Category Archives: Education
Education and Freedom of Thought.
Freedom of expression is primarily based on freedom of thought. In the Arab and Muslim societies there is only one kind of thought: a religious and authoritarian thought that exploits human beings and tends to reduce them to their smallest common denominator, so that they appear as a multitude of identical copies, unable to criticize and avoiding any form of thinking whether free or oriented. This explains why there isn’t yet freedom of expression in those societies.
As for the forms of free expression that some citizens in the Arab world have attempted to manifest, they are receding and still pretty restricted to an intellectual elite which is the produce of Western influence. This elite, however, tends to shrink considerably with the takeover of the education systems across the region by the ruling oligarchy. This explains the dramatic quantitative and qualitative reduction in the intellectual elite.
As these societies started opening up to the Western world, some leading religious and political figures entered the modernization debate, and despite their calls against the Western civilization, the reality of everyday life made people question the credibility of their anti-Western rhetoric. In the eyes of people it was obvious that the Western civilization could at least achieve some form of happiness in this world. The ideological battle between Socialism and Capitalism during the twentieth century distorted the view and created alliances for one economic doctrine against the other. In their quest to win the ideological war, political movements resorted to every possible tactic including the exploitation of religious ideologies which eventually led to the resurgence of political groups with strong religious reference. Religion and theology then were introduced to the school in order to silence critical thinking among young people and facilitate their subjugation by traditional and religious approaches and also to avoid revolutionary uprisings like the one seen in 1969, which was based on critical thinking that spread during the post-WWII era.
From here, religious curricula at school started to breed and spread. Religious classes were created at secondary schools and universities. Scholarships were created to encourage students and researchers in this field. Murshidates(Religious female guides) and Imams were trained. This plan succeeded in eliminating the liberal movement, and has created armies of young extremists who do not tolerate difference and tend to ignite sedition and inspire hatred against non religious minorities.
In Morocco we should be questioning the education system in order to get rid of the preconceived religious ideas. Education must be a space for the pupil to free his or her mind from taboos. Students should be granted an intellectual immunity and universal humanitarian principles beyond the narrow concepts of belonging.
Education is our bet on future generations. Religious education can only produce the kind of conflicts and strife that we witness in present day, and therefore religion should be separated from education in exchange for promoting scientific, artistic and literary learning. Religion is for worship and should have no place in the classroom. It is misleading to consider religious thought as an academic subject, be it Islamic, Christian or Jewish. Though I do not deny that we ought and must examine all religions impartially and objectively based on comparative studies and whithin the historical contexts of the emergence of every religion. The real sources of terrorism, extremism and backwardness are to be found in those religious school books which encourage violence and an unwavering belief in absolute ideas taken for granted.
Like this:
An Interview with Kacem El Ghazzali, from Morocco
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The interview was published online in English & French
An Interview with Kacem El Ghazzali, from Morocco
Even at the young age of 20, Moroccan blogger Kacem El Ghazzali holds leading positions in several human rights organization in his country. He is the head of the Youth Chapter at the Moroccan Center for Human Rights and is a member of the Executive Board of the Moroccan Blogger Association. El Ghazzali is the author of bahmut.blogspot.com, one of the most controversial blogs in the Arab world, and has received a number of death threats. He is a passionate supporter of separation of religion and state and recently started an English blog, http://atheistica.wordpress.com/, to reach non-Arabic speakers interested in atheism and minorities in the Arab world.
- Hello Kacem! What is your relation to religion?
I grew up in a Muslim sufist family, where religion was an essential component. Doing prayers and learning Koran had become so entrenched in my spirit and habits that my father’s dream was to make me a cleric. That’s why I stopped my studies at school for two years, and was taken to an institute specialized in teaching Koran and Tradition. I learnt the Koran and many hadeeths of Muhammad by heart. We never asked questions or even dared discuss what we had to learn; our only concern was to memorize and to abide by the teachings of Koran and Tradition. During those two years, I was not permitted to wear shorts: I always wore legal Islamic clothing, and even had to follow some ridiculous teachings, by cutting my pants short so they’d reach just above the ankles for example, because Muhammad ordered us to do so. I’ve never felt at ease in that place, always felt nostalgic to the days I spent in school studying mathematics and philosophy, and always missed my friends and my family, which I could see only once a month. That period was very decisive in my subsequent refusal of Islam, and religion in general. In short, and as not to repeat what every ex-Muslim would say, I think that life is a seed that cannot grow in the soil of Islam. Islam is lethal to the growth of that plant and its potential to please the senses.
I have always been passionate in asking questions since my childhood; questions which used to cause me existential disturbance. I have never treated the Qur’an as a holy text, rather as any piece of furniture in the house. I asked my mother many times why she keeps a version of the Qur’an among her personal stuff since she is unable to read or write. This is maybe why I have considered reading and reciting the Qur’an as any day-to-day habit or cultural tradition, trying in this regard to free it from any spirituality or religious significance and by considering it as a repetitive action like going to the toilet or wearing a type of traditional clothes. And maybe this is what has facilitated, for me, the possibility of discussing it and analyzing its discourse using a skeptical, logical and scientific approach. Consequently, this has pushed me to create straight positions regarding religion and the concepts associated with it such as “god”, “punishment”, “reward”, which has created a big transformation at the level of my life and my relations.
