Then we wonder why Pakistan is such a shaky ally. "In Pakistan's Public Schools, Jihad Still Part of Lesson Plan: The Muslim nation's public school texts still promote hatred and jihad, reformers say," from the LA Times, with thanks to Joseph:
LAHORE, Pakistan — Each year, thousands of Pakistani children learn from history books that Jews are tightfisted moneylenders and Christians vengeful conquerors. One textbook tells kids they should be willing to die as martyrs for Islam.They aren't being indoctrinated by extremist mullahs in madrasas, the private Islamic seminaries often blamed for stoking militancy in Pakistan. They are pupils in public schools learning from textbooks approved by the administration of President Pervez Musharraf.
Since joining the U.S. as an ally in its "war on terror" four years ago, Musharraf has urged Pakistanis to shun radical Islam and pursue "enlightened moderation."
Musharraf and U.S. officials say education reforms are crucial to defeating extremism in Pakistan, the only Islamic nation armed with nuclear weapons. Yet reformers who study the country's education system say public school lessons still promote hatred against non-Muslims and urge jihad, or holy war....
The current social studies curriculum guidelines for grades 6 and 7 instruct textbook writers and teachers to "develop aspiration for jihad" and "develop a sense of respect for the struggle of [the] Muslim population for achieving independence."
In North-West Frontier Province, which is governed by supporters of the ousted Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan, the federally approved Islamic studies textbook for eighth grade teaches students they must be prepared "to sacrifice every precious thing, including life, for jihad."
"At present, jihad is continuing in different parts of the world," the chapter continues. "Numerous mujahedin [holy warriors] of Islam are involved in defending their religion, and independence, and to help their oppressed brothers across the world."
The textbook for adolescent students says Muslims are allowed to "take up arms" and wage jihad in self-defense or if they are prevented from practicing their religion.
"When God's people are forced to become slaves of man-made laws, they are hindered from practicing the religion of their God," the textbook says. "When all the legal ways in this regard are closed, then power should be used to eliminate the evil.
"If Muslims are being oppressed," the book says, "then jihad is necessary to free them from this cruel oppression."...
"Some people coming from the regular school system are volunteering for various kinds of jihad, which is not jihad in classical Islamic theory, but actually terrorism in the modern concept," said Husain Haqqani, a Pakistani author and professor of international relations at Boston University.
I respect Haqqani a great deal. I'd be interested to know how he distinguishes, and how he proposes to teach jihadists to distinguish, between "jihad in classical Islamic theory" and "terrorism in the modern concept."
"All of that shows that somehow the schooling system has fed intolerance and bigotry."...Punjab state's seventh-grade social studies textbook, published in January, begins with a full-page message from Musharraf urging students to focus on modern disciplines such as information technology and computers.
"It is a historical fact that the Muslims ruled the world for hundreds of years," Musharraf writes. He acknowledges that in the past, Pakistan's school curriculum "was not in concert with the requirements of modern times." But he assures students that "textbooks have been developed, revised and updated accordingly."
The changes, if any, are hard to spot. Disparaging references to Christians, Jews and Hindus from previous editions are carried over into the new text.
"Before Islam, people lived in untold misery all over the world," the textbook says. "Some Jewish tribes also lived in Arabia. They lent money to workers and peasants on high rates of interest and usurped their earnings. They held the whole society in their tight grip because of the ever increasing compound interest.
"In short, there was no sympathy for humanity," the passage continues.
"People were selfish and cruel. The rich lived in luxury and nobody bothered about the needy or those in sufferings."
A section on the Crusades teaches that Europe's Christian rulers attacked Muslims in the Holy Land out of revenge even though "history has no parallel to the extremely kind treatment of the Christians by the Muslims."
"Some of the Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem fabricated many false stories of suffering," the passage continues. "If they were robbed on the way, they said it were the Muslims who robbed them."
Christians eventually realized they were inferior to Muslims, the chapter concludes.
Combined with lessons on armed jihad, such a view of history helps make young Pakistanis ripe for manipulation by Islamic militants, who have given jihad "a demonic meaning" here, said Saigol, the education expert.
"The word is so much more associated with violence, killing, death and blood," she said, "that I think it's difficult to reclaim it, as the modernists are trying to do, and turn it into a war against one's inner self."
