Is Indonesia Better Off after Decentralization?Dewi Kurniawati | may 15, 2012

To some observers, Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto’s insistence on sealing off GKI Yasmin Church in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling is a prime example of one of the failures of decentralization. Today, friction exists between different levels of government, with district heads and mayors — known as “small kings” — feeling they have a mandate from the people and are not obliged to carry out orders. Analysts say this has led to the perception that local communities have not benefited from decentralization. “The basic idea of decentralization was originally to improve people’s welfare in the long term by increasing public services through regional autonomy,” said Robert Endi Jaweng, executive director of Regional Autonomy Watch (KPPOD), a Jakarta-based monitor. “Unfortunately, in over a decade of its practice, people haven’t seen the benefits of decentralization,” Robert said. “It is basically in the hands of a few local elites.” the current situation can be traced back to the beginning of the so-called reform era following the fall of former President Suharto in 1998. When the Regional Autonomy Law came into effect in 2001, it reshaped the political landscape. the office of president was no longer occupied by an authoritarian who could determine the fate of the archipelago as in the New Order days. the law maintained the central government’s grip on affairs of security, religion, international relations, economic policy and legal issues. other forms of authority have since 2001 been with provinces and districts. Robert argued that the failures of decentralization were in part the result of bad timing. “Indonesia introduced decentralization in a transitional era where it was seen as stemming political disintegration. it was made under the assumption that the state was in a normal situation. it was not,” Robert said. Cases such as the GKI Yasmin Church affair, which can damage Indonesia’s image abroad, have led some people to question how much authority the state wields in the provinces. the state lacks control because the central government is “very weak,” Robert said. Before former President Suharto was forced to resign following a popular outpouring of frustration in may 1998, questioning the state’s control was a subversive act that could land you in prison. Today the question prompts political observers to ask why leadership from Jakarta seems lacking in cases where it is most needed. “The first 10 years of regional autonomy should provide a starting point for the future; to what extent have the goals from decentralization stated earlier been achieved?” asked Siti Zuhro, a regional autonomy expert at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). “We have to be honest that we have witnessed so many deviations as a result of local political processes that have neglected the objectives and idea of decentralization,” Siti said. Where did the money go? Direct elections, which can be prohibitively expensive, have led many local elites to fund their political activities through corruption, analysts said. “The direct election system is very costly; it drives elected regional leaders to corruption. Corruption can take the form of reduced public services or granting various permits and concessions [to companies] for mining or logging,” Robert explained. according to Zainal Arifin Muchtar, an anticorruption expert from Gadjah Mada University, tackling regional corruption’s spread requires strong law enforcement, which the country lacks. “Law enforcement in local regions is as weak as it is in the central government,” Zainal said. since its establishment in 2004 the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has arrested 8 governors and 30 mayors and district heads. Citing data from law enforcement officials, a deputy speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly said 32 percent — 173 out of 525 — of active governors, mayors and district heads were under investigation for graft. Decentralization would distribute wealth more equitably to the regions, its champions said. but it has ironically also brought money flowing back into the capital, as enriched local officials and businesses often travel to Jakarta. “For example, 80 percent of funds from Papua’s special autonomy go back to Jakarta because governors and head districts spend more time in Jakarta” Robert said. Cumbersome bureaucracy has also been blamed for the problems. Budget allocations from the central government, as well as money derived from the regions that should be spent on public services such as education and health care, is often used to accommodate the oversized bureaucracy, analysts say. Robert said that 60 percent of the nation’s 491 districts spend more of their budget on bureaucracy than on public services. “Some 11 districts even spend more than 70 percent [on bureaucracy],” Robert said. another bone of contention is the raft of controversial religious bylaws, which have mushroomed since devolved powers began to take root. Critics say the bylaws, many based on Islamic Shariah law, undermine Indonesia’s founding principles and stimulate grassroots conflict between religious groups. Women in some districts are required to wear jilbab and students and civil servants are obliged to pass the Koran recitation test. in some areas, such as Merauke in Papua, Christian legal structures have been accommodated. “Even when [such legislation] should be revoked by the Home Affairs Ministry, it is often ignored. why? one reason is because Gamawan Fauzi, as the current minister, applied Shariah bylaws when he was head of Solok district [in West Sumatra],” Robert said. the minister was not available for a comment. What needs to be done? While some criticize and question the continuing program of regional autonomy, others are confident that decentralization can solve the multitude of problems facing Indonesia. “I believe regional autonomy is the most suitable system for a vast country such as Indonesia,” said Dadan Suharmawijaya, the director of Jawa Pos Institute of Pro Autonomy. the group organizes an award that recognizes regions as setting the best practice standard for others to follow. “We should remember that in the old days of centralization, regions were forced to wait a long time for the central government to fix basic infrastructure such as falling bridges or holes on main streets,” Dadan said. by giving awards, Dadan said, regions are encouraged to provide good public services for the people. Siti, from LIPI, agreed that regional autonomy was not the root cause of corruption, pointing to examples of good leaders such as Joko Widodo from Solo, Central Java, and I Gede Winasa from Jembrana district in Bali. “There should be a carrot and stick approach: We punish those who violate the law, but appreciate others who do a good job,” Siti said.

