theguardian —
Michael Gove has called for a “robust” defence of liberal values in the face of the challenge from Islamist extremists.
The education secretary said it was essential that extremists were denied a platform in schools and other public institutions to push their agenda.
Speaking on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show, Gove defended his decision to appoint the former Scotland Yard head of counter-terrorism to lead the investigation into the so-called “Trojan horse” plot by Islamists to take over schools in Birmingham.
“Islamism is a perversion of Islam in the same way that communism was a perversion of socialism and fascism is a perversion of nationalism,” he said.
“We need to challenge those views and we need to make sure that people who have views that are inimical to liberal values and wish to use institutions to push an agenda which is inimical to liberal values are not in a position where they can use public money or the public square in order to push their views.”
Gove acknowledged that his decision to appoint Peter Clarke, formerly the country’s top counter-terrorism officer, to head the Trojan horse inquiry had been controversial, but said he believed it was correct.
“The view that I took was that if you have a police officer of unimpeachable integrity to do these investigations, if people at the end of this process are cleared, given a clean bill of health, that is the most effective way of ensuring that public confidence can be restored,” he said.
He said the inquiry had raised important questions – including for both the Department for Education and the local authority in Birmingham.
“There are broader questions about the extent to which these activities were coordinated and the extent to which those responsible for those activities may have had a broader agenda,” he said.
“There are questions for the local authority and my department– the Department for Education – about what was known and what was done.”
Gove, who has previously clashed publicly with the home secretary, Theresa May, over the government’s handling of the issue, went out of his way to praise her.
“No home secretary has been as vigilant in dealing with the terror threat as Theresa May,” he said. “I think she has done a very good job in this area.”
Origional Post here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/michael-gove-defend-liberal-values-islamist-extremism
Community leaders have warned that some Muslims could be effectively barred from becoming trustees or governors of new academies and free schools under rules introduced by the education secretary, Michael Gove, in response to the “Trojan horse” controversy. British values’ – would those be the ones where putting a cat in a wheelie bin (quite rightly) gets you in trouble, but putting people out on the street because they don’t fit in with party dogma is ‘moral’? By telling the Muslims, oh they are not British, they don’t have British values, they are not integrated, all that is happening is that Muslims are feeling more Isolated than ever. The government and Gove has been extremely foolish with their remarks. Instead of being the solution, the government is the FCK problem !!
The Department for Education has inserted new clauses into the model funding agreement for academies stipulating that its governors should demonstrate “fundamental British values”, and giving the secretary of state powers to close schools if they do not comply. Some years back a local primary school wanting to become a C of E school. Many people objected , including parents, parent governors, staff and a couple of independent governors. What happened. Oh it became a C-o-f E school, because the people who objected where no longer told when meeting where and when they asked were given the wrong date or time. What happened, it became a christian school and started every day with morning prayers and had religious instruction daily. Its now a christian academy, that few local people send their children to, and christian parents go for miles to take their children to. But then according to Cameron this is a christian country. I bet he does not believe in discrimination and bigotry either !! But we have done all of those horrible activities informed by supposed British values in the past and, according to Gove, British values are ones that have stood the test of time.
Come on now Gove. Cameron et. al. we are still waiting for an honest assessment of British Values that make the UK different from the rest of the world.
How is the UK different from, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Japan, Poland etc. What are the people in each countries different values in relation to basic human values. Just admit that there you don’t know and just thought it was a nice catchy phrase and stop been prates and wasting the time you should spend working constructively. Do you think that the “coalition” ministers and leaders are earning their money, or benefiting the UK with this nonsense.Come on now Gove. Cameron et. al. we are still waiting for an honest assessment of British Values that make the UK different from the rest of the world. How is the UK different from, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Japan, Poland etc. What are the people in each countries different values in relation to basic human values. Just admit that there you don’t know and just thought it was a nice catchy phrase and stop been prates and wasting the time you should spend working constructively. Do you think that the “coalition” ministers and leaders are earning their money, or benefiting the UK with this nonsense.
