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15/04/2009
Where are the children in these elections?
Thomas Chandy
All political parties must make investing in children a national priority.
Around 13 million children under the age of 14 work as child labour
Compulsory elementary education still remains a distant dream
Paromita comes from a poor family in West Bengal; her father spends his earnings as a daily wage labourer on drinking alcohol and gambling. Paromita was brought to Kolkata by an older woman from her village at the age of 11 to work as a domestic worker. The woman found the girl work in a south Kolkata household. Paromita was given Rs.100 a month and made to work more than 14 hours every day. She was also beaten regularly by her employer. Paromita and her sisters have never been to school.
For Paromita and millions of other socially and economically underprivileged children in India, what do these elections mean? Yet again the world’s largest democratic exercise sees the concerns of children remaining on the fringes of policy debate as an analysis of the manifestos of the two big parties — Congress and BJP — shows.
At its Karachi Convention, the All-India Congress Committee took a resolution on fundamental rights. The party made a declaration then that any Constitution which may be agreed to on its behalf should provide, or enable the Swaraj Government to provide for, among other things: Free primary education, and prohibition against employment of school-going children in schools. That was in 1931. It is 2009 now and the 15th round of elections since Independence are in. The Congress has been in power for the most number of years than any other party since Independence. In fact, till 1975, the Congress was the only party to win a majority in the parliamentary elections. So how much has the party delivered on the resolutions it made at that historic convention in Karachi?
Compulsory elementary education still remains a distant dream. Fifty per cent of children drop out of elementary school in the country. Official figures report that approximately seven million children are out of school. Around two million children under the age of five die every year. Almost half of all children under the age of five are malnourished. The country has the shocking distinction of having the world’s largest number of sexually abused children. India also arguably has the highest number of children facing exploitation and neglect.
Around 13 million children under the age of 14 work as child labour. The Government of India is committed to the United Nations Convention on Rights of Children. Article 32 of the UNCRC, for example, states that ‘State parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education.” This is rarely followed in spirit. Further, the distinction between hazardous and non-hazardous labour is arbitrary. There is little coherence between elements of the government’s policy towards child labour and the articles outlined in international conventions.
The government claims to have introduced new laws during its time in power to eliminate child labour. The reality is that it merely brought in a notification including child domestic work and employment of children in hotels, restaurants and dhabas as hazardous labour under the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act (CLPRA). Millions of children, especially under the age of 14, are employed in the agriculture sector and other unorganised sectors but the manifesto is silent on this.
In its manifesto, the Congress has promised to set up one model school in every block of the country. Over the next five years, the party promises to add one more model school in every block. This will mean a substantial increase in expenditure on education. The Congress has not spelt out clearly how much of an increase in budgetary allocation it envisages for education. In 2008, the State spent less than five per cent of its budget on children, mainly for education and healthcare.
The Congress also promises to focus on the outcomes and achievement levels in education and not just on enrolment in school. However, it offers nothing new except for a teacher training programme and improvement of physical infrastructure of schools, which are already being addressed by the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Also, the party is silent on the promise it made on the Fundamental Right to Education Bill.
The BJP does not fare better either. The party has made some promises on child related issues but significantly there are glaring ambiguities too. Its manifesto offers to raise the budgetary allocation for education from six per cent to nine per cent. However, it is not clear what proportion of this will go for school education and how much for higher education. Again, interestingly, instead of a solid commitment to prohibiting all forms of child labour up to the age of 14 and a comprehensive rehabilitation programme for children rescued from child labour and their families, the party promises to set up a national child labour commission. This is hardly an innovative solution to tackling modern-day slavery of children and will only create further confusion. Moreover, it is not clear how different this body will be from the existing National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) which is mandated with the promotion and protection of child rights. Setting up another commission will further fragment policy approach to children’s issues.
For example, will cases of corporal punishment and sexual exploitation (or any other violence against children) be taken up by the NCPCR while the new commission handles child labour issues? Now what happens if a child worker is sexually exploited by the employer? Will both the commissions serve notice on the employer or will both say “it doesn’t fall in the ambit of our mandate and it’s for the other commission to take action?”
Nineteen per cent of the children in the world live in India. India is a youthful nation; the 440 million people in the country aged below 18 years are its future. India can only rightfully take its place on the world stage if it takes steps to ensure that the future of its children, and therefore the country, is secure. All political parties must make investing in children a national priority and indeed this is critical to ensuring sustainable progress in social and economic productivity.
(The writer is CEO, Save the Children. To know more about the organisation’s work, log on: www.savethechildren.in )
© Copyright 2000 – 2008 The Hindu
Because I Am A Girl;
The State of the World’s Girls (2007)
A Report from Plan-International
“Oh, God, I beg of you,
I touch your feet time and again,
Next birth don’t give me a daughter,
Give me Hell instead…”
Folk Song From Uttar Pradesh
Discrimination against girls begins at birth, or
even before they are born, through attitudes
and patterns in behaviour passed down through
generations. The disadvantage of being born a
girl today includes the facts that girls are more
likely to be killed in the womb, girls are more
likely to be malnourished, and young mothers are
more at risk of developing serious complications
both for the mother and her unborn child. These
will all have an impact at every stage of a girl or
young woman’s life.
In many countries, the birth of a boy is
something to be celebrated, the birth of a girl a
cause for commiseration. One report notes that:
“While a number of national and international
legal norms protect the rights of the girl child
in theory; in practice cultural and social beliefs
about gender and the value of girls and boys
have been much more difficult to overcome…
By age five, most girls and boys have already
internalised the gender role expectations
communicated to them by their families, schools,
the media and society as a whole, and these
norms will influence their behaviour and their
development for the rest of their lives.”
A United Nations High Commission for
Human Rights report singled out Bangladesh,
India, Nepal, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan,
the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, the
Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the
Cameroon, Liberia, Madagascar and Senegal as
countries with a strong preference for boys.
