Sunday, September 17, 2017
Uproar in Turkey over removing evolution from biology class
By Zeynep Bilginsoy
Turkey has announced an overhaul of more than 170 topics in the country's school curriculum, including removing all direct references to evolution from high school biology classes.
The upcoming changes have caused uproar, with critics calling them a reshaping of education along the conservative, Islam-oriented government's line. Opposition parties and unions have organized protests against the changes, demanding that Turkey provide a scientific, secular education for its students. Lawmakers have also opposed the new curriculum in parliament.
Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz said the new "value-based" program had simplified topics in "harmonization with students' development." He said evolutionary biology, which his ministry deemed was too advanced for high school, would still be taught in universities.
Evolution has been taught in 12th-grade biology classes in a chapter called "The Beginning of Life and Evolution." The unit will be replaced by "Living Beings and the Environment" in September 2018 where evolutionary mechanisms like adaptation, mutation and natural and artificial selection will be taught without a mention of evolution or Darwin.
Yilmaz said students would learn the nature of being, including "evolution and other ontological opinions" in 11th-grade philosophy.
Other contentious changes include teaching about jihad or holy war in religion classes as the "love of homeland," and a lessened emphasis on Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic who is revered by Turkey's secularists. Ataturk instituted the separation of state and religion, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party has challenged that strict split with a more religious approach.
Students will also learn about the groups that Turkey is fighting: the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, the Islamic State group and the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Turkey's education system is already reeling from the trauma of the failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt — and the new scholastic program highlights that government victory as "a legendary, heroic story."
More than 33,000 of the nation's teachers — about 4 percent — have been purged in a government crackdown after the coup, nearly 5,600 academics have been dismissed and some 880 schools shuttered for alleged links to terror groups.
Many who lost their jobs say the government is using the failed coup as a way to silence its critics.
Turkey blames Gulen for orchestrating the coup, which he denies.
The belief in creationism — that life originated and changed through divine creation — is widespread in Turkey. Many educators are worried because Turkish students are already globally ranked "below average" in science, mathematics and reading compared to their peers across the world, according the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Mehmet Somel, the head of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Society of Turkey, says Turkish students will be unable to understand even basic science if their studies make no direct reference to evolution.
"We won't be able to produce good doctors, good scientists, when students graduate from high school with this level of ignorance," Somel said.
Studying evolution allows future doctors to see the causal link between, for example, resistant strains of microbes and excessive antibiotic use, he said.
Cagri Mert Bakirci, a biologist who founded an online learning project called the "Tree of Evolution," calls the ministry's claim that evolution is too difficult for Turkish students an "insult" to them and their teachers. His volunteer project reaches nearly 8 million people each week over Facebook with videos and articles.
"I can explain evolution in 10 seconds," he said.
The two biologists say evolution was never adequately taught in Turkish public schools in the first place. But Somel says the mention of evolution in past programs at least meant that teachers could introduce the topic.
Orkide Kuleli, a retired pharmaceutical professional, said her 15-year-old daughter will now have to learn about Darwin by herself. She was worried, however, about a more insidious change that she says is taking place in Turkey's education system.
"The goal is to transform society politically and ideologically rather than develop it through science," she said. "A generation that does not question is one that blindly obeys."
Erdogan has repeatedly voiced his desire for a "devout generation." Previous changes to the education system have included an increase in public schools providing religious studies and more elective classes on Islam.
The new curriculum will be rolled out in steps and assessed. This year, students in first, fifth and ninth grades will use the updated program. Other classes, including the changed biology program, will be fully integrated next fall.
The education minister has called the uproar on evolution "partisan," arguing that the new curriculum had been open to input. The head of Turkey's education board, Alpaslan Durmus, insisted it was "utterly ignorant" to say evolution has been scrapped when its mechanisms are still being taught.
Latif Selvi of the pro-government Educators Trade Union, which was involved in drafting the changes, also called the widespread criticism of the plan "ideologically motivated."
"My opinion, based on an evaluation with evolutionary teachers, is that this change is positive," Selvi said.
Somel, the biologist, believes that self-censorship may be at work rather than a top-down decision to toss out evolution entirely.
