Category: Activism

Joumana Haddad – Realities of Arab Women and Inventing the Arab Woman 0

Joumana Haddad – Realities of Arab Women and Inventing the Arab Woman

Joumana Haddad is a Lebanese writer and poet. In 2010 she published I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of An Angry Arab Woman which is a really interesting, sometimes a somewhat confusing and contracting book. Dutch TV had an interview with a new darling of Western media.

Manji, Dibi and S4H/S4B – Not the back of the bus 2

Manji, Dibi and S4H/S4B – Not the back of the bus

Irshad Manji is on tour to promote her new book Allah, Liberty and Love – The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom. She was in the Netherlands this week and during a debate with Green Left MP Tofik Dibi in De Balie a group of about 20 Muslim activists of Shariah4Belgium and Shariah4Holland entered the room and disturbed the debate. An overview of the reactions and a short reflection in terms of theatrical resistance, spectacle and activism.

Closing the week 45 – Featuring Faith in Occupy 0

Closing the week 45 – Featuring Faith in Occupy

A weekly round up of writings on the Internet, some relevant for my research, some political, some funny but all of them interesting (Dutch/English). (As usual to a large extent based upon suggestions from Dutch, other European, American and Middle Eastern readers. Thank you all.) This week featuring Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith groups at Occupy.

Postcard from Birmingham: Paradoxes of the North Sea Triangle 0

Postcard from Birmingham: Paradoxes of the North Sea Triangle

Right now Im making a trip in the UK, visiting London, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester. During this trip I talk mostly to people who migrated to the UK from the Netherlands, regardless of their ethnic background. What I give you now is an impression of the main themes coming up during my conversations with these people. Do not expect too much in terms of reflection and analysis, it is just meant to give you some idea of what came up and the themes that might be explored in further research.

Postcard from Birmingham: islam and ethnicity in everyday life 1

Postcard from Birmingham: islam and ethnicity in everyday life

Right now Im making a trip in the UK, visiting London, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester. The aim of this trip is twofold. Firstly, tying up some loose ends for my Salafism research. Secondly, to explore the field and getting to know new people for my possibly future research. In both researches everyday life perspectives and experiences of Muslims are central. During this trip I talk mostly to people who migrated to the UK from the Netherlands, regardless of their ethnic background.

Creationisme in beweging: Harun Yahya op de Rotterdamse tram 0

Creationisme in beweging: Harun Yahya op de Rotterdamse tram

Harun Yahya is het pseudoniem van Adnan Oktar, een Turkse voorvechter van een vorm van creationisme waarin wordt gesteld dat de evolutieleer niet klopt en dat de wereld is geschapen door God. Afgelopen maand was hij bezig met een tour in Belgiƫ en eerder al in Nederland. Momenteel loopt er een campagne in Rotterdam waarin zijn boek en boodschap (De wetenschap bewijst: God Bestaat) wordt aangeprezen door middel van een grote advertentie op een tram.

Pot, ketel en neo-cliƫntelisme 1

Pot, ketel en neo-cliƫntelisme

In de Volkskrant stelde Wasif Shadid, naar aanleiding van Tofik Dibi’s Final Fatwa, dat allochtone politici het vertoog van de zogenaamde islamcritici overnemen. Dat leverde hem veel kritiek op waarna Latif Hasnaoui het voor hem opnam en zich afvroeg waarom moslim politici het niet meer voor islam en moslims opnemen. Dit leidde tot een debat over cliĆ«ntelisme, maar is dat niet de pot die de ketel verwijt?

Fear and Loathing in Europe 0

Fear and Loathing in Europe

The following text was used for a spoken column at the ICCT’s expert meeting on Freedom from Fear: Answering Terrorism with Public ResilienceĀ on 3 October 2011. Fear is a drug, and policies and management tactics combined with politicians who use feelings of insecurity and plead loudly for ever harder measures to resolve fear, are nothing less than socially accepted models to achieve ritualistic highs and illusions of safety that in the end do nothing except than cultivate that fear.