Tambi Dude emailed this link:
A young blind boy has died after a teacher at his Islamic school in Pakistan hung him upside down and beat him for not learning the Koran, Agence France-Presse reported Friday.
Teacher Qari Ziauddin allegedly hung Muhammad Atif, 7, from a ceiling fan at Qari Latif Islamic school near Lahore, Pakistan, on Thursday.
Harsh beatings -- the preferred teaching method -- are a regular occurrence in Pakistani schools.
5 comments:
Hi Isaac,
Did you get beat in school, when you lived in Pakistan?
I lived in Saudi Arabia where I attended an international Pakistani school.
Yes, I did get beat up. Likely around 100-120 times in the ten years that I "studied" there. It was an ugly period in my life.
The motto of teachers was simple: If the kid hasn't learned the material, then you haven't beaten him/her enough.
The fear of a thrashing would lead to tons of memorization -- but little comprehension of the subjects.
On tests and exams, I used to write out entire paragraphs, from the thick books that I had put in my head, without having a clue about their meaning. (Other students would even memorize math problems. So, they could solve x+4=8 because of it being in the book but x+4=7 would stump them because IT'S NOT IN THE BOOK!)
Everyone there knows about the brutal punishments by teachers. This is a deep societal sickness and it results in adults who go on to become monsters as well.
Starting from the age I could retain memories, I've lived for about the same amount of time in the Islamic world as in the West. All the people who ever hit me were Muslims.
When they treat their "own" with such love, then what will they do to the kufaar whom they fiercely hate?
Oh, I thought you actually lived in Pakistan.
That is a harsh upbringing you had. Is it hard for you emotionally to this day?
My life wasn't nearly that hard, but I have to go through all sorts of mental calisthenics every day just so I don't react badly to normal situations.
I lived in Pakistan for the first few years of my life, then my family moved to Saudi Arabia where my dad worked.
Up till 1996, I visited Pakistan with my family for weeks and months at a time -- usually during the summer breaks. So, I've lived there but not on a long-term basis.
"Is it hard for you emotionally to this day?"
It's still hard to think about it. The toughest posts that I've written are where I describe the beatings. I feel sick and angry during the whole process of typing the details.
But then I remember how lucky I am -- I was able to leave that hell and I recognize that whole culture as hellish and I have the opportunity to tell the West of just how demented that part of the world really is.
Not to mention that less than two years ago, strangers donated their money to help me stay in the West. Fate has been spectacularly kind to me in the last decade.
As Dennis Prager says, "Gratitude is the essence of happiness."
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