Indeed.
Good thing Musharraf is sending home all those foreign-born students.
Meaning, of course, fat lot of good it'll do with all the home-grown kids imbibing their jihad lessons.
explain the difference between "sending home" and "dispersing to the 4 corners of the world"
anyone?
The Islamic world needs an Enlightenment, similar to what happened in the Western world in the 18th Century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
It has already had a Reformation (a return to the original tenets of the faith); it is known as Wahhabism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism
The Enlightenment only happened because of journalists, writers and scholars who created a mass movement based on powerful ideas. Although, many of the spokespersons of Enlightenment ideas were imprisoned or killed, the ideas made it to the ordinary people, created a mass movement and changed the world. This situation will never happen in Islam because Islamic families and societies are the ultimate fear societies. All attempts to question Islam are instantly squashed. This situation has been true throughout Islamic history. The one attempt to bring an enlightened point of view to Islam was under the Mutazalites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%27tazili
This theological strain was wiped out ... literally (i.e. very few surviving books from this period).
Nothing will change in Islamic societies as long as education and the dissemination of knowledge is controlled by the religious clerical elite.
The Enlightenment in Europe involved separating Church and State and that meant that the clergy no longer controlled education nor the arms of state control.
For a concrete example of this, ponder this fact: the last person to executed for blasphemy in Scotland was Thomas Aikenhead on January 8, 1697. As Arthur Herman describes the situation in Scotland at that time:
p. 9, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, by Arthur Herman
The point is the Scotland Herman describes was swept away by the Scottish Enlightenment. I do not think the same thing is possible in Islam for the factors that I mention above.
Mentat:
I certainly agree about the need for Islam to undergo an enlightenment, but point out that 18th century enlightenment notwithstanding, we still saw two world wars in the 20th century in which the Muslims played, at best, a supporting role to a fascist ideology that had taken deep root in non-Islamic Europe and Japan. And then there is the depravity that attended what was intended to be an egalitarian economic ideology.
The common thread to all of these human tragedies was that they were all "utopian" totalitarian ideologies.
I also note the "unholy" alliance between the secular left and the decidely unsecular Islamists
My point, if I'm making it poorly, is that we really need to understand that this disease has been with us for a long time and it keeps mutating. Today, Islamism is its most virulent form. But will it be the last?
Waterdragon52:
As David Horowitz of Frontpagemag.com points out, people seem constantly compelled to "redeem" the world, to create utopias and "new" human beings who are "better" in their opinion than the current version. That desire, as you point out, will never end and we must be constantly on guard against these utopian influences, which, as you point out, end in totalitarianism as they seek to force everyone to be "good". That is why any political movement, right, left, center, religious, secular, etc. that uses violence rather than persuasion to achieve its goals must be resisted with all the force people can muster as, you can rest assured, if such a movement takes power then they will quickly be forcing everyone to be "good", whatever "good" happens to me to them.
To return to Horowitz, he says that the world cannot be redeemed because it is constantly being remade by the 6 billion individuals on the planet. The idea that one group should find out what is the "good life" and impose it on the rest of us is a logical fallacy and an practical impossibility except with a perfect totalitarian structure (maybe its achievable now, LOL!).
Margaret Atwood, in her novel, Oryx and Crake, imagines an even worse scenario, where a genetic engineer who wishes to make a "better" human being, genetically engineers same in his opinion and then wipes out the rest of us with a lethal virus so his new and improved human being can take over the world. Fun stuff, eh?
I must say Waterdragon52 that you are very astute.
Nice. So Pakistan still teaches that Jews are tight-fisted money-grubbers, and that Christians are...let me scan above..."vengeful conquerors" who eventually realized they were "inferior" to Muslims (not to islam, but to Muslims, I see, I see; well, no racism THERE, anyway, right? /sarc off).
Also, Islam "ruled the world". Ok, sure, sure. It must have been those time-travelling Muslim sailors that found the New World first. Clever, they were. Not clever or devious enough to be the Mossad, sure. I mean, no one's THAT devious or clever, right? /sarc off again
Well he's partially right in one respect: history has few parallels to how islam has treated Christians, or Hindus, or anyone else for that matter.
