23 December 2009

Can a nursery-age child be brainwashed?


Counter-terrorist police in the UK are now visiting nursery schools. A police memo emailed to community groups in the West Midlands asks
"“I do hope that you will tell me about persons, of whatever age, you think may have been radicalised or be vulnerable to radicalisation ... Evidence suggests that radicalisation can take place from the age of 4.”
This has prompted some backlash and controversy.
"...He said the indicators were they [children] might draw pictures of bombs and say things like ‘all Christians are bad’ or that they believe in an Islamic state. It seems that nursery teachers in the West Midlands area are being asked to look out for radicalisation. He also said that targeting young children was important because they would be left aware of what was inappropriate to say at school. He felt that it was necessary to cover nurseries as well as primary and secondary schools. He said it was a precaution and that he wasn’t expecting to come back with a list.”
More details (and photo credit) at the Times Online.

2 comments:

  1. I have to ask, where did that photo at the top of this post come from?

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  2. When I don't specify a different source, photos accompanying blog posts here can be assumed to come from the cited article. In this case the photographers are Alex Ralph and Sean O’Neill with a caption reading "Farisa Jihad, then a year old, outside the Danish Embassy in 2006, where her parents attended a protest."

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