More window dressing from Musharraf. What about homegrown jihadists? After all, the British bombers were Pakistanis, not Arabs who studied in Pakistan. From Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Foreign students attending Islamic religious schools in Pakistan will be ordered to leave as part of a drive to stamp out terrorism and religious extremism, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday.Security forces have detained more than 600 people in the past week after Musharraf ordered a crackdown on militant groups, mosques and religious schools, or madrasas.
Speaking to foreign correspondents at his residence as Chief of Army Staff in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, Musharraf said he wanted foreign students out.
"We've decided," he said. "All those who are here -- there are about 1,400 -- they must leave. We will not issue visas to such people."
The crackdown was ordered after the July 7 bomb attacks on London, which police said were carried out by three Britons of Pakistani descent and a fourth Briton of Jamaican origin.
One of the men, Shehzad Tanweer, visited a madrasa during trips to Pakistan in the past two years.
The number of foreign students attending madrasas in Pakistan has already fallen sharply since the government imposed tougher visa restrictions after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
There are around 12,000 madrasas in Pakistan, often providing education, shelter and food to boys from poor families.
Gee, that's swell. I wonder why Reuters saw fit to mention that. Are we to assume that cutting people off from the jihad factories will cut them off from education, shelter, and food? Well, we don't want them starving -- better they get turned into mujahedin.
a hollow gesture. it just means 1400 vacancies for Pakistanis. i imagine by now there aren't many vacancies left.
Offthread but damning;
afghan blogger receives death threats originating from BBC computer
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/07/05/threats-against-afghan-blogger/
Why acting only now? I believe Musharaf fears these terror attacks will stop the Pakistani emigration to UK. Also, London was probably the destination of choice for the Pakistani bourgeoisie for traveling abroad. Same happened to the Saudis after 9/11, when they stopped having the good time in US and Europe and started to travel to Lebanon.
Musharraf should be outlawing the madrassas that are teaching violent jihad. They are nothing more than feeder schools for Allah's army of zealots.
His move to ban foreign students makes for good P.R., though--with both extremists and non-extremists. The extremists won't howl with outrage that their jihadi breeding grounds are being shut down; the non-extremists will applaud Musharraf's effort as a step in the right direction. As Robert rightly points out, however, it is nothing more than optics, and will have no significant impact on curtailing the jihad.
Channeling Dorothy Parker this morning:
Girls seldom make passes
At boys in madrassas.
Ok, so they kicked them out of school. They will get a GED and go on with their intended activity.
Here is a typical Pakistani madrassa curriculum that give us an understanding of what kind of "education" these places give to the graduates that they send out into the world to make their fortune. Is there any mystery as to why this kind of indoctrination results in nothing more than an army of mindless drones who are utterly incapable of producing, neither as individuals nor in the aggregate, anything of value to world civilization? Each of these modules is described as a study of a particular Islamic "science":
# Tajweed (Quranic Recitation)
# Arabic Nahw (Grammar)
# Arabic Sarf (Morphology)
# Arabic Adab (Literature)
# Arabic Balagha (Rhetoric)
# Mantiq (Logical, Rational, Deductive and Rhetorical analytical methods)
# Fiqh al-Hanafeyyah (Jurisprudence according to the classic school of Imam Abu Hanifa)
# Fiqh al Arba' (Comparative Jurisprudence amongst the different schools of thought, including but not limited to the three other orthodox schools of law: Shaafie, Maliki and Hanbali)
# Usul al Fiqh (Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence)
# Usul al Hadeeth (Principles of Hadeeth interpretation)
# Hadeeth studies including portions of Mishkaatul Masaabih
# Usul al Tafsir (Methodology of Exegesis of the Noble Qur'an)
# Tafsir al Qur'an al Kareem (Exegesis of the Noble Qur'an)
# Seerah of the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of ALLAH be upon him
students ordered out of Paki?
