For New Delhi’s Muslim community, last week’s Friday prayers were a tense affair. Heavily armed guards watched on as they gathered at the city’s mosques — at least four of which had recently been on fire. Inside, imams called for peace and patience; outside, paramilitary police officers roamed the streets. It was the end of a week of unprecedented sectarian violence in India’s capital city.

India’s Descent Into Chaotic Religious Violence

The unrest erupted on the eve of Donald Trump’s much-heralded state visit. As the US President met dignitaries and shared warm words with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, the streets of New Delhi were roiling. 

Hindus and Muslims charged at one another in bloody street battles. Both sides were heavily armed: iron rods, heavy chunks of brick, and, in some cases, guns. Reports of mutilation, torture and victims being burnt alive were widespread. At least 42 were killed, with hundreds more injured. The majority of the casualties appear to be Muslims.  

“I wanted to cry and scream. Something inside of me died during those three days,” M.A. Anwar, a New Delhi-based doctor, told AP.

The violence spiraled from ostensibly peaceful protests against the government’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). For India’s Muslims, the new law represents one prong of an Islamophobic pincer attack. The CAA’s stated goal is to defend refugees coming from neighboring countries — Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan — so long as they’re not Muslim.

Modi’s Persecution of Indian Muslims

The CAA is a cynical effort to marginalize India’s 200-million strong Islamic population, critics say. They point also to Modi’s new National Register of Citizens (NRC), which is likely to deprive many Muslims of their Indian citizenship, in effect rendering them stateless.           

The legislative maneuvering comes at a time of wider distrust of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a group regarded by many as Hindu nationalists. Last year authorities cracked-down on the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, summarily stripping it of its autonomy and enforcing a military lock-down. 

Focus has also fallen on the BJP’s treatment of vocally dissenting officials. Justice S. Muralidhar, a Delhi high court judge, last week criticised the police’s handling of the unrest, and accused Modi’s party of inciting violence. In an apparent act of retribution, state officials had him promptly transferred out of the city.     

The move appeared consistent with what human rights groups describe as “impunity” for politicians stirring discontent. 

“These riots… were preceded by the hateful speeches made by political leaders,” said Avinash Kumar, Executive Director of Amnesty International India. “It is the ongoing impunity that the political leaders enjoy which encourages them and other non-state actors to stoke more violence.” 

Modi denies any role in inciting the violence, tardily tweeting last week his wish for “peace and brotherhood”. He must tread a careful path, however. Rehabilitating his reputation on the international stage after the Kashmir crack-down is crucial for the 69-year-old leader.  

To that end, he will have been delighted by Trump’s decision to largely ignore the unrest (the president said only that he was satisfied that Modi had worked “really hard” on religious freedom). 

International Criticism of India’s Anti-Muslim Prejudice

Not all world leaders are so sympathetic, however. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan compared Delhi’s sectarian violence to Kristallnacht, an episode of 1930s Germany when Nazi thugs massacred innocent Jews and destroyed their businesses.  

As his foremost regional rival, Modi will happily disregard Khan’s condemnation. Ignoring India’s bleak economic picture will be harder. Growth has been steadily decelerating in recent months, and, as fears of a global recession linked to the coronavirus outbreak mount, no upswing is forecast.         

Faltering finances may see BJP redouble their Hindu nationalist rhetoric as an effort to keep public scrutiny off of the economy. The full consequences are hard to predict, but for India’s Muslim community, the worst may still be to come.        

L'articolo Sectarian Violence In India Marks New Low For Hindu-Muslim Relations proviene da InsideOver.

When the entire nation including the northeastern states of India, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh that border Bangladesh, is reeling under violent protests over the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, in a strange turn of events, Bangladesh’s telecom regulatory authority has ordered operators to shut down services along the Indian border out of fear that Indian Muslims might seek to enter Bangladesh after the act.

