Saudi textbooks leave students open to bin Laden's message
Mon Jun 5, 7:40 AM ET
news.yahoo.com
Osama bin Laden sees Western democratic societies as decadent and wants a world dominated by fundamentalist Islamic law. Why would the 9/11 hijackers, and others, follow bin Laden's fanatical preachings?
One disturbing answer lies in Saudi Arabia, where the Ministry of Education publishes textbooks for mandatory "Islamic studies." Parts read as if they could have been written by bin Laden, who is from Saudi Arabia, as were 15 of the 19 hijackers.
For more than a year, the Saudi government has said that the textbooks have been rewritten to emphasize tolerance over violence toward non-believers.
But the non-profit Freedom House has found otherwise. The books are not publicly available, but Freedom House obtained and translated copies. Despite some minor changes, passages still contain disturbing intolerance.
An eighth-grade text, for example, teaches that "the Jews are apes ... while the swine are the Christians." A 12th-grader learns the value of jihad (holy war) in language that shows jihad as a violent struggle against Jews, Christians and Muslims who don't follow the conservative Wahhabi version of Islam that Saudi Arabia officially adheres to.
The Saudi ambassador to the United States, in the opposing view to this editorial, argues that it will take time to introduce more tolerant textbooks. But a patient approach isn't good enough. Education forms young minds and shapes cultures.
OPPOSING VIEW: "We're trying hard to change"
The Saudi government needs to get serious and transparent about cleaning up the kingdom's instruction. And the Bush administration must start paying more than its present cursory attention.
To be sure, the Saudi royal family has a dilemma. For years, like other Arab regimes, it has repressed democratic opposition parties but allowed mosques to flourish. It has supported and poured money into the Wahhabi belief system and bolstered the idea that Saudi Arabia is the Vatican of Islam. If Saudi Arabia challenges the grip of the clerics and the religious beliefs too vigorously, it risks provoking an overthrow of the royal family.
The United States also is in a tough position. Saudi Arabia is a strategic U.S. ally that guarantees plentiful oil. Even though President Bush has challenged the Saudis to be more democratic, that hasn't extended to broad pressure on their education system.
The textbooks are used globally in schools funded by the Saudi government. Changing these books might be at least as important, in the long term, as any military campaign.
How important? Bin Laden certainly knows. In a recent audiotape, he warned against American interference in the school curriculum.
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