Saudi clerical fanatics, kooks, crazies and buffoons.
Since September 11th, Saudi Arabia has been under American pressure, mostly of the Congressional sort, to amend its notorious textbooks. The Saudi education system is controlled by the fanatical Wahhabi clerical establishment. There is no such thing as moderate or liberal Wahhabi, the ideology traced back to its 18th century founder, Mohammad Ibn Abdul Wahab, is at its core antisemitic, anti-Christian, and anti-Shia Muslim (despite the fact that 20% of Saudi citizens are Shia) and acutely misogynistic. Simply, it is the most extreme sect within Islam, so extreme that they destroyed the tombs of the Companions of the Prophet because they believed it would lead to veneration inconsistent with monotheism that only Wahhabi doctrine thinks it can uphold. And practiced only in Saudi Arabia.
Until recently both male and female segregated schools were controlled by the fanatical preachers until a fire at a girls’ school ended tragically when fanatical religious police blocked the entranced to young girls screaming in fear because in their hectic run to escape the blaze their veils unwittingly came off and the Zero Tolerance state-salaried kooks and crazies refused to budge from their veiling enforcement even in this extreme case and thus sent the girls to a fiery death with the resulting outcry among decent Saudis leading the royal family, perhaps for the first time, to curtail the religious authorities oversight and transfer control over girls’ schools to the ministry of education. But although the clerics now only directly control the one-half male schools, the proscribed textbooks to all schools are still written by the clerics.
And what do they teach? An endless stream of intolerance, fanaticism, exclusionary ideology and misogynistic trash. These textbooks were originally so horrific in their casual hate, but after the American media began to pay attention to then post-9/11 and the public embarrassment for Saudi Arabia, not used to a critical light, the Saudi regime promised that the texts would be amended to strip out hate.
Well, the fall 2010 school year began and the students and parents, most of whom are decent people not to be judged by the clerics and tyrants who iniquitously rule over them, were eager to see these new “reform” textbooks. And although they were less hate-filled than years prior, the new books still instructed (and I am referencing a 7th grade text here intended for 12 year olds) students that Muslims should not shake the hands of non-Muslims.
That’s the problem with Saudi Arabia. It just can’t help it. Because the ideology of Wahhabi is at its core hate-filled and this ideology is at the core of the kingdom, to truly reform would be to end the reason d’etra of the kingdom whereby the royals have an alliance with the clerics in a quip pro quo: clerics provide religious legitimacy will royals uphold through money and force the clerics and their fanatical doctrine. To reform textbooks so they become…normal textbooks would offend the clerical elite and thus upend the ruling alliance and eventually threaten the royal rule. Thus the Saudis will tweak here and there, but a little hate will always be present to mollify the clerics. Simply put, this kingdom thrives off of hate and that will not change until Wahhabi is rejected for the fanatical sect that it is.
But, regrettably, hate is not confined to the kingdom. Saudi loves to spread its message of humanity around the world:
“Islamic charities from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates financed a network in U.S. ally Pakistan that recruited children as young as eight to wage holy war, a local newspaper reported on Sunday, citing Wikileaks.
A U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks said financial support estimated at $100 million a year was making its way from those Gulf Arab states to a jihadist recruitment network in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Dawn newspaper reported.”
And, let’s remember, that Wikileaks also revealed American diplomats at noting that Saudi Arabia is the number one source of donations to fanatical groups in Af-Pak, including the Taliban killing American and NATO forces.
The Kingdom of Horrors says hi.
