Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Hamas and Education; also, books

So, here's an interesting article on CNN about the state of education in Palestinian schools. Let's not get into any controversy about the surrounding situation, here. The stuff I'm worried about is the idea of ideological bias in schools. I know that in general that should be bad enough, but here we're talking about Hamas getting more and more power over education in Palestine.

Among the causes for concern, are Hamas' desire to use textbooks that are less just-the-facts than those of their much more moderate counterpart, the Fatah movement (at least, I've never heard Fatah called a terrorist group), allegations of Holocaust denial in the histories Hamas wants to teach, and the allegation that many open government positions are being filled by Hamas candidates who are far from the most qualified for the job. Religious indoctrination is not necessarily more of a concern than before, although there has been in at least one area an added religion class per week--and a couple of female students reported being hassled and pressured to wear traditional women's Muslim garb. So in my opinion, it could be.

The original article is quite long, but I seriously recommend the read.

What do you guys think?

Also, books:

Finished Neuromancer and The Fountainhead. Now on to Good Omens, then Ficci
ónes while I'm in Mexico. Then when I get back I'm going to try and tackle Gődel, Escher, Bach before school starts again. If I still have time after GEB, then I read Dune. If I actually get through Dune, I'll have gotten my reading list completed. Either way it'll be an accomplishment by the standards of someone who's never actually forced himself to read five books in a summer before.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think we know from our own experience in the US that motivations, other than passing along a historical narrative, can enter into how history texts are put together. Even so, though, what's going on there (and in some other parts of the world) is a bit beyond the pale.