In the so-called “Trojan horse” debacle, Birmingham schools have become Gove’s sacrificial lamb

 Are there problems in some of the schools at the centre of the so-called “Trojan horse” debacle? Certainly there are.

Having spoken at length with various members of the community in Birmingham, there are undeniable concerns among certain – yes, including Muslim – students and parents pertaining to a narrow interpretation of Islam being enforced within some schools. There are also allegations of mismanagement, nepotism and of the misuse of funds. The detail of these issues is likely to emerge in upcoming reports.

But what the problem is not, is an issue of radicalisation. Rather, attempts to link the problems to radicalisation reflect an expansion of the counter-terrorism agenda to the policing of socially conservative views among some Muslims and the effects of this policy are likely to be disastrous.

The entire affair has been worrying on many levels, not least in the language used to report the story. Several outlets have referred to a “Muslim plot” – would that be all Muslims plotting to take over our schools? The uncritically regurgitated term “Trojan horse”, a term widely employed by the far-right, while the Times ran a headline “Gove told to launch dawn raids on schools”, with the implicit suggestion that the schools were being raided for terrorism-related activities. The man at the centre of it all, Michael Gove, opted for dehumanising imagery in his call to “drain the swamp“ in reference to the Muslim community – a swamp which, if one accepts the analogy, would be harbouring the crocodiles. None of this can or should be understood outside of the rise in support for the xenophobic UKIP or a rise in racism. There is a broader climate in which both the media and politicians operate and feigning ignorance of it doesn’t mitigate the reception of this terminology.

The second-largest religion in each state

基督教是美國第一大宗教。至於誰是第二大宗教，則依地區而有所不同。

Christianity is by far the largest religion in the United States; more than three-quarters of Americans identify as Christians. A little more than half of us identify as Protestants, about 23 percent as Catholic and about  2 percent as Mormon.

But what about the rest of us? In the Western U.S., Buddhists represent the largest non-Christian religious bloc in most states. In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and Delaware, and there are more practitioners of the Baha’i faith in South Carolina than anyone else.

All these data come from the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, which conducts a U.S. Religion Census every 10 years. Here’s what their map of the second-most-practiced religions looks like:

And here’s the county-level map of second-largest religions after Christianity:

The data the ASARB release every 10 years are revealing: Adherents to any religious faith — that is, those who actually attend religious services — make up more than half the population in 28 states. Utah has the highest percentage of adherents, at 79 percent of the population, while just over a quarter of Mainers are adherents. North Dakota, Alabama and Louisiana are near the top of the list, while Oregon, Vermont, Alaska, Nevada and Washington sit near the bottom of the rankings.

Here’s their map of the largest religious denomination by county:

Catholicism dominates the Northeast and the Southwest, and Southern Baptists have a strong foothold in the South. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominates Utah and surrounding counties in Idaho, Wyoming and parts of Nevada. Lutheranism has a strong following in Minnesota and the Dakotas, while Methodists make their presence felt in parts of West Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.