Borubodor an islamic building

Jakarta. An obscure group led by an academic from a respected Islamic university in Indonesia is reportedly set to petition the Constitutional Court to declare that the Borobudur Temple in Central Java belongs to Islam.

Kompasiana.com reported that researchers from the Islam and Ancient History Study Institution, led by Fahmi Basya, an Islamic mathematics lecturer from Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University in Jakarta, claimed they had solid proof the Buddhist temple was built by the Prophet Solomon’s “genie soldiers.”

Solomon, who according to the Hebrew Bible was a king of Israel, is known as the prophet Sulayman in the Koran.

According to the article, the researchers had connected Borobudur with the Kraton Ratu Boko (Queen Boko’s Palace) near the Hindu temple Prambanan in Central Java, claiming that Boko was actually another name for Queen Balqis, the wife of Sulayman.

The researchers, according to the news portal, said supporting evidence included new Islamic mathematical measurements created by Fahmi, which were known only to him.

Another method used by the researchers to connect Borobudur to Islam was by the association of names.

The origins of the name Slemen, a town in Yogyakarta, they said, came from Sulayman, while ‘Java’ came from the word ‘Jews.’

Fahmi also claimed that Sulayman was the only prophet whose name contained the syllable ‘Su’ and therefore the country in which he resided was later led by his descendants with names containing the same syllable, namely Sukarno, Suharto and Susilo.

Fahmi, who could not be reached for comment, intends to put forward his arguments as the basis for his claims that the Constitutional Court declare the World Heritage Site the rightful property of Muslims and revise history books and literature on the subject.

Historian JJ Rijal told the Jakarta Globe that Fahmi’s claims could be categorized as “ideological history.”

“Ideological history takes many forms. For example, in Indonesia, researchers who follow the ideology believe that Islam is the blood, the locomotive to all great events in the country,” Rijal said.

He said Sulayman was not the only prophet connected to Java.

“When Islam was first introduced to Java, a tradition was born. All prophets were linked to Java. Royal families’s genealogical trees would show that their ancestors were the Prophet Adam, even the Prophet Muhammad and now, Sulayman,” Rijal said.

Jakarta Globe

Race outcry in Germany

Bundesbank executive provokes race outcry with book

Merkel leads calls for Thilo Sarrazin to be sacked over remarks about migrants being 'unfit or unwilling to integrated' into society

• Kate Connolly in Berlin
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 August 2010 21.18 BST
• Article history

Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin is facing calls to quit. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has called for the dismissal from the central bank of a prominent board member who has repeatedly said that Muslim immigrants in Germany are unfit and unwilling to integrate into society.
The Bundesbank said that comments made by Thilo Sarrazin in a highly publicised new book were harmful to the bank and violated its code of conduct. It said it would meet with the banker before deciding about his future.
Sarrazin has unleashed an impassioned debate about Germany's immigrant population by saying that the behaviour of its members is putting the country under threat.
His thesis, set out in a book published today , has stoked the wrath of politicians, and Muslim and Jewish groups, and led to calls for his dismissal from his €230,000 a year (£188,000) Bundesbank post and from the Social Democratic party (SPD).
Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that Sarrazin's remarks had "clearly damaged the national and international standing of the bank" and managers should consider his future.
But Sarrazin has received the backing of others who say the former politician is merely outlining issues and concerns about integration that have remained taboo for too long.
In Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab, or Germany is Digging its Own Grave, Sarrazin argues that most of the country's immigrants cannot be integrated into society and contribute nothing to it.
He also blames foreigners – mainly Germany's Muslim population – for "dumbing down" society. He says that the rate at which Muslim women are reproducing means that Germans may soon become "strangers in their own country".
The book is already a bestseller and has prompted comparisons to Geert Wilders, the head of the Dutch far-right Freedom party.
The former Berlin finance senator said he wrote the book to outline his own fears that his grandchildren will grow up in a country where "their lives are measured out by the muezzin's calls to prayer".
At the book's Berlin launchtoday he rejected accusations that he was encouraging xenophobia and racism.
"I invite everyone to find discrepancies in my theories," he said. "It's an uncomfortable discussion, but to solve problems we have to first recognise them."
Outside the press conference a group of demonstrators protested against the book under the banner "Stop rightwing populism". Merkel made a rare intervention in the row, delivering a stern criticism of the book.
In an interview on the state broadcaster ARD, she called Sarrazin's statements "totally unacceptable" and "discriminatory – they show contempt towards entire groups in society". She added that Sarrazin was hindering integration efforts and "complicating the way in which these issues are discussed … the style and manner in which this is being discussed here is divisive for society."
Merkel hinted at her impatience with the Bundesbank's slowness in making a statement on the issue, saying that as the country's "calling card", the bank had to react.
There was pressure today on the Bundesbank to dismiss Sarrazin. Its president, Axel Weber, was due to make a statement following his return from the meeting of the world's central bank chiefs at Jackson Hole in Wyoming.
The leadership of the SPD was preparing to review Sarrazin's membershiptoday after the party leader, Sigmar Gabriel, said: "I don't know where he belongs in our party any more."
But Sarrazin said he would refuse to hand over his party membership book, which he insisted he would "take with me to the grave". He added: "I am the member of a people's party and will remain a member of this party, because I believe that this is precisely where these themes belong."
Meanwhile, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews told the author that he would be better suited to the far-right National Democratic party following Sarrazin's statement that "all Jews shared the same gene", like Basques.
Among those who defended Sarrazin was Peter Gauweiler, of the Christian Social Union. He said it was good for Germany to be having the debate, adding that Sarrazin's critics were in danger of "appearing to want to stifle the ability of someone who thinks differently from them from speaking the truth". The Turkish-German writer and sociologist Necla Kelek, who was at Sarrazin's side when he presented his book to the public, said the banker was doing Germany a service and that he shared his concerns about the country's future. "(He) is calling on us Muslims to reflect on the role we play in Germany," Kelek said. "To accuse him of racism is absurd, because Islam is not a race, but a culture and a religion.