Biblical prophecies reveal the Antichrist is going be a Muslim from the Middle East, Christ will ride on the clouds into Egypt, Turkey will invade Israel and the United States will be victorious in the fight against the Antichrist, Walid Shoebat told a crowd of about 120 Friday.

The self-described former terrorist and Islam-to-Christianity convert spoke in Lubbock at a special insight rally hosted by Insight USA.

Insight USA, according to its president and CEO Faye Hardin, is dedicated to praying for and working against what she believes is the collusion of environmentalists and some U.S. government officials to take Americans’ land in the name of environmentalism.

Hardin invited Shoebat, she said, “because Walid Shoebat teaches (and) confirms with the Scriptures that God is going to judge the Middle East, and America is going to be saved. Our oil is going to gush. Our gas is going to gush. He is going to remove people who have the control, and we’ll be the largest oil and gas producers in the world — based on what the Bible says.”

Questionable points

“(Shoebat) was misleading people about Islam and Muslims and putting fear in people’s hearts,” said Samer Altabaa, imam of the Islamic Center of the South Plains.

Altabaa attended the 1.5-hour morning session of Shoebat’s Friday talk — Altabaa had to leave midday for prayers — and took issue with a number of Shoebat’s statements about Islam and Christianity.

“I would say that this guy looks like he came from extreme Islam to extreme Christianity,” Altabaa said. “It looks like he loves extremism.”

Shoebat said he was born of a Christian American mother and a Muslim Palestinian father, raised in Bethlehem and was born with and retains U.S. citizenship.

His claims about his terroristic past have been called into question by several news organizations, including CNN, regarding his claims about his time spent in an Israeli jail, his participation in the bombing of an Israeli bank and his active involvement in terrorism.

Shoebat, in turn, raises questions about the validity of the news sources themselves and their information-gathering.

For example, he said, his jail time would have been filed under his former name, which he refuses to release for fear of his own security.

He appears on television and in speaking engagements. when he does so, he often speaks of what he views as Islam’s extremism.

Extreme Islam

Altabaa denies Shoebat’s accusations of Islam’s inherent extremism.

He points to many American mosques’ dedication to interfaith dialogue and Quranic verses disallowing Muslims to commit violent acts if they have not been personally, violently attacked.

“If he is right about his history,” Altabaa said, “he was raised among some extremists, so this (is) what he knows about Islam — some extremist thoughts that he learned from the environment where he used to work — because he said he used to work with the terrorist people.”

In his talk Friday, Shoebat led listeners through a whirlwind study of the Christian old Testament, using Scriptures in Amos, Joel, Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel to support his interpretation of end-time prophecies and current events.

One of his missions, he said in an interview before the event, is to tell Americans the United States is not doomed, as some prophecy-interpreters hold.

In addition, he wants to warn of what he sees as the desire in North Africa and the Middle East to unify the region under a single caliphate, or Islamic rule.

