...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Elmo’s plan to “re-educate” the "ignorant": Found this one on the CCD site (presumably it was not, as stated, posted by the man hisself):

The dust cover on the book introduced author Geraldine Brooks as "a native  of Australia and graduate of Sydney University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism" and "currently the Wall Street Journal's United Nations correspondent."

Brooks' 1995 book, Nine Parts of Desire, describes the author's experiences as a correspondent in the Muslim Middle East.

Among the challenges she describes is the difficulty she had checking into a hotel as a single woman. Immediately, she blames a societal issue on Islam: "I couldn't check myself into a hotel room in the 1990s," she complained, "because thirteen hundred years earlier, a Meccan named Muhammad had trouble with his wives."

Wow! Such an ignorant statement coming from a highly educated Western professional is a shocker, to say the least. How could an experienced international journalist like Brooks, a graduate of two prestigious universities, jump to such a bizarre conclusion?

Unfortunately, she is not alone. The indignant and ignorant hostility she expresses regarding the hotel incident is a widespread product of prejudice - a very specific prejudice called Islamophobia. And it is taught in Western classrooms. Geraldine Brooks, for all her native talent and articulate skill, is just one example among millions who have graduated from an entrenched Western system of miseducation about Islam.

In the West, where Muslims comprise a sizable minority in some of the world's most affluent and "advanced" countries, institutional Islamophobia in education manifests itself in several ways:

(1) by the omission of key knowledge about Islamic civilization in text books and curricula from kindergarten through university;

(2) by silently condoning attacks on educators and academics who urge that students become more familiar with Islam as a moral and progressive force that shaped European history over a millennium of Islamic civilization;

(3) by advancing negative images of Islam and Muslims either through dis-information, or by focusing on selective events without reference to their historical context;

(4) by denying funding for university research in the study of contemporary religious and social issues related to today's Muslims;

(5) by cutting back or eliminating teacher training in the areas of multiculturalism and social integration;

(6) by downplaying in-school incidents of slurs, bullying, or verbal and physical abuse motivated by the victims' religion; and

(7) by refusing or denying the need to confront and address the issue of Islamophobia in the classroom.

The net result is an education system that is failing every student, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Generations of students are being graduated who know very little about their fellow citizens of other faiths; and if they gain any information at all about Islam as a world religion, or about its history, civilization and culture during the entire course of their formal education -- that information is most likely to be false…

As opposed to Elmo’s info, which is fair and just and true. Info such as this, and this, and this, and this, and...

Yup, that Elmo sure is a dependable resource.

As for a certain Meccan’s wimmin troubles—I thought that was more or less common knowledge.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:31 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

Comments: