Andrew Ferguson - Bloomberg News and Commentary
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
``Even if only a small percentage of the people who are exposed to this take it to heart and act on it,'' said Nina Shea last week, ``that's still a lot of people.''
Indeed it is -- a scarily large number of people, in fact. Shea is the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, the New York-based human rights organization. She was talking about the center's report, issued last week, that brings the bad news about what's being taught in Saudi Arabia's state-sponsored schools -- still.
We've been here before. The Saudi curriculum became a matter of international concern almost five years ago when 15 Saudi nationals joined with four non-Saudis to commit the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001.
Concern and curiosity about the ideology that motivated the hijackers centered for a time on the Saudi educational system. Several studies revealed that the curriculum there was infused with what Westerners have come to call jihadism.
One of those studies was even released in Saudi Arabia itself, in 2003. It concluded that the religious studies curriculum ``encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the `other.'''
The Saudi authorities said they were alarmed by such findings and vowed to take action. Just this month the Saudi foreign minister told reporters, ``The whole system of education is being transformed from top to bottom. Textbooks are only one of the steps that has been taken by Saudi Arabia.''
It turns out the step may not have been taken, at least not to the degree that Saudi authorities led the world to believe. Backed by Freedom House, another U.S.-based human rights group called the Institute for Gulf Affairs, secured copies of religious studies textbooks -- not an easy task, apparently -- that are being used in Saudi schools and in Saudi-supported schools abroad, including in the U.S.
Through the textbooks, the researchers were able to trace an ideological indoctrination from first grade onward. The target of the ideology is the ``unbeliever,'' or anyone who follows ``polytheism'' -- a word encompassing Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and forms of non-approved Islam such as Sufism.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
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Saturday, November 04, 2006
Saudi Textbooks Show Ambivalence
Andrew Ferguson - Bloomberg News and Commentary
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
``Even if only a small percentage of the people who are exposed to this take it to heart and act on it,'' said Nina Shea last week, ``that's still a lot of people.''
Indeed it is -- a scarily large number of people, in fact. Shea is the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, the New York-based human rights organization. She was talking about the center's report, issued last week, that brings the bad news about what's being taught in Saudi Arabia's state-sponsored schools -- still.
We've been here before. The Saudi curriculum became a matter of international concern almost five years ago when 15 Saudi nationals joined with four non-Saudis to commit the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001.
Concern and curiosity about the ideology that motivated the hijackers centered for a time on the Saudi educational system. Several studies revealed that the curriculum there was infused with what Westerners have come to call jihadism.
One of those studies was even released in Saudi Arabia itself, in 2003. It concluded that the religious studies curriculum ``encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the `other.'''
The Saudi authorities said they were alarmed by such findings and vowed to take action. Just this month the Saudi foreign minister told reporters, ``The whole system of education is being transformed from top to bottom. Textbooks are only one of the steps that has been taken by Saudi Arabia.''
It turns out the step may not have been taken, at least not to the degree that Saudi authorities led the world to believe. Backed by Freedom House, another U.S.-based human rights group called the Institute for Gulf Affairs, secured copies of religious studies textbooks -- not an easy task, apparently -- that are being used in Saudi schools and in Saudi-supported schools abroad, including in the U.S.
Through the textbooks, the researchers were able to trace an ideological indoctrination from first grade onward. The target of the ideology is the ``unbeliever,'' or anyone who follows ``polytheism'' -- a word encompassing Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and forms of non-approved Islam such as Sufism.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
``Even if only a small percentage of the people who are exposed to this take it to heart and act on it,'' said Nina Shea last week, ``that's still a lot of people.''
Indeed it is -- a scarily large number of people, in fact. Shea is the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, the New York-based human rights organization. She was talking about the center's report, issued last week, that brings the bad news about what's being taught in Saudi Arabia's state-sponsored schools -- still.
We've been here before. The Saudi curriculum became a matter of international concern almost five years ago when 15 Saudi nationals joined with four non-Saudis to commit the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001.
Concern and curiosity about the ideology that motivated the hijackers centered for a time on the Saudi educational system. Several studies revealed that the curriculum there was infused with what Westerners have come to call jihadism.
One of those studies was even released in Saudi Arabia itself, in 2003. It concluded that the religious studies curriculum ``encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the `other.'''
The Saudi authorities said they were alarmed by such findings and vowed to take action. Just this month the Saudi foreign minister told reporters, ``The whole system of education is being transformed from top to bottom. Textbooks are only one of the steps that has been taken by Saudi Arabia.''
It turns out the step may not have been taken, at least not to the degree that Saudi authorities led the world to believe. Backed by Freedom House, another U.S.-based human rights group called the Institute for Gulf Affairs, secured copies of religious studies textbooks -- not an easy task, apparently -- that are being used in Saudi schools and in Saudi-supported schools abroad, including in the U.S.
Through the textbooks, the researchers were able to trace an ideological indoctrination from first grade onward. The target of the ideology is the ``unbeliever,'' or anyone who follows ``polytheism'' -- a word encompassing Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and forms of non-approved Islam such as Sufism.
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