A sex education program causes controversy in Belgium. Schools are burning, the country is worried

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to World News@lemmy.world – 218 points –
A sex education program causes controversy in Belgium. Schools are burning, the country is worried
apnews.com
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So this is one of the numerous times when Christian fundamentalists and Islamists are working together on a goal: oppressing freedom and knowledge.

It's extremely creepy that those pedophilic organizations are always fighting against sexual education: maybe because kids then would know that what the religious figure says and does is criminal?

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Several Islamic groups have also condemned the program in a joint statement, fearing it will favor “hypersexualization” of children.

Aren't these the same people that think marrying girls at 10 years of age is fine?

in the same way that everyone on the internet is an incel.

I say this as a person without a religious bone in my body — it's very easy when slinging around /r/atheism levels of schoolboy humor to cross into xenophobia and racism.

What, practically, is the difference between, "all Muslims are pedophiles?" and "all Jews are pedophiles?'

The latter seems like something from Lauren Bobert/MTG/Palin/Alex Jones/Tucker Carlson. So why is the former acceptable?

It honestly makes me uneasy being on Lemmy seeing the frequency of which people are quick to jump to their Islamaphobic pitchforks. Weren't we meant to be smarter than Reddit? Is it really that enlightened to suggest because someone comes from a culture they are child abusers?

Not to split hairs, but how many underage girls did Jesus marry?

I get that you can't paint an entire religion with a single brush. People are different. People are people. But when the prophet they revere had some very questionable takes on this topic, you have to realize that religion is fine with it.

The only peaceful religion is Jainism, but they are all outdated attempts at explaining the world and thus wrong.

Not to split hairs, but how many underage girls did Jesus marry?

He is a fictional character and within the fiction none. However, for a traveling Rabbi he did spend a surprising amount of time with women alone. Which is interesting if you were wondering why there might have been a motivation to make him up.

If you really want to do this why not mention Solomon? How many of his concubines (sex slaves) were under 18?

Mohammad is equally fictional, and they left that part in. It makes them even more culpable.

Muslims don't really follow him, or a book, or scholars.

For good and ill, they are the same as other religions.

They follow their conscience and tack on religion after to justify.

How many Linux users are pedophiles? How many guitar players? How many pickleball enthusiasts?

Its a silly metric to judge a huge population on.

Can you name a single activity that hasn't had one person commit an unrelated crime? Can anyone?

I'm not here to bat for religion, but I am here to bat against thinly-veiled racism, no matter how "enlightened" it is purported to be, or how intentional on behalf of the author.

If Linus Torvalds came out as a pedophile tomorrow, he would be actively shunned from the community. Just saying.

RMS did not do anything as bad as child fucking and look what happened to him.

No, I am not justifying what he did I am only saying it isn't as bad as raping a kid.

not my point. I'm saying the argument I was originally responding to is saying that is Torvalds came out as a pedophile then all Linux users or users of products with Linux on would be pedophiles by association.

that, I assert, is ridiculous and if I was to guess at it's motivation I would say it's certainly Islamophobia, likely xenophobia and probably racism.

That's not what they're saying. It's not a problem that their prophet was a pedophile, the problem is that they worship the prophet that was pedophile as a core element of their system of belief

I dont particularly care about being downvoted, but I am interested in this discussion. I understand why it's happening, I'm asking nuanced questions about a topic people think is open-and-shut. I'm half expecting to be called a pedophile myself at some point. I'm not. I hope we can continue to discuss without thought-terminating cliches. I know even writing this sounds pretentious, but I just don't want to get side tracked into emotive yelling. So, with that aside.

If a single concept is part of a structure, why does that make all users of a structure compliant with the requirements of that single concept? Or is it only Islam? If only Islam, what makes that ideology different from other religions? Or is it only religion? And if only religion, what makes religion different from other ideological structures such as language, sports, genres of music, literature, video games... or education, preferred software choice, venues ... ?

Is that not exactly the same as saying D&D == Devil Worship, Call of Duty == Being A School Shooter? By the same token, isn't "having a bank account / money" showing support for "preventing children from having chemotherapy" or "evicting babies to be homeless" as both are parts of capitalism, because, as argued here: if one part of the structure is objectionable, and people use that structure they are necessarily in support of all forms and uses of that structure.

