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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.
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.
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?
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.