Gideon Polya, "Should Muslim & Asian Students Study in Australia, the UK & the US?”, MWC News, 23 January 2006.
Should Muslim & Asian Overseas Students Study in Australia, the UK & the US?
INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS currently total about 2 million (see: http://www.ehef-bangkok.org/exhibitors2/exhibitor-background.php). The main preferred destinations (in decreasing order of popularity) are the US, the UK and Australia.
In 2004/2005 there were about 565,000 international students in US tertiary education institutions (about a 1% decline from the previous year due particularly to immigration restrictions) (see: http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=69736 ). International students bring about US$13 billion each year into the US economy.
In 2003 there were about 319,000 overseas students in the UK; they currently bring about US$5.3 billion annually into the UK.
In 2004 Australian “education services” exports were worth US$4.4 billion (see: http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/trade2005/chapter_01.html) and overseas students contributed over US$1.4 billion in fees to the Australia university system annual budget of about US$7.5 billion. In 2004, Australian public universities enrolled a total of 210,397 international students (22.6% of university enrolments). An additional 30,000 international students attend private colleges and about 10,000 study-abroad and exchange students enrol each semester (see: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number42/p14_Harman.htm). However in 2005 the number of overseas student course commencements rose by only 1% (see:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17672906%255E12332,00.html).
A substantial proportion of international students are Asian and major targets of Australian “scouts” are East Asia (notably China), South East Asia (notably Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia), South Asia (notably India) and the prosperous Gulf States of the Middle East. It is astonishing that Asian international students are happy to study in the big three nations of the US-led Coalition, namely the US, the UK and Australia, when the Coalition is responsible for brutal, continuing wars in Asian countries and horrendous associated civilian casualties in gross contravention of the Geneva Conventions. However Anglo-American mainstream media LYING ensures that the world in general simply does not KNOW that there have been 2.1 million avoidable post-invasion deaths and 1.7 million post-invasion under-5 year old infant deaths in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.
This Coalition carnage and permissive media lying is due to entrenched “politically correct racism” (PC racism) in Anglo-American countries. PC racism means that internally democratic, politically correct and ostensibly non-racist Anglo-American societies can commit horrendous crimes against non-Europeans in foreign lands such as Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneously DENYING the implicit racism of so-called “democratic imperialism” and IGNORING the carnage (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/au-polya060106.htm).
The Geneva Conventions (1949) demand that the foreign occupier of a country acts “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” to preserve the health and life of subject civilians (see Articles 55 and 56: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm). However the US-led Coalition governments have manifestly failed in their obligations under the Geneva Conventions, ignore the horrendous human consequences of their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and continually assert their non-racism and the altruism of their policy of “democratic imperialism” (forcible imposition of “freedom and democracy” on foreign lands). According to UNICEF (2006) (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html), in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality was 122,000 in Occupied Iraq, 359,000 in Occupied Afghanistan and 1,000 in the occupying country Australia (noting that in 2004 the populations of these countries were 28.1 million, 28.6 million and 19.9 million, respectively). The post-invasion avoidable mortality (excess mortality) in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now totals about 0.3, 0.5 and 1.6 million, respectively, while the corresponding post-invasion under-5 infant mortality now totals 0.2, 0.3 and 1.4 million, respectively (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/
and Senate Inquiry submission #112: http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/terrorism/index.htm).
The largely civilian and infant avoidable mortality associated with US wars is simply NOT REPORTED in full by mainstream media. Thus the avoidable mortality in a succession of US Asian wars has been 0.8 million (the Korean War), 13.1 million (the Indo-China War), 1.8 million (the Gulf and Sanctions War against Iraq), 1.6 million so far (the Afghan War) and 0.5 million so far (the Iraq War) – a holocaust that is essentially IGNORED in its horrendous entirety by PC racist Anglo-American media and academics. Entrenched academic, politician and media lying by omission accounts in part for the astonishing preference of substantially Asian international students for university studies in Anglo-American countries involved in mass murder, mass infanticide and passive genocide of Asians in Asian wars. However the PC racism and cowardice of Anglo-American universities and academics themselves are responsible for turning out the PC racist and cowardly journalists, academics and politicians who comprehensively IGNORE the horrendous human consequences of Anglo-American imperialism.
Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people are obliged to at least INFORM OTHERS about gross inhumanity and to make ethical decisions in their dealings with people and organizations of war criminal Coalition countries. International students can act ethically in relation to Coalition war crimes by eschewing PC racist UK-US-Australian Coalition universities. If high quality higher education in prosperous English-speaking countries is desired then Canada and New Zealand are good and decent destinations. Indeed Canada and New Zealand are actually cheaper than Australia, the UK and the US as places in which to study business, IT and engineering (see: http://www.hothousemedia.com/etm/etmbackissues/janetm05/janetm05news.htm).
