-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.msnbc.com/news/728439.asp?cp1=1
>>>And no wonder out schools are dangerous; it's just Karmic blowback<<<
}}}>Begin
>From the U.S.A., the ABCs of jihad
The unintended result of rousing Islam to fight communism
By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
THE WASHINGTON POST
March 23 — In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of
dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and
militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet
occupation.
What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by
humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.
THE PRIMERS, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns,
bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s
core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American- produced books, though the
radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist
code.
As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of
providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of
its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed
like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian
workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.
‘SCRUBBING’ THE BOOKS
Last month, a U.S. foreign aid official said, workers launched a “scrubbing”
operation in neighboring Pakistan to purge from the books all references to rifles and
killing. Many of the 4 million texts being trucked into Afghanistan, and millions more
on the way, still feature Koranic verses and teach Muslim tenets.
The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic principles
permeate Afghan culture and that the books “are fully in compliance with U.S. law
and policy.” Legal experts, however, question whether the books violate a
constitutional ban on using tax dollars to promote religion.
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Organizations accepting funding from the U.S. Agency for International
Development must certify that tax dollars will not be used to advance religion. The
certification states that AID “will finance only programs that have a secular purpose.
.
. . AID-financed activities cannot result in religious indoctrination of the ultimate
beneficiaries.”
The issue of textbook content reflects growing concern among U.S. policymakers
about school teachings in some Muslim countries in which Islamic militancy and anti-
Americanism are on the rise. A number of government agencies are discussing what
can be done to counter these trends.
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush have repeatedly spotlighted the Afghan
textbooks in recent weeks. Last Saturday, Bush announced during his weekly radio
address that the 10 million U.S.-supplied books being trucked to Afghan schools
would teach “respect for human dignity, instead of indoctrinating students with
fanaticism and bigotry.”
$6.5 MILLION IN GOVERNMENT MONEY
‘It’s not AID’s policy to support religious instruction. But we went ahead with this
project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is
predominantly a secular activity.’
— KATHRYN STRATOS
AID spokeswoman
The first lady stood alongside Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai on Jan. 29 to
announce that AID would give the University of Nebraska at Omaha $6.5 million to
provide textbooks and teacher training kits.
AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact
because
they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong dose of Muslim
thought. The agency removed its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from
the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.
“It’s not AID’s policy to support religious instruction,” Stratos said. “But we
went
ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which
is predominantly a secular activity.”
Some legal experts disagreed. A 1991 federal appeals court ruling against AID’s
former director established that taxpayers’ funds may not pay for religious instruction
overseas, said Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law expert at American University,
who litigated the case for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Ayesha Khan, legal director of the nonprofit Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, said the White House has “not a legal leg to stand on” in
distributing the books.
“Taxpayer dollars cannot be used to supply materials that are religious,” she said.
Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks
were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-
Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the
university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.
ONE TANK, TWO TANKS, THREE TANKS, FOUR
During that time of Soviet occupation, regional military leaders in Afghanistan
helped the U.S. smuggle books into the country. They demanded that the primers
contain anti- Soviet passages. Children were taught to count with illustrations
showing tanks, missiles and land mines, agency officials said. They acknowledged
that at the time it also suited U.S. interests to stoke hatred of foreign invaders.
“I think we were
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perfectly happy to see these books trashing the Soviet Union,” said Chris Brown,
head of book revision for AID’s Central Asia Task Force.
AID dropped funding of Afghan programs in 1994. But the textbooks continued to
circulate in various versions, even after the Taliban seized power in 1996.
Officials said private humanitarian groups paid for continued reprintings during
the
Taliban years. Today, the books remain widely available in schools and shops, to the
chagrin of international aid workers.
“The pictures [in] the texts are horrendous to school students, but the texts are
even much worse,” said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program
coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.
ONE BOOK, 43% VIOLENT
An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted 43
pages containing violent images or passages.
The military content was included to “stimulate resistance against invasion,”
explained Yaquib Roshan of Nebraska’s Afghanistan center. “Even in January, the
books were absolutely the same . . . pictures of bullets and Kalashnikovs and you
name it.”
During the Taliban era, censors purged human images from the books. One page
from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier and a
Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier’s head is missing.
Above the soldier is a verse from the Koran. Below is a Pashtu tribute to the
mujaheddin, who are described as obedient to Allah. Such men will sacrifice their
wealth and life itself to impose Islamic law on the government, the text says.
“We were quite shocked,” said Doug Pritchard, who reviewed the primers in
December while visiting Pakistan on behalf of a Canada-based Christian nonprofit
group. “The constant image of Afghans being natural warriors is wrong. Warriors are
created. If you want a different kind of society, you have to create it.”
NEW BOOKS, OLD TEXTS
‘We turned it from a wartime curriculum to a peacetime curriculum.’
— CHRIS BROWN
Central Asia Task Force, U.S. Agency for International Development
After the United States launched a military campaign last year, the United Nations
education agency, UNICEF, began preparing to reopen Afghanistan’s schools, using
new books developed with 70 Afghan educators and 24 private aid groups. In early
January, UNICEF began printing new texts for many subjects but arranged to supply
copies of the old, unrevised U.S. books for other subjects, including Islamic
instruction.
Within days, the Afghan interim government announced that it would use the old
AID-produced texts for its core school curriculum. UNICEF’s new texts could be used
only as supplements.
Earlier this year, the United States tapped into its $296 million aid package for
rebuilding Afghanistan to reprint the old books, but decided to purge the violent
references.
About 18 of the 200 titles the United States is republishing are primarily Islamic
instructional books, which agency officials refer to as “civics” courses. Some books
teach how to live according to the Koran, Brown said, and “how to be a good
Muslim.”
UNICEF is left with 500,000 copies of the old “militarized” books, a $200,000
investment that it has decided to destroy, according to U.N. officials.
On Feb. 4, Brown arrived in Peshawar, the Pakistani border town in which the
textbooks were to be printed, to oversee hasty revisions to the printing plates. Ten
Afghan educators labored night and day, scrambling to replace rough drawings of
weapons with sketches of pomegranates and oranges, Brown said.
“We turned it from a wartime curriculum to a peacetime curriculum,” he said.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
End<{{{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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