- You have been the victim of death threats; how has the situation evolved?
I’m not the only person who had received death threats from the protectors of the Islamic faith, there’s nothing new about this, and there are so many free minds that were deprived of their sacred right to life by the warriors of Allah. The believer who protects his god by committing murder has no respect for that god. If Allah the all powerful can neither make me a believer nor protect himself, then why am I supposed to worship him in the first place? The believer inadvertently insults Allah when he declares “I’m defending Allah”, for we only defend that which cannot defend itself.
Unfortunately, I’m still receiving threats whether on my blog or, recently, by phone. Those threats will seemingly continue as long as I expose the truth behind those religion traffickers who only believe in violence, killing, and terrorism. They blame atheists of insulting religion, but do they not see that that very religion insults every free human mind that calls for logic and reason? It’s like declaring war on someone, and expecting they’d do nothing while you point your gun at them, waiting for the whistle blow in order to kill them!
– More generally, how do you live when you are an atheist in a muslim country?
A reasonable person cannot live in peace with a culture or a religion that advocates a complete removal of reason, and a total resort to pre-established religious texts which are never renewed to fit the requirements of our era. Suffices that you call for human rights and right to life for you to be insulted and threatened with violence, even if you’re not an atheist; and if you are, that would make you eligible for decapitation. They’d do it with relief and joy of all the virgins and boys they’re supposed to get in Heaven. It’s the law of the jungle. I can affirm that every Muslim dreams of martyrdom, to book their place in Heaven, but the political and military situation in each country makes them retreat either out of fear or inability. If the situation changes in the future, they’d be ready to execute the unbelievers.
- What are your plans now?
I’m trying to find a safe place where a secular system organizes the relationships between people, and where the right of believers and unbelievers to respect and equality before law is guaranteed. I also hope to have the opportunity to pursue my studies, as I was forced to stop them after being fired from school because of my position regarding religion.
- What do you think of what’s going on in the Arab world? Do you think Morocco will follow sooner or later?
The objective of revolution is equitable distribution of riches regardless of ideological orientation. The Arab world is going through a decisive step, if it succeeds in preserving the right to difference, and doesn’t fall into the trap of ideological sentiments. That is because dictatorship is an essential historical stage in order to move on to democracy; Morocco has known that period with Hassan II and Interior Minister Driss Basri, who was nicknamed “the second king”, which continued with the creation of the king-friendly party “Assala wa Al Mo’assara”, so that the king remains the military, political, economic, and spiritual leader. Moroccans need royalty, but it has to be a parliamentary royalty, meaning that the king reigns but doesn’t govern, and leaves the decision to the people, without limiting or censoring the opinions of a faction or a political party.
- I have certainly forgotten to ask you a question you’d like to answer to; what is it?
Frankly, I’d like to direct a message to the free world: a call to abolish Shari’a has to be made; it’s a law akin to Hammurabi’s that Islam copied from Jews, despite the fact that the most fundamentalist among Jews nowadays do not accept to apply it anymore. It’s comparable to a weapon of massive destruction. Do you know that during the period when Shari’a was applied in Sudan, more than 7000 hands had been amputated? Not to mention thousands of hands and feet that were cut off, for those who engaged in armed robberies. Do you know that in Iran more than 2000 women were stoned to death so far? We, as free minds belonging to this world, cannot accept that a law that advocates stoning, limb amputation, and lashing, continues to exist. Where’s the role of the United Nations? Why is the world ignoring such sadism?
- Give us a number, a word and a color that summarizes atheism for you…
As a number: 20 (Editor’s note: a protest is planned on Feb 20 in Morocco).
As a word: doubt.
As a color: black.
Find Kacem on his blogs http://bahmut.blogspot.com/
http://atheistica.wordpress.com/
and in the video by Arab atheists and agnostics:
Unforgettable memories
Separating education from religion seems too dared a dream in a society where illiteracy has the upper hand… we have all been subject to religious persecution at home, and in Koranic school, learning long verses and surats speaking of Hell and punishment… fresh minds swallowing the sacred fear under the threat of a big stick wielded by an angry sheik… we didn’t know why, but we had to learn all of those long verses by heart and recite them loudly… we grew up and so did the fearful veneration from terrible forces capable of fire punishment… at school we were taught the necessity to proffer our obedience with movements, the five compulsory daily prayers, so we were told… we were taught to heed urine and feces… and a 6 or 7 year old girl didn’t know that the blood that came out of her body was impure… she looked for blood, didn’t find it, she asked her mother, she was reprimanded… the teacher skims quickly through the paragraph about ejaculation without much explanation… we knew it was something we were not allowed to ask about… we thought that sperm was like Hellfire perchance… we finally discovered, after surreptitious investigation, that it comes out of that piece of skin whence we pee… a big problematic in little minds blooming to life, that got used to enigmas and delaying responses… learn quickly… don’t make mistakes, comprehension will come after death in a gruesome place called the afterlife… and once we grew up, we yawned during the lessons of pilgrimage and inheritance… our only concern was to get the precious good mark and succeed… no need to understand why… we learned to delay comprehension, and religion became no more than a miserable book entitled “Islamic education” and a pragmatic means to pass the hard exam…
