Genesis Of Islamic Radicalism: The US Textbook Project That Taught Afghan Children Terror
Dec. 24th, 2012
NewsRescue- During Europe’s persecution of the Church and the Dark ages, it is known that the
Muslim world saved knowledge and indeed Christianity, that later re-flourished during the renaissance. Research into the genesis of Islamic radicalism, which is a rather recent phenomenon in global political dimensions, and as is commonly known, takes root from Afghanistan in the cold-war era, leads to a most surprising find at the root of so-called Islamic fundamentalism,-
School books. Perhaps radicalism is neither native nor accidental.
Al Qaeda remains at the forefront of the known axis of Islamic terror. Today, this has spread its tentacles to almost all nations of the world. Its source and the epicenter of this corrosive monster, that now includes AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Maghreb) of Northern Africa, Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, Al Shabaab of Somalia, LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) of Libya, the Syrian terror insurgency, Jundullah of Iran, to mention a few dendrites, is Afghanistan and the Taliban/al Qaeda terror nidus.
What converted the Afghanistan into this terror radiating machine? Perhaps the answer lies in a 53 million dollar project conducted from 1980-1994 from the
US University of Nebraska, Pakistan campus. A US funded project that printed textbooks to teach Afghanistan children in school the art or war and terror. Millions of books were made and printed in Pakistan under this project and disbursed to Afghanistan schools to teach the kids to love war and so-called Jihad. Dead Russians and guns and other weaponry were the material in these books made for the young readers, to imprint a culture of violence in their infantile minds.
These books are yet to be replaced in Afghanistan and were the focus of several articles in papers like the
Washington post, UK Telegraph etc after the fall of Afghanistan. These findings also provoke wonder- what else exists in educational material of post-colonial nations, that messes with minds?
Update: Feb 18, 2013- It appears WP took down the story shortly after we recirculated it Dec. 25th, 2012
From U.S., the ABC’s of Jihad
Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts
By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01
In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of
jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.
As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.
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“The pictures [in] the texts are horrendous to school students, but the texts are even much worse,” said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.
An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted 43 pages containing violent images or passages.
The military content was included to “stimulate resistance against invasion,” explained Yaquib Roshan of Nebraska’s Afghanistan center. “Even in January, the books were absolutely the same . . . pictures of bullets and Kalashnikovs and you name it.”
During the Taliban era, censors purged human images from the books. One page from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier and a Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier’s head is missing.
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….In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Education Center for Afghanistan, located in Peshawar, Pakistan, and operated by the Afghan mujahidin (holy warriors), published a series of primary education textbooks replete with images of Islamic militancy. These schoolbooks provided the mujahidin (who, after a ten-year struggle, drove the Soviet occupying forces from Afghanistan in 1989) with a medium for promoting political propaganda and inculcating values of Islamic militancy into a new generation of holy warriors prepared to conduct jihad against the enemies of Islam. Consider the following introduction to the Persian alphabet in a first-grade language arts book:
“A” is for Allah, “J” is for jihad
Pages from US-published textbooks for Afghanistan pupils
Alif [is for] Allah.
Allah is one.
Bi [is for] Father (baba).
Father goes to the mosque…
Pi [is for] Five (panj).
Islam has five pillars…
Ti [is for] Rifle (tufang).
Javad obtains rifles for the Mujahidin…
Jim [is for] Jihad.
Jihad is an obligation. My mom went to the jihad. Our brother gave water to the Mujahidin…
Dal [is for] Religion (din).
Our religion is Islam. The Russians are the enemies of the religion of Islam…
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The books written with the purpose of ideological propaganda….We come across the following examples in math book:
- If out of 10 atheists, 5 are killed by 1 Muslim, 5 would be left.
– 5 guns + 5 guns = 10 guns
– 15 bullets – 10 bullets = 5 bullets, etc.
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The title of this story from a Dari language textbook is “Jihad.” An excerpt from the book’s next page reads, “Jihad is the kind of war that Muslims fight in the name of God to free Muslims and Muslim lands from the enemies of Islam. If infidels invade, jihad is the obligation of every Muslim.”
Fifth-grade Afghan refugees once learned the Pashto language from characters named Maqbool and Basheer.
dikk and Jane, this duo was not.
In one story, the fictional friends see a group of Afghan mujahedeen cleaning their weapons as they prepare to fight the Soviet army.
Maqbool tells Basheer they should help the rebel fighters ready their machine guns. Basheer concurs. Soon they are meeting with a mujahedeen commander.
“We want you to help clean the weapons and fight the Russians in jihad,” he tells Maqbool and Basheer.
The youngsters agree. Now, presumably, they are soldiers themselves.
