An Italian school’s move to exempt Muslim kids from being taught Dante’s The Divine Comedy – because he stuck Mohammed in hell – has whipped up a storm over cancel culture. The Telegraph has more.
Politicians from both the Left and Right said that Dante was a pillar of Italian literature and that it was unacceptable for children to be exempted from studying his writing because of their faith.
The row broke out after a secondary school in Treviso in the north of the country reportedly allowed two Muslim children, aged around 14, to not attend classes in which The Divine Comedy was being studied.
Written at the start of the 14th Century, it is an allegorical poem that revolves around a man’s journey to Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, aided by two guides, Virgil and Beatrice.
In the epic work, Dante places the Prophet Mohammed and his cousin Ali in Hell, where they are tortured by sword-wielding demons.
“How is Mohammed mangled! Before me walks Ali weeping, from the chin his face cleft to the forelock,” Dante wrote.
The exemption was criticised by MPs from across the political spectrum. …
Carlo Pasquetto, a member of the centre-Left Azione party, said it was “madness” to view Dante as being offensive to Muslims.
“Dante is the father of humanism, of Italy, of Europe. To decide not to teach him in the name of a false conception of tolerance will create enormous problems of integration in society. This is not tolerance, nor integration, it is the suicide of the West which instead of celebrating plurality is cancelling its own identity.” Dante should be taught to all children in Italy, he said, “regardless of the colour of their skin or the religion of their parents”.
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