Thursday, May 28, 2015

Survey With Fairly Innocuous Questions About What UK Muslim Students Believe Engenders Over-the-Top Reaction

An onIslam article describes the "offensive" survey like this:
The survey included detailed questions about their beliefs, giving them several leading statements concerning the strength of their feelings and how far they might go to defend their religion to assess. 
The statements include: “Religious books are to be understood word for word”, “I believe my religion is the only correct one”, “God has a purpose for me” and “I would do what a grown up told me to do even if it seemed odd to me”.
Sounds to me like it could be a good way to get a sense of the intensity of these kids' believe so as to glean if, perhaps, they are heading into jihad territory and try to do something about it before it goes too far.

Of course, that's not how it's being taken:
The survey has generated an outcry online, with many warning that it is “criminalizing Muslim children” with its “implicit assumptions”.
Oh, no, not those dreaded "implicit assumptions"!

Even worse--and far nuttier--is this:
[Massoud] Shadjareh [head of the Islamic Human Rights Commission], however, expressed concerns that if children answered honestly to any of the questions they could be put on a watch list. 
"They're obviously targeting Muslim children and trying to pick their brains and thoughts and effectively profile them,” he said. 
"But at this young age we should be thinking of nurturing and developing our children, not compartmentalizing them. 
"It's also clearly racist and Islamophobic and there would be uproar if they had mentioned 'Jew' or 'black' in the identity question. 
"This reminds me of the prelude to the Nazi holocaust when Jews were profiled before they started putting Stars of David on them." 
Yes, because everyone knows that, prior to depriving the Jews of all their rights and murdering them en masse, the Nazis first conducted a survey of their religious beliefs.

What, you mean that you too missed that part of the history lesson?

Our bad!

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