The Refusal of Western Education

• The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted 10th December 1948. The next day UINESCO decided:

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory

Education shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups.

Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children

Points to note• ‘Schooling’ or a specific number of years in an

educational institution is not mentioned once• Sub-section 2 does not mention any specific type of

institutions• Parents have human rights over their children’s

education (sub-section 3)

• Despite the, apparently universal appeal, the implicit presumption was ‘business-as-usual’ in the sense that the ‘education’ would be a development of what was already being practised in Europe, North America and Scandinavia during the first half of the twentieth century; and this was not contested at all for the next 50 years

Quality of, not Access to School• Among the less poor countries the emphasis has

shifted towards ‘quality’ and more specifically the measurement of quality through regular rounds of testing of those in school with a combination of 4 and 5 character acronyms PIRLS, PISA and TIMMS)

• it should be noted with some puzzlement that the next PISA round in 2016 will include three or more low income countries (the puzzlement is because the PISA analytic process puts every child from whatever country on the same scale, which seems a trifle unrealistic).

Disengagement from School• Considerable research into the reasons why children

do not enrol (or parents do not enrol their children) and why children drop out of school focussing on processes of ‘exclusion’ (variously defined) from school; but only limited work on the possibility that some children (or their families) disapprove of what is provided in school, most of which focuses on children of nomadic groups.

• There has been very little attempt to understand why, for example, some urban children might prefer with the - explicit or implicit - backing of their families to go out and work. Whilst not our concern here, the ‘failure’ of Western education (to attract, entice) children should itself be a cause for concern.

RECOGNITION OF DIVERSITY• Some attention to Islam, responding to demand

of Muslim parents that there be recognition of their religion in the school curricula, just as Catholic schools do in some Latin countries.

• Islamic religious education in the United States and Europe has become a subject of debate after Muslims schooled in the West carried out attacks against their fellow citizens. People worry their governments are doing too little or too much to shape the spiritual beliefs of private citizens..

• State involvement goes from sponsoring religious education in public schools to forgoing it entirely

Models of Incorporating RE• Within Europe, there are two models for RE within the

public school sector: 1) the denominational (sometimes confessional) approach; and, 2) the Religious Studies approach. A primary distinction between these types concern who is ultimately responsible for determining the content, developing the curricula, selecting the materials and training the teachers.

• countries that adopt the denominational approach have students with different religious affiliations being taught RE in separate classrooms and those countries that have Religious Studies approach have pupils being are taught together irrespective of their religious affiliation.

• Three good practices that apply across the board:• 1. Establishing rigorous academic standards of training for

teachers of religious education courses.

Best Practice in RE• 2. Providing factual textbooks, both for Islamic

religious education and non-confessional school subjects that teach about Islam.

• 3. Building upon current curricular and pedagological best practices through international exchange and dialogue of scholars.

• Important to remember that there are some – including some Muslims - who are opposed to both religious and Muslim schools, warning that (Muslim) private schools at risk of becoming isolated islands in the society, increasing the already widespread segregation.

‘Islam’ fringes refusing Western education

• Boko Haram is curious. Whilst the well-documented Chibok kidnappings have served to focus attention on a ideology which vehemently opposes Western-style education in northern Nigeria’, yet relies heavily on modern technology.

• Their opposition to Westernisation - and Western education in particular - is not new. The group’s formal name is “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad,”; the familiar name, interpreted as meaning “Western education is forbidden,” seems to show an ideological hatred of non-Islamic literacy.

• Western education is viewed by many Northern Nigerians as “a fraudulent deception being imposed upon the [Northern Muslim] population by a conquering European force” which undermines traditional Northern values.

Boko Haram’ Campaign• Observers of Boko Haram have interpreted their

evolution from machetes to car bombs as the result of cooperation with al-Qaeda, though very little evidence exists to support such assertions.

• Instead, Boko Haram’s attacks on government-run schools in Nigeria’s northeast should be understood as part of an ongoing political-military campaign, a Northern Nigerian jihad, meant not only to rid Northern Nigeria of its Western-style secular schools today, but to purge, Nigeria’s Northern Muslim society of the source of its culture of corruption, decay and mismanagement, conclusively.

ISIL/ ISIS/ DAESH• ISIS revels in the gaps of state authority. The national

Arab states it rivals have fallen far behind the rest of the world, with no efficiency other than the secret police.

• ISIS and other radical groups flood Twitter with an appeal to the global identity of Muslims. This generates a network of ideas faster than any bureaucracy can manage.

• They are also aided, perversely, by the triumph of democratic capitalism. The victory of the West has laid bare its own weakness: that it offers no greater cause than more consumption and a softer life. Islamism, like communism and fascism, is the latest incarnation of man’s desire to fill that nothing with something. The victory of no cause may have perversely begged the creation of some cause - even a cruel and terrible one.

ISLAM’S CRISIS OF IDENTITYThe West’s overwhelming economic and cultural success in contrast to the relative economic, cultural, human rights failures of the post-independence regimes in the Islamic world has led to cultural humiliation, relative poverty, etc.. Those failures have led, among other things to an exaggerated emphasis on their Islamic identity. "since for Muslims Islam is, by definition, superior to all other faiths, the failures and defeats of Muslims in this world can only mean that they are not practicing authentic Islam and that their states are not true Islamic states. The remedy, therefore, is return to the pure authentic Islam of the Prophet and his Companions, a rejection and elimination of the accretions and innovations that had debased and corrupted the faith and enfeebled the Islamic society …" In the extreme version (jihadism) this includes forcibly converting or killing the unbelievers.

Violence of Radical ‘Islamists’• Religious-based violence is not unique to Islam. The

violence that characterizes radical Islamists is drawn from their interpretation of the Koran. They are imbued with faith in a holy war and their part in accelerating the final apocalypse.

• The actions of radical Islamists are incentivized by what they believe about God and his plan for the world. To deny this, to reduce everything to the temporal and material, is a very conscious contempt for and misunderstanding of the power of religious commitment by many in the Western elites.

• This contempt is a commentary on our culture of anti-theism or at least religious ignorance is affecting the public dialogue if not national action. Policymakers are surprised and unprepared as they deal with Islamism worldwide. No jobs program will suffice.

Big Issues; What Should We be Doing• How can Arab States move away from absolute rule

towards a functioning democracy [Not particularly relevant for education conference!]

• To consider whether or not we need to modify our curricula / pedagogy in order that it cannot be seen as ’colonialist’; and if necessary take appropriate action. This requires review/ study

• To understand how college or university educated students in Western countries can negate their liberal education and become sufficiently ‘radicalised’ to become jihadists. This should be conducted in parallel to any official attempts to ‘clamp down’ on radicalisation in the university club and societies

Education a Panacea?• No one should be naïve enough to think that Western

education can be a panacea. Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, have been university educated.

• Iraq, Syria and Lebanon were all reasonably well-educated and supportive of gender equality by regional standards, yet all have been torn apart by civil wars.

• Still, the historical record of the last half-century is that Western education tends to nurture a more cosmopolitan middle class and gives people a stake in the system. In Hong Kong today, we see that educated youth demand democracy, but peacefully Well some are!

Epilogue

• Perhaps we have to take more seriously the earlier arguments that the Western ‘victory’ is a hollow ‘no cause’ victory; and that we should look towards deeply ecological consumption (living within rather exploiting the natural resource envelope) as providing a cause and saving – rather than ruining - the world at the same time