GENESIS OF ISLAMIC RADICALISM: THE US TEXTBOOK PROJECT THAT TAUGHT AFGHAN CHILDREN TERROR
DECEMBER 24, 2012

http://newsrescue.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/afghanistan-books-us-380x375.jpg

NewsRescue– During Europe’s persecution of the Church and the Dark ages, it is known that the Muslim world saved knowledge and indeed Christianity, that later re-flourished during the renaissance. Research into the genesis of Islamic radicalism, which is a rather recent phenomenon in global political dimensions, and as is commonly known, takes root from Afghanistan in the cold-war era, leads to a most surprising find at the root of so-called Islamic fundamentalism,- School books. Perhaps radicalism is neither native nor accidental.

Al Qaeda remains at the forefront of the known axis of Islamic terror. Today, this has spread its tentacles to almost all nations of the world. Its source and the epicenter of this corrosive monster, that now includes AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Maghreb) of Northern Africa, Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, Al Shabaab of Somalia, LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) of Libya, the Syrian terror insurgency, Jundullah of Iran, to mention a few dendrites, is Afghanistan and the Taliban/al Qaeda terror nidus.

What converted the Afghanistan into this terror radiating machine? Perhaps the answer lies in a 53 million dollar project conducted from 1980-1994 from the US University of Nebraska, Pakistan campus. A US funded project that printed textbooks to teach Afghanistan children in school the art or war and terror. Millions of books were made and printed in Pakistan under this project and disbursed to Afghanistan schools to teach the kids to love war and so-called Jihad. Dead Russians and guns and other weaponry were the material in these books made for the young readers, to imprint a culture of violence in their infantile minds.

These books are yet to be replaced in Afghanistan and were the focus of several articles in papers like the Washington post, UK Telegraph etc after the fall of Afghanistan. These findings also provoke wonder- what else exists in educational material of post-colonial nations, that messes with minds?

http://newsrescue.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/washingtonpost-abc.jpg
Update: Feb 18, 2013- It appears WP took down the story shortly after we recirculated it Dec. 25th, 2012


From U.S., the ABC’s of Jihad
Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts

By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 23, 2002; Page A01

In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.

As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.

—

“The pictures [in] the texts are horrendous to school students, but the texts are even much worse,” said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.

An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted 43 pages containing violent images or passages.

The military content was included to “stimulate resistance against invasion,” explained Yaquib Roshan of Nebraska’s Afghanistan center. “Even in January, the books were absolutely the same . . . pictures of bullets and Kalashnikovs and you name it.”

During the Taliban era, censors purged human images from the books. One page from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier and a Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier’s head is missing.

—

….In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Education Center for Afghanistan, located in Peshawar, Pakistan, and operated by the Afghan mujahidin (holy warriors), published a series of primary education textbooks replete with images of Islamic militancy. These schoolbooks provided the mujahidin (who, after a ten-year struggle, drove the Soviet occupying forces from Afghanistan in 1989) with a medium for promoting political propaganda and inculcating values of Islamic militancy into a new generation of holy warriors prepared to conduct jihad against the enemies of Islam. Consider the following introduction to the Persian alphabet in a first-grade language arts book:


“A” is for Allah, “J” is for jihad


Pages from US-published textbooks for Afghanistan pupils
Alif [is for] Allah.
Allah is one.

Bi [is for] Father (baba).
Father goes to the mosque…

Pi [is for] Five (panj).
Islam has five pillars…

Ti [is for] Rifle (tufang).
Javad obtains rifles for the Mujahidin…

Jim [is for] Jihad.
Jihad is an obligation. My mom went to the jihad. Our brother gave water to the Mujahidin…

Dal [is for] Religion (din).
Our religion is Islam. The Russians are the enemies of the religion of Islam…

http://supportdanielboyd.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/afgh-textbook-jihad.jpg?w=640
—

The books written with the purpose of ideological propaganda….We come across the following examples in math book:

– If out of 10 atheists, 5 are killed by 1 Muslim, 5 would be left.
– 5 guns + 5 guns = 10 guns
– 15 bullets – 10 bullets = 5 bullets, etc.

