Testing politics with religion

To talk about developments in the religio-cultural saga of the Bedford School, where 11 teachers were able to poison the climate for years, I want to go back in time.

On April 6, 2023, I reported on a trend¹ which was shocking in high schools in the Montreal region: Muslim students who, suddenly, became hyper religious, began to pray in the corridors of their schools…

Or in stairwells.

And who sometimes asked for prayer space.

Girls who, suddenly, were no longer just wearing the hijab: they were starting to wear traditional clothing similar to a chador, which covers the entire body.

The teachers I spoke to were surprised. Teachers who didn’t know each other. From Montreal, from Laval. And who noted the same phenomenon, each on their side: students who suddenly became very religious.

Schools were stuck with this phenomenon. Do we accommodate, or not? Shall we reserve a place for prayer? If yes, how? It was new law, the management was groping forward and walking on eggshells, we should definitely not be accused of being intolerant…

Bernard Drainville, Minister of Education, had decided: no to prayer rooms. This had relieved school administrators, who have other things to worry about and, above all, many students to educate.

I wrote, at the end of the column: I also have the feeling that a militant movement has decided to test politics with religion and that this saga is not over..

Some hyper-progressive voices for whom the Other is always an object to be deified (pun: intended) had mocked this column: so, Lagacé, have you become conspi?

Move the cursor forward a year, six months and 28 days and… And look at the case of the Bedford School²…but not just from Bedford School anymore. In recent days, The Press³ et Duty⁴ told us about the cases of La Voie (secondary) and Saint-Pascal-Baylon (primary) schools, where religion prevailed there too.

But this time, at La Voie and Saint-Pascal-Baylon, the problem is not so much the teachers as the parents who have infiltrated (or are still infiltrating) the school board and are using it to influence the curriculum. school.

Muslim parents who seem obsessed with one thing: sex.

In the sense that: above all, above all, do not talk about sexuality at school!

A bit like those Catholic parents who, in their time, opposed talking about the vulva and condoms, in the 1990s and 2000s, in the name of little Jesus and the “best” known prophylactic: abstinence. .

So, in Saint-Pascal-Baylon as in La Voie, it was a real guerrilla war that these North African parents waged to ensure that sex education content (although compulsory) would not be taught to their children. With some success.

You read it Dutyabout the president of the governing board of the Saint-Pascal-Baylon school in 2019, Abdel Hakim Touhmou: “Mr. Touhmou then emphasizes that “sexuality education must take into consideration the realities of students and their parents, particularly on the socio-cultural and religious levels”. Considering all the interventions, the proposal is not approved, indicates the minutes. »

At La Voie secondary school (where Mr. Touhmou is also a member of the school board…), students targeted an openly homosexual trainee teacher with homophobic harassment. Management then re-invited GRIS-Montreal, which demystifies the issues of sexual diversity, to come back and raise awareness among young people…

Outcry from parents on the school board, who opposed this visit. Extract from a letter from the governing board, cited by The Press : “The parents believe that the intervention of the organization affected the well-being of their young people and violated their rights, in particular the right to information and freedom of religion or belief…”

So, if I understand correctly: a gay trainee teacher is threatened with death by students and… the parents on the governing board are fighting so that their children are not polluted by a little education on the reality of homosexuality ?

At the time of this controversy, we learn in The Pressthe president of the establishment board was a man named Said Soali…

Who is Said Soali?

Said Soali is also chairman of the board of directors of the Darlington Community Center.

What is the Darlington Community Centre?

First of all, it is a mosque that does not bear its name.

Then, the Darlington Community Center appears a few times in the ministerial report which looked into the case of the Bedford school, in particular because one of its members burst into the said school to shout at a teacher, to the point that management had to call 9-1-1…

The Bedford school, the La Voie school, the Saint-Pascal-Baylon school and the Darlington “community center”: it makes a nice little rectangle in Côte-des-Neiges, when you look at the map of the area.

Allow two comments, in closing…

One (this is not to brag), but I was right, a year and a half ago, in this column from spring 2023 on students in the Montreal region who are starting to enjoy the Koran, in schools secondary: a militant movement decided to test politics and this saga was indeed not over…

Two, it must be said loud and clear: Minister Bernard Drainville was a formidable bulwark against religious obscurantism in this saga.

Like the giant frogs of old, the personal friends of Mohammed who want to impose their views in our schools, teachers or parents, must be pushed as far away as possible.

1. Read the column “Prayers in schools: “Something is happening””

2. Read the column “If school was important (20)”

3. Read the survey “Sexuality education: parents block content in three schools”

4. Read the article from Duty “The operation of a Montreal school “jeopardized” by certain parents”