For years, school textbooks in Saudi Arabia preached intolerance and hatred against non-Muslims. After September 11, Saudi officials promised this would change. More recently, they proclaimed they had "removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." Nina Shea, writing in the Washington Post, shows otherwise.
A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels").
This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to "spread the faith."
The bulk of her article provides selections from various texts to prove her point. As Glenn comments, this is further evidence that "the Saudis are not our friends." Unfortunately, the U.S. government has long tolerated outrageous conduct by the Saudi government, something I first blogged about here and here.
A good chunk of it is patently offensive, like calling Christians apes and Jews swine, and saying that the struggle with the Jews will continue until judgment hour.
My point is this, are we objecting to 1) the really offensive stuff, 2) the tenets of conservative Islam, many of which are shared with the conservative branches of other religions, or 3) the teaching of conservative religion in public schools?
I think it's more the 2nd and 3rd than the 1st. Those are intractible problems, but more meaningful to me.
Saudi Nationals, now bringing the muslim faith to school busses near you.
I think this is best understood as the will to power among Saudi clerics. This kind of propaganda is at the root of their power; fomenting hatred of the Other serves to unify and motivate their flock. Historically, many religions have been used this way by cynical, self-interested clergy.
Probably the best solution is to encourage liberalization and democratization in SA, though that's going to be a long and fractious path. The reversal a few days ago of the fatwa against homosexuals by Ali Al-Sistani, the highest Shia cleric, is exemplary of the kind of reforn that is possible under liberal democracy.
I either don't understand or don't agree with your third paragraph. We must be objecting to the offensive stuff, that is what offensive means. To your second point, it is not true that the tenets of conservative Islam match the tenets of conservative Christianity, besides 'our religion is the true one'. You might as well claim that an American textbook claiming 'our government, which is constituted to protect the inherent rights of its citizens, is legitimate' and a 19th century Japanese text stating 'our government, the divine Emperor and those he has selected to perform his will, is legitimate' are both simply saying 'our government...is legitimate'.
How original. An "Fundamentalist Islam is really no different than conservative Christianity" post.
Never mind all that stuff about suicide bombers in Madrid, London, Indonesia, etc., we've got Pat Robertson talking to God and predicting tsunamis on the west coast! He's the crazy one!
Seriously, discounting the importance of these fundamentalist madrassas inculcating children in the idea of violent intolerance of the 'other' is to miss the essence of the entire conflict between fundamentalist Islam and the West. As long as these schools keep turning out dutiful martyrs, a meaningful peace will not be reached.
By the way, "do not treat them unjustly" does not mean treat them equally. I encourage you to look up the term "Dhimmitude".
That's not part of what Islam considers 'just,' JDNYU.
BGates, no doubt you are within hearing distance of the Calvary Chapel radio program 'To Every Man an Answer' (www.tema.com has a station list), and if you listen, as I do two or three times a week, you will indeed hear calls to shun and avoid -- though not strictly to 'hate,' although it's not so easy to understand the distinction -- infidels, pagans, demon-worshippers, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholics and most kinds of Protestants. To take a typical example, Calvary Chapelites who are married to non-members are strongly urged to abandon their spouses.
Calvary Chapel claims to be the fastest growing church in the United States, but I don't know if that's accurate.
JDNYU may be correct about the stuff taught in some of the Sunday schools in the U.S. A couple of years ago, the Southern Baptist church released a pamphlet with insults and hatred against Hindus and Jews(I think). The pamphlet was timed to be released on the eve of a major Hindu festival, and also probably was tangentially responsible for the severance of ties to their church by Jimmy Carter.
However, the major difference is that these are the actions of a fringe population in the U.S and do not have legal and official sanction in the U.S government. On the other hand, bigotry and religious discrimination are state policy in Saudi Arabia. The textbooks are among the more benign manifestations of this policy.
