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Poem on Bush removed from textbooks

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  • Poem on Bush removed from textbooks

    Tuesday, December 06, 2005 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

    Poem on Bush removed from textbooks


    Daily Times Monitor

    LAHORE: A poem in a school textbook has been removed by embarrassed education officials after it was found that the first letters of each line spelt out “President George W Bush”.

    The 20-line anonymous poem, The Leader, lists the qualities of “a man who will do what he must” and bears a passing resemblance to Rudyard Kipling’s If. “Ever assuring he’ll stand by his word; Wanting the world to join his firm stand; Bracing for war, but praying for peace; Using his power so evil will cease,” run typical lines.

    The Telegraph reported that an education ministry spokesman said it had no idea who wrote the poem nor how it found its way into A Textbook of English for Class 11 last year. The acrostic is highly embarrassing for President Pervez Musharraf, who is already under fire at home for being allegedly pro-American and supporting the US war against terrorism. The decision to remove the poem was taken at a meeting held on Monday and attended by Federal Education Secretary Sajjad Hassan, Joint Educational Advisor of the Curriculum Wing Dr Haroona Jatoi, National Book Foundation Managing Director Ghaisudin and Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Chairman Cdr Shamshad Sharif.

    “We have decided to delete the poem from the book, published by the National Book Foundation and prescribed for federal board students,” the spokesman told a Pakistani newspaper.

    “It will be stretching the matter too far to assert that the poem was inserted in the book deliberately to enumerate the qualities of the American president,” he added. The official said the ministry was investigating how a series of committees employed to monitor and censor the contents of all textbooks failed to notice the acrostic.

    The poem would not appear in the next edition of the book, he added. The book was printed in 2004 for the first time after the government in Islamabad decided to deregulate the publication of textbooks

    http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-12-2005_pg1_2
    Interesting to say the least.
    Attached Files


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA
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