Although the situation is generally better in
Latin America, in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and
Uruguay, under five mortality rates are higher
for girls than for boys, which is a sign that boys
are the preferred sex. These figures are all the
more worrying since baby girls are expected to
survive due to their natural resilience at birth.
Much of this is to do with the fact that in
some cultures, a boy will grow up and look
after his parents, while a girl will be married
into another family, and is therefore seen as
a financial burden to her own parents. Except
in a few matrilineal or similar societies (for
example, in some regions of Ethiopia), a girl
takes her husband’s family name, dropping
that of her family. She is brought up from an
early age to see herself as less important than
her male relatives. Her contribution to the
household in terms of cooking, cleaning, looking
after siblings and fetching water or fuel is not
valued. Her lower social status will have serious
consequences for her health and well-being
as she grows up and has children herself. Her
daughters too are likely to repeat the same cycle.
“When a son is born,
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes,
And give him jade to play…
When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give broken tiles to play…”
Chinese ‘Book of Songs’ (1000-700 B.C.)
Al Jazeera English
Israel Rewrites History Textbook
MONDAY, JULY 23, 2007
9:08 MECCA TIME, 6:08 GMT
Israel rewrites history textbook
Numerous Israeli accounts of the 1948 war claim that many Palestinians left their land voluntarily [EPA]
The Israeli government has, for the first time, approved a school textbook for Arab pupils that includes the Palestinian view of the creation of Israel.The book, which will be used in the public school system in the next school year, contains one phrase that points to the Palestinian version of the events of 1948.
It reads: “The Arabs call the war the Nakba, a war of catastrophe, loss and humiliation, and the Jews call it the Independence war.”
Official Israeli accounts of the country’s creation, especially those written for schoolchildren, have focused on the heroism of Israeli forces. They hardly mention that many Palestinians were forced to leave, instead claiming that the mass exodus of 700,000 Palestinians was voluntary.
Yuli Tamir, the education minister, said that many in Israel shut their eyes to the issue.
“We have a complex history of two peoples engaged in a struggle, and it’s time to give the story of this struggle its proper treatment,” he said.
However, other Israeli politicians say they will fight the decision to introduce the book insisting that it makes Israel look as if it is apologising for its own existence.
Avigdor Lieberman, strategic affairs minister, denounced the book, blaming “the masochism and defeatism of the Israeli left, which constantly seeks to apologise, while we did what we had to”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the right-wing Likud party, said that Tamir should resign for approving use of the phrase, arguing that the Jewish state’s right to exist should not be open to debate.
“Shall we inject Arab propaganda into our schools with our own hands?” he said.
Confronting history
The book is aimed at eight- to nine-year-old Arab children in Israel’s largely separate public school system.
Arab citizens make up about one-fifth of Israel’s population of seven million.
Most Israeli Jews and Arabs attend separate school systems, reflective of the two groups living in mostly segregated towns and neighbourhoods.
“It shouldn’t be that an Arab child, a citizen of Israel, won’t know about and won’t have the ability to discuss the Arab narrative as well about Israel’s existence”, Tamir said.
Zevulun Orlev, a politician with the National Union party, said that Israel risked encouraging its own Arab citizens to revolt rather than accept its rule.
“We lend legitimacy to Arabs seeing our independence as their disaster. How then can we teach the same pupil to be a loyal citizen?”
Source: Agencies
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May 27, 2007
The Street that changes
Opinion News – Saturday, May 26, 2007
With the exception of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, modern U.S. diplomacy has relied heavily on its soft power to expand its sphere of influence across the globe. The recent introduction of a local version of popular U.S. educational television show for pre-school children, Sesame Street, is possibly part of this effort.
It is the process of cultural export that explains the heavy presence of American fastfoods and beverages in Indonesia — that millions of Indonesians are addicted to — and pop-singer talent scouting contests, such as Indonesian Idol, which is now in its fourth year running here.
A few decades ago, local comic lovers in the country relished the birth of Laba-laba Merah (Red Spider), an equivalent of American superhero Spiderman.
There have also been other Indonesian characters created to emulate best-selling American fiction heroes like Superman, Batman or Flash.
These examples indicate the depth to which American culture has influenced the Indonesian public, albeit unconsciously.
Under a USAID-funded project, four Indonesian puppets — a boy called Momon, who enjoys reading and writing; Putri, a girl who loves to sing and have adventures; Tantan, a banana-munching orangutan; and a baby Sumatran rhino named Jabrik — will feature in the television program Jalan Sesama.
The program, which goes to air later this year, will feature stories, songs and music in the Indonesian language and will be set in an Indonesian village rather than the New York neighborhood featured in the original version.
Local cultural customs, such as gotong royong (mutual aid), will be raised in the program.
Sesame Street has been commended as the longest-running show in television history — with an audience of tens of millions of children across the globe and spanning several generations, since its premier in 1969.
Many have praised the program as a pioneer of contemporary educational television standards, that combines both education and entertainment in its format.
No one can deny that Indonesia lacks suitable television programming that can instill dignified values in our children.
The Indonesian television audience in general is in dire need of programs they can learn from, amid the incessant onslaught of soap operas and reality television shows that highlight violence, mysticism and gossip.
Jalan Sesama and several other TV shows that combine education and entertainment, will prove that television can play a positive role in developing national education. But, this will require significant funding from both the government and donors.
In the U.S., busy parents can rely on Sesame Street to take part in educating their children, thanks to the role of researchers, psychologists and other experts involved in the creation of the show.
The U.S. government’s role in bringing a local version of Sesame Street to Indonesia speaks volume of Washington’s exercise of soft power, an approach in international diplomacy which many have accepted as more effective than the use of military or economic pressure.
