Monday, August 14, 2006

The Bookseller of Kabul

A bit about Talibanese education:

......This is how firts-year schoolchildren learn the alphabet: "J is for Jihad, our aim in life, I is for Israel, our enemy, K is for Kalashnikov, we will overcome, M is for Mujahedeen, our heroes, T is for Taliban..."

War was the central theme in maths books too. Schoolboys - because the Taliban printed books solely for boys - did not calculate in apples and cakes, but in bullets and Kalashnikovs. Something like this: 'Little Omar has a Kalashnikov with three magazines. There are twenty bullets in each magazine.. he uses two thirds of bullets and kills sixty infields. How many infields does he kill with each bullets?'

Guys...try to find this book. Written by Asne Seierstad, a Norwegian journalist.