Left-wing media types risk playing the Trojan Horse extremists’ game

The imagery could not be clearer. A schoolgirl looks startled. A white hand grabs at her jumper. Another pulls at her hijab. Well integrated – she wears pink nail varnish – and hard working – she clutches her exercise book – she is none the less under attack by a powerful, white adversary.

This photograph, published by the Guardian and the BBC, and used to market a play shown this week at the Edinburgh Festival, conveys exactly the message the writers of Trojan Horse want. The Trojan Horse affair, they suggest, was no plot by hardline Muslims to convert secular state schools into austere Islamic faith schools, but a government campaign, motivated by “institutionalised racism”, that “demonised” Birmingham’s Muslim community.

This is a fiction, and a fiction that has been contradicted by multiple investigations.

At Park View school loudspeakers broadcast the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, while children who did not participate in Friday prayers had “pressure” put on them to attend. One member of staff used a “microphone from a high window” to “shout at students” who did not pray. Worksheets told pupils that if a woman refuses sex with her husband, she will be struck down by the Angel Gabriel and condemned to hell for eternity.

It was alleged that, at one school, Anwar al-Awlaki, the Al-Qaeda terrorist, was praised in assembly. Shady al-Suleiman, described by one official report as “a preacher known for his extremist views”, was invited to address students at Park View. Children were allegedly told by one school’s acting principal that “white teachers do not have your best interests at heart because they’re non-believers.” At a primary school, children were warned about the dangers of “white prostitutes”.