Adil Najam
In late July, the Daily Times broke the story about about how the new Ethics textbook published by the Punjab and Sindh Textbook Boards for class IX do not have a chapter on Christianity and Jesus Christ.
The good news was that there was an immediate uproar from some politicians (Senator Aitzaz Ahsan) and major Pakistani newspapers (Daily Times, News) wrote scathing editorials condemning the omission.
I have waited ten days now to find out what has been done on this. Yet, unless I have missed something — and I really hope I have — nothing seems to have been done yet to rectify the situation.
To be fair, the text books are slowly becoming better and more balanced than they used to be. This is largely because of the pioneering work being done by many civil society activists. Indeed, the fact that the text book in questions does have sections on Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Krisha, and Guru Nanak is great news (these were not there when I was in school).
But as this incident points out, because of our past negligence, the challenge is much bigger and there is a need for continued vigilance. At issue is the education of our cchildren, but also the shape of society and the treatment fo religious minorities in Pakistan.
The News, for example, pointed out:
Mr Ahsan is spot on as far as his remarks on the Christian community are concerned. Unfortunately, he has also hit the nail on the head when he says that the community has been persecuted since the days of General Zia. The reason for this has a lot to do with the fact that the country has become conservative since then and because that military dictator introduced laws that tended to target Christians and other minorities, especially the laws relating to blasphemy. Other policies introduced by General Zia — and which successive governments have failed to discard in many instances — were even more overtly discriminatory. For instance, many public-sector educational institutions give applicants extra marks or credit if they have learnt the Holy Quran by rote. Indeed, if such a policy is to be followed in college or university admissions then applicants of all faiths should be allowed to benefit from it — otherwise it should not be instituted in the first place because it reeks of discrimination….
The News is exactly right. For too long and on too many issues, Pakistan has taken its minorities for granted. An immediate stop must be put to this and we have to learn to treat all Pakistanis, irrespective of their religion, as equal citizens with equal rights. The insensitivity that officialdom and society at large shows to the religious beliefs 
of non-Muslims must be reversed and meaningful steps should be taken by the government to reverse the trends of discrimination and marginalization.
The misdirected zeal of our curriculum designes has created entire generations who actually think that patriotism is just about trashing the ‘enemy’ and faith is about explaining what is wrong with everyone else’s religion. True, others do it too and there are enough hate-mongers everywhere. But that is their problem. Our responsibility is to our own kids and we must not mess with their future!
Speaking of messing with education, now we hear of more propaganda seeping into the curriculum. A story in the August 2, 2006 issue of The Daily Times points out this incident of curriculum abuse:
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s messages to the nation have been replaced by messages from President Pervez Musharraf and Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi in almost all the latest editions of books approved and published by the Punjab Textbook Board… The Punjab Textbook Board chairman said he had noticed the error in books published by the board and had planned to omit the messages of Musharraf and Elahi from books to be published in 2007-08.
In this case it is good news that the Board plans to remove the political propaganda. Let’s please make sure it is removed.
We have fed our youth canned and erroneous histories for too long. So long, in fact, that I would bet if you asked a cross section of our young who Mohammad Ali Bogra was and gave them two choices — sportsman or politician — most will probably guess he was a sportsman rather than a Prime Minister of the country!
So, whatever else we do or not do, please do not mess with education!
(P.S., also see earlier ATP post on what’s happening to libraries).
Adnan - Lets agree to disagree….
And imagine this scenario…Cat Stevens had a nervous breakdown due to a drug overdose..So the void is filled by faith. The guy singing and asking everyone to join his PEACE TRAIN was supportive of the Fatwa by Imam Khomenie to kill Salman Rushdie.
Junaid Jamshed has admitted that he is confused due to the glitter of the popular culture. So he finds salvation in Islam.
Saeed Anwar unfortunately lost his 4 year old daugher to a terminal disease. He found solace in Islam.
Yousuf Yohana…well how would you feel that if Inzimam & his likes when he praises Allah for his team performance in every interview \….would this not cause emotional isolation on Yousuf’s part & then he he treats Islam as the only way in which he is made to feel part of the team….