It may be recalled that despite agitation by people of northeastern states of India, like Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, and protests by Congress-led opposition parties, the Indian Parliament passed its Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) on December 11, 2019. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill will grant citizenship to the non-Muslims – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, and Parsis – from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan on the plea that they fled their parent countries on account of religious persecution and arrived in India before December 31, 2014.

The Citizen Amendment Act has not only rattled Indian Muslims, but neighboring Muslim nations are also apprehensive of the fallout of the CAA. Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have expressed displeasure over the exclusion of Muslims from the act. They said that the law is against the secular fabric of the Indian constitution, and it is anti-Muslim, meant to deprive Muslims of Indian citizenship.

Why Are Muslim Nations Unsettled?

Their primary worry is that as per the CAA, India is the homeland for Hindus, and for the other five religions, it is a country that will offer them sanctuary. Hindus from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are charged $2.79 for overstay of more than 91 days, and for more than two years, it is $6.97. Muslims, overstaying up to 90 days, are charged $400, and for those overstaying for more than two years, the cost is $500.

Whereas Ambassador of Afghanistan to India, Tahir Qadiry publically stated that his government has been “respecting the minorities, especially Sikh brothers and sisters”, Bangladesh suddenly canceled two scheduled ministerial visits. Pakistan has passed a resolution in the National Assembly, condemning the CAA as discriminatory. Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, declared that the CAA would create fear among Muslims in India, and they will leave in droves.

What has puzzled India is Bangladesh telecom regulatory authority’s order to shut down services along the Indian border. The fact is that there has always been a flow of illegal migrants into India from Bangladesh, as India has been a safe sanctuary for them. Most of the Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims who have settled in Assam over the past decades are from Bangladesh. The infamous 1983 Nellie massacre in Assam, following the ‘Bongali Khedao’ or ‘Drive Out the Bengalis’ agitation, led to the killing of over 2,000 illegal Bangladeshi Muslim migrants. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam contains 1.9 crore names of unlawful migrants, mostly from Bangladesh.

Why is Bangladesh Scared?

The Citizen Amendment Act has raised the spectre of a mass exodus of illegal Bangladeshis back to their homeland, Bangladesh. According to political observers, instances of reverse migration of hundreds of Bangladeshis who were arrested after the crossing of the border into Bangladesh have sent alarm bells ringing in the political corridors of Bangladesh. Reportedly, these people confessed that they are ‘Bangladeshi Muslims’ and have returned home because they no longer see any hope of getting Indian citizenship after the CAA.

According to political analysts, Bangladesh is also scared of  1983, Assam type violence due to reverse migration on account of the CAA. The CAA can encourage the Islamists and anti-Indian lobbies in Bangladesh to target the Hindu minority. The political leaders fear that Islamist propagandists may paint India as anti-Muslim; this may become a tool to target Hindus.

Reports of large detention centers being built in Assam have unnerved Muslim migrants who see no hope of citizenship after the CAA. Bangladesh is already finding it difficult to cope with the 4 lakh plus Rohingya Muslims who fled from Myanmar. Bangladesh is now concerned over the possibility of a larger influx of Bangladeshi Muslims, who are illegal migrants in India. India has been on good terms with Bangladesh in recent years. So now, the million-dollar question is how the Indian government will deal with lakhs of illegal, stateless Muslim migrants at the same time keep Bangladesh and neighboring Muslim nations happy.

L'articolo Bangladesh Fears Muslim Influx After Indian Citizenship Bill proviene da InsideOver.

Last week, dozens of world leaders, intellectuals and scholars around the world attended the Kuala Lumpur Summit (KLS) to discuss issues facing the Muslim world (ummah) ranging from Islamophobia, poverty and sanctions to persecution in China and India.

Instead Of Bringing Muslims Nations Together The Summit Highlighted Their Rifts

Despite its lofty objectives, the summit ended up exposing a major rift between Muslim countries. The attendance of one bloc⁠—Qatar, Iran, Turkey⁠—and absence of the other⁠—UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Bahrain⁠—followed by the trading of barbs between the leaders of both sides took center stage and took attention away from the objective of the meeting.