Imam Geoff
Boy its just the tip of the iceberg... Paki textbooks are downright hilarious.... check this link: Pakistan Facts
For Pakis world is upside down... they say they didnt loose the wars wit India, they say tat they actually won! It was only Indias dimplomatic machine which tranformed it into win wit lies!, take for eg:In standard narrations of the 65 War manufactured for students and the general public, there is no mention of Operation Gibraltar, even thirty years after the event. In fact, many university level history professors have never heard of Operation Gibraltar and the repercussions of that ill-planned military adventurism, which resulted in India?s attack on Lahore... check this link: Pakistan Facts
NOTE: This article has been written by a westerner NOT by an Indian or a person of Indian origin
For those ppl who're too lazy to read the whole stuff here are a few nitpicks:
In a recent newspaper article published in The News, a commander of the Pakistani based muhajideen told the reporter that their plan was first to take "Kargil, then Srinagar, then march victorious into Delhi."
The Islamic state, of course, discriminates between Muslim citizens and religious minorities and preserves their separate entity. Islam does not conceal the realities in the guise of artificialities or hypocrisy. By recognizing their distinct entity, Islamic state affords better protection to its religious minorities. (Somebdy shoot me in foot! i cant stop laughing) Despite the fact that the role of certain religious minorities, especially the Hindus in East Pakistan, had not been praiseworthy, Pakistan ensured full protection to their rights under the Constitution. Rather the Hindu Community enjoyed privileged position in East Pakistan by virtue of is effective control over the economy and the media. It is to be noted that the Hindu representatives in the 1st Constituent Assembly of Pakistan employed delaying tactics in Constitution-making."
"network ofconspiracies and intrigues" which are threatening the "Muslim world in the guise of elimination of militancy and fundamentalism." In this treatment Pakistan takes credit for the fall of the Soviet Union (omg)
During the 71 War, the newspapers in Pakistan told nothing of the violence of the military crack down nor did they keep the people informed of the deteriorating strategic situation. The role of the Mukti Bahini was practically unknown in Pakistan, and when defeat finally came, it came as a devastating and unexpected shock that could only be explained by Indira Gandhi?s lies and treacher
Many of the observations made during and after the Kargil situation, such as the complete inadequacy of Pakistani international diplomacy, are interestingly also cited in Pakistan Studies textbooks regarding India?s perceived manipulation of world opinion during the 71 war and Pakistan?s inability to counter it.
Pakistani textbooks are particularly prone to a historical narrative manipulated by omission. According to Avril Powell, professor of history at the University of London, "The ?recasting? of Pakistani history [has been] used to ?endow the nation with a historic destiny.?"
That this claim is spurious as can be seen in the recent book by Allen McGrath, published by OUP, The Destruction of Democracy in Pakistan, in which the author, a lawyer, analyzes the efforts at constitution making in the first decade after independence before Iskandar Mizra dissolved the National Assembly. In the McGrath book the productive role D.N. Dutt played in constitution making is mentioned. Yet, in Pakistan Studies textbooks, the anti-Hindu point of view and the vilification of the Hindu community of East Pakistan are the standard orientation.
beginning with the Bhutto years and accelerating under the Islamized tutelage of General Zia-ul Haq, not only has the history of the subcontinent been discarded, but it has been vilified and mocked and transformed into the evil other, a measure of what Pakistan is not. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto?s influence on the textbooks was profound?he was furious at India, whom he blamed for the break-up of the country. Though ironically, his mother was a Hindu, a natch-girl (dancer) who had converted to Islam in order to marry his wealthy father, Bhutto vehemently launched an anti-Indian campaign with vituperative anti-Hindu rhetoric. This legacy of his orchestrated hatred is still the basis of Pakistani historical narratives where Gandhi is now usually referred to as a "conniving bania."
all nations write nationalist histories, but an observation that historical discourse in Pakistan is dominated by negative images of India and Hinduism. In general, the majority of books in the field of the social sciences written in Pakistan have lacked theoretical basis and are short on angst and verve, though perhaps books by ex-pats, such as Mustfa Pasha are usually more circumspect. As Dr. Rahat in Karachi joked, "In Pakistan, social scientists are more social than scientific!" However, since 1997, there have been several books written about the Bangladesh experience, such as the recent book by Ahmad Saleem, Blood Beaten Track, which does not lay the blame squarely in Indira Gandhi?s lap, for conspiring to "Sink the Two Nation theory in the Bay of Bengal".
