Karbala: history's long shadow

Just like Bethlehem and Nazareth for Christians, Karbala is one of those places Muslim children hear about from when they are very young.

For many it takes on a mythical, unreachable status.

But here we were pulling up to the main security checkpoint of Karbala, being asked to park to the side while our papers were checked.

Many pilgrims were going through on foot.

As we carried on, the gold dome of the Imam Hussein mosque rose from the centre of the city, and soon we found ourselves standing at one of its many ornate doorways.

I watched a little girl pull back her mother by the hand and chastise her for not having kissed the entrance in respect.
Entrance to mosque The Imam Hussein mosque is ornately decorated

Her mother dutifully spent a moment pressing her lips against the huge wooden doors to the mosque, before going inside.

In the vast prayer hall with its gold and marble, its huge chandeliers and its intricate blue and white tiling, was an incongruous red neon sign.

It marks the spot where it is believed Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was beheaded.

The area on which the mosque complex is built is thought to be the site of the Battle of Karbala, in which not only Hussein, but 72 followers and members of his family, including his infant son, were slaughtered.

When you see Shia Muslims, bloodied, whipping themselves in their annual processions, they are commemorating the events that took place in Karbala.

Because while Muhammad's grandson is revered by all Muslim sects, it is Shias who trace their beliefs directly to his teachings.

The Shrine of Hussein, in the centre of the mosque, is now circled by a constant stream of pilgrims; kissing the marble, praying, often shedding tears. For Shias, the shrine represents the greatest tribute to martyrdom.

hat battle of Karbala, in the 7th Century, in which Hussein was killed, is often cited as the moment Shia and Sunni Muslims were cleaved apart.

But Friday prayers in the Imam Hussein mosque looked almost the same as prayers in a Sunni mosque.

There are small differences in the rituals: at one point, for example, instead of crossing their hands over their stomachs, the lines of Shia devotees kept their hands by their sides.

But there is difference enough, it seems, that even to this day, some feel the need to continue the slaughter.

Sectarian violence

Over the last weeks, Iraqis have witnessed the kind of sectarian violence they had hoped was a thing of the past.

On one morning eight bombs went off in an hour in Shia districts of Baghdad. On another there were 11 almost simultaneously - again in Shia neighbourhoods.

There was an attack too on a Sunni mosque in Baqubah and another close to a funeral procession.


Speaking to Iraqis at the bombsites and in hospitals, what surprised me was the very apparent lack of hatred towards the other sect.

Instead, there appeared to be resigned consensus that Iraq's politicians were exploiting sectarian differences for their own gains - but that so too, were foreign powers.

It is something that has created a huge Sunni-Shia rift across the region: Iran the big power on one side; Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the other.

Other countries in the Middle East with mixed populations are feeling the effects, as Sunni and Shia groups within them start to align in what many now see as a holy war.

Syrian shrine

In Iraq, the links between Sunni militant groups, like al-Qaeda, and the fighting across the border in Syria have been much talked about.

But a couple of days before going to Karbala, we met a man who was involved in recruiting Shia fighters to go to Syria too: to fight not with the opposition, but alongside President Assad's forces.

And where, I asked, are the Shia fighters going in Syria? His answer took us right back to Karbala.
Devotees in the Imam Hussein mosque Karbala is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims

He said their main aim was to defend the shrine of Zainab, another of the Prophet Muhammad's grandchildren, whose brother and two children were among those killed in the battle of Karbala.

After which, Shia believe, she was taken to Damascus, where she later died.

Sunnis disagree and think she was buried elsewhere, and in recent months there have been many reports of attempts to attack the Shia shrine.

The fighter told me they would keep laying down their lives until the shrine of Zainab was safe.

As I left the mosque in Karbala, with the traditional memento of a small amount of earth from the grounds, it was hard not to reflect on the way an event there 1,400 years ago was shaping the world today.

Muslim leaders' Auschwitz visit boosts Holocaust knowledge Adam Easton By Adam Easton

Muslim leaders from around the world have taken part in an unprecedented trip to Germany and Poland to see and hear for themselves about the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust.

The 11 imams, sheiks and religious teachers from nine countries met a Holocaust survivor and Poles whose families risked execution to save Jews from the Nazis, in the Polish capital's Nozyk Synagogue as part of the tour.

They have been around museums, including the recently opened Museum of the History of Polish Jews on the site of the former Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw. And they also visited the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps.

"The main aim is to get Muslims who are leaders all over the world, particularly in the Middle East, to acknowledge the reality of what happened here and to be able to teach it to the people that they lead," said trip organiser Rabbi Jack Bemporad, who is executive director of the US-based Center for Interreligious Understanding.