Shoebat seemed to see himself in the tradition of biblical prophets, saying during his talk, “I’m trying to lose my job” and “Ask Noah if he liked his job. ask Moses.”

The norms

Shoebat also spoke at length on Islam, quoting Arabic terms he said allow adherents to act stealthily, make assimilative concessions and lie to further jihad.

Altabaa said the terms Shoebat described as intrinsic to Islam are not mentioned in the Quran. Rather, the terms are cultural norms practiced by some, but not all, Muslims. still, the norms were not as nefarious as Shoebat portrayed them, Altabaa said. One, for example, stated it is permissible to lie when in danger — for example telling robbers you don’t have money when they demand it.

The book of Hadith — a non-Quranic book not agreed upon as canonic by all Muslims — states lying is permissible in certain wartime circumstances or to bring about peace between individuals, Altabaa noted in an interview Thursday.

“I never came to a verse (in the Quran) where it says it’s OK to lie — to Muslims or to non-Muslims or to anyone.

But I have come to many verses where it says the curse of God on those who lie,” as he noted the Quran states in chapter 3, verse 61.

As Shoebat spoke of the United States’ role in biblical prophecies, his audience frequently greeted his remarks with enthusiastic applause.

Attendee Deanne Clark said she enjoyed Shoebat’s words and hoped to listen to a recording of the talk to better absorb his interpretations.

The talk, though, Clark said, was a bit opaque.

A MUM accused of murdering her seven-year-old son told police he was reciting from the Koran as he collapsed, a court has heard.

In one of a number of differing dramatic statements she made after city schoolboy Yaseen Ali Ege died, Sara Ege described him standing on their red dining room carpet just hours before firefighters carried his body from their burning home.

Cardiff Crown Court heard Ege told police: “He had been reading his books and I went in to listen to him and sat in the dining room.

“He said, ‘Mum, my legs are shaking’ and suddenly he fell down.

“his legs were shaking and he fell straight down.

“He was still reciting the Koran and I was trying to wake him up.

“He was saying, ‘Yes mum…yes mum’ so he was still listening but he wouldn’t get up – he was just reciting.”

University graduate Ege, 31, who denies murder and perverting the course of justice by starting a fire with barbecue gel, said what happened next was like a dream.

She said she carried her child upstairs and went back down to clean up because he had soiled himself as he collapsed from what were later found to be severe abdominal injuries.

She added that when she returned to his bedroom, he was lying on a rug on the floor and she heard noises coming from him.

“This stuff was coming out of his nose and it was, like, he was gone,” she said.

“I tried to wake him but his heart wasn’t beating.

“I was lifting him up saying, ‘No! Yaseen!’”

Ege – who later withdrew these comments, blaming her husband and another relative – said she caught sight of herself in a mirror and was distressed. she described how she started pulling at her own hair, panicking, and thinking “What happens now?”

In the July 12 interview, she said she remembered a swelling on her son’s side and back from where she had hit him with a stick before Easter.

“I never thought anything,” she told a police officer in answer to questions.

“I just went downstairs got that and did that!”

She was then asked: “At what point did you decide to get barbecue gel and a lighter?”

“Straight away” she replied.

“I ran to the kitchen and got it. This happened and it just came into my mind.

“I can’t explain what was the thought.

“I opened under the sink unit and took the two things out.”

She was asked: “What were you thinking of doing?”

“Burning Yaseen,” she said, quietly.

“I wasn’t thinking, I just went very nervous. It is the same thing over and over again.

“When I used the stick, it wasn’t my intention.

“I can’t explain – I loved my son so much – he was so good.

“I just blame my tablets for it – I blame my anger and my loss of control.

“I can’t put it all together. It was never my intention to harm my son.”

She was asked to describe how the fire at the “well appointed” family home in Severn Road, Canton, started.

Ege said: “I put most of the barbecue liquid on the rug where he was lying and I lit it.

“It was all dark in the room and I dragged him to the doorway and put more on the carpet then I lit the carpet on two or three stairs.

