A new piece on the jihad factories that are Islamic schools in Pakistan, from William Dalrymple in the New Statesman, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
Halfway along the dangerous road to Kohat - deep in the lawless tribal belt between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and where Osama Bin Laden is widely believed to be sheltering - we passed a small whitewashed shrine that had recently been erected by the side of the road: "That is where the army ambushed and killed two al-Qaeda men escaping from Afghanistan," said Javed Paracha. "Local people soon began to see the two martyrs in their dreams. Now we believe that they are saints. Already many cures and miracles have been reported. If any of our women want to ask anything special from God, they first come here."He added: "They say that each shahid [martyr] emitted a perfume like that of roses. For many days a beautiful scent was coming from the place of their martyrdom."
Javed Paracha is a huge, burly tribal leader with a granite outcrop of nose jutting from a great fan of grey beard. In many ways he is the embodiment of everything that US policy-makers most fear and dislike about this part of the Muslim world. For Paracha is a dedicated Islamist, as well as a wily lawyer who has successfully defended al-Qaeda suspects in the Peshawar High Court. In his fortress-like stronghouse in Kohat he sheltered wounded Taliban fighters - and their frost-bitten women and children - fleeing across the mountains from the American Daisy Cutters at Tora Bora, and he was twice imprisoned by General Musharraf in the notorious prison at Dera Ismail Khan. There he was kept in solitary confinement while being questioned - and he alleges tortured - by CIA interrogators. On his release, he found his prestige among his neighbours had been immensely enhanced by his ordeal. His proudest boast, however, is building the two enormous madrasas he founded and financed, the first of which he says produced many of the younger leaders of the Taliban.
"They are the biggest madrasas in the [North-West] Frontier," he told me proudly after stopping to say a prayer at the al-Qaeda shrine. "The books are free. The food is free. The education is free. We give them free accommodation. In a poor and backward area like this, our madrasas are the only form of education. The government system is simply not here. "
Paracha got back in the car - the vehicle sinking to the left as he lowered himself into the back beside his two armed bodyguards - and added: "There are 200,000 jobless degree holders in this country. Mark my words, a more extreme form of the Taliban is coming to Pakistan. The conditions are so bad. The people are so desperate. They are waiting for a solution that will rid them of this feudal-army elite. The people want radical change. We teach them in the madrasas that only Islam can provide the justice they seek."
Read it all.
OT
Waterdragon52, Ala-sux, Gary and any other Canadians lurking around who are concerned about the relative complacency of the Canadian Government in dealing with Islamic terrorists:
I think that you all would be interested in my new book Royal Canadian Jihad, which is about the threat of Islamic terrorists to Canada and breaks through all the constraints of political correctness. While it is a novel and not a work of non-fiction like those of Mr. Spencer, those concerned about Canada's national security will not want to miss it because of the way it tackles head on the central issue raised by September 11 for Canada. It is unique in that it weaves the key facts about the Islamic fundamentalism motivating terrorists into a very exciting story, which takes you right inside the heads of an Al-Qaeda operative who comes to Canada as a refugee claimant and his adversary an RCMP constable who shares most Canadians misconceptions about Islam as a religion of peace. Check it out:
www.global-economics.ca/rcjihad.htm,/a>
Sorry, here's the correct link for Royal Canadian Jihad
www.global-economics.ca/rcjihad.htm
One more try to get the link right for Royal Canadian Jihad.
www.global-economics.ca/rcjihad.htm
The "justice the seek" is a redistribution of the wealth they didn't earn and a standard of living that can't be sustained through the use of an Islamic education.
"They are waiting for a solution that will rid them of this feudal-army elite. The people want radical change. We teach them in the madrasas that only Islam can provide the justice they seek."
This is the point. All grievances, including legitimate ones, are reduced to Islam/Not-Islam. The only conceivable Universe is that which is perceived through the framework of Islam.
Educated Muslims, "secularist" Muslims, Muslims in name or quasi-name only (perhaps thinking fondly of a pious grandmother, perhaps dreaming of some "Ornament of the World" that pleases them to think existed a thousand years ago, so that Islam, a mythical Islam, in a mythical world, can be held onto for reasons of filial piety, and what one and all now call "self-esteem"), tiptoe obliquely around this. They talk of "separating Mosque and State" but they do not confront, head on, what it is about Islam that makes it the major factor in explainining the distempters and difficulties of Muslims themselves.
They try this, they try that. Bright Young Muslim Things in the West, especially the United States and Canada, speak endlessly of "reform" but never quite tell us what will constitute such "reform" of Islam. Some speak of swinging open the gates of ijtihad. A pious Turk or two will tell us that Muslims can easily forget the Sunna (consisting of Hadith and Sira), as later and doubtful, but insist on sticking to the Qur'an, and refus to see that the Qur'an itself is deadly for Infidels, and it was from the Qur'an that the Hadith were spun (this may be called the "White" method, after Mustafa Akyol, who has become the Turkish defender-of-the-faith in-America).
