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“We could focus more effectively on education so that there’s less need to resort to religion-based schools”
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SYDNEY,
October 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Australia plans to use
aid as a weapon in the war on terrorism, notably by promoting state
education in areas of Asia where allegedly, some Islamic religious
schools are breeding radicalism, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
said Wednesday, October 30.
Downer
said talks between Australian and U.S. officials at an Asia-Pacific
summit in Mexico and then in Washington this week raised the need to
“better focus” aid programs to help fight terrorism, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“We
could focus more effectively on education to ensure that state-based
education is of a higher and better quality and more readily available
in countries in the region so that there’s less need to resort to
religion-based schools,” Downer told ABC radio from Washington.
Both
the United States and Australia, he said, were concerned that at some
Islamic schools in Asia and the Pacific, “extremist doctrines are
taught and people are recruited: into radical groups.
“Issues
like that are sophisticated points but we need to start focusing on
(them) increasingly,” he said.
Australia
has been seeking ways to boost its counter-terrorism activities in
Asia following an October 12 bombing of a nightclub strip on the
Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed more than 190 people,
including around 80 Australians.
The
attack has been blamed on alleged “radical” Indonesian Islamic
movement Jemaah Islamiyah, which is believed to be part of a southeast
Asian network linked to the Al-Qaeda group, AFP said.
Downer
said the U.S officials he had met with believed there was a very
serious terrorist problem in southeast Asia.
“They’re
concerned about Jemaah Islamiah and other like organizations in the
region and their links with Al-Qaeda (and) the fact that regional
terrorist organizations are linked to worldwide terrorist
organizations,” he said.
“The
countries in the region themselves have to be ultimately responsible
for taking decisive action against these terrorist organizations.
“Countries
like the U.S. and Australia can help them and we encourage them. We
talked about how we could help and encourage them.”
While
in Washington Downer and Defense Minister Robert Hill met Tuesday with
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
and senior military officials.
Responding
to a question on whether Islamic religious breeds terrorism, as the
U.S. claims, prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi said,
“I can simply say that what has been recently circulated is no more
than a fallacy and a baseless superstition.
“On
what justification do they claim that Islamic education breeds
terrorism?! It stands to reason that those whom they dub as terrorists
are not the product of Islamic education. All what we hear recently
about the Western cry that Islamic education should be modified is
really nonsense. There are no logistic, modern, religious, moral or
even secular backing to support it.
“The
question I’d like to ask here is: what is the aim behind this U.S.
call? Do they intend by Islamic education that kind of religious
education taught to pupils in public schools with the aim of informing
them about the tenets of their faith, creed and Islamic moral system?!
Or by their claim they are referring to religious curriculum, which is
known as Islamic culture, being taught to some students at
universities?
“Such
Islamic subjects are taught with the aim of instilling in those
students the essence of the Islamic message and its philosophy in
general. Those university students are supposed to earn a reasonable
and relative knowledge that best suit their mentalities in every stage
they pass through. Such form of religious education is obligatory upon
everyone who lives in a Muslim country regardless of whether he is a
Muslim or not.
“We
can not describe a person to be cultured and highly educated while he
is actually in the dark about the religion in which the overwhelming
majority of his countrymen believe.
“Also,
we can not rule out that such hue and cry widely circulated by the
States is primarily directed towards religious institutions throughout
the world.
“There
are many prestigious Islamic universities and institutions such as
Al-Azhar University in Egypt, Az-Zaytounah in Tunisia, Al-Qarawein in
Morocco, the Islamic University in Madinah, the University of Imam
Muhammad Ibn Su`ood, Umm Al-Qura Universitiy in Saudi Arabia, Nadwat
Al-`Ulama’ in India etc.
“These
universities as well as various specialized others in Pakistan and
Malaysia are the targets of the coming American plan that tend to bend
the religious curricula in those prestigious universities and
institutions to the direction that suits America!
“When
the religion is subjected to restriction, evil, crime, corruption and
pornography become spread everywhere.
“If
those people tend to enhance mutual dialogue and understanding, then
we should state here that we are the leaders in this respect. Tens of
years ago, we have started calling Muslims to this latitudinarian and
tolerant religion. Our call is not confined to non-Muslims, but it
goes as far as encompassing those Muslims who are narrow-minded and
backward in thinking.
On
Friday, October 24, the Malaysian government announced that it has
frozen financial aids for more than 500 religious schools in Malaysia,
accusing the schools’ authorities of breeding hatred of the
government among the students.
Mahathir
Mohammad, the Malaysian Prime minister announced that the government
has stopped giving per capita grants to religious schools after some
of the schools were found to be used for politics, Malaysian news
agency, Bernama, reported.
The
Prime Minister said the government took the decision to study the
status of the schools to ensure they were genuinely teaching religion,
said Bernama.
“At
the moment, we have stopped assistance to all religious schools until
we can distinguish which is religious school, (and) which is political
school,” he told reporters after chairing the supreme council
meeting for his ruling party United Malays National Organization
(UMNO).
“UMNO
members’ children who go to these schools have asked their fathers
to bring down the picture of the firaun (Pharaoh) when they returned
home.
“They
have learnt this in school, this is not found in the religious
studies,” he said, according to Bernama.
Mahathir
said the per capita grants to the schools, which have been stopped for
sometime, would only resume after the government was satisfied that
the schools really taught religion.
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