In his prominent book, Joseph S. Nye, a professor of international relations, describes subtle power as someone’s ability to get what he/she wants through attraction, rather than coercion or financial means. In international diplomacy, a country’s soft power comes into effect if its policies, or values in a broader sense, are viewed legitimate by other countries.
There are noteworthy examples of the extent and influence of U.S. soft power, including the use of a replica of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol during the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, China, in 1989 or the requests of newly liberated Afghans for a copy of the Bill of Rights.
Indonesian children’s acquaintance with values embraced in the U.S. through Jalan Sesama, however, is not something to be concerned about. Sesame Street, which has been reproduced in over 30 countries, was designed to promote tolerance, mutual respect, democracy, human rights and other values which are universally accepted — rather than characteristically American — to children.
This educational program deserves support from the general public, for the sake of our children’s future.
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IPS Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service News Agency
Thursday, May 24, 2007 19:51 GMTReaders Opinions
HEALTH-MALAYSIA:
Condom Taboo Hampers Fight Against HIV
Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 (IPS) – Lorong Haji Taib is a garbage-filled, rat-infested lane in the heart of the capital famous for its cheap sex, drugs and brawls.
Here vagrants, transvestites, drug pushers, drug addicts, sex workers and a transient population of usually well-heeled customers merge, exchange cash for drugs, get infected and carry the HIV virus into the larger population.
In the back lanes are dozens of drug addicts, many of them HIV positive from sharing infected needles and practicing unprotected sex.
Lorong Haji Taib is a hothouse for HIV infection, the sort of place where free syringes, condoms and methadone substitution therapies have a proven chance to reduce infection rates.
But conservative Muslim clerics are strongly against giving out syringes and condoms, saying that such “stupid” measures encourage promiscuity for one thing and, for another, violate the tenets of Islam.
“Abstinence is the way to do it…we must bring them back to the Islamic fold,” Mahfuz Omar, a senior leader in the fundamentalist Pan Malaysian Islamic Party or PAS, told IPS. Infection rates are reaching alarming levels.
In the 1980s infection was limited to a few hundred people, but now it is well over 83,000. By the next decade, the United Nations estimates infection rates will hit the 300,000 mark unless very tough measures are taken now.
The figures have frightened official Malaysia into announcing bold measures — RM300 million (88.5 million US dollars) until 2010 to battle the threat, allowing the issuing of free needles and condoms and methadone substitution.
But what is sorely missing, critics say, is the political will to face off the clerics and carry through the unorthodox measures.
The government blames 75 percent of all infection on unprotected sex and sharing of infected needles, and yet it shies away from actively promoting condoms as a key element in reducing infections.
“It is best to flood places like Lorong Haji Taib with free syringes and condoms,” said Mark (second name suppressed), a volunteer working with vagrants and people with HIV/AIDS.
“The infection rate can be cut down by 70 percent if we can stop drug addicts from sharing needles and persuade sex workers and their clients to use condoms,” he told IPS. “Abstinence is an admirable goal but in reality it is just a dream.”
The government is caught in a bind between taking radical measures to cut down infection and satisfying Muslim conservatives who form a powerful support bank for the ruling National Front coalition government.
Earlier this month, a senior officer tasked with combating the spread of HIV/AIDS shocked many by saying the government cannot promote condom use openly for fear of being accused of encouraging promiscuity.
“The government understands that condom use prevents the transmission of HIV but could not openly support it. We fear the country will be perceived as advocating promiscuity in the mainly Muslim nation,” said Jalal Halil Khalil, senior health ministry official, during an HIV/AIDS awareness function.
He said parades and other mass campaigns to highlight condom use or discuss sex, as seen in neighbouring Thailand, remain taboo here.
In another development, Malaysian AIDS Council President Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman admitted last week that although they had been able to carry out education and awareness drives, “it has been impossible so far to put on a big generalised campaign, using the mass media for example.”
She criticised anti-vice laws under which condoms are used as incriminating evidence to charge sex workers.
Malaysia’s health minister Dr Chua Soi Lek clarified quickly that the government is committed to reducing HIV infection rates “with the help of NGOs.”
Malaysia has some of the toughest laws against drug trafficking, and yet drugs are easily available both in prison and outside, testimonies by drugs addicts prove.
Malaysian schools do not include sex education or condom use in curricula. Except for some urban, western educated families, the rest of the country goes by without any kind of sex education that might defeat sex-related diseases and prevent teenage pregnancies.
“Not a day passes without cases of teenage pregnancies, abandoned babies and abduction and rapes reported in the newspapers,” said Dr Irene Fernandez, executive director of Tenaganita, a rights NGO.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already warned in 2006 that Malaysia is on the brink of an HIV epidemic. We can’t be in denial any longer,” she told IPS. “Just worrying about it is not enough. Where are the tough measures?”
About 15,000 children have already been made orphans by AIDS in Malaysia, the WHO said.
Immediately after the WHO warning the government launched a five-year national plan in 2006, which includes providing drug substitution therapy and needle exchange programmes for drug addicts, and free anti-retroviral drugs at government clinics, especially for women and children.
But the move to issue syringes and condoms was first suspended and later handed over to NGOs because of strong opposition from conservatives.
What critics want is for the government to confront the tragic consequences, abandon its tepid policies and actively promote the distribution of free needles and condoms to the target groups.
The level of ignorance about sex and condom use and the causes of HIV infection can be disconcerting. “Some even believe HIV can be transmitted by touching, mosquito bites and by sharing public toilets,” said a programme officer who declined to be named.
The combination of widespread ignorance of sex diseases and a vibrant nightlife with free-flowing alcohol in the capital often comes as a shock to first time visitors.
