Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No41 – Part 1
Newsletter Themes: combining law and parent power, and how ‘decolonisation’ degrades Africa.
Last week we noted that both Scottish and UK governments were putting their proposed conversion therapy bills on hold, bills that if passed could criminalise parents, teachers, preachers or therapists who question an adult or a child’s ‘gender’ identity. However, before the paint was dry, we now hear that this may not be the case. In England there are rumours of another U-turn, while in Scotland there may be a delay, but this may be all that it is.
We often find that Christians, in particular, are concerned about this new law coming into force, as it could limit the religious freedom that is expected in a liberal society, and the Christian Institute, for example, has been at the forefront of raising concerns. But you don’t have to be religious to understand the danger of the state determining even what parents can discuss with their children.
Last week we had a fantastic meeting with equality and human rights barrister Anna Loutfi and John Denning of the Christian Institute, who helped make sense of the law in Scotland relating to the basic principles of education and the rights of parents when it comes to questioning the transgender ideology being pushed onto children. Kate E. Deeming has summarised some of the key points they made below, and we hope that this information can help arm parents with some key ideas when discussing concerns about indoctrination in schools. A video of our discussion with Anna and John can be viewed here.
We have also been talking with a parent, Sarah Fraser, who had her own run-in with her child’s school regarding the sexualised nature of the education provided. You can watch the video, Stuart Waiton in conversation with Sarah Fraser, to see what she did to ensure that her rights as a parent were not overridden by the school.
Finally, please note that James Esses, cofounder of Thoughtful Therapists, has this month launched the Declaration for Biological Reality, a UK-wide declaration that reads:
We are a group of concerned citizens from a wide range of backgrounds and professions. We have very serious and growing concerns about the impact that gender identity ideology is having on our society.
Read and sign the declaration.
Parent power and the law
Kate E. Deeming is SUE’s Parent and Supporters Coordinator; she is a mother, a dance artist, a child advocate and a community organiser. She has developed dance programmes with children in educational and community settings globally for three decades. Originally from Philadelphia, USA, she has been based in Glasgow for 23 years.
In recent years parents have found themselves feeling increasingly disempowered in the area of their children’s education as outside agencies have moved into their local schools, gaining access to their children with no oversight. When parents question this, they are often met with a wall of bureaucracy or obfuscation from headteachers and teachers, further breaking down the social contract between schools and parents. Parents feel impotent to do anything about it, but are they?
On Wednesday 1 November, SUE was delighted to host Dr Anna Loutfi, human rights barrister with the Bad Law Project), and John Denning, from the Christian Institute, for a discussion of this subject. In addition, Dr Stuart Waiton, chair of SUE, addressed the failings of law, specifically in relation to the Named Person Scheme. Below are some of the ideas and issues raised by our guest speakers.
Although it seems quite daunting, there is an awakening happening among parents. Now is the time to build your knowledge as you join forces with other parents and parent supporters and make your voice heard. We are creating fractures in these damaging ideologies that have been forced into our children’s lives and must keep up the pressure!
For too long, parents have been undermined in government and policy, treated more as surrogates in relation to their children’s lives. In addition to this process aggravating social tensions, it goes against several laws.
The parent is the first educator of the child. When you enroll your child in school, you are merely delegating that responsibility to a teacher. Parents remain the primary authority, whose views must be considered and upheld.
Human Rights Act 1998
No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.
Education (Scotland) Act 1980
PUPILS TO BE EDUCATED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WISHES OF THEIR PARENTS
(1) In the exercise and performance of their powers and duties under this Act, the Secretary of State and education authorities shall have regard to the general principle that, so far as is compatible with the provision of suitable instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure, pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents.
The impact on families must be implicit when discussing any educational matter, as it’s parents who will manage the fallout. It is apparent that ‘society’ (and when we speak of society, we can refer to governmental agencies, policy, and wider cultural representations) has come to view parents with disdain, not to be trusted and not to behave in the best interests of our children. This is categorically untrue. While there are a small minority of children whose families are failing them, the majority of parents love and are doing the best by their children in balance with their own moral, religious and social world view.
