A chara, – Dr Ronan McCrea's response ("Muslim pupils should not be deprived of the cultural resources to take a full part in Irish society", Opinion & Analysis, September 10th) to Dr Ali Selim's call for a "revolution" in the Irish educational system to combat "discrimination" against Muslims ("Call for State schools to accommodate Islamic beliefs", September 3rd) seems to have missed the update that the vast majority of Muslim parents in Ireland do not regard the system as discriminatory at all ("Irish Muslim organisations praise schools system", September 10th).
But then again, as Dr McCrea’s article makes clear, this particular controversy has nothing to do with discrimination. It has to do with dismantling our school system and replacing it with one designed to promote a particular worldview. This is made clear in his statement that “parents do not have the right to prevent their child from encountering anything with which they may disagree while using the State education system”.
It is apparently now intolerable that schools should foster the values or beliefs of parents, or even be a safe haven for children from the wider culture’s constant barrage of ideas and values which parents may reject and wish to protect their children from, or at least wait until what they think is the appropriate time to introduce their children to them; the wise and benevolent state must protect children from their parents and schools must “brainwash or propagandise” their students solely in the cause of secularism.
All this flies in the face of our constitutional recognition of the fact that it is parents, not the state, who are the primary educators of their children. The mask is slipping. Those who think faith is nonsense and that religion has nothing to offer see our schools as the best place to promote their own ideological “revolution”. And every opportunity must be taken to promote that agenda; even if those “opportunities” turn out to be media-driven non-events. – Is mise,
Rev PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer,
Co Kilkenny.