June 22, 2006
Freedom House, part of the Center for Religious Freedom, has released a report entitled “Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance.” In it are excerpts from Saudi textbooks paid for by the Ministry of Education.
Here’s some of what Saudi school children are reading:
- “Judaism and Christianity are deviant religions”
- “The unbelievers, idolaters and others like them must be hated and despised.”
- “The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.”
The Saudi government had promised to overhaul its educational system but the content of their textbooks indicate the overhaul is either not effective or not being done. All of this poses a troubling dilemma for America. What should be our relationship with a country that considers us, according to their textbooks, the enemy? How do the textbooks play into the greater global war on terror?
These textbooks will only serve to poison the hearts and minds of young Saudis. Whatever victories we enjoy today, may quickly be supplanted by the young minds being taught to hate today.
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