Jehad and The Curriculum

I have come across a number of Islamists who have privately shown a keen interest in all the `un-natural` acts including masturbation.
One of these chaps was a compulsive jerker- and would jerk off twice a day once after waking up and once before going to sleep. A real nice guy- I liked him a lot, but he had a fetish for black burqa. Infact many of the religious persons demonstrate a strong libido- may be malik can explain why!

Ref nazarhayatkhan #38

[Then you find fairly educated suited-booted Pakistanis trying to prove Scientific theories through Scripture. One favourite is that holy book says that man was created out of a honey-like liquid. (any teenager could make this observation) ]

Have you heard this priceless Urban Legend that has been making the rounds?

The professor in biochemistry was talking about the composition of semen. He said that glucose was one of the components.

A girl asked, ``Glucose, like in sugar? Then why doesn`t it taste sweet?``

Realizing her blunder, she gathered up her books and left the classroom but not before the professor shot back, ``That is because the tastebuds specific to sugar are in the front of the tongue!``

The more languages one can master the better it is. English LANGUAGE must be mastered but not CULTURE and of-course NEVER at the expense of losing what is ones own..regional AND national!

Such scum does not exist anywhere in the world except Pakistan. 90% of time and energy gets wasted in becoming a stage actor, acquiring props (e.g:cigar, pipe & liquor) and dreaming of becoming Michael Jackson.


It is unfortunate that the illiterates in Pakistan (``I know German too etc etc but not Urdu. but I exist in Pakistan but live in U.S``) cannot read this but make bombastic comments about knowing something about education. Oh! they teach & get paid. What more can be the curse on a country.

Ever met anyone anywhere who takes pride in not-knowing something and claim it as an asset? Sure! they abound in the Twinkle-Twinkle schools..a dime a dozen.

Name one single individual from the twinkle-twinkle schools system which has produced a learned person in Pakistan (pre or post-partition). Jinnah was from Sind MADRESSA-tul-Islam. Never ever forget that. Include THAT in the syllabus. Impress that in Pakistan studies.

The Canadian Ambassador to Pakistan reads & writes chaste Urdu. He considers it an asset to his job. Those who do not take instructions from outsiders are not fit to teach ( or even exist with honour & dignity)

Laanat on the real terrorists in Pakistan.The lowest of the low in Pakistan. Nothing will change unless a Vana is conducted on these vultures.

malik99.

............you asked: ``Would you allow your 6th grade children to read the gay/lesbian books that are being pushed in US schools? Please do not go in hyperboles. Just state for this board in yes / no terms. ``

.................the answer is an unqualified ``yes``..........i assume that my children (17 and 11) are so comfortable with their sexuality that, unlike insecure people like you, they don`t have to worry about this crap ........ as a matter of fact one of my daughter`s best friends recently ``came out of the closet`` and he is still welcome at my house ......... however i am deeply disappointed because i really liked the kid and thought he would have made a great son-in-law............. just goes to show that you can`t trust your parent`s judgement !......... is that good enought for you?

malik #81 That`s much better. We can thus have a discussion, which is obviously vastly superior to having an argument. So, in that spirit of a friendly and honest discussion, let me respond to the points you make.

1. ``I was not sure how it addressed the real issue at hand: Why we as the free and independent people are not prioritizing our own issues and why we are letting others define us.``

Fair enough. My view is that this is NOT the real issue. The real issue is: How do we ensure that proper education is spread as rapidly and as effectively as possible to all Pakistanis? This is issue has to do with why we are letting others prioritize our issues. Having made this point, my previous post then focussed on the real issue as I saw it.

Let me come back then to this question and respond to it directly: While there is no doubt that the US is pressuring Pakistan to get rid of the jehadi networks, I dont think this issue (getting mullahisms out of biology and physics) per se has been a major issue in US-Pakistan relations. It is simply too narrow an issue. Individuals like Hoodbhoy have been calling for removal of this nonsense for years.

2. ``Teachers salaries, school lunches, teachers training, outdated text, medium of instruction etc are the issues which any education expert in Pakistan will tell you are THE CRISIS level issues.``

The above are important issues, but not the most important one. The most important ones are (a) failure of the public school education system. Government teachers may get paid less than they should - but the problem is that they many of those on the payroll dont show up for work. In Africa we used to talk of ``ghost teachers`` - in Pakistan I heard them talk of ``ghost schools``!! (b) tiny share of public sector budget going to education.

