For the last few weeks, the media has been rampant with outrage and defensiveness alike, on the matter that every Friday afternoon, an imam comes to Valley Park Middle School in Toronto to lead a prayer session lasting approximately 40 minutes during class time.
The story was first brought to my attention via Heather Mallick's column in the Toronto Star. Mallick's article was clear to discern itself as taking issue with the blatant disregard for gender equality, and not religion in and of itself. During the prayer session, menstruating girls are not allowed to participate in the session and are sectioned off behind a row of praying girls, whom are behind a row of praying boys, curtailed by a bench. (The picture and article are here) Mallick's issue was feminism, not religion. Though the two are inextricably linked, aren't they?
I hate to be the requisite atheist to point this out (someone once told me sarcasm does not permeate the boundaries of a blog post), but virtually every major religion, when adhered to in its orthodox form, has misogynistic undertones to it. Similarly, virtually all major religions have certain restrictions placed on women while they are menstruating, as it is generally viewed as being impure.
This school is allowing children to skip class so that they can pray during school hours in a secular public school system, all the while instilling the misconceived notion that menstruating girls are somehow unclean and should be pushed to the back of the figurative bus, which in this case is represented by the cafeteria turned makeshift mosque.
Now the Jewish Defense League of Canada and the Canadian Hindu Advocacy, are voicing their concerns over having Muslim prayer services during school time.
Fair enough; if the school is allowing prayer service for one faith group, then logically it should be accommodating every religious group's needs. After all, that is the reasoning employed by the Toronto District School Board, which stated that "As a public school board, we have a responsibility and an obligation to accommodate faith needs".
Yet, what has led me to be most incredulous at this situation stems from the reasoning behind the accommodation in the first place: before the school implemented its Muslim prayer service, students would leave the school during class time to go to a local mosque for the prayer service and then not come back to school once the prayer service at the mosque was over. This is not a reason for religious accommodation; this is a reason for discipline.
Personal anecdote alert: when I was in the ninth grade, I went to a very large regional public high school, which happened to have an excellent athletics program. I was on the basketball team, and felt that I needed some extra practice on my three-point shooting. I thought that there was no better time to do this than fourth period, since I could usually sneak away into one of the gyms, or one of the outdoor hoops. When my teachers (and basketball coaches) found out, they did not encourage my hooky-playing antics by allowing me to take time out of my studies in order to perfect a baseline three. Instead, they sent me to detention, called my mom and made sure I sat through fourth period.
The school is accommodating these students so that they can skip 40 minutes of class every Friday afternoon, to attend a prayer service, which according to the Muslim Canadian Congress isn't even mandatory according to Islamic religious customs and practices.
Valley Park Middle School is allowing certain students a get out of jail -- I mean school -- free card, under the guise of the protection of religious freedoms. However, in a pluralistic society, such as Canada, no religion has a place in a secular school during class time, plain and simple. Amen, amin and swaha to that.
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Rabbi Mark Goldsmith: The Power of Unity: Religious Pluralism in the U.K.
First, there are radical Hindu groups who have (in their temples) supported demolishing the Babur mosque in India and all other mosques they see as an affront to the Hindu religion. The author herself originates from these groups.
Then, there's the JDL, which is a notorious right-wing Jewish extremist group who have even declared Obama to being anti-semitic.
There are also users on this forum with overtly patriotic Hindu names that are calling for a ban to the prayer space.
I don't know anything about the origins of the Christian groups, but something tells me they too are overtly racist and Islamophobic.
did you not read the article? she's an atheist! and if you read any of her other articles, you will see that she is a champion of women's rights and issues, with one article defending a young girls right to wear a hijab while reffing a soccer match.
just b/c people don't agree with the encroaching religiosity of our public schools does NOT make them islamophobic.
The fact that she aligned herself with these radical Hindu and Jewish groups suggests she also supports the notion that Mosques in India should be burned down.
Putting aside the politeness for which we Canadians are known, there was an even harsher edge to the school prayer controversy than when I had interviewed 911 Hard Hat Pledge Founder Andy Sullivan, to which the panel members ironically indicated was Canada's equivalent to the Ground Zero Mosque controversy in New York;
Other key revelations:
that this is not a question of religious freedom as Islam is a political ideology cloaked in a religion of purported peace
that the extent of the Muslim infiltration in the Canadian school system is already extensive and therefore it may be too let to stem the tide
that immigration from Shariah law countries must be curtailed and confined to only those who are being persecuted by Islamic Fundamentalists
that the followers of other faiths, especially the indigenous Christian populace has been too concerned with their own lives and have in effect been sleeping at the wheel
that it took 3 years for this to come to the coalitions attention because as was the case in Delaware with the Indian Lake School District, there was a fear of raising reprisals
Supriya, if you would like to hear the entire 60 minute live radio broadcast, here is the link; http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jon-hansen/2011/07/27/is-valley-park-middle-school-canadas-ground-zero-mosque
E) Last time I checked Friday prayers for Muslims is what Saturday is for Judaism, and Sunday for Christians, service wise, and yes it is mandatory F) The best coverage on the issue by far was in this report by D'Souza covered by CityTV: http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/144877--groups-to-protest-muslim-prayers-at-toronto-school; watch the video and judge the issue for yourself.
