Deadly Ambush On School Bus
The Taliban, claiming themselves to be religious 'scholars', upholding the faith of Islam in their uncompromisingly rigorous way, against the onslaught of Western influences of teaching useful subjects to prepare children for today's world, take great umbrage at the very idea of teaching children history, geography, mathematics, science. All they truly need to equip them for the vicissitudes of life and to become adept as workers is to memorize all the precepts of Islam.
There are five such precepts, and inspired by them and provided with the knowledge of them, children can face a long and faithful life of worship and toil and thankfulness for what they may have achieved over the course of their lives:
- testimony that Allah is the one and only one God and that prophet Muhammad is his prophet and messenger.
- performing prayers.
- fasting the month of Ramadan
- paying the compulsory charity (Zakat)
- performing Hajj for who can afford it.
All else is extraneous, and defiles the name of God. In Kabul, Afghanistan, hundreds of children were just recently caught in a deadly violent melee between Afghan Taliban and the Afghan National Security Guard in a 20-hour shoot-out. Some children in a yellow mini-bus which had a rocket hit it, were wounded. Their terrified parents managed to scoop up all their children and take them to safety.
Not quite so fortunate on the other hand, school children in Peshawar when Pakistani Taliban ambushed a school bus. Four boys and the bus driver were slaughtered in a hail of bullets and rocket fire. The children took their studies at an English-language school that offered a Western-imported, secular education. Something clearly forbidden by the Taliban.
Two 7-year-old girls were also wounded. It is an area considered to be dangerous, harbouring an al-Qaeda headquarters. What can those parents be thinking, sending their innocent young children to Western-style schools that teach language, history, geography, science, mathematics? Are they guided by the wish to have their children achieve an actual education and so placing them in mortal danger?
"The gunmen were waiting for the bus in fields and attacked when it came close. They fired a rocket and then fired bullets on the van", a 15-year-old student who was wounded in the attack explained.
Labels: Afghanistan, Education, Islamism, Pakistan, Traditions, Tragedy
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