It was the scandal that rocked the nation and sparked conversations about multiculturalism, Islamophobia, journalistic standards, and the role of a school.
In this episode, we look into the letter that started the Trojan Horse Scandal and learn about the supposed mastermind behind it all.
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are talking about the story of an alleged jihadi conspiracy to take over British schools.
[00:00:29] It was a scandal that all started with an anonymous letter, but developed into a national scandal, appearing on the front pages of every national newspaper, and calling for a response from the Prime Minister.
[00:00:43] This scandal would be dubbed “The Trojan Horse Scandal”, and it’s a story that asks questions about multiculturalism, Islamophobia, journalistic standards, and, ultimately, what is the role of a school.
[00:00:58] It’s even more fascinating because, it would turn out, it might all have been a massive hoax, the letter that started it all off might have been completely fake.
[00:01:09] The story is long, and so full of twists and turns, that we are going to split it into two parts.
[00:01:16] In this part, part one, we’ll focus on the letter and scandal itself, and in part-two we’ll take a look at the investigations into it all, and the broader legacy of the whole affair.
[00:01:29] OK then, let’s get right into it and talk about The Trojan Horse Scandal.
[00:01:37] It was November 2013 in Birmingham, England.
[00:01:42] The post had just arrived at Birmingham City Council’s office.
[00:01:47] Birmingham is the second biggest city in the country, and–as you might expect–the council receives hundreds of letters every day.
[00:01:57] Normally these letters aren’t particularly interesting or important - Dear local council, please fix the broken lightbulb on my street, Dear local council, I would like to volunteer to start a community club for kids, you get the picture.
[00:02:12] But that one day in November, the council received a letter that was…different.
[00:02:19] A rather strange letter, with consequences that would go far beyond Birmingham.
[00:02:25] On the first page of the letter it said: ‘Very important: confidential,’ and instructions that it was to be destroyed after reading. With the letter came a note saying that this letter had been found in the sender's boss’s office.
[00:02:44] Inside were four poorly photocopied pages, with bits blocked out and the corners blurred. It seemed like it was part of a longer letter.
[00:02:55] It was anonymous, not signed by anyone.
[00:02:59] Unusual, sure, but what was much more shocking was what was written in the letter.
[00:03:06] The letter, which appeared to be part of a correspondence between two people, or two groups perhaps, claimed that there was a conspiracy, a plot, to gain control of British schools and implement hardline Islamic teachings.
[00:03:25] In fact, it was more serious than that.
[00:03:28] The plot, which the letter claimed was a five-step plan called ‘Operation Trojan Horse’, was already well underway in Birmingham and, I quote, “totally invisible to the naked eye."
[00:03:44] “ We have caused a great amount of organised disruption in Birmingham,” the mystery writer bragged, “and as a result we now have our own Academies and are on our way to getting rid of more headteachers and taking over their schools.”
[00:04:01] And the plot was to be expanded, it said, into other British cities including Manchester and Bradford.
[00:04:09] The idea, or the tactic, was to target schools where the majority of students were Muslim with parents who were sympathetic to an Islamic agenda.”
[00:04:21] But then came perhaps the most chilling line in the letter, the one that set in motion a national panic.
[00:04:30] “Whilst sometimes the practices we use may not seem the correct way of doing things,” the letter said, “you must remember that this is a ‘Jihad’ and as such all means possible to win the war is acceptable.’’
[00:04:46] Now, before we get into the impact that this one letter would come to have on the entire country, I want to explain three things.
[00:04:55] First, I want to talk about the term, “Trojan Horse”, second I want to give you some background to multiculturalism in Britain, and thirdly, I want to explain, briefly, how schools in Britain work.
[00:05:10] So, first, the term “Trojan Horse”. If you’re familiar with your Greek mythology, you’ll remember that the Greeks built a giant hollow, an empty, wooden horse and left it as a gift for the Trojans, the inhabitants of the city of Troy.
[00:05:28] It seemed like a harmless gift, but hiding inside the horse were Greek soldiers. The Trojans accepted it, and brought it into the city of Troy. In the dead of night the Greeks jumped out, attacked the Trojans, and this resulted in the fall of Troy, the destruction of the city.
[00:05:52] This term “Trojan Horse” has come to mean something that looks innocent and is accepted, but is actually intended to cause serious harm.
[00:06:03] OK, with that definition out of the way, let’s talk about multiculturalism in Britain. Compared to many countries, Britain is a fairly multicultural place, with people from a broad range of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.
[00:06:19] In the 1950s and 1960s, Britain, which was still recovering from the ruinous effects of the Second World War, invited thousands of people from its former colonies to come and live in the country.
[00:06:33] Millions came, especially from places like India, Pakistan, and the West Indies, the Caribbean.
[00:06:41] With this huge influx of immigration, Britain, and especially British cities, started to become increasingly diverse, with parts of some cities where ethnic or religious minorities are not the minority, but the majority.
[00:06:59] In places like Leicester and Bradford, for example, the British-Asian community makes up as much as 40 percent of the population.
[00:07:09] And in certain neighbourhoods in places like London or Birmingham, where this story is based, this figure can be in the sixties or seventies.
[00:07:19] As you might imagine, with this level of immigration to a country, especially from places with different cultures or religious values, it has not always been plain sailing, it has not always been smooth.
[00:07:34] Immigrants, whether first, second or even third generation, often face discrimination, racism, reduced job opportunities, and so on. This discrimination often comes from a fear from parts of the supposed “indigenous” British population that their way of life is being changed, that British society is becoming less British.
[00:08:00] Now, I’m sure you'll be familiar with these arguments, as if you live in a country with any significant levels of immigration, no doubt it is a similar story where you live.
