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Protected: Kif Kif > Mediawatch > Xl > Een Europese geschiedenis van beeldvorming en racisme

Posted on June 11th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

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Telos Press: Richard Rorty, 1931-2007

Posted on June 11th, 2007 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

Richard Rorty, 1931-2007
by Telos Press

Richard Rorty, the leading American philosopher and heir to the pragmatist tradition, passed away on Friday, June 8.

He was Professor of Comparative Literature emeritus at Stanford University. In April the American Philosophical Society awarded him the Thomas Jefferson Medal. The prize citation reads: “In recognition of his influential and distinctively American contribution to philosophy and, more widely, to humanistic studies. His work redefined knowledge ‘as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature’ and thus redefined philosophy itself as an unending, democratically disciplined, social and cultural activity of inquiry, reflection, and exchange, rather than an activity governed and validated by the concept of objective, extramental truth.”

At the awards ceremony, presenter Lionel Gossman celebrated Dr. Rorty as an advocate of “a deeply liberal, democratic, and truly American way of thinking about knowledge.” Dr. Rorty’s published works include Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1988), Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers I (1991), Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers II (1991), Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth Century America (1998), Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers III (1998), and Philosophy and Social Hope (2000).

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Iraqi roses – It is all about our life

Posted on June 11th, 2007 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

It is all about our life

THANKS TO GOD
Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God, Thank you God…I survived from a road side bomb yesterday morning.
I will talk about the details later

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Protected: Trouw – De echte jihad is die tegen het beest in jezelf

Posted on June 11th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Protected: NOSJOURNAAL – Zutphense moslima voor Engels gerecht

Posted on June 9th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Politie op bezoek – Wij Blijven Hier!

Posted on June 8th, 2007 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

Politie op bezoek – Wij Blijven Hier!
Tariq Shadid is gastarbeider bij wijblijvenhier.nl.

Gisterenmiddag, na een debat met onder andere Ronnie Naftaniel op de radio (NIO, Nederlandse Islamitische Omroep), liepen we het Plein op om aan een terrasje te gaan zitten. Ik pakte mijn mobieltje en belde mijn geliefde eega op om het voldane gevoel, dat altijd onvermijdelijk ontstaat als de zionistische visie weer eens en plein public haar masker heeft moeten afleggen, met haar te delen.

Tot mijn verbazing vernam ik van haar, dat een agent in burger op de stoep had gestaan, en aan had gegeven met mij te willen praten. Toen ik vroeg waarover, zei ze dat de man zich hierover enigszins op de vlakte had gehouden, maar had gezegd dat het iets te maken had met de komst van een Israëlisch voetbalteam naar Heerenveen.

Vreemd, toch? In ieder geval, de agent zou de volgende dag opnieuw langskomen.

Inmiddels is de goede man aan de deur geweest. Hij belde aan, en ik deed open. Deze keer was de man in volledig politie-uniform, een man van een eind in de vijftig, groot van postuur en met een vriendelijke uitstraling.

Agent: “Goedemiddag, ik neem aan dat u van uw vrouw gehoord heeft dat ik langs zou komen.”

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Document details ‘U.S.’ plan to sink Hamas – Conflicts Forum

Posted on June 7th, 2007 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

» Document details ‘U.S.’ plan to sink Hamas – Conflicts Forum
The Majd document is based on a Jordanian government translation of a reputed US intelligence document that was obtained by the newspaper from a Jordanian government official. The document, an official at the newspaper said, was drawn up by “Arab and American parties” and “presented to Palestinian President Abbas by the head of an Arab intelligence agency”. The document is explosive.

Should Abbas give his agreement to the plan – which is not yet certain – he would be complicit in a program to undermine his own government.

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Survey: U.S. Muslims Assimilated, Opposed to Extremism – washingtonpost.com

Posted on June 7th, 2007 by .
Categories: International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Survey: U.S. Muslims Assimilated, Opposed to Extremism – washingtonpost.com

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page A03

Unlike Muslim minorities in many European countries, U.S. Muslims are highly assimilated, close to parity with other Americans in income and overwhelmingly opposed to Islamic extremism, according to the first major, nationwide random survey of Muslims.

The survey by the Pew Research Center found that 78 percent of U.S. Muslims said the use of suicide bombings against civilian targets to defend Islam is never justified. But 5 percent said it is justified “rarely,” 7 percent said “sometimes,” and 1 percent said “often”; the remaining 9 percent said they did not know or declined to answer.

By comparison, Muslims in France, Spain and Britain were almost twice as likely to say suicide bombing is sometimes or often justified, and public acceptance of the tactic is even higher in some countries with large Muslim populations, such as Nigeria, Jordan and Egypt

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The Austrian Economists: The Economic and Cultural Dynamics of Globalization

Posted on June 6th, 2007 by .
Categories: Religion Other.