b) "special interest" groups are other faith based groups who are citing that the muslim students are getting special treatment
c) if ur referring to the personal anecdote, i'm pretty sure it's meant to highlight the fact that most kids who skip school get punished, unlike the kids who skipped school to go to mosque
d) there is no such thing as a canadian charter test, you mean the Oakes Test. and obviously her gym example would not stand it, but quite frankly, neither would this scenario.
e) friday prayers for muslims usually take place at 4pm at most mosques, otherwise a large subset of our functioning population would not be able to work on friday. thus skipping class to pray is not warranted.
f) obviously the people who take time out of their work day to go make signs and protest are on the crazy side, but that doesn't mean the root cause of their protest is unwarranted.
how is a school supposed to function when a large proportion of the children are being taught that women and men are not equal, and that homosexuality is a crime against nature? the answer is that it can't, b/c then LGBT kids get bullied by kids who think they are doing nothing wrong and young girls are taught to think outdated things.
God has no place in a public school, just like facts have no place in an organized religion.
However, I see no problem in accommodating students who wish to practice their religion at their own time by providing them with space.
I think that there should be multi-faith prayer room where anyone who wishes to worship whoever can do so at their own time.
I do not think that the school should grant skipping of class for prayer (as that would be unfair to other students).
I also think that the other groups are acting like children in that they want to dissolve the rights of not only the Muslims, but also for themselves. This is the worst case of spite I have seen. They're mad about the wrong thing. Instead of demanding the same rights for themselves, they want NO RIGHTS for anyone, including themselves. What kind of non-sense is that?
"If don't want it, you can't have it either!". Instead of doing that, they should focus on demanding accommodation for their own groups and insist that religious exercise be conducted at at the expense of one's own time.
do you think the school would have accommodated a young catholics who needed to go to confession but were skipping class to do so, so then they had a priest come in to the school?
of course not.
There is no mention of wanting the same, or respecting Ontario's Human Right Code and wanting to benefit from it.
I do not know how you can claim that they have been treated unfairly when there is no indication that they demanded fair treatment.
I think the school would accommodate the young catholic. Seeing as how the board funds catholic school boards with public money, I do not see why they would object to accommodation since they do not object to funding.
BTW, I feel sorry especially for Muslim students who would like to pray in a different way from the way determined by this imam, or those who do not wish to pray at all. I'm sure the peer pressure is enormous.
Yes, Muslims are required to pray 5 times daily, but there is nothing to say they need to do it as a group service. Most of the time people pray individually, so in this case, "accommodating" the students would simply mean having a multifaith space available for anyone who wants to pray. This is the situation across various university campuses and other public buildings, including hospitals. No need for an imam to lead the prayer and no need for the students to leave the school to go to the mosque and not return (which is a disciplinary issue that has somehow been confounded with the prayer issue). Prayers can take place during lunch and/or break times so as not to interfere with classes.
Furthermore, menstruating girls are not required to pray in Islam; there is no reason why they need to attend the prayers at all, never mind sit at the back. The stipulation is that you have to be physically clean of impurities when praying, and this includes blood (as well as semen, urine, and feces). These rules apply to both sexes and do not imply that women are naturally unclean or impure. Similar rules are found in other religions as well and in any case, have nothing to do with the question of whether students should be allowed to pray at school.
I think there can be adjustments made from both sides so have a good resolution.
Also with regards to menstruating women, I find it really annoying that the author as well as other individuals seemed to jump the gun and conclude, based on the images in the media. The images I saw, of menstruating women sitting in the back with the caption "with menstruating women sitting in the back" is meant to evoke juxtaposition of menstruating women from other parts of the world where they really are "untouchable". And it evoked the same emotion in me. What trickery eh. But it really isn't like that.
http://www.thestar.com/article/1023979--mallick-some-toronto-schoolgirls-are-always-second-rate
if the prayer service cannot conform to the basics of canadian values, such as gender equality, then the prayer service should not be taking place.
At the same time, if we closed the schools or gave children time off to observe all of the religious holy days or events, the schools would hardly be full on any day.
I guess I'm just going to have to sit on the fence for this one and mull it over a bit more.
I'm not sure what you are implying here, but the race of the person making the comment shouldn't be in question, but WHAT they are saying.
So why don't you say something relevant to this issue instead of being playing with racism.
(I couldn't decide whether to say, 'being racist' or 'playing with racism'....guess I got the average of the two)
People. wake up, we're not France and in Canada part of our success with multiculturalism is that we "live and let live". For males starting puberty, going to Friday prayer is a religious obligation. Thus according to our jurisprudence they have to be accommodated to the extent of undue hardship (I'm pretty sure they teach this in law school!) There's no undue hardship here so this is a non-issue.
Jeez, let people live the way they see fit. They're not harming anyone.
- no, the reason why they are skipping 6th period "or whatever" is because previously, they would leave to go to a mosque and skip the rest of the afternoon.
letting people live the way they want to live would imply that we should let parents take their children out of biology class because they don't believe in evolution. this is a slippery slope.
I'm pretty sure that noone is arguing that these muslim children should not be allowed to pray at all.