[00:08:11] But why this is relevant for our story is because of what this means in terms of education, schooling for children.
[00:08:20] So, first, some background to this.
[00:08:24] In the UK, the government provides free education. There are private schools, schools where parents have to pay, but every child in Britain has the right to go to a school, for free, provided by the government, between the ages of 5 and 16.
[00:08:42] There are secular schools, schools where no religion is officially taught, and there are religious schools, so-called “faith” schools, which follow the national curriculum, but provide classes about the religious teachings of one religion - they could be Anglican, otherwise known as the Church of England, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, and so on.
[00:09:07] So, the point to remember, the point to underline is that government schools, state schools as they’re called, can be secular or they can be religious. Schools in Britain are actually legally required to provide some form of daily worship, which can be Christian, it can be Muslim, it can be any religion, or some schools just ignore it.
[00:09:31] So a parent can choose to send their child to a school that aligns with their religious values, or lack of religious values.
[00:09:41] You might think this is good, you might think it’s bad, but that’s beside the point. The point is that this is the case in Britain.
[00:09:50] Now, back to our story, back to Birmingham, and in fact, back to a particular area of Birmingham called Alum Rock, which is an inner-city suburb of Birmingham.
[00:10:03] 60% of people in Alum Rock have Pakistani heritage, with the vast majority of those people of Pakistani heritage being Muslim.
[00:10:14] And it’s a particularly deprived area of the city - high unemployment, low income, and, importantly for our story, schools were historically very low quality, they did not provide a good education.
[00:10:31] At one school, Park View, in 1997, only 1 in 20 students got good enough exam results to be considered a “pass”. This was one of the worst-performing schools in the country.
[00:10:47] As you might imagine, this led to entire generations leaving school with little-to-no qualifications, and subsequently struggling to break out of a cycle of low income and poor educational outcomes.
[00:11:02] So, back to the letter.
[00:11:04] In the letter, it was claimed that there was a plot, a plan, by radical Islamists to infiltrate and take over schools in Birmingham.
[00:11:16] According to the letter, schools in Alum Rock and other parts of East Birmingham were implementing gender segregation, keeping boys and girls apart, and sex education classes were being banned.
[00:11:32] There were claims of homophobic and misogynistic comments from teachers, and even that anti-western speakers had been invited to speak to the children.
[00:11:43] Now, as shocking as this might sound, if this was just in one school, it could probably have been dealt with at a local level.
[00:11:53] But what was different, what was important, was that the letter claimed that this was all part of a bigger plot, a “Trojan Horse”.
[00:12:04] This conspiracy was what would take it from a local story to a national scandal.
[00:12:12] The mystery whistleblower claimed that there was a five-step plan to infiltrate the schools.
[00:12:20] In the letter it said, and I quote directly, "I have detailed the plan we have in Birmingham and how well it has worked and you will see how easy the whole process is to get the head teacher out and your own person in.”
[00:12:36] The first step was to find schools where most of the pupils were Muslim.
[00:12:41] Then, find parents in the local community supportive of an Islamic agenda in schools.
[00:12:49] Next, the aim was to install or put in place governors who also had these conservative Islamic beliefs.
[00:12:58] The next step was to cause problems from within the schools by approaching teachers sympathetic to the plan, and slowly change rules and challenge any colleagues who got in the way, or opposed them.
[00:13:13] Then once that was all in place, ‘Step Five’ of the plan was to begin sending anonymous letters designed to undermine and damage the headteacher’s reputation until they were forced to resign, to quit.
[00:13:30] This plan, the letter claimed, “is tried and tested within Birmingham,” and it even gave some examples of schools where this plan had already been successfully implemented.
[00:13:44] It was a serious allegation, and was passed from Birmingham City Council to the Home Office, the central government essentially, and then it was leaked to the British press early in 2014.
[00:14:00] As you might imagine, this resulted in a media scandal, it was all over the newspapers and TV.
[00:14:08] Especially the right-wing media outlets delighted in stories of rumours of Jihadi plots and Islamists brainwashing British children, with journalists flocking to the area to try to interview local residents and students.
[00:14:25] And in the following few weeks, former staff members from several of the schools named in the letter went to the press and added to the idea that there was an Islamic conspiracy to take over schools, not only in Birmingham, but all over the country.
[00:14:44] These included claims that there were expensive speaker systems installed in schools for calls to prayer, and of teachers stopping couples holding hands and segregating boys and girls in class.
[00:14:58] This was some pretty hardline, radical stuff.
[00:15:02] The scandal was so serious, in fact, that the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, called a special meeting of the government’s extremism task force to look into the matter.
[00:15:15] First things first, track down the person who seemed to be the mastermind named in the letter, a so-called “Tahir”.
[00:15:25] Now, as you may know, “Tahir” is a relatively common Arabic name, but fingers were quickly pointed at one Tahir in particular. A man named Tahir Alam.
[00:15:39] So, who was Tahir Alam?
[00:15:41] A Jihadi extremist?
[00:15:43] An anti-British ISIS recruiter?
[00:15:46] Well, not exactly.
[00:15:48] Tahir Alam was a well-respected school governor in Birmingham known for turning around poorly-performing schools.
[00:15:56] He was a British-Pakistani man who had come to Britain as a child not knowing a word of English and had gone on to become a community leader in East Birmingham.
[00:16:07] He was well-respected, and liked in the local community.
[00:16:12] He had even been invited to Downing Street to celebrate his transformative educational policies with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
[00:16:21] His main achievement was turning around Park View school, the school in Alum Rock we heard about a few minutes ago where only 1 in 20 students passed their exams.