He was standing underneath the red brick watchtower over the main entrance to Birkenau, the largest of more than 40 camps that made up the Auschwitz complex. This was where the Nazis installed four gas chambers and crematoria to speed up the murder and disposal of people, who were mostly Jews, from across Europe.
More understanding

Auschwitz-Birkenau, set up by the Germans in Nazi-occupied Poland, is largely intact and is now a museum. Historians estimate 1.1 million people were killed there - one million of them were Jews but there were also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others.

"I think that when someone wants to deny the Holocaust or think that it is exaggerated, which many of them do and certainly many of their followers do, when they come here and see it, their experience is such that they can no longer think that," Rabbi Bemporad said.

Beside the ruins of one of the gas chambers - the Germans blew them up as they retreated, in an effort to hide their crimes - the Muslim leaders paused for a moment's silence.

"You may read every book about the Holocaust but it's nothing like when you see this place where people were burned," said Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America.

"This is the building, the bricks. If they were to speak to you and I, they would tell you how many cries and screams they have heard."

Mr Magid, who is originally from Sudan, first visited Auschwitz-Birkenau during a trip organised for American imams in 2010. He said the experience had led him to hold an annual Seder, a Jewish ceremonial meal, at his mosque in Virginia where he invites people to listen to the story of a Holocaust survivor who was saved by a Muslim family.

"We go back more committed to human rights and more understanding of conflicts and how to resolve them, but also to be careful of a curriculum that teaches racism and hatred," he said

Earlier, the group had taken photos as they walked around an exhibition in the red brick barrack blocks at Auschwitz, about 2 miles (3kms) from Birkenau.

They made comments such as "Can you imagine?" and "It's beyond comprehension" as they saw a great pile of hair shorn from women prisoners that was used to make rudimentary textiles. They shook their heads as they saw faded children's shoes and dolls in glass cases.

After they had seen just two of the 14 exhibition blocks, some of the group asked for a break and they knelt in prayer beside the camp's execution wall.

Barakat Hasan, a Palestinian imam and director of the Center for Studies and Islamic Media in Jerusalem, said he "didn't know many details about the Holocaust" before the trip.

"I felt my heart bleeding when I was looking at all this. I was fighting back tears," he said through an interpreter. "As a Palestinian living under occupation, I feel sympathy for the pain and injustice that was inflicted on the Jews," he added.

Mr Hasan said he did not believe there were people in the Muslim world who denied the Holocaust happened, but he said there was discussion in his community about whether the commonly quoted figure of six million Jewish victims was correct.

"Maybe now after seeing what I've seen, maybe the numbers are correct also," he said, adding that he would write articles and mention his trip on Facebook.

As he walked along the railway line and unloading ramp at Birkenau - where the trains hauling cattle cars crammed with Jews arrived - Ahmet Muharrem Atlig, a Turkish imam and secretary general of the Journalists and Writers Foundation in Istanbul, said he wept when he saw a photograph that showed children looking scared as they got off a train.

"Unfortunately the Muslim communities and congregation don't know much about the Holocaust," he said.

"Yes, we've heard something. But we have to come and see what happened here. It's not just about Jews, or Christians, this is all about human beings because the human race suffered here."

The OAU: Fifty years on

Seeking African unity for 50 years

The Organisation of African Unity was formed 50 years ago - on 25 May 1963. It was a compromise between those who wanted something like a United States of Africa and those who wanted each country to remain independent.

It was based in Addis Ababa the capital of Ethiopia, one of just two African countries never to have been colonised. The body became the African Union in 2002.The link provides 3 vies on the achievements of the OAU


1957: Leaders of Africa's three independent republics - Liberia, Ghana and Guinea - met to discuss liberating the rest of the continent

1963: OAU founded
Initially concentrated on ending colonial and white minority rule in countries such as Angola, Mozambique (1975), Zimbabwe (1980), Namibia (1990) and South Africa (1994)

1984: Morocco leaves OAU after OAU recognised independence of Western Sahara

2002: OAU became the African Union, designed to work for economic integration

AU ended policy of non-interference in domestic affairs - it has suspended several countries after coups, while OAU had been criticised as a "dictators' club"

AU has sent peacekeepers to Darfur and Somalia

2011: South Sudan becomes 54th member of AU (Morocco has not rejoined)

2012: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma becomes first female head of AU commission

UN Development Progarmme Report

The latest United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report [Link] ranks Singapore 18th out of 187 countries in the world in the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) for 2012.

The UN’s HDI is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices to rank countries. It was developed in 1990 as an index to look beyond GDP growth as a measure of a country’s well-being. It is published by the UNDP annually and serves as a frame of reference for both social and economic development of countries in the world.