In this book by Ahmed, much of the discussion centers on communalism in India. He refers to books by Veena Das, Asghar Ali Engineer, Sarvepalli Gopal, Kumari Jayawardena, T.N. Madan, Ashish Nandy, Khushwant Singh, etc. He uses these Indian authors? work to prove his points about the sufferings of minorities in India, couched in the usual anti-Indian/Pakistani-centric rhetoric. He never pauses to question why there are so many open and frank books about the plight of minorities in India and there are very few such books about the problems faced by minorities in Pakistan. He doesn?t mention the bishop who blew his brains out on the city hall steps to protest continuing officially sanctioned harassment of the Christian community in Pakistan and the death sentence metted out to an adolescent from the Christian community for his alleged blasphemy. Akbar S. Ahmed fails to mention that Hindus and other minorities are delegated to second class citizens through their prejudicial voting system and blasphemy laws. Or that women are also second class citizens living under the burden of Hudood laws. He can not see the problems in his own nation, for he is too busy looking for problems in India.
contradictions found in this same Pakistani Studies book. On page 63 is the statement that "the enforcement of Islamic principles . . . does not approve dictatorship or the rule of man over man." Compared with the reality unfolding a few paragraphs later when the student is told that,
"General Muhammad Ayub Khan captured power and abrogated the constitution of 1956 [. . . .] dissolved the assemblies and ran the affairs of the country under Martial Law without any constitution. "Since nearly half of this textbook is dedicated to chapters with such titles as Islamization Under Zia, Hindrances to Islamization, and Complete Islamization is Our Goal, the other themes and events in the history and culture of Pakistan are judged vis-a-vis their relationship and support of complete Islamization. Within this rhetoric are found dire warnings that Islam should be applied severely so that it can guard against degenerate Western influences
Tat article is one which is not to b missed
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Dharma Rukshuk: Defenders of The Eternal Faith
Thanks, Mentat. Credit, if any, for my astuteness goes to Paul Berman (Terrorism and Liberalism) for his observation of the common thread between the ostensibly utopian totalitarian ideologies, whether sectarian or atheistic, that are also nihilistic. I have yet to finish reading this book, which was written not long after 9/11, but attended a lecture he gave in Toronto last winter.
Any ideology that tells its followers that any means justifies the ends is obviously flawed. If it was universally good and benevolent, the vast majority would willingly tolerate it if not embrace it.
Could be why Bashir got a reduction,to prepare for an influx of would be Jihadis
Yup, Waterdragon52, that just about sums it up.
And, Islam, as we know, is the ultimate religion as far as saying the end justifies any means. If I may quote from Robert Spencer on his own website:
"Good became identified with anything that redounded to the benefit of the Muslims, regardless of whether it violated moral or other laws. The moral absolutes enshrined in the Ten Commandments, and other teachings of the great religions that preceded Islam, were swept aside in favor of an overarching principle of expediency."
p. 7, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), by Robert Spencer
Waterdragon52:
As I am ever curious, I quickly googled Paul Berman and came up with this great little essay of his on the web. Enjoy!
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/wi04/berman.htm
Hey you lefties, check out this book by Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism, which skewers your Gods, Noam Chomsky, et al.:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393057755/104-3130333-0995956?v=glance
Review:
"Berman puts his leftist credentials (he's a member of the editorial board of Dissent) on the line by critiquing the left while presenting a liberal rationale for the war on terror, joining a discourse that has been dominated by conservatives. The most original aspect of his analysis is to categorize Islamism as a totalitarian reaction against Western liberalism in a class with Nazism and communism; drawing on the ideas of Camus in The Rebel, Berman delineates how all three movements descended from utopian visions (in the case of Islamism, the restoration of a pure seventh-century Islam) into irrational cults of death. He illustrates this progression through a nuanced analysis of the writings of a leading Islamist thinker, Sayyid Qutb, ending with some chilling quotations from other Islamists, e.g., "History does not write its lines except with blood," the blood being that of Islam's martyrs (such as suicide bombers) as well as of their enemies, Zionists and Crusaders (i.e., Jews and Christians). Berman then launches into his most provocative chapter, and the one he will probably be most criticized for in politically correct journals: a scathing attack on leftist intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky, who have applauded terrorism and tried to explain it as a rational response to oppression. Berman exhorts readers to accept that, on the contrary, Islamism is a "pathological mass political movement" that is "drunk on the idea of slaughter." A former MacArthur fellow and a contributing editor to the New Republic, Berman offers an argument that will be welcomed by disaffected progressives looking for a new analysis of today's world.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc."