—

The title of this story from a Dari language textbook is “Jihad.” An excerpt from the book’s next page reads, “Jihad is the kind of war that Muslims fight in the name of God to free Muslims and Muslim lands from the enemies of Islam. If infidels invade, jihad is the obligation of every Muslim.”

Fifth-grade Afghan refugees once learned the Pashto language from characters named Maqbool and Basheer.

Dick and Jane, this duo was not.

In one story, the fictional friends see a group of Afghan mujahedeen cleaning their weapons as they prepare to fight the Soviet army.

Maqbool tells Basheer they should help the rebel fighters ready their machine guns. Basheer concurs. Soon they are meeting with a mujahedeen commander.

“We want you to help clean the weapons and fight the Russians in jihad,” he tells Maqbool and Basheer.

The youngsters agree. Now, presumably, they are soldiers themselves.

The story, and many like it, appear in the millions of textbooks written, printed and distributed during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The books taught reading and math and sought to turn children against the Red Army and the Afghan communist government.

The textbooks’ publisher: The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Center for Afghanistan Studies, operating inside Pakistan on a U.S. government grant.

To the center’s longtime director, the textbooks are byproducts of a dark era when Russian bombs killed Afghan schoolchildren and rebel forces fought to save their country.

Exiled Afghan education officials, not UNO officials, wrote the books, Thomas Gouttierre says.

The center’s sole interest, according to him, was to deliver education to children who weren’t getting any.

http://newsrescue.com/genesis-of-islamic-radicalism-the-us-textbook-project-that-taught-afghan-children-terror/#axzz4UQRJf800

An A-Z of Arabic Propaganda

The British Government’s Arabic-Language Output during WWII

Throughout the Second World War, Britain’s Ministry of Information (MOI) produced and disseminated a remarkable assortment of propaganda material in Arabic. The material that it produced was intended to counter pro-Axis sentiment in the Arab World and bolster support for Britain and its allies. This propaganda effort arose largely in response to the German and Italian Governments’ own large scale propaganda campaigns that, with some success (more so Germany than Italy), targeted the Middle East and North Africa from the 1930s onwards.

http://a5.typepad.com/6a017ee66ba427970d01b7c8302dc5970b-580wi
Abjad al-ḥarb ʻThe alphabet of warʼ (British Library, COI Archive, ‘Arabic A.B.C.’ PP/1/28L).
© British Library, 2016

The German Government broadcast Arabic language radio programmes to the region seven days a week before and throughout the duration of the war. These broadcasts portrayed the Nazis as friends of Islam and staunch supporters of anti-imperialist movements, especially those that were opposed to the British Empire. Unsurprisingly, they found a receptive ear amongst some individuals then under the control of British colonial authorities; notably so after the fall of France in May 1940, when the prospect of Britain losing the war appeared a likely outcome to many. Pro-German sentiment in Iraq and other areas has been well-documented, but the broadcasts also had an impact on the periphery of the region. For example, in Sharjah on the British controlled Trucial Coast (present day UAE), pro-German graffiti was written on walls and large crowds gathered around the palace of its ruler, Shaikh Sultan bin Saqr al-Qasimi, to listen to the German radio broadcasts.

http://a4.typepad.com/6a017ee66ba427970d01bb08d4c974970d-580wi
Ministry of Information poster (British Library IOR/R/15/1/35). © British Library, 2016

A wide selection of this MOI material is preserved in the archive of its successor organisation, the Central Office of Information (COI) that since 2000 has been held at the British Library. The contents of the MOI archive – hundreds of pamphlets and posters produced in Arabic, Persian, French, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Spanish and many other languages – demonstrate the large scale and broad scope of the MOI’s propaganda activities during the war. The Arabic language propaganda material produced by the MOI is interesting for the diversity of its form as well as its content. This material includes posters (copies of which have been preserved by chance in the British Library’s India Office Records), pamphlets, satirical cartoons and even lavishly illustrated short stories for children.

