Spain: Catalonia limits the teaching of the Spanish language in its schools and instead promotes the subject "Islamic Religion"

The Catalan community refuses to continue teaching so many hours of Spanish in public schools despite a court ruling that forces them to do so. Instead, they want to include a course that promotes the teaching of the Islamic religion.

The Government of Catalonia continues its efforts to teach fewer hours of Spanish language in public schools, despite the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia on December 17 that established the obligation to teach the language as the main official language of the country .

The Catalan authorities claim to have great pride in their own language and ensure that the Spanish language is not part of their culture, which is why for years they have worked from public education to eradicate the use of the Spanish language in the community.

However, this identity excuse quickly falls off when one discovers what other subject the Spanish hours will be replaced with: "Islamic Religion".

Despite the fact that the Muslim religion is a minority at the regional and national level, Catalonia has introduced the subject "Islamic Religion" in the official curriculum of the schools of the autonomous community.

According to the radical leftist Josep Bargalló, head of Catalonia's education department, "Muslim families have asked us to teach their religion in schools and we saw no reason to reject them."

Despite the fact that Muslim families represent approximately 1% of Catalan families, their request has been complied with by the authorities, while the desire for more hours of Spanish requested by more than 40% of the families in the community is not even heard by the regional government.

According to the latest data, 64% of Catalans want a trilingual school system in which Spanish, Catalan and a foreign language such as English are taught.

It is particularly surprising that a government that claims to be nationalist and identitarian with Catalan culture gives rise to Islamic religious teaching.

The Umayyad Caliphate brutally conquered the Iberian peninsula in 711, and ruled it until 1492, exterminating entire generations of Visigoths, who lived in Hispania at that time.

In 714 the territory today known as Catalonia capitulated to the invaders and for several centuries suffered Islamic occupation, a religion that was constantly in check with the Catholicism practiced by the Visigoths.

This history cannot be discarded for a political whim, and it goes directly against the culture not only of the Spanish nation, but of Catalonia itself.

Without going so far back, Spain was one of the most important centers in the world of Islamic terrorism in the last 20 years. On March 11, 2004, jihadism killed 193 people and seriously wounded 2,000 others in an attack on Madrid's trains.

Subsequently, in Catalonia itself, Islamic fundamentalism committed the bloody attacks on August 17, 2017, when on the Paseo de Las Ramblas, a Muslim committed a massive run-over with a white van.

This attack in the heart of Catalonia left 15 dead, including two children aged three and seven, but it was not the only one. The same terrorist killed another Catalan while escaping and hours later, other members of the same cell committed a new attack in Cambrils, where they ran over 6 people and stabbed a Catalan woman.

Now, the Catalan authorities want to teach the same texts that caused these atrocities to children in community schools.

Ironically, Catalonia seeks to separate religion from education and several years ago, classes in Christian theology and ethics were eliminated from the official curriculum.

In a query from the newspaper ABC in Spain, a Spanish language teacher declared: "It is not that it is not legitimate to teach the Islamic religion, but then it would also be necessary to teach the Christian religion."

In recent years, especially since the appearance of ISIS on the world stage, more and more radical terrorists of jihadist ideology are arrested and investigated in Catalonia, and there have already been countless new attacks that authorities prevented.

The authorities have claimed in the past that these extremist cells could have been formed by young people of Arab descent who are radicalized by videos on the Internet and by starting to read the Koran, which has explicit passages such as "husbands are superior to women" (Quran 2,128), or "those who do not believe our verses we will soon burn in fire" (Quran 4,56).

Bringing young people at school to these violent and explicit texts could have very dangerous results, especially when they are also sought to distance them from the Spanish language, which would put them in a situation of absolute isolation and a greater propensity for radicalization.

Source: La Derecha Diario