KLS was first conceived by Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, Pakistan’s leader Imran Khan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly meeting this year. The plan was to broadcast and examine challenges faced by Muslims across the world, especially their persecution at the hands of India and China in Kashmir and Xinjiang, respectively. 

Why The Split Occurred

PM Mohammad’s invitation to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani irked Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudis and Emiratis have shunned Iran and Qatar in recent years and refuse to share any stage with them. 

Saudi Arabia and Iran have long competed for influence in the Muslim world. Both have been⁠—and are currently⁠—engaged in proxy wars across the Middle East. Moreover, the Saudis consider themselves de-facto leaders of the Islamic world given the importance of Mecca and Medina in Islam. To them, participating in any Islamic forum that they did not lead was unacceptable. 

Pakistan: Stuck In The Middle

Caught in the middle of this tug-of-war between the two power blocs was Pakistan’s Imran Khan, who hastily agreed to the summit without anticipating the repercussions given Islamabad’s close ties with Riyadh. Khan decided to pull out of it at the last moment after meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. 

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister said the decision was made in order to allay concerns raised by Saudi Arabia that the meeting could create a parallel bloc to rival the existing Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The OIC is headquartered at Riyadh and is led by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis saw the KL Summit as an attempt to dislodge their dominance over the Islamic world.

Erdogan: Saudi Arabia ‘Blackmailed’ Pakistan Over The Summit

Malaysia’s Mohammad, however, denies that the summit is intended to rival the OIC. In a statement, he said “the KL Summit is not intended to create a new bloc as alluded to by some of its critics.” Mohammad said that he had clarified his position to Crown Prince bin Salman in a telephone call. But while Mohammad was careful in his response to those criticizing the summit, Turkey’s Erdogan was not. 

Lambasting the Saudi Crown Prince, Erdogan alleged that Saudi Arabia had “blackmailed” and “threatened” Pakistan. “Unfortunately, we see that Saudi Arabia pressures Pakistan. Now, there are promises that the country has given to Pakistan regarding the central bank. However, more than that, there are four million Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia. They (threatened by saying that they) would send (Pakistanis) back and re-employ Bangladeshi people instead,” Erdogan said. Meanwhile, Erdogan also added that Indonesia⁠—which also decided to pull out after first agreeing to attend the meeting⁠—had also suffered from being similarly threatened by the Saudis.

Saudi Denies Erdogan’s Charges

Saudi Arabia has denied putting any pressure on Islamabad. A release issued by the Saudi embassy in Pakistan stated that, “the relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Islamic Republic of Pakistan are superior to the language of threat … and the two countries enjoy a consensus of views on most regional and international issues, especially the issues of the Islamic nation.” 

But even as Saudi Arabia denied applying any pressure on Islamabad, the infighting ended up overshadowing the summit. The world’s Muslim population⁠—around 1.8 billion across the world⁠—who had pinned their hopes on the summit to raise a voice for their rights watched with dismay as their leaders failed to agree on any way forward for their future.

L'articolo Kuala Lumpur Summit Exposes Underlying Cracks Within Muslim Nations proviene da InsideOver.

China enjoys friendly relations with many Islamic countries, but fails to think twice before persecuting its Muslim populace on the plea of indoctrination. Yet, China is the best friend of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the Muslim World. According to the leaked files obtained by The New York Times, as many as one million Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other predominantly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region are facing severe conditions in the detention camps. But, the ruling Communist Party denies international criticism of the fields and describes them as job training centres that use mild methods to weed out Islamic extremism. Inmates undergo months or years of training and interrogation intended to pressurize them into disavowing devotion to Islam and professing gratitude for the party.

Xinjiang, a resource-rich territory, is one of the largest provinces of China. Xinjiang borders Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Tibet. Muslim ethnic minority groups constitute more than half of the region’s population of 25 million. Uighurs, the largest of these groups, have long been facing discrimination and restrictions on cultural and religious activities.