More important even than the above issues, are in fact the STRENGTHS we have to build upon. After all, we build our strategy on strength, not weaknesses. So, let me point out two strategic strengths we have: (a) success of NGO schools - I once heard a woman from Lahore tell us how her NGO specializes in taking over failed government schools and turning them into successful NGO schools in the Lahore area. (b) high value to education even in the most backward areas of Pakistan. This has been reported by a number of NGOs, including a colonel sahib I know who has opened 60 girls schools in the Mianwali area. He said that parents contribute to building schoolhouses in villages in hopes that the school will give their children a better life.

So, it is not that getting rid of the mullah nonsense is mutually exclusive to the above work. These are all complementary things going on to help give our next generation a better chance in life.

tahmed32 # 75 - I did not ignore your post # 29. Not only I read it, I read it very carefuly. I did not brush aside any of the arguments you make, however I was not sure how it addressed the real issue at hand: Why we as the free and independent people are not prioritizing our own issues and why we are letting others define us. The replacement of certain verses in text maybe an important issue for West, but it is certainly not the most critical issue for Pakistan. Teachers salaries, school lunches, teachers training, outdated text, medium of instruction etc are the issues which any education expert in Pakistan will tell you are THE CRISIS level issues. So why this hoopla and wastage of national debate on inclusion / exclusion of verses?

You made some good points about the role of NGOs and the positive contributions of westerners in Pakistan. However, again, my contention - and as i understand the crux of this article suggests, is how do we prioritise our CRISIS level issues in education system.

And by the way, I commend the steps taken by your nephew. He is a hero and a beacon of hope for wretched children in Pakistan.

Zain Malik

Ferozk # 79 - You wrote: ``... yet you wish to keep your fellow humans in intellectual bondage by insisting they learn no trait and speak urdu?``

This is utter non-sense. I never suggested that Urdu be the medium of instruction. In fact, if I had the power, I would make english the ONLY medium of instruction in Pakistan. My issue with people like you is that you have picked up one issue given to you by the west, that of inclusion/exclusion of certain verses in text - while ingnoring the CRISIS level issues that our education system faces. That is not the trait of an independent mind or original thinking. That is a trait of slavery or herd-mentality. The issue of which quranic verses to include / exclude is VERY low in the list of CRISIS level issues.

I would venture to say that providing free lunches to children, like it is done in west, should be much higher in priority. Not only it could be an incentive for poor children to attend school, it would also ensure that our impoverished children are AT LEAST getting one good meal a day.

I commend you for doing a fine job of bringing to surface some other EXTREMELY important issues, such as, teachers salaries, qualified teachers, scholarships, ONE medium of instruction, education opportunities on ``war footing`` etc. Your one sentence says it all: `` the teacher`s economic needs have to be provided and the real issue is not the inclusion or the exclusion of Qur`anic verses or jehadi paeans or religion in education, but the hunger pains in the stomach``. ABSOLUTELY !!! If you were in front of me, I would hug you man !

Ferozk: You among all other chowkies has finally cut through the intellectual bullsh!t and stated the raw facts. FINALLY, after 80 something posts, we are beginning to talk about the REAL issues in Pakistani educational system. And not merely picking on the bones thrown to us by west. GOOD JOB.

As for your discourse on `whores` - well, there are people out there who equate marriage with prostituition too. So I am not going to get into that discussion. Lets keep focus on the education system.

re: malik99, urstruly and echoboom (various posts)

I agree that the divide between urdu medium and english medium education has poisoned Pakistan and it is the most rancourous division in Pakistan, because of the long term implications its generates in Pakistani society.

However, one needs to be of balanced view and ask the question as to who created this educational divide in Pakistan? More importantly, who is insisting on keeping urdu as a medium of instruction in Pakistan? The bitter reality is that urdu has no economic viability outside of Pakistan and in the age of increasing globalization, urdu is not going to generate any economic opportunities for Pakistan. The youth of Pakistan need to be prepared for the future and I am sorry, but urdu has no future either in Pakistan or outside of it. Pakistani educational medium needs to be english, because that is the lingua franca of the international commerce, whether we like it or not.

Having said that, Pakistan needs to end this useless debate on english or urdu medium as a means of instruction. This is not the only problem, because in the name of provincial rights, each province claims to champion its provincial language and seeks its inclusion into the national curriculum. The end result of all this non-sense is that Pakistan has no coherent language of instruction in its schools and all it teaches is an incoherent confusion to its students. Pakistan cannot economically progress unless the economic distribution of wealth is harmonized between its people and as long as we have two equal but seperate modes of instruction, economic wealth will never be distributed in an equitable sense within Pakistan.

