GHS208-01 Spring 2020 China and the Islamic Middle East

I think that the title of this post says it all, but I will go into some more depth. The Covid-19 outbreak has obviously put religious people all over the world into quite the bind, as services in most places of worship are no longer being held with some services being moved to online platforms etc. I wrote on a previous post about Muslims being faced with the most difficult decision about closing, being that we are very close to Ramadan, but most mosques are doing the responsible thing and closing. However, in Pakistan, there is a rift; a large disagreement between the government and the religious officials running the mosques. The article from Al Jazeera details it all, many mosques across Pakistan have decided that they would rather remain open despite the advice of all of the social distancing guidelines and orders from their own government. “[Lockdowns are] not the answer to these problems,” Aziz had told Al Jazeera. “We believe the people should not be made to fear things right now, they should have faith in God at this time, and to place their hope in him … If death is written for you, then it will come”. Pakistan has seen more than 7,000 cases thus far, but in my opinion, if mosques remain open with or without any social distancing protocols, that number will skyrocket in the coming weeks.

On an earlier post I had discussed India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and his support of radical ideas that would tear the nation apart on religious grounds. He as well as many of his staff and many people throughout India believe that India should be a nation with only one religion and Muslims do not belong. However, it has been difficult to find something to pin on them to justify their harsh policies. With Covid-19 they have found the answer they were looking for. This New York Times article details exactly what has been happening lately with the anti-Muslim sentiment in India. Muslims have been being beaten and discriminated against all across India. Hate has been sprouting up all over the internet, and a “wave of apparently fake videos” have been coming up all over the internet, “telling Muslims not to wear masks, not to practice social distancing, not to worry about the virus at all, as if the makers of the videos wanted Muslims to get sick”. All of these things are happening because of the already brimming hate of Muslims that the Indian government has allowed to happen, and, “After India’s health ministry repeatedly blamed an Islamic seminary for spreading the coronavirus — and governing party officials spoke of “human bombs” and “corona jihad” — a spree of anti-Muslim attacks has broken out across the country”. Now with this global pandemic sweeping across India and the rest of the world, the people in India that believe Muslims should not be there finally have their excuse to beat them and drive them out of the country, and that is absolutely despicable.

Although Olympic officials insist that the coronavirus will not disrupt this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo, the virus is already threatening to keep some Chinese athletes out of competition. The gymnastics World Cup is in Melbourne this week and China is not sending anyone, which may jeopardize two athletes’ spots in Tokyo. In addition, the women’s handball team withdrew from next month’s Olympic Qualification Tournament. Also the men’s water polo team waits on a decision to see if they will be able to compete in next month’s Olympic qualifying tournament. The Asian championships were originally scheduled for last week in Kazakhstan but were canceled due to the virus. 

Quarantine in parts of China has caused some Chinese athletes, who were hoping to attend the Olympics, have their training disrupted. Even athletes that did not have their training disrupted are having challenges getting to competitions since many counties, including the United States, have temporarily barred entry to non-citizens who have been in China. There are several Chinese teams and athletes that have already qualified and secured their places to compete in the Tokyo Olympics. But other athlete’s hopes for attending the Olympics this summer are determined by qualifying competitions yet to take place. The qualifying events have been scheduled for months, but with the Olympics only five months away and experts unable to predict how long the coronavirus outbreak will last, the international sports federation and Tokyo organizers are put in a tough spot. They have promised that the Summer Olympics will go on as planned, but for some Chinese athletes that may not be able to get to the competitions to qualify, that will be little consolation. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2020/02/19/coronavirus-puts-tokyo-olympics-jeopardy-some-chinese-athletes/4809513002/

Today, I did a Zoom class with the level 1 and level 2 ESL students that I originally worked with in-person before the COVID-19 abruptly changed those plans. However, it was great to see all the students again over Zoom! I miss being present in class with the students and helping live, but lesson delivery was effective via Zoom for these students. The head teacher was very creative in her lesson planning to make it engaging for students yet practical in that the delivery was understood despite it not being in-person. She used a variety of fruits and vegetables and demonstrated ways to prepare them. For example, she took a potato and peeled it. She showed on camera how you could use a peeler or a knife, make your slices thin or thick, and then used a pan to cook the potato. This helped students work on vocabulary with the types of food as well as the different tools used to prepare the food. Additionally, it helped students work on effective communication by using descriptors to describe how the food was being prepared as well as what each food looked like.

