Confronting September 11: Confronting Intolerance and Reforming the Schools
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Tensions
between secular culture and a religious practice often focus on
education. How should governments balance the right to religious
freedom and the best interests of the state, its citizens, and the
larger world? Since the September 11th attacks Pakistani President
Musharraf has tried to reform the Islamic religious schools in his
country, some of which were responsible for educating leaders of the
Taliban and thousands of young people who became recruits for Al Qaeda
and other extremist groups. In Pakistan there are nearly 10,000
madrasas serving approximately 600,000 students. Historically the term
madrasa means Islamic religious school, but since 1979 the madrasas
near the border with Afghanistan have been associated with the Taliban
and Afghan mujahideen - the religious warriors who fought against the
Soviet occupation. Many leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan were
trained and educated in Pakistani madrasas at this time. The madrasas
have also been the schools that have served many of the most
impoverished students in Pakistan, providing schooling, food, and
shelter for families that have no other options. In the meantime,
Pakistan's public education system has been underfunded and unable to
provide an alternative. While the case in Pakistan is extreme, many
countries throughout the world are facing similar tensions.
In 1947, in his first speech as the
Governor General of Pakistan, the country's founder, Mohammed Ali
Jinnah, told his audience "You will find that in the course of time,
Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims,
not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each
individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state."
Despite Jinnah's prediction, politics and personal faith have become
intertwined all over the world. In Pakistan, the intersection of
religiously motivated violence, national identity, and poverty make the
fate of these schools and their students vitally important.
Writing in The News, a daily newspaper
from Pakistan, Pakistani police officer and journalist Hassan Abbas
framed the dilemma surrounding the madrasas in their historical
context.
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It is
interesting to note that up until 1979, these institutions though
orthodox and backward were not militant by any means. More so, these
were not more than a couple of thousand. It was Pakistan's involvement
in the Afghan resistance movement against the Soviet invasion that had
a massive impact on the growth and mushrooming of these Madrasas. The
freedom fighters, courtesy the CIA-ISI [Pakistan Interservices
Intelligence Agency] brainstorming, soon became Mujahids.
That was not all. It had another implication for which Pakistan is paying through its nose to this day. Lt Gen (r) Kamal Matinuddin in his book The Taliban Phenomenon maintains that General Ziaul Haq "established a chain of Madaris along the Afghan-Pakistan border . . . in order to create a belt of religiously-oriented students who would assist the Afghan Mujahideen" and "also to satisfy the mullahs who he was building up as his own constituency for political ends."
. . . . What happened since then is an open secret. The Taliban, to a great extent, "were" one crowning achievement of these institutions. Sectarian killings in Pakistan, yet another. Teaching bigotry and intolerance has been their hallmark. And last but not the least, some Madrasas got into the business of renting the sons of poor and impoverished in the name of Jihad. The insiders who orchestrated such activity were disloyal to this land, and the outsiders who primarily funded these did a disservice to the religion."1
On January 12, 2002, Pakistani President General Musharraf laid out a challenge for the nation. He asked:
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Do we want
Pakistan to become a theocratic state? Do we believe that religious
education alone is enough for governance? Or do we want Pakistan to
emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare state? The verdict
of the masses is in favor of a progressive Islamic State.
I would like to dwell upon the subject of madrasas or religious schools in some detail. These schools are excellent welfare set-ups where the poor get free board and lodging. In my opinion, no NGO can match their welfare aspects.
Many of the madrasas are imparting excellent education ... however, there are some negative aspects of some madrasas. These few impart only religious education and such education, which produces semi-literate religious scholars.
The writ of the government is being challenged. Pakistan has been made a soft state where the supremacy of law is questioned. This situation cannot be tolerated any more. The question is what is the correct path?
First of all, we must rid the society of sectarian hatred and terrorism. ...
We must check abuse of mosques and madrasas and they must not be used for spreading political and sectarian prejudices. We want to ensure that mosques enjoy freedom and we are here to maintain it. 2
While most of the madrasas are not
directly involved in militant activity, those that are pose a threat to
peace in the world. Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg visited the Haqqania
Madrasa, the largest madrasa in Pakistan, before the September attacks.
More leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban graduated from Haqqania Madrasa
than any other school in the world. The head of the school, Samuil Haq,
has repeatedly told reporters, "We only impart religious education
here. The students later take up guns on their own." 3 Goldberg wrote
about his experiences at the school in a feature story for the New York
Times Magazine in June of 2000. In this excerpt he describes visiting a
class at the school and speaking with some of the students. He wrote:
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During the
school day, I would make a special point of auditing classes in which
the Hadith was studied, because so much of Islamic thought is found in
the Hadith, and also because the Hadith has traditionally been
understood to be a text open to interpretation, argument and rigorous
intellectual inquiry. But such is not the case at the Haqqania Madrasa.
In the classes I attended, even the high-level classes of the mufti
course, the pattern was generally the same: a teacher, generally an
ancient, white-bearded mullah, would read straight from a text, and the
students would listen. There was no back and forth. It seemed as if
rote learning was the madrasa's only style of learning. During one
particularly dreary class, I abandoned my interpreter and left the
room. In the hallway outside, a poster was stapled to the wall. On it
was a picture of a split-open watermelon whose flesh was veined in an
unusual way. The caption read: "A miracle of Allah: this watermelon
contains the name of Almighty Allah."
After a time, I began to be asked questions during classes, questions about America and about my views. One day, in a class devoted to passages in the Hadith concerning zakat, or charity, I was asked my views about Osama bin Laden. Why did America have it in for him? . . .
