Education: Malay Nightmare

It would be hard to find anywhere in the world a more hard-working and dutiful group of students than those at the Salahiah Girls Institute in northern Malaya. All day for six days a week, the girls, aged twelve to 20, drill in Arabic, study the Moslem faith, recite from the Koran. Beyond the high wall that surrounds the school are lush green fields, but the girls never play on them, for recreation has no place in the ascetic life of the religious institute. In this austere atmosphere, one day last month, a terrifying thing happened. "Who knows what it...

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