Korean Job Discussion Forums

[gang ah jee]

I thought this was quite topical, given some recent discussions:

We all fund this torrent of Saudi bigotry

by Johann Hari, the Independent

Which glossy brand name has been the biggest winner on the planetary roulette wheel of globalisation? Most of us could reel off a dozen eligible mega-corporations: Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, the Nike swoosh. They are all wrong. The check-in-your-chips champion of globalisation is in fact a puritanical desert-nomad from the sands of Arabia who died in 1792, and the evidence was there in this week's Islamic panic front pages.

In his 18th-century oasis, Mohamed ibn Abd al-Wahhab Wahhab had a dream. He dreamed of an Islam stripped down to a cold list of mechanical rules, strictly enforced, severely upheld. He ordered whippings and beheadings of Muslims to "purify" the faith. He smashed up and burned down the worship places of the softer, more mystical Muslims all around him. And - his smartest move - he cut a deal. He met the chief of the desert bandits who lived in the nearby long stretch of sand called Najd - a man named Mohamed Saud - and offered him his allegiance, in return for enforcing his severe, new brand of Islam. The Saud ruling family and the Wahhabi doctrine have been locked in a stiff waltz ever since.

More than two centuries later, oil was discovered under the territory of these bandits, and billions of dollars began to soak into the Kingdom. True to their ancestor's deal, the House of Saud used this black gold to promote the ideas of Wahhab, no longer merely on their own sands, but across the world.

By paying for thousands of schools, mosques and trained imams, they dispersed the ideas of one reactionary little preacher to every continent. It has been a corporate strategy that leaves Ronald McDonald looking like a puffing, obese slouch. Slowly, steadily, they are succeeding in eroding other, gentler forms of Islam. They are globalising Wahhabism - and your petrol purchases are paying for it.

Which brings us to the swish, swanky classrooms of the King Fahd Academy in west London, in the year 2007. A Muslim teacher called Colin Cook has revealed that children there are taught, via Saudi textbooks, that Jews are "repugnant" and Christians are "pigs". Exercises for five-year olds include the charming exercise, "Mention some repugnant characteristics of Jews". Cook repeatedly heard children in the playground idolising Bin Laden. Challenged on Newsnight about whether she will stop using these racist books, the headteacher, Sumaya Alyusuf, said, "No... I cannot withdraw them. There are good chapters in the books."

Why are we surprised? The King Fahd Academy is not a freak. It is part of a deliberate globalised project, led by the House of Saud, that has been documented a hundred times. Azzedine Gaci, the head of the regional Muslim council, in Lyon, France, explains: "When Saudi Arabia gives you �1m with one hand, with the other they give you a list of what you must say or not say." Here's some of the things you can say, taken from standard-issue Saudi textbooks. For 10-year-olds: "The whole world should convert to Islam and leave its false religions lest their fate will be hell." For 12-year-olds: "There is a Jew behind me - come and kill him!"

And what can't you say? Anything about freedom for women, which is, the textbooks explain, "a continuation of the Crusades". A woman can only be taught to "enable her to be a successful housewife, an exemplary wife and a good mother". No need for maths or technology, shabibi, there's the kitchen. They are banned from any form of physical education, because it would be "obscene" for them to change their clothes outside the home. Besides, "they might become attracted to each other if they saw each other in leotards", in which case they would have to be killed.

These textbooks are not only being used in Riyadh and a few scattered outposts; let's look at two very different countries. In Sweden, almost every Islamic school is either funded by the Saudis or seeking out their cash, according to the investigative programme Kaliber. In Pakistan, there were 246 madrassas at the time of independence, in 1945. Today, there are 6,607 - the majority using these Saudi textbooks provided for nada. Every time you fill up with a fresh tank of petrol, you are helping to buy some more.

Moderate Muslims have been warning for decades that allowing children to be indoctrinated with this poison in their formative years kneecaps any attempt to stimulate less literalist readings of the Koran later in life. But where is the counter-offensive, siding with these decent Muslims against this wall of bigotry? There are 120 Muslim faith schools in Britain, many of which would not be financially viable without Saudi support. The Government proposes to build more. And in the mosques? Nobody seems to know how many of Britain's imams are trained by the Saudis.

