Closing the week 5
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Movements and activism
Court orders retrial of Dutch terror group | Radio Netherlands Worldwide
The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has ordered a retrial of the Hofstad Group suspects who were accused of preparing terror attacks, but acquitted in 2008. Members of the group had connections with the murderer of Dutch Islam critic and filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
The Jihadist Next Door « GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali
ON A WARM, cloudy day in the fall of 1999, the town of Daphne, Ala., stirred to life. The high-school band came pounding down Main Street, past the post office and the library and Christ the King Church. Trumpeters in gold-tasseled coats tipped their horns to the sky, heralding the arrival of teenage demigods. The star quarterback and his teammates came first in the parade, followed by the homecoming queen and her court. Behind them, on a float bearing leaders of the student government, a giddy mop-haired kid tossed candy to the crowd.
altmuslim – Homegrown radicals: Complacency is not an option
The American Muslim community should not brush aside facts by either taking a defensive posture or by being apologetic. The better path is to conduct honest soul searching and enact proactive measures that can avoid such attention grabbing headlines in the first place.
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=268
Across predominantly Muslim nations, there is little enthusiasm for the extremist Islamic organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, although there are pockets of support for both groups, especially in the Middle East.
Cleric Al-Awlaki in U.S. and Yemeni Crosshairs – Political Hotsheet – CBS News
The revelation by Christmas Day airliner bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab that radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki directed him to perpetrate the attack will put increased pressure on the U.S. military to capture or kill the alleged mastermind of the plot.
Yemeni American cleric Aulaqi confirms contact with Nigerian suspect – washingtonpost.com
Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said he taught and corresponded with the suspect in the attempted Dec. 25 airliner bombing but did not order the attack, according to an interview published this week.
Yemeni Cleric Says He Did Not Order Dec. 25 Attack, But Knew Suspect (Washn) – NewsFlash – mlive.com
Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi taught and corresponded with the suspect in the attempted Dec. 25 airline bombing but did not order the attack, Aulaqi said this week.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, “is one of my students; yes, we were in correspondence” Aulaqi said in an interview published Tuesday in Arabic by al-Jazeera.net. “But I did not give (him) a fatwa in regards to this operation.”
Christmas Bomber Says Radical Cleric Directed Attack – AOL News
The suspected Christmas Day bomber told federal authorities that radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki directed him to execute the attack on Northwest Flight 253, reports CBS News. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab told investigators that al-Awlaki wanted him to blow up the plane over American soil, not over the ocean.
‘We Are Part Of The Terror’ – chicagotribune.com
‘We Are Part Of The Terror’
Americans Won’t Regain Security At Home While Innocents Are Being Killed In Our Name
Gender
altmuslimah.com – War: Rape for ethnic cleansing
To the victor go the spoils is the concept that has been used over history to legitimize wartime rape. This tradition of objectifying women during conflicts has not ceased during modern times. Despite the introduction of modern laws of warfare, armies exploit sexual violence systematically as in the cases of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and the current situation in Darfur.
Why is it important to rethink masculinities in the Middle East? « Cycads
There is a glaring lacunae in an understanding of masculinity that has been affected by the major strides that women in the Middle East have been making throughout the last century in terms of education, employment, sexuality, political representation, and general public presence. Indeed, what is not studied more rigorously are the changing dynamics of gender relations resulting from the increasing independence of women from the home and male members of the family, studies in which men are placed as the central analytical subject. Recent literature that have charted these changes reflect what can be understood as men’s anxieties and fears emerging from “notions still deeply imprinted on their inherited memory which have not adjusted accordingly” to the explosive gendered transformations of the public arena (Ghoussoub 2006:230). Women’s increased emancipation is then perhaps one source of a threat to the grip of a dominant masculinity, but other threats can exist externally for the male collective. Ghoussoub (2006:233) also counts the devastating defeat in the 1967 war with Israel which incurred a lingering dent on the pride of the Arab and Muslim world1, in addition to the unremitting European imperialist presence throughout the history of the Middle East – all of which represents a “symbolic castration in which men’s virility and hopes of progeny are threatened”.
