There Will Be No-one Left
Yesterday I was browsing my way through a newspaper, thoughtfully digesting articles that delivered cognizance and confusion all at the same time. I first ingested a summary of the hate being taught in the texts used in the schools of Saudi Arabia. Let me show you just a few examples. From the grade 5 text, "It is forbidden to a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet." From the grade 8 text, "The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus." From the grade 11 text, "Do not yield to them (Christians and Jews) on a narrrow road out of honour and respect." From the grade 12 text, "(Jihad) is one of the noblest acts ... one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."
That this hate is being indoctrinated at all is major cause for concern, but that it exists after a supposed revising of the texts in order to "eliminate what might be perceived as intolerance" and "remove any element inconsistent with a modern education" is confusing to the Nth degree. According to the declarations of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., the texts and the curricula have been revised to "remove materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths."
The Muslim world cried out for revenge for the perceived lack of respect shown in the cartoons earlier this year, yet they are busily teaching their children that respect is a commodity limited to themselves only. They are quick to charge the non-Muslim world with inciting hatred toward them, and yet, in spite of the deceitful bleatings of al-Faisal, those texts continue to teach hatred against all non-Muslims. How is this a justifiable stance? Why does anyone continue with such teachings when they can only lead to bloodshed and death? I do not understand.
With an upset stomach and a mind filled with confusion, I turned the page and found myself looking at the smiling face of Stephen Appleton, a Canadian engineer and retired Canadian Forces army colonel working with a UN program to pave and improve roads in rural Afghanistan. The program's goal is to transform 900 kilometres of animal tracks and dirt paths into blacktop that will connect remote communities to the country's highways, and thereby, to a little easier access to the modern world. When completed, the new roads will allow people to reach hospitals more readily and children to get to schools that they have never before been able to attend, among other things. The $311 million project is intended to create jobs and expand trade and businesses.
How are these UN workers supposedly spreading hate? How do they merit the disdain with which far too many Muslim children are taught to view them? Since the project's inception in 2004, more than 200 Afghan and international workers have been killed, including some who were beheaded by Taliban members. Why are any of them being repaid in spilled blood, rather than the thanks they deserve? How is this supposed to better relations between the Muslims and anyone else?
Finally I saw a short article discussing reaction from leaders in Canadian Muslim communities after the 17 arrests made here last Friday. Said Ahmud Kutty, a senior lecturer at the Islamic Institute in Toronto, "I don't know where these ideas come to them, who is implanting these kinds of ideas in their heads." Give you own head a shake, Kutty. With the internet, the distance between those who teach hatred and those who hunger for such fare has shrunk to easily bridged gaps. A response such as that from Kutty is a cop-out, an attempt to say, this problem is not of my making, and I want nothing to do with it.
As I always tried to get across to all the students I ever taught, if you are not a part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem. For those in the Muslim world who claim a distance between themselves and the radicals, I have a question. What are you doing to make things better? What active steps are you taking to light a candle against the darkness that the radicals seek to spread? Simply to say "tsk! tsk!" is not enough. Remember the words of the pastor and social activist Martin Niemoller:
"First they came for the Communists and I said nothing; after all I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews and I said nothing; after all I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I said nothing; after all I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
These powerful words thunder their way across the years since Niemoller first spoke them in reference to those who did nothing to oppose Hitler. They reverberate with special meaning now. If you do nothing to combat the hate being directed against others, who will there be left to speak out when the hatemongers finally turn their gaze on you?
That this hate is being indoctrinated at all is major cause for concern, but that it exists after a supposed revising of the texts in order to "eliminate what might be perceived as intolerance" and "remove any element inconsistent with a modern education" is confusing to the Nth degree. According to the declarations of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., the texts and the curricula have been revised to "remove materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths."
The Muslim world cried out for revenge for the perceived lack of respect shown in the cartoons earlier this year, yet they are busily teaching their children that respect is a commodity limited to themselves only. They are quick to charge the non-Muslim world with inciting hatred toward them, and yet, in spite of the deceitful bleatings of al-Faisal, those texts continue to teach hatred against all non-Muslims. How is this a justifiable stance? Why does anyone continue with such teachings when they can only lead to bloodshed and death? I do not understand.