Granted that most students do not have the financial means to afford an english based education, but blame for this failure lies with the government of Pakistan and not with the poor economic status of the students. The government should provide scholarships and in this sense, the government needs to implement a socialist educational policy for Pakistan on a war footing, because each year that such a policy is delayed is another generation whose future is wasted by the bureaucratic indifference.

This means that the teacher must be paid market based salaries and not the cruel joke, which passes as their salary. Teachers need money to survive and make their ends meet and they cannot exist on ``islamic educational ideology of Pakistan`` alone as the Prime Minister of Pakistan mistakenly thinks. For example, the begining salary of a teacher, with a master`s degree (in any subject) is between Rs. 4,000-6,000 a month in Aitchison College and teachers, with twenty years plus of experience are making around Rs.15,000 to 20,000. This is insufferable! Aitchison College has nearly 3,000 students and each student`s annual tution expense is around Rs. 60,000.

The social position of the teacher has to be upgraded over the social status based professions of doctors and engineers and business wo/man, and a simple fact drilled into the society`s head that without teachers teaching the future generation, a society ceases to develop, progress and ceases to exist. This change is not about legislating new curriculum, but about re-brainwashing the filthy corrupt mentality of the society into making it value education over other greed based materialism. Pakistanis do not value education as much as they pride flouting the laws and being the exception to the case and not the norm. That means that the teacher`s economic needs have to be provided and the real issue is not the inclusion or the exclusion of Qur`anic verses or jehadi paeans or religion in education, but the hunger pains in the stomach and in this battle, the needs of the stomach will always win over the ``Islamic ideology of the state of Pakistan``.

Even if this needed change happens, a teacher needs to be provided with realistic tools and if the intention of the educational system is wrong or misplaced, the qualifications and the effort of the teacher is meaningless. In other words, the teachers must teach that, which is going to be a requirement of the future and the job of the teacher is to prepare his/her students for the future and the future of education lies in a curriculum which is orientated, if not based, upon a western methodology of instruction. Pakistan lives and exists within a world, which is increasingly being dominated by a western ethos of education and the world is not going to live within Pakistan and start learning urdu to be economically viable.

On a humorous side, Pakistan can wish all the outsourcing jobs it wants, but it will get none if it maintains an utopian wish that all outsourcing jobs need a requirement in urdu as a skill of communications with the rest of the world. If Pakistanis want jobs in the global market, they have to read Adam Smith and understand the law of supply and demand not quote medieval dictums. A Qur`anic education is designed for the salvation of the person in the hereafter and it is not designed to get a job on the Economic Street of global reality in the temporal world. A person should indeed prepare their souls for the next life, but the Qur`an does not say that one should strave just to be considered as a good Muslim; how is Allah to judge you, when in your vanity and pride you cause the suffering and stravation of your family by not gaining the skills, which allow you to get a job to feed them? The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) told the Muslims that they must journey as far as China to get education and the collorary to that is, they had to learn in Chinese since the Chinese were not learning Arabic in hope that the Arabs would come to their learning institutions.

You all live in the west and you speak english and you have prospered as a result of english and yet you wish to keep your fellow humans in intellectual bondage by insisting they learn no trait and speak urdu?

Freedom of education or the need to study a western based education does not misplace your inner moral core, as you seem to be mistakenly assuming.

People were aware of the notions of right and wrong long before religion was even dreamt by the prophets of the old. Religion does not teach us decency; decency was taught to us by our grandmothers and they taught us what was right and what was wrong. Homophobia is not religion based but based on your own personal insecurities and complexes and it is the height of arrogance, which deems to judge for others and does not allow them to judge for themselves. Religion can be the most strongest force on the planet, but it cannot override the biological impluse of sex. Sex is a biological necessity and it is a part of our humanity and no religious force can make us to deny our humunity and that which does, creates resentment and problems and solves nothing, which it claims to prevent.

If you have faith in the goodness of the people and in the judgement of their choice, then you need not be afraid even though they are exposed to all the inequities of the world. Just because western education might teach a tolerance of homosexuality, it does not mean that we all will become homosexuals just by tolerating them. This is ad hoc agrument, with a flawed structure. There are millions of people who are living in cities, where there are homosexuals also living and are exposed to them, but it does not mean we will all turn into homosexuals. Those, who do not have faith in the decency and intelligence of their fellow humans, will always seek to impose their view on others; not because they are right, but because they are insecure and afraid of plurality of opinions. If homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God, then let God judge the sin and sinner and it is not your right to judge others, over whom God has reserved His judgement. If you have raised your children to the true light of all you hold dear and cherish, and have faith in the morality of the character of your children, then they will what you have taught them and will never disappoint you in their decisions, but you have to trust them in their choices.