I began by saying that bin Laden's program violates a basic tenet of Islam, which holds that even in a jihad the lives of innocent people must be spared. A jihad is a war against combatants, not women and children. I read to them an appropriate saying of the Prophet Muhammad (I came armed with the Hadith): "It is narrated by Ibn Umar that a woman was found killed in one of these battles, so the Messenger of Allah, may peace be upon him, forbade the killing of women and children."
They did not like the idea of me quoting the Prophet to them, and they began chanting, "Osama, Osama, Osama." When they calmed down, they took turns defending bin Laden. "Osama bin Laden is a great Muslim," a student named Wali said. "The West is afraid of strong Muslims, so they made him their enemy."
I was curious to know how Wali came to admire Osama bin Laden so ardently. After all, there was no course at the madrasa - at least so far as I could tell - titled "The Sayings of the Great Muslim Osama bin Laden."
"Osama wants to keep Islam pure from the pollution of the infidels," he said. "He believes Islam is the way for all the world. He wants to bring Islam to all the world." I answered that the Koran states that "there is no compulsion in religion." This is the Koranic saying frequently quoted by those who believe that, at its core, Islam is moderate and tolerant of others. Wali: "There is no compulsion. But the West compels Muslims to live under the control of infidels, like in Chechnya." 4
If there was no course on
Osama bin Laden, where did the students get their political ideology
and how did it intersect with their understanding of Islam? Goldberg
attributes much of that responsibility to the school's leaders, in this
case, Samuil Haq. Of Haq, Goldberg writes:
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This is what
Maulana Samuil Haq imparts to his 9-year-old boys, and everyone else
enrolled at his madrasa: America, he told me in one of our many
conversations, was controlled by the Jews, who were in turn controlled
by Satan. His is a worldview shaped by his understanding of the
teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, but it is a worldview moderate
Muslims might say is shaped by something else.
For Samuil Haq, the world is divided into two separate and mutually hostile domains: the dar-al-harb and the dar-al-Islam. The dar-al-harb is the "abode of war." The dar-al-Islam is the "abode of peace." The dar-al-Islam is the Ummah, the worldwide community of Muslims. The dar-al-harb is everything else. In the 1980's, the Soviet Union epitomized, for fundamentalist-minded Muslims, the abode of war. 5
Teaching intolerance and
hate has been condemned by people all over the world. And since the
terrorist attacks of September 11th there is a heightened sensitivity
to religious intolerance and bigotry. How is it taught? How can it be
combated? For politicians and human rights advocates all over the world
there are risks to speaking out. Within many countries there are legal
issues as well. How do you rein in hate and violence while protecting
the right to dissent and free speech?
CONNECTIONS
- What do students need to learn to be successful citizens? What role should religion play? Are history, science, math, and language enough? How do you educate for tolerance?
- There is a heightened sensitivity to the teaching of hate since the September 11th terrorist attacks. At what point are differences of opinion no longer acceptable? Should men with beliefs like Samuil Haq be allowed to educate children? Where is the line between religious perspective and intolerance of others?
- Samuil Haq, like many other religious extremists, has used antisemitism, both as a way to explain the world and to a way to build support for his cause, by spreading myths, rumors, and lies about the "other." Who is responsible for countering this message?
- To explore antisemitism further, refer to Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior and Facing History and Ourselves: The Jews of Poland.
- What do you see as Pakistani President General Musharraf's dilemma? How does he use language to shape public opinion? What words or images stand out?
- What insights does Hassan Abbas offer about the way religion and militancy became intertwined in the madrasas? Whom does he hold accountable?
- How would you respond to Samuil Haq's comment that "we only impart religious education here. The students later take up guns on their own"?
- How does Jeffrey Goldberg view the Haqqania Madrasa? What does he see as the problem? How do you respond to the interactions he describes with the students and teachers?
- In 1947, in his first speech as the Governor General of Pakistan, the country's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, told his audience "You will find that in the course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state." Was Jinnah's vision realistic? What would it take to realized his dream?
- Israel is a country that aims to balance its identity as a religious state and a tolerant democracy. These two identities have often clashed over many issues including education and particularly the Haredi yeshivas - independent orthodox Jewish religious schools. Politicians and theologians have often debated the role of the government in relationship to these schools. Does the government have the authority to regulate what they teach? What arguments could be made on either side of the debate? Increasingly the United States is facing similar issues in the debate over government vouchers for religious education. Research cases from your community where church and state issues have come into conflict. How were those cases resolved?
- What does secular mean? What is a secular nation? What role can religion play in a secular society? Why does education often become a central focus of discussions about the public role of religion?
- In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, Thomas Friedman wrote that all of us have a responsibility for ensuring that people of all traditions teach the most tolerant form of their religious and cultural identity. Is that the role of education? How can that be accomplished?
- There is a movement among religious fundamentalist parents in the United States to remove children from public school. What kind of accommodations should schools make for the particular practice of a religious group? Offer a variety of foods in the cafeteria? Separate girls and boys? Alter the curriculum? Allow children to leave class to pray? Is it a problem that some parents pull their students from public schools because of religious belief? Whose problem is it?
1 http://www.virginia.edu/~soasia/newsletter/Fall01/God.html
2 http://metimes.com/2K2/issue2002-3/reg/musharraf_maps_out.htm
3 http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/aug/21pak1.htm
4" Jihad U: Education of a Holy Warrior" by Jeffrey Goldberg, New York Times Magazine, June 25, 2000
5 Ibid
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