Does the pedophilia thing apply to Picasso? If someone from a religion taints that entire religion, what are the boundaries for Picasso's pedophilia "ruining" art? Is it art only after Picasso thats bad? Is it only paintings? It can't be "just liking Picasso's work makes you a pedophile" (which I think is a silly argument, but that is what is being argued here) because otherwise the Mohammed thing wouldn't populate to other areas of religion, but in this argument it does.

Same question with Woody Allen and movies etc

What do you mean "islamophobic pitforks"? These were Islamic groups that were involved. That it's accepted in Islamic culture to wed off a girl as soon as she bleeds is no more "islamophobic" that saying the sun can give you cancer. Not everybody will hand over their daughter to be wed as soon as she bleeds, no more than the sun will give you cancer as soon as you step into it.
Point the hypocrisy out between "she bleeds, she may be wed" and "sexual education is hypersexualisation" is not "islamophobic".

You're just looking to have the moral highground. "see guys, I told that dude he's an islamophobe, where are my upvotes?"

Also, not everything is globally recognized as pedophilia. Just because in your Western (American?) brain it has been taught so, doesn't mean that it is so to everybody.

If some members of a group are bad, all members are bad — does that mean you and I are both pedophiles for posting on Lemmy, which has had a large amount of CSAM posted to it?

I live in America, I grew up in the UK, my family are Polish and German. So presumably by the same token that all Muslims are pedophiles — I love putting the Japanese in internment camps, and injecting black people with syphilis; I love running slave plantations, committing genocide, inventing concentration camps, using concentration camps, causing famines as an act of war, and I want to invade myself because I hate the Jews — of which I am arguably a ethnic member of depending on how you interpret genealogy.

Doesn't those arguments strike you as absurd?

Your argument is flawed. Heritage cannot be chosen. Following a certain religion is a choice however.

I think that's also a flawed argument. I think culture, heritage, religion are more intertwined than you think.

Assuming you're American,l (but if not I'm sure you can extrapolate to a relevant example from your own country) isn't celebrating Thanksgiving equally as morally bad? Genocide of the native people in the name of Puritan Christianity?

And what of the "Holiday Season" — are you telling me you don't celebrate Christmas or Hannukah?, because the moment you do aren't you celebrating all the awful things that happen in those Holy Books, which if I recall is a lot of incest and rape too. Does celebrating Christmas make everyone a rapist?

And yet all those are "choices".

No. Islam is not one single thing. The majority of those (some of whom don't want Sex Ed in school) don't like pedophilia either (I am not saying it is a good thing to not want Sex Ed, I think that's stupid) __ And before anyone says anything, yes I understand this is part of Islamic history but it doesn't mean the whole collective of Muslims are "okay" with it, or that these people are those, that would be insane.

Edit: made my pov clearer

No, it's not part of Islamic history, it is part of Islamic theology.

Most Muslims are Sunni, and within Sunni Islam there are 4 schools of jurisprudence. All four of these schools have deemed it acceptable to marry a girl off as soon as she is born, and hand her over to her rapist when she turns 9 years old or bleeds.

While most Muslims are anti pedophilia, the Islamic sources and clerics are not. It is a huge problem where I'm from.

Okay but the answer to the main question in that comment is no, these are not the same people and it's not easy to tell unless they explicitly say so

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Nowhere did I say "All muslims are OK with marrying girls at 10 years of age". In Western culture, not everybody wants to have a heterosexual relationship, a Christian wedding, get a kid(s), a house, a pet, and send the man off to work while the wife stays at home. It is the dominant culture however. Pointing out that it is a thing, isn't judgement on every single person in every single Western country worldwide.

I was pointing out hypocrisy. No need to get your panties in a bunch because in this case it involved somebody who you consider not to be in power. They are human, they can be hypocrites too. Doesn't matter if they're a minority in their country.

Yep, errr, I didn't mean that you said that, but I think the person whom I originally responded to did. Thought that was clear from my comment. I also don't think it's fair to be judging Muslims by the teachings that are controversial among them and the rest of the world is unfair and it draws stereotypes as conclusion, potentially leading to more harm.