With an upset stomach and a mind filled with confusion, I turned the page and found myself looking at the smiling face of Stephen Appleton, a Canadian engineer and retired Canadian Forces army colonel working with a UN program to pave and improve roads in rural Afghanistan. The program's goal is to transform 900 kilometres of animal tracks and dirt paths into blacktop that will connect remote communities to the country's highways, and thereby, to a little easier access to the modern world. When completed, the new roads will allow people to reach hospitals more readily and children to get to schools that they have never before been able to attend, among other things. The $311 million project is intended to create jobs and expand trade and businesses.
How are these UN workers supposedly spreading hate? How do they merit the disdain with which far too many Muslim children are taught to view them? Since the project's inception in 2004, more than 200 Afghan and international workers have been killed, including some who were beheaded by Taliban members. Why are any of them being repaid in spilled blood, rather than the thanks they deserve? How is this supposed to better relations between the Muslims and anyone else?
Finally I saw a short article discussing reaction from leaders in Canadian Muslim communities after the 17 arrests made here last Friday. Said Ahmud Kutty, a senior lecturer at the Islamic Institute in Toronto, "I don't know where these ideas come to them, who is implanting these kinds of ideas in their heads." Give you own head a shake, Kutty. With the internet, the distance between those who teach hatred and those who hunger for such fare has shrunk to easily bridged gaps. A response such as that from Kutty is a cop-out, an attempt to say, this problem is not of my making, and I want nothing to do with it.
As I always tried to get across to all the students I ever taught, if you are not a part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem. For those in the Muslim world who claim a distance between themselves and the radicals, I have a question. What are you doing to make things better? What active steps are you taking to light a candle against the darkness that the radicals seek to spread? Simply to say "tsk! tsk!" is not enough. Remember the words of the pastor and social activist Martin Niemoller:
"First they came for the Communists and I said nothing; after all I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews and I said nothing; after all I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I said nothing; after all I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
These powerful words thunder their way across the years since Niemoller first spoke them in reference to those who did nothing to oppose Hitler. They reverberate with special meaning now. If you do nothing to combat the hate being directed against others, who will there be left to speak out when the hatemongers finally turn their gaze on you?
2 Comments:
The state of Saudi Arabia's education system has been known for years by the world. The UN has published numerous papers on the state Middle East's economy and the direct relationship their education system (and women's rights) has on it. This was known when the US sought the support of Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. This was known when Bush walked the Middle East holding hands with Shiek Poo-Pants (whatever name the ruler of Saudi Arabia goes by). Despite all this, the US, the west, turns a blind eye to the hate and intolerance in order to continue sucking oil from the region. Bush is even friends with the country's leaders who can do something about this. Worse still, Saudi Arabia is the country that mostly exports Islam -- their sick version of the religion. They provide, free of charge, educational texts to Muslim schools around the world -- including those in North America. Is it any wonder that we're finding terrorists under our beds?
Well, you asked so here you go.
Not only do I continously fight against extremism of all forms on my blog, I publish articles that inflame extremists in Alberta in my dad's magazine. My boyfriend won't even get in my car until I turn the key in the ignition. People have told my dad that I need to "be careful" and tone it down. I have fought extremism since I was old enough to know what it was. My Father loathes terrorists like Bin Laden and Zarqawi and when Zarqawi was finally killed, my mother heeped all sorts of lovely arabic curses on his head.
When I lived in Lebanon and blogging was just a series of messages on a message board, I got into a huge fight with a guy in Egypt who took exception to the fact that I stood up to him for writing something absolutely vile which I will not repeat about Jewish people. He reported me to the Surete Generale as an Israeli spy. Now considering it was a time when Israel still occupied the 25 mile zone in the south of Lebanon, he might as well have been signing my death warrant. The only thing that saved me was that I could prove that I didn't have any contact whatsoever with anyone in that zone.
Just because you don't hear it, doesn't mean we don't do it. Who gets the sound bite? The guy screaming racism and racial profiling or the person who says yes, we have a problem and it is out of control. How many sound bites did the communities that didn't violently protest the cartoons get? NONE. How many did the psychos get? Oh, one or so a day.
Some of us fight every day and at great risk to ourselves. I can provide anyone with a copy of the article I wrote on Zarqawi or Bin Laden. I can provide copies of what I wrote on Beslan and other atrocities like it. I can even provide an article I wrote on the Saudi king. Not one of those pieces was approved by mainstream media. Those of us who are fighting just do not make good soundbites.
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