Berger about the cultural elite and the secularization/modernization thesis: The Austrian Economists: The Economic and Cultural Dynamics of Globalization

Berger gave an overview of world religious movements. He spoke about the secularization thesis, and why the current empirical reality runs counter to the modernization/secularization thesis. Berger argued that the cultural elite are prone to overstate the case for secularization because of three factors: (1) geographic exception— Western Europe and Central Europe does conform nicely with the secularization thesis; (2) sociological selection bias — members of the intellectual/cultural elite in the human sciences tend to be non-religious (this is not true with respect to the hard sciences) and thus they tend to believe that just as they became less religious as they were educated and “modernized” it is only natural that others will be less religious as they are “modernized”; and (3) confusion between positive and normative statements concerning secularization, so that anti-religious zealotry is wrapped in pro-modernity rhetoric. These 3 factors make sure that a cultural elite cling to the modernization/secularization thesis beyond where it could reasonably be maintained.

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AD.nl – Opvang tot moslim bekeerde meiden

Posted on June 5th, 2007 by .
Categories: Young Muslims.

AD.nl -  Opvang tot moslim bekeerde meiden

Door PATRICK POUW
UTRECHT – De Utrechtse Vereniging Islaam-for-all werkt aan een opvanghuis voor Nederlandse meiden die zich tot de islam hebben bekeerd en daardoor thuis niet meer welkom zijn.

Het opvanghuis moet plaats bieden aan vier tot zes bekeerde moslima’s uit het hele land.

De vaak jonge bekeerlingen worden in veel gevallen gedwongen te kiezen tussen hun nieuwe geloof en hun familie, stelt initiatiefneemster Kathelijne Veenstra, die zich zelf ruim drie jaar geleden tot de islam bekeerde.

,,Vooral ouders die al een hele toekomst voor hun dochter hadden uitgestippeld, reageren heel heftig. ‘Als je nog één keer met die hoofddoek op thuiskomt, dan breek ik al je botten!’ wordt er dan geroepen.’’

Meiden die na hun bekering in problemen raken, worden op dit moment veelal opgevangen in het reguliere opvangcircuit. Maar dat is ‘niet ideaal’, stelt Veenstra. In het kamerproject voor bekeerde moslima’s kunnen de meiden met lotgenoten en in een stabiele omgeving werken aan herstel van het contact met familie en vrienden.

Deskundigen en de hulpverlening in Utrecht herkennen de problematiek, maar concrete cijfers zijn niet voorhanden. In de crisisopvang van het Utrechtse Meidenhuis zaten dit jaar twee meiden die in problemen raakten nadat ze zich tot de islam hadden bekeerd. ,,We komen het regelmatig tegen dat meiden op straat komen te staan nadat ze zich bekeerd hebben,’’ zegt afdelingsmanager Marieneke. ,,Er wordt vaak tegen meiden gezegd dat ze moeten kiezen tussen hun ouders en hun islamitische vriendje. Dat maakt het lastig. In gesprek blijven is heel belangrijk, want het blijft je kind. Wrikken levert niets op.’’

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The smell of religion – the relation between scent and spirituality

Posted on June 5th, 2007 by .
Categories: Uncategorized.

I came across this interesting post at Feministing about the so-called ‘Worlds first spiritual perfume‘. On their website you can find a few guidelines for a ‘spiritual use’ of the perfume:

Spiritual Use of Perfume
• Begin your spiritual practice
(prayer, meditation, contemplation, etc.)
• Establish your desired spiritual state.
• Smell your wrist, maintaining awareness of your spiritual state.
• Keep repeating this association.
• In the course of your day, let it remind you of your spiritual state by smelling your wrist.
• Maintaining contact with the Spiritual Self brings inspirations and insights, only available by spiritual awareness.

That reminds me (and not only me) more of spiritual practices by Muslims then by Christians. I have a lot of memories about the shops for example in Fez selling all kinds of perfumes and about Moroccan male and female friends and colleagues using all kinds of fragrances. According to the Islamic traditions men should use fragrances before prayer. Just like a ritual of washing yourself before prayer, the use of fragrances can be seen as an attempt to reach a state of maximum purity in order to build the relation with Allah. It can also be seen as a disciplining practice, being constantly reminded of the relation with Allah because of the fragrances you constantly smell.

For women this is different. According to the Islamic traditions women should not use fragrances that attract attention from the opposite sex. This means that their state of ritual purity is reached by trying to be modest. Of course this does not mean that are no ‘islamic’ fragrances for women. In fact there many sold at several websites such as The Online Islamic Store, Fragance and Things,  Troid.org-the reign of dawa’h (a puritan salafi site), Simple Islam, The Islamic Mall, that sell perfumes (oils) for both men and women. Also several Islamic websites give advice on the use of perfumes such as Islamicnet, Islam-qa and Al-Islam pertaining to issues like death, difference between men and women, ruling on the use of perfumes that contain alcohol.

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| religie_filosofie – Bekeren met de vrouwenfluisteraar

Posted on June 4th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Religious and Political Radicalization.

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| religie_filosofie – Bekeren met de vrouwenfluisteraar

Posted on June 4th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Religious and Political Radicalization.

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