Let’s fashion a made-in-Canada approach to the burka – The Globe and Mail
France’s proposal to ban the face-veil is an infringement of individual freedoms
Dubai’s shameful record on rape | Nadya Khalife | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Dubai’s shameful record on rape
The arrest of a British woman allegedly raped in Dubai mirrors harsh Middle Eastern attitudes to women and sexual assault
English :: Women Stirred Politics on the Streets – Bianet
Women Stirred Politics on the Streets
Turkish women talked about women’s protest actions and campaigns after 1980, how they made their contribution to shape politics and what they achieved. They also reflected about today’s role of women in Turkish politics.
BBC News – Wedding trouble as UK Muslim marriages not recognised
A growing number of young Muslims in the UK are entering marriages that are not legally recognised, BBC Asian Network has found. This is because couples are having an Islamic wedding without the civil ceremony needed for the marriage to be recognised under British law.
Islam And Feminism | Muslim Feminists
Women don’t have to give up Islam for rights, argue Randa Abdel-Fattah and Susan Carland.
Orientalists writing on Islam and Muslims have tended to represent Muslim women as infantilised and oppressed, victims in need of rescue by the enlightened West. This is a classic example of the tyranny of self-projection, where the ”rescuer” assumes a position of superiority so the belief systems, values and norms of Muslim women are judged against the Western experience.
The Burqa, Fashion, and Measures of Freedom » Sociological Images
Tilly R. sent in the clip below of Bill Maher attempting to illustrate the oppressiveness of the burqa by staging a fake fashion show in which every model comes out in an identical burqa. You only need to watch the first couple models to get the idea (starts at about .20 sec.):
Man who forced veil on wife can’t become French | Reuters
The French government has refused to give citizenship to a foreigner who has forced his French wife to wear a full-face Islamic veil, Immigration Minister Eric Besson said on Tuesday.
Zizek in India
‘First they called me a joker, now I am a dangerous thinker’ – All That Matters – Sunday TOI – Home – The Times of India
Slávoj Zizek is an unusual philosopher with unfashionably inflexible left-wing views. He also loves Hollywood classics. The 59-year-old academic has written more than 30 books on subjects as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Lenin and 9/11. A self-proclaimed Leninist, the Slovenian thinker believes that “communism will triumph finally”. On his first visit to India this week, Zizek spoke about global capitalism, Gandhi, Bollywood and Buddhism. Excerpts from the interview:
Zizek Enters India | Edit Room
I read this interview on Sunday and I am sorry to report that the journalist has taken some serious liberties with Zizek’s responses. I can say this because I was present for the interview.
Islamophobia and hate
Media and politicians ‘fuel rise in hate crimes against Muslims’ | UK news | guardian.co.uk
Media and politicians ‘fuel rise in hate crimes against Muslims’
Report blames ‘Islamophobic, negative and unwarranted portrayals of Muslim London’ for increase in attacks in the capital
Germany’s Very Own Minaret Debate Turns Nasty
A small Muslim community in a western German town would like to build a minaret on its mosque. But the plan has triggered passionate opposition from locals, many of whom rely on rhetoric from the extreme right in railing against the “symbol of Islam’s quest for power.”
Who remembers the last survivors of Muslim Spain, whom Spaniards contemptuously called Moriscos (“little Moors”)? Impressive research on them has appeared in the last 30 years, yet until now, none of it has escaped beyond the walls of the academic ghetto. Matthew Carr’s well-balanced and comprehensive book brings the story of their tragic fate to a wider public.
BERGHAHN BOOKS :: Celebrating 15 Years of Independent Publishing!
Anthropology of Media
Series Editors: John Postill and Mark Peterson
The ubiquity of media across the globe has led to an explosion of interest in the ways people around the world use media as part of their everyday lives. This series addresses the need for works that describe and theorize multiple, emerging, and sometimes interconnected, media practices in the contemporary world. Interdisciplinary and inclusive, this series offers a forum for ethnographic methodologies, descriptions of non-Western media practices, explorations of transnational connectivity, and studies that link culture and practices across fields of media production and consumption.