But this entire argument misses the point. What's disturbing is not that the Saudis have a state religion but that their state religion, Wahhabist Islam, openly encourages violence and murder towards non-believers. If the Saudis were brainwashing their kids to be Mormons or Episcopalians or Zoroastrians, we wouldn't be having this debate.
Yes, my religious view is that Muslims probably burn in hell when they die. That's taught in my Sunday School class and in most Sunday School classes. The difference is that my Sunday School class doesn't teach me to suicide bomb and murder members of opposing religions. The Muslim equivalent of Sunday School actually does teach its adherents to come kill me, and that's cause for concern.
My Sunday School class teaches me to respectfully disagree with non-Christian religions. I wish the Wahhabis taught their adherents the same thing. JDNYU, the suggestion that the teachings of Wahhabist Islam parallel those of conservative Christianity betrays a startling lack of knowledge and experience with respect to religion. One would hope that an actual law student at NYU would have a better grip on reality.
To clarify further: I think Saudi Arabia is a wretched country that has done more to further terrorism than just about any other (the Taliban never had their kind of dough). The US's treatment of them with kid gloves because they have an enormous percentage of the world's oil is embarassing and depressing. I just don't think this is a particularly compelling example of what's wrong with the Saudi government's promotion of radical Islam.
And Harry, that's exactly my point: your real beef is with fundamentalist Islam. You might be offended that a textbook calls Christians apes, but would you consider it a meaningful change if those statements were erased?
As long as the nature of that government and the nature of that religion remain unchanged, why on earth would we expect anything else in their textbooks?
The Post story claims that Saudi Arabia has failed in its goal of removing the message that pupils "must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.'" However, few of the passages it quotes support that conclusion. Most merely assert that Wahhabist Muslims are correct, better than members of other religions, and should be treated differently from others.
These are not politically correct statements in the US, but they're also not direct calls to violence. One may argue that these beliefs are untenable without eventually finding violent expression, but that's a separate issue.
By exclaiming its SHOCK at the revelation that schools in a Wahhabist theocracy teach pupils Wahhabist ideas, the Post betrays its belief that conservative Islam (as a form of government, at least) can ever be reconciled with Western notions of tolerance. The story is just a rebuke of Saudi Arabia for falling short of the journalist's own pie-in-the-sky thinking.
We should get used to them lying to our faces. Many cultures, including the Chinese, wear 'masks' when ineracting with outsiders and then, amongst themselves, go back to their business at hand. This phenomena is not unique to the Saudis.
Taking someone at their word without evidence is not advisable.
This is incorrect. Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism (possibly inter alia) believe that they may be the most insightful faith, but that worship of God in other confessions is a valid enterprise. To members of these religions, God heeds the prayers of people outside their faith.
In Jewish tradition, Job is not Jewish. If you Google the seven laws of Noah, you will learn what Jews traditionally expect of non-Jewish faiths and societies (in traditional Judaism there is not a clear line between these) in terms of what would validate them as a godly enterprise.
I have a bit of a problem with Nina Shea's intellectual honesty, however. When she did her Jan. 2005 report for Freedom House on Saudi Publications, she included books that had been sitting on shelves for more than 20 years, books that were no longer being distributed, but had not been recalled. She alludes to those books in this WaPo article.
There's also a bit of a problem in lumping all Saudis--and all Wahhabis--into the same sack so they can be kicked. Most Saudis went though that education system and haven't, in fact, turned in to bloodthirsty murderers. Some, though, clearly did.
When I was Counselor for Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Riyadh, I paid a call on the (former) reformist Minister of Education. He was seeking our help in reforming the English-language curriculum of the school system. Within a week of my visit, though, my business card was reproduced on several jihadi websites as one who sought to "interfere" with Saudi education.
It wasn't the Minister to passed the card along, but one of his secretaries who didn't like the direction the Miniser was taking. Even with reformists on top, it's very easy for lower-level bureaucrats to impose their own agendas by short-circuiting the system, or simply, quietly refusing to do what they're told to do. The KSA bureaucracy is at the same level of professionalism as any other Third World country.