[00:16:33] When Tahir Alam became governor of the school, he set about implementing a new educational policy.
[00:16:43] Essentially, his hypothesis, his plan, was that communities should have more control of and better reflect their schools.
[00:16:52] Alam saw that, even though most students at schools like Park View were of Pakistani heritage, many of them only had one or two teachers of Pakistani heritage.
[00:17:04] Alam thought that this was part of the reason that these schools performed so poorly, and believed that if teachers and students had a shared culture and language, the results would improve.
[00:17:18] He implemented changes in the school, such as introducing a daily act of Islamic worship, and shortening the school day during Ramadan. I should stress that this was something the school was allowed to do, and it was part of Alam’s idea that the school should better reflect its students. Indeed, 98% of the students of this school were Muslim.
[00:17:43] Now, you might agree with Alam’s hypothesis, you might not, but, as the expression goes, the proof is in the pudding, meaning the results speak for themselves.
[00:17:54] His educational plan worked incredibly well.
[00:17:58] The school went from being one of the worst in the country to one of the best, and went from a 5% to a 70% pass rate in key exams.
[00:18:09] When the British school inspection body, OFSTED, visited the school it concluded that ‘every school in the country should be like this.’
[00:18:20] In fact, Park View was even complimented for its “wide range of opportunities for spiritual development, including voluntary Friday prayers.”
[00:18:30] Alam hadn’t tried to hide the policies he had put in place - he had even been invited to Downing Street to be congratulated on the results that had been achieved in the school. And he had also become involved with several other schools in Birmingham, and implemented similar policies, after the success at Park View.
[00:18:51] So, why the scandal?
[00:18:54] Well, nobody, including Alam, really debated what changes had been implemented in these schools, but the scandal was about the motivation for these changes?
[00:19:05] Had the schools become more Muslim because this would lead to better results for their pupils, or was it done because of some wider, “Jihad” reason?
[00:19:17] Clearly, better results for students are a good thing, but this letter placed a seed of doubt in many people’s minds.
[00:19:26] What if these results were just a byproduct of a sinister plan?
[00:19:33] And this was, I should add, against a backdrop of increasing anti-Islamic feeling in the UK.
[00:19:40] The year before, an off-duty British soldier called Lee Rigby had been murdered in broad daylight by two British converts to Islam.
[00:19:50] And this was around the same time that the Islamic State was winning territory in the Middle East and carrying out deadly terror attacks in Europe.
[00:20:00] For many in Britain, radical Islam was becoming a genuine fear.
[00:20:06] And this letter, if true, suggested that it had implanted itself within British schools.
[00:20:14] As you can probably imagine, this all added to the growing panic that there was an Islamic plot to take over not just British schools but Britain itself, and added to the fear that Britain was under attack from within.
[00:20:30] Soon the debate had grown from schools to the broader issue of multiculturalism and integration.
[00:20:37] In particular, Islam and the place of Muslims in British society became a talking point.
[00:20:45] For Islamaphobic people, the plot revealed exactly what they already thought about Muslims and justified their prejudices.
[00:20:55] These Muslims plotting in Birmingham, they said, were ‘un-British’, a threat to British society from within, a 21st-century Trojan Horse.
[00:21:07] But…was there actually a Trojan Horse? Was there really a Jihadi conspiracy? What if it was all a hoax, one massive lie?
[00:21:18] That, my dear listeners, is a question we will try to answer in part two.
[00:21:23] Ok then, that is it for part one of this mini-series on the Trojan Horse affair, the alleged Islamic plot to infiltrate British schools.
[00:21:35] Part two of this little exploration is going to come in two episodes' time. So keep a lookout for that one next week.
[00:21:42] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:21:46] What do you think about religion in schools?
[00:21:49] Should religion and education be kept separate?
[00:21:52] And how should schools and education adapt to the cultural and religious backgrounds of their students?
[00:21:59] Big questions, I know, but I would love to get your opinion so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:22:05] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:22:14] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:22:18] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are talking about the story of an alleged jihadi conspiracy to take over British schools.
[00:00:29] It was a scandal that all started with an anonymous letter, but developed into a national scandal, appearing on the front pages of every national newspaper, and calling for a response from the Prime Minister.
[00:00:43] This scandal would be dubbed “The Trojan Horse Scandal”, and it’s a story that asks questions about multiculturalism, Islamophobia, journalistic standards, and, ultimately, what is the role of a school.
[00:00:58] It’s even more fascinating because, it would turn out, it might all have been a massive hoax, the letter that started it all off might have been completely fake.
[00:01:09] The story is long, and so full of twists and turns, that we are going to split it into two parts.
[00:01:16] In this part, part one, we’ll focus on the letter and scandal itself, and in part-two we’ll take a look at the investigations into it all, and the broader legacy of the whole affair.
[00:01:29] OK then, let’s get right into it and talk about The Trojan Horse Scandal.
[00:01:37] It was November 2013 in Birmingham, England.
[00:01:42] The post had just arrived at Birmingham City Council’s office.
[00:01:47] Birmingham is the second biggest city in the country, and–as you might expect–the council receives hundreds of letters every day.
[00:01:57] Normally these letters aren’t particularly interesting or important - Dear local council, please fix the broken lightbulb on my street, Dear local council, I would like to volunteer to start a community club for kids, you get the picture.
[00:02:12] But that one day in November, the council received a letter that was…different.
[00:02:19] A rather strange letter, with consequences that would go far beyond Birmingham.
[00:02:25] On the first page of the letter it said: ‘Very important: confidential,’ and instructions that it was to be destroyed after reading. With the letter came a note saying that this letter had been found in the sender's boss’s office.
