Curriculum of Hate in Pakistani Schools

[Durran3]

This is a very important discussion that needs to be brought forward. What your Children learn now is what they might become in the future.

Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Syria, UAE, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Comoros, Iraq, Maldives, Djibouti, Benin, Brunei, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Mozambique, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Suriname, Togo, Guyana and Côte d’Ivoire are all Muslim-majority states. Can you name the one — and the only — Muslim-majority state where Muslims blew up the Danish embassy killing at least eight other Muslims?

Why, why Pakistan? I don’t have all the answers, and I am sure no one does. But, please have a look at what the Punjab Textbook Board is teaching eleven-year old Pakistanis. Here is a paragraph from the Social Studies textbook for Class 7, page 43 (written by Professor Dr M H Bokhari and Syed Hassan Tahir):

“European nations have been working during the past three centuries, through conspiracies on naked aggression to subjugate the countries of the Muslim world.”

Here is a paragraph that was not part of the previous year’s Pakistan Studies but has been inserted in the textbook for the current academic year. This text was written by Muhammad Hussain Chaudhry, Ali Iqtadar Mirza, Sheikh Anees, Rai Faiz Ahmad Kharal, Syed Abbas Haidar and Dr Qais. This is for students of Class 9 and appears on page 3:

“The economic system of (the) west was creating unsolvable problems and had failed to do justice with the people.”

Thirteen- and fourteen-year-old students of Pakistan Studies are being taught that

“one of the reasons of the downfall of the Muslims in the sub-continent was the lack of the spirit of jihad (Class 9-10; Pakistan Studies, page 7).”

Imagine; thirteen-year-old Pakistanis are being taught that

“In Islam jihad is very important…..The person who offers his life never dies….All the prayers nurture one’s passion of jihad (Class 9-10; Pakistan Studies, page 10).”

Look at what Dr Sultan Khan, Muhammad Farooq Malik, Rai Faiz Ahmad Kharal, Muhammad Hussain Chaudhry and Khadim Ali Khan are teaching sixteen-year-old Pakistanis:

“Always keep oneself ready to sacrifice one’s life and property is jihad…..The basic purpose of all submissions and jihad is to keep oneself follower of the good will of Allah Almighty (Class 12; Pakistan Studies, page 4).”

At the tender age of 10, Pakistani students are discovering what the British had done to them. “The British sent rare books from these libraries to England. Thus the British ruined the Muslim schools. They did not want that Islam should spread (Class 6; Social Studies, page 99).” This text was scripted and translated by Professor Mian Muhammed Aslam, Professor Muhammed Farooq Malik and Qazi Sajjad Ahmed.

Look at the remarkable breakthrough achieved by of our learned Professor Dr M H Bokhari and Syed Hassan Tahir. In a total of 36 words, the duo has managed to capture the cause of the crusades:

“History has no parallel to the extremely kind treatment of the Christians by the Muslims. Still the Christian kingdoms of Europe were constantly trying to gain control of Jerusalem. This was the cause of the crusades (Class 7; Social Studies, page 25).”

It seems as if our ministry of education is grooming our children for death rather than for life. The examples quoted above are all out of our federal ministry of education’s curriculum designed by the curriculum wing. I agree that nine-, ten- and eleven-year-old students after reading these textbooks are not going to go and blow themselves up but the federal ministry of education is certainly creating a thoroughly militarized society. In that sense, our curriculum appears to have been deliberately designed to facilitate the usurpation of genuine educational space by forces of hate, violence and that of extremism. What we have is a primary and secondary school environment consciously manufactured to nurture terror, promote prejudice and breed extremism.

Our ‘Curriculum of hate’ is, hopefully, not producing suicide bombers but it is definitely breeding closet bombers who wholeheartedly support the ideals of suicide bombers being produced elsewhere. In essence, the two — suicide bombers and closet bombers — have a strange symbiotic relationship whereby the parasite cannot survive without a receptive host. And, the receptive host is all around us — courtesy the ministry of education, government of Pakistan. Why is our ministry of education so bent upon preparing our kids for death and not for life?