“I think I pulled him to the fire.”

She also told the police how she had been trying to stop herself hitting Yaseen and she had definitely not struck him for four days before his death but could not be sure about that day.

She said: “It comes to me in the night – I wake up.

“I keep on thinking, did I do something that day – did I beat him that day – but nothing is coming back to me. I’m trying to recall but I can’t remember.”

Some sections of her long police video interviews are being read to the court while others are being played on screens for the jury.

Both Ege and her husband Yousef Ali Ege, 36 – who is charged with failing to protect their son – wept in the dock as the video was being shown.

Yousef Ege, who at the time had two jobs as a taxi driver and postman, denies the charge.

At first it was thought Yaseen, who firefighters fought to save, had been a victim of the blaze.

But he was later found to have been dead before it started, said prosecutor Ian Murphy QC.

Doctors found he had previously suffered bone fractures and had died from the injuries to his abdomen which led to organ failure.

Further interviews are due to be put before the jury on Thursday.

But they said, "those are things that we can live with. what we can’t live with is the general disrespect shown to us as Iraqis and to our country." that they’re so dismissive of Iraqi capabilities, of their ability to run the country, their ability to do anything.

The Afghans who have been quoted about the Koran burnings say some of that too, that they don't respect our country. [Along those lines, the Times recently quoted a shopkeeper named Wali Aziz, who said, "they are careless with our holy things, and they are careless with our country."]

The larger context of the Koran burnings is what actually drives people’s responses. In some sense it’s about power, that the U.S. has the power to do this.

Did [U.S. Marine Corps Gen.] John Allen say the right things in his apology? how well do you think they handled it?

I was surprised in a good way. he was obviously taken totally by surprise. There’s no reason a person in charge of a base should even know about the disposal of a bunch of stuff. I thought the U.S. response has actually been quite genuine and concerned. they really are trying to win hearts and minds.

But I think the larger thing to keep in mind is that it is about the U.S. occupation of these countries. It’s not about Muslims. It’s not about the Koran. These are the triggers. But the reason these things happen [the massive protests] is because the U.S. is the most powerful force in Afghanistan.

That seems like such a broad problem — that people resent the power dynamic. is there any way around that problem?

It is, in a sense, the fundamental conundrum in which people are put when there’s a military occupation. But I think it goes back to a larger problem, when the Bush administration conceived of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Both of those things were conceived of as temporary, targeted missions. the military was asked to go in, attack Al Qaeda and unseat the Taliban, get rid of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Then the U.S. military was tasked with this idea of nation-building, which has to be one of the most offensive terms they could use. To build a nation implies that you have to create a nation. Iraq was a nation. To turn around and call it rebuilding the Iraqi nation, it rubs people the wrong way.

Did the people you interviewed actually bring up that term -– “nation building”?

The term wasn't used in Arabic. But people were aware that that’s what was happening — the building of Iraq without hiring Iraqis to do most of the work.

What kind of training does the U.S. military get about Islam and Muslim cultures?

They usually get very basic information about the five pillars of Islam and about Ramadan, that Ramadan is a holy month. (Pauses.) I’m struggling because there’s not much more than that.

They get more cultural information about languages and people, what languages different groups speak, in the case of Afghanistan. In the first couple of years they were essentially given pamphlets or shown PowerPoints  – now it's much more interactive. they send people to mock villages. some people use those occasions to talk to the people playing Afghan villagers about what they should be doing.

There are also some computer-based trainings where they have to make decisions about how to approach — if they choose Scenario a, one thing happens, if they choose Scenario B, another thing happens. the change has been good because we don’t learn culture by reading things about each other. We learn by experiencing it.  

But the military is really there to do a job, and that job does not include respecting religion. they would say, "We’re being shot at, we’re being blown up." {Former Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld and his whole crew bear a lot of the blame for this. very early on in Iraq they worked very hard to keep the State Department and all of the civilian corps out of anything in Iraq. they wanted it to be a largely military thing.