Muslims ordered out of UAE, w/ 10 day ultimatium?
what is next?
Now if we can only get the Indian Government to get off their arse and close down the Madrasas in India, as well as the ones that have popped up in Nepal.
Although Pakistan's Madrasas were a huge problem, however don't underestimate the threat from the Madrasas of India, since they are financially supported by Saudi money. Same goes for the ones in Nepal.
The Indian Government is so corrupt in its desire for the muslim votebank, it doesn't wish to see the threat that is developing form within the country.
Gorkhali,
You are joking. The Indian Dhimmis doing something against Islamists ? Mulayam Singh , Lallooji and all those Islamists in Hindu grab will raise a hue and cry.
Now, has Nepal got Madrassas ?? I thought that it is a 100% Hindu country. How come you guys got converted - for a handful of rice or a few dollors ???
One of the things that Pakistan's ruling elites -- the generals and zamindars (large land-owners) must understand is that they cannot assume that their own children can move to the West, receive their educations in the West, even settle in the West. The days when Pinky Bhutto could confidently apply to Radcliffe, or Musharraf's own son find quiet and contentment as an accountant in a little town in rural Massachusetts, need not be something beyond discussion. If the rulng classes in Pakistan, or for that matter elsewhere in the Muslim world, are told that the Western world is not open to them, or to their lucky progeny, or will be open conditionally, and those conditions include full cooperation up to and including an end to sending Muslims abroad to the Lands of the Infidels, or sending money abroad to support Da'wa and demographic conquest in the Lands of the Infidels, and if this threat to the family members, the jeunesse more or less doree, and all those powerful friends of the family.
And when an executive of Al-Jazeera confidently tells an interviewer that he will be sending his own children to America to study and perhaps to live, in order to "escape the Arab nightmare and enjoy the American dream" he must be told NO. YOu are helping to create that Arab mightmare, and so your children will have to partake of it, not escape from it to the land of those soldiers whom your broadcasts help endanger.
Some would call this "collective punishment." But it is not "collective" but limited to the families of those members of the tiny ruling elites of these corrupt and unpleasant Muslim countries -- whether generals and zamindars in Pakistan, or media figures of Al-Jazeerea in the Arab countries. Nor is it "punishment" to deprive people of the "right" to settle in the West, to enjoy the fruits of Western civilization, the very civilization that those people, and their belief-system, now threaten in every way. There is no divine right to moving anywhere you please, and those you yourself perceive, or are taught to perceive, as enemies (all Infidels), are under no obligation to offer access to higher or other education, medical care, technology, and certainly not the right to live within their lands, or take -- in obviously perjured fashion -- citizenship in their Infidel nation-states and the rights that citizenship should confer only on those capable of being loyal to that nation-state.
This "collective punishment" is neither "collective" nor "punishment." And it makes sense. And it will get the attention of the rulers of such places as Pakistan and Egypt and even those Al-Saud, all daggers and dishdashas, with their mephistophelean aspect (those goatees, those mustaches) and sneers of cold command. They need not to be decapoitated --that is what Muslims are told to do to Unbelievers -- but rather, simply cut down to size.
This is PR fluff Robert, no way that Musharaff can ban foreigners from Madrassas, he has no control over madrassas.
Musharaff's problem is this. Whatever his feelings, opinions, beliefs, the only civilized portions of Pakistan are the major cities like Lahore and Islamobad. The rest of the country is run by clerics, Pakistan is Afghanistan, Lahore and Islamabad can be analogized to Kabul.
To hold onto control and power, Musharaf has had to accomodate the mullahs, relinquishing control of Pakistan, outside of the cities, to the Mullahs.
An analogy would be that Pat Robertson, Falwell, Dobson ran their parts of the country and distributed their version of justice, while Mullahs and Imam's ran Detroit, Dearborne, Falls Church, VA and the Muslim enclave of Houston etc, and Rabbinical authorities ran the 300 or so gated Jewish communities and towns like New Square, NY.
