What to do about madrassas?

Great Debates
1

So it’s widely known now that madrassas, fundamentalist Islamic schools, exist in numerous countries such as Iran and U.S. “allies” Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Such schools teach little but the Koran and vitriolic hatred of the West, America being the prime target of said hatred. These schools are teaching the Muslim children of today (clearly I am not referring to all Muslim children, but it would be ridiculous to deny that this is a real phenomenon) to be the Mohammed Attas of tomorrow. They are being indoctrinated with an awful and dangerous ideoology. This is like pre-school for terrorist training camps.

The question is: what is to be done? This represents a clear danger for America in the War on Terrorism, so it obviously must be dealt with. Political and/or economic sanctions against these countries won’t work because they schools are typically privately funded. We can’t put in money for new schools which teach our values because, speaking frankly, how many Saudi parents are going to send their kids to American schools? The U.S. obviously can’t go around bombing schools - assuming there would be no loss of life (which could be the case if this were done at night), there would be little lost in terms of educational value, but in diplomatic terms it would of course be a disaster. And for those who say that we should change our foreign policy so they’ll like us more, that is not a relevant solution, because these schools do not hate the West for our foreign policy; they represent an ideological commitment to the destruction of Western culture by any means. Given that this is an important goal, how could it possibly be achieved?

2

See Communism, Red Scare circa 1950. Perhaps the solution is similar in that, as both sides get more familiar with each other, they’ll lose their fears and lessen their hatred. This may be the single worst analogy in the history of the SDMB but I would assume the worst case and approach the problem as if I were dealing with a wild animal. Step one is to not provoke them in any way. Step two is to determine what it is that they really want and find a mutually acceptable compromise. Step three is to wait until some trust is built up between the regions and begin negotiation.

Accept the fact that the fanatical elements of their society believe that they have been harmed by US actions and that, until those issues have been addressed, nothing is going to get better. Whether or not we believe we’ve harmed them is irrelevent, it’s their perceptions that needs to be addressed. As we get to understand them, they will likely get to understand us as well. Perhaps that sounds condescending but I believe that at least one side has to act rationally and, right now, the US seems more likely to do so.

Disclaimer: I do not believe that any people are wild animals.

3

[sarcasm]
Thanks to the recent SCOTUS decision regarding school vouchers, we’ll soon be sending more and more U.S. children to religious schools. So we should definitely warmly support madrassas, and perhaps enquire if they take vouchers.
[/sarcarm]

4

Okay once more misinformation control.

First, terminology. Always helpful to have some glimmer, however faint, of an understanding.

Madrasah is simply the Arabic word for school. In a religious context, simply the equivalent of either Sunday school or more broadly Catholic school. Equally applicable to Sufi (which is a school of thought -well mode of worship, like ‘charismatic’ Xtianity which exists among Prots and Catholics etc.- not a seperate form of Islam) as to Wahhabi as to whatever.

Some unknown percentage of those schools are held by fundies, and some percentage of those fundies are foaming at the mouth kill all-non-muslims.

Iranian fundie schools are another thing all together. Iranians are Shia.

Some.

It would also be ridiculous to make generalizations when one clearly lacks even a basic grasp of the school systems of the region or the extent to which Madrassas vary.

Nothing from outside. Such things change internally. What is to be done about Texas piss-poor school system, well that is up to the Texans.

In gross, support natively driven democratic change(*) and/or perhaps more importantly real economic development.

(*: this rather lays aside Bush’s moronic call for fixed elections in Palestine)

Blah blah.

I dearly would love one day to open one of these threads and not get the same sinking feeling upon seeing poorly conceived, poorly thought out, argument from ignorance.

5

Er, here’s a thought for the OP: Other nations have the right to have the school systems that they desire. If they choose to have a school system that teaches “hatred for the Imperialist Running Dog Yankees”, then that’s too bad for the Imperialist Running Dog Yankees, but it would be “wrong” for the I.R.D.Y. to attempt to change their school system just because the I.R.D.Y. happened to be offended at being called “Imperialist Running Dog Yankees”.

And if the school system in question happens to be training religious fanatics, then that’s nobody’s business but their own. I know of one school here in Decatur that trains American Christian Fundie religious fanatics, and I wouldn’t expect Iraq to demand that they be shut down just because they’re teaching the kids that Moslems are going to burn in Hell forever if they don’t accept Jesus.

And if some of the the religious fanatics that come out of the school system happen to be motivated enough by hatred to fly airplanes into the towers of the I.R.D.Y., then that’s too bad, but infringing on their country’s right to have the school system they desire isn’t the way to prevent future bombings.

This is, like, extreme hyperbole.

6

(Quotes are from RadioWave)

Bullshit. That is tantamount to giving them control of the entire situation. So until the terrorists do not feel provoked, you would just give and give and give…? Apart from the pathetic cowardice of such a suggestion, I suppose you could show me a historical example of where such an idea worked?

Do you have any backbone? Your idea is: When people randomly slaughter civilians, just give them what they want (and we can afford. Compromise!), and they will stop. That is the most morally repugnant idea I have read at SDMB.