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.
----------------------

This alone is one of the most important and dangerous issues Pakistani's have to deal with. I urge everyone to take notice of this and look carefully at what is being taught in your schools and what your kids are learning.

 

[justanobserver]

There was a similar by fatman17

Textbooks from the hate factory

By Haya Fatima Iqbal

KARACHI: The portrayal of religious minorities in textbooks prescribed by state-funded textbook boards is a grave indicator of what the country’s young people are being taught in terms of tolerance and respect for other religions.

According to a 2007 report titled ‘Producing Thinking Minds - A Report on Pakistan’s Secondary School Curricula and Textbooks’ by Enlightened Pakistan, an organisation founded by several Pakistani university students, there are numerous instances even in the 2006 edition of local textbooks for grades sixth to tenth in which sweeping generalisations have been made against people belonging to religions other than Islam.

Similarly, writings and reports by other researchers such as Pervez Hoodbhoy, Abdul Hameed Nayyar and Tariq Rahman, mention some of the sentences that have been noted in Pakistani textbooks: “Christians have always harmed the Muslims. They did not even stop from killing them. They occupied Muslims lands, looted them and treated them very badly”, “The foundation of the Hindu set-up was based on injustice and cruelty”, “The non-Muslims, especially the Hindus, did not like Muslims as they looked upon them as usurpers” and even “The Christians took to their traditional tactics of conspiring against the ruler”.

Vijay Kumar Khatri, an engineer by profession, recalls the time when he used to study at his school in Dhoronaro village, he did not feel good reading such material in class. Moreover, owing to such textbooks and children’s brought up on the part of their parents, “Children were trained to have a negative mindset from a very young age. There was definitely a level of mistrust between Hindu and Muslim students, so much so that Muslim students did not even want to drink from the glass we had used!” said Khatri.

Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) National Institute of Pakistan Studies (NIPS) Director Dr Tariq Rahman said such material tends to bias children in a way that Muslims learn to look down upon other religions, whereas people from other religions develop antipathy towards Muslims. “It is not only legally wrong but also works against democratic values,” added Dr Rahman.

According to him, changes in curriculum had already started taking place after the year 1958, but the process sped up after Pakistan’s war of 1965 against India. However, textbooks were drastically revised during Gen Ziaul Haq’s regime. Explaining what Social Studies book were like prior to 1965, Dr Rahman relates, “When I was at school, I even read about Buddha and Gandhi and the course was not that one-sided. It did not have religious remarks at all. Also, we did not have Islamiat as a subject and what we used to study was a subject called Moral Sciences.”

Sarah John, a schoolteacher, opines that more than textbooks, it is the lessons taught to children at home that matter more as to how they behave with people of other religions. Apart from one instance at college where one of her colleagues passed a crude remark at her on the basis of her religion, she said she has not felt discriminated by people as such. However, it is the state, which has probably done the greatest injustice to her and many others in their student lives. Sarah had to study Islamiat all the way from her matriculation up to her BA, because of a prevalent notion that when students attempt an Ethics exam at the board level, they are singled out and given lower marks. The same is the case with Khatri, who had to study Islamiat in SSC and HSC because the teachers did not give detailed guidance on how to attempt an Ethics exam. “Before Matric, all the Hindu students in my class used to sit idle during Islamiat classes and we felt badly left out.”

It is also dismal to see that the only substitute for the subject of Islamiat for non-Muslim students is Ethics. “I have sometimes felt that if Muslim students are taught about Islam, I should also be taught the Bible. Even at Kinnaird, which is a Christian college, the only option I had apart from Islamiat was to study Ethics,” said Sarah. According to Khatri too, “Either all children should be taught their religions separately or there should be one subject for the whole class that comprehensively deals with all religions of the world.”

In 2002, during the rule of Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf, some changes were made to the anti-Hindu and anti-Indian content in the Social Studies textbook of grade eighth and Pakistan Studies textbook of grade ninth. Nevertheless, as Dr Rahman mentions, “Apart from textbooks, hatred continues to break into the minds of Pakistanis everyday through some television channels, radio stations, newspapers and informal hate literature too.”

