R017 - Arab School in Milan: Ten Reasons for a NO!

16/10 – 2016

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In the globalised world, national schools have emerged outside national borders, mainly as a result of multinational companies for the children of their employees moving abroad for a temporary period. This is the reason why there are American or Italian schools in the main cities of the world, but not yet Egyptian schools, due to the lack of diffusion of Egyptian companies outside the national borders, at least not in Milan where there is, instead, a Libyan school for employees of Libyan companies present in the country.

I understand that all the students at the proposed school are from Egypt. I would like, however, to remind the “leaders” and our politicians that you cannot use indifferently the term Arabic and secular school, Arab tout-court, Egyptian or Islamic, thus demonstrating ignorance of the underlying cultural diversity.

I participate with the feelings of solidarity expressed by various parties, despite this, I explain the reasons for a NO to this school in Milan:

  1. Thousands of immigrant families, Egyptian and non-Egyptian, have found a place in our state schools, a prerequisite for a correct integration into Italian society. I wonder why do we stop at one hundred “all Egyptian” families? All Muslim? And precisely why those families? What is the fundamental reason for wanting to create a separate institution for the new citizens?
  2. Egyptian society counts more than twelve percent of non-Muslim citizens: why are these one hundred families all Muslim? Why has no Christian family felt the need to join?
  3. The desire to learn their mother tongue is laudable and should be encouraged; there are voluntary Arabic language courses for this purpose outside school curricula, so that these children can one day prepare for an equivalence test to enter Egyptian universities. But how many will want to continue the path in the Egyptian universities? Why don’t Egyptian school sponsors and promoters think about using part of the funds available to them to enhance these extra-school courses?
  4. Will the city’s universities recognise the diplomas awarded by the Egyptian school in Milan? And will the Egyptian universities do so?
  5. A number of Saudi students and students from other countries in the Arab Gulf attend the American school in Milan: why didn’t they ask for a transfer to the Egyptian school?
  6. The Moroccan community is the largest of the foreign communities in Milan: why is there no request for a Moroccan school?
  7. The Corriere reported a statement by the Egyptian ambassador in Rome,that “Egypt has nothing to do with that school…” Precisely for the good of these children, should not be for the Egyptian authorities to find an agreement with the Italian ones? Given that the intention and to preserve the knowledge of the Arabic language would not be the case for the Arab League to take care of it for the sake of these children and all the communities that have Arabic as their mother tongue?
  8. The content of the textbooks on Arabic literature and language in Egyptian schools is not always compatible with the values of our constitution and with the cultural and religious pluralism existing in Italy. Who has verified that the texts in use are free of racist teachings or discriminatory towards other minorities?
  9. The reference to Islamic identity is not always compatible with the legal and socio-cultural structure of European countries. Are the educational messages offered by some Islamic centres attended by the families in question consistent with the way of life in Italy?
  10. Our Italian public schools teach religious freedom, gender equality, willingness to observe the laws of Italy, denial of the ghetto, and all of this means the willingness to live together. Knowing the dedication of our teachers, it is in the classrooms that the children of immigrants live integration and build their future on solid foundations, whether they want to settle in Italy, return to their country or travel to the globalized world.

Always for the good of the new citizens I confirm the reasons for NO to “that” school in Milan.

Giuseppe Samir Eid

 

 

Subject:School

Date: Monday, October 16, 2006 15:45 p.m.

A: “Giuseppe Samir Eid”

 

