On Building a Multireligious Society / Muslims in the West — Does France have the answer?

Posted on February 9th, 2007 by .
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

On Building a Multireligious Society / Muslims in the West — Does France have the answer?
John R. Bowen teaches at Washington University in Saint Louis and is the author of “Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves” (Princeton University Press, September, 2006). In the San Francisco Chronicle John Bowen argues that France, despite it’s laïcité, despite the riots of 2005, is in fact the most promising model for integration and participation of Muslims in Europe. (more…)

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With Us or Against Us: The Rhetoric of the War on Terror at Yahya Birt

Posted on February 9th, 2007 by .
Categories: Important Publications, Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization, Research International, Young Muslims.

With Us or Against Us: The Rhetoric of the War on Terror at Yahya Birt
With Us or Against Us: The Rhetoric of the War on Terror

This essay offers an analysis of this rhetoric to see what it seeks to persuade Muslims to do, what its unspoken premises are and which categories it uses to mobilise Muslim sentiment. Five years on after 9/11 and with the descent of Iraq into bloody civil war, it is essential that Muslims develop a critical distance from this rhetoric, not only because it can be internalised and have negative consequences for Muslims and how they evaluate themselves and their faith, but also because the rhetoric does much to justify an aggressive militarism that feeds the very terrorism it purports to be ending.

In his essay Birt deconstructs the war on terror discourse in a very sophisticated way. He engages with several issues such as the dichotomy between the west and islam, the so called ‘Muslim anger’ caused by socio-economic disparities and the modern way of life, the weakness of many of the critiques towards the us vs. them advocates, the distinction between good Muslims and bad Muslims and the lack of imagination how to end the war on terror. Well this summary doesn’t really do justice to the essay, so read it yourself.

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Islam and fashion research

Posted on February 9th, 2007 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

Norface subsidy for research on Islam and fashion – News and Agenda – Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)
Norface subsidy for research on Islam and fashion

In a European competition Norface, a network funded by the Sixth Framework Programme of the EU, has awarded Prof. Annelies Moors, professor at the UvA (ISIM/ASSR) of Social scientific research of contemporary muslim societies, a subsidy of 500,000 euros. Prof. Moors receives the subsidy for international research on Islam and fashion as part of a larger programme on the (renewed) rise in Europe of religion as a social force.

The research focuses on the rise and dispersal of ‘Islamic fashion’ in Europe and the importance of both transnational and local contexts for this development. Core questions in this respect are: how do consumers and products deal with possible tensions between religion and fashion, beliefs and consumption, and ethical standards and aesthetic shapes, and what is the role of the new youth culture for the presence of religion in public space? The research will be carried out from 2007 till 2009 in collaboration with four European partners.

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VOA News – Muslim Scholars Give Hirsi Ali a Mixed Reception

Posted on February 9th, 2007 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

On VOA News: Muslim Scholars Give Hirsi Ali a Mixed Reception
The article is interesting, not for the critique on Hirsi Ali but the differences of opinion among Muslims (which is actually the same is criticizing Hirsi Ali). But if the Muslims in this article are considered to be scholars…well then almost everyone is a scholar. Is this lack of knowledge on the part of the journalist, laziness or something else?
(more…)

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