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| September 24, 2010 | Texas set to ban pro-Islamic, anti-Christian lessons from textbooks | |
Washington: The Texas school board is all set to vote on a resolution on Friday urging publishers to keep pro-Islamic or anti-Christian language out of textbooks in the state. According to the BBC, among other complaints, the non-binding decree says some textbooks devote more lines to Islam than to Christianity and print whitewashes of Islamic culture. The critics say it relies on a flawed reading of books
that are out of use. The measure, on which the Texas Board of Education will vote in the state capital of Austin, is drafted by Randy Rives, a businessman and former school official in the Texas city of Odessa. The supporters believe that the resolution
is needed to warn textbook publishers
not to print "anti-Christian" books if they want to sell them to Texas schools.
"It's the pro-Islamic, anti-Christian teachings in these books, that is what we
are concerned about. "We're teaching double the beliefs and specifics about another
religion than we are about Christianity, which is the foundation of our country."
Rives said. "The big concern is that we don't let it happen in the future," he
added. In May, the panel adopted guidelines that critics said injected conservative
political ideas into the curriculum. Texas is one of the largest textbook markets
in the US , and a vote in favour of the resolution could carry considerable weight
in the publishing industry, the report states. Among several complaints, the resolution
says that a textbook used until 2003 used pejorative language to describe the
crusaders while "euphemising Muslim conquest of Christian lands as 'migrations'".
It also says a book approved for use in Texas schools till 2003 devoted 159 lines
of text to Islam and only 82 to Christianity, and recounted crusaders' massacres
of European Jews while ignoring a 15th Century massacre of Baghdad Muslims by
the Muslim conqueror Tamerlane. However, the Texas Freedom Network, an
organisation
that says it promotes religious freedom and individual liberties and opposes "the
religious right", accused the Texas board of manufacturing controversy instead
of focusing on education.
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