[00:02:44] Inside were four poorly photocopied pages, with bits blocked out and the corners blurred. It seemed like it was part of a longer letter.
[00:02:55] It was anonymous, not signed by anyone.
[00:02:59] Unusual, sure, but what was much more shocking was what was written in the letter.
[00:03:06] The letter, which appeared to be part of a correspondence between two people, or two groups perhaps, claimed that there was a conspiracy, a plot, to gain control of British schools and implement hardline Islamic teachings.
[00:03:25] In fact, it was more serious than that.
[00:03:28] The plot, which the letter claimed was a five-step plan called ‘Operation Trojan Horse’, was already well underway in Birmingham and, I quote, “totally invisible to the naked eye."
[00:03:44] “ We have caused a great amount of organised disruption in Birmingham,” the mystery writer bragged, “and as a result we now have our own Academies and are on our way to getting rid of more headteachers and taking over their schools.”
[00:04:01] And the plot was to be expanded, it said, into other British cities including Manchester and Bradford.
[00:04:09] The idea, or the tactic, was to target schools where the majority of students were Muslim with parents who were sympathetic to an Islamic agenda.”
[00:04:21] But then came perhaps the most chilling line in the letter, the one that set in motion a national panic.
[00:04:30] “Whilst sometimes the practices we use may not seem the correct way of doing things,” the letter said, “you must remember that this is a ‘Jihad’ and as such all means possible to win the war is acceptable.’’
[00:04:46] Now, before we get into the impact that this one letter would come to have on the entire country, I want to explain three things.
[00:04:55] First, I want to talk about the term, “Trojan Horse”, second I want to give you some background to multiculturalism in Britain, and thirdly, I want to explain, briefly, how schools in Britain work.
[00:05:10] So, first, the term “Trojan Horse”. If you’re familiar with your Greek mythology, you’ll remember that the Greeks built a giant hollow, an empty, wooden horse and left it as a gift for the Trojans, the inhabitants of the city of Troy.
[00:05:28] It seemed like a harmless gift, but hiding inside the horse were Greek soldiers. The Trojans accepted it, and brought it into the city of Troy. In the dead of night the Greeks jumped out, attacked the Trojans, and this resulted in the fall of Troy, the destruction of the city.
[00:05:52] This term “Trojan Horse” has come to mean something that looks innocent and is accepted, but is actually intended to cause serious harm.
[00:06:03] OK, with that definition out of the way, let’s talk about multiculturalism in Britain. Compared to many countries, Britain is a fairly multicultural place, with people from a broad range of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.
[00:06:19] In the 1950s and 1960s, Britain, which was still recovering from the ruinous effects of the Second World War, invited thousands of people from its former colonies to come and live in the country.
[00:06:33] Millions came, especially from places like India, Pakistan, and the West Indies, the Caribbean.
[00:06:41] With this huge influx of immigration, Britain, and especially British cities, started to become increasingly diverse, with parts of some cities where ethnic or religious minorities are not the minority, but the majority.
[00:06:59] In places like Leicester and Bradford, for example, the British-Asian community makes up as much as 40 percent of the population.
[00:07:09] And in certain neighbourhoods in places like London or Birmingham, where this story is based, this figure can be in the sixties or seventies.
[00:07:19] As you might imagine, with this level of immigration to a country, especially from places with different cultures or religious values, it has not always been plain sailing, it has not always been smooth.
[00:07:34] Immigrants, whether first, second or even third generation, often face discrimination, racism, reduced job opportunities, and so on. This discrimination often comes from a fear from parts of the supposed “indigenous” British population that their way of life is being changed, that British society is becoming less British.
[00:08:00] Now, I’m sure you'll be familiar with these arguments, as if you live in a country with any significant levels of immigration, no doubt it is a similar story where you live.
[00:08:11] But why this is relevant for our story is because of what this means in terms of education, schooling for children.
[00:08:20] So, first, some background to this.
[00:08:24] In the UK, the government provides free education. There are private schools, schools where parents have to pay, but every child in Britain has the right to go to a school, for free, provided by the government, between the ages of 5 and 16.
[00:08:42] There are secular schools, schools where no religion is officially taught, and there are religious schools, so-called “faith” schools, which follow the national curriculum, but provide classes about the religious teachings of one religion - they could be Anglican, otherwise known as the Church of England, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, and so on.
[00:09:07] So, the point to remember, the point to underline is that government schools, state schools as they’re called, can be secular or they can be religious. Schools in Britain are actually legally required to provide some form of daily worship, which can be Christian, it can be Muslim, it can be any religion, or some schools just ignore it.
[00:09:31] So a parent can choose to send their child to a school that aligns with their religious values, or lack of religious values.
[00:09:41] You might think this is good, you might think it’s bad, but that’s beside the point. The point is that this is the case in Britain.
[00:09:50] Now, back to our story, back to Birmingham, and in fact, back to a particular area of Birmingham called Alum Rock, which is an inner-city suburb of Birmingham.
[00:10:03] 60% of people in Alum Rock have Pakistani heritage, with the vast majority of those people of Pakistani heritage being Muslim.
[00:10:14] And it’s a particularly deprived area of the city - high unemployment, low income, and, importantly for our story, schools were historically very low quality, they did not provide a good education.
[00:10:31] At one school, Park View, in 1997, only 1 in 20 students got good enough exam results to be considered a “pass”. This was one of the worst-performing schools in the country.
[00:10:47] As you might imagine, this led to entire generations leaving school with little-to-no qualifications, and subsequently struggling to break out of a cycle of low income and poor educational outcomes.
[00:11:02] So, back to the letter.
[00:11:04] In the letter, it was claimed that there was a plot, a plan, by radical Islamists to infiltrate and take over schools in Birmingham.
