Saudi Munificence
There exist within Canada Muslim schools which Saudi Arabia has generously funded. Saudi Arabia does lovely things like that; using its vast wealth to advance learning. Of course, it is not just Canada that is so generously endowed by Saudi altruism. It is also most of Europe where huge migrating Muslim populations have settled. And it is also the United States of America.One should not overlook the fact that madrassas, as they are called, where young Muslim boys are indoctrinated into the finer points of Koranic precepts and law in the only language which has the sublime right to the Koran, Arabic, exist first and foremost, in Muslim countries. Muslim countries, that is, as diverse as Pakistan and Indonesia, for example.
Indonesia, using an example, is a most populous country, in fact the most populous Muslim country in the world. It has also been historically an open society, respectful of other religions, ethnic groups, that kind of open-mindedness. So it is interesting to note that Saudi Arabian generosity has been witnessed there with some degree of skepticism. Some might term it hostility.
Which might appear to be mightily ungrateful. After all, here is Saudi Arabia, willing to share its wealth through the publishing and dissemination of badly-needed school texts. Free! If any country might be responsible to be helpful in teaching young minds about Islam, it seems right that it be Saudi Arabia, since that country is, after all, the steward of the holiest sites in Islam.
And Saudi Arabia takes its responsibilities to the world of Islam seriously indeed. Just as it is serious about the brand of Islam that it adheres to, promotes and shares.
Yet that ingrate, Abdurrahman Wahid, in 2005, as then-president of Indonesia wrote of the danger of Saudi ideology, claiming it to be responsible for a "well-financed, multifaceted global movement that operates like a juggernaut in much of the developing world, and even among immigrant Muslim communities in the West".
Oh my, whatever would bring Mr. Wahid to that unkind conclusion? Anyone curious enough to find out on their own can do so by seeking online information where the texts are posted at the official Saudi Education site. As, for example, the following excerpts from school texts exported from Saudi Arabia to international destinations:
- A grade 8 text: "The Apes are the people of the Sabbath, the Jews; the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the Christians";
- Lesson for Grade 8 class: As an exercise, students can spend time listing "Jews' condemnable qualities";
- A Grade 10 text regarding abominable The Protocols of the Elders of Zion from 19th Century Czarist Russia: "These are secret decisions that aim at achieving domination of the world. They were exposed in the 19th Century and the Jews have tried to deny them, but evidence exists to prove their validity and their reproduction by the Elders of Zion";
- For Grade 11: "Baha'ism: is one of the most destructive esoteric sects in the modern age".
A reminder of Saudi Arabia's perfidious position as an honoured 'friend' of the United States proven so adequately when fifteen of the 19 9/11 suicide-attack 'martyrs' were of Saudi origin is timely. Which is precisely one of the items that Nina Shea, director of the Washington-based Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom pointed out.
"Because of the Saudis' great oil wealth, it is able to disseminate its textbooks far and wide", she wrote in her report, Ten Years On. "These textbooks are posted on the Saudi Education Ministry's website and are shipped and distributed free by a vast Saudi-sponsored Sunni infrastructure to many Muslim schools, mosques and libraries throughout the world.
"This is not just hate mongering, it's promoting violence." Nina Shea
Labels: Education, Political Realities, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, September 29, 2011
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