Jordan is to tackle the threat of extremism by revising school curricula to include lessons on terrorism and human rights, with the aim of broadening pupils’ minds.
Children will be helped to define terrorism and distinguish between it and what the Amman authorities term “legitimate resistance”. The ministry is working with Unesco to teach human rights based on Islamic and Arab heritage, and international law.
But former foreign minister Abdul-illuh Khatib criticised the plans as pandering to United States pressure on Jordan to be a western-style democracy. “It seems we must change our style of living, cancel our school curriculum and part of our culture to please the Americans, since the American boss of this world does not accept, and is not even willing to listen to anything except the echo of his own voice,” he wrote in the Ad-Dustour newspaper.