The 10 top countries in the world are:

1. Norway
2. Australia
3. US
4. Netherlands
5. Germany
6. New Zealand
7. Ireland
7. Sweden
9. Switzerland
10. Japan

Other Asian economies ahead of Singapore include South Korea (12th) and Hong Kong (13th).

One of the most glaring deficiencies for Singapore is the expected number of years of schooling, which registered 14.4 in the report. This is about two years less than the average of “very high HDI” countries (16.3 years). The expected years of schooling indicates the number of years of schooling that a child of school entrance age can expect to receive.

An analyst said, “This suggests a smaller proportion of Singaporeans attend university or graduate schools, as compared with its comparable peers despite its very high standing in terms of income per capita and life expectancy.”

Indeed, Minister Khaw Boon Wan seemed to discourage ITE and polytechnic graduates from pursuing a university degree at an ‘Our Singapore Conversation’ dialogue held on 4 May 2013.

Singaporeans do not need to be university graduates to be successful, he said.

“If they cannot find jobs, what is the point? You own a degree, but so what? That you can’t eat it. If that cannot give you a good life, a good job, it is meaningless,” he elaborated.

He was responding to a participant who said the government should set aside more university places for Institute of Technical Education and polytechnic graduates.

Said Mr Khaw, “Can you have a whole country where 100 per cent are graduates? I am not so sure.”

“What you do not want is to create huge graduate unemployment.”

In the past, PM Lee said that polytechnic graduates have many good options after leaving school, and they need not aim for university degrees.

Singapore may not have to be a “whole country where 100 per cent are graduates” but certainly, looking at the UNDP report, Singapore can do better in terms of the HDI component, “expected years of schooling”.

Mr Khaw may be interested to know that the “expected years of schooling” for the 3 Asian countries ahead of Singapore are:

Japan – 15.3
Korea – 17.2
Hong Kong – 15.5

http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/05/11/un-report-shows-sg-deficient-in-expected-years-of-schooling/

Singapore falls to record-low place in press freedom ranking

Singapore falls to record-low place in press freedom ranking
Yahoo! Newsroom
By Shah Salimat | Yahoo! Newsroom – Sat, May 4, 2013

Singapore fell 14 places to a record 149th position in terms of press freedom, according to an annual report by non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders (RWB).

Coming ahead of World Press Freedom Day, which was observed Friday, the report showed this is the city-state’s worst performance since the index was established in 2002.

On the list, Singapore is wedged in between Russia and Iraq, with Myanmar just two places behind. The former junta-led country jumped up 18 spots in this year’s ranking.

Neighbouring Malaysia dropped 23 places to 145th over repeated censorship efforts and a crackdown on the Bersih 3.0 protest in April. Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea stayed at the bottom three, while Finland stayed on top of the list followed by the Netherlands and Norway.

Mali was the biggest jumper, moving 74 spots down amid a military coup and subsequent media bias. Malawi was the biggest riser, moving 71 spots up, after an end to the Mutharika dictatorship marked by excesses and violence.

In this year's Freedom of The Press report published Wednesday by Freedom House, Singapore's press was rated "Not Free" and was ranked 153rd in the world, tied with Afghanistan, Iraq and Qatar. Norway and Sweden tied for tops, while North Korea and Turkmenistan tied for the bottom two.

Both reports come amid recent events that have rocked the media industry in Singapore. Outspoken academic Cherian George, who has called for more press freedom in the city-state, was denied tenure at Nanyang Technological University, sparking outrage among academics, colleagues and students.

Last month, comics artist Leslie Chew was arrested for alleged sedition, with charges relating to two comic strips, including one that contained the words “Malay population… Deliberately suppressed by a racist government.”

Filmmaker Lynn Lee was questioned for two videos she posted in January this year of interviews with former Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) bus drivers He Jun Ling and Liu Xiang Ying. Both drivers alleged police abuse while they were held in custody.

Amid the continued rise of new media in Singapore, there have been several instances over the past year of letters of demand being sent to bloggers and online media commentators to apologise and take down remarks that allegedly defamed government officials or the courts.

Earlier this year, blogger Alex Au received a letter of demand from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s lawyer that prompted the writer to apologise and take down an article and 21 comments regarding the sale of software by town councils to a firm owned by the ruling People’s Action Party.

The Real Singapore, a user-generated content website, was also asked twice to post an apology over comments allegedly defaming Defence Minister Ng Eng Hean.

The Attorney General's Chambers also asked the website to post an apology for comments made by users over the case of China national Yuan Zhenghua, who was sentenced to 25 months jail for stealing a taxi and killing a cleaner at Changi Airport’s Budget terminal. The site has refused to put up the apology.