“British values of respect for the law, democracy, equality and tolerance of different faiths and religious and other beliefs.” Well does Britain believe in those values and uphold them and are they long standing values?. Democracy – overthrow of democracy in Iran 1953 and Britain’s colonial past had nothing to do with democracy or the rule of law in the countries they were in. Thatcher was good friends with Pinochet who overthrew democracy in Chile, and Britain supported Suharto in Indonesia who took power in a coup and murdered half a million, with the help of British aid (weapons). Equality, religious tolerance – is that what Britain was promoting when it supported Islamist extremists in Afghanistan?. what about Syria. what about backing for Saudi Arabia as it crushed Shia uprising in the east and also in Bahrain. Just a few months ago, Cameron was in the middle east selling weapons to non democratic monarchies in the middle east that have poor human rights records and who are funding and arming Islamist extremists in Iraq and Syria. I could go on, but equality, tolerance and democracy have nothing to do with Britain and its strategic interests and that has been clearly demonstrated over the last few weeks and decades and centuries. As an acknowledgement of how embarrassing it is, very little of it appears on school curriculum history lessons. If radicalisation and Islamic extremism were so important, why has Britain supported it for decades in other countries. in Saudi Arabia, the real fear is democracy and an end to monarchy. Gove should send his lesson on British values to the PM and the foreign office first.
(Mr) Gove said, following the publication of Ofsted’s investigation into 21 state schools in Birmingham, that he would “put the promotion of British values at the heart of what every school has to deliver for children”.’ I do not know how anyone can claim with a straight face that “respect for the law, democracy, equality and tolerance of different faiths and religious and other beliefs” are British values. Would someone who came up with the idea of sending vans round areas of London with high immigrant populations with ‘Go Home or Face arrest’ posters on their sides meet Gove’s tolerance test ? Those that were factually inaccurate and were barred by the Advertising Standards Authority. Given that the monarch is forbidden from being a catholic it would be logical assume that Catholicism is at odds with ‘British values’ which would pose a problem for the governors of Catholic schools. Doesn’t sound practical or enforceable. Where do fundamentalist Christians fit into this proviso? Are the IRA not a form of Christian fundamentalist group that performed acts of terror on British Soil? Now I know they were not blowing stuff and people up for not believing in Jesus. A Christian sectarian terrorist group blew up Manchester City centre the in the 90s.
Gove is not stopping people from having religious convictions or barring them from taking part in public life, he’s simply stopping those views being imposed on others through the education system (and that includes everyone from Muslims to fascists). Not such a bad thing. What is weakening his position (at least in the Guardian) is referring to them as ‘British values’ – god forbid that we should be allowed to identify ourselves with anything British… other than the NHS of course. He should have referred to them as ‘values commonly held in Britain’ to neutralise the point. Personally, I take pride in coming from a democratic, fairly transparent country in which gender equality, freedom of expression and association (and until recently, freedom of the press) are held to be shared values. This isn’t about ethnicity or religion, anyone can share these views. There was a report today about Christian private schools using American textbooks that teach that women should be subservient to men, and so far there has been no media outcry – presumably because “CHRISTIANS GOOD. MUSLIMS BAD.” This the chimp who runs around as education minister. And what does he comes up with? Wind and piffle. “Respect for the law” hmm does that include Gay marriage? How will catholic, fundamentalist schools react to that? Are many openly gay teachers hired by these schools? Tolerance, yes. Wasn’t a teacher sacked from a catholic school because of what was defined as her immorality? Didn’t Gove approve of this? He is presume by going to send the hit squad into schools in Northern Ireland?
British values eh…?
