RSS FeedDon’t ask, don’t think: The problem with schools in Muslim countries
Guest post by Soroush Seifi
Originally published in the Toronto Star, May 21, 2006, D11
My name is Soroush. I was born in Iran 21 years ago and now reside in Toronto. I lived through the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. But this article is not about me. It is about a disturbing trend in education in Muslim countries.
I hope to draw a correlation between the education system in Iran and the recruitment of angry, young and easily manipulated individuals by terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda.
The ruins of Ground Zero are proof that we no longer live in an isolated box. The problems of people on one side of the world can bring destruction to people on the other. I say this only to reiterate former secretary of state Colin Powell’s statement in 2004:
To eradicate terrorism, the United States must help… alleviate conditions in the world that enable terrorists to bring in new recruits.
It seems that conditions in the Middle East are not being “alleviated,” as the U.S. administration had planned. Even Republican senators disagree with U.S. President George W. Bush on the war in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ annual surveys consistently show a lack of freedom of expression, human rights, access to resources, economic stability and technological innovation in societies where most terrorists come from.
So perhaps there are more effective ways than military force to fight terrorism. The failure of American military intervention should prompt us to look at other dimensions of the conflict.
The school system of countries like Iran, where I was educated, is a good place to start.
To be a terrorist, it is not enough to be poor and angry. Otherwise, many more terrorists would originate from places like sub-Saharan Africa, where the rates of poverty are much worse than in Saudi Arabia, the homeland of 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 terrorists. Those terrorists were predominantly from middle-class families.
The more interesting issue is why these individuals were unable to think for themselves and find better ways of showing displeasure than through terrorism. My personal school experience in Iran offers a clue.
My education there was a military-like experience. The vice principal would stand in front of students lined up in formation and ask us to repeat pro-government propaganda, such as “Long Live Hezbollah” (a Middle Eastern paramilitary group with a strong presence in Iran and Lebanon). I was only 10 back then.
I remember that the teacher was similar to a God figure. We accepted his/her words without a grain of salt. Students were not encouraged to think for themselves or come up with our own solutions. On the contrary, we were spoon-fed information.
In religion and Qur’an classes (mandatory for all students), we learned the “correct” way of speaking, reading and acting. The incessant declaration of the importance of tradition helped students conform to what the authorities considered “Islamic.” For example, it was blasphemous to dress in “feminine” colours, have a fancy haircut or, in general, think outside of the box. Such transgressions were often met with physical abuse.
I remember one of my close friends, Ali Esmaili, asked our Grade 5 teacher,
Miss, is it true that Ayatollah Khomeini only had an elementary school education?
The teacher immediately got up from her chair and her glare became fixed on Ali’s eyes. She asked him to stand up. When he did, she hit him. After three blows, the teacher told Ali to go to the office and call his parents because he was going to be expelled from school.
Ali was not expelled in the end, but I learned never to question authority again. I can only assume that the other 41 students in that class continue to believe that very same message today:
Never think for yourself.
When it came to mathematics and science, those subjects were no more than a struggle through theoretical concepts in books that we bought at the beginning of each school year. I never had to do research, look through dictionaries and encyclopedias, or go to the library to learn things on my own.
I remember that teachers constantly reviewed many of the political experiences of the nation in a certain framework. We were taught to accept some values and reject others. For one reason or another, the teachers, despite their own personal opinions, usually promoted the status quo.
In Grade 7, my teachers told me and other students to tell our parents to “vote for Nouri,” the conservative opponent of the former Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami.
My experience in Canadian schools has been entirely different. I moved here in 1997 with my family and went into Grade 8 in the Toronto public school system. The teachers there taught me to understand things through various creative activities and to think for myself.
I sometimes wonder whether young Muslims who become terrorists are trapped by the limits of their education. Like me and my classmates in Iran, they don’t question anything; they merely do what others tell them to do for no other reason than to simply obey orders.