In schools we can see this within the frame of social justice themes being introduced as facts, wherein children are indoctrinated into the ‘right views’ and ‘slow techniques’ such as debate and/or diplomacy are not valued or even taught. This approach is a criminal assault on a vulnerable minors who developmentally do not have the skills or life experience to understand that what is being presented is not uncontested or that there are other ways to think about things. In this way the state treats parents as if they are criminal delinquents and the protection of parents is removed, which causes a psychological breakdown in families that has devastating lifelong consequences. This must stop.
The state is a terrible parent. Go to any state-run children’s home and you will witness evidence that even with the best efforts, it cannot substitute or provide in any way for children to any degree of what a parent does or can do. This breakdown is devastating in a child’s life, therefore the parental and family bond must be shored up as much as possible.
While on many levels the indoctrination happening in schools appears to be an assault on the parent–child relationship (as schools selectively choose what to teach kids), dig deeper and you will see articles that shore up family rights.
Currently, the Scottish government is working hard to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
Article 9. Keeping families together
Children should not be separated from their parents unless they are not being properly looked after – for example, if a parent hurts or does not take care of a child. Children whose parents don’t live together should stay in contact with both parents unless this might harm the child.
Article 18. Responsibility of parents
Parents are the main people responsible for bringing up a child. When the child does not have any parents, another adult will have this responsibility and they are called a ‘guardian’. Parents and guardians should always consider what is best for that child. Governments should help them. Where a child has both parents, both of them should be responsible for bringing up the child.
In addition, the Scottish government is currently seeking views for their consultation on relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) resources.
We would recommend that you take time to look through and respond to the new consultation (which closes on 23 November). Here are some things to consider.
Part 24
To safeguard a plurality of views, schools should not be using a single resource.
Part 28
No school or teacher should be under pressure to endorse one particular kind of relationship.
Part 47
Teachers must have sensitivity to the views and beliefs of each child and her or his family.
Part 50
Teachers must have respect for all beliefs and faiths.
Part 55/56
Schools must consult parents, and parents have the right to withdraw their child [from RSHP].
As you can see, there is a huge raft of law that supports our rights as parents. Does this mean that schools and educational authorities are adhering to them? Clearly not! This is where an active citizenry becomes absolutely vital. Already, we are witnessing fractures behind the scenes as more parents are speaking up. We must continue this gathering of concerned parties and awareness building.
Action points
Write to Education Scotland to tell them about your concerns and experiences.
Talk to other parents; start a local meet-up with say one, two ... ten parents and keep talking about these things, and with that group, go to your school, show them the laws above.
Keep in touch with SUE at PSG@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk. We are also forming groups across Scotland. We want to hear about what is happening in your school and community. Share the good as well as the bad news stories.
SUE is planning a large conference for parents and supporters for spring 2024. We shall keep you posted.
Thank you for your time and efforts. And thanks to Anna and John for taking time to speak with us. We will get there in the end, but there is much work that needs to be done!
How the idea of decolonisation degrades Africa and African people
Jim Butcher is a lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University.
We do not expect to see a book with Against Decolonisation in the title today. But here in Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously we find the author Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò opposing what he calls Decolonisation 2, an outlook that has come to dominate in western universities.
For Táíwò, tragically, this new type of decolonialism that promotes ‘social justice’ results in the patronising assumption that Africans and their societies lack the agency to choose and make their own future. From this perspective anything with a whiff of western influence is seen as a problem and something to be dismissed. Rather than promoting a so-called western approach, Táíwò notes, decolonising academics like anthropologist Arjun Appadurai talk about the need to have a society and culture and indeed an academic approach that is, ‘rooted in indigenous thought and practice about nature, community, and solidarity’, seeking ‘to return us to an earlier period of precolonial splendor’.
According to this way of thinking, a pervasive colonial legacy shapes the present. But, Táíwò argues, there is no contradiction between recognising the brutality and oppression of colonialism and realising that we now live in a post-colonial world where values considered ‘western’ can have a universal validity.
Western philosophy in the frame
Today’s decolonial thinkers consider ‘western’ philosophical traditions to be not just alien to Africans but complicit in their subjugation. On the contrary, Táíwò argues, philosophy labelled ‘western’ is as much the property of Africans as that of Europeans or anyone else.