The truest converts are those, as you have correctly highlighted, who read about Islam on their own and have this relative analysis of what their current faith gives them and what Islam has to offer. These are the most moving case studies that make our faith stronger. Not by some mullah who does not know his behind from a hole in the ground
Take away Israel’s behavior towards 9/11 and you will have justice in the world order…it is then they you can truly have greater momentum of conversions because Islam has been damaged by 9/11 and not otherwise…
We will present a much moderate view of Islam if we were to have modern interpretation of Islam and emphasis is put on tolerance…this idea that when our children would read about Hinduism they would be able to defend their faith (or actually convince others to consider Islam as their new faith) is something i do not agree on….
Our children need to learn about other religions so that they do not become bigots
Why start with other religions…Why not educate the kids about Shia Faith & Sunni faith… this will be a good start as well so that the believers of these two sects within islam accept the other as muslims and do not refer to each other as kafirs as is the case generally….
Lets be honest and ask ourselves that when we are in groups, in our colleges and at work, are we really honest in treating the person of the different faith as equals or are our fangs showing the moment we speak to someone different
To my knowledge (and I may be wrong) this “requirement� exists in all of the 3 Abrahamic religions. I am sure, there are many part of these texts (esp. Old Testament) which followers have overlooked for various legitimate reasons, this “duty to convert others� should be viewed as one of those parts to be overlooked in today’s world.
Dude it happens with every religion.Do yo believe that Hinduism or Sikhism or even Budhism got spreaded without preaching??Take religions as *products* which are advertised by teir respective salesman and they praise good features of their products.Its not bad at all.The bad thing is that you *force* someone to accept the religion.2nd Islamic preaching has no comparision with Christian Missionaries who don’t even hesitate to give bribes to poor people.It happened in pre-partition India and it happened in Srilanka when Tsunami hit the country.Its been happening in Iraq these days.Giving bribe to convert to be a muslim,hindu,jew etc can’t produce a quality person at all.
Sorry adil bhai for the hatrick.I will be shutup for a while :)
Muslims are not really the role models that believers of other faith will aspire to convert. You get people to convert with example not by proselytizing.
Dear Naveed appearnly you are right but things are not so worst at all.I think you are not aware of different islamic preaching groups which travel across the globe.Offcourse these are efforts of such groups which changed Cat Stevens to Yusuf islam and gave us a different Junaid Jamshed and Saeed Anwar.And offcourse Muhammad Yousuf.
Why must we assume that there is this huge yearning among non-muslims to convert…
Again you are wrong.Its not assumption but a fact that many non-muslims started reading about Islam after 9/11 and many of them actually got reverted.Why did they do that.They better know it.
The other thing that noone force them to accept Islam neither I believe that neither those preaching groups nor an ordinary muslim is so pumped up to divert every non-muslim towards Islam.Infact its a lame idea that one can change the faith of someone by force.This doesnt happen in real world.
Err MSK I think you got yout education out of Pakistan because Pakistani textbooks don’t tell us that whether India is a secular state or Hindu state.Please go thru our text books specially history books.
The reason I called India a hindu state for the hindu influential on entire country.Nobody is talking about how india is called Officially.
Pakistan is also an official *Islamic state* but ground realities tells something else.
Rewriting the textbooks was long overdue. Equally essential is the way education is imparted and evaluated. Case studies, interactive class sessions, educational trips etc are just some of the tools that make learning a lot pleasant experience. They develop the student’s thought process and analyzing ability - skills common to all subjects from ancient history to modern physics and economics. With increasing numbers of homes gaining access to it, the internet could be put to a great use here. An examination system that favours cramming has to be done away with if we are to make our children ‘thinking pakistanis’.
Yes we need to invest in teacher training for primary and secondary levels and discourage ‘coaching centers’ that are virtually replacing schools all over the country.
Education systems are totally consistent with nature’s cycle, the student of today is the teacher of tomorrow. The way he is taught is the way future generations would be taught.