From the book

"Muslim immigration is connected more strongly than any other with welfare state dependency and criminality."
"With no other religion is there such a fluid connection between violence, dictatorship and terrorism as there is with Islam."
"Boys are taught an exaggerated idea of the readiness to be violent … for the sake of 'honour'. Young men take this role all the more seriously the less successful they are in the school system – where their performance is still much worse than that of Muslim girls."
"In Berlin 20% of all acts of violence are carried out by only 1,000 Turkish and Arabic youths, a population group that makes up just 0.3% of the entire Berlin population."
"A measure of a willingness to integrate is the attitude towards marriage, which steers the speed at which a society comes together … In this regard things are looking bad, because only 3% of young men and 8% of young women with a Turkish migrant background marry Germans partner. Among Russians of German descent the figure, by contrast, is 67%."
"The proportion of congenital disabilities is way above average among Turkish and Kurdish migrants. However, the topic is hushed up." It doesn't take much to think that hereditary factors might be responsible for the failure of some of the Turkish population in the German school system."

Turkish Germans targetted

The Turkish Germans to whom these racist comments mean little

Thilo Sarrazin's chitchat has nothing to do with their lives. And that's why they feel neither disgusted or insulted

• 
• • Deniz Yücel
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 September 2010 14.00 BST
  • Article history

Who is central bank executive Thilo Sarrazin talking about when he accuses migrants from Islamic countries of unwillingness to integrate? Surely he can't mean my sister Ilkay, who celebrates Christmas every year. She's not religious, but she thinks that her two daughters could feel disadvantaged if they didn't get any Christmas presents. He can't be talking about my colleague Yasemin, who works for the public television channel NDR. During the World Cup, she dressed in German colours and didn't miss a single match to support her favourite team. And he definitely can't mean my friend Helin, who is just finishing her PhD about women's rights in Turkey. Every time she returns from a foreign country she remarks how much she approves of the cleanliness in this country and feels very "German".
Countless people like them live in Germany. Some call themselves Muslim, some don't. But most of them wouldn't call themselves "well integrated". They never ask themselves this question. And a few of them don't even want to be "integrated" – not because they are Turkish or Muslim but because they don't want to be part of the mainstream, for reasons of politics or lifestyle.
Sarrazin's chitchat has nothing to do with their lives. And that's why they feel neither disgusted or insulted, as the Turkish-nationalist daily Hürriyet (for example) is stating. If there is a reason for getting angry, it is the way the public discusses Sarrazin's thesis over intelligence, heredity and migration: the mass media is filling pages with passages of his book and trying to check if Turkish people are really more stupid or if Jews have a specific genetic code. A second reason for getting angry is the support Sarrazin will receive among public opinion.
So will Sarrazin's intervention, as many politicians or journalists warn, lead us to separate ourselves from German society? Of course not. We are part of this country, whether he likes it or not. And even whether we like it or not.
It's not the first time we've realised that it is hard for a part of German society to accept us. We're tired of explaining ourselves and being the objects of a problem-discourse which goes from A (for al-Qaida) to Z ("Zwangsheirat", or forced marriage). It makes no difference if people – including people who feel liberal – ask me: "Is your religion really so violent?" (It depends on the interpretation. But first of all: I have no religion.) Or if they say: "I don't mean you when I'm talking about problems with migrants, you're different." (Not really. We're all different.) But we are accustomed to this kind of talk.
Sarrazin's intervention is not evidence that Germany hasn't changed. But to the extent that German politics, and conservatives, accept the fact of immigration, a new gap is emerging in rightwing politics. It's a gap that somebody like Sarrazin – who appeals to a middle class that fears the loss of familiar privileges – fills. This discussion plays into the hands of the self-appointed representatives of the Turkish community: people who are interested in trivialising their problems – the relationship between education, class membership and Islamic background, for instance. These self-appointed spokesmen will find it easy to answer their critics with a new riposte: "Stop Sarrazining!" It will do nothing to illuminate the problems faced by some in the Turkish community – not Ilkay, Yasemin or Helin – but too many others.
Guardian UK