The Saudis need to keep on making reforms. But it's not going to happen overnight, nor within a year or two. They certainly need to be called on their most offensive materials.
http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc213.php
How Israeli Textbooks Portray the Arab-Israeli Conflict
by Elie Podeh - Indiana University Press
(March, 2000 13,000 words)
The answer (in slightly less than 13,000 words) is: until recently, the Israeli government, which runs the Israeli public school system, made unflattering statements against their political opponents (and portrayed history in a one-sided fashion) not dissimilar in invective from what Professor Volokh complains the Saudis do. This is the sort of thing one expects from government monopolies; they're run to benefit the interests of the monopolist. As a result of efforts over the last decades, it is claimed Israeli textbooks are more neutral in tone currently.
Great! Now if Saudi children learn as well as American children do, we'll have nothing to worry about.
"As a result of efforts over the last decades, it is claimed Israeli textbooks are more neutral in tone currently."
should read:
"As a result of efforts over the last DECADE, it is claimed Israeli textbooks are more neutral in tone currently."
If that's the standard, I'd argue that many US public schools aren't much different either.
Judaism does not claim to be the one true faith. It does not seek (in fact it discourages) converts. Non-Jews can be as righteous as Jews. I personally have never heard a rabbi disparage any other religion or people, let alone advocate their destruction. To disparage any other faith would be anathema to the congregation-- the rabbi would be fired. Even the most far out extreme Jews such as the late Meir Kahane would not advocate the genocide of Arabs or call them “pigs” and “apes.” Moreover Kahane faced opprobrium of most Jews in Israel and the rest of the world. He spoke for virtually no one.
Why is the US government so tolerant of Arab Muslim extremism, and duplicity? Is it just oil? I think not. The tolerance goes back a long way to a time when the US was self sufficient in energy. For example Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem cooperated with Nazi Germany during WWII and recruited Muslims for the Waffen –SS. He was clearly a war criminal, yet he was never punished. He was under house arrest in France, but escaped and was given asylum in Egypt. The British refused to indict him. Saudi government officials visiting the US would make statements like “we hate all Jews and Catholics.” And so on. I think the causes are many and varied. There are a lot of Arab desks in the US State Department, but only one Israeli. So in a sense their “market share” is greater. But more fundamentally they have bought influence by hiring, contracting or otherwise influencing former US government officials with money. A lot people and institutions are on their payroll. It won’t stop until we get a better government, which means getting rid of Democrats and Republicans.
I also think we can leave the canard of "bought off US gov't officials" in the trash can where it belongs, too.
Who, may I enquire, funds trips to foreign countries? Why, foreign governments for the most part.
Does that mean that every congressman to take a trip to France is now a hidden agent of the French? Or is a trip to Israel the true sign of "mixed loyalties?" If 10% of a think-tank's funding comes from Organization X, does it follow that all products of the think tank are tainted, bought, corrupt? The "bought official" smear is easy to make, but rather harder to prove.
Or, to generalize, with any society where religion assumes civil power.
That worked out badly when it was Christians who wielded civil power on behalf of their sects. Christianity was tamed, though it took a long tiem.
The Saudi textbooks are not all that different in tone from Japanese textbooks.
I have not seen Israeli textbooks, but if they disparage the political systems that are devoted to destroying the Israel state, I wouldn't be either surprised or censorious. The texts used in the Catholic schools I went to were disparaging of Communism. So what?
"... until recently, the Israeli government, which runs the Israeli public school system, made unflattering statements against their political opponents (and portrayed history in a one-sided fashion) not dissimilar in invective from what Professor Volokh complains the Saudis do ..." and makes reference to the TeachKidsPeace website.
