Where the puppies turn wild today, you are definitely in the educational structures of the horror caliphate.
Do not expect natural schools like the ones in the rest of the world, where happy little children play in the yard or read their lessons carefree.
Alas, here we are talking about schools that can only be named so by name, since the deserts of Syria hide surprises that are not for the faint of heart.
According to the Quilliam Foundation think tank, around 30.000 children are born each year and grow up under the black flag, then go to school.
The only thing they will know in their first and tender years is life within the caliphate, which means that they will undergo systematic propaganda and daily brainwashing, thus constituting the next generation of fanatical extremists.
The school is becoming the main lever of jihadist ideology, as the class remains the heavy artillery of the catechism, so as to ensure that the Islamic State will remain strong for at least another generation.
But what is really going on in ISIS classrooms? Does the regime really snatch children from their parents, subject them to intensive propaganda and turn them into eternal enemies of the rest of the world?
In a word, yes. Only it is still worse than we think…
Recruitment
Unlike some Islamic countries, such as Somalia, basic education is compulsory in the Islamic caliphate and home learning is even banned. ISIS wants to have full control over the education of its youth and has good reasons for doing so.
It therefore has a corresponding state committee (Diwan al-Ta'aleem) that scans and implements the educational policy of the state and controls the personal views of the teachers. Every unreliable or dreaded teacher takes the path of public execution and since the Islamic State has done this dozens of times, it is now relatively certain that the message has been taken by everyone.
As for the children who are the lifeblood of the classrooms, most of them come from parents who voluntarily trust them in the structures of the extremist Muslim utopia. However, there are many others who have been abducted by their families, from Yazidis and mainly Shiite Arabs.
Boys and girls attend the preparatory class (our kindergarten) side by side, although this will be the last time they will be together until adulthood. In the first grade of regular school, six-year-old girls wear their hijab and are trained on how to become good mothers ("caliphate pearls", they officially call them). Those who do not do well here, will be taught the second best good, how to become a suicide kamikaze.
The boys attend their own schools and learn men's things, gymnastics, the use of weapons and how to exterminate Shiites, Jews and all other enemies of the self-proclaimed caliphate. In the name of Allah, always. The horror training will continue until the boys grow old enough to become full members of ISIS. There is no pre-determined age for this, as the thing is judged on a case-by-case basis and has to do with the "maturity" of the conscript. Usually the training ends at 16, however there are even eight-year-olds who normally serve in the army of Islamic extremism…
First lessons
Writing, reading and arithmetic do not play such a big role in the classroom. The primary concern of ISIS is to instill in their hearts the hatred but also the specific worldview of the jihadist, so that they become eternal servants of the murderous purposes of the recruits.
"Religious studies" is the first and absolute priority at these tender ages. Children do not learn to read or write, they just memorize the Qur'an. This first contact with the school context is completed with lessons on Islamic monotheism, religious laws, prayers, and stories from the life of Muhammad.
When they become religious experts, students start history lessons. From the version of the Qur'an for the protoplasts, that is, to anyone who has ever looked at a Muslim in the course of time. The European Crusaders have as much to say about their honor here.
The student youth also learns "geography", memorization of the continents, that is, memorization of the countries where the infidels live. As for science lessons, this is exactly what you expect: non-existent! Every Western model of thought is flatly called a "lesson of atheism" and has been exiled from circular studies.
But it is gymnastics that seems to excel in the Islamic State's educational vision. Calling it "jihad training", the course covers everything from parades and jogging to swimming, martial arts and military high schools.
If one endures, one can see what these high schools include…
The curriculum of propaganda
Here there is a special body of "educators", specially trained and thoroughly tested for the degree of their commitment to the ideals of ISIS, which deals with this crucial factor of the circular education of extremism. Teachers who worked as teachers before the gloomy caliphate arrived in Syria and Iraq must be retrained in Sharia preaching and repent of their earlier unbelieving ideology.
Those who have internalized the principles of the caliphate and are ready to transmit knowledge, undertake the noble purpose of catechism in something that includes higher education. That is, blatant propaganda! The curriculum revolves around a small but clear circle of topics: the caliphate is the only one that follows true Islam, the president of Syria is the great enemy of Allah, the duty of every ISIS citizen is to die for the state , mercy is for the weak and such things. And of course that every other country in the world does unbelievably bad things to Muslims and for no reason at all, that is why everyone is an enemy of the black caliphate.
These are taught morning and night by Islamic State boys and girls, who, together with beatings, violence and intensive weapons training, make up the new generation of extremist fighters. Girls will either get married or volunteer to do the job, and boys will do more or less the same.
But it is also the other, that children from 8 years old and then are recruited as ISIS spies. And since they have no one else to spy on, they are forced to turn their backs on their family.
Children have been denounced by parents and siblings for offenses such as smoking, alcohol, lack of prayer or even "wrong" dogmas of Islam. The teacher even recognizes signs of maturity in such actions and makes sure that the student is ready to graduate…
Brutalization
Of course, nothing in ISIS's schedule can be compared to the "practical" lessons, the contact of children with unparalleled violence, that is, from the first years of their lives. In kindergarten, for example, children are trained in the knife, which they apply to animals first, cutting off their heads.
Teachers will then show them creepy videos of executions and suicide bombings, as well as more conventional battle losses, such as the impact of the war in Syria. The purpose is to accustom children to blood and pain, and the circular studies are indicative here: beatings of discipline, isolation, deprivation of water and food, and even sexual exploitation of boys, since the "pearls of the caliphate" must be virgin in their wedding day.
The material that the Islamic State proudly publishes every now and then leaves no room for doubt about the many, many observatory reports that have seen the light of day from time to time. Conformism is the cornerstone of the ISIS school and with so many years of propaganda and intimidation, one can hardly go against the flow, especially when one's own life is at stake in every disobedience.
After graduation, which includes a military-style parade of students where they are publicly beaten to show their good education, most children refuse to return home because they have enlisted in the cause. However, what they return to their families is so changed that no one recognizes them anymore…