As to calling others and identifying them as slaves and whores of the west, because they follow a path of choice, which you do not agree with, smacks of the hollowness of your sense of virtue and not their crime. In a sense, we are all whores, because we do what is needed to live in this world and we compromise our principles. For the sake of money, we assume any position which is required of us in our professional lives and travel to far reaches of the world for the sake of money and gainful employment. What made you move to the places where you now live and work? Faith or the economics of money and employment? I have yet to meet a person who quit their good paying jobs because of the principles of their morality. Is such be the case and you act out of your interests for money, then what does that make you?

If a whore be honest and does not cheat her customers, then there is no shame in being a whore for shame resides only in the eye of the beholder. There is no shame in a profession, if under the personal limitations of reality you are eeking out a honest life without hurting others and this consideration also applies to all the whores in the world.

If I speak english and if I am considered as a whore for attending an english medium school, then I would rather be a whore with a future than be a chaste woman without a future.

You have no right or moral authority to deny me my choice of profession by calling it immoral unless you provide me with alternative profession. I will gladly give up my erring ways and adopt your wisdom, if you can gurantee me that your way will gain me an employment that meets my needs and if not, then keep your opinions to yourself and let us live as best as we can in world and we need to live in this world by our wits and not by your prejudices.

Ciao

jehad in biology? will wonders never cease?

malik, hamid etc. it`s tough enough to keep a straight face when our poor teachers tried to teach us about ``sex education``, I seriously can`t imagine what teaching gay sex education must be like...

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MALIK #73 You have not responded to the points I made earlier, and simply brushed them aside. Why do you presume to ask me questions when you refuse to first either counter or acknowledge the points I made?

Not that your question is difficult to answer - but lets keep things straight. First you respond to the points I took the trouble of bringing to your attention, then come and talk to me about your concerns about homosexuality and I will address them without any problem.

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humairshah #72 If everybody jumps into the well (as the urdu saying goes), do you jump in as well? I think you should use your own mind.

I am all for having a religious class in addition to other classes - but NOT for muslims. This will sound strange, so please read carefully: I say this not with pleasure but with sadness, because I feel the Quran has a lot of good things to teach us. HOWEVER, Islam has been so badly distorted by the mullahs, and the message of the Quran so totally overrun by their sharia and other self-serving rubbish, that what is being passed as Islam is nothing but a projection of the evil mind of the mullah. Let people teach their children the real message of Islam themselves - as I have done. This is a message of peace and respect for all religions, affection (not hate) for all people. Forgiveness, not holding on to grudges. Islam is a message of individual responsibility to God, not individual responsibility to an ``ummah`` headed by a self-appointed mullah with his self-created rules geared to reduce women to sex objects that should walk around in a shroud, rather than as self-respecting human beings.

Dont expect a damned maulvi to teach them anything like the above. He will at best teach them how to read the Quran like a parrot, without a clue on what the Quran is all about - let alone any in-depth examination of the underlying fundamentals. In extreme cases, the mullah will go beyond teaching children to be parrots, and beyond reducing Quran to a meaningless magical talisman, and will teach his own hate filled rubbish that violates every tenet of Islam. And in Pakistan, unless they ban maulvis from the classroom, they should not teach any religion at all.

tahmed32 # 70 - Lets cut the intellectual smoke screen. Give us an answer in yes/no to the following question:

Would you allow your 6th grade children to read the gay/lesbian books that are being pushed in US schools?

Please do not go in hyperboles. Just state for this board in yes / no terms.

every one teaches the religion in their schools, from jews to hindus, then whats wrong with muslims, its the religion above all so thre is no harm in having jahad things in textbooks.
moreover, media is the most efficient media, it can change movements and people,
whoever has the media power he can rule, and these dayz they have it. and rhey ruling u.becuase u r week, and u dont wana b strong and stand against them as u r coward to death.
you have built like this, so that you wont say a word against them so that they can rule on you.
``ilm ek aisi taqat hai jis sey qoumoun per hukomat kerna asaan ho jata hai.``
unhoun nein hamara talemi nizam kharab kia aur ek fuzool too ta phota nizam dey gaye.. which we still following. we need to change that.

malik #69 you write ``that day is not far when the West will tell us that our curriculum is not sufficiently tolerant towards gays and lesbians.``

As i said before, until that day arrives - and given that you have failed to either acknowledge or counter the logic against what you are saying as i had presented earlier to you - you would be well advised to cool it. Since that way people will not confuse you with the genuine fools we have on chowk.