Here are some more interesting articles on this subject:
THINKING ALOUD: Good Muslim, bad Muslim, not Muslim —Razi Azmi
Excerpt:
It is an irony that those who conceived and wrote the books now disown the products of their teachings as ‘bad Muslims’ or ‘not Muslims’. Whether they do so sincerely or out of political expediency is a moot point. It seems that some pupils who learn their lessons too well may become an embarrassment for their masters!
Textbook case of radicalism- Wilson John
Excerpt:
However, it would be unfair to blame the radicals alone. The Federal Education Ministry's own directives are no less fundamentalist. A directive issued by the Ministry in 1995 for Class V textbooks read: "In the teaching material no concept of separation between the worldly and the religious be given; rather, all the material be presented from the Islamic point of view."
In an editorial, the liberal Daily Times (published from Pakistan), explained the implications of such an order: "The general directive implies that Pakistan is for Muslims alone; that Islamiyat is to be forcibly taught to all students, whatever their faith, including compulsory reading of the Quran; that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith, and hate be created against the Hindus of India; and students be urged to take the path of jihad and shahadat." In 2002, the National Early Childhood Education in a new directive said Islamic identity and pride in being a Pakistani should be nurtured in children: "To make the Quranic principles an integral part of curricula...to train the future generations of Pakistan as true practicing Muslims who would be able to usher in the 21st century and the next millennium with courage, wisdom and tolerance."
History’s warriors by Husain Haqqani
Excerpts:
Although General Musharraf has reacted to the brainwashing of his would-be assassins, he has given no indication that he understands how this brainwashing is a product of the lack of free discourse in Pakistan. Not long ago, General Muhammad Aziz Khan, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee said in a widely reported speech that Muslims have never been defeated in history except through the treachery of some within their own ranks.
This historically incorrect account matches the version of events in Pakistani textbooks, which convince junior school students that the British defeat of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula of Bengal in the battle of Plassey in 1757 was made possible only by the defection of another Muslim Nawab, Mir Jaffer of Murshidabad. That the British might have had superior armaments and that Jaffer’s decision to support the British might have been the result of their military superiority rather than the other way round is not held out as an option.
Ironically, the British Indian army that defeated Siraj-ud-Daula’s forces was the predecessor to the professional army that Pakistan inherited from British Raj at the time of independence in 1947. But the military’s role as Pakistan’s institution of last resort has necessitated a certain image building of the Pakistan army. Although military regiments routinely trace their origins to British times, Pakistani people are told to support the army as soldiers of Islam and not as a professional force.
From the battle of Plassey to the surrender of Pakistani troops at the end of the 1971 war, none of the major events in the history of Muslim India is openly discussed for fear that it would somehow jeopardise a fragile national identity. Brigadier A R Siddiqi, a well known columnist and former head of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has documented the military’s image building exercise in his book The Military in Pakistan: Image and Reality. Among other things, the book recalls the efforts at intellectual regimentation undertaken by the Bureau of National Reconstruction (BNR) created by Pakistan’s first military ruler, Field Marshal Ayub Khan. The BNR, writes Brigadier Siddiqi, was ‘‘a most skillfully designed instrument of brainwashing through a combination of public relations and intelligence’’.
