Prayer is remain legal, prior to when teachers teach. I guess no country is perfect:)
This is being done for two reasons. One, it is an attempt to stop Fundamentalism, especially Muslim Fundamentalism from being taught in schools.
The other reason is the obvious one; to make sure kids are taught facts and not myths disguised as facts:
"A student shouldn't be able to pass a natural science test by answering that God created the world. We don't think that's OK," a spokesman said.
Most independent schools in Sweden are privately owned but publicly funded by grants.
This is interesting:
The law is being presented in Sweden as if it mostly concerned fundamentalist Christian sects in the backwoods; but the Christian Democratic party, which represents such people if anyone does, is perfectly happy with the new regulation. There is little doubt that combating Islamic fundamentalism is the underlying aim, especially in conjunction with another new requirement that all independent schools declare all their funding sources.
One other point to make is that Sweden might have the highest percentage of atheists, than any other country, so this new law may be a very easy sell.
I wonder if they are going to change their homeschooling laws too. In Sweden around 100 children are homeschooled each year. There are various reasons why that number is low, but it would defeat the issue if those numbers start to rise because of the new laws.
I'm just glad the world is heading in the right direction....at least the West is.
John Tory got humiliated in the recent Ontario election for trying to increase faith based education, and now Sweden is banning fairy tales in school. Life is good.
There are still some who celebrate Christmas in Sweden, praise science:
Hooray for the Swedes. They've always been at the forefront of change. Banning religious studies in schools is nearly as good as when the Swedes removed all censorship back in 1766.
ReplyDelete*cheers* Sweden is a very progressive country all around, although they have a bad track record with racism. In this case it seems that helped matters. This is a good sign, even if it won't cross the Atlantic for a long time and I'll be a grandmother before it gets to the US.
ReplyDeleteWhilst you might consider this a triumph of enlightenment over obscurantism (that's how I see it), I doubt very much if you'd like life in Sweden all that much: it's one of the most liberal countries in the world.
ReplyDeleteAnd Basiorana is correct about Swedish (Scandinavian, even) racism. Way before 9/11 I traveled to Scandinavia at least 5 - 6 times per year for business purposes and was amazed at the racist attitudes of many common people towards "non-Nordic" people. It stems I believe from the fact that these countries had previously not had large quotas of non-White immigrants, so they simply weren't used to outside cultural influence.
Myths regarding Nordic superiority, supremacy even, were rife at the time of my visits there.
When I was in first grade, in public school, I had to sing "Jesus Loves Me." I can appreciate what Sweden is doing.
ReplyDeleteI'm almost sure this law will be overturned because - gasp - muslims will find it insulting to their way of life. The problem with Europe is that it doesn't care to preserve its culture. It doesn't care if in 50 years churches will be asked to close because they offend muslim mosque goers.
ReplyDeleteAri:
ReplyDelete"The problem with Europe is that it doesn't care to preserve its culture."
This is the usual generalizing nonsense that's constantly being peddled by those who've never visited here or don't understand the first iota of what "culture" actually is. For one, "Europe's culture" is a melting pot that's been in constant flux for over 2,000 years. Culture cannot be static or else it would simply die a stale death.
If we wanted to "preserve our culture" we'd have to protect it from "American influence" too. That would be absurd as much as unworkable.
"American culture" too is constantly changing and is extremely multicultural.
Look, in England they stopped teaching Holocaust in schools. Holocaust is a subject which is important to European history as much as it is important to Jewish history. Giving in to the voices that wanted it be removed is giving in to anti-intellectual forces which would like to deny historical events because of values that are not European. We know why the stopping was instituted. It wasn't a cultural enrichment but a cultural deconstruction. Here is one example that's not a generalization. One can come up with more. Multiculturalism is an ambiguous word that can mean more than just the presence of several types in a single system but also the politics of the interaction of these diverse types. Historically European "multiculturalism" was a fond name for colonialism. Now it's a fond name of the state of being colonized. There is a find line between the two.
ReplyDeleteDamn it! Is there anything Swedes are not good at?
ReplyDeleteI am very happy that this law is to be established, but on the other hand, I am not really ready to listen to American religious rights' self-proclaimed persecution and Muslim extremists' self-proclaimed persecution whining.