[00:11:16] According to the letter, schools in Alum Rock and other parts of East Birmingham were implementing gender segregation, keeping boys and girls apart, and sex education classes were being banned.
[00:11:32] There were claims of homophobic and misogynistic comments from teachers, and even that anti-western speakers had been invited to speak to the children.
[00:11:43] Now, as shocking as this might sound, if this was just in one school, it could probably have been dealt with at a local level.
[00:11:53] But what was different, what was important, was that the letter claimed that this was all part of a bigger plot, a “Trojan Horse”.
[00:12:04] This conspiracy was what would take it from a local story to a national scandal.
[00:12:12] The mystery whistleblower claimed that there was a five-step plan to infiltrate the schools.
[00:12:20] In the letter it said, and I quote directly, "I have detailed the plan we have in Birmingham and how well it has worked and you will see how easy the whole process is to get the head teacher out and your own person in.”
[00:12:36] The first step was to find schools where most of the pupils were Muslim.
[00:12:41] Then, find parents in the local community supportive of an Islamic agenda in schools.
[00:12:49] Next, the aim was to install or put in place governors who also had these conservative Islamic beliefs.
[00:12:58] The next step was to cause problems from within the schools by approaching teachers sympathetic to the plan, and slowly change rules and challenge any colleagues who got in the way, or opposed them.
[00:13:13] Then once that was all in place, ‘Step Five’ of the plan was to begin sending anonymous letters designed to undermine and damage the headteacher’s reputation until they were forced to resign, to quit.
[00:13:30] This plan, the letter claimed, “is tried and tested within Birmingham,” and it even gave some examples of schools where this plan had already been successfully implemented.
[00:13:44] It was a serious allegation, and was passed from Birmingham City Council to the Home Office, the central government essentially, and then it was leaked to the British press early in 2014.
[00:14:00] As you might imagine, this resulted in a media scandal, it was all over the newspapers and TV.
[00:14:08] Especially the right-wing media outlets delighted in stories of rumours of Jihadi plots and Islamists brainwashing British children, with journalists flocking to the area to try to interview local residents and students.
[00:14:25] And in the following few weeks, former staff members from several of the schools named in the letter went to the press and added to the idea that there was an Islamic conspiracy to take over schools, not only in Birmingham, but all over the country.
[00:14:44] These included claims that there were expensive speaker systems installed in schools for calls to prayer, and of teachers stopping couples holding hands and segregating boys and girls in class.
[00:14:58] This was some pretty hardline, radical stuff.
[00:15:02] The scandal was so serious, in fact, that the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, called a special meeting of the government’s extremism task force to look into the matter.
[00:15:15] First things first, track down the person who seemed to be the mastermind named in the letter, a so-called “Tahir”.
[00:15:25] Now, as you may know, “Tahir” is a relatively common Arabic name, but fingers were quickly pointed at one Tahir in particular. A man named Tahir Alam.
[00:15:39] So, who was Tahir Alam?
[00:15:41] A Jihadi extremist?
[00:15:43] An anti-British ISIS recruiter?
[00:15:46] Well, not exactly.
[00:15:48] Tahir Alam was a well-respected school governor in Birmingham known for turning around poorly-performing schools.
[00:15:56] He was a British-Pakistani man who had come to Britain as a child not knowing a word of English and had gone on to become a community leader in East Birmingham.
[00:16:07] He was well-respected, and liked in the local community.
[00:16:12] He had even been invited to Downing Street to celebrate his transformative educational policies with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
[00:16:21] His main achievement was turning around Park View school, the school in Alum Rock we heard about a few minutes ago where only 1 in 20 students passed their exams.
[00:16:33] When Tahir Alam became governor of the school, he set about implementing a new educational policy.
[00:16:43] Essentially, his hypothesis, his plan, was that communities should have more control of and better reflect their schools.
[00:16:52] Alam saw that, even though most students at schools like Park View were of Pakistani heritage, many of them only had one or two teachers of Pakistani heritage.
[00:17:04] Alam thought that this was part of the reason that these schools performed so poorly, and believed that if teachers and students had a shared culture and language, the results would improve.
[00:17:18] He implemented changes in the school, such as introducing a daily act of Islamic worship, and shortening the school day during Ramadan. I should stress that this was something the school was allowed to do, and it was part of Alam’s idea that the school should better reflect its students. Indeed, 98% of the students of this school were Muslim.
[00:17:43] Now, you might agree with Alam’s hypothesis, you might not, but, as the expression goes, the proof is in the pudding, meaning the results speak for themselves.
[00:17:54] His educational plan worked incredibly well.
[00:17:58] The school went from being one of the worst in the country to one of the best, and went from a 5% to a 70% pass rate in key exams.
[00:18:09] When the British school inspection body, OFSTED, visited the school it concluded that ‘every school in the country should be like this.’
[00:18:20] In fact, Park View was even complimented for its “wide range of opportunities for spiritual development, including voluntary Friday prayers.”
[00:18:30] Alam hadn’t tried to hide the policies he had put in place - he had even been invited to Downing Street to be congratulated on the results that had been achieved in the school. And he had also become involved with several other schools in Birmingham, and implemented similar policies, after the success at Park View.
[00:18:51] So, why the scandal?
[00:18:54] Well, nobody, including Alam, really debated what changes had been implemented in these schools, but the scandal was about the motivation for these changes?
[00:19:05] Had the schools become more Muslim because this would lead to better results for their pupils, or was it done because of some wider, “Jihad” reason?
[00:19:17] Clearly, better results for students are a good thing, but this letter placed a seed of doubt in many people’s minds.
