Homophobia might be a sign that a child is becoming an extremist

[frogwoman]

The other day as i was heading to work i passed a kid of about 10 on a scooter who was listening to nasheeds very very loudly through his earphones. I probably should have called the cops.

 

[ash]

Having actually now had the new "spot the extremist" "British values" training, it was all disappointingly moderate and sensible.


British values include things like: religious freedom; anti discrimination on grounds of sexuality, race or gender etc, democracy is a good thing, let ppl get on with their own lives of not hurting anyone...

Spotting extremists is all a bit half arsed, because, unlike child protection reporting there is total acknowledgement that the warning signs are almost certainly completely innocent (child says their sister is going to turkey on holiday. Child is openly racist. Child becomes quiet and withdrawn - ie, a teenager).

I suppose they're looking at patterns rather than one off incidents? You'd hope so, anyway.

I also had the WRAP/PREVENT training (in FE) reccently. We were given a good example of a 'one off incident'. Two school girls from our borough are in Syria. The police visited feeder schools and a reception teacher recalled an incident:
She had been showing a video of New York to reception children and casually mentioned that the film was old and the twin towers weren't there any more. A child stood up and clapped!
Turns out he was the brother one of the girls who later ran away to Syria.
She said she had felt uncomfortable but not sure what to do.
I agree that it all sounds very sensible and the British values are about tolerance, democracy etc
Being in what was once known as a loony left borough it still feels a little wierd being told to Instill British values.

 

[danny la rouge]

British values include things like: religious freedom; anti discrimination on grounds of sexuality, race or gender etc, democracy is a good thing, let ppl get on with their own lives of not hurting anyone...

What flags up alarm bells to me is that Cameron etc tell us British values "include" the following. Which suggests the actual set is somewhat wider. Was the set actually defined or enumerated? If it was not, then British values are whatever Teresa May says they are on a Monday morning.

Furthermore, some of those stated - anti-discrimination on grounds of sexuality, say - would mean that many religious faiths (including Catholicism and varieties of Protestantism) do not conform to "British values". Indeed, Britain itself very much did not conform to "British values" for several centuries. In fact, although 1967 is well-known, actually homosexual activities were only decriminalised in Scotland in 1980. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_(Scotland)_Act_1980 ).

So, far from being "traditional", these values are in some cases not pervasive, and are often very recent.

 

[frogwoman]

I also had the WRAP/PREVENT training (in FE) reccently. We were given a good example of a 'one off incident'. Two school girls from our borough are in Syria. The police visited feeder schools and a reception teacher recalled an incident:
She had been showing a video of New York to reception children and casually mentioned that the film was old and the twin towers weren't there any more. A child stood up and clapped!
Turns out he was the brother one of the girls who later ran away to Syria.
She said she had felt uncomfortable but not sure what to do.
I agree that it all sounds very sensible and the British values are about tolerance, democracy etc
Being in what was once known as a loony left borough it still feels a little wierd being told to Instill British values.

Bloody hell!!

 

[ash]

What was a bit boringly predictable was the 'heckling' from some attendees
that we should be focusing on the terrorism on our streets i.e. gangs killing each other and not somewhere far away.
This was swiftly dealt with by- 'we can do both'.

 

[ash]

bus phone black hole double post

 

[frogwoman]

Thing is tho, i think we can all agree that the problem of people supporting Daesh and so on, is real.

What do you do? Is there anything the state/schools etc can do under todays conditions to ameliorate the problem? What would we do about Daesh etc 'after the revolution' or in an ideal world, cos lets not kid ourselves these problems would disappear overnight? chilango etc

 

[DotCommunist]

Thing is tho, i think we can all agree that the problem of people supporting Daesh and so on, is real.

What do you do? Is there anything the state/schools etc can do under todays conditions to ameliorate the problem? What would we do about Daesh etc 'after the revolution' or in an ideal world, cos lets not kid ourselves these problems would disappear overnight? chilango etc

 

[danny la rouge]

Thing is tho, i think we can all agree that the problem of people supporting Daesh and so on, is real.