In Muslim countries, by the standards of the majortiy of Muslims, people don't think Mohammed married a 9 year old or don't think about it or simply believe the version that says she was 18 anyway, and almost no one would support laws that make the lives of pedophiles easier, the AVERAGE Muslim is horrified at anything involving sexually assaulting a minor. Islam is an umbrella term for a lot of things, but if we are going to judge Islam by how the followers interpret it (rather than the clericsd) to better understand their position and effect on this on society, the landscape changes. There are so many problematic aspects about Islam and Muslims but it doesn't help to misrepresent them. If we really want to win this dumb culture war or religious war or identity war or whatever it is and help others, we need to do better.

Ah, I'm on kbin. For some reason, I don't see you were responding to somebody else. Guess some context was lost.

For reference, someone said this:

Several Islamic groups have also condemned the program in a joint statement, fearing it will favor “hypersexualization” of children.

Aren't these the same people that think marrying girls at 10 years of age is fine?

My argument is, no you can't assume that. I am not disagreeing that Islam has pedophilia in its teaching, just that these are probably mostly either mosque imams or parents that are not particularly smart with parenting and don't feel like kids should be "exposed" to sex ed (I am not defending them, just saying that they are probably not the select few Muslims who defend pedophilia and marry off their children). Yes, Islamic parenting has some issue with sex ed that needs to be addressed; these are misinformed parents but could easily also be stubborn stupid parents who let tradition and religion dictate their lives.

However, making that comparison doesn't help anyone nor enable anyone to understand the situation better.

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Classic peaceful religions

If you believe in eternal torture or happiness after death, basically anything is justifiable here on Earth to bring someone to your side or prevent them from "falling" to something that would land them in the bad place. In fact it's not just justifiable but a moral imperative if you believe you can save someone an infinite amount of suffering even if you cause temporary suffering now.

If someone believes in a god that implements eternal torture, they believe in a god everyone should despise, and should at least be honest about that part. Don't call it love, call it fear and terror.

The idea of a life after death where an idyllic eternal life can be simply purchased with belief demeans and devalues this life. You will never convince me that someone believing such things would be more moral and ethical than someone who believes that this life is all we get. I would argue that such belief is a cornerstone to a lack of ethics and morals because it implies nothing in this life really matters.

The whole known world is reduced to being a glorified sorting hat.

If the only reason you don’t harm others is so that you’ll get a place in paradise, you are not a moral or ethical person, you are a an egotistical hypocrite and a fake “good person”. Non-religious people who don’t harm others simply because they respect them and just don’t want to harm them, are the truly moral ones.

It doesn't imply that nothing in this life really matters. It implies that belief and living a life following the moral code outlined in the respective book and interpreted by the respective religious authorities is really important. That's the whole ruse and why religion like this works tremendously in achieving its goals.

The violence isn't caused by the hell belief; it's institutionalized by the hell belief. Abusive, violent, hellfire religion is an institutionalization of the habits of abusive, violent parents. Get rid of the actual physical child abuse, and the violent doctrine has nothing to sustain itself.

Hell is just a metaphor for how terrible it is when your parent screams at you and beats you. To a small child, while that's happening, it is eternal. You are wholly condemned, wholly guilty and judged, and no part of you is safe from pain and punishment. The doctrine of hell is religion telling you that's normal.

Without hell religion, kids who are beaten by their parents might grow up to beat their own kids. Or they might get over it. Or they might not have kids at all.

But under what circumstances do you get generations of kids getting beaten, growing up, having kids, and beating those kids too?

That's where hell religion comes in. It tells you that the beating isn't just your parents being terrible people; it's an explicit command from God, who created the whole universe. It's not just your parents, it's how the whole world is supposed to be. And you're supposed to grow up and do it too.

Hell religion tells you that it's wrong to recover from the abuse that was done to you. Stay traumatized; stay violent; put on the character armor of God and raise the rod to your own child so that they stay on the same shite-and-narrow path that you were put on.

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Anyone burning down schools to "protect the children" should take a very hard look at themselves. I hope they catch the people responsible quickly.

I do fear that this will cause some more islamophobia here (and we already have plenty). The problem isn't religion per se, it's misinformation. People believe that this program would cause teachers to teach kids how to masturbate, which is obviously ridiculous.

Unfortunately, fake news is more common in certain groups. One of those groups is muslims. It's the same reason why vaccination rates are much lower among them.

It's a problem that runs very deeply and is a consequence of a failed integration approach.

