New changes to Syria's education curriculum, announced by the country's education ministry, have sparked widespread concern and accusations of an Islamist agenda.
In the scramble to rewrite Syria ’s future, it is perhaps no surprise that the classroom would lay bare cracks in the country’s fragile unity. Widespread outcry followed an announcement that Syria ’s new leadership was planning sweeping changes to the country’s education curriculum. To some wary of the rebel leaders who toppled the Assad regime last month, the changes were seen as a hint of their intent to install an Islamist agenda in the country’s schools — and beyond.
Syria’s education ministry announced the changes in a post on Facebook on Wednesday, the first day of the new year, sharing 16 pages of planned modifications to the country’s educational curriculum. Some of the changes were less surprising, such as removing all references to ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad and his late father, Hafez al-Assad. Others, however, sparked swift backlash. References to the pre-Islamic queen of the ancient city of Palmyra, Queen Zenobia, were to be removed, as were the names and images of pre-Islamic deities from the high school curriculum. Meanwhile, in the third-grade Islamic education book, the phrase “the brave one who defends the homeland” was modified to “for the sake of Allah.” The announcement sparked intense concern. “Of course, it makes sense to remove glorification of the fallen regime and related concepts, but erasing historical facts and events from the struggles of our people, stations from the history of ancient civilizations ... and irrational modifications to all subjects in the curriculum are indicators and steps, not coincidence,” Syrian writer and human rights activist Rima Flihan wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “And here lies the danger,” said Flihan, a former member of the Syrian National Coalition, appearing to allude to concerns that have pervaded the cautious optimism of Syrians across the country since Assad’s overthrow, in particular among the nation’s myriad religious and ethnic minoritie
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