The origin of the detention camps can be traced back to a surge in anti-Chinese violence, including ethnic riots in 2009 in Urumqi and the May 2014 attack on an outdoor market. The attack killed 39 people just days before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s conference in Beijing to set a new policy course for Xinjiang. Against this backdrop of bloodshed, Xi delivered a series of secret speeches justifying the hard-line course that culminated in detentions in Xinjiang. The hard-line approach is driven by the party’s fear that devotion to the Muslim faith could lead to religious extremism and open defiance of its rule. Xi warned that the violence is spreading from Xinjiang into other parts of China and could taint the party’s image of strength.

The crackdown that began with the Uighurs in Xinjiang is now spreading to other regions. The party is now imposing new limitations on Islamic customs and practices across China. Authorities have closed mosques in the southern province of Yunnan and destroyed domes and minarets on mosques in Henan, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia, the homeland of China’s most significant Muslim ethnic minority, the Hui, as well as in Linxia, a city known as “Little Mecca.” The public use of the Arabic script has been banned.

Why are the Islamic countries silent on China’s ethnic cleansing?

Strangely the Islamic countries, including the OIC and other international Muslim forums, are quiet on this ethnic cleansing in Xinxiang province of China. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has feigned ignorance about the persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad termed China as a significant trading partner in September 2019 and added that they cannot do something that will cause suffering to them. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman also approved Beijing’s right to undertake “anti-terrorism” and “de-extremism” measures while talking to the state-owned CCTV.

To check the concerns in the Muslim world, China has used its economic clout via its global Belt and Road infrastructure program, loans, concessions and even defended some of these Muslim rogue states on international forums to buy their consent for the ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang. Therefore, Muslim countries have maintained a deafening silence. They have all turned a blind eye to the atrocities on the Uighur Muslims.

According to political observers, many Muslim countries are concerned about this, but they are afraid to speak and jeopardize investments worth billions of dollars from China.

Muslim countries are significant beneficiaries of China’s $200 billion Belt and Road infrastructure program. China is negotiating a trade deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Saudi Arabia is the most prominent member. The strategy is working well for China. The silence of these Muslim countries against the Uighur repression is alarming and shows how much they are dependent on Beijing for goodwill and support.

L'articolo Will the Muslim World Condemn China’s Persecution of Uighur Muslims? proviene da InsideOver.

The Nigerian Army has pledged to “strangulate” Boko Haram terrorists for good in the Northeast part of the country.

Brigadier General Abdul Khalifa Ibrahim, general commanding officer of the region, said last month that new military strategies will be aimed at “forcing [Boko Haram] to surrender”. This news came a week after the Second Republic Lawmaker, Mr Junaid Mohammed, declared the war against Boko Haram to be badly run by the Nigerian army.

“If officers and men don’t believe in the task of fighting insurgency or banditry, you cannot motivate them enough,” he said. “Secondly, if the morale is so low that soldiers went to the extreme extent of assaulting their officers, then you know there is something fundamentally wrong.

“The battle in the Northeast is not being won. The war must be fought, terrorism must be finished but it has not been finished. There is a fissile definition of fighting a terrorist organization: as long as they do not control any area, then they are finished. The Multi-National Joint Task Force has not addressed the issue and, if it has, it has not done it well.

“A lot of the problems we have, have their root not just in some banditry which somewhere springs up every day…We begin to see there has always been some lawlessness because this country is under policed, is under controlled by the army and other security services. The solution lies in one good, reasonable, reliable funding and provisioned government. Without that, there is nothing you can do.”

He emphasised that: “Politics have been completely commercialized and monetized and nobody sincerely believes in fighting the war against corruption. Indiscipline has become the norm”.

The UN Refugee Agency reported in February that Boko Haram attacks in the Northeast had left 35,000 Nigerians fleeing to Cameroon for refuge. There are now 240,000 Nigerian refugees in the Lake Chad Basin region of Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. 2 million Nigerians have been internally displaced from their home in the Northeast.