Staying on the real topic here - education - my feeling is that curriculum should be decided by independent and transparent bodies of scholars. This idea that ‘education’ is how we will produce good Pakistanis and good Muslims is absurd. That will happen, if it happens, through other means. The purpose of education is to produce knowledgeable and competent ccitizens. In educaton we need to stick to basics. Reading. Writing. Mathematics. It has become way too ideological.
Education is key to development for every society. Unfortunately, we have been playing politics on it. I was working in SDPI when this study was in process. The researchers (Ahmad Saleem, Dr. Nayyer and their team) worked very hard for bringing a change in our textbooks. The main thrust was to omit the material which creates hatred, intolernce, gender inequality and supremacy of religion. I think the researcher did a tremendous job in identifying them and even had a wonderful advocacy to raise those issues.
How the right wing politicians played their role is another phenomenon. During the textbook reforms, the Madrassah registration and reforms were also in process. These politicians had “first offesne is the best defence” strategy to criticize this study by labeling it an agenda of Western Countries, while ignoring the issues raised in the study. There was a great hue and cry in the parliament and even the government which did not want to engage on both fronts, gave more priority to Madrassah Reforms rather than textbook reforms. And now we are at square one.
I personally dont beleive this justification that Quaid-e-Azam’s addressess were omitted and Gen Musharraf comments were added unintentionally. Regarding Ch Pervaiz Elahi, you might have might have seen those costly ads in the newspapers’ front pages “Mera Khawab Parha Likha Punjab” (My dream is educated Punjab). This is how they are politicizing the education jargon while ignoring its quality.
I beleieve that it was a wonderful oppurtunity for our government to bring revolutionary change in our educational system in order to have a new generation capable of living with peace, tolerence, equality.
But leadership needs to have vision!!!
to MSK: I do believe, as good neighbours, we will learn to like and dislike same things in our respective countries…(Separation of religion and state, stronger democracy, separation of Military and State..)
If by “rabidly suspicious of everthing done across our borders” you mean the arms-race, it will be a tactical blunder for India to ignore the military potential of China. China is not a free society and the huge military arsenal of that country rests in the hands of a few “party members”. In the current international atmosphere, other miliary superpowers have already set the precedent of unilaterally invading sovereign nations under false pretexts.. The neccessity of a credible Nuclear deterrent becomes a sad reality for India for this very reason. . And I don’t blame Pak gov to use the same analysis while dealing with India.
Another issue is that although there is a general animosity (at least among liberal Indians) towards parties preaching Hindu-Muslim hate. The same is not entirely true about India-Pak hate.
In my earlier comment I said “Indians who have had interactions with Pakistanis” are the ones who see that our differences are negligible. But, the number of Indians who have indeed interacted with Pakistanis is very small and mostly abroad (I don’t live in India). And I am sure that the reverse is also true.
While I can only speculate why most Pakistanis don’t seen indians in a good light, I can squarely blame the Indian media for the hatered most Indians have towards Pakistan. The fact that there are little or no cultural insights into the Pakistani life is another culprit. Let me explain, when most Pakistanis see Indian movies (even the crappy ones) you see a side of Indians which is not that different from the urban Pakistani life. Indians don’t have many (any?) opportunites to do the same. (I do love Nuzrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Junoon..But, the effect of these artists is not comparable to that of Bollywood.)
On a different issue, I have heard (and read) that the Prophet Mohammed has quoted and praised both Jesus and Abraham in the Holy Quran.. So how is it that extremists still find a way to spin the holy text to anti-christian and anti-jewish views?
And, with all due respect, the reason there is so much animosity in the world is because of the specific religious texts which preach the followers that it is their moral duty to “prove to non-believers that their faith is wrong and my faith is the only right answer”.
To my knowledge (and I may be wrong) this “requirement” exists in all of the 3 Abrahamic religions. I am sure, there are many part of these texts (esp. Old Testament) which followers have overlooked for various legitimate reasons, this “duty to convert others” should be viewed as one of those parts to be overlooked in today’s world.
(If you disagree as to how annoying this missionary work is, try listening to a evangelical christian priest trying to convert people to Chrisitianity…)