As a result of the establishment’s brainwashing, every defeat in South Asian Muslim history is blamed on external factors, not on bad strategy. Take the widespread anti-Americanism as an example. Most Pakistanis believe that the US let Pakistan down by not fulfilling its commitments under the bilateral defence treaty of 1954. The feeling can be traced to the 1965 war with India, when the US suspended supplies of weapons to both belligerents instead of coming to Pakistan’s assistance. But the historic record, now available in the form of declassified papers (some of them edited by Roedad Khan in the book The American Papers), shows that the US had objected to the use of American supplied military equipment during the Rann of Kutch war in April 1965. If the US was unwilling to let its equipment be used against India in April, it was unrealistic on the part of Pakistan’s generals to expect American support when they embarked on the adventure in Kashmir in August 1965. But instead of facing the realities of international relations, the Pakistani establishment continues to fuel anti-Americanism.
History is not the only sphere in Pakistan where genuine information has been replaced with tendentious accounts. Pakistani public opinion is routinely mobilised on false expectations in relation to Afghanistan and Kashmir. Conspiracy theories demonising Hindus and Jews are widespread even after General Musharraf has publicly announced his desire for good relations with India and for the possible recognition of Israel.
Some of General Musharraf’s closest aides have privately expressed the view that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 could not have been the handiwork of Al-Qaeda and may have been undertaken by the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. General Musharraf still periodically claims that there was nothing wrong with Pakistan’s past support for the Taliban. Pakistan’s disenfranchised people are fed a regular diet of slogans, rhetoric and fantasy. General Musharraf’s recent ultra-nationalist statement that the Commonwealth should be proud to have Pakistan as its member is one recent example.
Pakistan cannot become a modern, functional state until its culture of rhetoric and brainwashing is replaced by genuine pluralism. Pakistan’s establishment brainwashes its people in an effort to foster a top-down religious nationalism, arrogates to itself the right of defining Pakistani identity and national interest, and describes its critics as foreign agents. In such an environment, why is it surprised if some extremists go a step further and consider some of the establishment’s top guns as ideologically impure?
A vision for revision (History as taught in Pakistan) by S Gopikrishna
Excerpts:
Well, you now know how Pakistani history works with respect to all periods, ancient, mediaeval or modern. It is a myth-maker's paradise. Revisionism and exaggeration are so commonplace that is difficult to find a book which desists from indulging in the practice. From the humblest to the highest, Pakistani historians possess a collective vision for revision. Indeed revision, as attempted in Indian history books, looks like a languishing molehill when compared to the mighty Pakistani mountain of tall tales.
Our educators and journalists have ignored the Pakistani forest in the process of identifying Indian trees (or should I say, herbs and shrubs) in their search for historical revision. They scream, rave and rant about the way history is being "engineered and manufactured" by the Government of India. Yet, you hear not a whimper or a whisper about revision in Pakistan, a process that has reached its zenith under the watchful and nurturing glances of a half a dozen regimes, starting from Marshal Ayub Khan onwards.
Noor's cure: A contrast in views by Arindam Bannerjee
Excerpts:
A few days ago, a Bengali friend of mine sent me excerpts from the Nayyar report -- a scathing analysis of the state of Pakistan's government approved text-books. I had not paid much attention to it, but it now started to provide much of the explanations, for this difference that I was beginning to see. Perhaps, the conclusions of the report are most enlightening:
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of the three compulsory subjects.
1. that Pakistan is for Muslims alone;
2. that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of Qur'an;
3. that Ideology of Pakistan is to be internalized as faith, and hate be created against Hindus and India;
4. and students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.'
This, as we learn is not the analysis of the medieval madrassas that dot the Pakistani countryside, but rather the goals of approved school text by a body, quite akin to our own NCERT. Key learning objectives for Pakistani children are defined as:
* 'The child should be able to understand Hindu-Muslim differences and the resultant need for Pakistan'
* 'Hindu-Muslim differences in culture – India's evil designs on Pakistan (the three wars with India)'
And naturally, in the texts, you end up with things like 'Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.' The conclusions of the report are quite explicit:
'The subject of hate in Pakistani educational material is Hindu and India, reflecting both the perceived sense of insecurity from an "enemy" country, and an attempt to define one's national identity in relation to the "other." The first serves the military and the second the political Islamists.'