Absolutely. And funnily enough, I think seeking shared values is useful. But first of all, it's closing the stable door after the horse has bolted (ie, it's opposite to the way that top down multiculturalism worked for decades); secondly you don't get shared values by imposing them from above (especially when "above" doesn't have a clear idea of what shared values they're imposing); and thirdly, if you get prescriptive about this, you exclude people you want to include, and you end up placing restrictions on speech and expression in ways that have implications for us all.

 

[frogwoman]

Absolutely. And funnily enough, I think seeking shared values is useful. But first of all, it's closing the stable door after the horse has bolted (ie, it's opposite to the way that top down multiculturalism worked for decades); secondly you don't get shared values by imposing them from above (especially when "above" doesn't have a clear idea of what shared values they're imposing); and thirdly, if you get prescriptive about this, you exclude people you want to include, and you end up placing restrictions on speech and expression in ways that have implications for us all.

Well yeah and lets not forget the state sponsored growth of faith schools and faith-based charities stepping into the void left by the state and secular civil society which is the worst possible idea for any kind of shared values, british or otherwise

These cunts encouraged british muslims to go to bosnia, they facilitated religious segregation and services for minority (and for that matter majority) groups to be hived off to religious groups with shadowy agendas, and now they want to talk about the shared values they have destroyed? Bit bloody late now innit

 

[danny la rouge]

Exactly.

 

[Pickman's model]

i'd have thought excessive interest in law and order and a desire to tell people what to do would be the defining signs of many an extremist

 

[frogwoman]

i'd have thought excessive interest in law and order and a desire to tell people what to do would be the defining signs of many an extremist

ISIS dress in black and tell people what to do, whereas the police -

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Has Norman Tebbit been arrested yet? That Thatcher's dead already.

 

[DotCommunist]

true, Goves also been in charge of some dodgy school program so we should stick him in belmarsh.

 

[spanglechick]

What flags up alarm bells to me is that Cameron etc tell us British values "include" the following. Which suggests the actual set is somewhat wider. Was the set actually defined or enumerated? If it was not, then British values are whatever Teresa May says they are on a Monday morning.

Furthermore, some of those stated - anti-discrimination on grounds of sexuality, say - would mean that many religious faiths (including Catholicism and varieties of Protestantism) do not conform to "British values". Indeed, Britain itself very much did not conform to "British values" for several centuries. In fact, although 1967 is well-known, actually homosexual activities were only decriminalised in Scotland in 1980. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_(Scotland)_Act_1980 ).

So, far from being "traditional", these values are in some cases not pervasive, and are often very recent.

well, there's two things there. firstly, the idiot whims of politicians have not, so far, found their way into the training. There is a remove between what Theresa May says, and what ends up happening - or at least there is in this case.

Secondly, the idea that british values are the same thing as traditional values, is a seductive media hobby horse, so the liberal media can scream about hell in a handbasket. But actually, as i've said, what were included in the training given to schools were values which are about contemporary britain.

and yes, they are at odds with some religious beliefs, and they are at odds with all kinds of bigotted cunts... but, frankly, good.

We're talking about state-funded education. If people want to peddle poison to their kids, and make them nasty little sexists and homophobes, that's one thing, but it shouldn't be happening in state-funded schools.

 

[frogwoman]

Tbh honestly don't think it's a bad thing if a kid is clapping at 9/11 or say drawing pictures of ISIS flags and concerns are raised

 

[Blagsta]

I did the Prevent training a couple of years ago. IIRC, there was some guff about "extremist" distortion of history and IRA terrorism, which got us lefties in the team making sceptical comments to the police officers conducting the training. No doubt our names were noted.

 

[spanglechick]

Well yeah and lets not forget the state sponsored growth of faith schools and faith-based charities stepping into the void left by the state and secular civil society which is the worst possible idea for any kind of shared values, british or otherwise

These cunts encouraged british muslims to go to bosnia, they facilitated religious segregation and services for minority (and for that matter majority) groups to be hived off to religious groups with shadowy agendas, and now they want to talk about the shared values they have destroyed? Bit bloody late now innit

This, and your OP, interested me. It seems that you don't want the tories to do anything that is in any way "good", because they are tories - is that right? That you'd rather only bad things happened?

