An angry mother has accused her 10-year-old son’s school of refusing to give him water during the day, despite temperatures in the eighties (near 30 Celsius), because other children in the school are observing Ramadan and cannot have water themselves.
Kora Blagden, 32, said ““Just before bedtime me and my sons Luke, ten, and Alfie, eight, were talking about Ramadan as we had seen it on the news. Luke said to me he was told he wasn’t allowed to drink in class by his teacher. The reason being, a child who is fasting had a headache and the teacher said it would be unfair if the other children drank in front of the pupil. They normally have their bottles on their table but they were kept in a tray by the teacher. He went along with it but he was thirsty and didn’t want to offend the other children. Alfie said he was allowed to drink in the morning but not in the afternoon. Luke was dehydrated when he got home and drunk three glasses of water straight away.”
The children attend Charles Dickens School, an inner-city institution in the heart of Portsmouth, near to the birthplace of the famous author. This is a Navy town with a lot of military personnel but also a growing immigrant community although by heritage less than 6% would be Islamic.
Headteacher Craig Duncan went on the defensive and said: "We do everything that we can to ensure the welfare of all of our children and we would never prevent them from having access to water. In this case, water was available and pupils were just reminded to be respectful to their classmates who were unable to drink in this hot weather."
But even that is implied discrimination. Non-Muslim children, the vast majority, are being shamed into restricting their water intake on hot days to protect the feelings of children whose parents are celebrating Ramadan and are expecting their offspring to do the same. Will the school protect the feelings of Christian children in December, or will Christmas season be persona non grata (take a hike Jesus) in case Muslim children get offended.?
It’s another example of political correctness becoming tyrannical. Societies are becoming so afraid of the accusation of being intolerant that they offend almost everybody in order to protect the smallest minority. Muslims themselves are having a problem with the timing of the observance.
Ramadan has arrived in summertime this year, it slowly moves backwards through the calendar due to its attachment to the lunar cycle. That causes problems for some Muslims who are commanded to fast from sunrise to sunset, which doesn’t leave much time for everything else, including marital relations, during the summer night.
Apparently this was an oversight in the holy directive but Imam Abdul Mannan, president of the Islam Society of Northern Finland, said Muslims could choose what to observe. "The Egyptian scholars say that if the fasting days are long - more than 18 hours - then you can follow the Mecca time or Medina time, or the nearest Muslim country time.”
In other words you can adjust the scriptures to fit in with your real life circumstance. This will work well for Scandinavia as long as they don’t actually become Muslim countries, in which case they’ll have to resort to 18 hour summer fasts, but only 6 hours in the winter, conveniently not interfering with the ski-season.
Another problem faced by Islamic expansion is its commercialization. Having not yet overcome the western world which they now inhabit, Muslims are sometimes guilty of forgetting ‘the reason for the season’.
This is the most expensive time of the year for the observer as it seems special foods are purchased for when they do eat and all kinds of paraphernalia are sold to assist in the observance – a bit like Christmas. In Qatar this year you can get a free gold bar if you purchase a Mitsubishi car during Ramadan.
Britain is slowly succumbing to accepting the ‘season’ as can be seen with the example in the school, along with Channel 4’s decision to broadcast the daily call to prayer. There is also sensitivity within British culture not to bring offence in any way but to accommodate at all costs.
Take the website of Liverpool FC (soccer). As a rule the site only offers video pieces to subscribers, the exception over the years has been pieces on the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1990. However, the club offered a video (about 7mins.) for free featuring team doctor Zaf Iqbal explaining how he and the Muslim players (3 out of 38 by my estimate) would cope with pre-season training while observing the fast.
But while some bend with the wind others resist. The accommodating former Prime Minister Tony Blair is having reservations. Writing for the eurosceptic Daily Express (which in itself is news) Blair said “At the extreme end of the spectrum are terrorists, but the world view goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to admit. So by and large we don’t admit it. There is a problem within Islam – from the adherents of an ideology that is a strain within Islam.”
Freedom and Islam are not compatible. Islam is not a religion; it’s a system of control towards world domination. Islam has been at war with the west since the days of the west being a tribal society. Of all places the school incident happened in a Navy town. The Americans originally started a Navy because they needed to rescue citizens from Islamic pirates in the Mediterranean. Islam has spelled trouble since its inception in the 6th century. It ultimately will not compromise; we will resist it or be overcome.
