Posts with the tag Islam

CNN Stirs Xenophobia

Ali M Latifi — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:24:41 EDT

This is the top headline on the frontpage of the CNN website:

Jesus Like You've Never Seen Him Before

Ali M Latifi — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:18:11 EDT

According to a recent LA Times article, the story of Jesus a billion people have heard all their lives will finally receive a cinematic treatment courtesy of an Iranian director.

Barack HUSSEIN Obama

Annika — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:52:10 EDT

A new poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal shows, with a 3.1 percent margin of error, that 13 percent of Americans believe Barack Obama is Muslim.

Beyond my obvious dismay that Americans don't know much about the people they're voting for, I'm troubled that insinuating that a candidate is Muslim is the fodder of a smear campaign. Apparently operatives have moved on from the Swift Boat/illegitimate black baby breed of underhanded tricks and decided to degrade politicians by implying their connection to a religion practiced by over a billion people worldwide. Great.

via Faith in Public Life.

Young Iraqis Turn Away from Religion

Annika — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:27:12 EST

The New York Times has a fascinating article up today about young Iraqis’ attitudes toward religion. Immediately after the war in Iraq started, the country saw a surge in religiosity—Shiites, who had been regarded as political insurgents under Saddam Hussein’s regime, were able to practice freely, and some soon translated their religious hierarchies into political power. But as the church moved more firmly into the public sphere, mosques and religious leaders became more known for their corruption and violent extremism than sagacity and piety.

Young Iraqis’ opinions on religion represent a profound but sad shift in beliefs:

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”

Such disgust is, in one sense, a welcome change—young people in Iraq are starting to recognize the damage done by the inextricable tangle of religious extremism and terrorism, and their role as pawns in that system. But disillusionment with the whole of Islam and complete loss of faith in religious leaders is incredibly sad in a country that needs all kinds of healing right now.

Muslim Enough for MSA?

ashwini — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:34:21 EST

The Muslim Students Association is featured in today’s New York Times, with an emphasis on inclusiveness and acceptance of Muslim students who are not quite as conservative as others. The article opens with an anecdote about a Muslim girl in a short skirt walking up to a recruting table and asking to join the campus organization. Although some members were uneasy and accused the girl of being “un-Islamic,” the president defended her right to join.

Muslim Students Association chapters are present at colleges and universities across the country, and like many other cultural and religious organizations, are trying to negotiate questions of morals and identity while fitting in with the larger mainstream campus culture. On the one hand, an organization like the Muslim Students Association can be a safe-haven for students who feel alienated from the ways of life their classmates and roommates lead. On the other hand, students who might be more assimilated or less traditional might also want to join these organizations—which might not make some members (and parents) very happy.

Are Islamic Beliefs Being Undermined?

Ali M Latifi — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:50:59 EST

An article about the Prophet Muhammad in the English-language Wikipedia has become the subject of an online protest in the last few weeks because of its representations of Muhammad, taken from medieval manuscripts.

read more | digg story Yes, they should be taken down.

Obama is a Christian, and he has the EMails to prove it...

Ali M Latifi — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:25:47 EST

In an attempt to debunk Internet rumors that he is a Muslim who studied at a strict madrasa in Indonesia where he was taught Wahabism, was sworn into the United States Senate with a Qur'an, and that he refuses to pledge allegiance to the United States flag because of the aforementioned statements (or some variation thereof), Barack Obama has launched a website and EMail campaign complete with Youtube videos to try and re-assert his Christianity today.

How Can We Save Moderate Islam?

Dorna Mohaghegh — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:43:54 EST

I'm gonna take a page out of Zach Marks's book and do a 3 am post for the sake of clearing my mind. I had an interesting discussion tonight about the the seemingly silent majority of moderate muslims in the Middle East. The question essentially was if they exist, why don't they speak up more to defend themselves and condemn the fundamentalist idealogues who drag Islam's name through the mud? Simple. They have no one to defend them once they do so.

Being a moron or Mark Steyn should not be a crime

Ben Regenspan — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:49:00 EST

You could say that Mark Steyn is the brightest Canadian conservative to offer widely syndicated commentary on US politics; of course, he is also the only one. Steyn, who thinks it'd be a good idea for Israel to just go ahead and invade Syria, has explicitly advocated that the US adopt an imperial system (yes, using that word), and has argued that illegal immigrants live idyllic lives on account of not having to pay taxes (the biggest problem with this being the fact that, by and large, they do). As Campus Progress and other sources have tirelessly documented, Steyn's views on most subjects range from racist to ludicrous to just plain stupid. After reading his work, some might be tempted to take his advice, institute a new American empire, and then by imperial decree require him and all other Canadian writers, collateral damage or not, to put down their pens and pick up hockey sticks, that the emperor might be entertained and that we may never again have to read such drivel.

Excuse me, I need to use the footbath

Kay Steiger — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:36:54 EDT

The NYTimes reports today that some public universities are installing footbaths for their Muslim students, and presents it as a controversial issue. To me, this is unsurprising. If universities want to welcome a diverse student population on campus, then they should be accommodating to cultural practices. To me, this is no different than accommodating a handicapped student to make the restroom more accessible or creating gender-neutral restrooms for transgendered students. Just because it's different doesn't mean it shouldn't be accommodated. I think it's good that universities are being respectful of Muslim culture. Besides, "Islamification of the university" sounds pretty xenophobic to me.

