01/18/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09653

STOPPING THE CULTURE OF HATRED

As part of a crackdown on terrorists, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pledged action against schools that "propagate hatred and violence." The move will affect many of the thousands of madrassas in Pakistan. Madrassas are private schools -- often funded with money from abroad. In many of them, boys are taught an extremist version of the Muslim religion and little else.

Many madrassas virtually ignore mathematics and science and teach history and current affairs through a lens distorted by extremism. Such schools, in the words of President Musharraf, turn out "semiliterate religious scholars." Even worse, they have been a breeding ground for extremists and terrorists. Many members of Afghanistan’s ousted Taleban regime were students at madrassas in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But these are not the only countries where hatred of non-Muslims, including Americans, has been taught in schools. This month, Abdulhamid Al Ansari [ahb-dul-hah-MEED ahl-ahn-SAH-ree], a religious scholar in Qatar, spoke out about education in his and other Muslim countries. Mr. Al Ansari is dean of the Law and Sharia College at the University of Qatar.

Mr. Al Ansari said he strongly supports "the American call for a review of our educational curriculum, especially the books that wrongly define the Islamic Jihad [holy war]. Books that justify aggression against non-Muslims under the umbrella of Islamic Jihad are totally wrong," said Mr. Al Ansari. "Islam is a peaceful religion that calls for coexistence [among] all religions."

Mr. Al Ansari said that people in Qatar would be "making a huge mistake if we see the United States as an enemy to us or Islam." In fact, as he pointed out, the U.S. "supports the budgets of the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. The U.S. is the biggest donor to Afghanistan. America saved the Muslims in Kosovo in 1998 and in Bosnia before that. And without American involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russians would still be there."

"We should stop the culture of hatred that dominates our mosques and our media," said Qatar religious scholar Abdulhamid Al Ansari. "I reject an Islam that produces terrorists. We should fight against Islamic extremist schools like the ones in Pakistan which nurtured the Arab-Afghan phenomenon."

The U.S. agrees. And that is why the U.S. will support efforts in Pakistan, Qatar, and any other countries to promote tolerance, not hatred.