Five years after the United States began urging Saudi Arabia to eliminate extremist religious instruction from its educational system, a recent report by the international human rights group Freedom House found that Saudi textbooks still incite hatred against Christians, Jews and Muslims who do not adhere to the official Saudi brand of Islam.
The report contradicts official claims by Saudi officials such as Prince Turki al-Faisal, Riyadh’s ambassador to the United States, who has said on American speaking tours that Saudi Arabia has “eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance” from its old textbooks.
The Freedom House survey found that Saudi school books refer to Christians and Jews as “apes and pigs.” First-graders are told that “every religion other than Islam is false.” An eighth-grade textbook accuses Jews of devil worship. A sixth-grade book states that “the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God.”
The radical influence within Saudi schools became an international issue following 9/11, when Islamist education was blamed for contributing to terrorist attacks. More than five million children are enrolled in the Saudi school system. In addition, the kingdom runs 19 academies in other countries, including one in the
United States.
Saudi Arabia has responded to the Freedom House report by calling its curriculum reform efforts a massive undertaking that requires time.
But Nina Shea, the director of Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, said that Saudi Arabia currently awash in record oil profits—has the resources to immediately expunge intolerance from its schools.
“They certainly have the money to change all the textbooks for next semester,” Shea told National Public Radio. “Or, last semester for that matter.”