I guess something got to give.
Great blog by the way! I am a new reader.
Ari:
ReplyDelete"Look, in England they stopped teaching Holocaust in schools."
This is complete and utter baloney and shows how eager you are to jump to self-serving conclusions (but you already demonstrated that above). As usual when something comes wafting over from one side of the pond to the other (either way), things get seriously distorted. I believe you may be relying on a short article that appeared in The Times recently for your "conclusions":
Source:
"Teachers are dropping controversial subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades from history lessons because they do not want to cause offence to children from certain races or religions, a report claims.
A lack of factual knowledge among some teachers, particularly in primary schools, is also leading to “shallow” lessons on emotive and difficult subjects, according to the study by the Historical Association.
The report, produced with funding from the Department for Education, said that where teachers and staff avoided emotive and controversial history, their motives were generally well intentioned.
“Staff may wish to avoid causing offence or appearing insensitive to individuals or groups in their classes. In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship,” it concluded.
However, it was concerned that this could lead to divisions within school, and that it might also put pupils off history."
Read it again and try and interpret it correctly.
Here and here are two articles that shed further light on the changing way some parts of history are being taught in some English schools.
"Historically European "multiculturalism" was a fond name for colonialism. Now it's a fond name of the state of being colonized."
More nonsense. Multiculturalism is the unintended consequence of Empire but in no way synonymous with colonization. Not back then, not now.
Let's tackle that other myth, while we're at it: Eurabia (lol) is being invaded and overrun by Mooooslim hordes:
Here are the estimated (2006) Muslim populations in the US and Europe:
US: total pop: 299.1 mil
Muslim pop: 2.1 mil
% Muslim: 6.31 %
Europe: total pop: 729.7 mil
Muslim pop: 50.9 mil
% Muslim: 7.00 %
The total Muslim percentage in Europe is barely higher than in the US. This is quite remarkable considering two factors:
1. the European figure includes a considerable number of indigenous European Muslims. There are no NA indigenous Muslims
2. Europe is geographically much closer to the Muslim world than the US. If it would please you we would drag the continent a liiiiiittle more to the North or West, unfortunately that's not possible.
Ari, the terrorists have already won: they've managed to alter your vision of reality. Now that's sad...
Beaj:
ReplyDeleteOT:
This might be right up your ally:
Angela's Jesus test... [ahem!]
Yes, folks, if you love Bejaysus, you WILL link to me... Sounds like a Christian carpetbagger...
Gert, you're fighting a straw man. I never said that history wasn't revised. Contrariwise, I said that it was being revised - and in a corrosive fashion, because the reinterpretation that you're so happy of doesn't serve the European tradition but undermines it. You are just not calling things by their own names. Frankly, I don't care about the wellbeing of Europen tradition myself, but I'm skeptical of the alternatives even more.
ReplyDeleteMulticulturalism is having Japanese prints in your house. It is certainly not having to say that Perl Harbor was a dialog between East-West Philosophies.
I don't know about the numbers because they depend on how you sample, and one needs to compare figures from more than one study.
But even if your figures are accurate, there is still a great philosophical and cultural paralysis in Europe but not in US.
Terrorists are an ambiguous class, lets stick to lefties.
Ari:
ReplyDelete"Gert, you're fighting a straw man."
No, not at all but you're a clown. Here's what you wrote with a bit of emphasis of mine added:
"Look, in England they stopped teaching Holocaust in schools. Holocaust is a subject which is important to European history as much as it is important to Jewish history. Giving in to the voices that wanted it be removed is giving in to anti-intellectual forces which would like to deny historical events because of values that are not European. We know why the stopping was instituted."
This was real good too:
"Multiculturalism is having Japanese prints in your house."
Sure, sure. (ROFLMHO - PMS)
Here, this is quite accurate: multiculturalism.
"[...] and cultural paralysis in Europe but not in US."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (trying to recover...) HAHAHAHAHA... HAHAHAHAHA (pissed myself again) HAHAHAHA... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... HAHAHAHAHA...
Ari, too much Shox Noise rots the brain...
