Pakistan prepares to enact law to

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Quetta, Pakistan -- On a break from their studies, students of the Shaldara Madrassa, one of Pakistan's thousands of religious seminaries, kick a battered soccer ball around the school's grimy courtyard.

 

Every so often, one of their turbaned instructors jumps into the game for a few seconds of respite from a brewing confrontation with President Pervez Musharraf's government over a new draft law that would closely regulate the religious schools, or madrassas, for the first time in this country's history.

 

"Whatever we teach in our schools should be up to us. These are private institutions, and we know what we are doing," argued Shaldara's director, Maulana Noor Muhammad. "For generations we have educated young men to become good members of the society, and no government has any right to interfere."

 

Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has named Shaldara, home to 1,000 students ages 7-22 years old, as one of dozens of madrassas in southwestern Baluchistan province that are thought to be sheltering Taliban fugitives. Western officials also accuse the schools of promoting violent forms of jihad (holy war) and harboring al Qaeda members waging war against Karzai's government and U.S.-led forces.

 

For over a year, Musharraf's government has debated, consulted and rewritten a law that would heavily regulate the madrassas. Despite fierce opposition from clerics across Pakistan, analysts say the legislation is certain to become law by the end of the year -- enacted either by the parliament or by direct decree of the president or the Education Ministry.

 

Madrassas will be required to register with the government, submit to audits, maintain their financial accounts at government-approved banking institutions and revamp their curricula, which today focus nearly exclusively on rote memory of the Koran and the teaching of Islamic law.

 

Schools willing to adopt new curricula, including subjects like history, science and foreign languages, will receive government subsidies while clerics who defy the law will face penalties of up to two years in prison.

 

In an attempt to filter disruptive elements, foreigners will be banned as students or staff unless they can produce "no objection" certificates from the governments of both their home country and Pakistan.

 

"There is no doubt that the U.S. and European powers are behind Musharraf, and now he has an excuse to try and destroy us," said Noor Muhammad, a ranking member of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), one of Pakistan's most powerful religious parties and one fiercely critical of Musharraf's war-on- terror policies.

 

Hundreds of thousands of students have graduated from Pakistan's estimated 10,000 madrassas over the last two decades. While most went on to become clerics, scholars or experts in Islamic law, others were swept up by the hard-line militancy that flourished in the system starting with the Soviet occupation of next door Afghanistan during the 1980s.

 

Aided by the military government of Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq and operational funding from the CIA, the madrassas became the training ground for the mujahedeen warriors fighting the Russians, and thousands of young Muslims flocked to the schools from across the globe.

 

After the Soviet withdrawal, Western interest waned. But the schools soldiered on, producing graduates who would become leaders of the Taliban movement and swell the ranks of those fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

 

Musharraf has repeatedly chastised the seminaries for perpetuating a "Kalashnikov culture" and failing to prepare their students for life in a modern, technology-driven world.

 

"They accuse us of promoting violence. I challenge the government to prove it," said Noor Muhammad, sitting at a small table flanked by wall calendars featuring pictures of AK-47 assault rifles and burning American flags.

 

"How can teaching our students the truth about atrocities committed against other human beings and their duty to act against it qualify?"

 

The madrassas are more than a breeding ground for holy war.

 

Part of an ancient and proud tradition, they have operated in Pakistan for hundreds of years, playing a pivotal role in this poverty-racked nation's social welfare system by sheltering more than 700,000 poor, homeless or orphaned children. Most are run on shoestring budgets, dependent on community donations and sponsorship to provide a rudimentary education.

 

In a land where the illiteracy rate hovers at about 50 percent, the madrassas' contributions are not to be taken lightly.

 

Some school operators agree with Musharraf's reforms. Ali Mohammad Abu Turab, head of the 900-student strong Salfia Madrassa on the outskirts of Quetta, says the new law is a blessing.

 

"Standardizing and upgrading the system is long overdue," he said. "The world is advancing so quickly that our graduates simply cannot compete in the job markets."

 

In a small windowless room containing three beat-up, old desktop computers, Salfia instructors struggle to teach students the basics of e-mail usage and the Internet. Books for the English courses are so worn that the print is fading on many of the pages.

 

"We could use and welcome the government's help," said Turab. "We know many others are against the new laws and that is their affair. But we will try to convince them of the benefits to their students."

 

It will likely remain a hard sell. Many of Pakistan's conservative clerics consider Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terror to be treachery in support of plans by Western governments to control the Muslim world.

 

The fact that Musharraf first floated the notion of madrassa regulation in the summer of 2000 -- well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- means little to his foes.

 

"We will resist, as we have resisted since the day Pakistan was born," vowed Noor Muhammad. "Even if Musharraf moves forward with his guns and powerful friends, he will never succeed. He can take away our buildings, our schools, but he can't take away our spirit. We'll teach on the streets if we have to."

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...MNG073LPRI1.DTL

 

I think it's pretty obvious that the schools like these should go. The guy who claimed he was peaceful while surrounded with gun paraphenalia was the second greatest thing this year next to the Iraqi Information Minister.