To alleviate terrorism, it will be necessary to create educational systems in Muslim countries like Iran that allow the harvest of children’s creative ideas. Allowing thought to grow will give these children the opportunity to imagine and be innovative as adults; they will find new ways to solve their problems. These solutions will stem from within and most likely match their culture, as well.
It is not possible to build a house without first laying the foundation. Hence, developed nations – instead of military intervention – have the responsibility to help lay the foundation and encourage education systems that foster creativity in Muslim nations.
Soroush Seifi is a Kinesiologist who graduated in the top 5% of his class during his final year at York University. He was the creator and president of Red Cross Society at York University when he wrote the piece above.
He was recently accepted to Whittier Law School in 2009 on a scholarship, and is currently working before starting law school.
Rae: Canada Has Its Own Voice on the International Scene
Hon. Bob Rae spoke this morning at the University of Western Ontario Law School on A Changing World: New Directions for Canadian Foreign Policy. What follows are notes (not a transcript) from his talk.
Law Students and Public Policy
Rae said that Canadian foreign policy as an issue that is a significant one in the politics of the country. As soon to be lawyers, the issue of Canada’s role in the world is a critical concern to all of us, and one that has tremendous opportunities as law students.
There is no clearer area of public policy where the ideological contrast between parties can be demonstrated. Western has produced some of the great legal minds of our time. Justice Rand, a former Dean of the school, made considerable contributions to the foreign policy of this country.
What is Canada’s Role?
Rae asked whether Is Canada’s role in the world is to essentially ally itself with the U.S. in terms of American foreign policy and position in the world. Or is Canada’s voice in the world one of greater independence – one in which we look to Canada’ expressing strong support for multilateralism, international law, and support for multilateral institutions in relation to trade relationships.
It seems over the past 50 years there has been an implicit debate in the country over these issues, and that Harper has now made this debate explicit. His view in the world is quite simple: Canada is a country whose values and interests are tied up with the U.S., who is our most important trade partner. Our primary role is therefore to be an ally and supporter of the U.S. Other areas of foreign policy are all subordinate to that. That is the key relationship, the driving force between Canada’s role in the world.
This is a view that puts a great deal of emphasis on military power, and expects that Canada has to play a much stronger role in the military side of the equation. It downplays Canada’s traditional role at UN in supporting international institutions. Our efforts against land mines and in support of the International Criminal Court are examples of this.
War in Iraq
Rae pointed to two speeches of by Howard Hampton and Stephen Harper at time of Iraq war. His point was made by a choice made by Chretien at the time – Canada was not willing to participate in invasion of Iraq. Harper saying yes we will. Interesting enough, the words he used were borrowed from President of Australia.
Canada’s decision not to participate in the Iraq war was a defining moment, and was based on two major factors:
- The existence of WMDs
- An imminent threat
The Canadian government did not believe Saddam had WMDs, or that the evidence supporting assertion was in any way adequate. The U.S. relying on secret information, but the information provided from Hans Blix could not justify assertion.
If Canada didn’t have that information, it would still have to establish some other idea as to why it is justified as act of outside invasion. Canada’s position was clear – but the U.S. and U.K. was emphatically on the other side that whether or not there were WMDs, the risk justified invasion.
It took courage for Chretien and Graham to explain to Canadians why we were not joining our two closest allies. Now people say it’s a no-brainer – because we look at it retrospectively at the mess it created. It was controversial at time, and the criticism came mostly from Harper, who bought Bush/Blair doctrine. Harper insisted that was where Canada’s interests lay, where our values should take us.
Economic Relations
When it comes to trade relations it was Mulroney, following Royal Commission Report, that took the great leap towards negotitiations on free trade that eventually became NAFTA. Mulroney believed that if we could get from out underneath the U.S. trade umbrella and trade harrassment it would be a great deal for Canada. We would benefit from coming firmly within an America economic framework, and at the same time free ourselves from trade harassment.
By way of contrast, many people believe our long term protection is not in bliateral protection but with many countries that include the Americans. The history of our free trade is well-known, and we are going to experience its full effects in the next major while.
And we have not been able to free ourselves from trade harassment. The U.S. Senate is based on states where less than 20 percent of population control 50 percent of Senate, and is therefore dominated by agriculture and natural resource interests. The U.S likes to portray itself as supportive of free trade, but it actually relies far less on free trade than any of its trading partners.
This is just another example of where our decisions to make a special deal has actually proved short sighted.
A Foreign Policy that is Our Own Voice
Whether it is on the economic or political side, do we want to have a foreign policy where we find our own voice, or do we see ourselves as essentially being the junior partners in the American enterprise?
In recent days that choice has become very clear and sharp, and a clear example of that is the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen. He grew up in Afghanistan and was eventually captured and charged in the efforts to kill an American soldier, and has since been incarcerated in Guanatanamo Bay for that last few years.
We have to try to understand what this issue means for Canada. It’s not just about the politics of do we like what he did or was accused of doing. There are two major issues:
- What do we do with child soldiers?
- What do we do with Canadians in these situations?
There have been enormous procedural delays in his trial, with the head of the military tribunal recently being replaced. There have been two recent Supreme Court cases in the U.S. critical of Guantanamo, and how it is being administered by the American government.
They stated that the law of habeas corpus does apply, and that it is not simply possible to incarcerate people without letting them know what htey have been charged with. These are fundamental principles of our justice system. The second case is worth reading simply to review the very basics of habeas corpus and its role in the legal system.
Canada is a signatory to the international treaty aimed at rehabilitating child soldiers. It’s fundamental to get these people out to rehabilitate them to let them continue on with their lives.
Sri Lanka has an issue with this on the rebel side, where people can be recruited as young as 12 and sent into battle by the age of 14 or 15. If you capture them, what do you do? Do you treat them as a soldier, as a child, or as a child soldier?
There are protocols that have to be followed. The U.S. military tribunal has said we are not interested in this, and it does not pertain to the treatment of Omar Khadr.
The Question for Canada
The question for Canada is that we’ve gone along for a long time to see what kind of justice people like Omar Khadr can get. We said, let’s hold judgment until we see what kind of treatment he gets.
And frankly, we’ve seen quite enough.
Senator Obama and McCain have both said they would close Guantanamo, and find another method to try people that are there.
We can also look at the issue of members of the Uighur community of Xinjiang in Western China, which has long issues with the extent of which it is being ruled and human rights issues. How do we respond as a country when dealing with the possibility of courts where we disagree with their approach to a legal system?
In the case of Guantanamo, it puts us in a ridiculous position where the only person thinking Omar Khadr should stay in the U.S. and would get a fair trial in the U.S. is Stephen Harper.
Again, even McCain says it should be closed. This is an absurd position for Canada to be in.
Differing with America is not Anti-Americanism
Mr. Rae also distinguished the mission in Afghanistan from that in Iraq. The U.N. agreed to the mission. contrary to Iraq. We believed we were going there to help set up a new government and support them.
The Liberals would like to change the focus to reflect this interest, away from military activities to training the Afghan army and politically helping the government create a more stable arrangement. The 2011 withdrawal date was what was initially agreed upon by parliament, and when all countries said the mission would come to an end.
These are the principles we should try to apply: that we intervene when we believe it is lawful to do so, and when it is justified by international law.
Canada is not a superpower. It is not an empire, and we do not have imperial ambitions. All we want to do is participate in a stable international world order.
That is why we’ve been such strong supporters of the U.N. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted by a Canadian after all.
Our interests as a small country, a relatively small power, are different from that of our neighbours. It means we will agree and disagree from time to time. It does not mean we are anti-American, it just means we have different interests.
Get Involved as Law Students
There are many ways you can be involved and engaged in this world.
Your generation has more opportunity to see more, to do more, to be more engaged than any generation in hum history.
Try to make a difference. Find out what gives you passion, and take those ideals and interests wherever you may go.