“Sometimes the most practical things turn out to be the hardest to do like promoting the use of condoms to fight HIV/AIDS,” wrote the influential ‘New Straits Times’, last week. “Let’s stop the hypocrisy. Use of condoms may not be the best answer for controlling AIDS, but it is one of the most practical,” the daily commented. (FIN/2007)
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
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IRIN Africa
UGANDA: Women petition court to outlaw FGM
KAMPALA, 30 April 2007 (IRIN) – Women’s rights activists in Uganda have petitioned the Constitutional Court demanding that female genital mutilation (FGM), practised by several communities in the east of the country, be declared illegal.
“We are seeking a court declaration that the practice is unconstitutional; it is cruel, inhuman and degrading,” said Dora Byamukama, a member of the East Africa Legislative Assembly and one of the campaigners against FGM in Uganda.
The activists, who have formed a group known as Law and Advocacy for Women in Uganda, earlier in April succeeded in having the Constitutional Court abrogate the country’s law on adultery on the grounds that it made marital infidelity an offence only when committed by women while seemingly condoning it when men were involved.
Gertrude Kulany, a former member of parliament, said FGM was practised in Kapchorwa, Bukwo, Bugiri, Nakapiripirit and Moroto districts.
“I am one of the few who were lucky and escaped the practice, but most of my contemporaries went through it because whichever girl in the village attains puberty is initiated into womanhood through circumcision,” said Kulany. “Those who refuse are tormented as their in-laws despise them because they are not circumcised.”
A lawyer for the women, Ladislaus Rwakafuzi, said FGM denied its victims human dignity, which is guaranteed under the country’s constitution.
Beatrice Chelengat, programme manager of an FGM awareness campaign sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund in the eastern Kapchorwa district, said 647 women aged between 11 and 31 were subjected to FGM in 2002 out of an estimated 13,000 females in that age group. The figures for 2004 and 2006 were 595 and 426 respectively, she said, adding that anti-FGM campaigns in the area were bearing fruit.
FGM involves the cutting and/or removal of the clitoris and other vaginal tissue, often under unsanitary conditions. It is practised in at least 28 countries globally. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that up to 140 million girls and women around the world have undergone some form of FGM.
It is practised extensively in Africa, and also in parts of the Middle East and among immigrant communities around the world. According to medical experts, it causes physical and psychological complications, as well as heightening the risk of HIV/AIDS when unsterilised instruments are used.
At least 16 African countries have banned the practice, and the Maputo Protocol, an African regional document that prohibits and condemns FGM, came into force in November 2005.
vm/jn/mw
[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:
http://www.irnnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71867
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
Copyright © IRIN 2007
The material contained on www.IRINnews.org comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.
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w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update – 06:38 25/04/2007
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Women in Israel are considerably more educated than men and hold more than half of all academic degrees, but they are paid less, according to a report on the social status of women to be reviewed by the Knesset next week.
The media shares the blame because it portrays women as no more than sex objects, the report says.
It says women are fired more often and their work is scrutinized more carefully than that of their male counterparts, and they are represented less in the media, positions of power and business.
“For decision-makers, women are still invisible in many areas,” said Rina Bar-Tal, chair of the Israel Women’s Network, after reviewing the new report. “Over the years, they have been subjected to sexist discrimination, and systematically barred from power. For all their achievements and struggles, they are still a long way from reaching equality.”
The report will be presented Monday to the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women, headed by MK Gideon Sa’ar.
The report, whose scope covers almost all aspects of life, includes one finding which Bar-Tal finds especially worrisome. “The [economic] growth about which the establishment boasts seems to have passed over the female population. The current boom in the Israeli market benefits mostly the men of the middle and high rungs of society,” Bar-Tal said.
Tal Tamir, who edited the report, says that data resources on the status of women are scarce. Despite this, the study is based on information from varied sources, and lists various factors which influence the lives of women in different spheres of life.
For example, Israel is an international power when it comes to treating infertility in women. However, the Israeli tax authorities do not recognize the services of nannies and babysitters as tax deductible. Also, pregnant women and mothers of small children are fired more often than men, and their promotion is slower.
Only 26 percent of women are entitled to pension payments, as opposed to 52 percent of men. Women’s wages are about 30 percent lower than those of men, and women constitute 60 percent of minimum-wage workers. They also receive a majority of government benefits, and 65 percent of income-support recipients. Additionally, women make up 51 percent of all recipients of unemployment payments.
Nearly 40 percent of all female workers are employed part-time, as opposed to only 20 percent of men. But only 16 percent of female part-time employees cite caring for their children as a reason for not working full-time. Unemployment among women is 9.5 percent, and 8.5 percent among men. Among Arabs in Israel, female unemployment accounts for 15 percent of all unemployment. “It appears that after women conclude their role as child bearers, they are abandoned by the system,” the report reads.
In the Israel Defense Forces Women too are far from equal. They constitute only one-third of conscripts, 18 percent of non-commissioned officers, and 26 percent of officers. They represent a fraction of senior officers: only 10 percent of all lieutenant-colonels, and less than that in the higher ranks. One of the reasons for this that combat duty is regarded as a prerequisite for promotion, whether or not operational experience is relevant to the promotion of candidates, according to the report.
The situation is bleaker still in terms of the political representation of women, and the report states that this has deteriorated in recent years. Female lawmakers make up only 14 percent of Knesset members, putting Israel in 78th place worldwide in terms of women in parliament.
The female representation in the cabinet is only 7 percent. Most female politicians hail from the more affluent central region of Israel. Only 12 percent of all local council members are women, and only 10 women have ever presided as local council heads in the country’s 59 years of existence.
In the business sector, women’s representation can be measured according to how many of them are on company boards. They constitute about 30 percent of all board members at state-owned firms. This reflects a decline since 2000, when the number was 38 percent. At publicly traded companies, women make up no more than 15 percent of board members.
