JEDDAH, 16 June 2006 — In an attempt to establish the concept of dialogue and ideological tolerance, the King Abdul Aziz National Dialogue Center has prepared a four-day course that begins tomorrow for 60 trainers from different Saudi summer clubs.
The course is being organized by the center in conjunction with the Education Ministry. The trainers will be taught how to instill effective and civilized dialogue in Saudi youths that participate in the Kingdom’s annual summertime event programs. The purpose of the summer clubs is to provide young adults and teenagers with constructive events throughout the summer vacation months.
“Our aim is emphasize the concepts of moderation and tolerance,” said Faisal ibn Moamar, general secretary of the National Dialogue Center in a press release.
Ibn Moamar noted that this marks the first time that the National Dialogue Center, which periodically hosts a nationwide dialogue workshop that aims to address the country’s major social issues, and the Education Ministry.
After their orientation, the trainers will fan out to the Kingdom’s 330 summer clubs in the coming months to educate attendees of the program in the concept of constructive and tolerant dialogue.
In a previous National Dialogue Center forum, participants heavily criticized the Education Ministry’s curriculum, describing the religious programs as biased against other religions and in particular to other Islamic schools of thought other than Salafi methodology of Sunni Islam.
While the participants were allowed to discuss their criticisms freely, the ministry did not comment on the remarks made during the forum.
In related news, a group in the United States, the Freedom House, recently published excerpts allegedly taken from current Saudi textbooks that, among other things, denigrate Jews and Christians and state that the life of a non-Muslim or a woman is worth a fraction of that of a “free Muslim male.”
An article was published in May in the Washington Post citing this Freedom House report. Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Turki Al-Faisal later addressed the charges in an editorial published on June 4 in USA Today.
Although he did not explicitly deny the existence of the controversial passages cited by Freedom House, Prince Turki emphasized his government’s efforts to “combat extremism and intolerance.”
“Updating a national educational system is a major undertaking,” he added.