But if honesty, and complete mental clarity, about Islam is impossible in the dar al-Islam itself, the most clear-sighted and bravest of those born into Islam, once they reach the West, are free to jettison it, and not only to jettison it, but to help analyze it, to help educate Infidels, to help appeal to others born into Islam who have a dawning realization of just what it is all about. Ibn Warraq and Ali sina come at once to mind; they are the most famous. But there are others. Some of whom, of course, exercise the right to remain silent, and keep their overwhelming doubts to themselves, for all sorts of reasons --including offending the sensibilities of parents and other relatives. Others, however, decide to go public. These defectors from Islam should be heeded -- heeded far more than the misleading, or self-misleading, "reformers" who keep misstating the history of Islam, the history of Tafsir, the history of such doctrines as "naskh"(which is not some cockamamie invention that can just be thrown over the side, despite what Khaleel Mohammed would have us believe).
While the CBC has been oftened criticized (and rightly so) as having a liberal bias, the all news chanel CBC Newsworld has run several excellent documentaries on Islamists and Islamic terrorism. I can't remember off hand the name of the documentary but last year they showed a film about madrassas in Pakistan. It confirms this article completely. There wasn't much editorial comment - just the film shot in the madrassas while the children were being "taught".
This quote from the article sums up Islam nicely:
"This education gap is the most striking way in which Pakistan is lagging behind India, a country in which 65 per cent of the population is literate, and the number rises every year. Only this year, the Indian education system received a substantial boost of state funds in the government Budget; but in Pakistan the literacy figure is well under half (it is currently 42 per cent), and falling. The collapse of government schooling has meant that many of the country's poorest people who want their children's advancement have no option but to place the children in the madrasa system where they are guaranteed a conservative and outdated, but nonetheless free education."
Dalrymple may be getting an education -- or perhaps not. For he has turned out stories based on the Romance of Mughal India, full of palace intrigue -- quite like someone today writing about Rhett Butler and his conquests, with a complacent aside about the slaves. In the case of the plantation life (and fewer than 5% of white Southerners owned a single slave) the reliance was on black slaves; in the case of Mughal India, the slavery of the Hindus, and the jizyah they paid (safe for a brief relief under Akbar -- made much of by Hindus, and hated by Muslims, precisely because he was a tolerant syncretist).
He is a mass-market version of the TLS's other (i.e., Robert Irwin's) other standby reviewer on Mughal India -- Francis Robinson. Can't Irwin do a little better than that? He seems, at times, perfectly capable of demolishing Said, and the Mutannabi night and the desert stuff is fine (see Eric Ormsby's review, Ormsby being antother esthetic appreciator of Islam who just can't bring himself to study, having accepted too much of the guff, what it was in theory and practice, not in romanticized theory and practice).
It's a little as if someone who studied despotism in Russia, from the Czars through Soviet Russia through Putin, somehow overlooked it because of some verses of Pushkin or Tiutchev, or a theotoky by Rublev.
"He added: 'They say that each shahid [martyr] emitted a perfume like that of roses. For many days a beautiful scent was coming from the place of their martyrdom.'"
The Greek Orthodox priests at 1,500-year old Mar Saba Monastery, overlooking Wadi Kidron just outside Bethelehem, say the same about their departed brethren, many of whom suffered martyrdom by the Muslim sword.
"They are waiting for a solution that will rid them of this feudal-army elite. The people want radical change. We teach them in the madrasas that only Islam can provide the justice they seek."
Talk about Waiting for Godot.
I have only three words for Javed Paracha:
PREDATOR DRONE, ARMED.
And two for President Musharraf for releasing him from prison:
THANKS, JACKASS.
And one to all Islam jihadists:
NO.
johnb:
You help prove the point about the State own
media(CBC) and the fear of telling the truth,the story or stories you've heard about are dealing with Islam outside of Canada,Muslim Org.'s scream Racism at the drop of a hat and also threaten media outlets with law suits are part of their Psy-ops.
For the record,the Canadian Government controls the Military,RCMP,and CSIS so don't get your hopes up over Al-Qaeda cells in Canada,the Khadr family was welcomed with open arms,Ahmed Ressam (the millenium bomber caught entering the U.S.) lived of welfare during his 5 years in Canada as a refugee,Ressam and other Refugee's know that they can't be deported for any crimes they do in Canada because they fear for their life if returned to their homeland therefor our "Charter"
protects them.
Here's another absurd fact,about 20 years ago a tourist wanted to stay in Canada,since he had no money left for a lawyer he used our "Charter Challenge" provision that paid for it,the lawyer argued that the "Charter" protects "Minorities"
and since "Tourists" are a Minority in Canada they should be allowed access to all the Social benefits that Canadians get.
A Judge bought the scam and now any one of the 6.4 billion non-Canadians outside of Canada can step foot on our soil and demand Housing,welfare,Health care,Dental care,Free lawyer,and any other social programmes they need.
Canada spends about $600,000,000.00 per year
to look after foreigners that don't want to leave
the Country after coming here as a tourist or on a visitors Visa,the Magic word at the Airport is
"Refugee" and our insane Government deems forged documents as a sign of a "True" refugee since their oppressive Government won't grant travel Visa's or passports.
I expect that the first time a Jihadist like Ressam completes their mission from Canada into the USA to slaughter thousands of Americans for Allah's cause,the borders will be rightfully sealed close for awhile until Canada wakes-up
from our slumber of believing the Taqiyya Muslims that have suckered us into believing Islam means Peace and Muhammed was a Prophet of Peace.
My first clue about the scam was when I kept hearing Muslim leaders use the term "Racism" to aquire special Rights and force Islamic teachings on all us ignorant bigots that need the indoctrine
of Islam to be a better Canadian free of Islamophobia.