RELIGION BAN SPOILS MUSLIMS PLAN

Sir,

After reading Bonsile Makhubu’s article in which she purports Dr Basheer Shabangu to have advocated for facilities to be given to Muslims to allow them to instill Muslim teachings in their children as they raise them, given that only Christianity is being taught in the schools their children attend; I would like to differ from his lamentation and explain that both religions are full of moral values that can be taught to these children be it Christian children or Muslim children.

The idea of selecting a specific religion to teach children in schools is unfortunate and divisive.
The main purpose of teaching religion in schools is so that children can learn morals from religion, not so that one religion can be made to look supreme than the other religion.

Engage

Dr Shabangu is reported to have stated that; “Since these public schools are now teaching nothing else but Christianity, we definitely need some space where we will be able to engage our children and delete the religion they have been taught at school and instill our own religion,” I will say, if it is true he has said that, it is his view and not the view of all Muslims.

The Ahamdiyya Muslim Community, a denomination of Islam, which I belong to, has built over 500 schools across Africa, mostly in West Africa with the sole purpose of helping governments provide access to education for all. Very soon, we shall start our first school project in Eswatini to augment government’s effort in the education sector.

Given that in the rural parts of this country some children are forced to walk long distances to school and there is no money for transport, thus being the reason why Ahmadi Muslims want to build schools which can be closer to their home areas thus helping these children to walk shorter distances than they do now, not so that they can teach them Islamic doctrine.

Instead of advocating for facilities to erect structures in which Muslim children can be taught Islamic doctrine, and also choosing to teach children only Christianity in schools, we should rather advocate for moral education to be taught in schools. In this way children will be taught moral values from these religions and not the religions themselves, and also this thought of unfairness will be eliminated, because the sole purpose of teaching religion is to teach the morals that these religions provide rather than teaching the religion itself it would be more beneficial to teach the moral values from these religions.

Rather than start an argument of wanting to ‘format’ Christian teachings from your children’s minds and instilling Islamic teachings, and rather than removing Islamic teachings from schools so as to prevent Christian children from being taught Islam and being turned into Muslims, they should rather be taught moral education which does not favour any one religion but provides moral values in general.

We should be made to understand that no matter how much religion you teach a child, if that child does not want that religion he or she will not follow it.
Christian children go to church on Sundays and Muslim children go to the mosques on Fridays and they also pray at home, if we all look at this routine is it not enough for a child to be taught religion?

Does it also have to be carried to school as well? Have we ever thought to ourselves why do children refuse to follow religion since they are taught religion almost every time?
The answer is that religion has been turned into a subject which they will have to study to pass to the next class and it is no more something they keep with them.

Instead of erecting walls that will separate the residents of this country apart, we should rather be building bridges that will bring all of us closer together for the betterment of the Kingdom of Eswatini, and we can only achieve that by teaching our children moral values, which are common among all religions.

SiceloDlamini
Hlatikulu, Magele
.

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