Lets keep them contemporary then. British values like placing sanctions on welfare claimants, closing the ILF and reducing the independence of disabled people, placing young people in debt through student loans, exploiting young people as interns, unemployed on workfare, employed on zero hours contracts, agency and migrant labour on minimum wage if they’re lucky………why not just barr those with conservative values. Funny he chose the word “fundamental” in rather than fundamentalist British values. (i.e neo liberal values). All of which the successive governments , especially the Tories, have undermined or disregarded when it suits them. Democracy undermined by not allowing a referendum on reform of the voting system . Rule of law undermined when the laws on trespass have been altered to allow fracking under peoples homes. Individual liberty undermined by restrictions to legal aid, trial in closed courts and various terrorism laws. Mutual respect undermined by the continual attacks on those who claim benefits, the disabled and the poor in general not to mention the vilification of all immigrants. Tolerance undermined by continual vilification of migrants and Islamophobia. If “conservative Muslim beliefs were deemed to be incompatible with “British values” then individuals holding these beliefs have no place in our education system. There are conservative Christians who hold beliefs that discriminate against women and against homosexuality, and these people also have no place in our education system.
Two considerations:
(1) What are your terms of reference, Mr Gove? What are British values, precisely? Who or what defines them? Consensual yet contradictory British opinion? Or just you, alone, riding roughshod over the possibly equally valid opinions of others? The national interest – the reason of state – is not necessarily restricted to the Conservative Party, the monarchy, the establishment, the financial and political elites. Or any other of the political parties for that matter. It is rather disconcerting to read that Mr Gove intends to put vague, undefined British values at the heart of every school… and then ensure that his personal views are enforced – pardon, “delivered”, in pseudo-capitalist speak – by the schools to children. Why not get the children to define what British values are – after all, they, and their futures, are our national interest.
(2) There is no need to frame the debate on British values against the background of Islamist extremism. These are two entirely separate issues. But we agree on one thing, Mr Gove: extremism in whatever form has no place in mainstream British society.
What he misses is the fact that children need values to be taught by parents as well as teachers. They need better role models so they understand common decency, respect, humility, manners, compassion, rule of law, fairness, community-mindedness etc. Under this definition of “British values” some atheists couldn’t be a governor of a free school or academy because they are intolerant of all religions. Here’s two values: Women shouldn’t be covered. Animals should be humainly slaughtered. Are the veil and halal slaughter going to be banned? No chance.
There are many such people who post on the Guardian. I may have my differences with them, but it would be wrong to exclude them from such service to their communities simply because they have the quaint notion that religion is evil. I suggest Gove goes away and thinks this out properly from first principles. The whole point of a “free” school is that it is free from outside interference. It will stop conservative Muslims from becoming governors, what about conservatives from other religions? Why pinpoint just one community becoz you get media coverage and people attention and oh don forget votes on race basis ?. Shame on Tories Tactics. Gove, Cameron and co. have only one policy; the rest is lies, bullshit and propaganda, including the scapegoating of migrants, the poor, the sick and the disabled. That policy is Reward the Rich, Punish the Poor. By implementing that policy, they are also lining their own offshore accounts, of course, since they are among the rich people being rewarded. There must be some pretty spectacular kick-backs from billionaires and big corporations landing in Cameron’s hidden account in the Cayman Islands. That policy is hardly a “British Value”, although today’s Thatcherite NuLabour seems to share it, sadly.
Now personally, I think all schools and home educators should be fully and properly accountable for what they teach, but I accept that others may disagree with my view. But the idea that free schools are free until the Secretary of State has a panic attack is silly. Actually I think most people think multi-culturalism is a good idea. Diversity is one of our strengths. Anyone who has been cared for in a hospital will likely appreciate immigration. You are in danger of sounding like the “if they are black send them back” school of nationalism. I think too much focus has been put on the word “British” and on this particular man’s personality. If you just remove that and say that not only schools but every organisation in this country must respect human rights values and copy and paste them from this article: “Democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs”… Would anyone disagree with that???
IA
London School of Islamics Trust