Tag: Arab diaspora

“A madrassa grows in Brooklyn”

When I was in New York last year, I heard about a new middle school that was going to open in Brooklyn and offer classes in Arabic. The Khalil Gibran school was going to be the first American public school to have “Arabic language and culture” as part of its curriculum. I’m pretty sure a few of my colleagues at NYU looked into possible teaching there. Good thing they didn’t, because apparently, this public New York high school is actually going to be a radical madrasa!This has been discovered thanks to the efforts of the usual band of credible organizations: a group calling itslef the “Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition,” Daniel Pipes (whose recent column provided me with the hilarious title of this post), Militant Islam Monitor, and the New York Sun. As the New York Times reports:

Alicia Colon, a columnist for The New York Sun, wrote that Osama bin Laden must have been “delighted� to hear the news of the school. “New York City, the site of the worst terrorist attack in our history, is bowing down in homage to accommodate and perhaps groom future radicals,� she said. “I say break out the torches and surround City Hall to stop this monstrosity.�

Then Fox decided to cover the story, with predictable results.No matter that the school is open to students from all backgrounds, and that it will teach the standard state curriculum. Its principle Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim woman long involved in inter-faith efforts, apparently has an “Islamist agenda.” And no mattter that almost everyone in the US government agrees we are in dire need of more Arabic speakers–apparently it’s OK to promote Americans speaking Arabic; but Arabs (Arab-Americans are still Arabs) speaking Arabic on U.S. soil can clearly be up to no good.All this I understand perfectly; what I can’t figure out is why the New York Times calls Daniel Pipes “the director of the Middle East Forum, a conservative research center that says its goal is to promote American interests in the region.” I don’t expect the Times to tell the truth (the Middle East Forum’s agenda is to smear real academics, spread racism against Arabs and Muslims, and blindly support Israe). But surely they could get a bit closer.

Lebanese brain drain

LEBANON: One in three Lebanese wants to leave:

BEIRUT, 10 June 2007 (IRIN) – Researchers warn that economic instability and persistent security threats are driving ever more young, educated Lebanese abroad, creating a brain drain that threatens the country’s economic and social future.

“We’re suffering a huge brain drain,” Kamal Hamdan, head of the Lebanese Centre of Research and Studies, told IRIN.

“Those who have the brains take their diplomas and leave. They are the young people who would go on to be middle executives and entrepreneurs. In the long term, their absence means we may face a serious shortage of policy developers and managers.”

Perhaps one of the worst consequences of last summer’s war — it repeated the brain drain caused by the civil war.

‘The Source’ found dead

Ashraf Marwan, maybe the most colorful person of London’s Arab community, has died under unclear circumstances. Some believe him to be ‘The Source’ which tipped off Mossad prior to the 1973 war – others say he acted as a double agent misleading the Israelis.

From The Times:

Mr Marwan’s death will send shockwaves across the Middle East and among some of Britain’s wealthiest people. His associates included Adnan Khashoggi, the arms dealer, Ken Bates, the football club chairman, the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the late Tiny Rowland.

If found to be murder, his death will carry echoes of last year’s assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent.

In any case, he was close to Nasser and Sadat and must have made his fortune thanks to the connections he developed during that time, in particular when he overlooked the businesses of the Egyptian military in the 1970.

Fire that German judge

Completely ridiculous story — while Arab women fight to have such measures removed from their own legal system, a German judge refers to the Quran to justify domestic abuse:

German judge invokes Qur’an to deny abused wife a divorce

A German judge who refused a Moroccan woman a fast-track divorce on the grounds that domestic violence was acceptable according to the Qur’an has been removed from the case following a nationwide outcry.
The judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said the German woman of Moroccan descent would not be granted a divorce because she and her husband came from a “Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife,” according to a statement she wrote that was issued by a Frankfurt court. “That’s what the claimant had to reckon with when she married the defendant.”

The 26-year-old mother of two had been repeatedly beaten and threatened with death by her husband.