Dutch
Al-yaqeen
Islamtische studenten van het Albeda College ervaren onbehoorlijke behandeling door docenten. Al-Yaqeen is in samenspraak met het Albeda College overeengekomen hier tegen op te treden.
Interactieve kaart: Moslims in Europa – Kerk & Godsdienst – Reformatorisch Dagblad
Welbeschouwd vormen moslims met 4,4 procent nog een relatief kleine minderheid in Europa. Maar de islam wint wél terrein.
Discussie » Is onze definitie van homoseksualiteit wel tolerant genoeg?
Homofobie is dan ook geen kwestie van religieuze verboden, meent Verkaaik, maar van de moderne tijd. In het Westen is homoseksualiteit namelijk een identiteit geworden. En daarmee komt de mannelijkheid in het geding, vertelt Schaaik. Moslimjongens in Nederland zijn opgevoed met het moderne idee van homo’s als vrouwelijk, verwijfd, onmannelijk. De gedachte dat je via seks met mannen de zedenpreken van de dorpsmullah aan je laars kon lappen, kennen zij niet meer. Misschien is het zo dat de tolerantie jegens homoseksualiteit als identiteit in Nederland groter is, terwijl er in Pakistan meer tolerantie bestaat jegens de praktijk. En door te veronderstellen dat ‘de islam’ het probleem is, ontkent de Nederlandse samenleving dan ook de eigen ambivalente opvattingen over homoseksualiteit, meent Verkaaik.
Wat denkt u? Zou dit de vijandige houding tegen homoseksuelen van sommige moslims in Nederland kunnen verklaren? Is onze definitie van homoseksualiteit wel zo tolerant als we zelf denken?
nrc.nl – Binnenland – Derde Bekeerlingendag trekt honderden mensen
Het is de warmte, de waardigheid, het goeddoen. Zo verklaren vrouwen hun bekering tot de islam. In Utrecht werden zondag acht mensen moslim.
‘Meer allochtonen tegen vrouwenbesnijdenis’ – Maroc.NL
Steeds meer allochtonen die oorspronkelijk afkomstig zijn uit Afrikaanse landen als Somalië en Sudan spreken zich openlijk uit tegen vrouwenbesnijdenis. Dat zegt Marja Exterkate van Pharos, het kenniscentrum voor Vluchtelingen en Gezondheid. Volgens Pharos gaat het om vrouwen zowel als mannen.
Trollen knippen en plakken op de opiniesite – Ombudsman – VKBlog – de Volkskrant
Dit ging om reacties op een column van Hassnae Bouazza, die gehakt maakte van Geert Wilders. Dat was nadat Wilders op de opiniepagina ruimte had gekregen om zijn ongenoegen te uiten over minister Ter Horst en het proces dat tegen hem wordt gevoerd.
De columniste werd en wordt voor van alles en nog wat uitgemaakt op een toon waarvan ik vind dat die een site van de Volkskrant onwaardig is. Zelf tilt ze er niet zwaar aan, ik wel. Dat je de inhoud van de column bestrijdt is een ding, maar je speelt niet op de man, of in dit geval de vrouw. En je doet het onder je eigen avatar en niet een gepikte van een ander.
Overigens worden die persoonlijke aanvallen door de redactie verwijderd, maar dan hebben ze al wel op de site gestaan.
Allochtonenweblog: Wordt in Nederlandse moskeeen opgeroepen tot het vermoorden van andersdenkenden?
Vraag is dan aan wetenschapper Hans Jansen of hij zijn uitspraak voor Nederland hard kan maken: wie heeft er wanneer in welke moskee in Nederland opgeroepen om welke andersdenkende te vermoorden?
C L O S E R » Blog Archive » Hans Jansen in de moskee
Nou ja dat is allemaal de schuld van preken in moskeeën? De jongeren die dit doen bezoeken veelal niet eens moskeeën, maar los daarvan hoe kan Jansen bewijzen dat dit zo is?