A couple weeks ago a group known as CAPEEM sent out a press release related to its ongoing effort to change how California textbooks cover Hinduism (earlier SAJAforum coverage here):
California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM) scored a major victory on Tuesday when Judge Frank C. Damrell, Jr. of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of California rejected the defendants' motion to dismiss CAPEEM's lawsuit to correct inaccuracies in sixth grade history textbooks. CAPEEM's complaint contends that the process to adopt the textbooks discriminated against Hindus and that the textbooks indulge in indoctrination of Abrahamic religions while using disparaging language against Hinduism.
On the other end, Hindu Press International took note of a conservative Christian organization, Educational Research Analsysts, run by Mel and Norma Gabler in Longview, Texas. The group reviews textbooks and part of its mission is to discredit evolution, encourage "respect for Judeo-Christian morals" and promote the benefits of free enterprise (more at their website).
The group also has recommendations for how high school textbooks should handle world history, saying they should "Prevent stereotypes of whites-as-oppressors and people-of-color-as-victims from slanting discussions of Western imperialism..."
To accomplish this, the group says textbooks should note that:
- British rule brought peace and a common language (English) to deeply divided India, ended or opposed suttee, infanticide, and child marriage there, improved Indian health, education, and transportation systems, and merely added another caste to the existing system.
- Some sub-Saharan African peoples practiced human sacrifice (e.g., Ashanti, Dahomey). The Aztecs and some other New World Indians engaged in cannibalism as well as human sacrifice.
- In the Columbian exchange, infection was a two-way street. A very lethal strain of syphilis, probably from America, killed many Europeans in the early 1500s.
- Only the Christian West realized slavery was wrong and took the lead in abolishing it.
- Manchu China was as culturally arrogant as the West. Chinese emperors viewed all foreign traders as barbarian bearers of tribute to whom they wished only to sell, not to buy, demanding payment in silver.
- The West demanded "extraterritoriality" because Chinese justice assumed guilt until proven innocent, used torture to extract confessions, and held whole groups responsible for acts of single members.