In the US, the figure is 80 per cent, and in France it is 70 per cent. There was a taster of the Saudi mullah-training in a recent Dispatches documentary, in which the visiting Riyadh-trained cleric, Abu Usamah, raved in a Birmingham mosque that Jews and Christians are his "enemies", and called gay people "perverted, filthy dogs who should be murdered". The Government talked for a while about setting up programmes to train British imams, but the energy seems to have leached away.

Indeed, the Government paints persistently the House of Saud as "moderate", and Tony Blair is so close to the Saudi princes he just cancelled a corruption investigation into their relationship with BAE Systems. (Don't ask about the love-in between the House of Saud and the House of Bush, where, according to the expert Craig Unger, the Sauds have given more than $1bn to Bush's business ventures). As we allow this Wahabbi rollout, other forms of Islam are being ironed away. Wahhab is being posthumously granted his wish: for millions of Muslims, his is becoming the One True Faith.

Our governments are not stopping this Wahabbi-Saudi hate machine for a simple reason: as The New York Times writer Thomas Friedman puts it, junkies don't talk back to their dealers. We are addicted to the Saudi oil supply: it lubricates our cars, our planes, our food supply routes. In the face of this hunger, talk of national security or democratic ideals soon sinks into an oily gloop. Until we have built up clean, green alternatives to Middle Eastern oil (and isn't global warming reason enough?), you and I will keep paying at the petrol pump for this propaganda.

It's another ironic victory for globalisation: democrats in London are paying for fanatics in Arabia to indoctrinate children in Pakistan, and a thousand other places, and - yes - right back at us, at the end of the District line.

[Hollywoodaction]

You do know Saudis were behind 9/11, right?

[ddeubel]

I agree with the thrust of the article yet I don't think it goes far enough into the ties that the Saudi govt has with America. The author does correctly state the pussyfooting Blair has performed but even worse is that of the Bush administration.

Besides being buddies with several Saudi noblemen, the Bush clan has given great access and "an ear" to Saudi Arabia. They have also kept a lid on information regarding Saudi investment in America and just how much America is "endebted" to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, just like China, has found the way of staying off America's moral compass, "money".

I also wouldn't be surprised if even the President himself, has been financially rewarded and is indeed, rolling in their payoff.

Recent article I dug up from the Washington Post touches on it.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060115-103622-3038r.htm

[Teufelswacht]

[thepeel]

You are a little right.

If oil producing nations began to use Euro/Yen etc the dollar would no longer be the world's "reserve" currency. What happens is that the Fed prints oodles of money and then promptly ships it overseas to be used by other nations in their transactions. This benefits the USA in that money can be printed without devaluing the currency and causing inflation as the money printed may not enter the domestic American economy.

If states switch to the Euro/Yen as a dominant reserve currency the USA will have to cease her habit of printing money to stimulate the economy with reckless disregard. It isn't the end of the world, really, but will require the Americans to look at monetary policy with more care. There are many, many nations on our planet that manage to maintain prosperity while not printing money like Mugabe. America must learn to live within her means. Empire isn't affordable.

About the Saudi's.. Alberta, in Canada, is now said to be home to the second largest deposit of oil. Also, there are mutterings that Saudi has wildly overestimated (of just lied) the amount of oil left. I attended a seminar recently by an oil-economist who insisted that Saudi has about 20% of what it says it has. Dare to dream..

[Sincinnatislink]

Thank you for posting something worth reading.

This lends some significant insight into US policy on the middle east, and from a perspective I've not heard elaborated well.

And BJWD, I really don't think the world economy does not work like that.
Fiat currency doesn't mean that the Federal Reserve does things that are not in their best interest.

And am I right in suspecting that this seminar is by one of the completely credible peak oil people?

[Sincinnatislink]

[ddeubel]

[thepeel]

[Sincinnatislink]

I meant that the Federal Reserve does more than just shit out as much currency as it can.
That's all.

As far as the rest . . .
I don't think I can get what you're saying from a message board post.
Link?

[thepeel]

[Sincinnatislink]

I was asking you to recommend some literature online.
That's all.

[thepeel]

About the Saudi's.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=exaggerating+saudi+oil+reserves&btnG=Search

As I said earlier, dare to dream. I don't know if it is true, but I sure hope it is.

[thepeel]

[Sincinnatislink]

About the topic you're speaking of.
The third result on that google search is a peak oil site.
I would like you to link me to something you're familiar with that you think will give me a general picture of what you're talking about, because there are plenty of kool-aid drinkers/tinfoil hatters/conspiracy theorists that talk about these things.