I'm not blaming the military. they were handed a task that they were utterly unprepared for. They’re not out there to be shaking hands and kissing babies.  They’ve of course had to do it, because they don’t get to say no.

You have done many, many interviews with Iraqi refugees and U.S. servicemen and women about these issues. what other things have people said upset them?

A U.S. Marine told me he was working with an Iraqi general. they were on the U.S. base and the U.S. serviceman invited the Iraqi general over to the store on the base and he wanted to buy him a soft drink, a soda pop or something, because Iraqis are always serving the Americans tea and he wanted to reciprocate.

They get to the store and there are two Ugandan guards at the door and they won’t let the Iraqi in because he’s an Iraqi national. And the Marine is mortified. the Iraqi general is livid. he says, "this is my country and your system won’t even allow me to go into the store on the base?" These things come up over and over again in people’s lives.

Have you seen any success stories?

There are tons of them on the individual level. one of the reasons the situation isn’t worse is because of many good individuals, Americans, Iraqis and Afghans who try to get beyond these kind of issues.

I think they are taking culture much more into consideration because they realize they have to keep going back to a particular village and they have to do it right to make it easier in the long run.

I’ve been talking to some of the bomb squad guys, who said that before, they’d blow into some place, get everybody out and dismantle the bomb. the guy I interviewed recently said, "when we know there’s an IED somewhere, we go to whoever's land it's on and we sit down and talk to them and tell them what we’re going to do and tell them we’re going to try to protect their property and thank them. because we know we’re going to have to go back."

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After alleged Koran burnings, Afghanistan forces to get new training

– Emily Alpert in Los Angeles

Photo: Afghans shout slogans during an anti-U.S. demonstration in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on Wednesday. the banners in Arabic read, "God is great, there is no God but Allah, Muhammad is his messenger." Credit: Rahmat Gul / associated Press

The year 1880 saw the publication of a book that ranks as the single most important study of Islam ever. Written in German by a young Jewish Hungarian scholar, Ignaz Goldziher, and bearing the nondescript title Muslim Studies (Muhammedanische Studien), it argued that the hadith, the vast body of sayings and actions attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, lacked historical validity. rather than provide reliable details about Muhammad’s life, Goldziher established, the hadith emerged from debates two or three centuries later about the nature of Islam.(That is like today’s Americans debating the Constitution’s much-disputed Second Amendment, concerning the right to bear arms, by claiming newly discovered oral transmissions going back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Obviously, their quotations would inform us not what was said 225 years ago but about current views.)Since Goldziher’s day, scholars have been actively pursuing his approach, deepening and developing it into a full-scale account of early Islamic history, one which disputes nearly every detail of Muhammad’s life as conventionally understood – born in 570 A.D., first revelation in 610, flight to Medina in 622, death in 632. but this revisionist history has remained a virtual secret among specialists. for example, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, authors of the synoptic Hagarism (Cambridge University Press, 1977), deliberately wrote obliquely, thereby hiding their message.Now, however, two scholars have separately ended this secrecy: Tom Holland with In the Shadow of the Sword (Doubleday) and Robert Spencer with Did Muhammad Exist? (ISI). As their titles suggest, Spencer is the bolder author and so my focus here.In a well-written, sober, and clear account, he begins by demonstrating the inconsistencies and mysteries in the conventional account concerning Muhammad’s life, the Koran, and early Islam. for example, whereas the Koran insists that Muhammad did not perform miracles, the hadith ascribe him thaumaturgic powers – multiplying food, healing the injured, drawing water from the ground and sky, and even sending lightening from his pickax. which is it? Hadith claim Mecca was a great trading city but, strangely, the historical record reveals it as no such thing.the Christian quality of early Islam is no less strange, specifically “traces of a Christian text underlying the Qur’an.” Properly understood, these traces elucidate otherwise incomprehensible passages. Conventionally read, verse 19:24 has Mary nonsensically hearing, as she gives birth to Jesus, “Do not be sad, your Lord has placed a rivulet beneath you.” Revisionists transform this into the sensible (and piously Christian), “Do not be sad, your Lord has made your delivery legitimate.” Puzzling verses about the “Night of Power” commemorating Muhammad’s first revelation make sense when understood as describing Christmas. Chapter 96 of the Koran, astonishingly, invites readers to a Eucharist.Building on this Christian base, revisionists postulate a radically new account of early Islam. Noting that coins and inscriptions from the seventh century mention neither Muhammad, the Koran, nor Islam, they conclude that the new religion did not appear until about 70 years after Muhammad’s supposed death. Spencer finds that “the first decades of the Arab conquest show the conquerors holding not to Islam as we know it but to a vague creed [Hagarism, focused on Abraham and Ishmael] with ties to some form of Christianity and Judaism.” In very brief: “the Muhammad of Islamic tradition did not exist, or if he did, he was substantially different from how that tradition portrays him” – namely an Anti-Trinitarian Christian rebel leader in Arabia.Only about 700 A.D., when the rulers of a now-vast Arabian empire felt the need for a unifying political theology, did they cobble together the Islamic religion. the key figure in this enterprise appears to have been the brutal governor of Iraq, Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. no wonder, writes Spencer, that Islam is “such a profoundly political religion” with uniquely prominent martial and imperial qualities. no wonder it conflicts with modern mores.the revisionist account is no idle academic exercise but, as when Judaism and Christianity encountered the Higher Criticism 150 years ago, a deep, unsettling challenge to faith. it will likely leave Islam a less literal and doctrinaire religion with particularly beneficial implications in the case of Islam, still mired in doctrines of supremacism and misogyny. Applause, then for plans to translate Did Muhammad Exist? into major Muslim languages and to make it available gratis on the Internet. May the revolution begin.

Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2012 All rights reserved by Daniel Pipes.

Series NavigationProfessor Netanyahu’s LessonsKeeping an eye on the media

A Purdue University professor has filed a freedom of speech suit against his school and five co-workers after getting in hot water for inflammatory statements about Muslims on his Facebook page.

Tenured political science professor Maurice Eisenstein was cleared by a university investigation into his Facebook comments, which included a reference to “the idiot Mohammad [sic}, may his name be cursed." But Eisenstein claims the investigation nonetheless damaged his reputation and disputes a finding that he retaliated against other faculty members. 

“I was trying to be challenging as a professor, and do what I was trained to do,” Eistenstein, who joined the school's faculty in 1993, told FoxNews.com.

The flap unfolded late last year, when Eisenstein posted a photo of the aftermath of a massacre of Nigerian Christians, purportedly carried out by African Muslims, on his Facebook page. 

"Where are the ‘moderate' Muslims' reaction to this? Oh, I forgot they are still looking at the earth as flat ...,” Eisenstein wrote above the post.

Other members of the faculty, as well as members of the Muslim Student Association, learned of the comments and went to school officials. Eisenstein maintained that the post was on his personal page and in no way reflected on the school. History professor Miriam Joyce, who later filed a harassment complaint against Eisenstein, told FoxNews.com the comments could alienate students.

“We have Saudi students," Joyce said. "We have other Muslim students. This is wrong. It creates an unpleasant and  unwelcoming atmosphere. “I’m concerned that Muslim students and their parents will get the wrong idea about my school.”

The Muslim Student Association could not be reached for comment.

The school's investigation, led by Chancelor Thomas Keon, cleared Eisenstein in January of violating the college’s free-speech and anti-harassment rules. however, he received a written reprimand for allegedly retaliating against Joyce, as well as a second professor, Saul Lerner.

Eisenstein denied retaliating or harassing his colleagues, but acknowledged a bitter e-mail exchange with Lerner and denies making a callous reference to Joyce’s son, a former hedge fund manager who committed suicide. 

Eisenstein said his freedom-of-speech suit is the result of the university’s investigation into his comments about Muslims - even though the probe ostensibly cleared him.

“When you investigate free speech, you chill free speech.”

- Maurice Eisenstein, Purdue political science professor

“When you investigate free speech, you chill free speech,” Eisenstein said. “How am I supposed to do my job without free speech. I've changed. Every time I go into a classroom, I look around and wonder who will complain about what I say.”

