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Milan Muslims Protest School Closure
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"I do not want ghettos. Rather, I want an Italian Islam," Pisanu said in the days after the closure order.
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CAIRO,
September 20, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Muslim students and their
families protested Monday, September 19, the closure of Via Quaranta
Islamic school in Milan, a leading US newspaper reported Tuesday,
September 20.
More
than 30 children took to the sidewalks to protest the state
authorities' decision to show down their school, located in a former
factory and attached to Milan's Via Quaranta mosque, reported The
Los Angeles Times.
Gathering
on a busy Milan sidewalk on Via Quaranta, the students held a symbolic
class session and they were raising their hands to answer mock
questions.
Their
protest was widely broadcasted by Italian television, according to the
American daily.
The
school's director, Ali Sharif, told the paper that some Muslim parents
do not want their children to "lose their culture, identity and
language".
"That's
normal, like Italians who go to America."
Several
angry parents told reporters that they felt they were being
discriminated against and were considering returning, reluctantly, to
their native countries, reported the American daily.
"We
want to send our children to a school where they will study Arabic,
where they will study Islam," said a Jordanian father.
There
are an estimated 1.5 million Muslims in Italy, the country's
fastest-growing immigrant population.
Islam
is the least represented of the monotheistic faiths in Rome’s
corridors of power. Unlike Judaism, Buddhism and some Protestant
denominations, Islam is not officially recognized by the state.
Poor
Conditions
The
Milan city council closed the school, where 500 children ranging from
kindergartners to ninth-graders are enrolled, on September 8, just
days before the current semester began.
Officials
said the order was based on poor sanitary conditions, building code
violations, and the teaching of unauthorized curricula.
Bruno
Simini, the council's education supervisor, said the closure decision
was a necessary step "as the school is illegal".
School
executives said the closure was not because of the mentioned reasons,
regretting that "nobody is brave enough to defend the rights of
Muslim citizens under the prevailing atmosphere."
They
said in press statements that the local authorities had refused to
grant the school an official recognition though it meets the
standards.
Although
the city agreed a compromise with school representatives earlier this
year to have the school moved to a more suitable building and adopt
the Italian curriculum, with the option to take additional lessons in
Arabic, the city council swallowed the compromise and closed the
school.
City
officials claimed that teachers had failed to present a detailed
proposal for a new building, prompting authorities to order the
closure.
Vile
Campaign
The
American paper said that right-wing politicians, in particular those
of the xenophobic Northern League, have often argued that the Via
Quaranta school as an example of the Muslim minority's
"refusal" to integrate.
A
leading Roman Catholic newspaper editorialized against the school,
which it said had emerged as the "most emblematic icon" of
the "Islamic question" in Italy.
"With
the stated objective of preserving the culture of the countries that
[the immigrants] came from, an impenetrable reality is being allowed
to grow … that can incubate hostile feelings toward a society they
will see as impure," the Avvenire newspaper of the
Catholic Bishops' Conference said.
"This
will create fertile ground for the manipulation of fundamentalism and
terrorism."
Minister
Giuseppe Pisanu said in the days after the closure order that Muslim
children should go to state schools and learn Italian.
"I
do not want ghettos. Rather, I want an Italian Islam."
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