The story, and many like it, appear in the millions of textbooks written, printed and distributed during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The books taught reading and math and sought to turn children against the Red Army and the Afghan communist government.
The textbooks’ publisher: The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Center for Afghanistan Studies, operating inside Pakistan on a U.S. government grant.
To the center’s longtime director, the textbooks are byproducts of a dark era when Russian bombs killed Afghan schoolchildren and rebel forces fought to save their country.
Exiled Afghan education officials, not UNO officials, wrote the books, Thomas Gouttierre says.
The center’s sole interest, according to him, was to deliver education to children who weren’t getting any.
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Jihad and Jihadism
by Abid Ullah Jan
(Monday, July 5, 2004)
“In short, Jihadism have two variant meanings in the contemporary world. It is a label for the enemies of the US occupations in its imperial quest for global domination. Jihadism could suddenly change from a demonizing label to become a “holy war” sponsored by the US in case, say France occupies Saudi Arabia or Kuwait tomorrow. It would become a legal, compulsory, communal effort to redeem the territories occupied by France.”
Jihad in its various forms and stages is obligatory upon Muslims. Jihadism is a product of US opportunism. Jihad is always for self-actualisation, eradication of mischief and eliminating oppression with a focus on spiritual aspect at all levels. Jihadism is a double edge sword used for self aggrandisement and expansion of the American rule through the use of lies and indiscriminate force with a narrow focus on worldly gains only.
For Muslims, it was a Jihad in Afghanistan. However, for the US, with no relation to Islam and sympathy for Muslims whatsoever, it was simply promotion of violence to weaken an arch enemy, the Soviet Union. It was pure Jihadism, a selective practice and policy without any concern for the people under occupation.
Today, Jihadism and Jihadists are mere labels that the US uses as a bogyman to criminalise resistance to its illegitimate occupations and to justify the policy of total domination through its “war on terrorism.”
The purpose of sponsoring Jihadism in Afghanistan was not to spread Islamic faith, defend Muslims or reap rewards in the hereafter. If it were Jihad based on the Islamic concept, it should have been launched and sponsored by the US simultaneously in Kashmir, Palestine and Afghanistan. Relying on Jihadism then and now is simply to extend sovereign American power.
There is no concept of Jihadism in Islam. In the strict dictionary sense, as a suffix, -ism means “action, process; practice”. As a noun, “ism” means a “doctrine; theory; system of principles”. In the real world the meaning of -ism is not as simple. There is a concept of oppression associated with -ism. It needs a thorough examination to understand how -ism related oppression affects oppressed people and if there is any place for it in Islam. There is a concept of power — power-over and power-with — associated with “ism.”
When a person or a group of people has power over another person or group, the person or group with power-over
a) can control or make the other group do something, whether that group wants to or not
b) have more privilege ¾ status, social recognition, and freedom to do what they want than the other group
c) have more resources or wealth and receive better treatment than the other group
d) have the authority to define or describe the other group.
Here comes the concept of oppression: the “ism.” The “power-over” that one group uses against another is oppression, equivalent to “ism,” as in “racism,” “sexism,” or “adultism.” Oppression, or “ism,” is a name for how the powerful use that power to control the weak ¾ hurt them, make them feel bad, or get something from them ¾ or receive better treatment and more resources than them; all for the worldly objectives.
Of course any group or nation can hurt or mistreat the other. Any people can be prejudiced about the other, making stereotypical assumptions about each other. What makes mistreatment into oppression is prejudice plus power. Prejudice is one of the products of Nationalism and Patriotism. The reason there is no place for any ism in Islam is that there is no place for prejudice in Islam.
The Qur’an describes origin of prejudice (15:33, 15:39-40, 2:34); warns of division on the basis of prejudice (3:103, 42:13, 6:159, 8:46, 21:93, 35:28, 49:10 ); forbids not to mock, judge or hurt another because you think you are better than the other (49:11, 31:18) and advises to discern people by piety, not prejudice (49:13).
Since prejudice plus power is considered equal to an “ism,” Jihadism is considered Muslims’ prejudice against non-Muslims combined with the military power-over non-Muslims. It is considered just like prejudice against young people plus power-over that makes adultism, or prejudice against people of color plus power-over that makes racism. The same negative simplicity is applied to the term Islamism which means Islam’s inherent prejudice against non-Muslims which is combined with the religious and military power-over to oppress and dominate all others.
The US apparently supported the Islamic concept of Jihad against the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan. Yet very few know that it was simply the US sponsorship of Jihadism (American prejudice against communism combined with military and economic muscle to over-power the Soviet Union) that started long before there was a need for Muslims to join Jihad.
In an interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, the former national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, made a stunning confession:
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