When the woman protested against the judge’s decision, Ms Datz-Winter invoked the Qur’an to support her argument. In the court she read from verse 34 of Sura four of the Qur’an, An-Nisa (Women), in which men are told to hit their wives as a final stage in dealing with disobedience. The verse reads: “… as to those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping places and beat them”.

That judge should lose her job. And incidentally, there is (as always) a wide range of interpretations and thinking about this part of the Quran.

Update: NYT story on alternate interpretation, by which a rebellious woman should be spurned rather than beaten as usually interpreted.

The “burqini”

Img Products 20-977-1150420524

I’m not trying to make fun of this — people can wear what they want — but why call it burqini? A burqa is a rather extreme form of fundamentalist gear that is not found in much of the Muslim world outside of Afghanistan and, to a much less degree, India and Pakistan. Is the Taliban what they want their product to be associated with?

Incidentally, this “burqini” is now standard issue for Muslim female lifeguards in Australia.

New head of IMA is Zionist

The new head of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, one of the finest cultural center dedicated to the Arab world in the world, is Dominique Baudis, a prominent figure of France’s pro-Israel movement. The IMA is financed mostly by France but also by several Gulf states — and I hope they act soon to stop rewarding people who have fought against Arab causes. French-Moroccan blogger Ibn Kafka has more.

[Via Angry Arab]

Baby Jihad

Utterly ridiculous: German authorities are trying to get courts to back them in preventing a baby being named “Jihad” — even though it is a completely common name in the Arab world. The most famous Arab columnist (for al-Hayat) is called Jihad al-Khazen. He is broadly speaking a secularist, albeit of the loyal to Saudi interest variety (he has a rich history of being close to virtually every prominent political figure in the region over his long career.) Of course the baby’s father appears to be something of an Islamist, but so what? See Kafr al-Hanadwa’s post for the details.

Europe is ours

Ours, I tell you! Dirka dirka Muhammad Jihad! Muahahahahahahaha!!!!

Islam could soon be the dominant force in a Europe which, in the name of political correctness, has abdicated the battle for cultural and religious control, Prof. Bernard Lewis, the world-renowned Middle Eastern and Islamic scholar, said on Sunday.

The Muslims “seem to be about to take over Europe,” Lewis said at a special briefing with the editorial staff of The Jerusalem Post. Asked what this meant for the continent’s Jews, he responded, “The outlook for the Jewish communities of Europe is dim.” Soon, he warned, the only pertinent question regarding Europe’s future would be, “Will it be an Islamized Europe or Europeanized Islam?” The growing sway of Islam in Europe was of particular concern given the rising support within the Islamic world for extremist and terrorist movements, said Lewis.

I wonder if this prediction will be as accurate as Lewis’ last one. Read more for Bernie’s take on the Persian threat. When will some kind soul put him out of his misery?

Justice done

Nothing makes me happier than this kind of news:

TACOMA, Washington: A couple in the U.S. state of Washington has been sentenced to home confinement for forcing their immigrant niece to work long hours in their home and at the family espresso stand, and they also must pay her US$65,000 (about €50,000) for her labor.

Abdenasser “Sammy” Ennassime, 47, and his wife Tonya, 41, of Lakewood, pleaded guilty in September to federal charges of forced labor and harboring an illegal alien, respectively. Under the plea agreement, government lawyers recommended home confinement, three years of probation and back wages.

The treatment of household servants and distant relatives taken in for that purpose in countries in the Arab world is utterly shameful. If that court had jurisdiction over Morocco, you’d have hundreds if not thousands of similar cases.

Oops

People in my Arabic class yesterday were talking about this New York Times story about an Arab-American army recruiter. A photo that ran with the story shows a T-shirt that reads “If you can read this” (in Arabic) and then below, “The National Guard needs you” (in English). But the grammar of the first line seems incorrect. Normally, after the conditional particle, the verb should be in the past, not the present. (I’d like native Arabic speakers to confirm this.) This would hardly be the first or most egregious mistake the US armed forces have made trying to communicate with Arabs..