Western philosophy and African philosophy, however defined, are based on philosophical ideas and are not inscribed upon anyone as an accident of birth or nationality. Táíwò sees the prejudices and problems with aspects of ‘western’ philosophy, but also the potential in western Enlightenment philosophy to put human freedom, equality and development at the centre of social and political life. Indeed, many of the leading thinkers who have promoted a decolonisation perspective, like Frantz Fanon, Táíwò notes, actually developed their own critical thoughts by adopting humanist ideas that are associated with western thinkers.
In fact, throughout the history of colonialism, people struggling against colonial oppression adopted ideas associated with the Enlightenment, and turned them against the western colonisers who denied their universal applicability on racial grounds. History is littered with campaigners, thinkers, political movements and constitutions of newly sovereign post-colonial states that take ‘western’ thought as their inspiration for liberation.
Crucially, however, for the proponents of ‘decolonise 2’, colonialism was a product of capitalist modernity. As a result, modernity has come to be seen as a problem, not a solution, for African societies. Again, this marks a reversal of the view held by anti-colonial writers from a previous era for whom modernity – economic development, access to scientific knowledge, democracy – was a positive goal and something colonialism had denied them.
Táíwò goes so far as to argue that ‘perhaps the most pernicious wall erected by decolonisers is the truncating of the history of Africa’s rich and long engagement with modernity’. Modern ideas of progress and development, of rights and liberal democracy, are typically prefixed with ‘western’, ‘European’, or even ‘white’ by decolonial advocates today. In this way, modernity is placed at odds with African tradition and culture and presented as part of an alien colonial imposition from the west that lives on post independence.
Colonialism brought western modernity and capitalism to Africa but also limited African nations’ own ability to develop an indigenous capitalist class: the struggle against colonialism in the past was not a rejection of modernism but a rejection of the control over this by western powers. Additionally, part of the western dominance came in the form of racial thinking that denigrated African people. In opposition to this, again, many anti-colonial movements demanded freedom and democratic rights – freedoms and rights that the new decolonisers denounce as if this way of thinking and living is somehow purely white or western.
Much decolonial thought frames reason, rationality and individualism as features of ‘western’ modernity. African societies, on the other hand, are defined by traditional knowledge, indigenous languages and quite different cultural assumptions. Following this line of argument, Africans – in order to be authentically African – should exclude themselves from modernity and the values accompanying it, and follow different, ‘African’, paths. This mode of thinking uses the radical language of anti-colonialism in order to circumscribe political and cultural choices for Africans.
Táíwò is scathing of the idea that different people think differently and inhabit different worlds of thought and ideas. He sees this view as embracing the ‘racialisation of consciousness’. As he states, this outlook, ‘reaffirms the racist ideology that Africans are permanent children. I want no part of it.’
The rejection of modernity by ‘decolonisation 2’ leads to what Táíwò terms ‘sociocrynomics’. Sociocrynomics equates cultural resistance to ‘western ideas’ with establishing an authentic identity for oneself or with resisting oppression. It refers to the preservation of social forms irrespective of whether those to whom they belong wish to preserve, modify or eradicate them. Sociocrynomics, he argues, leads to the embrace of reactionary institutions in the name of a radical-sounding demand to decolonise. Many in Africa see promise in modernity. Many of the leaders of sovereign post-colonial regimes had high hopes for development and aspired to catch up with richer nations. The sociocrynomic tendency in today’s decolonial thought effectively tells them they were wrong, or misguided, to do so.
Demands to widen access to the benefits of modern societies could, and should, be at the heart of any movement claiming the epithet ‘social justice’ or ‘equality’. These benefits would include the latest and best scientific breakthroughs, industrialisation on a grand scale to meet people’s needs and wants, and infrastructural development to link Africa to the world in order to enhance trade and wealth. These sorts of aspirations prevailed in ‘decolonisation 1’, but are seldom heard, and often actively opposed, in ‘decolonisation 2’.
Táíwò argues that: ‘To see today’s race poetics through the prism of decolonize involves viewing sovereign African states, and their populations, as incapable of choosing “western” development standards, rights or liberal democracy. It posits those who do as somehow not truly authentic to their African identities, as complicit in an ongoing colonial mindset.’
So, perversely, the contemporary decolonial movement’s rejection of universalism mirrors, rather than opposes, colonialism. Táíwò is not prepared to ditch universalism or modernity in politics just because colonial powers falsely laid claim to it as their own.
