WORLD DEFENSE REVIEW: More and more Muslim Americans, the New York Times reported recently, are home schooling their children – particularly girls. It is an alarming development, and grows more alarming still as it becomes clear that no one plans to do anything to stop it.
Leaving, for the moment, the low quality of these children's education – we'll get back to that – the motivations behind home schooling that Times reporter Neil MacFarquar observed – naively, it seems to me – sound a warning cry I find impossible to ignore. Reporting from Lodi, California, MacFarquar states, "Some 80 percent of the city's 2,500 Muslims are Pakistani, and many are interrelated villagers who try to recreate the conservative social atmosphere back home. A decade ago many girls were simply shipped back to their villages once they reached adolescence."
Slipped gracefully into a report on Islamic home schooling is an indication of horrifying abuse likely taking place in many of these homes. Why has no one noticed? Why has no one paid attention, and why, now that the Times has let this item out, is nothing being done?
Here's some more: "As soon as they finish their schooling," MacFarquar reports, "the girls are married off, often to cousins brought in from their families' old villages."
Forced marriage. Abbreviated educations. Notes the Times, "The girls follow the regular high school curriculum, squeezing in study time among housework, cooking, praying and reading the Koran. The teachers at the weekly tutorials occasionally crack jokes of the 'what, are your brothers' arms broken?' variety, but in general they tread lightly, sensing that their students obey family and tradition because they have no alternative."
Is anyone listening to this? Teach Your Children >>> By Abigail R Esman | May 8, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)