Universal Health Care = More Terrorism: So Crazy It's Sane?

Jesse Singal — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:59:50 EDT

Josh Marshall has a great roundup of Neil Cavuto's ongoing attempt to tie universal health care to terrorism (I don't blame anyone who blacked out after reading that sentence). One of the many highlights (lowlights?) comes near the end of the compilation, when Cavuto interviews a Muslim doctor who explains to him that, no, Allah doesn't tell people to blow things up.

Terrorists? "Of course, they're all muslim"

Zach Marks — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:58:07 EDT

Since the Know Your Right Wing Speakers bio on Michael Medved just went up, I thought I’d hop over to Medved’s site to see what the latest from the Mustachioed Madman was. A fresh blog post from Medved was there to greet me and it did not disappoint. He begins:

The latest example of political correctness run amok involves the BBC describing the Islamists who planned bombings in London and Glasgow as arising from “the disfranchised South Asian community.”

Medved goes on to claim the terms “South Asian” and “Indian” are “misleading.” He denounces “[t]he refusal to use the words “Muslim” or “Islamist” to identify these terrorists,” and continues: “But of course, they’re all Muslim.”

This isn’t all that shocking coming from Medved, who calls Islam “a primitive religion” and insists there is “a violence problem in the Muslim world because that is an inherent problem in Islam.” What is shocking is that President Bush invited this guy to the White House talk to him about Middle East affairs. Glad the president’s talking to the experts.

The latest from Medved is by no means as ridiculous as Michael Savage’s comments which Cara dutifully reported yesterday, but it just reinforces the need for progressives to reclaim the airwaves from rabid right-wingers.

Silvestre, meet Rudy. Rudy, Silvestre.

jr — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:32:29 EDT

As discussed on this very site, one-time heir apparent for the Chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) didn't know that al Qaeda was a Sunni organization, and made himself into a national joke as a result, leading to calls from both sides to pass him over for the Intel chair (which he of course was). Some choice comments about the incident worth considering:

CBN's "Terrorism Analyst" Erick Stakelbeck (who may work for Pat Robertson but still thinks it isn't a capital crime to read the Koran):

Call me crazy, but shouldn't the chairman of a powerful government committee devoted to intelligence on our enemies be an expert on such matters? Especially more than five years after 9/11. Apparently Reyes has never heard the phrase, "Know your enemy."

...

In short, Reyes - and any other elected official, Republican or Democrat - who doesn't know the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites at this advanced stage of the War on Terror is simply unfit to assume a leading post dealing with national intelligence. Is it too much to ask for Reyes and his ilk in Washington to do a simple Google search, or perhaps read some verses from the Koran during one of their long weekends?

A Feminist War on Terror?

Rao — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:56:31 EDT

Dissent has a great article about European Islam -- after reading an unhealthy amount of conversative literature on the topic, author Johann Hari concludes the supposed "clash of civilizations" between the East and West is nonsense. There is radical Islam, and its currently prevailing over moderate muslims -- but Hari points to an little-discussed trend as a source of hope:

"On the streets and in the mosques outside, jihadi young men distributing 'death to democracy' leaflets subtly clash with young Muslim feminists who want an open, liberal Islam. Kaffiyas and headscarves contrast with makeup and wonderbras in a bewildering Islamic cacophony. [...] Here is an authentic Islamic Reformation on the streets of Europe. Here is the development of a strain of Islam fiercely committed to democratic values. Yet those who suggest that the birth of every new European Muslim is a problem—another tick from the time-bomb—treat [Fadela Armana, a leader of the Muslim Feminist movement] as akin to Osama. This mind-set is (at best) a distraction from the real fight: across the continent, groups of Muslim women are rebelling in the same way against the literalist, quasi-fascist interpretation of the Koran popularized by the mullahs. Tired of being its first victims, they are creating their own liberal lived Islams as an alternative. And if this rebellion is completed, European jihadism will be left literally unable to reproduce itself."

The people of "the West" have tried for years to combat radicalized Islam -- first we ignored it, then we bombed it. We even tried to hand the problem off to Vatican City -- if the pope is a source of moral clarity to Christians, he probably has credibility with muslims, right? -- but maybe the answer to fundamentalist Islam has been in our backyard the whole time. It seems like the formation of a homegrown, moderate muslim reform movement is the event most likely to take the steam out of fundamentalist Islam -- just as the organized labor movement undercut communism in Africa during the Cold War, feminist Islam can offer an alternative to Muslim youth somewhere between the evils of an authoritarian reading of the Koran and an unequivocal acceptance of western society.

When I was at the Academic Freedom Conference last month, Rick Santorum made a comment about how conservatives should engage feminists on Islam's treatment of women. While I disagreed almost entirely with the rest of his speech -- his basic policy prescription: we should say "Islamic Facsicm" as many times as humanly possible -- I do think international feminism has a role to play in reforming Islam. What's ironic, however, is that the same conservatives who have spent their entire political careers fighting "Feminazis" now need their help in their crusade against radical Islam.

