Headlines:
- The “Sh**hole Countries”—and the Rest of the World—Respond to President Trump
- Top UK Primary School Bans Hijabs for Girls under Eight and Outlaws Fasting on Grounds
- China Bans Muslim Children from Attending Religious Events During Winter Holidays
The “Sh**hole Countries”—and the Rest of the World—Respond to President Trump
With one word—just the latest in a string of slurs about other nations and peoples—President Trump has demolished his ability to be taken seriously on the global stage. “There is no other word one can use but ‘racist,’” the spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said at a briefing in Geneva. “You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘sh**holes,’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.” Last Friday morning, the President offered a tepid denial on Twitter, acknowledging that “tough” language was used in a White House meeting on immigration. Trump has so often glibly smeared other nations, however, that it almost doesn’t matter what “tough” word he used. He has a proven track record of bigotry. He has been quoted as saying that Nigerians will “never go back to their huts” once they visit America, that Africa sends its “worst of the worst” to the U.S., and that Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS.” Trump is now preparing to attend the World Economic Forum, a gathering of global leaders in politics and business, held annually in Davos, Switzerland. Many American allies have long been wary of the President’s “America First” framework. After his remarks this week, the danger is that his counterparts will also view his agenda as “White First”—not a viable strategy in a world that places growing value on racial diversity. Trump’s worldview is tragic for so many reasons. First, he’s just wrong on the basics. As the Republican pollster Frank Luntz tweeted, “43% of immigrants from ‘sh**hole’ African countries have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 33% of the overall American population. Nigerian-Americans, for instance, have a median household income well above the American average.” Our own capital is rich with industrious Ethiopians (so many that there are direct flights from Washington to Addis Ababa). After English, the words I use the most in Washington (from a limited vocabulary) are Amharic. Finally, the President’s coarse language will make it harder to make gains in his diplomatic agenda worldwide. Pity American diplomats, especially in non-white countries. The top U.S. envoy in Botswana was summoned to clarify whether the southern African nation is considered a sh**hole country, the Washington Post reported. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that Trump’s own ancestors came from Africa, as did all mankind. In the book and documentary “The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey,” the geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells traces the human migration out of Africa. He travelled the world for a decade to trace genetic markers by taking blood samples—from Bushmen in the sweltering Kalahari Desert and the Chukchi in icy Siberia to the Hopi in the American West—to prove the trail of the human migration. Wells concludes, “Old concepts of race are not only socially divisive but scientifically wrong.” [Source: The New Yorker]
Again the US media has got is wrong. Trump is not the only bigot in America. 63 million Americans were fully aware about Trump’s bigotry before they voted for him. Hence, it is not surprising to witness America’s naked racism when waging war in the Muslims world and against blacks and Hispanics at home. Today, America has transformed into the leader of racism and hate against other races.
Top UK Primary School Bans Hijabs for Girls under Eight and Outlaws Fasting on Grounds
The UK’s top state primary school has banned hijabs and fasting, calling on the government to issue firm guidelines to schools across the country on these matters. St Stephen’s primary school, in Newham, east London, which topped The Sunday Times school league table last year, has banned girls under eight years old from wearing the Islamic headscarf in its classrooms. It also instructed parents that children should not fast during Ramadan, when many pupils may have to sit summer exams. St Stephen’s educates around 400 schoolchildren aged between five and 11, and was judged “outstanding” in its last Ofsted inspection report. Qawi told The Sunday Times: “We did not ban fasting altogether but we encouraged them [children] to fast in holidays, at weekends and not on the school campus. Here we are responsible for their health and safety if they pass out on campus. It is not fair to us.” But he added: “The department [of education] should step up and take it out of our hands and tell every school this is how it should be. “The same for the hijab, it should not be our decision. It is unfair to teachers and very unfair to governors. We are unpaid. Why should we get the backlash?” The governor added that although Muslim clerics he talked to said students should only fast when they reached puberty, some pupils as young as eight or nine were skipping school meals during Ramadan. He said that, although some parents had been critical of the new rules, many Muslim parents had welcomed the move. Headmistress, Neena Lall, said the school had introduced the changes to help students integrate into British society. She said: “A couple of years ago I asked the children to put their hands up if they thought they were British. Very few children put their hands up.”However, the Department for Education said: “It is a matter for individual schools to decide how to accommodate children observing Ramadan, and to set uniform policies. We issue clear guidance on uniform and to help schools understand their legal duties under the Equality Act.” [Source: International Business Times]
Apologist Muslim leaders working in cohorts with the British government are introducing draconian measures to stamp out Islam from schools. This is reminiscent to what took place in Spain almost 525 years ago, and eventually Muslims for forced to renounce their Islam and convert to Christianity.
China Bans Muslim Children from Attending Religious Events During Winter Holidays
A predominantly Muslim county in western China has banned children from attending religious events during the winter holidays, as authorities step up control of religious education. School pupils in Linxia county in Gansu province, home to many members of the Muslim Hui ethnic minority, are prohibited from entering religious buildings over their break, the district education bureau said in a notice posted online. Students must not read scriptures in classes or religious buildings, said the notice, which also ordered pupils and teachers to work to strengthen political ideology and propaganda. A picture of the notice was shared online by Xi Wuyi, a Marxist scholar at the state-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an outspoken critic of rising Islamic influence in China. In a post on the social media platform Weibo, she welcomed the apparent move by authorities. A man who answered the telephone at the Linxia education bureau hung up when asked by Reuters to verify authenticity of the notice, while a woman at the district education bureau declined to comment. New regulations on religious affairs, announced by China in October last year and due to take effect in February, aim to increase oversight of religious education and provide for greater regulation of religious activities. Chinese law officially grants religious freedom for all but regulations on education and protection of minors also say religion cannot be used to hinder state education or to “coerce” children to believe. [Source: The Independent].
The Chinese government continues to press ahead with its unrelenting campaign to reverse the Islamic resurgence in China. As with all previous activities to suppress Islam, this measure will also fail. Allah (swt) says:
يُرِيدُونَ لِيُطْفِئُوا نُورَ اللَّـهِ بِأَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَاللَّـهُ مُتِمُّ نُورِهِ وَلَوْ كَرِهَ الْكَافِرُونَ
“They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light, although the disbelievers dislike it.”
(61:8)