Ussama Makdisi: Anti-Islamic Resolution Undermines Secular Society
[Makdisi is a professor of history at Rice University and is the author of "Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations, 1820-2001" (Public Affairs, New York).]
Islamophobia has reached America. In Austin today, a resolution by members of the Texas State Board of Education to rectify "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias" in "past Texas Social Studies textbooks" is being put to a vote.
The board determines Texas public school curriculum standards for well over 4 million public school children. There is nothing wrong with honest debate, but there is something wrong with xenophobia, fear-mongering and patently obvious distortions of basic historical truths in the name of education and objectivity. The resolution egregiously takes different quotations out of context from different textbooks and strings them together to create the misleading impression of a pro-Muslim narrative. Above all, there is the appeal to anti-Muslim sentiment by claiming that Middle Easterners desire to "buy into [sic] the U.S. public school textbook oligopoly." As absurd as this allegation is in fact, it nevertheless evokes the conspiratorial idea that foreigners are attempting to brainwash unsuspecting Americans. Substitute the word "Jews" or "Reds" for "Middle Easterners" and you get the idea. The same Texas State Board of Education voted earlier this year to introduce major changes to the social studies curriculum in line with the prejudices of its extremist members: McCarthyism was effectively whitewashed, and the secular democratic basis of the United States was downplayed in favor of a "Judeo-Christian" view of America. Moreover, teachers were instructed not to teach a balanced view of the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Palestinians were the only national group associated with "terrorism" and Islam was the only religion associated with "fundamentalism." Needless to say, it is not Texas educators who are the forefront of this radical revisionism; it is demagogic individuals who are blatantly politicizing education and exploiting a wave of anti-Muslim bigotry and ignorance that is sweeping across America....
Read entire article at Houston Chronicle
Islamophobia has reached America. In Austin today, a resolution by members of the Texas State Board of Education to rectify "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias" in "past Texas Social Studies textbooks" is being put to a vote.
The board determines Texas public school curriculum standards for well over 4 million public school children. There is nothing wrong with honest debate, but there is something wrong with xenophobia, fear-mongering and patently obvious distortions of basic historical truths in the name of education and objectivity. The resolution egregiously takes different quotations out of context from different textbooks and strings them together to create the misleading impression of a pro-Muslim narrative. Above all, there is the appeal to anti-Muslim sentiment by claiming that Middle Easterners desire to "buy into [sic] the U.S. public school textbook oligopoly." As absurd as this allegation is in fact, it nevertheless evokes the conspiratorial idea that foreigners are attempting to brainwash unsuspecting Americans. Substitute the word "Jews" or "Reds" for "Middle Easterners" and you get the idea. The same Texas State Board of Education voted earlier this year to introduce major changes to the social studies curriculum in line with the prejudices of its extremist members: McCarthyism was effectively whitewashed, and the secular democratic basis of the United States was downplayed in favor of a "Judeo-Christian" view of America. Moreover, teachers were instructed not to teach a balanced view of the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Palestinians were the only national group associated with "terrorism" and Islam was the only religion associated with "fundamentalism." Needless to say, it is not Texas educators who are the forefront of this radical revisionism; it is demagogic individuals who are blatantly politicizing education and exploiting a wave of anti-Muslim bigotry and ignorance that is sweeping across America....