Oh Come All Ye Faithful… but go to your own assembly!

Children are one-third of our population and all of our future

I am a Sikh and I look like a Sikh. When I was at school I recited Christian hymns and learned about all religions. I was often fascinated by Christianity and I enjoyed singing ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ on a Thursday morning. I even made the choir for a short while when my pre-pubescent voice hit the high note on ‘ALL’ in All Things Bright and Beautiful’. It was only the children who were Jehovar’s Witnesses that did not attend assembly. I never questioned why I was being taught about a religion different to my own and never did I feel that I should be given individual treatment because my religion was not that of the majority. Scanning the assembly on a warm Spring morning in 1995 at my primary school, you would see children from all faiths. The token Sikh kids with their patkas and top-knots, the Muslim children with their topis and the kids with no definable features other than being brown! The next defining criteria would be looking out for a ‘kara’ which signified that he or she was Sikh. They were good days. And all this at a time when I was more likely to be called a ‘paki’ and often was.

It is sad to hear then that today a head teacher has resigned from her primary school because she abolished Muslim assemblies which were in isolation to other assemblies within her school. In her attempts to create a unified assembly, Julia Robinson quit her post at Meersbrook Bank Primary School in Sheffield after parents complained about her plans to hold one assembly for pupils of all faiths. What is the world coming to? In a day and age when we are struggling with racial scandals and the rebirth of the ‘golliwog’ how is an attempt to create an accepting and understanding multi-faith environment a negative thing? I am saddened by this.

I am sure that separate assemblies for Muslims would only help to re-enforce negative stereotypes and strengthen separatism. How can Muslims argue that they are misunderstood when they favour separatism in school? How will Islam be better understood if non-Muslim children in schools are not given the opportunity to learn about and explore Islam? Separate assemblies do nothing for community relations and in my opinion breed mistrust and tension between racial groups and communities. My fascination with “other people’s” religions enabled me to appreciate how others lived, worshipped and were guided by their morals and principles. I would not be the person I am today had I not been able to understand how others lived their lives.

Why do you have a pom-pom? I was asked once and not for the first time. The snotty kid whose name escapes me was a ruffian and if I didn’t answer correctly my pom-pom would be desecrated within minutes… (it wasn’t the female bully I alluded to in a previous post!).
‘I don’t really like it but my mom says I have to have it’ I replied embarrassingly. I used to cringe knowing that my friend John, a mixed race boy (his father was black and mum white) would often see my hair in its entirety when he would call for me on his way to school. Due to my lazy nature, he would often have to wait for me while mum tied my top-knot in haste because I had woken up late for school again.
‘Well it’s weird and you need to have a proper haircut like me and Mike. I will cut it for you, my moms a hairdresser’.

In those kinds of situations I never felt equipped to respond accordingly.

‘Hair is a gift from God and removal of hair signifies a detachment from the Almighty. Keeping your hair means that you accept God’s will….. And as a Sikh I will have a sword one day and I am gona chop you up you little shit’.. this is a mixture and what I should and shouldn't have said. Knife-crime is also very serious and I open a whole new can of super worms with these words so I stop right here…

When you put faith, hope and love together, you can raise positive kids in a negative world.

When Mr Singh later came in to our assembly to talk about Sikhism I was immensely proud. Not only did he look like 27 of my uncles he also smelled like them as well! With his smartly tied turban which matched the colour of his suit I was in awe. He told us that Sikhs were a warrior religion, that we lived to serve a humble life and to follow God and help others, that we had Gurdwaras that would be open to all, that we had community langar halls which fed anybody that wished to eat and that one of the 5 K’s was a dagger - I became a popular lad!

In his new found appreciation of my religion, snotty kid and his accomplice Mike found a new respect for me and my outward religious headwear. I became even cooler when I was hand-picked to be the projector boy carefully choosing which hymns to unearth unto an unexpecting congregation like a soldier with a new battle plan or a preacher with a new revelation to share. I wasn’t called a paki again or received threats to unravel my pom-pom… that was until I beat him in the sports day running race. The visual characteristics that made me who I was were accepted and that was thanks to my assembly on Sikhism.

Children learn to smile from their parents.
Shinichi Suzuki

I saw snotty kid recently and we became ‘friends’ again on Facebook. He even married a Caribbean girl… When children are children, they need to have their minds opened and filled with the right stuff; stuff that will challenge their perceptions and newly formed beliefs and will help them to live inclusively without fear and prejudice..

It is a sad day to see how an attempt to create a harmonious environment for children becomes a battleground for narrow minded parents who are threatened by religions not their own. And then Britain (well some commentators) wander why we still have a national identity crisis……

Upon our children,
how they are taught,
rests the fate, or fortune,
of tomorrow's world.
B C Forbes