The Bush administration advises Arab and other Islamic governments to educate their children in schools that teach more than Islamic doctrine, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday.
In some of these schools children are being taught to hate, thereby hurting peace efforts in the region and also not helping their own societies, Powell said.
"We have been talking not only to the Saudis but to other Middle Eastern leaders and Muslim leaders around the world, and made it clear to them that Islam is a great religion," Powell said in an interview with WPHT Radio in Philadelphia.
"But they also have to be educating their youngsters not just in the tenets of Islam and the Islamic religion, but they have to educate their youngsters for the demands of the 21st century," he said.
"They have got to give them skills. They have got to teach them to read and write," Powell said. "They have got to teach them science and math and all the other things that are necessary for societies to be successful in the 21st century."
Powell added "if they are just going to take their young people and put them in these madrases, these schools that do nothing but indoctrinate them in the worst aspects of a religion, then they are shorting themselves, they are leaving themselves back as well as teaching hatred that will not help us bring peace to the region, and will not help their societies."
Powell conveyed Washington had made it clear to the Saudis that the 21st century is going to require changes in their society. "But we do it as friends, and we don't do it to beat them up or lecture them," Powell said. (Albawaba.com)
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