This is anything BUT the right direction. Facts are determined by evidence, not authority. The Swedish government has decided that there is a set of Official Facts, and that teachers may not contradict them.
ReplyDeleteIs it all right to forbid dissent only when it's dissent with your views? If not, then you've just expressed approval for every fundamentalist government in the world to ban the teaching of atheism.
Basiorana - Let me ask you one question... What the hell are you talking about? "Bad track record with racism"? Can you give me an example, please? I find your comment especially funny since you yourself come from the US, a country which discriminated black people by law just a few decades ago. That's a "bad track record with racism" if I ever saw one.
ReplyDeleteGert - OK, your comment has a bit more substance than Basiorana's but unfortunately it's still very subjective. If you're going to accuse a whole country and it's population of being racist, why don't you at least show some facts, stats or something else that's objective to help prove your point? If you had said "according to my experience of Sweden and Swedes it seems that a lot of Swedes have racist attitudes but then again, it was ages ago since I was there last time" (or something similar, it wouldn*t have had to be word-by-word. I'm not very picky, you know) instead of chiming in on Basiorana's statement that Sweden "has a bad track record with racism" I wouldn't have criticized your comment but when you're clearly stating that you agree "that Sweden have a bad track record with racism" although you've got nothing else but subjective points to prove that point I find it hard to not to criticize you're comment...
Btw, here's a subjective statement, which I'm not trying to masquerade as the objective truth like you did: It sounds as if you took a wrong turn and went to Nazi-Germany or something or possibly traveled through time and went to Sweden during the Viking-era.
Quote: "This is anything BUT the right direction. Facts are determined by evidence, not authority"
ReplyDeleteSo you think it's wrong to ban educational institutions from claiming that a subjective idea with no objective and scientific evidential support whatsoever, e.g. the Christian story of how the world was created, is in fact the the objective truth? You think that's going fundamentalist? Allow me to chuckle (...haha...) and re-quote you:
"Facts are determined by evidence, not authority"
Let me emphasize one part of that quote: "Facts are determined by evidence"
I agree 100% with that statement, which is exactly why religious stories with no objective and scientific evidential support whatsoever should not be allowed to be taught as an objective fact, which will be (or maybe already is) the result of this law. So, what exactly is it about this law that "is anything BUT the right way"?
Quote. "The Swedish government has decided that there is a set of Official Facts, and that teachers may not contradict them"
Ahh, interesting. So there's a list of "Official Facts", then? Show me that list, please...
Your statement is NOT true. That's not at all what this law is about. This law is not about deciding what CAN be taught as facts, it's about deciding what CAN'T be taught as facts. And what can't be taught as facts, according to this law, is subjective stories and ideas with no objective and scientific evidential support whatsoever (third time I've said that, I hope you've got it by now), i.e. religious stories and ideas.
"Is it all right to forbid dissent only when it's dissent with your views?"
Seriously, did you just skim through this article or something? Because it doesn't seem like you get the point of the law. Let me repeat myself again... This law is not about forbidding dissent which is dissent with the views of the Swedish government. It's about banning subjective stories and ideas with no objective and scientific evidential support whatsoever from being taught as facts.
"If not, then you've just expressed approval for every fundamentalist government in the world to ban the teaching of atheism"
I don't think the fundamentalist governments around the world care about what we "express approval" for them to do... Btw, it wouldn't be such a bad idea banning atheism from being taught in schools, or at least confining atheism to being taught similarly to religions, i.e. observe it as a belief system. But no school teaches atheism anyway so that was just a really stupid statement on your side...
Let me just add a something to my comment. The official state religion in Sweden is Protestantism. So I don't think that, for example, the story of how God created the Earth is dissent with the views of the government. What I think is dissent with the views of the Swedish government is teaching, for example, the story of how God created the earth as a fact.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe in God or anything magical, but I say this idea is wrong. It violates religious freedom- which is intended to allow all perspectives on the nature of reality. including that of the total skeptic. We all know how bad a nation can get when only one version of reality is sanctioned true, and this is exactly what Sweden would do. I believe that religion in the 22nd century will be more along the lines of a natural religion involving recurrence: the trend being away from both great foolishness in magical beliefs and utter hopelessness in pure skepticism.
ReplyDelete