RETURN OF IRANIAN SCHOOL BOOKS BY AFGHANISTAN CONFIRMED
KABOL 5 Oct. (IPS) Afghanistan's Education Ministry has denied reports that the United States was responsible for the return of thousands of donated schoolbooks by Iran to Afghanistan, the official Iranian news agency IRNA said Saturday.
Mohammad-Isar Rahimi
, an expert at the Ministry told the agency that the schoolbooks given by Tehran were of "very high scientific standards and very advanced" for the Afghan school children."The books were very advanced and incompatible with the abilities and educational level of our school children", IRNA quoted the official as having explained.
But informed sources in Kabol said the main reason behind the decision was that the Iranian school textbooks contained religious items promoting Shi’ism, the minority branch of Islam that is the official religion of the Islamic Republic.
Also Iranian school books shows girls and women dressed in Islamic dress, or hejab, while the Afghan authorities try to promote equality between men and women and in many schools, girls attend classrooms without the hejab.
"There was no hostility or bias concerning the return of the books. The teachers were unable to teach children from the Iranian books", Rahimi assured.
Nevertheless, Iranian political analysts said the decision to return the textbooks would certainly anger the Iranians and would further deteriorate the already "sour" atmosphere that exists between Tehran and Kabol.
"The Iranian authorities would certainly consider this action as utterly unfriendly and provocative and reinforce the conviction that Karzai government acted on pressure by the Americans just to humiliate the Islamic Republic", one analyst told Iran Press Service.
Iran's press last week accused US troops of ordering schools in the southern province of Nimroz not to use children's textbooks donated by Iran, a country characterised by the US President George W. Bush as forming an "evil axis" with Iraq and North Korea.
"Intellectual capability of the Afghan children has declined sharply, especially during the past five-year rule of hard line Taleban in Afghanistan", Rahimi said, reminding that the former ultra-orthodox regime had banned radio, television and other educational material in the country.
Iran has to publish books in accordance with living features of the Afghan society and take into account its present and past situation as well as the people’s way of life and culture if it wanted to assist the country in the educational field, Rahimi noted.
According to IRNA, some 90,000 books, donated by renowned film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf had also been collected by US officials and replaced with educational material published in Pakistan, an ally of Washington.
Mr. Makhmalbaf’s "Qandahar" became a worldwide hit when as was shown just days before the 11 September attack on New York and Washington D. C., prompting the United States military intervention in Afghanistan.
But Rahimi said the schoolbooks had been replaced by publications provided by the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF. ENDS IRANIAN SCHOOL BOOK RETURNED 51002