Cuckoo in Carolina

he ruckus being raised by conservative Christians over the University of North Carolina's decision to ask incoming students to read a book about the Koran — to stimulate a campus debate — surely has to be one of the most embarrassing moments for America since Sept. 11.

Why? Because it exhibits such profound lack of understanding of what America is about, and it exhibits such a chilling mimicry of what the most repressive Arab Muslim states are about. Ask yourself this question: What would Osama bin Laden do if he found out that the University of Riyadh had asked incoming freshmen to read the New and Old Testaments?

He would do exactly what the book-burning opponents of this U.N.C. directive are doing right now — try to shut it down, only bin Laden wouldn't bother with the courts. It's against the law to build a church or synagogue or Buddhist temple or Hindu shrine in public in Saudi Arabia. Is that what we're trying to mimic?

As a recent letter to The Times observed, the problem with the world today is not that American students are being asked to read the Koran, it is that students in Saudi Arabia and many other Muslim lands are still not being asked to read the sacred texts of other civilizations — let alone the foundational texts of American democracy, like the Bill of Rights, the Constitution or the Federalist Papers.

The fact that they ignore such diverse texts is the source of their weakness, and the fact that we embrace them is the source of our strength. What we should be doing is driving that point home, not copying their obscurantism.

The notion that U.N.C. violated constitutional prohibitions against state-sponsored religion — by asking freshmen to simply read a book, "Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations" — has been rightly dismissed by the courts as nonsense.

I discovered the other day that my 17-year-old daughter, who is a 12th grader at a Washington-area public high school, was reading Genesis, Luke, Psalms and Job as part of a summer assignment for her A.P. English class. I'm glad. I wish she had also been assigned the Koran.

I understand that some people feel it's not right that terrorists kill 3,000 Americans — in the name of Islam — and then we go out and make the Koran a best seller to try to figure out who they are. But that doesn't bother me as an American. It would bother me, though, if I were Muslim. It would bother me that people have been awakened to my faith by an outrageously destructive act perpetrated in its name — rather than by some compelling attractiveness of countries that claim to reflect Islam's vision of a just society.

The freedom of thought and the multiple cultural and political perspectives we offer in our public schools are what nurture a critical mind. And it is a critical mind that is the root of innovation, scientific inquiry and entrepreneurship.

Right after 9/11, the majority of books on Amazon.com's top 100 best-seller list were about the Middle East and Islam. But there has been no parallel upsurge in interest in American studies, no new intellectual ferment in the blinkered, monochromatic universities and madrasas of the Arab and Muslim worlds since 9/11. One is reminded of Harry Lime's famous quip in the movie "The Third Man" — that 30 years of noisy, violent churning under the Borgias in Italy produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance, while 500 years of peace, quiet and harmony in Switzerland produced the cuckoo clock.

"A monolithic framework does not create a critical mind," remarked the religious philosopher David Hartman. "Where there is only one self-evident truth, nothing ever gets challenged and no sparks of creativity ever get generated. The strength of America has always been its ability to challenge its own truths by presenting alternative possibilities. That forces you to justify your own ideas, and that competition of ideas is what creates excellence."

I would bet that Islam is taught in virtually every state university in America — and was before 9/11. I first studied Islam and Arabic at the University of Minnesota in 1971.

America will always be a strong model for how a nation thrives in the modern age, as long as our culture of curiosity, free inquiry and openness endures. And the Arab Muslim world will continue to struggle with modernity as long as 12th graders in public schools there are never challenged to read Genesis, Luke, Job and Psalms over their summer vacations.

Don't worry, it has been my pleasure to recently find out that God has not been banished out of all the schools. I don't want to ruin it for us here by naming where I am specifically, but our friend is a coach who says prayers before games with his students all the time and as you walk out of thier locker room, dh told me they have a sign that reads with God all things are possible. There has not been a complaint *yet*.

UNC is simply not responsive to what the majority of North Carolinian's think on this issue.

It should be, because this is a taxpayer funded public university. I, for one, am sick and tired of my tax money being used to fund and further some leftist agenda.

To understand Islamic terror, you study the hate-filled texts that are published daily throughout the Arab world; you assign the hate-filled sermons that are preached every week in the Muslim mosques in the Middle East and Iran.

Thanks for posting that Dennis Prager quote. Excellent points!

This seems rather unlikely.

Nevertheless, this is the point. There is no way to understand Western Civilization, or Western history, or even Western literature without a reasonably extensive study of Biblical scripture.

This is true whether one is Christian, Jewish, or a non-believer. This is entirely apart from any study one might do as part of one's religious devotions. Anyone, Christian, Jew, atheist, or otherwise, must have an understanding of both New and Old Testament scripture or you do not understand Western Culture.

A study of the Koran is likewise legitimate and important. The objection is that the UNC is demanding a sympathetic study of the Koran while either rejecting any study of the Bible, or banishing its study to some "religious studies" Siberia.

There would be nothing wrong with likewise requiring some study of Bhuddist and Hindu texts. But not in an explicitly anti-Christian or anti-Jewish context, as is the norm in current US academia.

I agree with you. I don't have a problem at all with studying the beliefs and writings of various religions. But despite the fact that Christianity is an integral part of the history of Western Culture, I don't recall being assigned any Christian reading until I had an early American Lit class in college. When I was in high school, I remember the big taboo subjects were creationism, Christianity, and abortion. Because for some reason any discussion of Christian beliefs or values are too easily construed as preaching. College was someting different: at both junior colleges and universities there is a tacit understanding that the exploration of pretty much any pagan religion is encouraged over Christianity. And unfortunately, judging by how the number of young people I heard state that the Christian right is no better than the Taliban, there is a greater need for American kids to understand Christianity than to understand Islam.

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