A campaign by two pushy Muslim governors to give Islam a greater presence in a state school played a key part in forcing a successful head teacher from her job, the High Court found this week.
Erica Connor, 57, the former head of the New Monument primary school in Woking, Surrey, was forced to leave the school because of stress after she was scapegoated and accused of "Islamophobia". Other teachers who fell prey to the discord stirred up by the Islamic pair, suffered anxiety, low morale, or chose to take early retirement.
The High Court ruled on Thursday that Surrey County Council had failed in its duty to protect the head teacher and to intervene when the actions and conduct of the governors created problems in the school’s governing body. Awarding her £400,000 in damages, the court said the authority's failure to protect Mrs Connor from these religious zealots had led her to suffer serious depression and a trauma-related stress disorder.
The court was told that over a period of two years, the governors' campaign to make the school more Islamic had torn apart the school’s governing board. Paul Martin, a Muslim convert, tried to stir up disaffection in the community against the school and Mumtaz Saleem was verbally abusive in school meetings. Judge Leighton-Williams said the men had actively pursued an agenda to increase the role of the Muslim religion inside the school, which prior to their arrival had seen improved academic results and had enjoyed harmonious relations with local Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Mr Martin, who had no children at the school, was finally voted off the governing body in June 2005. He complained that he had been "removed for blowing the whistle on institutional racism".
This provides further proof – if any further proof were needed – that:
1) When Muslim zealots shout "Jump!" our politicians and petty officials reply "How high?"
2) Muslim converts are often more zealous and disruptive than those born into the religion.
3) The charge of "racism" against those who stand up to Islamist bullies is a nonsense. Beliefs have nothing to do with race, with white Muslim converts often the worst kind.
4) All too often, sectarian religous bigots can hold the education and future prospects of all our children – Muslim or otherwise – to ransom.
To many other European nations, the UK is a laughing stock – and justifiably so. Let's hope that this week's High Court decision marks a turning point in the muddled multiculturalist policies that make public bodies like Surrey County Council so spineless in tackling rampant Islamism.
4 comments:
Islam likes nothing more than killing jews and homosexuals and it is their stated objective, and they do it often.
We must tell the left to stop ruining the movement by appeasing and apologising Islam. Islam violates every humanistic and secular idea we have in the west.
Freedom of thought, freedom of action and association are at risk.
Hi Lucy - thanks for posting a comment. I agree wholeheartedly that in addition to the threat from aggressive Islamists (no one should have a problem with ordinary Muslims who just quietly get on with it), the problem lies with the political Left.
You may have seen the Islamophobia-Watch.Com website, run by a Marxist twerp called Bob Pitt and a cardboard cut-out of Lenin (this pair constitutes a "collective" apparently). It's always good for a laugh though! So much for religion being "the opium of the people", eh?!
The depressing thing is, dead-beat Lefties, including many secularists, often criticise those of us who occupy the political mainstream for opposing Islam and the Islamists - sometimes out of a genuine fear of being called "racist", sometimes because they have forged political links with Muslim organisations in order to win votes from them (e.g. the Greater London Authority under former mayor Ken Livingstone), and sometimes as a stick with which to beat other Left-wingers with whom they have fallen out (e.g. the Islamophobia-Watch.Com website's ongoing but unconvincing campaign against "Islamophobic racists" like Peter Tatchell and even Maryam Namazie).
The National Secular Society, in my opinion, is also rather reluctant when it comes to opposing Muslim militants - but that's because it's a Left-dominated organisation which probably sees resisting Islamism as a distraction from attacking the Established Church which is all it really wants to do.
I'd say the relevant point here is these guys were school governors - i.e. parents either voted them in or they got in by default as no-one else stood.
I recently stood as a school governor - I lost (to an OK candidate as it happens), but what matters is it was the first contested election in years - which is apparently not unusual - and the first time a candidate had to justify their place on the board instead of a tight little group of rich parents choosing someone from their luncheon club or church.
I agree with the other commentators about the clunky thinking of politicos, but I also used to dismiss stuff like school governors, PTAs, local councils & what have you as dull, middle class, irrelevant - I was too cool to do anything but sneer, etc. Now I'm seeing that the way to stop this crap is at neighbourhood level, and you don't need to get mixed up in a party machine to do that. Sometimes just standing is enough to start debate & stop the apathy.
Yes, absolutely agree, Stuart. The old 1960's slogan "Think globally, act locally" still applies and provides a strategy whereby groups of people, or even one individual, can make a difference.
The white Muslim convert at the centre of this story was able, almost single-handedly, to turn a successful and happy primary school into a failing theological and political battleground, but you can just as easily get involved to buttress and promote civilised values within a secular context.
We should all strive to be less lazy, fearful, apathetic, cynical - or "cool" - which is just a detached and self-regarding mask we hide behind to conceal the first four socially unattractive traits on this list.
I take my hat off to you for standing as a school governor and I'm sorry to hear you didn't get in this time round - their loss, I think.
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