Iraq’s Education Ministry bans books of Saddam’s era

Re:Perhaps I’m unclear on the concept
Choosing which textbooks to use with children is a little different than censoring them. The textbooks will still exist! It may make sense for some college-level classes to analyze all the propaganda in the old books, but the kids need modern textbooks.

In short, what you are missing is that left-wingers like to dictate what is in textbooks in this country. In this country, we try to have textbooks that don’t include hate speech, for example. We don’t censor hate speech, we just don’t make school teachers teach it. Makes sense, doesn’t it.

Re:Perhaps I’m unclear on the concept
“That couple in Texas who do everything they can to have get biblical teachings into science texts, for instance, in place of scientific findings?”

There has been religious people who try to take over the schools for at least 50 years in Texas, back when the Democrats were in charge. It may surprise you to learn that we still teach evolution in our biology classes here in Texas, and there are many, many, many Republicans who disagree with religious nuts. The fundamentalists do scare me, but they haven’t had much effect in the schools, actually.

More to the point of your original post, the religious groups in Iraq who want a say now are not neo-conservatives, or pro-Bush people, but rather more like Islamic fundamentalists. From what I read, they want to make Iraq into a religious state and make the schools into religious schools. This is not good. But going back to all the Sadam textbooks is not good either. Yes, Sadam was a secularist, but also he was not big on telling students the truth.

“how are you supposed to recognize something that you’ve never been taught to recognize? If children are taught how to recognize hatred and why its precepts are so bankrupt, they’d be less likely to be seduced by it when they get older, don’t you think?”

Yes I do, but going back to Sadam’s textbooks would not teach them that. He was full of hatred and forced teachers to teach hatred.

“What’s going on in Iraq with banning textbooks from the Hussein era is almost certainly revisionism.”

Actually, I think most of the educators in Iraq are quite liberal, especially compared to the soldiers, and they are not interested in revisionism. It has been said that the “winners” write history, but in this case the “winners” aren’t the Bush administration or the neo-conservatives, but instead are groups of diverse people in Iraq. And the teachers of Iraq are not stupid. If they saw textbooks that were full of propaganda, don’t you think they would complain to the United Nations?

“And I can just bet that any new textbooks are going to printed under a very fat contract by some American publisher.”

American publishers tend to be very liberal people, so it might just be a good thing for them to get involved. Have you ever heard of the committees that get together and write textbooks for our schoolchildren? They tend to represent a lot of minority interests and tend to be openminded. Don’t diss American publishers so easily. Maybe you would prefer the “alternative” press to be involved. I would too, but I don’t think the religious fanatics in Iraq would go for that.

“Save the easily offended: ban everything.”

I’m not offended by what you say. I just think that forcing Iraqi children to read Sadam’s textbooks isn’t right.

Re:Condemn Them Sight Unseen?
“It will be interesting to find out what all these textbooks are teaching.”

Let me point you to an article in the Harvard International Review, Vol. 26, 2005, entitled “Rewriting the Textbooks: Education Policy in Post-Hussein Iraq” by Tina Wang:

“When Hussein and the Baath party rose to powe
in the 1970s, the Iraqi education system became one of indoctrination. The clearest proof, by far, is found in the textbooks written during the period. . . .

“According to a New York Times article on October 1, 2003, an elementary school teacher at the Tigris School for Girls in Baghdad said of Hussein, ‘We had to include him in every lesson plan or we’d be in trouble with the Baath Party'”. . . .

“Iraqi education bas been limited to government-imposed education practices, which are heavily focused on memorization, recitation, and regurgitation of information. Hussein considered tbe Ministry of Education an important branch of government for the Baath party and used education as a means of ensuring tbe loyalty and obedience of the youth to tbe government, particularly those born after he came to power in 1979”. . . .
“The curriculum left no room for students to develop critical and analytical tbinking skills or to engage in debate and discussions. The creativity and innovativeness of teachers and students have been stifled.”

I think you’ll find, if you do a little reading, that educators worldwide were more than aware of how bad those textbooks were.