I learned that teaching those new to the English language with pictures and live demonstration tools is very helpful. When I conduct virtual tutoring over the phone, the students’ English skills are much more advanced than those students I engaged with today via Zoom. With the level 1 and level 2 students, this phone tutoring would not be effective. It is important to utilize creative teaching skills when delivering material to new English language learners. In our class, we discussed the need for being curious and constantly trying to find new ways to try things. This was indicated to me through the first Zoom session with the ESL students.

Despite there being a learning barrier and COVID-19 making it more difficult, it is important to stick to my commitment and help members of my community. Engaging with the class via Zoom teaches me skills like perseverance as well as creativity. Creativity is important because the students struggle to learn English without the proper teaching tools being utilized.

Today, I tutored two English language learning students over the phone. We discussed chapter five in their ESL textbook. Chapter five was about the government and the economy, rule of law, federal and state government, and The Constitution. The exercises included helped the student develop vocabulary, grammar, and civics skills. We also did discussion and debate as part of the lesson.

In Cairo House, a major theme is where does Gigi feel like she fits in. On page 149, Serageldin writes, “where do I [Gigi] belong? Where is the chameleon’s natural habitat?” In the discussion and debate components of the lesson, I frequently hear this same idea echoed through what the students share about navigating their lives in the United States. In some of the countries the students come from, the government is very different. Some students prefer elements of their government in their native country compared to the United States. Some students really miss their native country and left important memories or family back in their native country. While the students are actively trying to become citizens in the United States and adopt a new national identity, they do not erase where they came from. I see a lot of parallels between Gigi’s story and the story of the students trying to understand and adopt a new identity while still maintaining an identity in his/her native country.

I understand more through working with diverse students the difficulty of meshing multiple community groups. Despite it sometimes being difficult, it is important to integrate one community group with another because diversity helps in many different areas of life. It is important for me to be respectful and understanding during these conversations. I do this out of respect for the students, but I also want to listen to understand the cultures and communities of others in order to help make myself more educated.

With my environmental philosophy class continuing our unit on climate change and possibly solutions, I have continuously noticed many connections to some of the themes and discussions that have been focused on in this class. Just the other day in my philosophy class we discussed a paper that argued for a one child policy. The basis of the argument was that having multiple children was not necessary to lead a happy and fulfilling life, and that having more than one child would infringe on other people’s right to have a happy life. It has been statistically proven that having one less child is the best way to reduce carbon emissions, and its miles ahead of the second best thing (living without a car). I found this argument very persuading and there were a lot of different aspects of the argument that I found very interesting. The author of the paper mentioned things like tax breaks for families that only had one child and various other economic factors similar to that. After reading through the paper I was interested to look more into China’s former one child policy and how it was still effecting the country today. As I was looking for information on the one child policy I found an article from the guardian and I was very surprised on the information I got from reading it. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/02/china-population-control-two-child-policy) In this article, almost every opinion on the one child policy is extremely negative. Even with China removing the policy a couple of years ago, their population is still rapidly aging and shrinking. With this China has been trying to engineer a baby boom to combat the shrinking population, to no success however. Even though the policy makers are trying to get people the have more kids, many families are deciding against it, as it is hard enough to raise only one child in China. I found this difference in view points between the normal families and China and the policy makers to be very interesting. It almost seems to me as the people of China are thought of as no more than economic tools by the policy makers. The families job is to pump out more children so that the economy can grow. However, this clearly shows zero care for the current state of climate change and global warming. It is good to see the families of China still continuing to have less children, even with the government try to push back against them. Overall, this was a very interesting article to read, and there was a lot to take in that I wasn’t aware of.

For my second ICR project I was asked to “Research and develop a short essay and infographic detailing the COVID-19’s impact in China and discuss how this has affected international perception of Chinese nationals and dependents as the virus continues to spread.”

