Exclusion, Extremism and Madrasa Education in Bangladesh

Diogenes Laertius wrote, “The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.”   This simple formula hides behind it much of what is wrong with the socio-political economy of Bangladesh. Humanism has been on the wane in Bangladeshi curricula since the rightist BNP took power in 2001 and the effect has yet to wear off, even now that the left leaning and altogether more secular Awami League is in power.

How might we think education affects states and their citizens?  Quite apart from any individually accepted opinion on the intrinsic or extrinsic value of education, we might think education imparts on individuals human capital which they may productively exchange for wages. This is the argument for education as engine of economic growth.  More importantly, however, education instills upon the individuals the individual, communal and social preferences they carry for the rest of their lives.  To some extent, the tabula rasa story is the lynchpin that holds education and learning together with the individual and societal good life. 

Bangladesh is caught in a vicious cycle, where for much of the last decade, education outcomes have favored more fundamentalist Islamic pedagogy. That pedagogy seems to have been a harbinger of greater Islamist political commitment and greater perceived value of Islamist instruction.  During the last tenure in office of the BNP led rightist coalition, outcome measures such as madrasa enrollment and expenditure far outstripped comparable humanist public school education outcomes.  Although, for now, it is too early to tell how the Awami League led government will work to correct this worrying disparity, it is a good sign that during their last tenure in power, “the number of general educational institutions rose by 28 percent while that of madrasas by 17 percent”, as The Daily Star reported in 2005.  Nevertheless, the past is only an imprecise predictor of the future.   

This result implies that fundamental Islamic education in Bangladesh was being actively supported by the right wing BNP, while it was in power.   More worryingly, if one supposes–as I do–that Bangladesh is a country created principally out of the fervent of nationalism, and that the two majors stand fairly close to each other in terms of their platforms on Bangladeshi nationalism and industry, this implies that the BNP delegated its education policy to the more fundamentalist Islamic parties in its coalition. This is a troubling move.  For it gave the fox the keys to the hen-house.

Education and education policy, should at least prepare students to engage with the community at large and exchange their tool kit of knowledge and skills for a living wage.  In a globalized world where modern western culture seem to run through entire traditional communities, a humanist education in the arts and sciences seems increasingly relevant and important.  A move toward more insular instruction is tantamount to a move toward broader societal exit and increasing group level insularity.  And this group level exit is more troubling if such coordinated exit strategies yield more fundamentalist beliefs that in the relevant society at large.  Finally, given the proper motivations, such beliefs yield undesirable actions.

A few stylized facts help illuminate the glass darkly.   Enrollment of students in madrasa is a third of college and university student enrolment.  Nevertheless the numbers still appear staggeringly high for anyone who has not already become acclimated to the sense that these students have nowhere to go but to their local mosques where they will each be but a new entrant in an increasingly large community of imams.  And this is where the interested reader might pause a step to glance through the implications of an education policy that seems to favor the status quo fundamental Islamist education.

To reiterate: education especially at a young age inculcates in the untrained and hungry mind, certain preference relations that may or may not cohere.  As a child, if I am instructed so, I might think that reading is literature of various kinds a fun way to spend a class day.  As an adult that might carry me into reading newspapers from various important countries, and some ‘unimportant’ ones. Moreover, I might develop a genuine interest in other cultures and so become more empathetic to the plight of the people in some of those other cultures. Everything else being equal, I might support the Millian harm principle, to do whatever I wish, as long as I do no harm and spend at least some time doing good for others.

If however, I spend my time reading from a text that support capital retribution against real and perceived harm, that inculcation as a child might have some socially disruptive consequences when I seek to make my contribution in this world.  In fact, I might seek to make my contribution in a way that I think is consistent with that book that I read as a child.  It is no wonder that madrasas accept pupils as children, and from that inpressionable age, train them in Islamic and Islamist dogma until each child reaches adulthood.  It is not too much to imagine that a child instructed in that manner will become a man who might then seek to instill upon society a set of core beliefs that disregards humanism and approves only those immodest dogmas that turn women into veiled specters.

Now, to be sure, this rhetoric does a mighty disservice to the state.   There are at least 2 reasons for why the state might favor madrasa education.  Such a policy might be in accord with a majority of the voters in Bangladesh.  Second, it might be the more pragmatic approach to a national education policy. The first reason is outrightly absurd.  The children who are increasingly adopted into madrasas do not vote. Nor do their parents vote; they might have to travel for lengthy periods of time, even though the distance to the polling might be less than 10 miles.  The second reason might have some currency, but only if we think the policy initiative is exogenous to politics and only responds to the facts on the ground.  There is no principled reason for the delay of installing a more humanist curriculum in madrasas.  Nor would such a move deny a madrasa its nominal existence: Islam is fast friends with humanist learning.  In fact, the argument that early adult education determines the means of preference formation serves as the most powerful argument for changing the madrasa curriculum to reflect more humanist concerns.  More urgently perhaps, the social and intellectual environment in madrasas foster norms of exclusion.  These norms are then ready made tools to apply to constructing the kinds of ideologies and political actions that have seen Americans mired in conflicts in South Asia and the Middle East.

If exit from the extant culture is a response to moderation of the beliefs that prevail in that culture and, indeed, a response to seeming contagion from a dominant, other-culture, then group activity that maintains member inclusion does so by controlling excluding all other outsider information and knowledge. This norm of exclusion can reinforce member knowledge if some of the outsider knowledge is shown to not cohere with the information already available. Madrasas now engage in that kind of opportunistic instruction.   Young students who have faith in the power of the ulema and who seek to teach the word of the Koran might do well to think that the concerns that shaped the Koran are still present amongst the people in their neighboring, their neighboring city and their neighboring country. Humanism teaches and supports empathy.  It would be shameful if proponents of some of the most empathetic passages of poetry in world history could not make room for other  literary and philosophical voices in their instructional platform.

In the meantime, Bangladesh has finalized language on bilateral treaties with India on extradition, prisoner transfers and combatting international terrorism. Leaders in Bangladesh increasingly talk about coordinating their counter-terrorism strategies with those of their neighbors.  But this is a move to deal with the consequences of extremism; Bangladeshi leaders must move quickly to deal with the causes of extremism.