Anti-racism was a big theme of NUT teachers\u2019 union conference this week. It took place as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is under intense attack from right wingers over antisemitism.<\/p>\n
A number of delegates and speakers at conference fringe meetings defended Corbyn and the right to criticise the Israeli state and defend Palestinians.<\/p>\n
New NUT president Kiri Tunks read a letter to delegates on Sunday sent by general secretary Kevin Courtney to Tory foreign secretary Boris Johnson. It condemned Israel\u2019s latest assault on Palestinians and called on the government to do the same.<\/p>\n
The letter led to applause on conference floor and delegates chanting in solidarity with Palestine.<\/p>\n
Author Alan Gibbons read a poem about the Israeli assault to a fringe meeting on how children learn on Saturday night. \u201cI am not going to accept that a Labour leader who has a lifelong history of fighting antisemitism, racism and oppression is an antisemite,\u201d<\/em> he said to loud applause.<\/p>\n Author Michael Rosen also referred to Corbyn\u2019s long history of fighting racism in a speech to delegates on Friday.<\/p>\n And teachers on Sunday unanimously passed a motion condemning schools inspector Ofsted\u2019s targeting of Muslim girls who wear the hijab in schools.<\/p>\n It said Ofsted questioning Muslim girls who wear the hijab could lead to \u201cfurther marginalisation\u201d<\/em> and \u201cphysical and verbal attacks\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n Alex Kenny from the national executive committee (NEC) told conference, \u201cThis isn\u2019t about what you or I think about religion. It\u2019s about what happens when a large, government-funded organisation points the finger at a community that feels vulnerable.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Jess Edwards from the NEC said the move was \u201cpart of an orchestrated campaign\u201d against Muslims by people who have \u201cno interest in fighting sexism\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n Latifa Abouchakra from Ealing in west London said, \u201cI say shame on Ofsted for victimising young girls.<\/em>\u201d She rejected the idea that Muslim girls and women passively accept instructions by men on what they should wear.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad didn\u2019t want me to wear the hijab,<\/em>\u201d she said. \u201cI chose to<\/em>.\u201d Latifa also rejected the \u201cimperialistic thinking\u201d<\/em> that assumed the West must rescue oppressed Muslim women.<\/p>\n An amendment expressed \u201csolidarity with all Muslims\u201d affected by the racist \u201cPunish a Muslim day\u201d<\/em> on Tuesday. A number of delegates described the fear among some Muslims.<\/p>\n Niparun Nessa said some people were carrying water in case of an acid attack, while others worried about making their journeys home.<\/p>\n Delegates also passed a motion to unite battles against Islamophobia with those for LGBT+ liberation. Debs Gwynn from Halton told conference, \u201cThis is a systematic attack and we have to fight it together.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n She said some Islamophobic attacks had parallels with homophobia in the past, pointing to how some right wingers use abuse scandals to target Muslims. \u201cPreviously we had the idea that gay men were all paedophiles,<\/em>\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The motion committed the union to build links with groups such as Mend and to publicly condemn Islamophobic, homophobic and transphobic attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Anti-racism was a big theme of NUT teachers\u2019 union conference this week. It took place as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is under intense attack from right wingers over antisemitism. A number of delegates and speakers at conference fringe meetings defended Corbyn and the right to criticise the Israeli state and defend Palestinians. New NUT president …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-islamic-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13444,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13442\/revisions\/13444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}