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ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children
mpicpp sends this news from CNN:
In swaths of Syria now controlled by ISIS, children can no longer study math or social studies. Sports are out of the question. And students will be banned from learning about elections and democracy. Instead, they'll be subjected to the teachings of the radical Islamist group. And any teacher who dares to break the rules "will be punished." ISIS revealed its new educational demands in fliers posted on billboards and on street poles. The Sunni militant group has captured a slew of Syrian and Iraqi cities in recent months as it tries to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, spanning Sunni parts of both countries. Books cannot include any reference to evolution. And teachers must say that the laws of physics and chemistry "are due to Allah's rules and laws."
Update: 09/18 16:26 GMT by S : CNN has pulled the story over "concerns about the interpretation of the information provided." They promise to update it when they get the facts straight.
Okay, I'm not a Muslim, nor am I an expert. I've been over in majority Islamic countries a few times though and had a few 'cultural appreciation' lessons.
Isis is violating a good amount of Islamic teachings with this ban.
Though I can't see how they're still allowed to teach chemistry(even if they have to say it's due to Allah's rules and law) if they're not allowed to teach math, so it might be an error in the article. Math may have been de-emphasized against teaching their propaganda.
I don't read AC A human right
Obviously not the Abbasid Caliphate that funded the Baghdad House of Wisdom, home of Muhammed ibn musa al Kwarizmi.
(the words algorithm and algebra are taken from his name and the titles of books he wrote).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's sickening to see these nutters rejecting the thought and culture that once lead the civilizations of the middle east to a true Golden Age.
Now all we can do is hope that there will somehow be an Islamic Enlightenment. Perhaps in reaction to ISIS? It's hard to see it happening though.
I take it your "evidence" is watching the news:
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvar...
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
You do realize that "gates of Vienna" is a reference to the Islamic expansion into Europe which was only halted at... Vienna?
Seriously the lack of education about Islamic history is astounding. It's an important religion and culture and you'd think people in this day and age would at least know the basics, like what the crusades were about!
You need to check your own history. Muslims had ruled Jerusalem for 400 years before the First Crusade. It was a prosperous city of Muslims, Christians and Jews.
The Crusades stand as one of the great atrocities of European history. The massacre of Jerusalem. Documented cannibalism at Antioch. The betrayal and sacking of Constantinople. And they accomplished NOTHING. All of the Crusader states fell in less than two hundred years.
Are they completely forgetting that the original Islamic caliphate was the most scientific state of its day?
You do realize that "gates of Vienna" is a reference to the Islamic expansion into Europe which was only halted at... Vienna?
If you want to know why people are a bit dismissive of the OP's post, please read this critique of the website the OP linked to. Trust me when I say that you don't want to get your history lessons from that site.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Normally that'd be the case. Their policies cripple their own society while competing societies flourish, until they eventually consign themselves to irrelevance.
However, they're simply executing anyone who opposes them. For their tactic to be self-defeating, there has to be a competing society in the first place. People in the West tend to assume that the only way to "win" (in the democratic sense) is to convince people of the merits of your philosophy and get them to support you until you have a political majority. However, there's another way - simply exterminate those who oppose you, which is what ISIS is doing. Both strategies result in you having the support of the majority of the (remaining) population.
Not opposing them now is going to mean the overwhelming majority of survivors in the region will subscribe to their philosophy. Even if you defeat them later and install a democracy, they're just going to vote for something close to ISIS again because everyone who would've voted differently is dead.. This is one of those cases where failing to stop them quickly is going to result in decades if not a century or more of problems down the road.
In 1953 the percentage of GDP from manufacturing was 28%. In 2012 it was at 12%. I'd call that a drop.
Between 1953 and 2012 the GDP has gone up by about 600% (adjusted for inflation), so that is still a net increase in manufacturing by a significant margin, just not as large of an increase as other sectors.
The only problem is we still need their damn oil. Please, Elon Musk, save us from dependence on these assholes' oil. The sooner we can find a replacement for middle eastern oil and/or their oil runs out, the better.
Just to give some numbers, here is where we (the U.S.) got our oil in 2013:
U.S.: 2,720 million barrels
Canada: 1,147 million barrels
Saudi Arabia: 485 million barrels (OPEC)
Mexico: 335 million barrels
Venezuela: 294 million barrels (OPEC)
Russia: 168 million barrels
Columbia: 142 million barrels
Iraq: 124 million barrels (OPEC)
Kuwait: 119 million barrels (OPEC)
Nigeria: 103 million barrels (OPEC)
Ecuador: 86 million barrels (OPEC)
Angola: 79 million barrels (OPEC)
Brazil: 55 million barrels
U.K.: 54 million barrels
Other OPEC: 67 million barrels
Other non-OPEC: 338 million barrels
Ignoring the type of oil (pretty sure we're exporting natural gas like a fiend right now due to fracking), we need to cut 21% to get away from OPEC altogether, or 12% just to get away from the Middle East. In the U.S., 47% of oil goes to gasoline, 20% to diesel and other fuel oil, 13% to liquefied petroleum gases like propane and such, and 8% for jet fuel. All this info is from eia.gov, by the way.
So it while it is still an enormous problem, it's not insurmountable. In fact, it's inevitable. We won't go cold turkey, but we will almost certainly keep chipping away at that deficit with continued efficiency improvements on cars and other vehicles, growing emphasis placed on fuel efficiency, and continued improvements in domestic oil production and refining. Ideally the cleaner improvements will come fast enough that we don't have to rely on the latter, but it'll happen sooner or later.
From TFA:
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story contained reporting about ISIS and education. CNN has concerns about the interpretation of the information provided and we will update the story when we can verify what is happening.
The original story smelled odd: why would they have anything against maths? Banning history courses make sense when you perform propaganda, but maths?