Why the hell would they bother to trust you? They can just intimidate you, since like a true coward, you just give them what they want! Read your own 1st and 2nd steps. You take away the need for them to do anything at all, apart from blow kids up.

No, their perceptions do not need to be addressed. Were Nazi ‘perceptions’ addressed? No. Were Imperial Japanese ‘perceptions’ addressed? No. Instead, said peoples were utterly destroyed and rebuilt as we saw fit, and it worked quite nicely.

So you think giving in to terrorist demands is a rational behavior? And you feel that people who strap explosives to their fucking bodies, and try to kill as many men, women, and children as possible, give a flipping fuck about ‘understanding’ us? You need a serious reality check.

The only solution to terrorism is to kill every single terrorist, and those who support terrorism. At least, kill enough that the few intelligent ones among them decide to become painters or DBA’s or something less explosive.
Back to the OP…madrassas seem to be nothing more then radical islamic indoctrination centers. Getting rid of them would be a nice start. Peoples right to be alive trumps any whacko’s right to learn all about Allah and semtex in these ‘madrassas’.

7

Again, see Communism, Red Scare. If you’re old enough to remember duck and cover drills in school, you’ll remember that we were taught the same hyperbole you’re espousing. Kill them all, the godless bastards. Instead, the two nations kept things relatively cool for decades instead of going at it like two bullies on a schoolyard. Rather than engage in a hot war that could have killed hundreds of thousands, we coexisted. I say compromise as far as you can before lighting the fireworks.

Also, your logic doesn’t follow. Not provoking them does not give them control of the situation, it simply keeps the situation from worsening. The US can still take constructive action like the suggestion to foster economic growth in the area.

Compromise, not cave. The OP was about how to stop the fundamentalist schools from teaching children to kill Americans. My answer was to not give them any reason to think we’re the bad guys. If you take away popular anti-US feelings, you take away the support of the terrorists and you take away most of the terrorists.

Different situations. Germany and Japan were imperialist regimes setting out to conquer other nations. I’ve seen no evidence the terrorists want to conquer the west, they’re just pissed because our culture is impinging on theirs.

You think these people want to human hand grenades? According to the LA Times, several of these suicide bombers have been highly educated, well behaved members of society. If they saw an alternative, I’m pretty sure they’d take it.

Anyone who commits a crime deserves punishment, on that we agree. But instead of killing everyone in the Middle East just because, they might someday commit a crime, try solving the underlying problems first. Feel free to take me to the Pit if you want to keep discussing this without adding anything constructive.

One thing I didn’t make clear, though, is I don’t support negotiating with the actual terrorists, I’m talking about dealing with the governments of the area.

8

FWIW, Pakistan is taking steps to reorganize the schools there.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/06/20/pakistan.school.ap/index.html

And some folks aren’t too happy about it.
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=12251
http://frontierpost.com.pk/main.asp?id=13&date1=6/29/2002

9

Radiowave,

Who determines what provokes these freaks? They determine it, of course.

So the ‘decadent west’ pisses them off. Infidels in the holy land. Israel. Who knows what else pisses the terrorists off?

They are not reasonable, so reason will not work with them.
.

10

Collounsbury, thanks for the smattering of fact you have inserted into this thread, for the benefit of those, like the OP, who really want to know but do not share your experiences (there are many things others know that you don’t, too, btw). It would help the cause of Fighting Ignorance much more, though, to do a lot more of that and a lot less condescending, as most of that post unfortunately was. You once again mistake ignorance for stupidity, methinks.

As to the OP topic itself, as in reference to the preaching of hate itself wherever it appears, the only antidote to hate, born of ignorance and fear, is knowledge. Do more to expose the young learners to facts about other people and the world that their hate-filled teachers would filter out. Show by example and fact that they’re wrong. The thinkers among them will overcome religious indoctrination eventually, and will help expose their cohorts as well. The rest will, unfortunately, continue to listen to Falwell and their equivalents, but with a feeling of being in a beseiged minority.

It’s never going to work perfectly, but bombings and assassinations, or whatever use of force you may be thinking of to suppress them, will only reinforce their images of us, and they’d be at least partially right then.

11

What the flaming fuck? Did you read Collounsbury’s post at all? I hope you realize that this position is tantamount to the same wrongs terrorists commit. Frankly the stupidity of this whole statement beggars like few things Brutus has managed to post until now, and that’s a pretty steep record to beat. Define ‘those who support terrorism’ if you can.Show us were you fetch the ideas about teaching all about semtex. Do you realize that you are talking about a school of thought that is closer to the Christian religion than any other and that Allah is the same God as Jehovah?

Along the lines you posit, let’s bomb every seminar in the Western world. I mean we do know for a fact what was going on at Waco, and aren’t we so much better off after the FBI and AFT burned those dirty bastards to ashes?

BTW Do you have the first clue of how wrong it is to lump ‘Imperial Japanese’ in with ‘Nazi Germany’?

Incredible.

Sparc

12

Sparc, it seems your capability for defending terrorists is unending.