Since the project was pretty open ended I felt that I was able to talk about the controversy of the virus with this writing. I started off by talking about my own experience. From my study abroad being switched to a new country, and later being canceled. I continued by talking about being sent home to online classes and sharing how I have been impacted greatly from the virus. As everyone else has been impacted in extensive ways too, I thought I should address the racism that has come with this virus. Throughout the essay I acknowledged that people must not blame China for the virus. Even though the virus has come from China, we must not show hatred towards the country. No one in this situation wanted an illness like this to occur. It is not China’s fault for all of the issues that have surfaced. People must be educated about cultural differences and be more understanding about China’s own situation.

This article from the Al Jazeera Magazine details the extremely sad and difficult decision that has had to be made in Jerusalem over whether or not to close the Al-Aqsa mosque for the holy month of Ramadan. “Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, the Jordan-appointed council that oversees Islamic sites on the sacred compound, called the decision “painful””. This decision will affect the religious lives of tens of thousands of Muslims during the month when Ramadan starts on April 23rd. One sign of normalcy is that the Muslim call to prayer will still take place five times per day at the site, and religious workers will still be allowed in the site in order to make that happen. However, the council has asked that all Muslims remain at their home and pray at home rather than at the site. “It typically draws tens of thousands of Muslims daily to the mosque and the adjoining Dome of the Rock for evening prayers known as Taraweeh”. Tens of thousands of Muslims will be affected by this order, but it is for the good of the whole that no one gets infected by attending the holy site. I think it would be a good idea for religious gatherings across the globe to be stopped as another further way to stop big crowds from being together. Many places have moved to online worships or services, and some have even stopped everything all together, but there are still a great deal of places of worship that remain open and risk the health of us all by doing so.

As an Actuarial Science major, I had an initial interest the significance of Islamic finance. Reflecting upon Sharia Law therefore led me to research its usefulness and the substantial differences between conventional finance practices still used to this day. Unlike its conventional counterparts, Islamic finance is governed by Islamic Law in addition to the finance industry. As a result of the controversy this therefore created, Islamic finance was suppressed for several decades; prior to making its modern appearance in the early 1970s.

The foundation of Islamic finance is centered upon the idea that “Allah is the owner of all wealth in the world, and humans are merely its trustees.” This understanding provides the establishment of Islamic finance’s distinct core principles. Foremost, Islamic beliefs adhere to the ideas of a free – market economy. Muslims believe that by prohibiting the government to dictate supply and demand, they are advocating for social justice. Other key principles that Islamic finance adheres to includes, but is not limited to: prohibiting interest, avoiding gambling, and abstaining from investments involving prohibited industries (Jamaldeen).

In class we discussed the social status of women in Chinese history and culture. A documentary we watched referred to baby girls as “small happiness” whereas baby boys were “big happiness”.  A daughter was not considered a part of the family because she was raised to be put in an arranged marriage, at a young age, and leave her family to move in with her husband and his family. Women were expected to stay in the house, raise children, clean, and cook. Giving birth and producing an offspring to inherit their wealth was essential to families, so it was important for the women to birth a son. Women were oppressed throughout Chinese history. An example of this is foot binding. Women were considered ugly if they had big feet, so they would bind their feet by wrapping all their toes, except the big one, under their feet and walk on them to make their feet smaller. This painful experience was normal and expected of women. It wasn’t until 1912 that foot binding was banned. This is just one example of how Chinese women have historically been oppressed. 

Today Chinese women have gained autonomy due to the developments in education and laws protecting their rights and interest. Although there have been improvements, Chinese women’s relationships with men remain unequal. The situation has been evolving over the last three decades. The advances in women’s access to education is beneficial but they struggle in the field of employment. Reduction in jobs available for women and inequalities between men and women’s salaries create challenges and insecurities in the work field. Today the relationships between husband and wife still have the focus of marriage and reproduction. It’s common that women are dependent on men on an economic level and in regards to decision-making. Although there is progress seen by social modernisation, living standards, and economic reforms, that has not resulted in all individuals being perceived as equally valuable. On the whole, the status of Chinese women often remains inferior to the status of men, specifically in public life, and roles within the family. 

https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/6013?file=1