Canada:
Funding Faith-Based Schools
By Tarek Fatah &
Salma Siddiqui
16 June, 2007
The
Toronto Star
In 2003, in an attempt to break
into the Liberal-dominated, vote-rich urban ridings, the government
of Ernie Eves started funding private religious schools with public
funds. It did not work and he was voted out of office.
Now, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory has embarked on the same
venture. In an apparent attempt to lure religious minority communities
to vote for his party, he is dangling the carrot of funding their private,
segregated religious schools.
Who can blame him? After all, we all live in an era when winning elections
is not a means to an end; it has become an end in itself. Securing the
votes of religious minorities through their clerics' backing, even if
it reverses the progress we have made as a country through public education,
seems worth the price.
If John Tory has his way, this is what a school system of the future
will look like in the riding of Don Valley West, where he plans to unseat
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne: Imagine an intersection, say Thorncliffe
Park Dr. and Overlea Blvd., with a Hindu school on one corner, a Sikh
school on another, a Greek Orthodox school on a third corner and, of
course, a Shia or Saudi-funded Wahhabi school on the fourth.
The Muslim community in Don Valley West realizes it is being courted
by all sides. However, as long as we are viewed as living in ethnic
ghettos where supposedly the community cleric calls the political shots,
integration is hampered, not facilitated. This may make it easy for
politicians of all stripes to buy our votes through self-appointed community
leaders who invariably work out of places of worship and operate private
religious schools, but the reality is very different.
To understand the John Tory promise, it is crucial to unwrap the Ernie
Eves plan. Muslims saw through his government's newfound love of diversity.
While the bulk of the $300 million he promised would have ended up in
the hands of the province's elite, the Muslim community would have been
left picking up the crumbs and with a damaged public education system,
home to 90 per cent of Muslim children.
The bad news for Tory is that despite the "fundamentalist"
tag generally applied to us, many in the Muslim community do not belong
to this category. Most of us can see through this charade of a new-found
love of religious minorities.
Education is the great equalizer in society. If Tory has his way, education
will become the great divider. For more than 200 years, people have
struggled to free the education system from the grip of religious clerics
and bring the system into the public domain. Through its publicly funded
education system, a society ensures that everyone has an opportunity
to achieve success.
If 5-year-old children are segregated into silos of exclusivity and
superiority, what sort of society will they create as adults? But that
is 20 years ahead, and Tory wants their parents' votes now.
A John Tory government, through its proposal to fund and promote faith-based
private schools, will create a two-tiered system. Instead of assisting
diversity, private religious education will simply nurture narrow-minded
segregation, isolating an already marginalized and vulnerable Muslim
community to send their children to poorly funded schools.
The desire on anyone's part to restrict their children's education to
their own values should not be supported by public tax dollars. Most
Muslim parents wish their children to grow and become educated in a
climate of diversity, where they can learn to respect and understand
the faiths of others while being exemplary ambassadors of Islam and
peace.
Most Muslims do not believe in the segregation and ghettoization of
their community. We believe the vast majority of religious minority
parents share our concern, but have no opportunity to speak their minds.
After all, the leadership of minority religious communities has been
monopolized by their clerics, who have a stake in any such initiative.
Let us ensure that the public education system stays as it is meant
to be – a system of equal opportunity for all. Now is the time
to talk of a single public school board, where all of Ontario's children
would be free to meet, befriend and know children of other religions,
irrespective of whether they are Catholic, Protestant, Shia, Sunni,
Jewish, Hindu or even atheist.
Tarek Fatah is host of The Muslim Chronicle on CTS-TV
and Salma Siddiqui is vice-president of the Muslim
Canadian Congress.
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