Articles

Education is a central part of the West’s agenda for re-shaping the Muslim world along its own lines. As such, it plays a prominent role in the many institution as and programs by which the West aims to persuade Muslims to acquiese to their own Westernization, writes YUSUF AL-KHABBAZ.

Officially, suspension of armed operations by both the Israeli occupation forces and popular resistance forces in Palestine is holding and there is progress, albeit slow and halting, in the general direction of a future political settlement.

Judicial, media and student agencies are for the first time staging public protests against the autocratic rule of president Husni Mubarak to an extent that makes the recent challenges by political opposition groups, including the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood), mild by comparison

The rising tide of public corruption in Algeria – an issue that was never the centre of concern before – has now forced the regime to address it. The senior military officers who have really ruled the country since its independence in 1962, and the civilian politicians who have been a cloak for them, have focused their attention on fighting Islamic groups, rather than controlling a practice that they obviously benefit from.

Can the US be a friend of the Muslims? This is not a rhetorical question; Muslims must consider it seriously because it has enormous implications for their future. First, a clarification is in order: when one talks about “the US”, one does not mean the American people but the government, although it could be argued that the 51 percent of Americans who voted for George Bush should bear some responsibility for the crimes perpetrated in their name.

Since his release last year after spending six-years in a Malaysian prison, Anwar Ibrahim has become a darling of the West for his promotion of an understanding of Islam that is regarded as ‘moderate’ and West-friendly. ABDAR RAHMAN KOYA in Kuala Lumpur reports.

The United States, which last September accused Sudan of committing genocide in the Western region of Darfur, is now charging it with “crimes against humanity” and has even dropped its usual assertion that the Sudanese government has the ability to control the so-called Arab Janjaweed militia, who had been accused of arming to kill Africans in Darfur.

With the US Congress and the White House almost completely controlled by them, the zionist brigade has launched a strong assault on what is left of academic freedom in the US: the purpose is to force intellectuals to teach zionist myths at American universities.

The timing could hardly have been better: within days of Tony Blair’s confirming that Britain’s general elections will be held on May 5, an illegal immigrant from Algeria was convicted at the high court of what government officials, police and the media described as an international conspiracy, planned by al-Qai’da, to manufacture ricin poison and use it for a mass terrorist attack in London.

With the increasing American colonial presence in the Muslim world, beginning with the 1991 war against Iraq and gaining momentum on the heels of 9/11 with recent invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, there have been numerous efforts aimed at reforming school curricula and revising textbooks. From Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, American officials have been pressuring local governments to eliminate anything that the Americans say promotes “violence and terrorism.”