Racist Comment on Islam

Germany's central bank decides to sack board member

Bundesbank to ask German president to dismiss Thilo Sarrazin over comments on country's Muslim population

• Kate Connolly in Berlin
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 September 2010 16.31 BST
• Article history

Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

Germany's central bank today took the unprecedented step of sacking a board member after he repeatedly criticised the country's Muslim population and said "all Jews share the same gene".
In a brief statement, the Bundesbank president, Axel Weber, and four other board members said that they had been in unanimous agreement in dismissing Thilo Sarrazin, who caused an outcry when he said Muslims were sapping Germany's intellectual and economic strength.
The board's decision, taken at an extraordinary meeting, is the first such in the institution's 50-year history. All that remains is for the German president, Christian Wulff, to sanction the dismissal of Sarrazin, according to the bank's rules. Wulff has signalled he will do so, calling Sarrazin's remarks damaging to Germany's international reputation.
Sarrazin has written a book, Germany Is Destroying Itself, published this week, which unleashed a scandal and led to calls for his resignation from the Social Democratic party as well as the bank.
His widely publicised remarks have been compared with those of the Dutch populist Geert Wilders. Sarrazin said Germany's economic strength as well as intelligence were undermined by immigration from Muslim countries and the higher fertility rate of such immigrants. He told the Welt am Sonntag paper: "All Jews share a particular gene, Basques share a certain gene that sets them apart."
Sarrazin, a former finance minister for the state of Berlin, is descended from Huguenots, French Protestants who found refuge in Germany and elsewhere from Catholic persecution in the 17th century.
Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this week described his remarks as "completely unacceptable" and in danger of causing division. Germany is home to about four million Muslims, most of Turkish origin, and about 280,000 Arabs.
Among Sarrazin's statements is his concern that Germany is being changed beyond recognition by its immigrant population and what he says is its unwillingness and unsuitability to integrate.
"I don't want my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to live in a mostly Muslim country where Turkish and Arabic are widely spoken, women wear headscarves and the day is measured out by the muezzin's call to prayer," he said.
His remarks have been condemned by almost every political figure in Germany, as well as Muslim, Jewish and Christian groups. At the same time they have received the backing of far-right groups such as the National Democratic party, as well as a substantial portion of television viewers and radio listeners, who praise Sarrazin for having the courage to address issues that are largely taboo.
Ralph Giordano, a German-Jewish writer, said Sarrazin's arguments should be given more consideration: "It's so typical of the multicultural media that we have to get worked up over how he addresses the issues, instead of what he's saying."
Even those who condemn his remarks strike a word of caution over his ostracism. Manfred Güllner, head of the polling institute Forsa, said that if Sarrazin were stripped of his Social Democratic party membership as well as his Bundesbank job, it might have the effect of "mobilising the far right", which has an estimated untapped voter potential of 10-14%.
The banker sticks by his views, though admitting this week the psychological pressure of criticism is hard to bear. He said he could not be thought racist, because of his mixed background with ancestors who had been model immigrants.
In an interview with a German newspaper, he said: "I am myself a European mongrel. On my father's side, the family is descended from Huguenots from Lyon. I have an English grandmother, somewhere or another an Italian great-great-grandmother; and you can see from my Slavic cheekbones that my mother comes from West Prussia ... My name is derived from the Arab pirates called Saracens in the Middle Ages. As a young man ... I looked more Turkish than many Turks."
Guardian UK

Unconscionable Act

THE board of directors and top management of state-run Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) should resign out of respect for the Filipino people. It’s a clear case of a lack of delicadeza when you reward yourself with so much perks even though half of your constituency suffers from the lack of a basic necessity you are supposed to provide.