It is not clear what Islamic sector Boko Haram allegiances to, although Professor of Religious Studies, specializing in Islam, Dr David Cook of Rice University, has written that the terrorists’ use of suicide bombers is similar to tactics used by al-Shabab in Somalia and al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Nigeria’s Long-Standing History with Islam

Northern Nigeria’s relationship with Islam dates back at least 800 years. In 1999, Nigeria swore in its first democratically elected president, Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo, a Christian, broke a long succession of Northern Muslim military heads of states in post-independence Nigeria. The predominantly Muslim Northern states imposed Sharia Law to unite the formerly duelling Sufi and Salafi Muslims who feared the Christianization of Nigeria.

By the end of the 2010s, Nigeria’s Federal Government and army were at war with two opposing Islamic factions who also idealised Islamic domination.

Despite court rulings asking for the release of Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, President Muhammadu Buhari’s government continues to detain him, claiming that El-Zakzaky’s Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) aims to turn Nigeria into an Islamic State.

In a counter-affidavit filed against El-Zakzaky’s group, the IMN, the Nigerian Federal Government claimed:

“The IMN views itself as a government and Sheikh El-Zakzaky as the only legitimate source of authority in Nigeria, and it does not recognise the authority of the Nigerian government, and views its leaders both Muslims and Christians as corrupt and ungodly.

“That the Islamic Movement in Nigeria began with a Shia Muslim university activist, Ibrahim El- Zakzaky, who become so impressed with the 1979 Iranian Revolution that he wanted one at home (Nigeria).

“That later, El-Zakzaky went to Iran, ultimately becoming a Shia cleric.

“That after he returned home, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky formed the Islamic Movement of Nigeria and turned it into a vehicle for proselytising and gaining followers in the 1990s.

“That till date, Sheikh El-Zakzaky enjoys the support of Iran in all the activities of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, including an agenda to make Nigeria an Islamic state.

“That as a result of El-Zakzaky movement’s activities, many Muslim youths have converted to Shia Islam of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria.

“That the main aim of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria is to propagate the ideology in Iran and turn the country (Nigeria) into an Islamic state as was done in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.”

El-Zakzaky has, conversely, been championed by Shia Rights Watch. The advocacy group argues that El-Zakzaky is a victim of the government’s systematic anti-Shiistic discrimination. In a press release, it wrote:

“The brutal lack of justice against Shia Muslims in Nigeria brings the credibility of the State into question. Injustice is apparent in the prosecution of Zakzaky’s case as evidence is lacking and there is inconsistency within the governments judicial and executive actions,” and that “Nigeria is home to one of the fastest-growing populations of Shia Muslims in the African region. Despite the government’s attempts to thwart such growth, more Nigerian nationals have turned towards the religion. Discrimination against Shia Muslims has only made it clear that the Nigerian state thrives on inequality and injustice. Further, anti-Shiism has reduced the peoples trust towards their government.”

L'articolo Terrorism, Conflict and Violence in Islamic Northeastern Nigeria proviene da InsideOver.

According to a new report from the Washington Post, China is inching forward with an expansion into the Middle East. Gerry Shih traveled to Tajikistan, a country in the heart of Asia that borders Afghanistan, China, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. There, Shih documented first-hand evidence that the Chinese troops have moved into the region.

Expansionist moves by China should hardly come as a surprise now after it has asserted ownership of the South China Sea with more military bases and even worked its way into Africa by funding massive infrastructure projects across the continent. The military base in Tajikistan is different, however, from China’s past endeavors. Namely, it is only the second base it has created on foreign soil, following the opening of its Djibouti support base. Until the Djibouti expansion, the Chinese were more apt to spread influence only financially, with the occasional navy patrol in the South China Sea.

It appears that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA ) is now part of the Chinese economic package that it offers to would-be partners. While Chinese leadership insisted that the Djibouti location would be for nonmilitary activities, further analysis revealed heavy fortifications.