The problem isn't religii per se

Eeehh, religions (and cultural practices based on stone age values) are a HUGE part of the problem, though, if not all of it.

You don't see progressives and atheists burning down schools. That is exclusively for the religious and the backwards.

Meanwhile these are the same people that are okay with a 40 year old man marrying a 10 year old child. I'm sorry, if I'm an Islamophobe for saying that's a problem, then I'll happily be an Islamophobe. We no longer live in the 1500's, so stop acting as if we are. You disagree, you talk. You don't cut off heads or burn down schools.

Yes, I'm quite anti religions, but islam is the worst.

And on teaching masturbation... everybody thinking that a teacher would be jacking it in from of children should think again. You can safely tell children that it's okay and normal to touch yourself (in appropriate moments) as you would touch others, and that you don't need to be ashamed of that.

Yeah and a large cause of the integration failure is religion. If the culprits are extremist Muslims, they absolutely won't "take a hard look at themselves". They hate secular education.

De Croo spoke just hours after a sixth school in the French-speaking Wallonia region was torched this week.

Sixth burnt school this week! Holy shit.

Since I didn't immediately understand what this is about: "EVRAS" stands for "Relational, Emotional and Sexual Education" and it is a general guide for schools on how to educate school children on this matter. How many hours are advised, which topics should be talked about, etc. For example the UNESCO and the WHO research and work on EVRAS programs. But each school implements it differently, it's just a framework.

This is a summary on topics which are mentioned in the program. So it's basically a help for teachers on how to talk about that stuff:

  • Promoting the respect between boys and girls, women and men ;

  • Offering the possibility to anyone to make informed choices and to act by respecting oneself and others ;

  • Preparing pupils to physiologic, psychologic and social changes linked to puberty ;

  • Offering the possibility to everyone to get necessary aptitudes to face every aspects of sexuality and romantic relationships ;

  • Promoting the capacity of everyone to communicate on sexuality, emotions, relations and to acquire necessary vocabulary to be able to communicate it properly

Sources (hard to find because everyone's talking about the arsons...):

https://national-policies.eacea.ec.europa.eu/youthwiki/chapters/belgium-french-community/74-healthy-lifestyles-and-healthy-nutrition

https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/6958

They have great objectives. Hopefully they are pursuing them in a safe/sane manner.

What would you think of as an unsafe manner?

I can think of many things that could be argued as fitting in those categories that are happening in some countries that are unsafe. for example having books in schools that are already categorized as not suitable for children. you can find may youtube videos of parents trying to quote some of this books to the school boards and the school board usually shuts them up for indicency. so i don't think that content that the school board is not comfortable with and think it's indicent as safe. but you can frame it under 'Promoting the capacity of everyone to communicate on sexuality, emotions, relations and to acquire necessary vocabulary to be able to communicate it properly'.

"Previously categorised as unsuitable to children" and "offends some school board members" aren't useful metrics.

please share what would qualify as useful metrics .

Something that contains information rather than just referring vaguely to what other people thought about it.

Your last comment was a long paragraph with 0 actual information about what you consider unsafe.

can you be more specific? i shared information. its not safe to expose kids to pornographic novels, doesn't matter if it's lgbtq or not.

edit; to ellaborate and be as specific as possible, it's not ok to have 10 year olds reading oral sex instructions and telling them that it's not only ok but that it's good to do it? so it seems unsafe to me to encourage a 10 year old to give blow jobs.

Your edit is what I was looking for, specifics about what is and isn't safe according to you. And for that specific one, I think that's reasonable.

Though I don't see even improved sex ed as ever teaching the specifics about how to do various sexual acts. It would be more of a dos and don'ts list. Like don't reuse toys without cleaning them, be aware that sexual fluids have enough volume to sustain bacterial and fungal life, so you should always clean your toys after use. Or if you're rubbing your skin raw, use some lubrication. Or that it's normal for there to be a bit of pain the first time, but if it keeps up like that, you might have a medical issue that a doctor can help with. Or how to tell the difference between normal discharge and abnormal discharge that should be checked by a doctor. Or symptoms of early pregnancy and how tests work.

I really hope you are right. they should also do it when it's really relevant to their experience/hormonal development, and I know some people develop earlier than others so it should be on the younger end of the time window.

Sounds like some adults need to be taught the program, too.

United States will be sending a cease and desist letter. Our playbook is copyright protected.