{"id":133,"date":"2006-05-28T13:04:29","date_gmt":"2006-05-28T13:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alephnaught.wordpress.com\/2006\/05\/28\/dont-be-friends-with-christians-or-jews-saudi-texts-say\/"},"modified":"2006-05-28T13:04:29","modified_gmt":"2006-05-28T13:04:29","slug":"dont-be-friends-with-christians-or-jews-saudi-texts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alephnaught.com\/Blog\/2006\/05\/28\/dont-be-friends-with-christians-or-jews-saudi-texts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Be Friends With Christians or Jews, Saudi Texts Say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Don’t Be Friends With Christians or Jews,
\nSaudi Texts Say<\/b><\/font>
By HASSAN
\nFATTAH<\/font>
May 24,
\n2006<\/font>
Quoted from The New York
\nTimes<\/font><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Don’t Be Friends With Christians or Jews,
\nSaudi Texts Say<\/b><\/font>
By HASSAN
\nFATTAH<\/font>
May 24,
\n2006<\/font>
Quoted from The New York
\nTimes<\/font><\/p>\n

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, May
\n23 ? Despite years of work aimed at changing Saudi Arabia’s public school
\ncurriculum, the country’s latest textbooks continue to promote intolerance of
\nother religions, a new study said
\nTuesday.<\/font><\/p>\n

A first-grade student is
\ntaught that “Every religion other than Islam is false”; the teacher instructed
\nto “Give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism,
\netc.” Fifth graders learn “It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to
\nsomeone who does not believe in God and his prophet, or someone who fights the
\nreligion of Islam.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Those lessons are
\namong numerous examples cited in a controversial new study of Saudi Arabia’s
\nreligious curriculum released Tuesday by the Center for Religious Freedom, part
\nof Freedom House, a nonprofit group in Washington that seeks to encourage
\ndemocracy. Despite official pronouncements that curriculum change is marching
\nahead, intolerance continues to pervade religious education in Saudi public
\nschools, the report says.<\/font><\/p>\n

“It is not
\nhate speech here and there, it is an ideology that runs throughout,” Nina Shea,
\nthe center’s director and principal author of the report, said in a telephone
\ninterview from Washington. “It adds up to an argument, an ideology of us versus
\nthem.”<\/font><\/p>\n

The report’s authors, who worked
\nwith the Institute for Gulf Affairs, a research group based in Washington that
\nfocuses on the Middle East, obtained 12 history and religion textbooks from
\nparents of Saudi schoolchildren, and translated the texts. The textbooks were
\nused last year in Saudi schools and Saudi-run schools in Washington, London,
\nParis and several other cities, the report
\nsaid.<\/font><\/p>\n

The results, they say, outline a
\nsystematic theme of “hatred toward ‘unbelievers,’ ” mainly Christians, Jews,
\nHindus and atheists, but also Shiites and other Muslims who do not ascribe to
\nthe country’s orthodox Wahhabi teaching of
\nIslam.<\/font><\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia’s education system
\nwas heavily scrutinized after the Sept. 11 attacks, and criticized
\ninternationally for its extremism. Since then, the government has faced
\nsignificant pressure from both inside and outside the country to change its
\nschools. King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch, has made the reform a
\npriority.<\/font><\/p>\n

Religion is at the core of
\nSaudi public education and can amount to one quarter to a third of class time.
\nBy the time Saudi students reach high school, that amount drops slightly to at
\nleast one period in six devoted to religious topics, including interpretation of
\nholy texts, theology and morality. (The report looked solely at religion and
\nhistory texts, and excluded books on other subjects like math and
\nscience.)<\/font><\/p>\n

The findings contradict Saudi
\nstatements that educational materials have been revised, the report
\nsaid.<\/font><\/p>\n

Saudi officials acknowledged that
\nacerbic language remains in Saudi textbooks, but said their revision was far
\nfrom complete.<\/font><\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia’s
\nambassador to the United States, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, responding to an
\narticle by Ms. Shea in The Washington Post over the weekend, said in a statement
\nMonday, “There are hundreds of books that are being revised to comply with the
\nnew requirements, and the process remains
\nongoing.”<\/font><\/p>\n

He added, “The objective of
\nthe educational system is to fight intolerance and to prepare Saudi youth with
\nthe skills and knowledge to compete in the global
\neconomy.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Saudi reformers note that if
\nthe latest textbooks are wanting, they are still a far cry from what they were
\nfive years ago. The Saudi public, said Muhammad al-Zulfa, a member of the
\nconsultative Shura council, say they are generally in favor of reforming
\ntextbooks and curriculum, but religious conservatives have stymied the
\neffort.<\/font><\/p>\n

“It is an uphill battle to
\nrevise the curriculum because the resistance by well-established conservative
\npockets is so fierce,” Mr. Zulfa
\nsaid.<\/font><\/p>\n

One Saudi official, speaking on
\ncondition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, also cited religious
\nconservatives. “We know what needs to be taken out,” he said. “But it’s not that
\neasy to do it.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Hamza al-Mozainy, a
\nprofessor of linguistics and a columnist who has campaigned for education
\nreform, said the seeming clash between Islam and the West creates a tough
\nenvironment for change.<\/font><\/p>\n

“What makes
\nchanging the curriculum so difficult is that the people are living in the middle
\nof a conflict,” he said. One of the easiest ways conservatives have of attacking
\nhim is to say he is serving America by demanding the change, he
\nsays.<\/font><\/p>\n

“As we discuss change, they say,
\n‘Look what America is doing to us, look what Israel is doing,’ ” he
\nsaid.<\/font><\/p>\n

But even if the textbooks were
\nchanged, the effort might not amount to much unless the country’s teachers were
\nretrained, a far more difficult
\nmatter.<\/font><\/p>\n

“The problem was not the
\ntextbooks, it was the mentality of a minority,” said Hassan al-Ahdal, director
\ngeneral of the Muslim World League, a Saudi-based Islamic organization. “Some
\nteachers or supervisors are projecting their own beliefs on the textbooks and
\nare trying to convince their students, as if theirs is the real interpretation
\nof the textbooks.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Abdulnabi
\nShaheen contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for this
\narticle.<\/i><\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\nTranslate<\/span><\/a>\"\"\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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