Islam is a Religion?

A really sad article from the US state of Louisiana.  A state representative there was supporting a program to allow kids to use educational vouchers to go to private religious schools.  Because everyone deserves a Christian education in Louisiana!  Apparently, she did not understand that Islam is also a religion, and it is also protected by the US Constitution.  So some kids were going to use those vouchers to go to a Muslim school.  Once the representative discovered this, she was very upset and now wants to cancel the whole voucher program.

This is probably the biggest problem that I have with the far right religious group in America.  They want all of these religious protections and exceptions, or whatever, but they believe that religion = Christianity.  It never occurs to them that if prayer is allowed in public schools, it might be a Hindu prayer, or a Muslim prayer, or any other prayer.  For them, everything is Christian.

Greg Mortenson a Fraud?

Greg Mortenson is the author of Three Cups of Tea, a great book about how he started building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  I read the book in 2008 and was really inspired by someone who was actually on the ground in Pakistan, making a difference for children and upholding a tradition of soft power - cultural diplomacy.

Well, the American show 60 Minutes did an expose on him on TV last night, and it looks like some of his stories are outright lies and a lot of the money his organization received has been mismanaged if not just ripped off.  I can't tell you how disappointed I am.  It's so hard to find real heroes in this world when more and more of them turn out to be liars and frauds.

Education in the Middle East

More info on education - specifically Egypt and Syria. BBC News has short interviews with a man whose daughters are being educated in Syria, and a woman educated in Egypt. Both have dual British-citizenship, and a British parent.

The State of Arab Education

The BBC has a good article on how education in the Arab world is not doing well. The World Bank did a report to try and get the Arab nations to start rectifying the situation. Statistically, they state that 60% of the population there is under 30 - so a lot of new jobs are needed.

Analysis
I don't know a lot about this subject for the Middle East in general. Of the 4 "worst" countries, one of them is Iraq - and we all know why they're on the list, and another is Yemen, which is a poor country. I do know that in many of the Gulf states, women outnumber men at universities, sometimes at a rate of 2 to 1. (Of course, the Gulf states tend to have more money too.) Education is something that the Middle East will really have to take care of if they want to make it in the 21st century.