Broken promises: intolerance still alive and well in Saudi schools
Washington (AsiaNews) Despite outside warnings and domestic commitments, Saudi Arabia continues to indoctrinate its pupils using textbooks that demonise the West, Christians, Jews and all other 'infidels'. The US, which authorised a 180-day waiver of action in order to let the Saudis start reforms with respect to religious freedom, is doing nothing.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudisthat was all supposed to change. A Saudi royal study group recognised the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum encouraged "violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other'."
Since then, Saudi officials like Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, have repeatedly stated that the kingdom was committed to change its educational texts and remove any element "inconsistent with the needs of a modern education".
In an article published in last Sunday edition of the Washington Post, Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, reveals that the promises were not kept. Nothing has changed.
Based on a review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks used in the current academic year and secretly obtained through teachers, schools employees and parents, the Center concluded that from grade 1 through 12 the textbook content is informed by "an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine".
The texts teach a dualistic vision, in which the world is divided into true believers of Islam (monotheists) and unbelievers (polytheists and infidels).
Examples? In first grade Saudi children are taught that "Every religion other than Islam is false". In eighth grade, they learn that "As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus." Last but not least, in twelfth grade, jihad or holy war against unbelievers is presented as a religious duty.
In response to Shea's article, Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal released a communiqué that said that "[o]verhauling an educational system is a massive undertaking" and that its objective remains "to fight intolerance and to prepare Saudi youth with the skills and knowledge to compete in the global economy."
Religion is the ideological cornerstone of the Saudi kingdom. Within the Saudi public school curriculum, Islamic studies make up a quarter to a third of students' weekly classroom hours in lower and middle school, plus several hours each week in high school. It includes 25,000 schools, educating about 5 million students.
But Wahhabism has gone beyond the Saudi borders and is a danger in other countries as well. Saudi Arabia in fact runs academies in 19 world capitals, where some of the same religious texts are used.
In a 2005 report based on surveys conducted in tens of mosques in major US cities Freedom House showed that Saudi Arabia publishes and pays for texts that instigate hatred of Westerners and violence against Shiites and Sufi practitioners for use in the United States. Ms Shea, a Catholic activist, said that Riyadh is trying to assert itself as the world's authoritative voice on Islama sort of 'Vatican' for Islam" and these textbooks are an integral part of that effort.
On September 30 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice authorised a 180-day waiver of action against Saudi Arabia in order to allow the kingdom to improve the situation of religious minorities before imposing economic sanctions. The 180 days have come and gone, but the US has so far not taken action.
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29/07/2016 15:12