Djibouti offered the perfect cover for China to expand its military reach inconspicuously: many nations from around the globe have military bases in the Horn of Africa to ensure the smooth flow of trade and commerce. In choosing this location as its first overseas base, the Chinese government encountered little resistance. In return for giving land and permission for the military outpost, Djibouti received $1 billion, which it used for infrastructure projects like the Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway. Now that China has a foothold on the Indian Ocean, it can adapt and learn in preparation for opening more bases on the continent.

When Shih toured Tajikistan, he found it showered in Chinese money, much like Djibouti: power plants, hospitals, roads and railway lines, even schools. More than half of Tajikistan’s external debt is now owned by one Chinese state bank. He also found PLA soldiers, one who said he had been deployed there for a few years.

The Chinese government has remained mute about the matter, declining to comment about the troops stationed there. Tajikistan’s Foreign Ministry, however, declared there are “no People’s Republic of China military bases on the territory of the Republic of Tajikistan,” and not even “any talks whatsoever” to build such an establishment. The evidence is irrefutable now that the Chinese outpost does in fact exist, thanks to Shah’s groundwork reporting. The question now is what would interest China in Tajikistan?

It’s not so much Tajikistan that interests China, but rather the its neighbor, Afghanistan. The area of Tajikistan where the outpost is located borders the Wakhan Corridor. This panhandle valley in Afghanistan has served as a trade route for millennia, connecting China with the Middle East. On the Chinese end, the Wakhjir Pass provides the only access between Afghanistan and the Xinjiang province. On the Western side, the Borghil Pass connects Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Through the Wakhan Corridor, China is able to build on an ancient trade and retrofit it for President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative. This economic roadmap calls for strong regional cooperation with open trade routes. Partnerships between Asian and Middle Eastern governments are easier to form than it is to ensure security of the trade routes. As the U.S. continues to downscale its operations in Afghanistan, a power vacuum is left. Already some terrorist activity has spilled over into China’s eastern border. By establishing a military base near the Wakhan Corridor and Afghanistan, the Chinese have introduced a new military presence to the region. So the mission seems to be two-fold: securing trade lines and defending its border.

Recent peace talks between the Taliban and the Trump administration have proved fruitful and with peace possibly on the horizon, China is eager to grab a piece of the pie. Afghanistan has an abundance of minerals and is strategically-located, making it a suitable BRI partner. The political instability prevented that thus far, however. Now, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has announced that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization would create a “contact group” to help with the peace talks.

Undoubtedly China’s sudden interest in the region is self-interested and mainly designed to became the global dominant force over both the U.S. and Russia. This can have ramifications for both the Middle East and for U.S. – China relations. The next time the U.S. decides to invade the region, it will have to consider how such an action will impact its economic ties with Asia. Once it has built up the region, China will not be too keen to welcome the U.S. back.

There’s also the question of Russia allowing China to take up residence in a former Soviet state. Tajikistan used to be part of Uzbekistan. After a 2017 meeting with Russian researchers, China’s Development Research Center seemed to have determined the appropriate limits and appears to be sticking to that unwritten guidance. With both governments denying the existence of Chinese soldiers in the area, the asian giant seems to be treading cautiously. China’s methods are predominantly economics-oriented, after all.

China’s future in the region, and in Afghanistan in particular, hinges on peace talks with the Taliban. Should they be successful, there’s little doubt development money will pour through the Wakhan Corridor and possibly transform the region. That leaves only the matter of whether or not the people will be willing to accept China’s help. The region is overwhelming Islamic; even Tajikistan is over 96 per cent Muslim. This runs counter to the official, anti-religious policies of the Communist Party of China.

The government has recently faced criticism of its treatment of Uighur Muslims. Nearly 1 million are detained in what the government calls “vocational training schools.” Reports from within paint a different picture: poor living conditions, forced communist indoctrination, and physical and psychological abuse.

For a nation so set against religion and especially Islam, the region will pose a unique challenge of how China will handle the religious autonomy of its host states. With governments selling themselves to China for even basic services such as water and energy, it is reasonable to question what will happen once China decides to assert political control, which at the end of the day, is Beijing’s ultimate motive.

