Saudi Debate looks at education reform

Those who argue that Muslims are of one mind are quite simply showing ignorance.

Shaker Nabulsi PhD is an American/Jordanian writer. He gained his BA in literature from Ain Shams University, Cairo, and his PhD in education from Kennedy Western University, California.Dr Nabulsi is a freelance writer, and a political commentator on Alhurra TV. He is a columnist for Al-siyasa (Kuwaiti), Al-raya (Qatar), Elaph electronic newspaper, Middle East Transparent website, and Modern Discussion website.He has written and contributed to 42 books covering topics in history, education, religion, and politics.

Read the whole thing. Lots of stuff there, not only about terrorism but education in general. Here is a snip.

The problem of terrorism in the Arab world was, and remains, a major challenge which requires a radical solution. Killing one terrorist or a thousand, imprisoning one or a million, will not solve the problem. The phenomenon is akin to an overflowing sewage system: terrorists are mosquitoes nesting in this system, and so long as the sewers remain open and overflowing it means that even if you spray and kill a thousand, the next day you will have thousands more. It is thus imperative that you first block the sewers, and then take on the mosquitoes.

There is no doubt that the underdeveloped educational system in the Arab world – and the Gulf states in particular – is one of the main reasons for the spread of terrorism. The system has taught the terrorist to consider ‘the other’ to be an infidel, to fight him and to hate him.

There is no doubt that the curriculum – unchanged since the 1950s because of its emphasis on religious subjects learned by heart, as well as the neglect of natural sciences, mathematics, economics, philosophy, logic, art, comparative religion and foreign languages – has fertilized the ground and flooded the sewers, encouraging the birth of the terrorist ‘mosquitoes’.