russell. He notably wrote: “Then came Islam and its fanatical belief that every soldier dying in battle for the True Faith went straight to a Paradise more attractive than that of Christians, houris being more attractive than harps. »
It was with all this in mind that I went to see the film. Amal. A free spiritby Belgian-Moroccan director Jawad Rhalib.
Islam in public schools
The story takes place in Belgium, in a public school and in a literature class which would possibly be a CEGEP level class back home.
The teacher, Amal, discovers that one of her students, a Muslim, was beaten by other Muslims. This is because she is a lesbian and would have had a tattoo, which is not something that most religious people or fundamentalists see. Amal is shocked. A Muslim herself, she decides to have her students read a bisexual Muslim poet from the 8the century, Abou Nouwâs, who teaches this thing that Amal considers important, namely that there are different ways of being a believer. Rhalib had studied this poet at school in Morocco. It is now banned there.
Things quickly degenerate and the Islamists (Rhalib takes care to distinguish them from other believers…) react. The school management manages all this timidly. We learn along the way that an Islamist is a school teacher and that, behind closed doors, he teaches his particular faith to young people whom he fanaticizes.
I’ll let you find out how it ends.
But the questions raised are important and must be discussed, including at home. Talking about it is the necessary first step to take. And it must be done. In France, there were deaths among teachers (Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard).
We must remember that secularism is not negotiable and extend it everywhere; we must name and condemn religious extremism; we must defend freedom of expression and the right of children from believing families to no longer believe; we must reaffirm the importance of the authority of the teacher for the school to fully accomplish its mission. And tell the immensity of our individual and collective losses if this mission is not fulfilled.
At school, we forget the community where we come from, which gave us so many ideas, sometimes right and beautiful, and we begin to learn to think for ourselves. It’s disturbing and difficult. And this is why the school must be a sanctuary that aspires to be subject only to the truth, a sanctuary that the entire community must protect.
It can start by showing this film in class to students old enough to see and discuss it.