Shifting Sands of Education?

A boy at one of our partner church's primary schools,
which has students testing at the top level in the nation

As we process what has happened here, things have been clicking in my mind that shed light or at least informed speculation on how the situation is changing in our country. Pretty suddenly the atmosphere of a secular state where there is a lot of official talk about maintaining good relations between churches and mosques, and where Christian and Muslim neighbors live side by side in considerable friendship, seemed to disappear. Even if it was just a small percentage of the population participating in violence, the atmosphere was changed for a few days to a place where churches could be burned extensively in a systematic and organized attack, which the government didn’t act very quickly to stop.

All this brings to mind some of the observations we had previously heard from those around us: In the past 5-10 years mosques in our city have grown from a number you could count on one hand to just about one being on every other corner. People have also noted increased efforts by foreign money to build mosques and help their followers with economic start-ups. These changes have gone along with a large increase in Koranic schools where children go for part of the day to learn verses from the Koran, or according to some, be “indoctrinated” into the teachings of the particular mosque. Many of these children are entrusted into the care of the mosque leader for teaching, clothing, and feeding when their parents feel they can’t provide for them. So after their classes, these children then go out and beg money for the mosque leaders (which fits in pretty normally in this society). Ideally this money would go to their food, clothes, and shelter, but we’re told they often don’t benefit from it as much as the people at the top do.

It seems to me that these observations are related to the comment I’ve read in several accounts that the majority of those doing the burning of buildings were “young boys” (teenagers and under in this culture). One report included asking those who lingered at the fires why they were doing this, and they replied, “we don’t know, we were told to.” In a country where poor/lack of education has produced a 29% literacy rate, it seems like these events indicate that religious money being used to educate youth in targeted ways is having a clear impact in the direction of radicalization.