The representation of women in the media has remained the same in the past 10 years – only 20 percent of people appearing in the media – and the portrayal of women as sex objects there is twice that of men. “As long as the media takes part in instilling the impression that women are sex objects devoid of pertinence to decision-making in the public sphere, their education and accomplishments will not translate into political and economic power,” the report concludes.
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Haaretz – Israel News
Spain before Poland
By Fania Oz-Salzberger
“Best to stay at home, close the cash register of the trips to Poland, and start learning history from the beginning,” writes Avirama Golan (”Enough of the shock treatment,” Haaretz, April 10, 2007). I second almost every word. Auschwitz was not meant for 17-year-old Israelis, certainly not in rowdy groups of school pupils.
Some of them are serious boys and girls with an open mind, some of their escorts are good and devoted educators, and some schools have done excellent preparation work. But not all. Concentration camps are not appropriate for a first trip overseas, at an age when hormones are active, and as part of a class.
The existing arrangement – and this is written with respect and admiration for the initiators and organizers – is good for neither teenagers nor for Auschwitz. Auschwitz must be visited at the age of 30. Quietly. After a great deal of reading. Without mobile phones beeping and the sugar rush derived from the mini-bar at the hotel in Warsaw.
But to “learn history from the beginning” – Jewish and world history that demonstrates, as Golan suggests, how Jewish history is interwoven with the history of mankind and culture – one must not necessarily “stay at home.” Take the money, enlist more supportive foundations, and take select groups of Israeli pupils to Andalusia, in the south of Spain. Because there, in many ways, begins the story that ends in Auschwitz: the story of Jewish Europe, which is both an Ashkenazi and Sephardi tale.
At “Granada of the Jews” they will visit Alhambra and hear about Shmuel Hanagid. In Cordoba they will visit the Great Mosque, the beautiful synagogue and see the statue of Maimonides. In Toledo they will get to know the Jewish Museum of Spain and read a text of Yehudah Halevy, engraved, for a change, on stone. One may even dare to sneak a poem of Lorca’s into the program.
Israeli pupils, both Jewish and Arab, would take this trip together. Only those who studied and prepared for it seriously and with interest would be chosen to go. Their parents will pay only a symbolic fee, a sign of commitment to the values it represents. All the rest would be financed by the Education Ministry, the Spanish government – some of whose officials have displayed considerable interest in this idea – and independent foundations.
The birthright Israel project, which brings young Jewish Americans to Israel free of charge, may be interested in adding its participants to the Israeli groups discovering their joint past in one of the large joint cradles of the three civilizations, in an era in which they exchanged ideas, not only loathing.
Somewhere in Andalusia there was a small paper mill at the end of the Middle Ages. It was at that time that the ancient Chinese technology arrived, after a long journey across Asia and North Africa, and entered Europe via Spain. Without it Gutenberg would not have been able to print. And lo, that mill was operated by two partners, a Jew and a Muslim. Their clients from the north were Christians. This story, symbolic rather than historic, should be told to 17-year-old Jewish and Arab Israelis. You have to be a great pessimist not to tell it. It is a story of life and rejuvenation. It would not overshadow the story of the persecuted and the murdered, but empower it greatly.
Woe to a Jewish-Israeli identity that relies only on the ashes of the crematoria. Our European past also includes a thousand years of life, art and the spreading of knowledge. Would Israeli youngsters continue to line up to obtain European passports if they were exposed to the major Jewish role in the construction of modern Europe? I doubt it.
But instead of wrapping themselves up in the Israeli flag like a deceased person, they could walk the streets of Venice and Krakow and Thessaloniki and search for signs of life, not only traces of death. Our fathers had a place here, they will say. Our fathers helped establish modern literature, art and science. They and our mothers knew how to read better than most Europeans during most of Europe’s history. In their wanderings they transported with them innovations and ideas, not merely holy scriptures and memories of deportation.
And Europe did not always reject and persecute them. Maimonides was taught in Paris, Moses Mendelssohn in Berlin, the Talmud in Amsterdam. As for the justification for establishing modern Israel – that they will have to deduce for themselves. They are intelligent enough.
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The Peninsula On-line: Qatar
Karachi rallies against ‘religious terrorists’
Web posted at: 4/16/2007 0:51:30
Source ::: REUTERS
KARACHI • Tens of thousands of people rallied in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi, yesterday to show their opposition to a radical religious school which has begun a Taleban-style anti-vice campaign in the capital, Islamabad.
“The people of Islamabad are insecure and under threat due to the activities of these religious terrorists,” said Altaf Hussain, head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, addressing the rally by telephone from London.
Hussain, who lives in self-exile in Britain although his party is part of the ruling coalition, said the religious radicals in Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and adjoining Jamia Hafsa madrasa were hurting the image of Islam.
“Islam is a religion of peace and it does not need Kalashnikovs and sticks,” he told the rally, while a helicopter whirled overhead to provide aerial surveillance and hundreds of police surrounded the venue — the city’s main commercial area.
Moderate Muslims in Pakistan were shocked earlier this month when a cleric announced a religious Shariah court had been set up at Lal Masjid to enforce a strict Islamic code of justice, and threatened to retaliate with suicide bombers if the government tried forcibly to suppress the movement.
Lal Masjid’s compound has taken on the appearance of a rebel camp in recent weeks, with young men armed with sticks guarding the entrances.
Women, also carrying staves, roam the school’s grounds, and two or three men have been seen with guns which the clerics say are properly licensed.
Moderates and liberals, fearful that the ways of the Taleban are creeping into Pakistan’s cities, have criticised President Pervez Musharraf for not taking a harder line.
But he appears wary of handing any issue to Islamists in an election year, and the government is trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the hardliners in Lal Masjid.
The stand-off began in January, after girls from the Jamia Hafsa madrasa occupied a nearby public library to protest against the demolition of mosques built illegally on city land. The row escalated last month when, in behaviour reminiscent of Afghanistan under the Taleban, burqa-clad woman students from the madrasa raided a house they said was a brothel.
