Quote Originally Posted by ragingpup View Post
Some good posts with some good ideas on here. Especially the splendidly named Neville Davitt with a far more eloquent summation of what we all should NOT do. Please everybody, read his post carefully.

I posted yesterday a few points from my own experience of living in East London and having local schools that take and function very well with a very mixed cultural population including Muslims. We have close friends of some of these kid's parents and three of these are committed Muslims, not old school and all of them are perfectly happy that their kids, and we parents mix and share our cultures. It's no ideal were living, its just what you do in a multi cultural community. For the kids, there are no barriers, the schools encourage celebration of all the community's religions and just get on with the education.

So for me, I can see the results of a mixed community that has already progressed down the road into multi racial cohesion. And I have obvious comparative experience of my upbringing and family and friends in Rotherham. Like many areas there is still a separation between the communities and despite efforts from the local council the communities remain entrenched. Trevor MacDonald's documentary "What Muslim's Really Think" caused a lot of controversy when it was aired from people who didn't agree with the programme research data that found that especially the elders of the Muslim community were against integration and were very protective of their culture and customs including what I consider to be negative ones on individual liberty. However, he also found that there was a stark contrast between the views of the community elders and the younger people who were found to be much more willing to integrate into the wider culture and rejected many of the beliefs of the elders. I think that it is essential to focus NOW on improving integration programmes in our communities so that these 'boundaries' are blurred and eventually overcome by the younger generations.

MacDonald's documentary also showed the work of this school in Oldham that has striven to create a school community deliberately from the two very segregated White and Pakistani communities.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/m...david-goodhart

This is still in early days but studies seem to indicate that the school community is prospering, its an Ofsted Good school and there are unusually low levels of racially based bullying. From my own kid's point of view, this multi racial community is just the way the world is to her. There simply is no issue of different cultures holding mysterious beliefs and custom. It's not perfect but what I'm getting at is that I am seeing the end result of what this school in Oldham is striving for, and it works. Kids just adapt and take on board what they see, be it from a school that places them shoulder to shoulder with mixed race schoolmates and encourages exploration and tolerance of differences, or from a cultural leader or parent that feels that their way of life is superior to others and does not want the two to mix.

So what to do? Practical initiatives I'd like to see are a strong government agenda to move away from segregated to mixed schools and for councils in areas where there are entrenched cultures to be empowered to create good schools and direct their populations to come from even representations of these different cultures. For me, it should not be optional, parents should not have the option of shielding their kids away from a diverse society that their kids have to eventually move into. Most certainly we should not allow public funds to help create faith schools of any kind that effectively cut children off from their world.

I know that this is not an immediate solution that people are looking for, that would 'feel' like it provides justice for the dreadful, inexcusable atrocities that these lunatics do but it is something that we could do now.
Great post fella.