Sanobar Nathaniel, a recent graduate, could not have been more realistic about the improvement in Pakistan's textbooks, as she said, “There needs a lot to be improved in our educational system in general, let alone religious issues, but considering the fact that ours is a Muslim majority country, such issues cannot be taken up or be thought to be a worthwhile fight.”

 

[anurag_singh]

This is a very important discussion that needs to be brought forward. What your Children learn now is what they might become in the future.

Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Syria, UAE, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Comoros, Iraq, Maldives, Djibouti, Benin, Brunei, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Mozambique, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Suriname, Togo, Guyana and Côte d’Ivoire are all Muslim-majority states. Can you name the one — and the only — Muslim-majority state where Muslims blew up the Danish embassy killing at least eight other Muslims?

Why, why Pakistan? I don’t have all the answers, and I am sure no one does. But, please have a look at what the Punjab Textbook Board is teaching eleven-year old Pakistanis. Here is a paragraph from the Social Studies textbook for Class 7, page 43 (written by Professor Dr M H Bokhari and Syed Hassan Tahir):

“European nations have been working during the past three centuries, through conspiracies on naked aggression to subjugate the countries of the Muslim world.”

Here is a paragraph that was not part of the previous year’s Pakistan Studies but has been inserted in the textbook for the current academic year. This text was written by Muhammad Hussain Chaudhry, Ali Iqtadar Mirza, Sheikh Anees, Rai Faiz Ahmad Kharal, Syed Abbas Haidar and Dr Qais. This is for students of Class 9 and appears on page 3:

“The economic system of (the) west was creating unsolvable problems and had failed to do justice with the people.”

Thirteen- and fourteen-year-old students of Pakistan Studies are being taught that

“one of the reasons of the downfall of the Muslims in the sub-continent was the lack of the spirit of jihad (Class 9-10; Pakistan Studies, page 7).”

Imagine; thirteen-year-old Pakistanis are being taught that

“In Islam jihad is very important…..The person who offers his life never dies….All the prayers nurture one’s passion of jihad (Class 9-10; Pakistan Studies, page 10).”

Look at what Dr Sultan Khan, Muhammad Farooq Malik, Rai Faiz Ahmad Kharal, Muhammad Hussain Chaudhry and Khadim Ali Khan are teaching sixteen-year-old Pakistanis:

“Always keep oneself ready to sacrifice one’s life and property is jihad…..The basic purpose of all submissions and jihad is to keep oneself follower of the good will of Allah Almighty (Class 12; Pakistan Studies, page 4).”

At the tender age of 10, Pakistani students are discovering what the British had done to them. “The British sent rare books from these libraries to England. Thus the British ruined the Muslim schools. They did not want that Islam should spread (Class 6; Social Studies, page 99).” This text was scripted and translated by Professor Mian Muhammed Aslam, Professor Muhammed Farooq Malik and Qazi Sajjad Ahmed.

Look at the remarkable breakthrough achieved by of our learned Professor Dr M H Bokhari and Syed Hassan Tahir. In a total of 36 words, the duo has managed to capture the cause of the crusades:

“History has no parallel to the extremely kind treatment of the Christians by the Muslims. Still the Christian kingdoms of Europe were constantly trying to gain control of Jerusalem. This was the cause of the crusades (Class 7; Social Studies, page 25).”

It seems as if our ministry of education is grooming our children for death rather than for life. The examples quoted above are all out of our federal ministry of education’s curriculum designed by the curriculum wing. I agree that nine-, ten- and eleven-year-old students after reading these textbooks are not going to go and blow themselves up but the federal ministry of education is certainly creating a thoroughly militarized society. In that sense, our curriculum appears to have been deliberately designed to facilitate the usurpation of genuine educational space by forces of hate, violence and that of extremism. What we have is a primary and secondary school environment consciously manufactured to nurture terror, promote prejudice and breed extremism.