The last time we checked the MWSS was still in charge of ensuring Metro Manila has ready access to potable water and sewerage services.

The findings of an ongoing Senate Committee on Finance investigation on perks of government -owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) are enough to make us boil (no pun intended)—and for that we laud the committee’s assiduous efforts.

In the case of the MWSS, its top management rewarded itself and all other employees 25 months’ worth of bonuses, including incentives supposedly arising from their presumably good performance.

Talk about organized skimming. With everyone in the organization happy, who’s to complain, the MWSS top brass perhaps thought when they decided on the perks.

This is no different from corruption in line agencies, in which everyone’s pockets—from the lowly clerk to the head honcho—is lined with grease money to facilitate a transaction.

While the second is illegal, the first is unconscionable.

The million-peso question is, if half of Metro Manila didn’t have reliable access to potable water a few months ago, then shouldn’t this reflect not only on the performance of the concession-holder, but ultimately on the record of the MWSS, which owns the concession?

If, as the MWSS insists, the concession-holder is a mere agent, then shouldn’t the agency as the principal be responsible for the water crisis of a few months ago?

But as far as the MWSS top brass is concerned, they earn their keep when the agency stayed afloat at the height of the worst global financial crisis in decades.

True, the agency has its own charter, and may well do as it pleases when it comes to rewarding its personnel. But where is their sense of proportion amid the national government’s fiscal straits?

Moreover, the MWSS remains a public service, and so the barometer of success should not be limited to financial performance.

In their case, it’s as clear as daylight: Half of Metro Manila had difficulty securing potable water a few months ago.

The concession-holder of the West zone incurred 50 percent non-revenue water. This means that for every liter of billed water, the company—Maynilad Water Services Inc.—was losing an equal amount in unbilled water.

This is water, and foregone revenue, down the drain.

This is why we took Maynilad to task for its poor performance in this same space.

And this is why shouldn’t stop at the company’s doors, and take the matter to MWSS.

In fact, we shouldn’t even stop there. Amid the callous, self-serving actuations of that sorry excuse for a public service agency, we should bring this matter before the President.

Especially since no amount of expose apparently has moved the MWSS top brass to do a Magtibay (with apologies to the relieved police senior superintendent).

As the Senate committee chair said, it’s your move, Mr. President. We expect heads to roll in a matter involving a serious breach of morals.

what the other papers say

Wrong targets for our understandable anger
Leader (editorial) of the August 25 issue of the foremost Hong Kong newspaper in English, the South China Morning Post.

There is understandable anger in Hong Kong towards the police tactical response team in Manila. Its efforts to end the hostage-taking appeared farcical, a matter addressed with palpable hostility by tens of thousands of people on Internet social networking sites such as Facebook. Displeasure has also been directed towards the Philippine government, which was seen as doing a poor job at being available when it was needed most.

But what is not comprehensible is why people have vented their frustrations on Filipinos. They’ve done nothing wrong, after all. The actions of a unit of police commandos was not their doing. Tarring them with the same brush of incompetence isn’t right.

Such behavior towards them smacks of racism. A tinge of that is on show in the government’s response to the tragedy. It has issued its highest travel alert for those thinking of going to the Philippines. Based on a single isolated incident, it has determined that a severe threat exists and that all travel should be avoided. The only other countries on the alert list—Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia and Thailand—are ranked two levels lower, with travelers being advised to “exercise caution.”

The response is knee-jerk, but punishes Filipinos as a race for an incident that they had nothing to do with. Travel bans are for safety, not political retribution. Similarly, anger at Philippine president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino maybe understandable, but he doesn’t deserve the abuse being hurled at him in blog postings or on placards like one carried at a protest outside the Philippine Consulate General yesterday reading, “Cold-blooded Aquino - Go to hell.”

Statements tike this are not rational or reasonable. All they do is stir needless hatred.

Passions are running high, and that is to be expected. Questions abound and we want answers. But the 150,000 Filipinos who live among us in Hong Kong and the untold millions in the Philippines who rely on our business and tourism dollars cannot provide what we want to know. They are as much innocent bystanders to the tragedy as we are and deserve to be treated as such.