News and Opinion

Dear Editor, It is not surprising a group of Sikh parents wish to see a large sum of public money spent on a school primarily for their children. With the shortage of school places, most parents are likely to be keen on new provision which favours them especially. Nor is it surprising that Keith Vaz MP should support a proposal that could win him a block of votes at the next election. (First Sikh secondary school bid, 17th September) The effect though of a school primarily for the children of Sikh parents is to shelter them to a large extent from contact with children from other backgrounds. That indeed is a virtue in the eyes of community leaders because no child is born a Sikh, nor a Catholic, a Moslem, an Anglican or any religious sect, there are only children born to parents in such sects or none. A likely way for those leaders to maintain a flock of followers is to try to prevent their children deciding against joining their sect, either by moving to another or to none at al

 A young Muslim claimed at a meeting that I attended that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was "racist". We exchanged emails and it turned out that "racism" was being equated with being "eurocentric". My response appears below:- I don't think our disagreement is as profound as I thought it was when you asserted the the UDHR is "racist". As with all discussions words and differences in interpretations as to what they mean can result in people talking at cross purposes. This is a problem I encounter when discussing the existence of god(s). You need to define what you mean by god(s) before you can discuss. For example when Einstein refers to god, he means a Universe, which has no intelligence and is totally indifferent to humanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein To me racism is discrimination based a persons genetic make up that they cannot