Freedom of Hypocrisy

Rao — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 16:43:04 EDT

The terrorists are winning! As conservative columnist Linda Chavez explains, if Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport can refuse to carry passengers with alcohol, we might as well have Sharia. [She also keeps on trying to make an argument about pork and seeing-eye dogs, and I keep on not believing her.]

“Today, these drivers are objecting to contact with customers who have alcohol, pork or dogs with them; tomorrow it may be refusing to allow women with bare heads in their cabs. [...] No one has forced the Somalis to become taxi drivers. If their religious views prohibit them from having any contact with people who do not share those views, they shouldn’t choose jobs in the public service sector.”

Take that, cabbies! Don't bring your religion into the workplace! If your beliefs make those around you feel uncomfortable, then you should stop whining and quit.

I'd respond to this ridiculousness, but Chavez is perfectly capable of doing that herself. From her May 2001 article about John Ashcroft's bible study group:

"The fact is, Ashcroft's overt religiosity unnerves secularists, and even those Christians and other believers who think religion belongs in church, or perhaps at home, but never in the workplace. But for the very devout – whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist -- their religion permeates all they do. For some, it affects the way they dress. For others, the way they speak. For all, the way they behave. [...] The free exercise clause of the First Amendment guarantees...[citizens] the right to practice as much or as little religion, and in whatever manner, as they see fit."

Take that, liberals! Banning religion from the workplace is unconstitutional! If the beliefs of those around you make you feel uncomfortable, then you should stop whining and quit.

…Some might say Chavez is being hypocritical, but those people just don’t understand the Constitution. Another passage from her article about terrori-- I mean, cabbies:

"Of course the Somali drivers could have sought a reasonable accommodation for their scruples. They could have courteously explained to passengers that they can’t touch alcohol and asked if the passengers would carry the bags containing alcohol themselves. If they did so with genuine civility, I expect most passengers would oblige."

Ah yes, the courtesy doctrine of Constitutional law! With that in the mix, I think its possible to form The Unified Theory of Linda Chavez: Your religious freedom is proportional to how nice you are (but being a Christian and a Republican helps).

Go ahead and beat your wife!

ashwini — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:44:27 EDT

Reading this story just now, my jaw literally dropped. A German judge refused to grant a woman who was being physically abused by her husband a quick divorce (that is, without the usual 1 year separation period) because—and I am serious—she is Muslim and the beating of one’s wife is “sanctioned” by the Koran.

So this judge is saying, basically, Muslim women have no reasonable right to demand protection from domestic violence because such violence is “normal” in Islam.

Forced conversion: The latest Hindu fundamentalist hysteria

ashwini — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:18:14 EDT

The Hindu fundamentalists are at it again—this time, the Times Online reports that Sikh and Hindu girls are being forced to convert on college campuses in the U.K. through “groomed conversations” and friendships with Muslim boys.

"The men aggressively target vulnerable university students by using the fear of being dishonoured to force them to convert, community leaders have told The Times. Many befriend their victims, then threaten to tell their families that they are in a sexual relationship with a Muslim. Some teenagers are said to have been drugged and photographed in compromising positions.

Many comply because they are so afraid of shaming their parents or being rejected by their communities."

Wait a second…Sikh and Hindu girls are converting to Islam, abandoning the faith in which they were raised, in order to avoid being rejected by their community?? This makes absolutely no fucking sense.

Live from the Conservative Political Action Conference: On Hating Muslims

niralshah — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:41:03 EST

Do we hate all Muslims, or just some of them? The conservative mind today is confronted with difficult and troubling quandaries. With the lock-step obedience within the conservative movement and general ideological uniformity, disagreements among “pundits” on the right are typically rare. When they do occur, the results are bizarre and hilarious.

Dinesh D’Souza, the formerly anti-PC crusader turned pro-Muslim, anti-secularism cultural relativist, was put on a panel against Robert Spencer, author of popular bigotry-fodder book “The Truth About Muhammed.” Pitting these two hacks against each other led to perplexing results, as they each set up straw men of each other’s already ludicrous positions and clawed at them with weak and often contradictory logic.

Not used to having to digest shades of grey and complexity, the audience could not figure out whether to cheer or boo. When D’Souza pointed out that portions of the Koran and the Old Testament are hostile to non-believers, the response was definitely a boo. However, they seemed to agree both with Spencer’s assertion that Islam is inherently violent and Mohammed was himself essentially a terrorist, and D’Souza’s assertion that vilification of all Muslims will radicalize moderate Muslims. They wanted to believe, they want to love the Muslims, but, oh they're just so evil!

With D’Souza’s latest Islamist-apologizing tripe roundly denounced across the political spectrum, and Spencer’s cherry-picked piece of bigotry so poorly argued as to not even warrant serious analysis, perhaps one young attendee’s sentiments, addressed to me in incredulous response to D’Souza, express the confusion best: “but we can’t work with them! They want to shoot us in the face!”