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confessions of a madrasa grad

by yaman salahi

Few people I associate with know that my earlier schooling took place in a madrasa. I still find myself, from time to time, recognizing that some of my beliefs and habits today have their roots in my time at that madrasa. I see similar residue on the many people I know that also came out of such institutions. There’s some truth to the belief that the madrasas have dangerous and long-lasting effects on those who attend them.

The madrasa I attended happened to be located in southern California. I can’t say it was much different from schools that other kids attended, at least not on the surface. These hallmarks of normality, though, belied the insidious nature of that place. What we were taught, right here in America, was even more startling. It should not be too much to ask of schools in America that they teach children the truth and that they do it in light of the visionary and revolutionary political spirit for which this country is renowned in all corners of the world.

Instead, I was taught lie after lie and deception after deception. I was trained to look at the world through a particular framework that was so thorough that it did not become clear to me how bankrupt and dangerous it was until it finally came time for me to break away from it. I still feel the violent effects of that rupture, as it has left me alienated from those I grew up with. In that culture, they do not take kindly to so-called traitors. But in a situation like that, my conscience left me no choice but to leave, to get away, and to stand up for what I believed in.

As painful as it is to recall those times, I realize now that it is incumbent upon me and every other madrasa grad to speak out and to speak up. The fate of democracy, of this country, indeed of the entire world, rests upon our gathering the courage to confront those who have damaged us in the madrasas. Generations have gone through them, and our own children might be next. Yes, even in America. For the children, then, I proceed.

As unbelievable as it may sound, I was taught, for example, that a man named Christopher Columbus discovered this country in 1492, after sailing the ocean blue. He thought it was India so the people who were already living here were called Indians, a mistake that is still transmitted through the generations. We know now that this land is not India, and we know now that the people Columbus discovered were not Indians: but we still call them “Indians,” and we still say “discover.” That any textbook in this country continues to use these words in describing anything other than Columbus’ error is something I view with great horror: innocent children in madrasas all around this country continue to learn this mis-information as fact.

Come to think of it, I never read anything at the madrasa that an Indian (who wasn’t actually Indian) had said. The only three that were given voices in my upbringing were the ones that taught the white man how to grow food, the ones that starred in Disney films and said “I do” to white men, and the ones who surrendered, telling the white man: “I will fight no more, forever.” The feisty ones who resisted the intruders to their lands, we called savages, sharing stories about how they would intentionally scalp civilian children, while the American heros only did that while pursuing military objectives in self-defence, like during the Trail of Tears.

It was not so difficult then to think of them as lesser people, as simpletons who were a scourge on civilization, on the great steps forward that America was destined to represent in the History of Man. In the Indians, who weren’t actually Indian, we admired obeisance and pacifism. Those Indians who fought, the ones we could not overpower, had traits resembling the ones we admired in ourselves: bravery, courage, selflessness. That might explain the limited and dehumanizing exposure I had to the Indians (who weren’t actually Indian) when I studied at that public madrasa.

Speaking with others who have gone through similar ordeals, I know that it was not just my madrasa that taught me these things, but that there was something inherent in the madrasa which lent itself towards such an education. Americans, for the most part, call these places “schools.” They might call them elementary schools, middle schools, or high schools. But do not be fooled. These convenient euphemisms barely capture their true essence as madrasas: institutions of socialization and acculturation, centers of indoctrination that teach our children how to ignore their consciences and how to rationalize mass murder, economic exploitation, and social injustice.


Is there anything about our lives today that cannot be explained in some way by reflecting upon what is taught at the madrasas in this country? I think that madrasas might be a big reason why Thomas Jefferson the slave-owner is heralded as a father of liberty. Is there anything particular about madrasas in America that differentiates them--functionally, I mean--from madrasas in, say, Islamabad? I am convinced that the madrasa in both places--in all places--is a source of much malformation in the logic that informs the way we and our children look at and understand the world.

It is only when we realize this that the dream of an education as we know it becomes a nightmare. Of what use can such an education be if the curricula are shaped by an exclusivist organization like the state? Is it even an education at all anymore? In the public madrasa, children are assimilated into the political culture of the elite (the same culture that the elite prefers, since it also dictates it) by learning common myths about American history, along with learning admiration for those colonizers and slave-owners we now consider heros.

In allowing the state to shape the curriculum of these madrasas, we also allow it to shape us, our own selves, culturally and politically. This is the prevailing truth around the world, especially in places where political culture is explicitly bound to (by?) a political narrative promoted by the state. Before we can have a free education, we must ourselves be free. But before this can happen, we must have an education free of similar interference..

We are passive beings in the madrasa by design. Once we have collapsed this structure and asserted ourselves as active beings in the educational system, as well as succeeded in developing a system to facilitate that will to action in younger children, then we have retaken our schools, as well as our selves.


Yaman Salahi is a third-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. He blogs at www.yamansalahi.com.