L'articolo China Makes Foray into Middle East with First Military Base proviene da InsideOver.

Beit Jala, West Bank –We are at gate leading to Bethlehem, and in this village of fifteen thousand inhabitants, rich with centuries-old olive trees and dry stone walls that depict a landscape not dissimilar to the Puglian hinterland of southern-Italy, there sits the oldest catholic school in Palestine: the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. These scholastic institutions make up part of the Patriarchate which comprises 44 schools in total: 13 in Palestine, of which 6 are located in Gaza, 6 in Israel and 25 in the West Bank, for around 20 thousand students in total. But not just for Christians. The one we visited Beit Jala, in the heart of the this Sacred Land, was founded in 1854.

“Here there are 900 students divided into 31 classes, from 4 to 18 years. At first the majority were Christians. Now we have many classes where Muslims are the majority,” says Suhail T. Daibes, the head teacher for the Patriarchate School of Beit Jala. “It isn’t just because the number of Christians in Palestine is in constant decline. It is also because many Muslim families choose for their children to study here, rather than send them to government schools.”

Another teacher, Suhail is convinced of this fact: only education can stop the disappearance of Christianity. Christian Palestinians are generally more wealthy than Muslims and have a lifestyle more similar to those in the West. “Because of this the majority choose to emigrate. Christians are more individualistic. We suffer greatly from limitations to our freedom, with the ground around us seeming less every day, with Palestine becoming more and more like an open-air prison. You must understand also that with the barrier it is difficult even to go and pray freely at our sacred sites in Jerusalem. Because of all this, it is simply easier to just leave. I, in contrast, am certain that I must remain. To resist. This school is the only thing that permits me to do so, because it teaches you to persist in the struggle to find a path of dialogue, and not one of fundamentalism and closed-mindedness, which would serve to purpose.”

For this reason, it has always been the Schools of the Patriarchate that have been open even to Muslims and Druzes. Today we have schools, like Nablus for example where out of 615 students only 71 are Christians. “The  Christian children don’t have to attend school only with other Christians. They must study as part of a mix, which is representative of outside society. Otherwise, when they graduate from this school, they will confronted by a different reality, it will trigger in them the desire to emigrate, or perhaps to embrace some sect of fundamentalism,” implores the teacher.

However, if we also have government schools, and those run by UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees in Palestine, why would a Palestinian family choose to send their children to a Christian school? “It is because of the quality of education that they receive here. It is very strict, but at the same time allows for the children to play and have fun. Here you will rarely see problems between the Christians and Muslims, because from a young age they are taught constantly to respect the beliefs and traditions of everyone.”

The right to be respected, however, according to Suhail, is to have a clear identity. “If my identity is strong, if I do not waiver in my identity, they will feel encouraged to respect my rules, from the moment they enter my space. In response, I will try to do the same for them.” To make it easier for us to understand, the teacher, who is very familiar with Italy, gave us an example we could understand: “I heard that there is an ongoing debate on whether or not to keep crucifixes in classrooms. I find this absurd. You are a secular country, but still you have a tradition of Christianity, and must fight to defend it. Otherwise, you risk losing your history. Take my school for example. Here we have at least half of the students being Muslim. Still, everyone came to class today. Do you know why? Because we celebrate Christmas. No Muslims are subject to being left out because it is not a festival of their faith. The Christmas spirit here involves everyone, Christian and Muslim children alike, to whom we have taught to exchange gifts among themselves. What is important however is not just to give, but to receive. Everyone participates in singing Christmas carols, even their Muslim parents. Together with their children, and together with us. We do not have to change just because they are the majority. They have knocked at my door, and I have welcomed them in: my school is honoured to accommodate all of them. However they can’t dictate the laws under my own roof. They can’t do it even here, where Christians has come to represent only 1% of the Palestinian population. Remember your history, because you should not give up on your beliefs and traditions in Europe.

L'articolo The Cohabitation of Christians and Muslims Living in Palestine proviene da InsideOver.