Pakistan is the new leader in exporting Militant Islam around the world, largely through its network of Koran-based schools, reports the New York Times Magazine (June 25).
Some of the 100,000 or so schools, known as madrasas, are local efforts, while others are sponsored by religious parties and mujahdeen groups “waging jihad (struggle) against India in the disputed province of Kashmir,” writes Jeffrey Goldberg. From conducting interviews, attending classes at a madrasa and talking with Pakistanis at all social levels, Goldberg states that the world capitals — Washington,, Moscow, Jerusalem, New Delhi, and Jerusalem err grievously if they continue to think that the motivating factor behind Pakistani terrorism around the globe comes solely from the religious teachings of Islam.
Rather, the author concludes, the tens of thousands of young Pakistani males now being trained in these schools are being molded into warriors for future conflict out of a blending of three influences and teachings.
First, most of the emotional quality to Pakistani opposition and militancy is actually anti-Semitic, believing a world wide Jewish conspiracy is aimed at destroying them; second, those now in the schools are “poor and impressionable boys kept entirely ignorant of the world . . .” being taught only that the Islamic faith requires military imperialism by war and by terrorism; and, third, Pakistani people glorify the atomic weapons in the possession of their leaders and are willing to risk a nuclear war in the area to see that their interpretation of Islamic teachings is extended throughout the Mideast.
Goldberg sees the Pakistan factor in the Middle East as being close to producing a destructive conflict of major proportions.