"There is serious fear in universities and in the ministry of education that one may be pushed out, and evolution has become one of those scary themes," he said.
He said Turkish academics now avoid using the word evolution in project proposals even while studying evolutionary topics. This spring, the Museum of Natural History in the capital of Ankara put new stickers on posters changing the word "evolution" to "development." Bakirci said hundreds of experts in Turkey would be willing to help the government improve the country's science education.
"It's not too late to take a step back from this mistake," he warned.
Saudi Arabia: Religion Textbooks Promote Intolerance
Textbooks Disparage Sufi, Shia; Label Jews, Christians ‘Unbelievers’
Saudi Arabia’s school religious studies curriculum contains hateful and incendiary language toward religions and Islamic traditions that do not adhere to its interpretation of Sunni Islam, Human Rights Watch said today. The texts disparage Sufi and Shia religious practices and label Jews and Christians “unbelievers” with whom Muslims should not associate.
A comprehensive Human Rights Watch review of the Education Ministry-produced school religion books for the 2016-17 school year found that some of the content that first provoked widespread controversy for violent and intolerant teachings in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks remains in the texts today, despite Saudi officials’ promises to eliminate the intolerant language.
“As early as first grade, students in Saudi schools are being taught hatred toward all those perceived to be of a different faith or school of thought,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The lessons in hate are reinforced with each following year.”
This research was part of a broader investigation into Saudi officials and religious clerics’ use of hate speech and incitement to violence for an upcoming Human Rights Watch report. The reviewed curriculum, entitled al-tawhid, or “Monotheism,” consisted of 45 textbooks and student workbooks for the primary, middle, and secondary education levels. Human Rights Watch did not review additional religion texts dealing with Islamic law, Islamic culture, Islamic commentary, or Qur’an recitation.
The United States Department of State first designated Saudi Arabia a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act for particularly severe violations in 2004. It has continued to do so every year since. The designation should trigger penalties, including economic sanctions, arms embargoes, and travel and visa restrictions. But the US government has had a waiver on penalties in place since 2006. The waiver allows the US to continue economic and security cooperation with Saudi Arabia unencumbered.
Saudi Arabia has faced pressure to reform its school religion curriculum since the September 11 attacks, particularly from the US, after it was revealed that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. Saudi officials have said repeatedly they will carry out these reforms, although past reviews of the curriculum over the last dozen years have shown these promises to be hollow. In February 2017, Saudi’s education minister admitted that a “broader curriculum overhaul” was still necessary, but did not offer a target date for when this overhaul should be completed.
Saudi Arabia does not allow public worship by adherents of religions other than Islam. Its public school religious textbooks are but one aspect of an entire system of discrimination that promotes intolerance toward those perceived as “other.”
As Saudi Arabia moves towards implementing its Vision 2030 goals to transform the country culturally and economically, it should address the hostile rhetoric that nonconforming Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and non-Muslim expatriate workers face in Saudi Arabia, said Human Rights Watch.
Saudi Arabia’s al-tawhid, “Monotheism,” curriculum harshly criticizes practices and traditions closely associated with both Shia Islam and Sufism. In many cases, the curriculum labels practices, such as visiting the graves of prominent religious figures, and the act of intercession, by which Shias and Sufis supplicate to God through intermediaries, as evidence of shirk, or polytheism, that will result in the removal from Islam and eternal damnation.
The curriculum repeatedly condemns building mosques or shrines on top of graves, a clear reference to Shia or Sufi pilgrimage sites. The third book in the five-part secondary level curriculum, for example, contains a section, entitled, “People’s Violation of the Teachings of the Prophet with Graves,” stating that “many people have violated what the prophet forbade in terms of bida’ or ‘illicit innovations’ with graves and committed what he prohibited and because of that fell into illicit innovations or the greatest polytheism” by “building mosques and shrines on top of graves.” The text also states that people use shrines as a place to commit other acts of illicit innovations or polytheism, including: “praying at them, reading at them, sacrificing to them and those [interred] in them, seeking help from them, or making vows by them…”.
