So Zarqawi is dead! It’s supposed to feel good, right? But why am I just pensive and kind of worried?? I suppose it's only natural that there'll be a new person taking his place and playing the same role he played if not worse soon. I'm not a pessimist by any chance, but at this very moment, the way the world is going just feels gloomy… it's becoming more polarized than ever, the so-called war on terror brought nothing but more insurgencies and more extremism, and everywhere, security has taken the front seat; the driver's seat for that matter, and pushed true liberty, civil rights, and democracy aside. Anti-terrorism laws take precedence over a decent press and publication law, or a fair civil law.
We can't fight extremism, takfiri thought, and terrorism with metal detectors, or protective tanks and watchful efficient Intelligence. We fight it with creating an environment where such thought cannot find a way of prospering and trickling down. We fight it by decent EDUCATION! Education that doesn't spoon-feed you the values that powers-that-be want you to believe in, but rather an education that teaches you to use LOGIC, to read, research, look for different resources, question what people want you to take for granted, and analyze. When kids grow up with the perception that there is only one right answer, and that is the one the teacher underlined in the book… they will be more susceptible to falling for the twisted logic behind any extremist group that sees the world through one single angle. If they don't grow up learning that it's ok to question and debate with their teacher, how will they know that it’s ok to question someone who thinks he is some religious authority??
Another thing that makes people more receptive to extremism, in my opinion, is frustration; difficult economic conditions, and the general frustration and victimization regarding the politics of the region. The reason you find groups that actually sympathize or even publicly support Al Qaeda or Zarqawi is because they want anything that opposes the US, that stands up to what they were brought up to perceive as the source of every internal economic, political, and social problem we have; the imperial, American, Zionist conspiracy that aims to ensure that Arabs remain backward and divided! Doesn't that bring us back to culture and education again though? Never take responsibility, never use reason and logic, always find someone else to blame!
I'm not in the mood for structuring and organizing these thoughts or going into them in depth, but the issue of education is always picking my brain…
How can we rehabilitate the Education system? Changing curricula is not the answer, because you have an entrenched culture that is passed on through teachers inside the classroom. How can you change the way teachers here approach education? How can you get them to abandon the spoon-feeding methods, and create space for discussions and debates, for different opinions, for extra research, and for a system that is more question-based than answer-based?
Questions and thoughts that always pop up in my mind, and I guess Zarqawi brought them to the surface once more.
We can't fight extremism, takfiri thought, and terrorism with metal detectors, or protective tanks and watchful efficient Intelligence. We fight it with creating an environment where such thought cannot find a way of prospering and trickling down. We fight it by decent EDUCATION! Education that doesn't spoon-feed you the values that powers-that-be want you to believe in, but rather an education that teaches you to use LOGIC, to read, research, look for different resources, question what people want you to take for granted, and analyze. When kids grow up with the perception that there is only one right answer, and that is the one the teacher underlined in the book… they will be more susceptible to falling for the twisted logic behind any extremist group that sees the world through one single angle. If they don't grow up learning that it's ok to question and debate with their teacher, how will they know that it’s ok to question someone who thinks he is some religious authority??
Another thing that makes people more receptive to extremism, in my opinion, is frustration; difficult economic conditions, and the general frustration and victimization regarding the politics of the region. The reason you find groups that actually sympathize or even publicly support Al Qaeda or Zarqawi is because they want anything that opposes the US, that stands up to what they were brought up to perceive as the source of every internal economic, political, and social problem we have; the imperial, American, Zionist conspiracy that aims to ensure that Arabs remain backward and divided! Doesn't that bring us back to culture and education again though? Never take responsibility, never use reason and logic, always find someone else to blame!
I'm not in the mood for structuring and organizing these thoughts or going into them in depth, but the issue of education is always picking my brain…
How can we rehabilitate the Education system? Changing curricula is not the answer, because you have an entrenched culture that is passed on through teachers inside the classroom. How can you change the way teachers here approach education? How can you get them to abandon the spoon-feeding methods, and create space for discussions and debates, for different opinions, for extra research, and for a system that is more question-based than answer-based?
Questions and thoughts that always pop up in my mind, and I guess Zarqawi brought them to the surface once more.
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