 

[J Ed]

Remember how the majority of Tory MPs voted against gay marriage including the current equalities minister?

 

[likesfish]

That.
We don't have a problem with teenagers going to the south of the usa to murder black people or joining facist groups in the UK as unpleasant and potentially dangerous as the far right is realistically its not a massive problem.
Extremist islam is

 

[frogwoman]

This, and your OP, interested me. It seems that you don't want the tories to do anything that is in any way "good", because they are tories - is that right? That you'd rather only bad things happened?

No of course not, i was just saying that they introduced Section 28 which blighted the lives of millions of people and the person who was talking about this herself voted against gay marriage, that therefore the policy seems inconsistent. Shit if the police had got involved at stuff people said when we were kids most of our parents would be in jail.

But yes of course you have to do something if a kid is going round singing 'my ummah the dawn has appeared' and the like, and as I said in later posts i'm not at all sure if there's anything the state can realistically do under todays conditions, or what 'should' happen in a society closer to what most of us want.

 

[danny la rouge]

Secondly, the idea that british values are the same thing as traditional values, is a seductive media hobby horse, so the liberal media can scream about hell in a handbasket. But actually, as i've said, what were included in the training given to schools were values which are about contemporary britain.

The "traditional British values" is a direct quote from Cameron, so it's actually him that's doing the elision. (Which is exactly what I'm concerned about).

The training you had seems perfectly sensible, but I'm more concerned about the legal framework etc.

 

[spanglechick]

No of course not, i was just saying that they introduced Section 28 which blighted the lives of millions of people and the person who was talking about this herself voted against gay marriage, that therefore the policy seems inconsistent. Shit if the police had got involved at stuff people said when we were kids most of our parents would be in jail.

But yes of course you have to do something if a kid is going round singing 'my ummah the dawn has appeared' and the like, and as I said in later posts i'm not at all sure if there's anything the state can realistically do under todays conditions, or what 'should' happen in a society closer to what most of us want.

I just think, the tories are scummy enough for the most part now - it seems fairly irrelevant to bring up what they voted for thirty years ago. If tories now want to create a policy that explicitly tries to address homophobia in schools, then I'll take that. Victories like that are hard-won, especially when many of the tory party actively oppose them. I think we need to be positive about the positive things, otherwise our justifiable complaints are dismissed as blinkered whining.

 

[MochaSoul]

This, and your OP, interested me. It seems that you don't want the tories to do anything that is in any way "good", because they are tories - is that right? That you'd rather only bad things happened?

I think danny la rouge hit a great nail smack in the head. By their very nature and tendency to adopt top-down ways to go about doing "good" things is, in my opinion, wrong, doomed to fail and, most importantly, likely to do more and lasting damage.

 

[spanglechick]

The "traditional British values" is a direct quote from Cameron, so it's actually him that's doing the elision. (Which is exactly what I'm concerned about).

The training you had seems perfectly sensible, but I'm more concerned about the legal framework etc.

The legal framework doesn't paint any more of a scary picture, unless you're aware of something I've missed.

 

[frogwoman]

I just think, the tories are scummy enough for the most part now - it seems fairly irrelevant to bring up what they voted for thirty years ago. If tories now want to create a policy that explicitly tries to address homophobia in schools, then I'll take that. Victories like that are hard-won, especially when many of the tory party actively oppose them. I think we need to be positive about the positive things, otherwise our justifiable complaints are dismissed as blinkered whining.

It's not whining so much as wondering whether they've got an alterior motive.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think danny la rouge hit a great nail smack in the head. By their very nature and tendency to adopt top-down ways to go about doing "good" things is, in my opinion, wrong, doomed to fail and, most importantly, likely to do more and lasting damage.

the road to hell is paved with good intentions

 

[Pickman's model]

/

 

[spanglechick]

I think danny la rouge hit a great nail smack in the head. By their very nature and tendency to adopt top-down ways to go about doing "good" things is, in my opinion, wrong, doomed to fail and, most importantly, likely to do more and lasting damage.

So what's the alternative to faith schools teaching children that sexism and homophobia are right?