Polly Toynbee: «This is a clash of civilisations - between reason and superstition»

«The DJ wasn't joking when he burbled: "Happy Good Friday!" His audience probably didn't wince, since a recent poll showed that 43% of the population have no idea what Easter celebrates, with the young most clueless. Eggs, bunnies, lambs?

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But how odd that in this heathen nation of empty pews, where churches' bare, ruined choirs are converted into luxury loft living, a Labour government - yes, a Labour government - is deliberately creating a huge expansion of faith schools. There is all the difference in the world between teaching children about religion and handing them over to be taught by the religious. Just when faith turns hot and dangerous, threatening life and limb again, the government responds by encouraging more of it and more religious segregation. If ever there was a time to set out the unequivocal value of a secular state, it must be now.

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This is indeed a clash of civilisations, not between Islam and Christendom but between reason and superstition.

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But instead of standing up for reason, our government is handing education over to the world of faith. It's the same government that went to war in Iraq to install the likes of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani into positions of great power. The man George Bush and Tony Blair see as the best hope for promoting stability and "freedom" in Iraq has just issued a fatwa calling for the killing of all sodomites and lesbians.

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Remember this: over a third of all state schools are now run by religions. Most are Christian, with some Jewish, Sikh and of other faiths. Under Labour the Church of England is rolling out 100 new secondary schools; half are open already. In Labour's flagship academy programme, 42 of the first 100 belong to Christian sponsors - at least five of them to evangelical creationists. Since Labour came to power six new Muslim state schools have been created; there are another 150 in the pipeline, according to the National Secular Society.

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Understandably, parents dash for schools where the better-off congregate, but few value religious schools for their own sake. In Northern Ireland, where most schools are breeding grounds for religious sectarianism, the few nondenominational schools are hugely oversubscribed - but sectarian politicians prevent more opening for fear of losing their tribes. The Young Foundation's study The New East End warns that in Tower Hamlets white parents fleeing Bangladeshis have taken over four church secondary schools in which Bangladeshis make up only 3% of the pupils, while they form 90% of pupils in the next-door secular schools. Religion usually means class, race or tribe segregation.

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(Polly Toynbee no The Guardian; ler na íntegra.)