As relatively low tuition is maintained for nationals, Canadian universities have traditionally welcomed foreign students, who pay higher fees, as a source of funding. If similar pricing policies hold true in Islamic training schools, it seems that Indian madrasas could benefit from a Pakistan move to deny foreign students to that country’s madrasas.:

After the July 7th bombings in London, the Pakistani government was “persuaded” to adopt a policy that denies entry to all foreign students who wish to enroll in its madrasas. That decision however, does not include expeling current foreign students (including western students). For those people that don’t know, many of Pakistan’s madrasas are where future terrorists learn Islamofacism 101. They are analogous to the stagnant ponds that result in a swarm of deadly mosquitos flying forth. However, many of Pakistan’s clerics don’t like this new policy. Why? Free-market principles result in those foreign students that are denied entry to Pakistan, heading across the border for schooling in India. Mid-day.com reports:

This seems to be a classic case of neighbour’s envy. Muslim clerics in Pakistan are miffed over its government’s recent decision which denies entry to foreign students coming to Pakistan’s seminaries, better known as madrasas, for training. What has particularly irked the clerics is that these students are now looking across the border and enrolling themselves in Indian madrasas for their religious training.

“Denying entry to foreign students in our seminaries and allowing them to get admissions in Indian seminaries will certainly improve India’s overall image in the Muslim world at the cost of Pakistan’s reputation,” says Hanif Jalandhari, head of the Wafaq-ul-Madaris al-Arabia, largest among the five Wafaq boards that have sole control of over 9,000 seminaries across Pakistan.

That quote would be funny if that cleric wasn’t serious. Is he actually suggesting that Pakistan’s madrasas have a good reputation? I honestly have no idea how India’s madrasas compare, but they MUST compare favorably. Some foreign students currently enrolled in the madrasas believe that the Pakistani government will relax its rules once international attention on the London bombings fades. Some of these students are simply extending their Visas, betting on a reversal.

AsiaPundit notes that it is only a minority of Pakistan madrasas that are de facto terrorist training camps, but it is common knowledge that some of them are. One study notes that 15%, a minority but still a sizable number, preach violent jihad.

One of the problems that nations such as Pakistan and Indonesia have is an unwillingness to acknowledge that there there are schisms in contemporary Islam that extend well beyond the Sunni/Shia split. ‘Moderate’ Muslims in will often reject the term ‘moderate’ and insist that all Muslims are brothers. Because politicians are afraid of offending the pious, the authorities refuse to crack down on truly dangerous institutions.

Beyond that, one of the biggest problems with the madrasas, as many of my Arab friends used to relate to me during my time in the Middle East, is that they simply create hordes of unemployable men who are trained at nothing except Koranic verse. The International Crisis group suggests that this is the case in Pakistan.

If the Indian madrasas are less radical and even slightly better at providing foreign students with employable skills than their Pakistani counterparts, then this exodus may not be a bad thing.

That is, of course, so long as none of the newly admitted foreign students blow themselves up in Mumbai.

Technorati Tags: asia, india, pakistan, south asia, terrorism

Via TPD, something that is reminiscent of El Salvador in the 1980s. Wapo reports that thugs in Xian have managed to combine China’s abuse of Christians with China’s abuse of property rights protesters:

At least five Catholic nuns resisting a government plan to sell land claimed by their church to a real estate developer are hospitalized in the Chinese city of Xian after thugs armed with sticks and clubs assaulted them, a witness and others familiar with the incident said Thursday.

One of the nuns, identified as Cheng Jing, 34, was blinded in the attack and has recovered the use of only one eye, and another nun was scheduled for surgery on her spine, according to people who have visited them. A third was recovering with a broken arm, and two others incurred serious head injuries.

The attack occurred on the night of Nov. 23 on a parcel of disputed land in downtown Xian adjacent to the city’s main state-sanctioned Catholic church, the Southern Cathedral. About 30 to 40 nuns were trying to stop workers from demolishing an elementary school there when the thugs began beating them, injuring at least 16, the sources said.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, northeast asia

Who says Chinese bloggers don’t complain about censorship.:

i wrote a post about the results of an activity in the chinese island located near Fujian province, but was unable to publish it. i tried more than 10 times to publish the post and everytime i received a note that my post “contains illicit word”, even if i made revisions on all those possible sensitive words like T***@****i****w***@****n, or e****1****e****c****t****!****O****n, or s***e***ss****i****O****n, at the end still unable to get it published.

you know the results of the activity in that island. basically my post says that chinese people are happy with the results, and the blue organization that won the activity will probably promote the relationship between that island and the rest of china, and the green organization that lost the activity, unlike many people think, might take a more provoking stance towards mainland china.

now, pls allow me comment on this stupid policy that makes my post unable to get published at my blog (i am not saying it’s the fault of bcchinese blog host) :

Technorati Tags: asia, blogs, china, east asia, northeast asia, censorship

At the end of a busy week, AsiaPundit often finds himself thinking “I need a Life Dunk.“.:

The Nissan Moco is unlikely to be successful anywhere that speaks Spanish. When the Japanese carmaker showed off its first entry to the minicar market, its small round green car prompted surprise from those who knew that “moco” means “snot” in Spanish.

