Class, Don't Forget Your Bookcovers

Believe it or not, it's back-to-school time in Iraq, too. Jason passes along this LA Times article which describes the starting-from-scratch conditions of the "Iraqi Unified School District" and the added burden of the U.S. trying to "add" their own revisionist history of Iraq to the textbooks. (One-time registration required. Go ahead, get it over with.)

Jason writes a follow-up to this article:

I sent this article to Left is Right because I couldn’t believe the stupidity and bias it contained. The main parts that bugged me were these: “Saddam Hussein's exploitation of the Iraqi education system was impressive. He was embedded in the curriculum," said Leslye Arsht, a Texas education consultant advising the ministry.” Why does Leslye seemed so shocked? Should we be shocked too? No duh he was embedded in their curriculum; he was the leader of the country for 30 years. Most political leaders are imbedded in their country’s history books. I’m sure GW has more than a few paragraphs written about him in Texas’ history books. “Hussein's picture appeared in every textbook, and entire courses were devoted to his life.” Oh my, no! Every US History book has a picture of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington in them, both of whom are responsible for starting wars. George Washington in particular is known for stockpiling weapons of destruction, and for committing acts of terrorism against the British. And yet his face appears on our currency, and we have a holiday celebrating him. The “Framers” also committed such atrocities and we still have college classes devoted to their lives and ideals. “Initial activity has focused on weeding out the most objectionable elements — the ubiquitous praising of Saddam Hussein, statements of Iraqi superiority and the like.” If we did that to our text books there would be nothing left of them except maybe the cover. “Distracted by the 1980-88 war with Iran — and the 1991 Persian Gulf War — Iraq stopped building and repairing schools in 1985, officials said.” Nowhere in this paragraph or even in the article do they mention the sanctions placed on Iraq which, if not caused, then contributed to the shabby state of the schools. Iraq could not import materials (and there aren’t a lot of trees in Iraq to build desks out of), and every time they tried to build a factory it was bombed by Israel or the US. Also not mentioned is that before the Gulf War Iraq had an 80% literacy rate. {http://www.michaelparenti.org/DefyingSanctions.html}