The wonderful nuggets of hatred which get hammered into the brains of little kids, year after year, generation after generation are simply astounding. I know that my left-leaning, anti-Hindutva friends and family will immediately point me to the 'saffronized distortions' in NCERT books, but believe me, they are practically harmless compared to what exists in Pakistani government approved curricula. Feel free to read the report yourself, but here are a few rancid excerpts:
On the killings during Partition
'While Muslims provided all types of help to those wishing to leave Pakistan, the people of India committed cruelties against the Muslims. They were murdered and looted' -- Civics of Pakistan, Intermediate classes
On Hindus in general
* 'Hindus worship in temples which are narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter the temple at a time. In mosques, on the other hand, all Muslims can say their prayers together.'
* 'The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things -- Hindus did not respect women.'
On the great genocide of Bangladeshis where millions were exterminated by a rampaging, rapine Pakistani army: 'The Hindus and Sikhs started a properly planned campaign of exploiting the Muslims in East Pakistan. As a result, Hindu and Sikh enemies of mankind killed and dishonored thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of women, children, old and young with extreme cruelty and heartlessness. In the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the Pakistan armed forces created new records of bravery and the Indian forces were defeated everywhere.'
Now we begin to understand, why the professor from Lahore and the young man from Pakistan differ in their life views from Dr Sharma and Palak. We understand, why we are no longer the same people on either side of the border.
Page 202-203 of K K Aziz (1993), The Murder of History in Pakistan: A critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan, Vanguard Books Pvt Ltd, Lahore (editor: Najam Sethi), in a section [Sridhar, BRF provided quotes] is titled 'Tell Lies,' talking about the delusional indoctrination, says, 'These are not distortions or slants or misconstructions or exaggerations or other venial faults. They are untruths, invented deliberately to deceive, cheat and misguide the students who attend school.'
Perhaps, Aziz's words best describe the differences on the two sides of the border, and why peace is at best, a shimmering chimera: 'In 45 years, the education system has made every Pakistani a hypocrite and a liar. The habit of not telling the truth has entered the mind of the student, the psyche of the individual, and the character of the nation. The textbook has done its duty well. The education of the people is complete.'
I guess now we understand why Pakistanis were busy placing a bomb in an Indian school bus meant to carry children of Bandipora just about the same time as Noor was entering India from Pakistan to get life-saving heart surgery.
Jehad And The Curriculum by Beena Sarwar
Opponents of the report have taken issue with its focus and tried to divert
attention from its findings by questioning the 'agenda' of its authors. But
there is no arguing with the facts and findings it presents in great detail,
including textbook references and their page numbers. Going through the
study, it becomes clear that it is not just some madrassahs that are
spreading hatred, sectarianism and religious bigotry, but also the
prescribed government textbooks.
Those who are opposed to the SDPI study would do well to examine previous such studies that have been undertaken, most notably the historian K.K. Aziz's 'Murder of History' (Vanguard Books, Lahore, 1992). Based on the scrutiny of 66 textbooks used in the schools and colleges of Pakistan by students of classes of 1 to 14, one of the chapters was published as a series of 11 lengthy articles in The Frontier Post, in April and May 1992.
`The cumulative effect of these shoddy textbooks, as summed up by Mr Aziz, is horrifying and stunning. The inbreeding from these repetitive, incoherent and subjective books compulsorily prescribed in all schools and colleges of the country generates hypocrites, blindfolded zealots, fundamentalists, intriguers, time servers and ignoramuses with the highest degrees," wrote
one Professor M. I. Haq in a letter to the editor (The Frontier Post, May 11, 1992)
Mentat:
Thanks for the Berman article link. I came across it in the run-up to last November's presidential elections and shared it with a number of like-minded friends who are of what Chris Hitchens recently referred to as the "pro-regime change left".
While the "pro-regime change left" are most certainly a minority, they are truer to left ideals such as they exist. Here's Hitchens's explanation of principles from the above cited interview, which appears on an on-line magazine, Washington Prism, which seems to be produced by Muslim progressive-types:
"But lets look at the case of Iraq and the left. If you asked someone who has the principles of a 1968 leftist the following question: what is your attitude to a regime that has committed genocide, invaded its neighbors, militarized its society into a police state, that has privatized its economy so it is owned by one family, that has defied the non proliferation treaty in many ways, that sought weapons to commit genocide again and cheated on inspections, that has abolished the existence of a neighboring arab muslim state? What is your view of this as anyone who is a 1968 leftist? For me, I would be appalled if anyone knew me even slightly would not guess my attitude. Iraq should have been taken care of a long time ago. Instead, when I made my view public, I was berated by the left and my view was seen as an insane eccentricity. "
Hitchens, who has publicly skewered Michael Moore, refers to his largeness as a brownshirt.