Eisenstein enlisted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) in bringing his suit against the Big ten school.

"This is not the first time and it won't be the last time we will see a university punish a student or professor for constitutionally protected speech on Facebook," said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. "Professors at public universities should not have to go to court to defend their free speech rights."

Joyce said freedom of speech shouldn't permit a professor at a public school to gratuitously denigrate the beliefs of others, including students at the school.

“I'm all for free speech. I want it for me and I want it for everyone else, but there’s got to be some judgment used," Joyce said. "You don’t cry fire if there isn’t a fire and then say it was protected by free speech.

“I’m a [history] teacher,” she added. “I’d rather be dealing with Bahrain than Eisenstein, anyway.”

LAWRENCE — in a suite of the 300,000-square-foot mill building, boys and girls are learning their ABCs, math and science, as well as Arabic and the Koran. This is Knowledge Academy, a Muslim school where 65 American-born children whose parents come from Libya, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Iraq, Bangladesh, Somalia, Uganda, Colombia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Palestine are learning about their heritage. “as a parent, I wanted a place where they get nurtured,” said Muhammad Abuzar of Salem, N.H., chairman of the school board. “here, they are getting a balance of Western and Eastern education and are getting closer to the culture.” Knowledge Academy is a non-profit private school founded in Andover by Oya Bozkurt of Lawrence two years ago. it moved to Heritage Place last year when it outgrew the original facility. She said there was a need to open the school. “here, they are in an Islamic environment where they learn Arabic and Islam along with other classes that can supplement that,” Bozkurt said. “it helps them with their identity, so after they leave here, they can adjust to society.” when you enter the school, there is a display with the phrases from the Koran, “God is one,” “God is great” and “may God protect us,” written in Arabic. Female students wear the hijab, the Islamic women’s headdress, with their burgundy and navy uniform. Boys don burgundy shirts and navy blue pants. the school has 10 teachers who follow the Massachusetts state standards. Areas of instruction include the Koran, Arabic, math, reading, language arts, dhuhr prayer, daily afternoon prayer, Islamic studies, science and social studies. Claudia Juta of Methuen, who has three daughters at the school, is happy with the progress they are making. She said Sabreen, 3, can spell her name; Yasmine, 6, can read at a third-grade level; and Vanessa, 13, is more than ready for high school. “It’s amazing how much they are learning. the education is phenomenal. I wouldn’t change it for anything,” said Juta, who is from Colombia and is married to Zakaria, who was born in Morocco. Students in preschool to eighth grade come from Lawrence, Methuen, Salem and Pelham, N.H., and as far as Acton, Ayer, Burlington and Boston. Abuzar, chairman of the board, said the students’ diverse backgrounds are an asset to the school. That was evident on Friday when the school hosted an international night featuring displays from countries where parents originate from and projects completed by the students. Children in preschool and kindergarten sang and others spoke a few words in their native language. Boys and girls paraded in traditional costumes from Uganda, India, Syria and Turkey. and a sampling of food was offered, from grape leaves to ceviche, a Spanish fish soup. “It’s important to show others where you’re from,” said Fatma Mohed of North Andover as she explained the items she had on display representing Libya. Bozkurt said the diversity is a welcome addition to the school. “the cultural diversity helps students learn from each other. everyone is a Muslim, but they see that others do things a little different and that makes it interesting,” Bozkurt said.   Huod Mpaliga, who has two children at Knowledge Academy, agreed. “They’re growing up in an environment with different religions, and as parents, we want them to learn how to worship and have a good relationship with others.” ??? Join the discussion. to comment on stories and see what others are saying, log on to eagletribune.com.

A Purdue University-Calumet professor who was accused, and later cleared, of discriminating against and harassing Muslims based on his Facebook postings is suing administrators and faculty members at that institution for allegedly violating his first Amendment rights, the Associated Press reports. the wire service says Maurice M. Eisenstein, an associate professor of political science and an Orthodox Jew, argues in his lawsuit that the university’s investigation of him violated his rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. although the university determined that mr. Eisenstein’s comments on Facebook were protected under the Constitution, it reprimanded him based on its conclusion that he had retaliated against two faculty members who accused him of discrimination. his Facebook postings that were cited in the investigation included statements cursing and insulting Muhammad and an assertion that Muslims “are still looking at the earth as flat.”

