There has been a lot of pressure, campaigning and activism to stop some schools from teaching Relationships and sex education, primarily in the Muslim community and mainly Birmingham.
Few friends forwarded to me an online petition about the matter and I was surprised by their attitude and ignorance! When I challenged their motives, they would argue that the age is not appropriate! Asking them how old is appropriate and how old were they when they started hearing and learning about sex from other kids? "it is now different" is usually the answer I get. And it is different, porn is very accessible and god knows what kids are watching on their iPads most of the time.
Last Friday I lead the prayer in my local mosque and despite the tragedy that took place in New Zealand I couldn't avoid talking about this issue as well. I asked the congregation if any of them didn't know about same sex relationship and if they rather their children hear and learn about it from the other kids on the road (like we did) or in a more proper and structured way? I also asked people to acknowledge that we are a minority in this society and we witness a lot of prejudice and discrimination, so do we want other minorities to be subjected to the same? do we support freedom for ourselves but deny it to others? Should we not work with other minority groups rather than against them?
I could not understand what the Muslim community in Birmingham (and in the UK) priorities are: four mosques attacked during the last week in Birmingham, 50 Muslims killed in a terrorist attack in New Zealand, and the thing that got people on the street is sex education!
It reminded me of a friend who told me that her parents in law did not eat meat for 15 years because there was no Halal butchers in the area , still they didn't pray (which is one of the five pillars of Islam)!
Ahmad Baker
London
23.03.2019
Ps: Outsiders is more than just "sex education" but even if it was, this is my response.
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