PukhtunWomen

Dear Pukhtun Women:

Due to the kindness of a Pukhtun woman who read a letter to the editor from me in the October 13, 2006, FRONTIER POST, I am newly able to both get and give opinions and internal events facts about how many Pukhtun women view the Taliban and the society they would forcibly impose again if they but could in Afghanistan and Pakistan, particularly in the NWFP area.

The below cited article in particular interests me as I favor secular over religious education, but am always open to "how the current system" is working in Pakistan and I assume also in Afghanistan at the moment."Positive Reporting Across Borders", the theme of The Common Language Project of the Media Center in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, at what I perceive to be the University of Illinois campus there, has an article by Alex Stonehill entitled "Lessons from God" which proposes to try to bring a moderate vs. extremist/terrorist bint to the many madrassas schools throughout Pakistan, and I would assume, by example, throughout Afghanistan.

Here are some rough cut thoughts I have, as two of our three daughters here in the USA are both very religious Christians but starting to work in public (not religious or private) school systems.

1. The driving point of Mr. Stonehill's public domain article seems to be that because the Madrassas schools now exist under the religious tithe of 2.5% of most Pakistani's earnings, which works out to approximately $1.6 billion a year (approximately) , vs. the Musharraf governments actions to expand and open new, more public schools, that it would be, in Mr. Stonehill's view, better to work for human change of moderation away from jihadists and Taliban type terrorism by using both religious tithes and public Pakistani funding for education reform within only the Madrassas schools.

2. Let me by example and extrapolation explain my view of why our own two of three daughters are choosing to work in public vs. private schools:

a) Public schools simply pay higher salaries and give better benefits for teachers and education administrators vs. our parochial (religious) schools.

b) Public schools are funded from our property taxes on our homes and thus we are "stake holders" in the use of our own money to educate all the children in our communities and school districts.

c) Said another way, "your heart is where your money is."

3. In Pakistan the Madrassas system seems to be dominant due to the vacuum or lack of the needed number and locations of more publicly funded schools. Pakistan is still a very young nation without a long history of education at the primary and high school levels.

4. Thus while I will for discussion's sake accept Mr. Stonehill's statement that there are simply more Madrassas vs. Pakistani public schools, I would also suggest that proper application of Pakistan's national and state or provincial governments would hugely fund expansion and improvement of future and existing public schools such that in a year or two's time public schools can and would vastly outnumber the Madrassas system.

QUESTION: What is the primary benefit of Madrassas schooling? My answer would be, using Mr. Stonehill's good article for data, that Madrassas schools "appear" to be free or nearly free and thus more affordable for the poorer or more financially challenged families who are the vast majority of all Pakistanis.

REBUTTAL: If the Madrassas moderate (only) instructors could be allowed to teach "Quran" as a single class among many which all Pakistani students would take during a typical school day, could not the public school system and it's newly growing national and state/province funding be the core and anchor and the Madrassas fold into them for the one class a day purpose?

While we in the United States have a long running legal battle over "God" in our public schools, and I am from the old school where we had "God" allowed in the form of daily prayer, Bible reading, and such, which is now not allowed in our public schools in the main, you might consider in the US that we now have a wide variety of people of all and many different religions, to include Muslims.

Yet many Muslim boys and girls today right here in our community operate their own, stand alone Muslim or Islamic Academies, just as our Christian schools representing several different denominations, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc., do.

You end up with a very complex topic here in the USA, where I still favor public schools over parochial schools, simply because the better education is the most objective one, and where teachers and staff are paid better via public funds. The parochial/US religious schools, the reverse of the Madrassas in Pakistan, are less affordable and only the well to do can afford to send their children in the USA to parochial private schools.

The lack of variety of religions in Pakistan, due to you all being a theocratic vs. a sectarian nation, provides fertile ground for the Madrassas system. But, it continues to provide a place where politically oriented Taliban and al Qaida extremists, funded from overseas by Wahhabi money (the most extreme and conservative of all known to me Islamic systems) thus is are not schools merely funded by the people's 2.5% tithe.

You have very tough choices to make which appear stark from here in the US. You either go with the Madrassas and too many extremists as instructors, with little emphasis on basic and vocational subjects by which a child can go into the world and make a living. Or, you go with the expanding and still emerging public school system, which, contrary to US public schools, would in all likelihood still allow daily prayers and a course or two on or about Islam, but with major time spent studying core, important to one's ability to make a living type courses.

The fact that a key operator of Madrassas schools is known historically to be very pro-Taliban does not argue well in my book for co-equal education for girls. The entire above subject and topic may also boil down dramatically to the following:

1. Is our Pakistan national focus to be on educating equally both boys and girls?

2. Or is our Pakistan national focus to be on educating boys with little or no regard for girls education, too?

Using the last two questions of this article I favor and encourage all Pakistanis to look more toward public education, as the basics of Islamic heritage can still be practiced and taught there, but not to the detriment of a rounded education co-equally for all Pakistani boys and girls. As an outsider, I would suggest that a way can and should be found to combine the 2.5% national religious tax with other national and local governments funding to enable a very much improved, with rational, calm, and moderate religious classes as a lesser but distinct part of the daily curriculum for boys and girls alike to be totally educated for a better future for themselves and the nation of Pakistan.

A side issue that exists is the will of the people in the various areas, NWFP and elsewhere to be nationally oriented vs. too locally oriented with lack of respect and disregard for the national system. I must note that there never will be utopia in governments, where in Pakistan or in the USA. Your strive to improve the government at all levels by first better educating the people who along the way then throw out more of the crooks and hire by election more able and honest people.

Pakistan being a theocratic state has a constitution that does allow for tolerance and protection of all faith systems, but the moderate, original Pakistan constitution's existence does not at the moment overcome the mood of jihadism and the Taliban and al Qaida types who still use "religion" for ulterior and self gain not to pure religious purposes.

It is the current prevalent mood of extremism and terrorism, putting down girls and women's rights in particular and of late in the national legislature that disgusts me and causes me to not favor long term support and wished for internal reform within the Madrassas system, as is system by it's existence favors boys over girls.

Colonel (Ret.) George L. Singleton, USAF
USA
GSingle556@aol.com