Thank you for not using absurdist hyperbole & absolutist statements.
Do we know what the Muslim students felt? Or are we hearing only from the parents? Difficult to opine on the students as we will probably never hear directly from them.
Regarding ‘doing things my way,’ wouldn’t enlightening non-believers to their potential phobias & -isms be just as important to consider as the offense being felt by a small subset of a religion? Wouldn’t less phobia be a win here? No one is saying to not consider the offense potentially caused by the cartoons, but it’s childish to think that good couldn’t come from showing the cartoons to the larger, non-believer audience & having them look inwards to see if they are perpetuating phobia, etc.
To me, it’s more important to try to challenge the minds of non-believers to potentially become more tolerant than it is to stifle or amend curriculum due to the wishes of an aggrieved few believers in this particular situation. That’s what education should do, it should seek to better the students; unfortunately, some will always be aggrieved by such. I couldn’t care less of flavor of religion it is, it shouldn’t impinge upon
Think we should wait for all the details to come out before we start making certain statements.
I'm seeing all sorts of statements on social media which are just about having a go at Islam, so no matter what is said or offered it's met with responses ranging from similar to yours to "it's our country if you don't like it feck off". Basically battle lines have been or are being drawn.
Now here's the thing. My younger brother owns a pharmacy in partnership with some guys who went to uni together. One of those guys is from Yorkshire ways and has kids at the school. He runs a pharmacy there but comes here on certain days to provide cover.
Speaking to him the issue has more to it than cartoons alone. As I had mentioned before the class in question tool place on Monday. The protests didn't happen until Thursday. So what went on to lead it to protests a few days later?
According to this fella, and backed up by another the issue was the teacher not only put up the cartoon but was goading students with I'm going to offend because it's my British values and rights to be offensive and what are you going to do about it.
The kids went home and told parents. The parents contacted the school or cameminto see the teacher, his initial response was one of "arrogance" and he initially refused any apology.
Is this 100% true? I honestly wouldn't swear to it as I don't know the fella telling this that well. He's my brothers mate and I've met himna few times to say hello to and exchange brief pleasantries.
However the timeline and comments by the guy outside of the school about "your boys shooting our boys legs off", the schools unequivocal apology and suspension (which I did find weird as the first response of schools is to defend the teacher as much as possible and speak of curriculum and look into it) would maybe have some weight in light of what this guy is saying.
I also thought initially, contrary and maybe wrongly in this case compared to posters like shamana, that the death threat to this teacher isn't high so was surprised to see he was in hiding and under police guard etc.
Now if any of this is remotely true then this isn't about school curriculums and rights and wrongs of broaching topics that maybe sensitive. Maybe this (in light of what a paper printed) "burley 20 year old rugby player" has control or other issues? He maybe new and naive or as others have suggested a prick in which case as parents you would be worried.
Again I emphasize this is just what I gleened in a conversation bwithba guy I don't really know as such, but who is from that neck of the woods with kids at the school.