Paper on 'Pakistani Studies Textbooks Impact' by Yvette Rosser

[Guest guest]

Namaskar Mitra,

 

Pakistani Studies Textbooks Can Cause Cognitive Dissonance in

Studentshttp://esamskriti.com/html/inside.asp?cat=712&subcat=711&cname=rosser_conference_dec04

By Yvette Rosser

The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) organized a conference in

Islamabad on December 8 & 9 2004 where the author presented a paper titled:

"Troubled Times: Sustainable Development and Governance in the Age of

Extremes".

Abstract:The teleological nature of the civic responsibility to create patriotic

citizens finds a malleable tool in the social studies curriculum where myth and

fact often merge. Pakistan Studies textbooks are particularly prone to the

omissions, embellishments, and elisionsthat often characterize historical

narratives designed for social studies classes. Discourses about Islam and its

relationship to the Ideology of Pakistan comprise the majority of Pakistan

Studies textbooks which say, "Namaz1prevents a Muslim from indulging in immoral

and indecent acts." One textbook states that governmental officers should "be

honest, impartial and devoted. They should keep in view betterment of common

people and should not act in a manner which may infringe the rights of others

or may cause inconvenience to others." This discourse does not tally with the

tales that the students have heard about corruption and the hassles their

parents have endured simply to pay a bill or collect a refund. Several

students complained that they felt cheated and pessimistic when they read these

things. They were angry because they could not rectify their cognitive

dissonance about corrupt officials and wealthy landholders and industrialists

buying off court cases, with statements from their textbooks such as, "Islam

does not approve that certain individuals may be considered above law."

A textbook published by the Punjab Textbook Board states, "The Holy Prophet

(PBUH) says that a nation which deviates from justice invites its doom and

destruction".2 With such a huge disparity between the ideal and the real, there

is a great deal of fatalism apparent among the educated citizens and the school

going youths concerning the state of the nation. Pakistan Studies textbooks are

full of inherent contradictions. On one page the text brags about the modern

banking system and on another page complains that interest, riba, is unIslamic.

There is also a certain amount of self-loathing written into the Pakistan

Studies textbooks, the politicians are depicted as inept and corrupt and the

industrialists are described as pursuing "personal benefit even at the cost of

national interest".

Bouncing between the poles of conspiracy theory and threat from within, the

textbooks portray Pakistan as a victim of Western ideological hegemony,

threatened by the perpetual Machiavellian intentions of India's military and

espionage machine, together with the internal failure of its politicians to

effectively govern the country, coupled with the fact that the economy is in

the hands of a totally corrupt class of elite business interests who have only

enriched themselves at the cost of the development of the nation. Ironically,

in textbooks intended to create patriotism and pride in the nation, the country

is ridiculed and despised. All of these failures of the state and internal and

international conspiracies could, according to the rhetoric in the textbooks,

be countered by the application of more strictly Islamic practices

End of Matter

 

With Prem

sanjeev