[00:19:26] What if these results were just a byproduct of a sinister plan?
[00:19:33] And this was, I should add, against a backdrop of increasing anti-Islamic feeling in the UK.
[00:19:40] The year before, an off-duty British soldier called Lee Rigby had been murdered in broad daylight by two British converts to Islam.
[00:19:50] And this was around the same time that the Islamic State was winning territory in the Middle East and carrying out deadly terror attacks in Europe.
[00:20:00] For many in Britain, radical Islam was becoming a genuine fear.
[00:20:06] And this letter, if true, suggested that it had implanted itself within British schools.
[00:20:14] As you can probably imagine, this all added to the growing panic that there was an Islamic plot to take over not just British schools but Britain itself, and added to the fear that Britain was under attack from within.
[00:20:30] Soon the debate had grown from schools to the broader issue of multiculturalism and integration.
[00:20:37] In particular, Islam and the place of Muslims in British society became a talking point.
[00:20:45] For Islamaphobic people, the plot revealed exactly what they already thought about Muslims and justified their prejudices.
[00:20:55] These Muslims plotting in Birmingham, they said, were ‘un-British’, a threat to British society from within, a 21st-century Trojan Horse.
[00:21:07] But…was there actually a Trojan Horse? Was there really a Jihadi conspiracy? What if it was all a hoax, one massive lie?
[00:21:18] That, my dear listeners, is a question we will try to answer in part two.
[00:21:23] Ok then, that is it for part one of this mini-series on the Trojan Horse affair, the alleged Islamic plot to infiltrate British schools.
[00:21:35] Part two of this little exploration is going to come in two episodes' time. So keep a lookout for that one next week.
[00:21:42] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:21:46] What do you think about religion in schools?
[00:21:49] Should religion and education be kept separate?
[00:21:52] And how should schools and education adapt to the cultural and religious backgrounds of their students?
[00:21:59] Big questions, I know, but I would love to get your opinion so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:22:05] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:22:14] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:22:18] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are talking about the story of an alleged jihadi conspiracy to take over British schools.
[00:00:29] It was a scandal that all started with an anonymous letter, but developed into a national scandal, appearing on the front pages of every national newspaper, and calling for a response from the Prime Minister.
[00:00:43] This scandal would be dubbed “The Trojan Horse Scandal”, and it’s a story that asks questions about multiculturalism, Islamophobia, journalistic standards, and, ultimately, what is the role of a school.
[00:00:58] It’s even more fascinating because, it would turn out, it might all have been a massive hoax, the letter that started it all off might have been completely fake.
[00:01:09] The story is long, and so full of twists and turns, that we are going to split it into two parts.
[00:01:16] In this part, part one, we’ll focus on the letter and scandal itself, and in part-two we’ll take a look at the investigations into it all, and the broader legacy of the whole affair.
[00:01:29] OK then, let’s get right into it and talk about The Trojan Horse Scandal.
[00:01:37] It was November 2013 in Birmingham, England.
[00:01:42] The post had just arrived at Birmingham City Council’s office.
[00:01:47] Birmingham is the second biggest city in the country, and–as you might expect–the council receives hundreds of letters every day.
[00:01:57] Normally these letters aren’t particularly interesting or important - Dear local council, please fix the broken lightbulb on my street, Dear local council, I would like to volunteer to start a community club for kids, you get the picture.
[00:02:12] But that one day in November, the council received a letter that was…different.
[00:02:19] A rather strange letter, with consequences that would go far beyond Birmingham.
[00:02:25] On the first page of the letter it said: ‘Very important: confidential,’ and instructions that it was to be destroyed after reading. With the letter came a note saying that this letter had been found in the sender's boss’s office.
[00:02:44] Inside were four poorly photocopied pages, with bits blocked out and the corners blurred. It seemed like it was part of a longer letter.
[00:02:55] It was anonymous, not signed by anyone.
[00:02:59] Unusual, sure, but what was much more shocking was what was written in the letter.
[00:03:06] The letter, which appeared to be part of a correspondence between two people, or two groups perhaps, claimed that there was a conspiracy, a plot, to gain control of British schools and implement hardline Islamic teachings.
[00:03:25] In fact, it was more serious than that.
[00:03:28] The plot, which the letter claimed was a five-step plan called ‘Operation Trojan Horse’, was already well underway in Birmingham and, I quote, “totally invisible to the naked eye."
[00:03:44] “ We have caused a great amount of organised disruption in Birmingham,” the mystery writer bragged, “and as a result we now have our own Academies and are on our way to getting rid of more headteachers and taking over their schools.”
[00:04:01] And the plot was to be expanded, it said, into other British cities including Manchester and Bradford.
[00:04:09] The idea, or the tactic, was to target schools where the majority of students were Muslim with parents who were sympathetic to an Islamic agenda.”
[00:04:21] But then came perhaps the most chilling line in the letter, the one that set in motion a national panic.
[00:04:30] “Whilst sometimes the practices we use may not seem the correct way of doing things,” the letter said, “you must remember that this is a ‘Jihad’ and as such all means possible to win the war is acceptable.’’
[00:04:46] Now, before we get into the impact that this one letter would come to have on the entire country, I want to explain three things.
[00:04:55] First, I want to talk about the term, “Trojan Horse”, second I want to give you some background to multiculturalism in Britain, and thirdly, I want to explain, briefly, how schools in Britain work.
[00:05:10] So, first, the term “Trojan Horse”. If you’re familiar with your Greek mythology, you’ll remember that the Greeks built a giant hollow, an empty, wooden horse and left it as a gift for the Trojans, the inhabitants of the city of Troy.
