Virginia Public Schools to Focus on Muslims—As Victims—in Teaching About 9/11 On Attacks’ 20th Anniversary
My latest in PJ Media:
On Thursday, the Virginia Department of Education published a video entitled, “Culturally Responsive and Inclusive 9/11 Commemoration,” detailing how Virginia public school teachers should handle the upcoming twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 jihad terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. The emphasis on that day and thereafter must not be on the ideology of the attackers or the ongoing jihad terror threat; rather, the focus is entirely on acknowledging and eradicating what the video calls “anti-Muslim racism.”
The video is narrated by a hijab-wearing woman, Amaarah DeCuir, who describes herself as “Professorial Lecturer, School of Education, American University & Paragon Education Consulting, President.” One would think that with all her expertise, Ms. DeCuir would know the elementary fact that Islam is not a race, and that there are Muslims, and Islamic jihadis, of all races. And of course she does know that, but she is operating in this video on the basis of the Leftist contention that opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women really stems from an irrational animus against Muslims as a people, and hence is a “racialized” form of “hatred.”
Yes, it’s toxic nonsense, but that’s the Left for you. In any case, Virginia public schools that implement DeCuir’s recommendations (and since the Virginia Department of Education published her video, it would appear that the department wants that to be all of them) will give students a presentation on the twentieth anniversary of the worst attacks ever on American soil that will portray Muslims as the primary victims of those attacks, and make herculean efforts to deflect attention away from the extremely inconvenient fact that the attacks were perpetrated in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings.
If you doubt that fact, note that in March 2009, five masterminds of the 9/11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin As-Shibh, Walid bin ‘Attash, Mustafa Ahmed AI-Hawsawi, and ‘Ali ‘abd Al-’Aziz ‘Ali – styling themselves as the “9/11 Shura Council” – wrote a lengthy communiqué titled “The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations.” In it, they called the 9/11 attacks an “act of Jihad,” and explained: “The Jihad in god’s [sic] cause is a great duty in our religion.” They quoted numerous Qur’an verses, including the notorious “Verse of the Sword”: “Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush” (9:5) and another enjoining Muslims to “strike terror into the heart of the enemies of Allah” (8:60).
Attorney and columnist Marina Medvin, who broke the story of this video, notes that the 9/11 Commission Report “mentions ‘Islam’ over 1,000 times and the word ‘Muslim’ over 1,000 times,” for obvious reasons. But Virginia students will learn nothing about any of that. Instead, they’ll be taught about “phobias stemming from 9/11,” “anti-Muslim racism spikes,” and the evils of the fictional “Muslim Ban.” DeCuir offers as an example of “harmful teaching” any “teaching about Islam and/or Muslims” in connection with 9/11, except, evidently, insofar as Muslims were victims of the American response to the attacks.
There is more. Read the rest here.
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