Thus the Peshawar region (Northern Pakistan) is a Taliban stronghold, and probably the home of Osama.
The rural regions of Pakistan are virtual feifdoms of individual muslim clerics, who govern the daily lives of the people with Shari'a of course, and who use Shari'a and their position to mete out favors and accumulate socio economic status, wealth and a following.
Musharaf's source of power is the army and secret police, public works, civil administration,and about the only authority he can exercise is over the military and foreign affairs.
In order to stay in power, he has to, must, placate the thousands (tens of thousands) of clerics and quasi clerics that really run the affairs of the country.
The remedy is to close the madrassas, but that is an impossiblity, the legacy of Islam is that the madrassas were the only source of education, and only available to boys. And the curriculum is "religious". The road to socioeconomic power and status in Islam is through religious schooling, the madrassas can be analogized to boot camps, which churn out soldiers for Allah, and the precocious, those with connections and family influence, go on to Islamic "universities" where they study and become masters of Islamic "science" (an oxymoron if there ever was one), and become mujtahids rising through the ranks to Mufti or Ayatollah, as they accumulate a following.
Imams compete for followings, the source of their socioeconomic prestige and power, and the vehicle is their Friday Sermons, not only hell fire and damnation but social political, and the more radical their sermons, the more of a following they have. Analagous again to the firebrand Evangelicals in America.
If Musharaf, were to close the madrassas, he would be attacking the mullahs/mujtahids and there would be a revolution, with him being declared an apostate, and enemy of Islam, and the Islamists are buried deep within his own Army and secret intelligence.
Considering that, I seriously doubt if he can actually prohibit foreigners from attending madrassas,since he has absolutely no control over madrassas. The best he could do is restrict entry into Pakistan from outside the country, which I doubt seriously he will do.
Bottom line, this is a piece of PR fluff, eye candy that Bush, Blair and the leaders of the EU can throw out to the somunlent masses via the media.
By the way, one of the accomplishments of Saddam,(now gone in the wake of the re-Islamization of Iraq) was to secularize education, and empower women. The religious schools, madrassas, Islamic universities fell into disfavor and disuse, female students even walked around without hijab (not to mention sans chador or abaya}.
Najaf and Karbala, the shrine cities of the Shi'a Saints Imam Ali and Imam Hussein, were once the sites of the main religious schooling for muslim clerics, but they fell into disuse as the seat of Shi'a Islam shifted to Iran, so did the Islamic universities shift to places like Qum in Iran.
This shift from Najaf to Qum took place over time,as Iran rose in importance, in particular under Reza Shah as he diverted funds, that use to go to Najaf and Karabal, to Qum.
It was bolstered further in 1946 with the shift of the Shi'i religious leadership from Najaf to Qum, following the death of Abu al Hasan Isfahani and the emergence of Husayne Burujirdi as the [b]sole marja al taqlid, until his death.
Shi'a religious authority tends to centralization and heirarchy, while there is no appointing authority (like the Cardinals which select a Pope), the group of clerics known loosely as mujtahid, rise through the ranks by virtue of the following they can amass from mulllah to hojat al Islam (the proof of Islam), to ayat allah (ayatollah or "sign of god") to Grand Ayatollah (Khomeini) to the rare marja-al Taqlid (source of emulation) which is about as close to a Pope as one can get in Islam. Sunni Islam is more anarchial and fragmented, and their equivalence are regional muftis and grand muftis' like the mufti of Saudi Arabia or the mufti of Jerusalem (Arafats uncle who recruited for Hitler was the mufti of Jerusalem).
So besides the decline in the religious schools in Iraq as a consequence of the rise in power and importance of Iran, Saddam also cut the feet out of the religious schools and their importance, by creating and supporting secular schools and universities, and the clerics were bought off, along with the tribal Sheikhs.
