All 257 students and 41 teachers at Rufford primary school in Lye, England, were ordered to wear traditional Muslim dress in an effort to promote multi-culturalism, reported the U.K.-based Daily Mail newspaper on Wednesday.
It is said that in the entire school only two staffs were Muslims – a part-time teacher and an assistant teacher.
“Staff have got to go along with it – or let’s face it, they would be branded racist,” reportedly said a relative of one of the staff, according to British tabloid The Sun.
“Who would put their job on the line?” the relative added. “They have been told they have to embrace the day to show their diversity. But they are not all happy.”
The Muslim dress up was in observance of Eid, the end of Ramadan. The school held a morning assembly to mark the event and an afternoon party only for women – in adherence with the Muslim tradition of wives not mixing with other men.
Father Jonathan Morris, an analyst for Fox News pointed out that the story will probably not receive much attention in the United States because of the “can-do-no-wrong” thinking linked to diversity, pluralism, and multi-culturalism among mainstream media. Instead, they would agree that promoting tolerance in any way is good.
“And I would agree,” said Morris in a Fox News column. “But I would add that there is nothing tolerant about imposing a minority group’s traditions and beliefs on the majority. There is nothing tolerant about glorifying all expressions of culture except one’s own.
“There is nothing tolerant about cowing Christians into acting like Muslims, intimidating Jews into acting like Christians, scaring Muslims into acting like Westerners, or even worse, suggesting that we should all be nothing,” said Morris.
“This, I would say, is a sign of a dictatorship of cultural relativism. Such absurdity has nothing to do with tolerance.”
The Roman Catholic priest warned that if the United States continues “to buy” the ideology of cultural relativism then “America as we know it will cease to exist.”
Morris advised the United States promote and celebrate its cultural and religious heritage, while also respecting minority “in as much as they promote the common good for society.”