[00:05:28] It seemed like a harmless gift, but hiding inside the horse were Greek soldiers. The Trojans accepted it, and brought it into the city of Troy. In the dead of night the Greeks jumped out, attacked the Trojans, and this resulted in the fall of Troy, the destruction of the city.
[00:05:52] This term “Trojan Horse” has come to mean something that looks innocent and is accepted, but is actually intended to cause serious harm.
[00:06:03] OK, with that definition out of the way, let’s talk about multiculturalism in Britain. Compared to many countries, Britain is a fairly multicultural place, with people from a broad range of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.
[00:06:19] In the 1950s and 1960s, Britain, which was still recovering from the ruinous effects of the Second World War, invited thousands of people from its former colonies to come and live in the country.
[00:06:33] Millions came, especially from places like India, Pakistan, and the West Indies, the Caribbean.
[00:06:41] With this huge influx of immigration, Britain, and especially British cities, started to become increasingly diverse, with parts of some cities where ethnic or religious minorities are not the minority, but the majority.
[00:06:59] In places like Leicester and Bradford, for example, the British-Asian community makes up as much as 40 percent of the population.
[00:07:09] And in certain neighbourhoods in places like London or Birmingham, where this story is based, this figure can be in the sixties or seventies.
[00:07:19] As you might imagine, with this level of immigration to a country, especially from places with different cultures or religious values, it has not always been plain sailing, it has not always been smooth.
[00:07:34] Immigrants, whether first, second or even third generation, often face discrimination, racism, reduced job opportunities, and so on. This discrimination often comes from a fear from parts of the supposed “indigenous” British population that their way of life is being changed, that British society is becoming less British.
[00:08:00] Now, I’m sure you'll be familiar with these arguments, as if you live in a country with any significant levels of immigration, no doubt it is a similar story where you live.
[00:08:11] But why this is relevant for our story is because of what this means in terms of education, schooling for children.
[00:08:20] So, first, some background to this.
[00:08:24] In the UK, the government provides free education. There are private schools, schools where parents have to pay, but every child in Britain has the right to go to a school, for free, provided by the government, between the ages of 5 and 16.
[00:08:42] There are secular schools, schools where no religion is officially taught, and there are religious schools, so-called “faith” schools, which follow the national curriculum, but provide classes about the religious teachings of one religion - they could be Anglican, otherwise known as the Church of England, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, and so on.
[00:09:07] So, the point to remember, the point to underline is that government schools, state schools as they’re called, can be secular or they can be religious. Schools in Britain are actually legally required to provide some form of daily worship, which can be Christian, it can be Muslim, it can be any religion, or some schools just ignore it.
[00:09:31] So a parent can choose to send their child to a school that aligns with their religious values, or lack of religious values.
[00:09:41] You might think this is good, you might think it’s bad, but that’s beside the point. The point is that this is the case in Britain.
[00:09:50] Now, back to our story, back to Birmingham, and in fact, back to a particular area of Birmingham called Alum Rock, which is an inner-city suburb of Birmingham.
[00:10:03] 60% of people in Alum Rock have Pakistani heritage, with the vast majority of those people of Pakistani heritage being Muslim.
[00:10:14] And it’s a particularly deprived area of the city - high unemployment, low income, and, importantly for our story, schools were historically very low quality, they did not provide a good education.
[00:10:31] At one school, Park View, in 1997, only 1 in 20 students got good enough exam results to be considered a “pass”. This was one of the worst-performing schools in the country.
[00:10:47] As you might imagine, this led to entire generations leaving school with little-to-no qualifications, and subsequently struggling to break out of a cycle of low income and poor educational outcomes.
[00:11:02] So, back to the letter.
[00:11:04] In the letter, it was claimed that there was a plot, a plan, by radical Islamists to infiltrate and take over schools in Birmingham.
[00:11:16] According to the letter, schools in Alum Rock and other parts of East Birmingham were implementing gender segregation, keeping boys and girls apart, and sex education classes were being banned.
[00:11:32] There were claims of homophobic and misogynistic comments from teachers, and even that anti-western speakers had been invited to speak to the children.
[00:11:43] Now, as shocking as this might sound, if this was just in one school, it could probably have been dealt with at a local level.
[00:11:53] But what was different, what was important, was that the letter claimed that this was all part of a bigger plot, a “Trojan Horse”.
[00:12:04] This conspiracy was what would take it from a local story to a national scandal.
[00:12:12] The mystery whistleblower claimed that there was a five-step plan to infiltrate the schools.
[00:12:20] In the letter it said, and I quote directly, "I have detailed the plan we have in Birmingham and how well it has worked and you will see how easy the whole process is to get the head teacher out and your own person in.”
[00:12:36] The first step was to find schools where most of the pupils were Muslim.
[00:12:41] Then, find parents in the local community supportive of an Islamic agenda in schools.
[00:12:49] Next, the aim was to install or put in place governors who also had these conservative Islamic beliefs.
[00:12:58] The next step was to cause problems from within the schools by approaching teachers sympathetic to the plan, and slowly change rules and challenge any colleagues who got in the way, or opposed them.
[00:13:13] Then once that was all in place, ‘Step Five’ of the plan was to begin sending anonymous letters designed to undermine and damage the headteacher’s reputation until they were forced to resign, to quit.
[00:13:30] This plan, the letter claimed, “is tried and tested within Birmingham,” and it even gave some examples of schools where this plan had already been successfully implemented.
[00:13:44] It was a serious allegation, and was passed from Birmingham City Council to the Home Office, the central government essentially, and then it was leaked to the British press early in 2014.
[00:14:00] As you might imagine, this resulted in a media scandal, it was all over the newspapers and TV.
