Is this thread in reference to the matter of a Toronto school permitting some of its Muslim students to set up a provisional area for prayer, in the corner of the cafeteria or something?
I don't see what the big deal is, I think Catchfire nails it in #25. And complain all you like, the character of the demonstration against this accomodation most certainly WAS stamped by the presence of the JDL and that racist 'Hindu' outfit.
I don't support state-supported faith based schooling of any sort, but this is not the same as permitting observant Muslims a prayer space on the premises.
Defecation is not part of a school's curriculum but good luck operating a school without toilet facilities. Imagine the anti-demonstration! People complaining about the smells, and the noise and the interruption of regular classes; the time wasted by students grooming in front of the mirrors etc. No, really, they should be done away entirely! Students should just learn to control themselves. They have bathrooms at home, they can use those! Etc.
Likewise school cafeterias, come to think of it. What does eating have to do with learning? What a waste of school resources. But it seems people like to eat and we can safely accomodate this AND still somehow put something useful into their heads, between meals.
Observant Muslims are required to pray five times a day. They're not requiring US to pray five times a day, nor is there anything intrinsically offensive in the detail of their prayer, involving loud or distracting gesture and carrying-on. They're not banging drums and blowing trumpets, or slaughtering live fowl.
I've watched Muslims privately observing their duties in every imaginable circumstance, from construction sites to convention centers to the middle of the desert and have always remarked their humility and modesty as they go about it. They just find a quiet corner somewhere, roll out a mat, take off their shoes, and quietly recite whatever it is they...recite. Not a lot of fuss, or 'look at me!', or smugness, quite the opposite, more like, excuse me, I have something to do for a few minutes.
Nor am i a big fan of Hinduism but have visited enough temples and seen enough joss sticks lit and waved about to understand the appeal of such simple observance, the solace it might provide a believer.
Me, I ain't religious. Separation of church and state an'all that. But the reality is, our public school system, indeed the way we structure our weeks is built around Sunday worship. While the relevance has declined in the last century in our culture - something I ardently celebrate - this is not necessarily true for other cultures and other religions. But suddenly it is a monstrous presumption, to seek some insignificant tweaks to the schedule to avoid conflct between an unfamiliar religion and the school day?
So it is incumbent upon us to take them by the scruff of the neck and haul them into our gleaming and perfect cultural paradigm? We can't leave them be? We are so OFFENDED by this culture? We are so THREATENED by it?
I thought the Charter guaranteed freedom of religion? Presumably that means the freedom to practice it without hindrance?
Islam like some other religions i can think of is burdened with patriarchal baggage. Perhaps it will evolve? Perhaps we can encourage this? Perhaps after a few generations the imported zeal will be tempered, or dulled, or conditioned by immersion in the wonder that is our western lifestyle? Perhaps we can give it more than a decade or two before we decide it is our duty to step in and correct them?
I'm just not sure we in the west have the final word on cultural best practice.
in terms of the risk of 'coercion', once again this doesn't square with my own decades of observation. I've never been proselytized by a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Buddhist or Hindu.
And back to the practical: some number of those students who take their religious duties seriously are presumably immigrants who muat already struggle against the irrational prejudices of their new compatriots. Do we really need to take away something that gives them comfort, to strip away something that connects them to their root culture, that shapes their identity? Does it really bother us that much? I mean, seriously. You think Islam will spread, like some contagion through our pure, secular youth?