One of the most fascinating examples of this propaganda is a pamphlet entitled Alphabet of the War (Abjad al-ḥarb) that contains an illustrated entry for each of the letters of the Arabic alphabet. The entries are a curious assortment of geographical locations (England, USA, Iraq, Egypt and London), people (Churchill, Roosevelt and Hitler), armaments (Battle Ships, Tanks and Fighter Jets) and concepts (including Freedom, Bravery, Corruption and Honesty) that project an image of Britain as the last ‘bastion of freedom’ that is on the path to victory against the Nazi regime and its allies. Unlike many of the MOI’s other publications that were written for a general audience and then simply translated into different languages, this particular pamphlet was clearly written specifically for the Arab world.

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef01b8d1b8a90c970c-800wi
Inkiltirā: England – a bastion of freedom and the focal point of the war against injustice and aggression.
Ḥurrīyah: freedom – what Britain fights to defend and secure for all the peoples of the world.
Khiyānah: treachery – Hitler’s favourite weapon with which he tries to enslave the world.

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef01b7c82e4417970b-800wi
ʻIrāq – an independent Arab state with total independence that is allied to its friend, England and refused to ‘enjoy the privileges’ of the new Nazi regime because it holds fast to its freedom and independence’.

Fasād: Corruption – the primary characteristic of the Nazi Government and what Hitler wants to spread around the world.
Qūwah: force – the only thing that is understood and feared by the Nazis.

http://a7.typepad.com/6a017ee66ba427970d01b8d1bae947970c-320wi

Miṣr: Egypt – a completely sovereign and independent state that is Britain’s sincere ally in war and peace.
Hitlar – he is the arch-enemy of God and humanity’s greatest enemy.
Ya’s: despair – the feeling in Hitler’s heart whenever he sees Britain and her allies increasing their force and power, when it is clear to him that the decisive victory will be on the side of the Democracies.

In the entry for Hitler, the Nazi leader is described as the ‘arch-enemy’ of God, and the entry for treachery (khiyānah) states that he is trying to ‘enslave the world’. In another entry (corruption/fasād) the Nazi regime is portrayed as morally degenerate; its soldiers depicted drinking alcohol and dancing with scantily clad women, an image presumably intended as an affront to the religious beliefs and perceived social conservatism of the Arab world.

The pamphlet appears to have been produced after Britain’s mass aerial bombardment of German cities had commenced, as the entry for planes (ṭā’irāt) describes British bombers as ‘messengers of wrath raining down woe and destruction on the heart of Germany’. This is a sentiment remarkably reminiscent of the official aims of Britain’s bombing campaign on Germany that stated:

The ultimate aim of the attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction, and (ii) the fear of death.

This violent tone is also contained in the entry for force (qūwah), which is described as the only thing that the Nazis understand and fear. The final entry in the pamphlet, despair (ya’s), leaves the reader with little doubt that Hitler will eventually be defeated and that Britain and its allies will be victorious.

The MOI also produced cruder, humorous style propaganda, notably a series of satirical cartoons entitled Adolf and his Donkey Benito which depict Hitler as a bumbling fool riding his unfortunate donkey, Benito (an obvious anthropomorphic representation of Mussolini). As well as being distributed as pamphlets, these cartoons were also inserted into local newspapers in the Arab World, including the Bahraini newspaper, al-Baḥrayn which was controlled by the British authorities at this time. The MOI’s Director of Middle East Propaganda, Professor L. F. Rushbrook Williams, had previously demonstrated that he was not averse to propaganda of this kind when he had encouraged the British Embassy in Baghdad to disseminate material that depicted Hitler and Mussolini as a pig and a jackal respectively.

http://a6.typepad.com/6a017ee66ba427970d01b8d1bae7fe970c-800wi
Adolf and His Donkey by Kem (British Library, COI Archive, PP/1/20). © British Library, 2016

The Adolf and Benito cartoons were drawn by Kimon Evan Marengo (1907-1998), better known by his pen name, Kem, who was an Egyptian–born British cartoonist whose work appeared in the Daily Herald and the Daily Telegraph. Kem was heavily involved in the work of the MOI and produced hundreds of cartoons in Arabic as well as in Persian - for example the famous Shahnamah cartoons described in a previous blog. One of the cartoons in the series depicts Mussolini as afraid of confronting a tiny mouse (labelled the Greek mouse), a not too subtle reference to the Italian military’s unsuccessful invasion of Greece in the Greco-Italian War of 1940-41.