The students have also pressured owners of music and video shops to close down their businesses.
Following the pattern of Taleban in Afghanistan, Pakistani Taleban made headlines, when last year they asked some 200 barber shop owners in Bajaur Agency and elsewhere in the tribal areas not to entertain clients, asking for beard shaving.
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The Daily Star – Editorial – In Lebanon as elsewhere, civil wars do not happen by themselves
In Lebanon as elsewhere, civil wars do not happen by themselves
Friday, April 13, 2007
Editorial
As the Lebanese mark the 32nd anniversary of the start of the Civil War today, the commemoration of the conflict represents an occasion to reflect on the moment that our political system broke down and on the disastrous consequences. Many will recall the specific events that led to the war, but it is also important to begin to take a broader view of what causes civil conflicts. After all, our region is enduring more than its fair share of internal wars: Today, not only Lebanon, but also Iraq, Sudan, Palestine and Somalia are haunted by the specter of internecine violence. We therefore need to reflect on the possible causes of internal conflict and take steps that will protect our states from the threat of civil war.
Political scientists, economists and other researchers have not reached unanimous agreement in identifying the exact factors that cause a nation to descend into civil war, but they have identified certain trends that are common to civil conflicts around the world. One key factor is type of governance: the more entrenched democracy is in a particular country, the less likely it is to be plunged into civil conflict. Authoritarian states and countries in transition are by their very nature more exposed to the possibility of instability and internal conflict. A second theme that emerges from across various works of research is that countries that are experiencing successful development and economic growth – key conditions that allow for the emergence of a middle class consensus – are less susceptible to internal breakdowns.
These two trends hold important lessons for the Lebanese, who are now struggling to overcome a political crisis that has prompted more than a few analysts to conclude that Lebanon is once again on the brink of civil war. The need to resolve this power struggle and put all of our energy into shoring up Lebanon’s democracy, eliminating corruption and promoting the rule of law is more than a matter of political preference; it is a matter of self-preservation. Likewise, promoting economic growth and thereby preventing excessive brain drain and the flight of our country’s middle class will go a long way toward ensuring that the Lebanese never have to relive those darkest days that occurred between 1975 and 1990.
The work of researchers ought to also be instructive to other Arab leaders and policymakers, many of whom have lamented the fact that our region has more than its fair share of internal conflicts. We can’t help but notice that the violence corresponds with other trends: corruption among ruling elites, complete disregard for the rule of law and the absence of real effort to meet the economic challenges faced by our generation and to create the more than 80 million jobs that the region’s expanding populations will require by 2020. The combination of these factors represents a recipe for disaster. Failing to address these problems now puts our societies at continued risk of internal conflict in the future.
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232 university professors killed, 3000 more left Iraq since 2003
Voices of Iraq
By Khader al-Domli
Duhuk, 08 April 2007
Head of the international committee of solidarity with Iraqi professors said on Saturday, 232 university professors were killed and 56 were reported missing in Iraq while more than 3000 others left the country after 2003.
“The acts of violence that also reached Iraqi universities caused the killing of 232 university professors,” Qais Jawad al-Azzawi told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
He added that 56 Iraqi professors were gone missing while more than 3000 left the country.
Al-Azzawi who was on a visit to Duhuk, Iraq’s Kurdistan, among a Reporters without Borders’ delegation said “the events so far have forced the Iraqi higher education ministry to close up to 152 scientific departments. The acts of violence have also affected teaching levels at Iraqi universities except for Iraq’s Kurdistan region.”
Many Iraqi university professors left central and southern Iraq and found job at universities in the safe Kurdish region in north of the war-torn country.
“We are pleased that Kurdistan universities absorbed many Iraqi professors,” al-Azzawi added.
“The absence of the professors also prevented students’ regular attendance of classes,” said al-Azzawi noting that absentees increased by 75 % after the blasts that targeted al-Mustansiriyah university, second largest in Baghdad, three months ago.
Al-Azzawi also chairs a committee that negotiate with the UNESCO launching a distance learning program in Iraq in view of the high percentage of absentees.
The international committee of solidarity with Iraqi professors was set up 2006. It has 200 members with offices in Geneva and Paris.
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Forgotten children of Baghdad
Aljazeera
By Sherine Tadros
09 April 2007
Four years on since the US invasion, many of the people who continue to suffer the most in Iraq are the country’s children.
Many have lost their families to the violence and are forced to live on the streets in the midst of a war, surviving by living in dumps and eating whatever scraps they can find.
Poverty in Iraq has reached new levels in the last four years. Many children have little or no access to basic necessities, like clean water, health care or education.
The statistics are startling. One child in every 25 will die before they reach the age of five. One in four, or more than three million children, are malnourished and one in five does not go to school.
Al Jazeera spoke to some of the forgotten victims of the war in Iraq.
Ahmed Jabbar spends his days selling toys on the streets of Baghdad. He left school because he needed to earn a living for his brothers and sisters.
“Our family has seven members,” he says. “My father was killed by a terrorist in Baquba. We left Baquba and came to Baghdad.”
Both of Sijad Ali’s parents died when he was just five. He lived on the streets until his brothers took him to an orphanage in Tobji. Here he can paint and play games with his friends and is considered the lucky ones.
“The National Guards and the Americans used to beat and arrest me, suspecting I was a terrorist. No matter how much I told them I wasn’t. Then I ended up here. It’s a comfortable place and we have full rights.”
Another child at the orphanage is Mohammed Wahel. The orphans are often dumped on the doorstep of the safe house.
“I’m from Basra and I was brought to Baghdad by a man and left in the street,” he says. “I stayed with a family and then I was brought to the orphanage. I don’t know who my parents are.”