Saddam was a pan Arabist (but only pragmatically so). By trying to create an image of himself as a New Saladin/Nebuchanazar, he sought to accumulate power, by becoming the leader of the Arab world. (The idea behind the original Ba'ath or Resurrection party, a party which schismed between Iraq and Syria.)
The authority of the mullahs and Imams was thus a threat to his authority and the power and agenda of the Ba'ath party.
Now the rise in secular power in Islam has been successfully thwarted, thanks to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and even Egypt was pressured by Condoleeza Rice to include the Muslim Brotherhood in it's recent elections, and overtures have been made to Hizbollah in Lebanon, that if they lay down their arms and become political they will be recognized and their status as a terrorist organization struck off the books.
Consequence of everything is a rise in power of the sectarian in Islam, with the apparent blessing and assistance (though inadvertent) of this and previous administrations. Such as Reagans which allowed itself to be conned by the Saudis into recruiting and using Jihadis in Afghanistan.
Suggest reading: The Shi'is of Iraq, Yizak Nakash, The Reckoning: Legacy of Saddam Hussein, Sandra Mackey, The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, also by Sandra Mackey.
I would like to add to the list of recommended reading on Iraq offered above. Two books still completely relevant are The Letters of Gertrude Bell (or those written while she was n Iraq) as well as Philip Ireland's book on Iraq, published in the late 1930s. Both would be even more useful if read notin addition to, but rather substituted for, anything by Sandra Mackey.
The students denounced terrorism and said they had only come to Pakistan to receive an Islamic education.
By the way how do all of these Unemployed welfare students manage to fly to pakistan and pay for all of this....
Thanks to all of the western tax payers the students can all be on welfare, go to terrorism U to study the utlimate terrorist handbook The Koran.
Then come back all expenses paid by our friends in Saudi Arabia were they can beging putting all of that training to good use..
Kick them all OUT
Now, has Nepal got Madrassas ?? I thought that it is a 100% Hindu country. How come you guys got converted - for a handful of rice or a few dollors ???
Posted by: TheHindu at July 30, 2005 12:43 PM
@The Hindu:
I am sure you did not mean to be insulting intentionally, however when you say " How come you guys got converted - for a handful of rice or a few dollors ???" That is not the case, and if you are a Hindu you should be more informed about the only Hindu country in the world.
First of all, the late Maharaja Birender, decided to allow for democracy to replace the monarchy under the influence of both the United States and Britain. Democracy is a good thing, but not in a nation where 90% of your people are illiterate. Then you have India which is anti-monarchy and also wished for the monarchy to be eventually dissolved in Nepal.
Democracy enters in the 1990s and immediately becomes a "DEMONcracy" with corrupt government officials taking bribes allowing Muslims from India and Pakistan to take citizenship and open Madrasas. Terrorist networks begin setting up shop and everything is going to hell. Does India help? Of course, because it is not a Hindu country, so if the Maoist or the Muslims wish to destroy Nepal, then Nepal is on its own.
Nepal is a small country, and at the present moment, the King is trying his best to punish the corrupt officials, fight the Maoist and Muslims, as well as fix everything else his older brother messed up on.
As for India, "How come you guys got converted - for a handful of rice or a few dollors ???" was a very insulting statement on your part, and I could simply ask you, if India has Hindus comprising at least 80% of the population, then tell me why no one stops the Indian Government from paying all the expenses for muslims when they go on the HAJ? Why does the Airport in Delhi have an entire terminal dedicated to the HAJ? And this is only one example.
Nepal is the only Hindu State in the world, a small, very poor country, but a nation with Cajones of Steel. We had some bad governments starting with the bastard Koirala, and others during the recent 1990's, but if Nepal had survived, it is because of the Ranas and the Royal family excluding the Late Maharaja Birendra.
No matter how bad the situation becomes in Nepal, India does not get involved. However, it feels more compelled to have bus and train services set up with Pakistan, so that the terrorists can have an easier time getting in.
