It's a familiar complaint by now: Muslims in the UK have been let down by the kind of condescending multiculturalism that doesn't expect them to adopt western liberal values - a racism of low expectations. As Maajid Nawaz argues, in the Times today (£), the success of Birmingham's Rockwood Academy reinforces the point:
"For years in Britain there has been a pernicious trend to shy away from making a case for our liberal values among minority communities. As these values continued their march unabated among the mainstream, certain multiculturalists assumed that to assert them among minorities would be deemed offensive, perhaps racist, and in the Muslim context even Islamophobic."
"The successful turnaround of the “Trojan horse” school Park View — now Rockwood Academy — couldn’t have proved this view more wrong. Two years after the scandal, the school has surpassed expectations, with cadet recruitment, after-school drama classes, counterextremism workshops and trips to Wimbledon. Those who worried about a more active integration policy alienating the Birmingham school’s predominantly Muslim students really needn’t have. So why did they?" [Mick Hartley] Read more
