Missionary Men

 

 

 

 

 

The  Parliamentary Education Committee released a report on the inquiries into the Trojan Horse plot.

The BBC reported this…

MPs have criticised a “worrying lack of coordination” between five overlapping official inquiries into the so-called Trojan Horse affair.

It was alleged last year extremists had tried to take over several schools in Birmingham to advance radical interpretations of Islam.

A series of official investigations found the claims to be groundless.

 

That last line is a complete lie.

The BBC has always attempted to portray the Trojan Horse letter as a hoax ( The MCB also takes that line…“a malicious fabrication and completely untrue”), Phil Mackie claiming it was a result of paranoia, racism and Islamophobia, with Mark Easton trying to claim that Islamists taking over and running a school was no different to Catholics running a Faith School and that the parents welcomed such eventualities.

The BBC wants you to believe that there is no threat to your way of life, culture and society from Muslim activists imposing their religion upon you and yours….and the BBC is prepared to tell you lies in order to reassure you that there is nothing to worry about.

The man at the centre of the Trojan Horse plot, Tahir Alam, was also the Muslim Council of Britain official who produced a document in 2007 with a similar intent to the Trojan Horse plot, that is the imposition of Islamic values upon non-Islamic schools.  The BBC has never published or linked to this document since the Trojan Horse scandal broke despite its high relevance to the credibility of the Trojan Horse letter’s contents.  The fact that the 2007 document provides evidence of intent along similar lines to the Trojan Horse plot and was produced by the same man completely undermines the BBC line, which is why they don’t mention it.

Curious when it seems  so relevant…

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said: “Mr Alam … has been planning this for 15 years. He goes around making these schools religious by manipulating governors, and bringing in certain teachers. He was able to hone the [tactics] in Birmingham that he drafted in this report.”

 

Pretty damning no?  Not for the BBC.

 

And what of that claim in the latest BBC report that ‘A series of official investigations found the claims to be groundless.’?

Now that’s just not true…even the BBC itself has admitted the reports slammed the schools…

There is “disturbing” evidence that people with a “shared ideology” were trying to gain control of governing bodies in Birmingham, says Education Secretary Nicky Morgan.

She was responding to the Trojan horse report from former counter-terror chief Peter Clarke into allegations of a hardline Muslim take-over of schools.

Mr Clarke found evidence of an “aggressive Islamist agenda”.

Ms Morgan highlighted “intolerant” messages between school staff.

 

Here is what Peter Clarke’s report said….

Firstly were claims of extremists trying to take over schools ‘groundless’? No….

The very clear evidence that young people are being encouraged to accept unquestioningly a particular hardline strand of Sunni Islam raises concerns about their vulnerability to radicalisation in the future. I have heard evidence to the effect that there are real fears that their current experiences will make it harder for them to question or challenge radical influences.

 

Secondly…did it matter if the letter was a hoax? (and there’s no proof it is…quite the opposite in fact)  No…the BBC is trying to distract you…

At the beginning of my investigation, I decided that it was not a priority to establish who wrote the letter or whether it was what it purported to be. It has been suggested that the letter is a hoax or a fake and the content therefore is irrelevant. This approach misses the point. The important issue is not who wrote it or whether it is a genuine extract from a letter between conspirators, but whether the events and behaviours described have actually happened.

 

Clarke goes on to say that it was evident that events as claimed in the Trojan Horse letter were known by the Council before the letter’s publication…..

 

 

It quickly became apparent to me that although there are some factual inaccuracies in the letter, there is also a great deal that is true, some of which had not previously been in the public domain.

 

There is incontrovertible evidence that both senior officers and elected members of Birmingham City Council were aware of concerns about activities that bear a striking resemblance to those described in the ‘Trojan Horse’ letter, many months before it surfaced.

 

As a result of the evidence gathered by my investigation, I can conclude that senior officers were aware of practices subsequently referred to in the ‘Trojan Horse’ letter as early as the end of 2012, and discussions on this issue took place between officers and elected members in May 2013. This is some six months prior to the ‘Trojan Horse’ letter being received by the Leader of the Council.

 

Thirdly…just to emphasise and confirm the evidence of extremist takeover of schools….

 

There is a disconcerting pattern reaching across a number of the schools I have looked at. This includes the following: the effective take-over of the governing body by like-minded people;  nepotism in staff appointments and appointments to the governing body; individuals associated with each other holding teaching posts or being members of the governing body (or both) at a small number of local schools;   rapid advancement of new or inexperienced governors to the role of chair; bullying and intimidation of senior teaching staff, and in particular headteachers; previously highly regarded headteachers made subject to criticism and complaint by governing bodies;  interference by the governing body in the curriculum and the day-to-day running of the school;   the reinforcement of Muslim identity to the exclusion or disparagement of others; the introduction of conservative Islamic practices into school life;   a strategy of harassment to oust the headteacher;   financial mismanagement; and inappropriate recruitment and promotion procedures for favoured staff.

 

 

There is ample evidence that individuals who hold or have held key positions in the schools have a shared ideological basis to their faith. During the investigation I took possession of the contents of a social media discussion between a group of teachers at Park View School that for much of 2013 was called the ‘Park View Brotherhood’. It was initiated and administered by Mr Monzoor Hussain, the Acting Principal, and was joined by influential teachers within the school. The evidence from more than 3,000 messages spread over 130 pages of transcript shows that this group either promoted or failed to challenge views that are grossly intolerant of beliefs and practices other than their own. The all-male group discussions include explicit homophobia; highly offensive comments about British service personnel; a stated ambition to increase segregation in the school; disparagement of strands of Islam; scepticism about the truth of reports of the murder of Lee Rigby and the Boston bombings; and a constant undercurrent of anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment. Some postings were challenged by the administrator, Mr Hussain, but generally only where criticism was made of other Muslim groups. The numerous endorsements of hyperlinks to extremist speakers betray a collective mind-set that can fairly be described as an intolerant Islamist approach that denies the validity of alternative beliefs, lifestyles and value systems, including within Islam itself.

 

 

 

 

Conclusions

I neither specifically looked for nor found evidence of terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism in the schools of concern in Birmingham. However, by reference to the definition of extremism in the Prevent strand of the Government’s counter terrorist strategy, CONTEST, and the spectrum of extremism described by the Prime Minister in his Munich speech in February 2011, I found clear evidence that there are a number of people, associated with each other and in positions of influence in schools and governing bodies, who espouse, endorse or fail to challenge extremist views.

 

 

Finally do all the parents welcome the Islamisation of schools if they get good results as claimed by Easton?  No…..

It has been suggested to me that the ambition of those involved was only to create high achieving schools reflecting the communities they serve, following the wishes of the majority of parents. I do not agree. On the contrary, while the majority of parents welcome the good academic results that some of these schools produce, they do not demand that their children adhere to conservative religious behaviour at school. Indeed, I received evidence that this would be supported by only a minority of parents. I was told how some of those who claimed most loudly that they were acting for the community either protest alone or co-opt relatives to protest with them. I was also told by many witnesses that the majority do not have the confidence to argue against the articulate and forceful activists who seek to impose their views, for fear of being branded as disloyal to their faith or their community.

 

Once again the BBC cannot be trusted to report on Muslim issues with any integrity and honesty.