Ministry of Education, Al-Tawhid, Student Book, Secondary Semester Program, Level Three, 2016-17, p. 104
The second semester of the seventh-grade text expresses similar sentiment, saying that “those who make the graves of prophets and the righteous into mosques are evil-natured.”
Toward the end of one chapter, “The Role of Reformers in Declaring and Defending the Correct Doctrine,” in a secondary-level textbook, a short glossary lists practices of those who have deviated from correct religious practice. It describes Sufism as “a perverse path that began with the claim of asceticism, or severe self-discipline, then entered into illicit innovation, misguidedness, and exaggeration in reverence to the righteous.”
Saudi Ministry of Education, Al-Tawhid, Student Book, Secondary Semester Program, Level One, 2016-17, p. 40
The curriculum reserves its harshest criticisms for Jews, Christians, and people of other faiths, often describing them as kuffar, or “unbelievers.”
In one fifth-grade second semester textbook, the curriculum calls Jews, Christians, and Al Wathaniyeen, or “pagans,” the “original unbelievers” and declares that it is the duty of Muslims to excommunicate them: “For whoever does not [excommunicate them], or whoever doubts their religious infidelity is himself an unbeliever.”
Saudi Ministry of Education, Al-Tawhid, Student Book, Fifth Grade, Second Semester, 2016-17, p. 55
In a chapter listing markers by which one can recognize the approach of the Day of Resurrection, one passage states: “The Hour will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews, and Muslims will kill the Jews.”
Saudi Ministry of Education, Al-Tawhid, Student Book, Secondary Course, Level Two, 2016-17, p. 102.
A recurring and alarming lesson in the curriculum warns against imitating, associating with, or joining the “unbelievers” in their traditions and practices. One passage rejects and denounces the Sufi practice of celebrating the birth of the prophet, accusing Sufis of imitating Christians, i.e. “unbelievers,” in their celebration of the birth of Jesus.
Al-Tawhid, Student Book, Fifth Grade, Second Semester, 2016-17, p. 279
[Translation: Celebrating the prophet’s birth in the spring of every year is prohibited; for it is a new innovation and is in imitation of the Christian celebration of what is known as the birth of Christ.]
In another chapter, “Loyalty to Unbelievers,” the text explicitly calls on Muslims to reserve loyalty to God, the prophet, and other believers and to express hostility and antagonism toward “unbelievers.” It warns Muslims that by imitating “unbelievers” or even joining them in their celebrations, one is at risk of expressing loyalty to them, and worse even, becoming one of them.
Saudi Ministry of Education, Al-Tawhid, Student Book, Secondary Course, Level One, 2016-17, p. 165
The Saudi government’s official denigration of other religious groups, combined with its ban on public practice of other religions, could amount to incitement to hatred or discrimination. International human rights law requires countries to prohibit “[a]ny advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
Article 18 of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include the freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or relief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”
“Saudi Arabia’s officials should stop denigrating other people’s personal beliefs,” Whitson said. “After years of reform promises there is apparently still little room for tolerance in the country’s schools.”
Rights groups condemn Saudi arrests as crackdown on dissent
The campaign group Human Rights Watch on Friday condemned the arrest by Saudi authorities of some 30 clerics, intellectuals and activists this week as a “coordinated crackdown on dissent”, and Amnesty International echoed the sentiment.
The arrests were made after exiled opposition figures called for demonstrations following Friday’s afternoon prayers, which did not appear to attract much support amid a heavy security deployment.
Activists this week circulated on social media lists of people detained. They included prominent Islamist preacher Salman al-Awdah, as well as some people with no clear links to Islamist activity or obvious history of opposition.
The detentions come amid widespread speculation, denied by officials, that King Salman, 81, intends to abdicate in favor of his son, Crown Prince Mohammed, who dominates economic, foreign and domestic policy.
There are also growing tensions with Qatar over its alleged support of Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which is listed by Riyadh as a terrorist organization.
“These apparently politically motivated arrests are another sign that Mohammed bin Salman has no real interest in improving his country’s record on free speech and the rule of law,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based group said the arrests fitted a pattern of human rights violations against peaceful activists and dissidents, including harassment, intimidation, smear campaigns, travel bans, detention and prosecution.