“Children here lack family feelings and passion,” says Sumir Jasse, a social worker at the orphanage. “We love them more than their parents do. We try to bring happiness to their life. We stay with them day and night, we treat them and work hard to cure those who were subject to being beaten in the past.”
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IRIN Middle East IRAQ: Hassan Khalid Hayderi, Iraq “Either you give us good marks or you will die”
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
BASRA, 5 April 2007 (IRIN) – Hassan Khalid Hayderi, 54, is a professor of mathematics at Basra University, 550km south of the capital, Baghdad. He and his family are leaving Iraq as soon as his brother finds him a job in Jordan because he has received death threats from students demanding easy exams and better marks.
“After 20 years as professor of mathematics in Basra and Baghdad, I have decided to leave my job and the country. Teachers in Iraq have been targeted since the US-led invasion in 2003, but from February last year our situation has worsened because of threats from inside our classrooms.
“Students started demanding easier exams and if they don’t pass the year, it might mean your death. Either you give good marks or you are going to be killed.
“When I leave my home every morning to go to the university, I fear a bullet is going to rip through my head or chest. I constantly find notes with demands of good marks or sometimes shorter lessons from students on my desk.
“Lessons that used to last for one hour are given nowadays in half-an-hour to meet such requests.
“Two of my colleagues have been killed in the past months for refusing to cater to such requests. Sometimes even fathers come after you asking for good marks for their sons. Once I refused to listen to one of them and the result was the kidnapping of my 23-year-old son, Abdel-Kader. He was released after I let a student – who scored very badly in exams – pass the year.
“A week ago I received another threat. I know who sent it. It is a student who failed an exam before the summer holiday. Unfortunately in this case, he is not asking for a better mark, he said outright that he was going to kill me because his father beat him due to his poor marks.
“The situation is even worse for women teachers. You barely find them giving lessons because most of them either have fled the country or have been forced to leave the colleges. Today, they are suffering without a job to support their kids.
“The government isn’t doing anything to protect us. In the southern areas especially you depend on [local] tribes to give you the minimum of protection but with violence increasing, even tribal leaders are becoming useless. The best way to guarantee your life and the life of your family is to flee Iraq.
“The only thing that I ask from God is protection until I leave this hell that Iraq has turned into so that I can save myself and my family.”
as/at/mw
[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:
http://www.irnnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71201
Copyright © IRIN 2007
The material contained on www.IRINnews.org comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.
All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the IRIN copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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Al Jazeera English – News
China’s illiteracy rate soars
China’s economic boom has caused illiteracy rates to soar as many young rural poor drop out of school to work in fast-growing cities, a study has found.
Over the last five years, the number of Chinese who cannot read and write grew by 30 million to 116 million, wiping out years of gains against illiteracy, the China Daily reported on Monday.
Literacy in China is defined as someone who can read and write 1,500 Chinese characters.
College graduates are required to know 7,000 to 10,000 characters.
Previously the simplification of Chinese characters and education campaigns launched by the government had helped to steadily raise literacy levels among adults.
Gao Xuegui, an education ministry official who focuses on illiteracy, said the main reason for the U-turn was that many young rural poor were dropping out of school in order to find work in the cities, the China Daily said reported.
“The situation is worrying,” he said. “Illiteracy is not only a matter of education, but also has a great social impact.”
Migrant workers in China’s urban centres do not have access to public education, healthcare and other basic social services.
Gao said another reason for the drop was a lack of adequate funding, and the fact that earlier successes in fighting illiteracy had led some local governments to abandon their literacy programmes.
Source: Agencies
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Reuters AlertNet Lite – FEATURE-Catholic Philippines teaches Islam in state schools
Reuters AlertNet
NEWSDESK FEATURE-Catholic Philippines teaches Islam in state schools
20 Mar 2007 23:03:36 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Manny Mogato
MANILA, March 21 (Reuters) – During a 2002 raid at a madrasa in a northern region of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, security forces found a cache of assault rifles, crude bombs and training foxholes.
With a Muslim insurgency in the south, and memories of the World Trade Center attacks in New York still fresh, the discovery sent shock waves through the country.
Five years later, officials say the Philippines continues to face threats from Islamic militants, some of whom they say may have been “brainwashed” in local madrasas funded by Muslim organisations from the Middle East.
Now the government and some members of the Muslim community are trying to sideline the influence of militants by offering Islamic education to Muslim youth at state schools and setting a moderate Islamic curriculum for private madrasas to follow.
It’s a vital step, say some security officials concerned the growing foreign influence in local madrasas may have a serious security impact on the country, facing active Muslim rebellion for nearly 40 years, including by one group with suspected links with al Qaeda.
“Only eight percent of these madrasas are under the control of the government,” Ricardo Blancaflor, defence undersecretary and former director of an anti-terrorism task force, said.
“We don’t want our madrasas to become factories for terrorists.”
Islam reached the poor Southeast Asian state in the 13th century, about 200 years before Roman Catholicism was introduced by Spain in the late 1500s.
According to the 2006 International Religious Freedom Report of the U.S. State Department, there are an estimated 2,000 Islamic schools or madrasas in the country, more than half within Muslim communities on the southern island of Mindanao.
Only 40 were registered with the education department. About 1,200 are funded by foreign and local donors. Manila has no control over how the money is used.
“They are propagating radical Islam in the guise of freedom of religion,” Victor Corpus, a former military intelligence chief who now lectures at an army war college in the United States, told Reuters. “It’s like we’re being fried in our own fat.”
Corpus said nearly 300 madrasas in the country were getting funding from groups in Saudi Arabia that propagate the hardline Wahhabi form of Islam which has inspired al Qaeda leaders.
CHANGING MIND-SET
Some of the students at the madrasa raided in 2002 were among those apprehended for the worst militant attack in the Philippines, the February 2004 bombing of a ferry that killed more than 100 people near Manila Bay.
