KARACHI: “Hate material in school textbooks is shaking the foundations of the land while your chosen leaders bask in their own glory. Who cares about what is happening in our schools and madressahs? They don’t realise that when their country burns, the fire will also engulf their homes,” said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf lawmaker Syed Hafeezuddin at a conference held here on Wednesday.

He added: “Trying to control hate and religious intolerance in our society today is like putting out a big blaze with a small lawn hose.”

The PTI’s MPA was sharing his views on the biases and hate material in textbooks as well as the situation and role of minorities in Pakistan at a conference about ‘Uprooting religious intolerance through formal education in Pakistan’, organised by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) in collaboration with Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research (Piler) at a hotel.

Other speakers and panellists at the conference included Shafi Mohammad Jamote of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Piler’s director Karamat Ali, director of research on social and human science and politics, the University of Chicago, the US, Dr Charles Amjad-Ali, dean of social sciences faculty at Szabist Dr Riaz Shaikh, PPP legislator Dr Shahida Rehmani, Kashif Aslam of NCJP, Piler’s Zulfiqar Shah and Father Saleh Diego.

“The problem started when we burdened our children with heavy school bags and stopped checking what the teachers were doing. Curricula should be short and precise and teachers should be good at their jobs so that we don’t confuse our children with unnecessary stuff,” said Mr Jamote.

“Looking at our educational material and the distorted history in them along with the biased messages, the day isn’t far when our children will say that this country was the realisation of Maulana Maudoodi’s dream instead of Allama Iqbal’s dream,” said Karamat Ali while expressing his fears.

“The sit-ins by religious groups are tolerated by the government and treated with leniency. But if you see poor labourers organising a protest demonstration or sit-in, they are baton-charged and chased away,” he observed.

Dr Amjad-Ali said since Gen Ziaul Haq’s time, all minority communities had been seen as agents like Hindus being Indian agents and Christians as Western agents. “Any country incapable of looking after its minorities is not complete system-wise or policy-wise. It is a dysfunctional country,” he said.

“Quite frankly, I see Punjabis, Sindhis, Pakhtuns, Balochs, Seraikis, etc, but who is Pakistani here? Is it the army? Pakistan was created for the minorities of India. If we don’t set aside our differences and unite as Pakistanis, this country will soon be taken over by another minority — orthodox Muslims,” he said.

Dr Shaikh said a concept of ‘us’ and ‘them’ was being developed as a result of generating hate material in school books, as the paranoia and fear took root. “Education gives you the art of socialisation, cultural innovation, social integration and social placement but here our education is spreading anti-socialisation. And when you teach hate there is no cultural innovation or social integration,” he explained.

Dr Rehmani said the madressahs, if they had to remain, should then be registered and given proper teachers who along with Quranic education should also be able to teach other subjects. “Islam doesn’t teach one to point fingers at others rather it builds character. If we don’t do something about the education being imparted at madressahs, their graduates won’t get jobs and will become disillusioned and angry, as is happening right now, and turn into suicide bombers,” said the PPP lawmaker.

NCJP project coordinator Kashif Aslam discussed the commission’s latest report based on an analysis of some 70 school textbooks. He said the report only carried 25pc of their findings. “So if we came across 100 lines which were objectionable in a book, we only shared 25 of those lines in the report because sharing the remaining portion may just anger some people so much that they may want to eliminate us,” he said.

“Books are made a part of the curriculum simply through inviting bids in newspaper ads. No one really checks their narrative, which distorts religious beliefs and history,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 31th, 2016