Wondering About 'Homegrown' Terrorists?

[Annie]

Look to the Islamic schools:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/war-o...rm-over-schools/2005/07/30/1122144058379.html

There's more:

The teacher could not believe what he overheard. The "visiting" imam was launching into a tirade against the Jews and Americans that bordered on the ludicrous.

But then came the clincher, he recalled. "The imam told the students that the Jews were putting poison in the bananas and they should not eat them."

The imam was told to ease up on the inflammatory language after staff objected.

Werribee College is from all accounts an Islamic school with a difference. According to former staff it was a longstanding practice of the school principal, Omar Hallak, to have Muslim staff sleep on the premises after big international terror attacks such as those in Bali and the London tube bombings to prevent retributive attacks.

The Sunday Age has been told that Werribee College appears intent on exporting its particular brand of Islam to Indonesia, an achievement made possible by generous commonwealth and state grants — estimated to be in excess of $3 million a year.

Canberra's big spending laissez-faire approach to non-government school funding, intended by former education minister David Kemp to boost the numbers of Christian schools, has fuelled an increase in community-based Islamic schools across Australia which qualify for the same subsidies.
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Although the vast majority of these schools — established schools such as King Khalid Islamic College in North Coburg or newer schools such as Mount Hira College in Keysborough — are run openly and with regular contact and activities with students from non-Muslim schools, there are a small number, including Werribee, that shun scrutiny and contact.

Last week, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils warned that young Muslims were prey to visiting imams and religious scholars. Council president Ameer Ali said Muslim extremists were posing a problem for "vulnerable and impressionable youth". Visiting imams were being brought to Australia by new and emerging groups unknown to the community, he said. His words were endorsed by outspoken Sydney cleric Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, who said the Muslim community had not done enough to confront extremists.

Inquiries by The Sunday Age last week revealed an alarming lack of official scrutiny not just of Muslim schools but of a plethora of non-government schools advocating all manner of religious faith. State and federal education departments have little idea of the curriculum content for junior grades, the quality of education being offered or extremist views that may be perpetuated in the name of religion...

And then there are 'their' messageboards:

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Calgary/Licia_Corbella/2005/07/31/1154121.html

More here too:

Sun, July 31, 2005
'Calgary' forum spews hatred
Vile website undermining honourable efforts of moderate Muslims

By Licia Corbella -- Calgary Sun

Recently, three members of the Muslim Council of Calgary spent time meeting with our editorial board.

We spent almost two hours engaged in debate and discussion.

Hussein Amery, vice-chair of the MCC repeated how eager he and all Muslims are to be better portrayed in the media.

"We're enlisting your help so we can convey what the council would like people here to know," said Amery, who has a PhD in psychology and is also a denturist in Calgary.

"We want to expose the truth about Islam and about Muslims in Canada. We want to articulate change through your paper and through all avenues of media that are available to us."

Hatim Zaghloul, chairman of the MCC said: "We in the west need to encourage Muslim voices. The problem is we don't have a forum for moderates."

I agreed immediately to be welcoming of well-written columns and reminded them of the letters to the editor section.

One of the main avenues the MCC does have available to it at all times is the website that is run as the site says "under the direction of Muslim Council of Calgary" (www.calgarymuslims.com).

I logged onto that site and instead of finding moderation and a message of peace, as I had expected and was told was their aim, I was immediately bombarded with vile hatred directed towards Jews -- reams and reams of it and what's worse, there was not one real objection to it listed on the site anywhere.

Right there on the front main page is a contribution by a fella described as "chopchip" under the heading Bismillah 1 (which means in the name of God) which besides saying: "I don't think it's Muslims who are responsible for those bombings (in London)," he goes on to say "but the Jews are really pushing for their final bid to ethnically cleanse the world of non Jews. They think that they are the master race...."

That's the mild stuff, which, incidentally, I have cleaned up for punctuation and grammatical reasons, since this fella uses no capital letters, except when he talks of Allah -- then it's all CAPS, and is an atrocious speller, though I will put even cleaned-up stuff in quotes.

So, click on that and up pops a whole menu of chopchip's charming opinions, all featured rather prominently and without, as I've said, a single objection of any note by any person who has logged onto this, I'm told, popular site.

Under the heading: "why do people pursue misery," chopchip submitted this on July 22.

"The Jews do nothing but spread corruption. I don't need to quote any holy books or hadiths to prove this," he writes.

"I have seen the Jews do so many evil things including:

1. commit mass murder; 2. plot genocide; 3. corrupt youth; 4. produce pornography; 5. sell drugs and booze; 6. promote gambling.

"And all these things the Jews promote for no other reason (than) to spread misery, violence, bloodshed and corruption ... the Jews are given over to evil to the extreme. It's inconceivable really how evil the Jews are," he writes.

But this is still the mild stuff...