Táíwò’s take on the cultural legacy of colonialism avoids the one-sidedness of most other contemporary discussions. He does not dismiss the importance of, for example, African languages supressed by colonisers as expressions of African thought and tradition. The learning and utilisation of these languages can be a part of understanding the past, capturing African culture and understanding it at a deeper level. But he questions the failure of some decolonial advocates to consider the universal character of culture and language. It should not be seen as a contradiction to see value in indigenous languages and, at the same time, see Portuguese as an ‘African’ language.
In seeking an engagement between ‘decolonise 1’ and ‘decolonise 2’, Táíwò hopes to prompt a debate. This is badly needed outside of Africa too, but the bureaucratic affirmation of decolonise campaigns in parts of western academia mitigates against exactly the sort of dialogue that Táíwò seeks in the African context. Ascribing ideas to identities – ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘African’, ‘western’, ‘southern’ – without recognising that all these ideas are the property of all of us – leads to a circumscribed dialogue. Calls to ‘Stay in your lane!’ or the blind insistence that ‘It’s policy!’ replace meaningful exchanges. Táíwò notes that decolonisation can become ‘a catchall trope, often used to perform contemporary “morality” or “authenticity”’.
For this reason, Against Decolonisation is unlikely to feature on the ‘anti-racist’ reading lists issued by many western universities. Instead, we have ‘decolonise the curriculum’ campaigns and staff training in race and decolonise (note training in, as opposed to discussion of) that leaves little room for opposing views. Yet those who take issue with Táíwò’s critique should, at very least, take up the gauntlet thrown down in Against Decolonisation. Failure to do so treats decolonisation as an unquestioned moral norm rather than a particular philosophical and political standpoint to be considered, reducing it to what J. S. Mill referred to as a ‘dead dogma’.
Racism exists, but has declined greatly, and does not define all aspects of life. Privilege, or its lack, is generally much more a product of class and wealth than race. Yet decolonial theorists in the universities persist in viewing the colonial past as key to contemporary struggles, reproducing exactly the same limiting assumptions within the UK as Táíwò identifies in relation to Africa.
In the spirit of Táíwò’s universalism, Against Decolonisation is a book about Africa which is also a discussion about our shared world. All who take African agency seriously should read it.
Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is published by Hurst and is available to purchase here.
This is an abridged article that was first published by the think tank CIEO
News round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/02/we-all-live-on-campus-now.html Andrew Sullivan, We All Live on Campus Now. 09/02/18
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/what-are-we-doing-to-our-children-part-5-the-ceaseless-drive-to-sexualise-young-children Hugh McCarthy, What are we doing to our children?— Part 5: The ceaseless drive to sexualise young children. 26/10/23
https://archive.ph/2023.10.31-020206/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scotland-one-of-just-three-countries-that-won-t-share-exam-data-gj5x8lzp9 Charlotte Alt, Scotland one of only three countries that won’t share exam data. Critics said government’s failure to share information was “shameful” and it should comply with international standards. 31/10/23
https://unherd.com/2023/11/the-real-chaos-of-the-new-normal/?fbclid=IwAR2OMPhMcl5JByRkowTNskZ5stldOwkYZTeTmT0NMiNE9C8XTkm8WV98aZQ_aem_AfKNEZbzjXLuKtvAGUI1ymEMOsMi5WVwC3vYCb6_z8MAQmE9BunQHpYSNU2OuxYTP1s Jenny Bristow, The real chaos of the ‘new normal’ Finally, a meaningful generation gap is emerging. 01/11/23
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/11/03/in-woke-mathematics-there-is-no-wrong-answer/ Steven Tucker, In Woke Mathematics There is No Wrong Answer. 03/11/23
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23903303.edinburgh-riot-police-scotland-condemns-disgusting-disorder/ Jody Harrison, Edinburgh riot: Police Scotland condemns ‘disgusting disorder’. 06/11/23
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-needed-a-covid-inquiry-but-this-isnt-it/ Carl Heneghan, We needed a Covid inquiry – but this isn’t it. 04/11/23
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/10/31/the-normalisation-of-savagery/?modal=logged-in Brendan O’Neill, The normalisation of savagery. Societies that give up on freedom will soon find it replaced by violence. 31/10/23
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