The annual economic impact on the US and the UK would be a mere US$18 billion if international students decided to go elsewhere – a drop in the bucket compared to the annual military expenditure of the US and the world of about US$500 billion and US$1,000 billion, respectively. However, just as sporting bans and sanctions were effective against the obscene Minority Rule régime in Apartheid South Africa, so avoidance of study in PC racist White Australian universities could be similarly effective, given that Australia is a minor but key part of racist, Anglo-American democratic imperialism (democratic Nazism, democratic tyranny).
There are many good reasons why international students in general - and not only Asian and Muslim students - should question whether they should study in Australia. Some of the major reasons are simply outlined below in the general interest of “consumer choice” – Racism, Rubbish and Rip-off constitute the 3Rs of PC racist Australian education.
Racism. White Australia has had an appalling 2 century history of participation in the genocide and dispossession of indigenous Australians and of indigenous people in the Pacific in general; active participation in racist British colonial wars; and the notorious White Australia Policy. Since WW2, Australia has participated in Anglo-American Asian wars directly associated with a total avoidable mortality of 18 million and is now sending more troops to US-occupied Iraq (post-1990 avoidable mortality 2.3 million) and Afghanistan (post-2001 avoidable mortality 1.6 million and 0.4 million global opioid drug deaths post-2001 due to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry). Notwithstanding asserted “political correctness” and non-racism, White Australia is currently violating numerous international human rights laws and conventions through indefinite imprisonment of Asian and Muslim refugees; passive mass murder, passive mass infanticide and passive genocide in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan; draconian, human rights-abusing laws aimed specifically at an Asian and Muslim minority; and the “secret” New White Australia Policy that actively discriminates against non-Europeans by “executive interpretation” of “departmental regulations”. The Sydney race riots involving thousands of white thugs beating up Asians and Muslims simply represented a “politically incorrect” expression of the ugly reality behind PC racist White Australia. Will relatives or friends get a visa to visit an Asian overseas student studying in Australia? They may well be excluded through application of a secret New White Australia Policy “risk factor list” that largely targets non-Europeans (see: http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/jan1999/immi-j20.shtml).
Rubbish in, rubbish out. International students pay big money for teaching and learning in Australian universities. However the teaching and academic quality is highly variable. Thus there are about 40 state-funded universities of which the top institutions are known as the “Big Eight” because of their superiority. A succession of Senate Inquiries (simply search Google for Senate Inquiry into Higher Education) and numerous media reports have revealed appalling scandals (even in the top universities) involving corruption, financial fraud, academic fraud, plagiarism, “soft marking” of international students, intimidation of academics, censorship and victimization of academic whistleblowers. Extremely serious (and accordingly NON-REPORTED by the media) is FALSE INSTRUCTION – thus the Australian Federal Government recently advocated teaching of anti-scientific “Intelligent Design” and has handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to private institutions and schools who are free to teach primitive Creationist rubbish and to give extremely dangerous, anti-social instruction against “safe sex”. More serious is FALSE INSTRUCTION in our top universities involving scientific fraud, plagiarism, soft marking and flagrant entrenched falsity e.g. the comprehensive false instruction of our current Establishment of academics, politicians and journalists leading to comprehensive national IGNORING of ongoing horrendous passive genocide in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rip-off. Australian universities are under immense financial pressure and full fee-paying international students have become a major part of their “business plans”. I have repeatedly argued that high quality teaching and learning can be provided by the existing Australian university system for minimal cost and with maximal access simply by application of “Reading Only Tertiary Education” (this having the provocatively counter-intuitive acronym ROTE). The argument is simple. Every nation needs a high quality scholarly complement that is typically located in state organizations, hospitals and universities (as well as in private and corporate organizations and institutions). Poor students should NOT have to pay for this national scholarly complement and for increasingly applied and commercially-oriented industrial and medical research in our universities. My scheme simply involves offering ANY lecture-based course at ANY Australian university to ANY prospective student AT COST - students will simply buy the detailed syllabus, detailed lecture notes, the prescribed top textbooks by international scholarly and didactic giants, past exam papers and worked tutorial and exam questions; study in a deep, holistic, absorbed and reflective fashion (with private tutorial help if required); and ultimately sit a thoughtful accrediting exam set by a research-informed expert - and all of this at NEGLIGIBLE COST to the student. Such a scheme COULD be introduced in Australia at essentially NO COST by simple Government fiat – but will NOT be introduced by a dishonest and corrupt system dedicated to ripping-off local and overseas students (see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s347931.htm).
According to the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (“Top 100 Asia Pacific universities” (2004); see:
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/Top%20100%20Asia%20Pacific%20Universities.htm), only 14 Australian universities are in the top 100 Asia Pacific Universities (this list excluding the Americas), of which 11 are institutions with medical schools and only 2 are in the World Top 100. Those Asian and Muslim international students who are determined to study in Australia (because they are unaware of or unmoved by Australian-complicit passive murder of 0.5 million Asian and Muslim infants EACH YEAR) should at least carefully consider their choice of university. If international students want tertiary education in First World English speaking countries, then high quality, economy and a good measure of public decency can be found in Canada and New Zealand.