Since 9/11 and even before that, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been an easy target for the criticism of prejudiced and biased individuals who strive in finding fault with the religious, social, educational, political and economic structure of the Kingdom.
Highly dubious and suspicious organizations and think tanks dedicate their money and efforts to taking unjustified advantage of Western people’s ignorance of the Kingdom. These same groups and organizations also often fabricate false accusations against Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom has become somewhat accustomed to such haphazard and ill-informed accusations. As Saudis, we have grown to accept what is objective and true and ignore what is fallacious and fabricated.
Recently a commotion was caused when the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, whose board of directors incidentally includes an opponent of the Saudi government named Ali Al-Ahmad, and the Freedom House Center for Religious Freedom, whose board of director includes the rightwing activist Nina Shea, jointly released a dubious report claiming to analyze a set of Islamic textbooks used in Saudi schools.
The report, as reported in Al-Watan daily, claimed that the textbooks promote an ideology of hatred towards people, including Muslims, who do not subscribe to the Wahhabi sect of Islam. Interestingly, the report stimulated much debate in the Arab world. The television news channel Al-Jazeera dedicated an episode of their popular program “From Washington” to this issue. On the panel were Ali Al-Ahmed, Nina Shea, curricula experts Badr Al-Seif and a sociology teacher from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.
Also on the panel was Riad M. Nasser, the author of “Palestinian Identity in Jordan and Israel”. Nasser argues in his book that the identity of a small community, nation, ethnic group and religious community requires an “other” to make the identity meaningful. Nasser’s studies also confirm that Israeli curricula are full of hatred and violence against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in general.
In a nutshell, the program’s host clarified that the report was unjustifiably taking advantage of the US public’s ignorance of Arabic and mistranslated texts from Saudi textbooks. The translated texts supposedly teach hatred and encourage negative feelings against Christians and Jews in particular. But when the host read the mentioned texts it was clear that there was no so-called hatred and nor was there any reference to Christians or Jews. In fact it became evident that the report was inaccurate and contained unjustified assumptions.
According to Al-Ahmad and Shea, obtaining copies of the Saudi curricula was supposedly rather difficult. Both claimed that they had to smuggle the books out of the country. However, the Saudi Embassy in Washington explained that textbooks are provided free of charge and are available in every home in the Kingdom and therefore not difficult to obtain and take abroad.
The presenter Hafez Al-Merazy asked both Al-Ahmad and Shea continuously about why they were only interested in Saudi curricula and whether they had considered reviewing American and Israeli curricula. In response Al-Ahmad claimed that curricula in Israel and the US do not include material that teaches hatred or violence and that Israelis educate their students on how to live peacefully.
In the second part of the program, Al-Merazy discussed Nasser’s book about the curricula of educational institutions in Israel and religious schools in America. In his study Nasser said that Israeli curricula project negative images of Arabs and describe them as illiterates, criminals and thieves. This is not to mention the fact that such textbooks leave the impression on school children that there were no Arabs in Palestine before the establishment of Israel — an injustice to history as such.
The highlight of the program was the fact that the presenter continually asked Al-Ahmed and Shea whether there was a hidden agenda in ignoring US and Israeli curriculum and focusing only on Saudi ones.
It does seem the writers of the report on Saudi textbooks are connected to right-wing extremist Christian or Israeli organizations. Noticeably, the program’s host also drew attention to the fact that when the Institute for Gulf Affairs, along with the Freedom House Center, held a press conference in Washington to release their report, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was simultaneously calling for a change in the curriculum of schools in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries in the US Congress in Washington. His calls were met with a loud round of applause.
