Saudi-Petro Dollars Hit Australia Like A Boomerang

Australian universities become a mecca with their call to prayer

Hat tip: Mullah

Providing facilities such as prayer rooms have seen a 231 per cent increase in the number of students from Saudi Arabia studying in Australia. Another 2000 are expected to arrive in the coming months.

* Sure. But what about Middle Eastern studies? Is there even ONE university in the country that teaches anything about Islamic conquest, dhimmitude, slavery under Islam, about the Janissaries, the Devshirme? If not, why not?

For Sarah Smiles from The Age its all good:

*
FOR Wafaa Jan, a student from Mecca in Saudi Arabia, one of the hardest things about adjusting to life in Melbourne was the absence of the call to prayer.

“It was difficult for me to change to this environment,” says Ms Jan. “In the holy city, we should pray five times a day. The call for prayer, you hear this sound,” she says of the cry of the muezzin that echoes from mosques across Mecca, home to Islam’s holiest shrine.

Ms Jan, who is studying for a PhD in philosophy at La Trobe University, is one of thousands of Saudi Arabian students who have chosen to study in Australia in recent years.

Since the September 11 attacks it has become harder for Saudi students to either get or renew visas to the US, says Saudi ambassador Hassan Nazer.

Many Arab students have simply felt uncomfortable travelling to the US, fearing anti-Arab sentiment there.

* All he more reason to make them comfy Downunder, right Sarah?

“After what happened politically, I didn’t want to go (to the US),” says Najia Al-Ghandi, 28, a mother of two from Riyadh, who is studying for a PhD at Monash University. “Because I was travelling with my family I needed to make sure I was coming to a safe place, so I chose Australia.”

Australia has replaced the US as the most popular overseas destination for Saudi students, says ambassador Nazer. It is also attracting higher student numbers from other Middle Eastern countries and Iran, figures from the Department of Education, Science and Training show.

Ambassador Nazer says there are 6974 Saudi students and their families living in Australia, a 231 per cent increase from 2005-06.

The embassy is expecting another 2000 to arrive in the coming months, and is considering building new education offices to support them.

Australia is popular partly because of good reports from students here flowing back to Saudi, he says.

The standard of education is high and universities have been supportive in providing prayer and ablution rooms.

“We have a mosque inside the university, so I’ve never felt that I need to go back home to pray and then go back to university,” Ms Jan says.

Australian universities have been actively reaching out to Arab students.

* ‘Reaching out’ is what its all about. All we are saying: give moonbat-mania a chance…

Adjunct Professor Charles Mott, a former diplomat who promotes La Trobe’s international relations, has made trips to the Gulf. The university recently hosted senior Saudi higher education officials.

* Once yer hooked you’re cooked…

The market is worth millions to the universities each year. Saudi students have access to a billion-dollar education fund sponsored by the Saudi royal family.

* A June Australian Strategic Policy Institute report raised concerns that potential terrorists could enter Australia with the increase in foreign students.

Link: Students suspected of spying for Iran

Professor Mott dismisses the concerns.

“Our experience with Arab students and wider Muslim students coming here has been very good,” he says. “You have to have in mind, for many coming to a country like this, it represents a substantial cultural change … these students have fitted in very well.”

Ambassador Nazer says education is vital “if you want, really, to build relations and understand each other’s culture”. He notes that before 2005, Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Australia revolved solely around trade. “This never builds relationships,” he says.

* Nazer wants his cult, the cult of Islam to dominate Australia. For him, trade is not good enough. By ‘relationsships’ he means jihad conquest and the infidels pay the jiziyah…

Ms Jan has come to love Melbourne, its cafes, libraries and river.

She has occasionally been taunted because she wears the veil, but points out this is only a few individuals — not the majority of Australians.

“We take this experience (of being taunted) — these are individuals. Mostly, we feel safe and happy,” she says. “This is a great chance for me to study in a developed country.”

* Interesting. Saudi Arabia, the wealthiest Arab nation, a nation that received more than ten trillion dollars since the seventies, the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, is not a ‘developed country?’ Why is that, any idea?

More…

*

IslamOnline: “Indiana wudu basins spark controversy”

Putting sinks on public property would be “unconstitutional, given that their primary purpose is to serve Muslims,” Bishop Jerry Hillenburg of the Hope Baptist Church on the Far West said in a letter to Mayor of Indiana Bart Peterson.

Islam Online blames ‘Islamophobes’

*

Canada: Muslim inmate wins $2,000 for bacon on his plate

He couldn’t just not eat it. It had to not be there. And now the Canadian prison system will pay for its sin against multiculturalism. “Prison fries for serving bacon,” by Tom Godfrey for the Toronto Sun via DW

A Muslim inmate has won $2,000 and a partial human rights victory over a Correctional Service of Canada policy not to replace bacon with a halal diet for Islam-worshipping cons.
Duane David, who is serving time in Kingston’s Joyceville Institution for an unknown crime, had complained to the Canadian Human Rights Commission that his rights were being violated as the prison failed to offer a halal replacement for bacon served to inmates with breakfast every Wednesday.