9/11 - 101

Campus Report ^ | October 20, 2009 | Sarah Carlsruh

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9/11-101

Sarah Carlsruh, October 20, 2009

September 11th, 2001 is now a part of U.S. history, and so the issue of how to teach about it in high school history classes is necessary, albeit controversial.

The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and the American Institute for History Education (AIHE) hosted a Summer Institute for Teachers in Philadelphia this June. Mary Habeck, associate professor of strategic studies at John Hopkins University and author of Knowing Your Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror, spoke on the topic, “Teaching the Long War and Jihadism.”

In an essay based on her presentation, Habeck explained that the “long war” she is referring to is the war on terror.

She began by giving a quick and superficial background of Muslims, explaining the plurality of viewpoints within Islam, saying that “It is important to first introduce students to the ideology of the people who attacked us on 9/11, so that they can differentiate them from ordinary Muslims and ordinary Islamic beliefs.” There are approximately 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, and, of those, perhaps a few thousand subscribe to the global jihadist belief system held by the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, argued Habeck....

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Mary Habeck is excellent. I highly recommend her book.

Knowing the Enemy : Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror