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).
I disagree with you completely on our crickets’ grouping based on faith
Since when did I make such statment??
What impact Kineria is under will only be revealed with time
As I said that dressing room environment has nothing to do with yousuf’s converstion.That was Yousuf’s own decision that he accepted Islam.Did you notice that Shoaib hardly joins the cricket team when it comes about their religious activities.Its all becasue of shoaib’s own choice though he’s a muslim.
You might say tht Woolmer will also be changed to Babar Waseem one day? :)
We do any awful lot of damage to Islam by blowing up planes
hehee my friend!you also believe in US media which is being propagated more severely than a religion’s message?There is no doubt that US media is very strong which can make us believe that sun actually rises from north because it was all over in news.You would need to study neocons tactics adn their plans to takeover this world.For a quick learning.I would like that readers of this blog visit this website:
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmare s
and watch the awesome BBC documentary which reveasls how neocons played an Important part to destroy USSR by comingup lots of false proofs.The same tactic was used against Iraq as well.You will find lots of famous faces in the documentary.
PAkistan handing over his own people because Pakistani rulers always want to keep themselves in power.Do read Ataul Haq qasmi sahab’s article on today’s(Aug 12) Jang in which he dicussed a very sensitive issue that how govt is comitted to sacrifice our own people to keep themselves in power.
We must keep Islam out of politics and by all means we should keep it out of Cricket
this might be possible in papers but not in reality.Unless there are aethists around us.second politics adn religion can’t be seperated with each other.Otherwise you are taking away freedom of individuals by not remembering Allah/God or whatever.
Ms.Nuzhat Aziz
“even” was delibrately added in reply of naveed’s following statment
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
Nothing else.To reply him that I am easily compatible with my friend who belives in Bible rather Quran.
Folks, let me share with you something which a colleague of mine, a Canadian Sikh, whom we called Kal, once told me. Kal was born and spent the first 15 or 16 years of his life in Atari, a village in Indian Punjab across the Wagah border. His father suggested that, since they lived so close to Pakistan, Kal should also learn to read and write Urdu. (Punjabi is the language of Indian Punjab and is written in Gurmukhi script.) He managed to procure an Urdu Qaeda (primer)for Kal from Lahore.
Kal says he started with alphabet, like most children do, trying to read and recognize each letter and the accompanying word and picture: Alif anaar — a picture of pomegranate, Be billi — a picture of a cat, Pe patang — a picture of a kite, and so on. When he reached the letter Zoye the accompanying word was Zalim and the picture showed a fierce looking man, wearing a long beard, a turban, a karra (metal bracelet) and a kirpan (sword) — A Sikh!
Kal says he was shocked that someone would associate cruelty with people of his faith, which he believed, preached nothing but peace. Needless to say that he gave up learning Urdu.
Instead of migrating to Canada, had Kal stayed on in India and wound up in education department writing textbooks for his schools, his picture of a Zalim, I am sure, would have depicted someone from across the border.
Naveed. Thanks for reminding of the attack that was recently thewarted in London. I had not imagined what Pakistan would be if the attack had been carried out. Unbelievable.
Adnan,
I am sure you did not mean the ‘even’ as in ” I even hugged both of them when returned back from Umrah” . Leaving that slip (I hope) aside and going back to the topic of education, as someone who has interacted with kids studying the Govt curriculum, I can tell you that they are being fed ideological drivel that is based on the two-nation theory, which in my opinion is largely irrelevant today. The kids are being taught to be citizens of a National Security State, and not a modern, progressive Pakistan at peace with the times.
On the brighter side, change is coming surely and slowly. And I hope that the days of “jeem ” for “jihad” are behind us, and we will ultimately revert to “jeem sey jahaz”.