More Cobwebs

Pakistani governments – including the present one -- have a history of buckling under pressure exerted in the name of religion. The trouble is that the buckling under happens without facts being verified, or any honest investigation, as is happening on the issue of education reform, against which some newspapers, in particular a group with the stated objective of being the ‘upholder of Pakistan’s ideology’, have taken up cudgels. Their crusade needs to be seen in perspective, and questioned accordingly, rather than being accepted as fact.

What happens when a newspaper publishes a report based on falsehood? Parliamentarians in the national assembly wave this concocted story in the Assembly the next day and demand a reply. The government, un-prepared for a proper response, gets on the defensive. The newspaper plays up slogans of the religious party parliamentarians and the government’s response. Columns and editorials follow, along with prominently displayed statements from politicians, fulminating on something they have incomplete information about.

This is what happened when Condoleeza Rice in her deposition before the 9/11 commission made a passing reference to Pakistan’s education minister. According to the transcript of her words published by the New York Times, she said: "We - one of the things that we’ve been very interested, for instance, in is issues of educational reform in some of these countries. As you know, the madrassas are a big difficulty. I’ve met, myself personally, two or three times with the Pakistani - a wonderful woman who’s the Pakistani education minister. We can’t do it for them. They have to do it for themselves. But we have to stand for those values. And over the long run, we will change - I believe we will change the nature of the Middle East, particularly if there are examples that this can work in the Middle East."

This is how the newspaper translated this: “Changing the curriculum in Muslim countries is the top priority of the US... Reforms have started. Curriculum is being changed. Pakistan’s education minister is a wonderful person. I had met her last year in Washington and exchanged views on Pakistan’s curriculum.”

Thus Condoleeza Rice’s statement is twisted to mean that Pakistan’s curriculum is being changed at Washington’s express orders.

Predictably, and without doing its homework, the Pakistan government goes into a defensive posture. The Education Minister, without reading the actual transcript or doing any investigations (apparently unaware that the entire deposition is available on the net), bases her statement on the newspaper’s version. She rejects Condoleeza Rice’s assertion and assures readers that no changes are being made because of orders from the US – thus giving credence to the twist that Rice had indeed said this. Thus a lie once more becomes ‘truth’ in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, a committee has been constituted to review textbooks. Ironically, it includes the recently appointed Minister for Religious Affairs, Ijazul Haq – the son of the man under whose command the textbooks were indoctrinated with references to militant jehad and hatred against other religions in the first place, and whose policies are largely responsible for the rise of sectarianism in Pakistan. Also in the textbook review committee is our venerable Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, whose attitude towards other cultures and religions is hardly a model to emulate. The committee includes the Muttahida Majlis Amal’s Dr Farida Ahmed (sister of the late Shah Ahmed
Noorani, and president of the JUI’s women wing) and Liaqat Baloch. Also included is Dr Dushka Syed, head of Quaid-e-Azam University’s History Department, who stated on a television talk show recently that material in textbooks which presents India and Hindus as enemies needs to be retained, given India’s threatening posture in the region.

Other committee members named include PPP member Aitzaz Ahsan, the well known educationist Dr Arifa Syeda, the senior journalist Irshad Ahmed Haqqani, along with Qari Abdul Rasheed and Hafiz Riaz Hussain Najfi.

In addition, the review committee includes the federal education and information secretaries and joint education advisor of the curriculum wing, whose usefulness to the committee might be that as government servants they will be careful not to rock the boat and to ensure their continued employment.

This committee has reportedly been given two weeks within which to submit its report to the ministry of education.

The point is not that the textbooks should not be reviewed – but what kind of a body should review these textbooks. What is the point of including ideologues who have already made it clear that information contained in textbooks should be slanted to suit the ‘ideology’ of Pakistan rather than historical facts, and who justify such distortion by citing the poison that India is injecting into its textbooks. Why not make use of existing material? Historians like K.K. Aziz and Dr Mubarik Ali have already pointed out the factual errors our textbooks contain, academics like Dr Rubina Saigol, as well as the much-maligned SDPI study, have detailed how our textbooks construct hate material, Ruqaiya Jafri and others have researched how our textbooks reinforce gender stereotypes.

As in other countries, textbooks in Pakistan too, should be written by professionals in order to expand and sharpen young minds – and not to brainwash or dull them into upholding the false homogeneity which Gen. Ziaul Haq and his ilk have sought to impose upon the diversity of Pakistan and Pakistanis.