The communication society amplifies the diffusion of news and comments, but often runs the risk of overlapping the depiction of reality with the objective consistency of facts. The case of the Arab school in Via Ventura in Milan, which is much discussed these days, is a clear demonstration of this. To think that the majority, or at least a good part of Arab immigrants (especially if Muslims) prefer a separate school for their children is plainly not true. In Milan and its surroundings, in the state compulsory schools, there are in fact about 20,000 students from Arab families. Some of them are even enrolled in Catholic schools or attend oratories. The mass media – and the institutions – mainly ignore this fact, to focus their attention on some marginal cases of irreducible partisans of the defense of identity and the logic of segregation. Issues such as the veil, the crib or the crucifix affect a very small minority, whether of obtuse fundamentalists, or of Italian converts who have taken in hatred their culture of origin, or finally of lay extremists who take advantage of pluralism to raise pretentious exceptions of constitutionality.  It is an Italian-style comedy about sacred principles that coexists with a substantial lack of management of the phenomena, letting the message pass surreptitiously that in Italy there are no certain rules and that you can do what you want, waiting for someone to put a rag on. It is certainly true that foreign or confessional schools are provided for by the current legislation, so there is no reason to deny authorization to an Arab or Islamic school, given that there are some Catholic or Jewish, French or American schools. However, but they will need to respect the agreements regulations with the countries of origin. A foreign school, in general, is justified for students who reside only for a few years in another country and who want to avoid losing years of study.  Statistics tell us that more than 90% of the children of Arab immigrants are destined to remain in Italy forever. Making them follow the entire program of their country of origin, to the detriment of a decent acquisition of the Italian language and culture, is first of all an absurd pedagogic because it considers the child an empty container in which one can indiscriminately pour all the notions one wants, doubling the commitment and pretending to ignore that it will be the future of the students themselves to present them with the non-sense of such a practice. Does the Islamic Council, which is arguing in Rome over the maximum systems, have anything to say about this? The vast majority of Muslim students in Italy will certainly not find a panacea in the “model” of Via Ventura.  Tariq Ramadan himself, who enjoys great popularity above all among the new European Islamic generations and grandson of the founder of the Moslem Brotherhood, in his latest book, translated into Italian, denounces in no uncertain terms: “If we consider the totality of the Moslem communities living in the West, these schools welcome only a small percentage of children and in this sense, they can hardly appear as ‘the solution’. It is necessary to study the reasons which led to the creation of such schools: in the majority of cases, the objective was to protect young people from the bad influence of society, to remove them from an unhealthy environment, to make them live ‘among Muslims’… An Italian-style comedy on sacred principles that coexists with a substantial lack of management of the phenomena, letting the message pass surreptitiously that in Italy there are no certain rules and that you can do a little ‘what you want, waiting for someone to put a rag on. It is certainly true that foreign or confessional schools are provided for by the current legislation, so there is no reason to deny authorization to an Arab or Islamic school, given that there are some Catholic or Jewish, French or American schools… but within the framework of agreements with the countries of origin and in any case in compliance with the regulations. A foreign school, in general, is justified for students who reside only for a few years in another country and who want to avoid losing years of study. Statistics tell us that more than 90% of the children of Arab immigrants are destined to remain in Italy forever. To pretend to make them follow the entire program of their country of origin, to the detriment of a decent acquisition of the Italian language and culture, is first of all an absurd pedagogic because it considers the child an empty container in which one can indiscriminately pour all the notions one wants, doubling the commitment and pretending to ignore that it will be the future of the students themselves to present them with the bankruptcy bill of such a claim. Does the Islamic Council, which is arguing in Rome over the maximum systems, have nothing to say about this? The vast majority of Muslim students in Italy will certainly not find a panacea in the “model” of Via Ventura. Tariq Ramadan himself, who enjoys great esteem above all among the new European Islamic generations and grandson of the founder of the Moslem Brotherhood, in his latest book, translated into Italian, denounces in no uncertain terms: “If we consider the totality of the Moslem communities living in the West, these schools welcome only a small percentage of children and in this sense, they can hardly appear as ‘the solution’…. it is necessary to study the reasons which led to the creation of such schools: in the majority of cases, the objective was to protect young people from the bad influence of society, to remove them from an unhealthy environment, to make them live ‘among Muslims’… what is obtained, on closer inspection, are closed, ‘artificially Islamic’ spaces, almost totally detached from the surrounding society… The teaching staff, on the other hand, is often poorly prepared, and many of the teachers have no pedagogical background…”. How many speak without competence about the issue are aware that Egyptian textbooks are increasingly ‘Islamized’ and that in Egypt there are no Arabic teachers who are not Muslims, not only in state schools, but even in private and foreign ones, because an ‘infidel’ is not considered worthy of teaching the sacred language of the Koran?

Giuseppe Samir Eid

Free web translation from the original in Italian

 

The published articles intend to provide the tools for a social inclusion of the migratory flow, shed light on human rights and the condition of life of Christians in the Islamic world from which the author come from. Knowledge of the other, of cultural and religious differences are primary ingredients to create peace in the hearts of men everywhere, a prerequisite for a peaceful coexistence and convinced citizenship in the territory.

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