No, Islam is no more a part of the authentic American vision and culture than any other ruthless authoritarian/totalitarian tyranny, for example, no more American than collectivism (Jacobinism, Marxism, communism, socialism, fascism, Naziism, communitarianism, transnational progressivism). Islam is not a part of the American family any more than the soft (or hard) governance of the United Nations and transnational NGO’s, nor slavery-based, feudalistic, or paternalistic, reverse-mercantilist, corporatocractic multinational companies – nor the central banking criminals who finance every one of the above tyrannies and who incessantly rape America through usury-financed and debauched currency and through hording (including gold and oil, increasingly, medical care, land, water, and food).

There is only one direction to go, from our popular sovereignty and its responsibility and freedom. There is only tyranny outside the guardianship of authentic America.

But, back to Islam, some of the imagery of this video is garish, but it is not out of scope.

Video, “Islam is NOT part of Western Civilization!“Derived from “Islam is not part of our Civilization,”by Bill Warner, Director, Center for the Study of Political Islampublished at Political Islam 

And lest we be confused into thinking American government will be correcting its tragic course regarding Islam under a President Romney, we present this graphic from recent months:

 In the entire Quran,Pawn jewelry online, there is No foreigner woman or the stranger woman.

She (the foreigner women) is forsaking the guide of her youth, and she forgot the covenant of her God.  For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. None going in unto her neither turn back, nor do they reach the paths of life.

American Standard Version

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According to the Islamic teachings (Quran and Hadith), all human beings are created by Allah; and the best of them is the one (he or she) who believe in his Creator and obey his Law irrespective of his or her race, color, location etc.

1But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites,chaussure de foot pas cher, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians,The Attributes of an Experienced Mesothelioma Lawy, and Hittites:

Proverbs 2:16-19 (American Standard Version)

In language, the foreigner woman or the stranger woman is the alien woman or the exotic woman or the outsider woman. However, as determined by the Bible (e.g. 1 Kings 11:1 and Ezra 10:2), the foreigner woman or the stranger woman is the non-Israelite woman.

18 For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead;

Subsequently, any non-Israelite woman is foreigner or stranger women.

Does this mean that the Lord God authorizes racial discrimination among the women on the earth?

…strange wives of the people of the land… (King James Version)

17 That forsaketh the friend of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God:

Herein, the Quran does not determine the race, the color, the location, the tribe etc. of such male or such female.  Unlike the Bible, the Quran does show any racial interest.

Are the Scholars truthful when they claim that the Quran quoted from the Bible?

This indicates that the women in the Bible are but one of two categories; they are either Legitimate or Foreigner.

…foreign women from the peoples around us… (New International Version)

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1 now King Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites;

…foreign women of the peoples of the land… (American Standard Version)

“But whosoever does good works of righteousness, whether they be a believing male or female,Divorce and the Scorched Earth Theory, shall enter paradise, and not be wronged a pit mark of a date stone”.

Also, there is No foreigner man or stranger man

Whoever does any righteous deeds whether of male or female while being a believer who is genuine in his or her faith, (such will enter Paradise and they will not be wronged the dint in a date stone) their rewards will not be diminished even if it be by the size of the dint in a date stone.

16 To deliver thee from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner that flattereth with her words;

These Biblical verses morally insult and put down all the non-Israelite women, the Foreigner ones.   

The Foreigner woman in Bible versus Quran (1)

19 None that go unto her return again, neither do they attain unto the paths of life:

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The Quran (Verse 4:124) says:

Back to my question to the smart and interested reader:

According to the inspired word of God (Proverbs 2:16-19), the Bible says that the Wisdom will save you from the foreigner women, from the strange (women) who has made smooth her sayings with seductive words,