[00:14:08] Especially the right-wing media outlets delighted in stories of rumours of Jihadi plots and Islamists brainwashing British children, with journalists flocking to the area to try to interview local residents and students.
[00:14:25] And in the following few weeks, former staff members from several of the schools named in the letter went to the press and added to the idea that there was an Islamic conspiracy to take over schools, not only in Birmingham, but all over the country.
[00:14:44] These included claims that there were expensive speaker systems installed in schools for calls to prayer, and of teachers stopping couples holding hands and segregating boys and girls in class.
[00:14:58] This was some pretty hardline, radical stuff.
[00:15:02] The scandal was so serious, in fact, that the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, called a special meeting of the government’s extremism task force to look into the matter.
[00:15:15] First things first, track down the person who seemed to be the mastermind named in the letter, a so-called “Tahir”.
[00:15:25] Now, as you may know, “Tahir” is a relatively common Arabic name, but fingers were quickly pointed at one Tahir in particular. A man named Tahir Alam.
[00:15:39] So, who was Tahir Alam?
[00:15:41] A Jihadi extremist?
[00:15:43] An anti-British ISIS recruiter?
[00:15:46] Well, not exactly.
[00:15:48] Tahir Alam was a well-respected school governor in Birmingham known for turning around poorly-performing schools.
[00:15:56] He was a British-Pakistani man who had come to Britain as a child not knowing a word of English and had gone on to become a community leader in East Birmingham.
[00:16:07] He was well-respected, and liked in the local community.
[00:16:12] He had even been invited to Downing Street to celebrate his transformative educational policies with the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
[00:16:21] His main achievement was turning around Park View school, the school in Alum Rock we heard about a few minutes ago where only 1 in 20 students passed their exams.
[00:16:33] When Tahir Alam became governor of the school, he set about implementing a new educational policy.
[00:16:43] Essentially, his hypothesis, his plan, was that communities should have more control of and better reflect their schools.
[00:16:52] Alam saw that, even though most students at schools like Park View were of Pakistani heritage, many of them only had one or two teachers of Pakistani heritage.
[00:17:04] Alam thought that this was part of the reason that these schools performed so poorly, and believed that if teachers and students had a shared culture and language, the results would improve.
[00:17:18] He implemented changes in the school, such as introducing a daily act of Islamic worship, and shortening the school day during Ramadan. I should stress that this was something the school was allowed to do, and it was part of Alam’s idea that the school should better reflect its students. Indeed, 98% of the students of this school were Muslim.
[00:17:43] Now, you might agree with Alam’s hypothesis, you might not, but, as the expression goes, the proof is in the pudding, meaning the results speak for themselves.
[00:17:54] His educational plan worked incredibly well.
[00:17:58] The school went from being one of the worst in the country to one of the best, and went from a 5% to a 70% pass rate in key exams.
[00:18:09] When the British school inspection body, OFSTED, visited the school it concluded that ‘every school in the country should be like this.’
[00:18:20] In fact, Park View was even complimented for its “wide range of opportunities for spiritual development, including voluntary Friday prayers.”
[00:18:30] Alam hadn’t tried to hide the policies he had put in place - he had even been invited to Downing Street to be congratulated on the results that had been achieved in the school. And he had also become involved with several other schools in Birmingham, and implemented similar policies, after the success at Park View.
[00:18:51] So, why the scandal?
[00:18:54] Well, nobody, including Alam, really debated what changes had been implemented in these schools, but the scandal was about the motivation for these changes?
[00:19:05] Had the schools become more Muslim because this would lead to better results for their pupils, or was it done because of some wider, “Jihad” reason?
[00:19:17] Clearly, better results for students are a good thing, but this letter placed a seed of doubt in many people’s minds.
[00:19:26] What if these results were just a byproduct of a sinister plan?
[00:19:33] And this was, I should add, against a backdrop of increasing anti-Islamic feeling in the UK.
[00:19:40] The year before, an off-duty British soldier called Lee Rigby had been murdered in broad daylight by two British converts to Islam.
[00:19:50] And this was around the same time that the Islamic State was winning territory in the Middle East and carrying out deadly terror attacks in Europe.
[00:20:00] For many in Britain, radical Islam was becoming a genuine fear.
[00:20:06] And this letter, if true, suggested that it had implanted itself within British schools.
[00:20:14] As you can probably imagine, this all added to the growing panic that there was an Islamic plot to take over not just British schools but Britain itself, and added to the fear that Britain was under attack from within.
[00:20:30] Soon the debate had grown from schools to the broader issue of multiculturalism and integration.
[00:20:37] In particular, Islam and the place of Muslims in British society became a talking point.
[00:20:45] For Islamaphobic people, the plot revealed exactly what they already thought about Muslims and justified their prejudices.
[00:20:55] These Muslims plotting in Birmingham, they said, were ‘un-British’, a threat to British society from within, a 21st-century Trojan Horse.
[00:21:07] But…was there actually a Trojan Horse? Was there really a Jihadi conspiracy? What if it was all a hoax, one massive lie?
[00:21:18] That, my dear listeners, is a question we will try to answer in part two.
[00:21:23] Ok then, that is it for part one of this mini-series on the Trojan Horse affair, the alleged Islamic plot to infiltrate British schools.
[00:21:35] Part two of this little exploration is going to come in two episodes' time. So keep a lookout for that one next week.
[00:21:42] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:21:46] What do you think about religion in schools?
[00:21:49] Should religion and education be kept separate?
[00:21:52] And how should schools and education adapt to the cultural and religious backgrounds of their students?
[00:21:59] Big questions, I know, but I would love to get your opinion so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:22:05] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:22:14] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:22:18] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