I looked on this website, and though I have only skimmed the 136 page report without reading it in detail, the summary (http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc210.php) read as follows:
Three fundamental statements can be made about all the school books:
1. The legitimacy of the State of Israel as independent Jewish state on the territory of the Land of Israel and the immigration of Jews to the country are never questioned.
2. There is no indoctrination against the Arabs as a nation, nor a negative presentation of Islam. Rather, Islam, the Arab culture and the Arabs' contribution to human civilization are presented in a positive light.
3. No book calls for violence or war. Many books express the yearning for peace between Israel and the Arab countries.
[snip]
Many books elaborate in detail how Muhammad established Islam and explain its basic fundamentals in a factual, objective manner. Many books highlight positive aspects in Islam. The language is factual and devoid of offensive terms and stereotypes. Sites holy to both Jews and Muslims are not presented as exclusively Jewish and the Arabs' attachment to these sites is taught.
[snip]
In textbooks of both the general state-run network and the religious state-run network, one senses a genuine effort to remove stereotypes and to build a foundation for coexistence and mutual respect between the two peoples. There are many stories that describe friendships between Jews and Arabs in Islamic countries and in Israel even in times of war. There are stories of Jews helping Arabs in daily life and in war as well as stories of Arabs rescuing Jews from physical harm and helping Jews to maintain their religion and identity
[snip]
In a few books, the hatred of the Arabs towards the Jews is presented as stemming from a fundamental difference, an inherent hatred that is independent of political, military or economic circumstance. However, most of the books explain the hostility of the Arabs as stemming from national and pragmatic reasons: their claim to having exclusive ownership of the whole territory and desire to remain a majority.
This hardly strikes me as one sided, or in any way comparable to the vile invective in the Saudi texts.
An obvious observation, I guess, but when their schools are teaching Saudi children the Protocols of Zion for God's sakes, we're in a lot of shit. Of course, divesting from the Kingdom is insane.
What are we going to do about this?
The first instance was a state visit in the 1950s by Faisal who landed in New York City of all places and said he hated Jews and Catholics. It made the newspapers and TV and there was quite a stink about it at the time.
I’m talking about *former* US government officials, including former members of Congress. I’m not talking conspiracy, but lobbying in behalf of the Saudi government. I just moved and have not unpacked my books yet, otherwise I could give you specific references. I’ll provide them off line if you are interested.
We’ve also had a number of child stealing cases where a Saudi husband leaves the US with the children and won’t return in defiance of American courts. The US State Department is strangely unhelpful. If you think the Saudi government does not exert influence at the highest level of the US government you are living in a fantasy world. Remember the air traffic controller incident?
ROFL. Give me a break. Saudi petrodollars peddled for influence runs rampant. Books can be filled (and have) with examples of this. The fact is they are "bought off" in many ways. Not least the promise of lucrative contracts when an official goes private. Who exactly are you trying to kid here?
Cheers to the rest of you (and of course Mr. Adler) who seem to be quite savvy to the problem. Maybe there is hope we can maintain liberty in the future yet.
Anyone watch Melanie Phillips talk on C-SPAN the other day about her book Londonistan? That was brilliant! Can't wait to read that one.
If you read carefully I think you'll find I indicated specifically that the current state of Israeli textbooks is no longer a problem. The summary you reference is discussing the current state of affairs. The extensive text references the many ideological slants and invective against Palestinians up until (as I pointed out in a correction) about a decade ago. So we can denounced the Saudis or we can say they're about where the Israelis were only a decade ago.
As I understand it, a jihad is a holy war, and war means . . . you kill the other guy. So, the culmination of this brainwashing that goes from K-12 is that moslems should kill non moslems.
What kind of idiot can compare this hate mongering to the beliefs of any other recognized religion?
And, meanwhile, in this country we worry about Britney's driving habits and whether the Dixie Chicks have been discriminated against.
As one fish said to the other, "Water? What water?"
Being hated and viewed as untalented traitors isn't discrimination anyway, it's the truth.
