The posts chart "Isaac's" journey from his childhood in Saudi Arabia and times in Pakistan, through to his arrival in Canada and his rejection of Islam. It's a fascinating series, well written and worth reading.
One passage from the opening post in the series, about his time at a Pakistani school in Saudi Arabia, stood out for me.
Finally, the teacher had had enough. He got up. The entire class went silent. He went over to the student and started slapping him. The student covered his face. The teacher started to slap and punch him on the neck and the back with each hit more forceful than the last. The kid sitting next to the student got up from the desk and stepped away. The teacher kept on brutally beating the student. The student started crying and fell to the ground within the desk. The teacher grabbed the front of the desk with his left hand and the back with his right. He then started to kick the bawling student. He kicked him for about 20 seconds. He then went to his desk while swearing. No-one said a word.I saw exactly the same thing happen in my school when I was 13 or 14. No one complained - we were all too terrified to say anything - and nothing ever happened to the teacher. Of course, it wasn't a Muslim school in Saudi Arabia, it was a Catholic school in England. But the presumption was the same - the teachers (Irish Christian Brothers in my case) had an absolute and unchallenged right to beat the children in their care.
The only difference is the congregation of Christian Brothers in Ireland have apologized for the years of sexual and other abuse inflicted on the children in its institutions, at least in Ireland - as far as I'm aware, the Brothers have made no apology for their behaviour in England, or indeed anywhere else. And it's easy to doubt the sincerity of the limited apology that has been offered, since the Order continues to harbor its miscreants.
I wasn't badly beaten or abused at school (though the threat seemed ever present) and nor were the vast majority of my fellow students. Nevertheless, we were educated in an atmosphere where the random brutality of our teachers was an accepted part of school life.
If I'm making a wider point than simply noting a similarity between "Isaac's" life and my own, then it's this: when reading people's accounts of the fear, ignorance and injustice they've experienced in foreign cultures, we shouldn't imagine that such things never happen here. They do, it's just that a lot of people would rather not talk about it.