If you ask us whether we sold out, the answer of course is NO, since we are the only representation of Hindus as a nation, however, if you ask what is going on in India, that is where you should be asking who has sold out, since people like Sonia can pull strings, Mulayam can murder people and still be in politics and Laloo doesn't need an education to become a political pillar in India's democracy.
Believe me, I love India, but the next time you refer to Nepal, please be a little more respectful. If India starting to actually show some cajones, believe me, all the madrasas of India would have been closed long ago, and eventually Nepal would have gottne some help in cleaning up the mess.
So Gorkhali, you are in the same boat as the West. Ineffective leaders, corruption, and the Islamic train heading straight for you, and all our countries are stuck on the tracks. It's been enlightening to learn of the Islam 'problem' in Asia. The parallels are quite remarkable.
What about the Thai Prime Minister Shinawatra? Now my understanding is that Thai never succumbed to Islam and the peninsula is territory they gained with its Muslim population, although much smaller than today (isn't that how it always happens). Hopefully he has some cajones. Is he too politically correct to purge the Muslims from Thailand's peninsula. I'm pretty sure all those terrorists are coming from Malaysia and Indonesia. So far all the leaders have dhimmi cajones of mush. We need some steel cajones indeed.
The Muslims are killing the infidels right and left there. Gee, that sounds just like ...the rest of the world.
Now boys.. listen here plz dont get into Nepal-India thing. Gorkhali i'm quite aware of India's unpopularity in Nepal. Whence shall the Hindus learn to stand united and speak for Hindu community as whole. We've too many conflicting allegences. Aryans,Scythians,Parthians,Huns,Dravidians,Mongoloids etc. Its high time u guys forget ur ethnicity and think of urselves as Hindus first. As for Madrassas of India & Nepal i havent heard much about them lately. Whats happened have the folks in Deoband gone underground? BTW In which state is Deoband?
No matter how bad the situation becomes in Nepal, India does not get involved. However, it feels more compelled to have bus and train services set up with Pakistan, so that the terrorists can have an easier time getting in.
What can India do to help u? Current Indian govt is a hostage to Left Front which is a known Maoist sympathiser.
Gorkhali,
Thats a classic case of misunderstanding.
Read my whole statements first - I clearly told that India's leaders are dhimmis of the first order. So, there is no question of me calling names to any other country.
I did NOT intend to demean or disrespect YOU/NEPAL or anyone else on this forum. Though born in India, I am a South Indian and my knowledge and experiece of Nepal is as good as that of someone from Matabaleland. In my home state, poor hindus did convert for a fistful of rice and/or a new music system brought from the gulf and/or a few dollors. I am totally surprised that Nepal has too been screwed up by these Islamic bastards.
In my state, the condition is that these &^%&% command a huge population now and any government worth its name needs the support of these bastards to survive. So it is appeasement all along. I wont be surprised if in the near future, Assam joins Bangladesh because Bagladeshis are flooding it like anything ....
I too meant only that Indian leaders do NOT have the guts to battle Islamists. I hate the Congress and for that matter all the politicians in India for their appeasement policy.
Gorkhali, I am on the same side as you are - not on the opposite side of the fence.
Mulayam and Lalloo are happily playing 'who is a greater dhimmi' game. In Kerala, the goverment is virtually held hostage by the Muslim League - who call the BJP a communalist organisation. Isn't it ironic ?? A pot calling the kettle black ?? The BJP came to power making lofty promises - calling every other party a pseudo-secular party. But what they did ? Increased HAJ-subsidy - why ?? India is 80% Hindu but why should the 80% pay Taxes for the rest to go and pray to their paedophilic cult ??
Do you know that most Indian Hindus privately acknowledge that the a lot of 'mosques' - Varanasi, Ayodhya and Dwaraka are in fact built up on Temples razed to the ground - but since the govt is intent on appeasement, the Hindus cannot do anything. What can you do when there are a lot of black-sheep amongst yourself ?
