Transcript

HAMIDAH SIDDIQUA

Today’s topic is Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang, China. So instead of putting their images of them being persecuted, I thought, let’s humanise these people. They do have a history, they do have a culture. Cultural genocide is the idea that you don’t have the intention of killing off the entire group.

What you want to do instead is wipe out their cultural or religious identity completely and make them adopt the whatever identity that you prefer them to have. Personally, what it was like when I was at school and the issues that happened and affected students like myself who came from ethnic minority backgrounds but were generally ignored you end up feeling quite invisible.

And so when I became a teacher, I wanted to do something where I don’t just stick to the curriculum, but we talk about things that concerns our students where they feel heard and where they feel seen. And for me, I feel satisfied when I know that I’ve done things like this. When students at the end say, thank you for doing this, Ms. I was able to share my opinions, share my thoughts, and I feel more empowered doing something like this.

So first of all, what does that word mean, genocide? What does it mean? Random.

PUPIL 1

Mass killings of groups of people.

HAMIDAH SIDDIQUA

Mass killings of groups of people. What’s the aim?

PUPIL 1

To just wipe them all out.

HAMIDAH SIDDIQUA

Wipe them all out. Can anyone give me an example of groups that have been victims of genocide?

PUPIL 2

The Europeans went to America and killed many of them to make America and make a new country for themselves.

PUPIL 3

The Jewish genocide.

HAMIDAH SIDDIQUA

They got the Jewish genocide. The Nazis genocide of the Jewish people in Europe.

PUPIL 4

There was a mass killing of Muslims in Bosnia by the Serbians.

HAMIDAH SIDDIQUA

Very good. That’s another good example. The policy of the school is that we’re openly antiracist and initiatives have been taken to explore what it actually means, not just say we’re an antiracist school and just have a wishy-washy statement about that, but actually practically, what does that actually mean. And the fact that from a leadership perspective they have encouraged our headteacher, Sarah Beagley, she’s encourage teachers to first of all explore the issues that concern us and then encourage that teachers to explore those issues with students.

How many of you would say you’ve learned something you didn’t know before about this?

SARAH BEAGLEY

What I wanted to say is, well, first of all, how remarkable you are and that the hope is in this generation. And I was recalling a quote from Martin Luther King who said, ‘An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ For me, every single one of us has a power and that power is we can commit to live our lives in peaceful ways.

We can commit to make sure that the people who we surround ourselves with, we are part of their journey, that we can be educators, we can make change, and change happens right here. It happens with the relationships that we form with each other. So never think that you are powerless, we are all stronger and more powerful than we know.

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