Wednesday, March 31, 2010

from a pakistani's blog post

mar 30th, 2010

two comments on this pakistani's blog. a meta-comment -- he may be one of the affluent folks there, perhaps from one of the 22 ruling families who own the place. 

1. this fellow seems to be one of the PLUs ('people like us') that wagah-candle-holders just love. but how come he seems to have happily gone all over india, based on his photos and descriptions? is nobody keeping track of pakistanis who waltz around india?

2. look at what they teach pakistanis about indians, specifically hindus. if this isn't demonizing, i don't know what is.

Our national textbooks feed the divide, coax the fear and encourage the hatred. In a study commissioned by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, titledThe Subtle Subversion:The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan, the authors identify a long list of what can only be called hate material taught to high school children in Pakistan. Most of it still remains in print. These Social Studies and Pakistan Studies textbooks reflect the broader dismissive, suspicious and denigrating cultural and social prejudice against all things 'Hindu'. The deviousness of the Hindu, the pettiness of their beliefs, their moral depravity, their designs against all things 'Muslim' and 'Islamic', their innate hatred of 'Muslims', their unjust social and cultural values, their exploitation of women and lower castes, their underhanded and criminal attempts to scuttle the creation of Pakistan, their continuing single-minded determination to destroy Pakistan and other such simplistic, reductive and frankly racist generalizations pervade the pages of Pakistani schoolchildren's textbooks.

1 comment:

sands said...

No wonder people like sania mirza whom i was big supporter in the hope that she will free us from the cluthches of cricket marry pakis