A Blackburn Parent Speaks…
Elevated From the comments at Raw Story and therefore unattributed, so treat the veracity as unproven. Nonetheless, an interesting insight into the machinations behind the Rice/Straw visit.
March 31st, 2006 at 12:43:00
From: zb
First hand experience
Guys, I live in Blackburn… am a Muslim.. and boy did Jack Straw make a blunder. He thought Muslims would welcome Rice with open arms. 1. My son was chosen from his school (amongst 30 other kids) to wave US flags and cheer on Rice at the Secondary school where Rice was visiting (Pleckgate). The headteacher sent a letter saying an “important person” was visiting, so they neeed the parents signature for consent to allow their child to visit the school and cheer on Rice. The thing is she didnt have the nerve to state who this special guest was. The irony was that she told the kids who it was but not the parents.. she even the gall to say if it was Bush coming she would have rejected the invitation but since it was Rice she felt it was ok….what planet is she living on ? Anyway I obviously declined permission… but also emailed the headteacher as to why she didnt name this special guest… how could a parent decide whether to allow to allow their child to go if they didnt know who this important guest was. There was so much anger from parents, that at the last minute the headteacher had to cancel. The school is muslim dominated and so parent power prevailed. 3. The school where Rice visited, the headteacher has got himself into real bother. The parents were not consulted and there has been a massive backlash. The local college was initially given an opportunity for Rice to visit its premises.. but the Principal there was sensible enough decline as the college is attended by a lot of muslims (blackburn is 20% muslim) and so it would have created great friction. 2. The mosque that had to cancel the visit.. i live a thrown stone away from it. It was only the elderly guys of the mosque who allowed the visit to go ahead… they had no idea who Miss Rice was.. only that she was a top rated US politician. The committe chair is a Labour party mouth piece so convinced the rest of the committee to allow the visit. But they didnt envisage the power of the Muslim youth. No sooner they heard that a war criminal was going to visit their mosque they got their act together. 3. Mr. Straw has miscalculated the level of hatred we as Muslims have for Bush and his ilk. And this wekk they showed their power.. Mr Straw must feeling like real moron. have listen to this… it was reported at Pleckgate high school when Rice was visiting : http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-audio/Guardian/Correspondents/2006/03/31/310306Ward.mp3
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