In a clear attempt to target children, the MOI also produced of a series of short stories named Ahmad and Johnny. These stories were illustrated by William Lindsay Cable, an illustrator most widely known for his work in the books of the famous children’s author, Enid Blyton.

http://a6.typepad.com/6a017ee66ba427970d01b7c8308a86970b-300wi
‘Ahmed and Johnny’ (British Library, COI Archive, PP/1/8 and 7). © British Library, 2016

In a manner reminiscent of Blyton’s work, Ahmad and Johnny follows the adventures of Ahmad, a Sudanese boy living in England with Johnny and his family. In one issue of the series, it is explained that Johnny’s father had worked in Sudan and brought Ahmad (presumably an orphan) back with him to Britain. In the same issue, Ahmad and Johnny go for a walk in the Kent countryside where they bump into a farmer whose son is said to be serving with the British military in Sudan. Britain is described as the ‘home of freedom’ and the ‘source of hope of the future’. Ahmad and the peasant compare life in England and Sudan and the ostensibly friendly relations between the two nations are stressed.

In 1938, as a response to the aforementioned Arabic-language radio broadcasts of the German and Italian Governments, Britain established the BBC Arabic radio station. Subsequently, the MOI produced a pamphlet entitled ‘This is London’ that promoted the new station and its radio broadcasts.

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef01bb08d2e49f970d-800wi[/ig]
‘This is London’ (British Library, COI Archive, PP/12/27A). © British Library, 2016

The pamphlet gives details of the station’s broadcasts including its lineup of announcers and its first ever news broadcast. It also contains details and photos of the official opening of Cardiff Mosque in 1943. An event that was attended by Hafiz Wahba (then Saudi Arabia’s representative in London) and was broadcast by BBC Arabic.

[img]http://a4.typepad.com/6a017ee66ba427970d01bb08d4cbec970d-580wi
Official opening of Cardiff Mosque in 1943 (British Library, COI Archive, PP/12/27A). © British Library, 2016

Ultimately, the diverse MOI materials now held at the British Library are testament to the multi-faceted propaganda effort that was carried out by the ministry, one which utilised the skills and expertise of British academics, cartoonists, authors and many other skilled professionals. It was a campaign which sought to belittle Britain’s enemies and project an image of the country as a righteous, commanding military power that was close to victory against the forces of evil. In the context of the Middle East, this entailed a wholly cynical attempt to portray Britain’s military occupation and colonial domination of the region as merely ‘brotherly’ friendships between allies.

Ironically, in 1948, a British official in the Persian Gulf bemoaned the manner in which the MOI had popularised self-expression as a counter to Nazism as a ‘weapon of war’. He argued that this effort had served to increase the Gulf’s inhabitants knowledge of the world’s problems, ‘particularly of the rights of small nations and the independence of Arab nations’ and was causing them to question Britain’s dominant position in the region.[1]

Those interested to learn more about the MOI will be pleased to hear that in September 2016, the British Library is releasing a publication entitled Persuading the People, in which the renowned expert on Propaganda, Professor David Welch of the University of Kent, explores the role of the MOI and its propaganda output in closer detail.

Louis Allday, Gulf History/Arabic Language Specialist

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2016/04/an-a-z-of-arabic-propaganda.html

Fascinating stuff. The propaganda game goes back a long ways, just as they turn the guns and clubs of colonialism upon the core working class so with the propaganda. Workers of the world unite, really.