WD!;
Haven't heard anyone reference "Terror and Liberalism" in a while. I cut my "Islamophobic" teeth on that book. My mother, who grew up in 30's and 40's Germany, put it this way; " only the uniforms are different"
razdan and t-ham: as a child, I was very bookish, and at the time (the sixties) a curious child could still catch, in the odd corners of Italian schools, the echoes of that infamous twenty years that ended in civil war and foreign occupation in 1945. You found them, for instance, in discarded textbooks kept in old wardrobes that no teacher bothered to visit or clean out; or even in surviving distortions in later accounts of history. I did not need anyone to tell me that these Fascist books of fable-history were both false and morally wrong. I hated them from the start; I knew, just from the way they spoke, from their overblown and fraudulent language, that they were packs of lies. But what is clear is that the diseased, nationally flattering, wholly subjective, mendacious, self-loving, lying accounts of what they call history, is the same for the Fascist textbooks designed by Mussolini's educationists to turn all Italians into good little soldiers, as for the Pakistani offal described by razdan. t-ham is right: only the uniforms are different. I have seen them and read them and felt them, and I know. Fascism, after its brief and troubled European spring, has gone home among the believers.
Smaller brains are easier to wash.
And keep small.
A creed which teaches that skepticism is a disease (see: the opening line of the Qu'ran) will be stuck in its 7th century rancor and self-muting madness forever.
Because it will keep killing its only hope out of the cosmic cul de sac. The revisionists. The re-interpreters. And the apostates.
It looks like the potential for an Enlightenment within Islam is about as likely as a paleo-astrophysical examination of the 'Black Stone' in Mecca to determine whether it is really a meteorite or not.
(The Christians, on the other hand, were curious to see if the 'Shroud of Turin' was a forgery or a reality, and let skeptical examiners explore its fabric weave, embedded pollen, and methods of creating its uncanny imagery thoroughly.
http://www.livescience.com/history/050318_reason_turin_shroud.html
The curiosity for real results and not paranoid grandeur are what keeps the West from falling back into the same holy endless headlock as Islam.
To loosely paraphrase Santayana:
Those who cannot laugh at themselves doom others to do it for them.
Paolo & t-ham: I agree that Islam and fascism are essentially the same beast with just different uniforms... which is why I like the term Islamo-fascism. IMHO, the fact that Islam disguises itself in the garb of a religion makes it even more dangerous than plain old fascism because as a religion it engenders blind faith. Anyone who has read Mohideen's posts on JW knows what I'm talking about.
BigSleep: Your term "cosmic cul-de-sac" to describe Islam is apt. I also like your rephrased Santayana quote. So very true!
On the positive side, it is interesting that there are people (albeit a minisicule number) growing within the Islamic faith who, despite the constant indoctrination of Islam that is drum-beat into their impressionable heads from early childhood, still manage to rise above it and question their faith. The article that I linked to in my earlier post by Razi Azmi (Thinking Aloud: Good muslim, bad muslim, not muslim) is an example in point. At least Azmi is raising the right questions of his fellow muslims.
Paolo & t-ham: I agree that Islam and fascism are essentially the same beast with just different uniforms... which is why I like the term Islamo-fascism. IMHO, the fact that Islam disguises itself in the garb of a religion makes it even more dangerous than plain old fascism because as a religion it engenders blind unquestioning faith. Anyone who has read Mohideen's posts on JW knows what I'm talking about.
BigSleep: Your term "cosmic cul-de-sac" to describe Islam is apt. I also like your rephrased Santayana quote. So very true!
On the positive side, it is interesting that there are people (albeit a minisicule number) growing within the Islamic faith who, despite the constant indoctrination of Islam that is drum-beat into their impressionable heads from early childhood, still manage to rise above it and question their faith. The article that I linked to in my earlier post by Razi Azmi (Thinking Aloud: Good muslim, bad muslim, not muslim) is an example in point. At least Azmi is raising the right questions of his fellow muslims.