Our ‘Curriculum of hate’ is, hopefully, not producing suicide bombers but it is definitely breeding closet bombers who wholeheartedly support the ideals of suicide bombers being produced elsewhere. In essence, the two — suicide bombers and closet bombers — have a strange symbiotic relationship whereby the parasite cannot survive without a receptive host. And, the receptive host is all around us — courtesy the ministry of education, government of Pakistan. Why is our ministry of education so bent upon preparing our kids for death and not for life?

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.
----------------------

This alone is one of the most important and dangerous issues Pakistani's have to deal with. I urge everyone to take notice of this and look carefully at what is being taught in your schools and what your kids are learning.

Really sad and dangerous situation. You people should oppose it.

 

[justanobserver]

Do Pakistani history books mention 1948, and later wars ?


edit:saw the older thread, it seems that they do

 

[FNFAL]

inst pakistani punjab like the most radical of all provinces within pakistan??

last heard they were banning indian cartoons and tuff.. comes as no suprise then....

 

[justanobserver]

One (the only?) good thing that the Marxists did for India was that they wrote the history books.

 

[nForce]

This is alarming indeed.

I was well aware of the radicalization of the Educational system by the infamous Zia ul Haq,but never really thought that the legacy has still been maintained.
This is systematic brainwash!!
I would very much like to get my hands on a copy of Standard 9 and 10 history books of Pakistan....

 

[flameboard]

Can I find Pakistani textbooks online? I know every province has their own version of books I would like to have access to them all.

Look there have been groups in Europe trying to attack Islam but this isn't limited to just Europe, also this cannot be denied. But its not everyone. I do not support censorship of history, if this stuff should be brought then primary and secondary sources need to listed in the textbook, so students get a better sense of what is going on.

 

[nForce]

The view of the fellow Pakistanis on this matter???

 

[FreekiN]

Nope, nothing like that in my experience studying there.

 

[Repentant]

Coming to think of it,

We all know what the ones going to madrassas are fed with and those not going to madrassas are fed with this.

That pretty much makes up the entire youth of Pakistan.

 

[Materialistic]

What a load of crap!!!
Which year do these books belong to??? The last time i heard of education board was the complains that our education system is removing topics on Islam & our Historic leaders as well as some other core stuff.

I have studied in Pakistan, and why the hell din't i ever came across this stuff!!

I ask all the Pakistani members on this forum, Were they taught this !!

Those who studied it and those who din't find any such thing should mention!!

 

[nForce]

One (the only?) good thing that the Marxists did for India was that they wrote the history books.

I get it... a subtle finger pointing towards those DU scholars,if I am not very much mistaken.....

 

[justanobserver]

Nope, nothing like that in my experience studying there.

I saw an older thread on this issue, some important comments :

This issue was brought up earlier in one of the threads on the forum. All that Pakistani members had to say was that the private schools where they studied never had any biased comments about minorities. And if at all possible, these biased notebooks would be used in govt. schools but nobody send their kids to such schools. We conveniently forget that many poor kids would go to such govt. schools and study from such notebooks. A poor Ajmal Kasab would take his first steps towards bigotism and Jihad through such notebooks.

Agree with author.The syllabus needs revision..In my Pakistan Studies book the whole east pakitan issue was blamed on hindus
Hindus controlled schools, they controlled trade and economy etc..our books blame hindus for everything.In fact i just read the book and i can easily quote at least 6 sentences which blame hindus.

Look there have been groups in Europe trying to attack Islam but this isn't limited to just Europe, also this cannot be denied. But its not everyone. I do not support censorship of history, if this stuff should be brought then primary and secondary sources need to listed in the textbook, so students get a better sense of what is going on.

wow you're trying to justify it?

care to justify this :

The foundation of the Hindu set-up was based on injustice and cruelty”, “The non-Muslims, especially the Hindus, did not like Muslims as they looked upon them as usurpers” and even “The Christians took to their traditional tactics of conspiring against the ruler”

 

[nForce]

Nope, nothing like that in my experience studying there.

Is there any way to get the standard history books online??I just want to see it for myself....