Crown Prince Mohammed has rocketed to the pinnacle of power in the kingdom, pushing a reform agenda called Vision 2030 aimed at weaning the country off oil and introducing social reforms. Critics say he is not doing enough to liberalize politics in a country where the king enjoys absolute authority.
Amnesty International also denounced the crackdown, urging the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of the detainees and give them access to families and lawyers.
“In recent years we cannot recall a week in which so many prominent Saudi Arabian figures have been targeted in such a short space of time,” said Samah Hadid, the group’s director of campaigns in the Middle East.
“It is clear that the new leadership under Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is sending a chilling message: freedom of expression will not be tolerated, we are coming after you.”
A government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CALL FOR PROTESTS
All public protests are banned in Saudi Arabia, as are political parties. Labor unions are illegal, the media are controlled and criticism of the royal family can lead to prison.
Riyadh says it does not have political prisoners, but senior officials have said monitoring of activists is needed to maintain social stability.
The al-Saud family has always regarded Islamist groups as the biggest internal threat to its rule over a country in which appeals to religious sentiment cannot be lightly dismissed and an al Qaeda campaign a decade ago killed hundreds.
Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt and briefly held power there after the 2011 Arab Spring, represent an ideological threat to Saudi Arabia’s dynastic system of rule. The Brotherhood-inspired Sahwa movement agitated in the 1990s to bring democracy to Saudi Arabia and criticized the ruling family for corruption, social liberalization and working with the West, including allowing U.S. troops into the kingdom during the 1991 Iraq war.
The Sahwa were weakened by a mixture of repression and co-optation, but remain active.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport links with Qatar in June over its alleged support for Islamists including the Brotherhood -- a charge Doha denies.
At a mosque in central Riyadh that protest organizers had identified as one of several potential gathering spots, the imam warned worshippers against demonstrating.
“All the groups that exist today and call for political action or aspire to rule -- they are all misguided, deviant groups headed by the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.
Most people seemed to heed that message, with no demonstrations reported across the kingdom.
'Wish you were our PM': Pakistani woman thanks Sushma Swaraj for visa help
Even as Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif faces a tough time after his involvement in the Panama Papers revelation, one Pakistani woman on Twitter made an interesting choice for his post - India's external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.
The woman, while praising Swaraj's efforts to help a Pakistani national in need of medical treatment get an Indian visa, went on to say that she wished Sushma Swaraj was their prime minister.
@SushmaSwaraj Dear maam we've applied visa for india, the condition of patient is not good we've got invitation kindly grant us visa :'( pic.twitter.com/c8irNKy0FQ
— Syed Ali Mohd Taqvi (@Aleetaqvi) June 14, 2017
Facing a medical emergency, the request was put up by one Syed Ali Mod Taqvi who couldn't get an Indian visa after several attempts as the application lacked a recommendation letter from Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's Foreign affairs advisor.
Sushma Swaraj, who already has a large fan following across the border, directed the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad to take necessary steps to issue a visa to the Pakistani national for medical treatment.
'Gautam Bambawale ji - Inhein Indian visa de do,' Swaraj had tweeted asking the Indian High commissioner to Islamabad Gautam Bambawale to take necessary measures.
Gautam Bambawale ji - Inhein Indian visa de do. @IndiainPakistan /2 @Hijaab_asif
The Indian High Commission replied promptly saying that they are in touch with the applicant and are taking necessary steps. “Ma’am, we are in touch with the applicant. Rest assured we will follow it up,” the High Commission tweeted back.
Gautam Bambawale ji - Inhein Indian visa de do. @IndiainPakistan /2 @Hijaab_asif
Elated with the gesture, the Pakistani woman said she wished Swaraj was her country’s prime minister.
Lots and lost of love and respect from here. Wish you were our Prime Minister, this country would've changed!— Hijaab asif (@Hijaab_asif) July 27, 2017
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/wish-you-were-our-pm-pakistani-woman-thanks-sushma-swaraj-for-visa-help-2338587.html