Mamaros Boransing, a Muslim educator and an undersecretary at the education department, denied that the madrasas were a training ground for terrorists.
“We’re challenging that mind-set and we’re reforming our own madrasa system to promote a culture of peace and national unity.”
Since 2005, the education department has introduced a new curriculum offering Arabic and Islamic studies to state schools in Muslim-dominated areas outside the southern island of Mindanao, home to 3 million Muslims.
Nearly 1,000 privately-run madrasas nationwide funded by the communities or by donations from abroad, have also been required to adapt to the state curriculum for Islamic studies.
In the capital Manila, the government has started test runs for the new madrasa system in 37 state-run primary and secondary schools, where a majority of the pupils are Muslims.
“In the beginning, it was difficult to learn Arabic,” Hamid Abdul, a 10-year-old beginner at Geronimo Santiago Elementary School near the presidential palace complex. “I have to learn it to be able to read the Koran.”
About 70 percent of 1,000 pupils at Hamid’s school are Muslims and most of them have been attending weekend classes on Arabic and Islamic values.
“We’re teaching only the basic to help them understand the language of the Koran,” said an ustadz, one of 2,000 Islamic teachers trained by the education department. “Under our constitution, state schools are not allowed to teach religion.”
ANTI-TERROR SQUEEZE
More affluent Muslim families, including diplomats from some Islamic states with embassies in Manila, have been sending their children to privately-run madrasas where Islamic religion is at the centre of the curriculum.
Sherma Sappari’s New Horizon Islamic School in Pasig City is popular for wealthy Muslim traders, diplomats and those who can afford to pay 25,000 pesos (about $500) to 50,000 pesos annual tuition fee to attend.
“We’ve started to use local textbooks for our science, maths and reading classes, but most of our reading materials on Islam are still coming from the United States and Kuwait,” she said, adding her school had helped developed Manila’s new curriculum.
Like the state-run Islamic schools, Sappari said they shared the same challenges of meagre funds and lack of qualified teachers to push moderate Islamic education in the Philippines.
“After the 9/11 attack, local banks have become extra strict in the release of money sent to our school from supporters in Kuwait and other Middle East states,” Sappari said, adding a new law on anti-money laundering further slowed inflows of funds.
“Even after thorough scrutiny of the donations, we’ve been made to wait for a few weeks to at least a month to get it.”
Despite the odds, Boransing and Sappari said they would move on and push for a moderate Islamised teaching programme for the Muslim minority in the Philippines.
“We don’t really want our Muslim children to become virtual strangers in their own country, but, at the same time, we don’t want them to grow ignorant of their culture and religion,” said Boransing.
“We’ve just planted the seed of tolerance and understanding. This might end the fighting, promote peace and unite our country in the future.”
NYCLU Slams New York City for ‘Over-Policing’ of Schools – The NewStandard
by Megan TadyMar. 20 – Civil libertarians say that security measures and the presence of police officers in New York City schools have created “hostile and dysfunctional environments” for students and teachers.
Calling the city’s school-policing program “aggressive,” the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a report released yesterday that metal detectors, searches and the overwhelming presence of police officers make “schools feel more like juvenile-detention facilities,” and “undermine [their] educational missions.”
The ACLU found that black and Latino students were disproportionately subject to metal-detector searches. The group said that 82 percent of students attending high schools with permanent metal detectors during the 2004-2005 school year were black and Latino.
The group also says that the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) authority over school safety has disempowered teachers and school administrators. The NYPD was given control over school safety in 1998, meaning school administrators do not have direct supervisory authority over police personnel.
As of 2006, 82 schools have the capacity to scan their students for weapons, according to the New York City Department of Education. The ACLU estimated that 93,000 students in the city pass through metal detectors to get to their classes. There are 4,625 police personnel, called “school safety agents,” employed with the NYPD’s School Safety Division. Their jobs include patrolling schools, operation of scanning equipment, intervening in altercations and making arrests.
Students at middle schools and high schools throughout the city are also subject to random searches through a “mobile scanning program,” in which the NYPD catches students off guard with temporary scanning equipment.
The ACLU surveyed 1,000 students at high schools with permanent metal detectors. The group also interviewed teachers, government officials and school safety agents to compile their report to document the “excesses” of the policing program.
Survey participants said students were often subject to derogatory and discriminatory comments from police; intrusive searches; unauthorized confiscation of personal items; inappropriate sexual attention; and arrest for minor non-criminal violations of school rules.
The report cited several student accounts of police interaction, including one of a fifteen-year-old pupil at Samuel J. Tilden High School who was detained for “roaming the halls.” According to the ACLU, a police officer grabbed her on the arm, then another officer searched her, and she was taken to a police precinct.
“Sometimes the classroom feels like a jail cell,” the ACLU quoted Jane Min, a student at Flushing High School in Queens, as saying. “We have many people in this jail cell of ours and security officers going around in the hallway to reprimand us.”
The NYPD did not respond to The NewStandard regarding the ACLU’s report.
Students in New York are not alone in contending with the growing police presence in their schools. As previously reported by TNS in July, students and parents across the country have begun speaking up against the presence of cops at schools, and the harsh disciplinary methods they employ. Critics are also warning about a school-to-prison pipeline.
“More and more children of color are being treated as delinquents and shunted out of the school system and into the criminal justice system,” said Dennis Parker, director of the ACLU racial justice program, in a press release. “The over-policing of New York City schools is just one example of this phenomenon.”
The ACLU offered several recommendations to help reform the over-policing of schools. These include returning control of school safety to educators, properly training police personnel for school environments and reducing the use of metal detectors.The ACLU did not advocate for abolishing police officers in schools altogether or other radical solutions at the institutional level.
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Sharing a smoke with new found friends by the Li River, Guilin, China
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