A) Collounsbury offers one fact (madrasah, translated, means ‘school’). Specifically, they are schools for Koranic studies.
Then we get a bunch of opinions. No more, and no less valid then any other opinions.

B) We fought a rather well known war against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Please, I am dying to know why it is wrong to ‘lump’ them together.

C) You assume that the feds burned the compound in Waco. Of course, you shouldn’t let facts get in the way of your view of the world.

D) Catholic schools don’t churn out terrorists. Nor do Jewish schools, or Hindu schools, or Wiccan schools, etc.
In case you have not been paying attention to the headlines lately, the global terrorist threat right now comes from radical islam, and radical islam has its roots in fundamentalist madrassas.

E) (quote from sparc)

No, it does not. And the fact that you see it that way is sad and pathetic. You have a very twisted world-view.

13

Brutus;

however tiresome this is… come in here if you would please be so kind.

14

Brutus: A brief history article for you, that describes ( in part ) both a different type of madrassa ( though still pious ) than the ones we see in the papers and the largely apolitical and very sizeable Islamic movement that imlemented them ( but has now partially abandoned the concept for functional philosophical reasons ). It also describes how this movement arose in part in reaction to pressure from extremist “Hindu fundamentalism” In India:

http://www.icna.org/tm/greatmovement3.htm

The world is very rarely black and white. And Collounsbury’s assertion that not all madrassas breed murderous thugs is not opinion, but fact. A madrasa is a relgious school, not necessarily a “violent fanatic-bredding” relgious school. Some are, some aren’t.

Another article for you, on a government’s admittedly probably cynical attempt to short-circuit fundamentalist Islam, with more liberal Naqshbandi Sufism ( note the use of the term madrassa ):

http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=4205&TagID=2

  • Tamerlane
15

“fanatic-breeding”. Just in case somebody thought I was misspelling a reference to relgious schools that coated their students in bread crumbs :D.

  • Tamerlane
16

Oh, I should add that the Tabligh Jama’at ( the first article I linked to is about their movement ) are by no means liberals. They are in fact Islamists and contibuted to the spread of that concept throughout the Middle East. But they have generally opposed the deliberate politization of Islam that people like Khomeini and his Sunni equivalents like Qutb and Mawdudi, have but forward.

  • Tamerlane
17

But those madrassas which do not teach terrorism, puppy-kicking, etc, are not really relevant. (Outside of some academic interest in what they learn, their history, etc.)

A perhaps poor analogy:

Several corporations (Enron, Worldcom, Xerox) are lying, cheating, stealing, and doing all sorts of bad things in America. Only a fool would think that ALL companies are crooked, but regardless, corporate law will be revised across the board, affecting the honest and dishonest alike.

We don’t hear about Corporation A, that is honest in its dealings, because they are not really relevant to the problem: Lack of scruples in some companies in America.

Apply that bad analogy to radical Islamic terrorism:

Sure, not all Muslims are terrorists. Most are not. But short of a radical change in the Muslim world, there will continue to be terrorists. Since the various dictatorships of the Middle East don’t want to deal with the issue, it is up to the western world to do so.

18

Brutus: My point in pointing out the distinction was in response to your statement that everything Collounsbury said, other than text-book definition of the term madrasa itself, was opinion.

I will in fact disagree slightly with Collounsbury myself, when I will say that subtle pressure by the West, at the very least in the form of better press and more intelligent propaganda, could help situation. I don’t think it need be entirely internal reform.

However I will note that the dictatorships of the region have been grappling with the radical Islamist problem for decades now. The second article linked above details one such attempt. An example of a more brutal response would be Algeria’s ( not, I’ll note, a noticeably good example of how to do things IMHO ) - Successful in part, but at a repulsive and possibly further destabilizing cost. Another way to go is supporting non-violent Islamists like the above Tabligh Jama’at ( a much larger group than their violent kin ). Some analysts ( I’ll mention Kepel for the third or fourth time :wink: ) think that by hook or crook, they are in fact succeeding, the increased violence we are seeing being the temporary ( of unknown length ) side-effect of an increasingly desperate and marginalized movement.

Local exceptions, for example the Palestinians and the Taliban ( who were already loosing local favor and in the views of most, were on their way down before the U.S. was motivated to shorten the process ), or even, maybe, Saudi Arabia ( limited economic hardship for the first time in generations ) are in this view more responses to local conditions, rather than being indicative of a growing international sentiment.

But, hey - YMMV.

  • Tamerlane
19

Is a madrassah a direct analogue to a yeshiva? Yeshivas also come in many flavors.

20

A) Regarding Collounsbury, I was referring to his

type statements.

Of course I wasn’t suggesting that he was incorrect about the not all madrasah are terror dens, but I stated it poorly, so my bad.

B) Regarding the Middle East dictatorship’s methods of controlling Islamic terrorism. (As opposed to the myriad more-secular terrorist groups in the region as well!), Syria comes to mind. Didn’t they quite literally flatten a small city that was harboring some terrorists? Not what I would call a productive long-term solution.

I not familiar with the Tabligh Jama’at, so I will get back to you on that :slight_smile:

C) Yeshiva? What is that?