No we can’t say that if we want to stay connected to reality. It’s been the position of the Arabs that the Israel should not exist. Besides Israeli school children were always free to read other books including books by Arabs. The reverse is not true. It’s ironic that the late professor Said at Columbia had to admit his books are banned in Arab countries, despite the fact he was an outspoken advocate for the Palestinians. The only country in the Middle East you can read him is Israel! Why they ban his books I don’t know, perhaps he was not extreme enough.
I had truly assumed you meant "former" USG officials. It's still a canard. While there have been a couple of former ambassadors who went to work for oil companies immediately post-retirement, most have not. And if they go to work for a ME-oriented think thank, just who is going to provide funding? Peru? New Zealand? It seems that only Arab money is "tainted" when it comes to the Middle East.
The allegation--smear, actually--is easy to make. The books you're looking for are going to be light on the facts and long on the allegation. I've read them. It doesn't matter how far a remove one is from Arab money, it's always seen at terminally corruptible.
I happened to have been at the US Embassy during the "child kidnapping" cases flurry of publicity in 2002-04. It was interesting. There were a grand total of six (6) cases that dominated congressional hearings. They were, of course, all tragic. At the same time, there were over 40 cases of child kidnapping going on in each of Germany and Mexico. Oops... no congressional hearings!
Child abductions are ugly. They are made more difficult because they almost always come down to two direct conflicts of national law. Who decides whose law gets to be trumps?
The court of popular opinion will certainly make a call. But strangley enough, the opinions in the two opposing countries also tend to be opposing.
Saudi law does not acknowledge dual citizenship. One is either a Saudi or is not a Saudi. The law recognizes the children born of a Saudi father to be Saudi and thus subject to Saudi law. It doesn't matter what the mother's nationality. A child born of a Saudi mother and a foreign father has foreign citizenship.
I don't like that law; I'm pretty sure you don't either. But how and where is it decided that because we don't like that law the USG has the right to impose its own interpretation?
Some countries have signed onto the Hague Accord to try to work out the differences. (Saudi Arabia is not a signatory.) But even there, it doesn't work smoothly. Germany is a signatory, but there remain very difficult cases where German courts read the law in a manner unfavorable to American fathers--and not at all the way the German gov't would like to see them read.
And the "no female air traffic controllers" thing? It comes from a single Dallas Morning News article that was repeated across the airwaves. FAA has denied it. The ATC has denied it. And, of course, the Saudis denied it. So many denials have to add up to the story's being true, right?
Again in the "oddly enough" category, there were female flight attendants on the prince's flight. And Saudi pilots--military and civilian--have never had a prior problem dealing with female flight controllers. But some stories are too good to drop, even if they're false.
I didn't know we were taking the words of rulers, from fifty years ago, as statements of government policy. Sure, Faisal did say those things. Faisal was also assasinated [sic] by a fundamentalist in 1975.
Are you implying Faisal was assassinated because he made those statements? I made reference to Faisal’s statements to show how far back this kind of behavior by Saudi government officials goes. They of course are more careful about what they say in English now. But let’s look at something more modern-- Saudi government controlled television. Let’s remember Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, nothing gets on TV without being approved, unless by accident. Government TV including TV1 and TV2 which broadcasts interviews with religious figures, professors, members of the royal family and government leaders. It so easy too find hate filled broadcasts, here’s one example.
I will deal with the other issues later as it’s late, and tomorrow more books get unpacks.
One thing is clear; Saudi Arabia is no friend of the US. The sooner citizens learn what is happening the better.
Gerhardt Schroeder joined Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, soon after leaving office. Donald Evans, Bush's former treasury secretary, was offered a senior management position at a state-owned Russian oil company. (Mercifully for Bush, he declined.) Where is Mr. Zarkov's outrage over these appointments? Surely it's not reserved for those who work with Arabs...
The most common meaning of "jihad" is "struggle," and mainstream Muslims would be most likely to describe it as an internal struggle to be a better Muslim. (There are those, of course, who would interpret it the way you do.)