But the Japanese, broadly speaking, appear to be happy to buy cars with foreign names that sound absurd in their native languages. The Daihatsu Naked, Mazda Bongo Friendee and Suzuki Joy Pop are never going to be sold in English-speaking countries. But the Honda Life Dunk almost sounds like a 1960s hippy van from California. Sadly, it won’t appear outside Japan.

The Nissan Cedric (apparently inspired by a medieval knight) was another unfortunate choice, with many blaming its name for its initial failure in export markets. “Its only serious problem was that it was given one of the most ridiculous names in the history of the motor car,” says one devoted owner on his web site.

There is an almost limitless supply of Japanese car names that sound odd in English. The Daihatsu Move Latte is described by one reviewer as having “the street cred of a shopping trolley” to go with its silly name, while the Mitsubishi Delica Space Gear and Honda That’s appear to have been picked at random.

“We do tend to have wacky names, I must admit,” says Takeshi Sumita, director of PR for Honda Europe. “They sound pretty exotic in Japan, but no one would dream of using them in Europe.”

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia, cars, life dunk

Jeff Ooi alerts us to a new essay from Asst Prof Warren B Chik of Singapore Management University, advising that it is a must read for bloggers in Southeast Asia.:

In the wake of two bloggers and one forum commenter having been punished in Singapore for what they wrote online, Asst Prof Warren B Chik of Singapore Management University wrote The Five Commandments for Bloggers:

1. Thou Shalt Not Defame or Spread Malicious Falsehood

2. Thou Shalt Not Negligently Miscommunicate

3. Thou Shalt Not Breach Thy Contract

- Contract for sale or services

- Employment

- Confidence and privacy

4. Thou Shall Not Steal

5. Thou Shalt Not Commit Crimes

It’s a must read for budding bloggers in this part of the world. Full text here, related pieces here and here.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, malaysia, blogs, singapore, southeast asia

Brand New Malaysian offers a worth reading essay on racial profiling and the discrimination against Mainland Chinese tourists.:

In the past, other communities were also similarly singled out and brought under the suspicious glare of the political microscope: The Jews of Europe were assumed to be Communists, anarchists, free-thinking cosmopolitans, landless and homeless urbanites, radical intellectuals, bankers bent on enriching themselves, etc. – sometimes all at once. Then came the bogus threat of the ‘Yellow Peril’ when Asians from China and Japan were thought to be a corrupting

influence on the world, spreading the vice of drugs and gambling wherever they went.

The painful realities of the past are hardly strangers to us in the present. If Muslims today feel that they are unfairly stigmatised and stereotyped, then they should be even more sensitive to the plight of other communities who suffer the same fate.

One such community happens to be foreigners in Malaysia, in particular those who happen to come from China. Over the past few weeks and months the Malaysian press has been inundated with reports about alleged abuses meted out upon tourists from China. While the Malaysian state and private sector have bent over backwards to accommodate and welcome tourists from the Arab countries – to the point of creating an ‘Arab quarter’ in downtown Kuala Lumpur to make them feel at home – the same red carpet treatment has been somewhat lacking in the case of the Chinese.

Chinese tourists to Malaysia have complained of routine abuse and harassment during their stay in the country. In one hotel it was alleged that Chinese tourists had their room tags and labels defaced with images of pigs drawn by anonymous Chinese-haters. Then came the claim that Chinese women in particular had been harassed, their passports taken, and bribes demanded of them by the Malaysian police force.

The cumulative effect of this string of abuses has been to galvanise the Chinese press both in Malaysia and abroad to come to the defence of the Chinese tourists – and by extension the Chinese minority community – in Malaysia. Already it has had the devastating effect of bringing down the number of Chinese tourists to the country, at a time when Malaysia is busy promoting itself as a haven for tourism and a country that welcomes all races and creeds.

The question is: How are the Muslims of Malaysia to react to this? If Muslims are prepared to demand that their rights be restored to them when they feel themselves to be unfairly treated, are they prepared to do the same for others – particularly when the instances of abuse are so regularly documented and debated in public?

As this ABC (Australia) report would indicate, BNM’s advice can be extended to other Asian nationals.:

Two Malaysian police officers have reportedly forced a Japanese student to pay them off after he was found without travel documents.

The New Straits Times says the student who was in Malaysia for an eight-month language course, told the newspaper he was in a taxi when it was pulled over by two police officers.

After explaining he was not carrying his travel documents, they reportedly took him to an ATM and forced him to give his personal identification number to the taxi driver.

The driver then withdrew the equivalent of 530 US dollars and gave it to the police.

AsiaPundit would further suggest that Malaysian police stop abusing Malaysia’s own Chinese, Indian and Malay nationals (AP will not even get started on the conditions for Indonesian and Filipino migrants)..

(Full disclosure: AsiaPundit made frequent visits to Malaysia without any abuse, and only one instance of being shaken down for a bribe.)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, malaysia, northeast asia, southeast asia