When 58 hindus were burnt alive on a Train by Muslim mob in Gujrat, the main political porkies did not utter a word - but to my utter surprise, brought out a statement that Hindus themselves committed hara-kiri - are they flipping mad to commit mass suicide ?
But when the Hindus retaliated in kind, killing Muslims, the whole Indian dhimmis stood up and took positions - against the Hindus - you should not do this or that . How long can we be sitting ducks ? We are hunted in Kashmir , we are pushed around in Assam, Kerala is a goner. To top everything, these bastards have pulled down the temples built by my ancestors and built mosques - will we live to see this insult revenged ?
I will side with the DEVIL if need arises to correct the wrong - liberals do say that 2 wrongs do not make a right . But who said that pulling down a so called 'mosque' built on usurped land is worng. Defenitely 1 wrong - if corrected - does make a right.
Oh god. Let these lefties see some sense. Let the west sit up and take notice. Let the Indian Hindus who are still sleeping wake up - if we still continue to sleep, well we will NEVER get a chance to wake up - Oh ... I am looking under my chair - has some Islamic [ religion of piece ] bastard managed to put a nail bomb underneath ???
reset ,
"The Muslims are killing the infidels right and left there."
Countries in Asia facing Muslim problem -
India, Nepal [ thanks to Gorkhali's input ], Burma, Thailand, Phillipines [ Moro National Liberation front ] ...
Look at the trail of destruction left by the religion of piece.
reset ,
"The Muslims are killing the infidels right and left there."
Countries in Asia facing Muslim problem -
India, Nepal [ thanks to Gorkhali's input ], Burma, Thailand, Phillipines [ Moro National Liberation front ] ...
Look at the trail of destruction left by the religion of piece.
Vikrant, BTW In which state is Deoband? it is in UP
"Now boys.. listen here plz dont get into Nepal-India thing. Gorkhali i'm quite aware of India's unpopularity in Nepal."
-Vikrant_Camberleykar at July 31, 2005 02:06 AM
Yes, true, however not all Nepalese feel this way. The ones who do are either Maoist or Islamic sympathisers, or basically your uneducated Nepalis who are fed all the Anti-India crap.
What can India do? Well first the Hindus in India have to start using their muscles and get organised. They need to start some kind of Home-schooling after the child comes home or on weekends, so that the children start learning about their own true histroy and what happened. If we work at a grassroots level we can fight the muslims by gaining more support of our Hindus in India.
When India has more of a Hindu identity, then it will involve itself more in the aid of Nepal, Thailand and other Hindu/Buddhist nations. However, without an identity of its own, it simply stands alone and others easily take pot-shots at it.
@The Hindu: True, what you said and I am very sensitive about Nepal. Its a small Kingdom, but a proud Kingdom, faced with an Islamic enemy along with a Maoist one that demands our annihilation. Gods only knows what will happen to our beloved mountain kingdom.
However, I have stated in an earlier post under another article, that its true I am Nepali, born in the West, lived for several years in India and Nepal. However I am the same product as Vasundre Raje chief Minister of Rajasthan, or the MP of Narendra Nagar, or the Scindia Family, etc etc etc, I am from a family from both sides of the border. One must remember that when the British were in India, 678 princely states were free of British rule, thus not all of India was ruled. Furthermore Nepal, was a completely soverign Kingdom and not under the British crown in any way shape or form. Upon India's independence, the kingdoms were given a choice or whether to join India or Pakistan or remain independent. The Maharana of Udaipur signed over to India, however his cousins who were ruling Nepal (The Ranas of Nepal) did not trust Nehru or Gandhi (in Rana circles, Nehru and Gandhi are seen as Muslims) and thus Nepal did not join the Indian union. Otherwise Nepal would have been part of India, but in a way, its a good thing it isn't until India becomes a Hindu state.
-Cheers