<apolitical religious education>
Apolitical madrassahs implies accepting the concept of "separation of church and state", and the concept that the Koran should not be an all-encompassing guide to all action, including political action. That's a stretch, a bigger ideological stretch than pacifist madrassahs.
Whem Islamists criticize the West, they almost always say that our religion, Christianity, has become watered down, put in a restricted box, so that it is de facto meaningless in our lives, leaving us as Godless sensual selfish materialists. So, I don't think "apolitical madrassahs" would have much appeal.
A big appeal of Fundamentalist Islam (and, for that matter, Fundamentalist Christianity and sects like the Mormons), is that they provide a complete guide for life. Any action, any thought, is 100% Black or 100% White, with no confusing relativistic grays. There is an Answer for every question, an answer that can be found in the Good Book. Apolitical madrassahs could only be a foreign, a Western, idea.
But, there is a large body of Islamic thought, with a long historical tradition, which says Jihad should be an inner personal struggle for perfection. This body of thought comes close to a lot of Buddhist tradition. There is also a lot of Islamic thought, which places many rules on personal conduct, and the conduct of wars. Specifically, there are prohibitions against making war on civilians, which makes the methods of Al Queda and Hamas immoral and irreligious. Those rules can be interpreted as being so restrictive as to make war de facto outlawed.
The program of such madrassahs would still be political, and would almost certainly be very critical of Western society. They would concentrate on personal discipline, and have a political program that seeks to empower Muslims through economic development, not military conquest. I'm thinking something like the policy of Malaysia. In fact, the Malaysian government would be a likely candidate to fund what I have in mind.
<I don’t think the US would ever fund it, unless we could maintain a degree of control that would render the whole system ineffective.>
Yes, you're probably right. CIA funding, even with 7 cut-outs for thorough "plausible deniability", would be the "kiss of death".
Control follows funding, no way of getting around that. I've seen that, up close and personal, in Native American communities (where I lived for 6 years). The Feds will fund a program, and swear on a stack of bibles that Natives will have total control and autonomy to run it. They will start out with a lot of LipServive, all the right PC noises, about "flattening the pyramid", "self-determination", "no micro-management", "paperwork reduction", etc. But it is impossible for anyone to live within 50 miles of Washington, and not believe that they KnowBest. Must be something in the water. So, they can't help themselves, they do oversight, and auditing, and endless demands for documentation, and end up running the show. Often, running it into the ground. The concept of "Native Control", as practiced by the U.S. government, has resulted in embedding yet another layer of Value-subtracting bureaucracy in the system. I could talk all day about examples where I've seen this happen.
<The attacks of the competition are of course a real issue.>
The rule-book here, is the one for Strategic Hamlets.
<I don’t see these institutions trying to pose a direct challenge to those on the opposite side.>
I think the existing madrassah system would inevitably, and immediately, see them (accurately) as a competing meme, an Alternative, who they are in a zero-sum contest with. Look at what happened to that timid HeartsAndMinds attempt by the U.S. to run ads in Muslim nations, showing Happy American Muslims. It was instantly seen in the Muslim world as an ideological threat, and shut down. |