Islam is struggling?
I like to hear that!
I have heard rumors that Christianity is growing faster in Africa than Islam.
If points 2 and 3 are the basis for your variation of " Islam is a religion of peace " theme, then you are merely taking a sideswipe at domestic politics. Bad judgement, as it ignores the effects of what you delicately call "the offensive parts", and bad because it inevitably equates "conservative religion"[ wink,wink] with Islam.
Is there some other means to grind your axe?
I have looked again at the TeachKidsPeace link, and I cannot find any examples where "... The extensive text references the many ideological slants and invective against Palestinians up until ... about a decade ago." Furthermore, the text seems to indicate that their review was restricted to textbooks in current use, so I don't see where textbooks dating back beyond a decade were reviewed for bias. Perhaps you can indicate where you found this in the document.
I'd consider it a meaningful change if the schools stopped teaching that. Of course, if they took it out of the textbooks but taught it anyway that wouldn't be a meaningful change.
Are you trying to suggest that such teachings are a basic part of Islam and that just removing them from the textbooks won't change fundamental Islamic beliefs? I thought Islam was supposed to be a religion of peace.
/sarcasm off
Of course not. But the thread here has to do with Saudi Arabia, and why the American government seems to insensitive and unwilling to confront Saudi duplicity. Russia is another topic, and we can discuss that when it’s appropriate for the thread at hand.
The following excerpts illustrate the points made:
If we believe the author, the problems extends far past the content of some textbooks.
As for Saudi Arabia government controlling its airwaves, and thus presumably sanctioning the extremist rhetoric used by talk show guests on television, presumably, the government would rather have these extremists talking on TV and participating in a debate with others about their views, than plotting attacks against the government.
What debate? Do we get freewheeling debate about these issues on Saudi TV? Show me.
What about the statements of government officials? You don’t seem to understand the notion of a controlled press.
That's what we went to war with Britain over in 1812, exactly the same dispute.
Me, personally, ready to go to war over a girl child taken in contravention of our laws to Saudi Arabia? Well, let's ask -- is the girl your daughter? Mine?
American history textbooks these days tend to take a warts and all approach to discussing our past. I think at times they understate the remarkable accomplishments of America, and thus by what they leave out, overstate the evils of the American past. But I would find it hard to believe that there are many jingoistic American history texts now.
I strongly suspect they don't teach Ho Chi Minh's purges qua "land reforms" in the early 1950's. I suspect they don't teach how Uncle Ho purged, in the mold of Stalin and Mao, other independently minded contenders for the leadership of the North.I suspect they don't teach how, still in the 1950's, via a north/south trail, later to become known as the Ho Chi Minh trail, infiltrators from the north targeted locales in the south to use terror against local leaders and others to force recruitments into the cadres of the North and to subject to ideological uniformity. I suspect it's not taught how this latter fact greatly influenced both Eisenhower and Kennedy to aid the South and to being intervention - because Uncle Ho, far from a simple nationalist, was a committed Marxist/Stalinist. I suspect things like that are conveniently, and even universally, elided altogether.
I suspect they don't teach much about the Hue massacre. I suspect the fate of the boat people is marginalized and not placed within the yet broader context of the purges and mass murders in the wake of 1975. I suspect they don't teach much about the manifest and ubiquitous lies, oft-repeated to this day, of the New Left throughout the 1960's and subsequently. That's merely a few items vis-a-vis South Vietnam's population.
Caring about the truth in high school history books is not something which those on the left desire (certainly, I've never seen it), excepting within a "properly curtailed" scope. And I rather doubt that the imperfections in American high school history books compare with the subject in question, in Saudi Arabia.
Caring about historical truth, indeed.
The Iranians are demonized, while the Saudis are your best friends.
You are so addicted to oil! You sacrifice moral values and national security interests. We in Europe are not much better. More in my blog post on this matter.