C L O S E R

Sara Silvestri – Europe’s Muslim Women: potential, aspirations and challenges

Posted on December 5th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: [Online] Publications.

Europe’s Muslim women: potential, aspirations and challenges

Europe’s Muslim women: potential, aspirations and challenges
Qualitative study based on interviews with Muslim women in Brussels, London and Turin (2008)

This report presents the key findings of a qualitative study about Europe’s Muslim women, conducted by Dr Sara Silvestri (London’s City University and Cambridge University, United Kingdom), on behalf of the King Baudouin Foundation.

It aims to obtain a general sense of the extent to which the religion of Islam plays a role in defining the experiences of Europe’s Muslim women and to charter the main issues of concern, and trends of thinking and of mobilisation among them. The study has the ambition to bring forth the voice, daily life, problems, and aspirations of these women. It was conducted in Belgium, Great Britain and Italy, primarily in three cities with large concentrations of Muslim populations: Brussels, London, and Turin. It involved questionnaires and structured and unstructured interviews with 49 Muslim women.

o Free download of this publication (pdf, 1 MB)
o Free download of the summary (pdf, 400 KB)

0 comments.

MOI – Van God Los – Godslastering in de hedendaagse samenleving

Posted on December 1st, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News, Public Islam.

a href=”http://www.moistudies.nl/MOIactueel.htm”MOI: Nederlandse Vereniging voor de Studie van het Midden-Oosten en de Islam/abr /b’Van God Los’ – Godslastering in de hedendaagse samenleving/bbr /br /”Godslastering afgeschaft” “Godslastering blijft strafbaar” “Verbod godslastering uitgebreid”: drie krantenkoppen van de laatste weken die in een notendop de discussie over godslastering weergeven. Godslastering roept veel emoties op: bij gelovigen die zich gekwetst of beledigd voelen en bij anderen die godslastering zien als een middel om de vrijheid van meningsuiting te beperken. Godslastering heeft zowel een juridische als religieuze betekenis. Wat betekent godslastering nu eigenlijk precies? Welke ontwikkelingen heeft het juridische begrip gekend? Wat betekent godslastering in een seculiere en pluralistische samenleving? Waarom zouden gelovigen extra bescherming nodig hebben die niet-gelovigen niet hebben?br /br /De Nederlandse Vereniging voor de Studie van het Midden-Oosten en de Islam (MOI) organiseert op dinsdag 2 december een studiedag in Utrecht over het onderwerp godslastering waarbij bovenstaande vragen en meer aan bod komen. Onderzoekers zullen ingaan op diverse onderwerpen zoals de historische ontwikkeling van godslastering in de wet, de betekenis van godslastering voor gelovigen, godslastering in een multiculturele samenleving en hedendaagse vormen van godslastering.br /br /Plaats: Utrecht, Drift 21, Sweelinckzaalbr /Tijd: 13.30 uur – 18.00 uurbr /Kosten: MOI-Leden en ZemZem abonnees: gratis, niet-leden 2,50 eurobr /br /Voorlopig Programma:br /br /13.30 uur: Opening door de voorzitter van de MOI, Dick Douwesbr /br /13.45 uur: Martijn de Koning – Moslims Beledigen. Submission, Fitna en het ritueel van blasfemiebr /br /14.30 uur: Jojada Verrips – Kunst en blasfemie: een geval van beroerd worden door beeldenbr /br /15.15 uur: Pauzebr /br /15.45 uur: Jan Jaap de Ruiter – Godslastering en Islambr /br /16.30 uur: discussie met zaalbr /br /17.00 uur: Afsluiting dagvoorzitter en borrelbr /br /

0 comments.

Austin Dacey – De vrijheidsmisvatting

Posted on December 1st, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: [Online] Publications.

a href=”http://www.trouw.nl/opinie/letter-en-geest/article1911464.ece/De_vrijheidsmisvatting_.html”De vrijheidsmisvatting – Trouw/abr /blockquoteEr bestaat in de ziel van seculier links vandaag de dag grote verwarring over de betekenis van vrijheid. Dit noem ik de ’vrijheidsmisvatting’. Het spinozistische principe dat het individuele geweten niet onderdrukt mag worden door anderen, niet door goden of overheden en niet door de tirannie der gewoonte, leidt tot de verkeerde conclusie dat het individuele geweten gevrijwaard moet zijn van kritische evaluatie en beoordeling door anderen. Omdat het geweten overgelaten wordt aan het individu zou de waarheid van de conclusies óók aan dat individu moeten worden overgelaten.br /br /Maar mensen hebben wél het recht te denken wat zij willen, ze hebben alleen niet het recht om gelijk te hebben. Kritiek leveren is géén inbreuk op de vrijheid van het individu. Sterker nog: kritiek is de ultieme bevestiging van de vrijheid van een ander. Iemands redenen om te doen wat hij doet zijn van nature zodanig dat anderen die in overweging kunnen nemen en kunnen accepteren. Maar als anderen ze kunnen accepteren, dan kunnen zij ze ook verwerpen.br /br /Door het geweten tot privézaak te verklaren, hoopte seculier links het publieke domein te beschermen tegen de soms giftige effecten van het geloof. Maar paradoxaal genoeg ondermijnt deze privatisering alle pogingen om je te verzetten tegen religie als die de mensenrechten bedreigt – zoals het geval is in het debat over de islam. Gelukkig is er een coherentere en handiger manier om na te denken over een seculiere, open samenleving. Het zal geen verrassing zijn dat we hiervoor weer bij Spinoza moeten zijn.br /br /Spinoza hangt zijn argumenten voor het vrije geweten niet op aan subjectiviteit of privacy, maar juist aan objectiviteit en openbaarheid. Het geweten kan niet gedwongen worden omdat het voortkomt uit onze eigen beoordeling over welke handeling voor ons de juiste is. Het hogere doel van de bescherming van het geweten is om de waarheden van het geweten te kunnen delen met andere mensen. (Dat is wat Spinoza zelf ook probeerde én bereikte – zij het postuum.)br /br /Voor Spinoza zijn gewetenszaken dus niet privé, maar openbaar: open om besproken te worden, open voor kritische evaluatie aan de hand van objectieve normen, en open voor verandering. Ik heb het geweten getypeerd als een open source-systeem, naar het voorbeeld van de open source-beweging in computer software. Een open source-systeem is een vorm van democratische, collectieve besluitvorming waarin alle deelnemers elke oplossing kunnen overwegen, bekritiseren en herzien. Het proces zelf staat open voor iedereen wier bijdragen bruikbaar lijken.br /br /Zo bezien moeten beweringen over gewetenskwesties niet alleen getolereerd worden in het publieke domein, maar zelfs actief aangemoedigd. Dergelijke gesprekken zullen niet altijd eenvoudig of gemakkelijk zijn, maar in een vrije samenleving zijn ze van wezenlijk belang. Het is de essentie van vrijheid./blockquote

0 comments.

James Taranto / Wall Street Journal – Geert Wilders: Our culture is better

Posted on December 1st, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News, Public Islam.

a href=”http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122792271890965883.html”Geert Wilders: ‘Our Culture Is Better’ – WSJ.com/abr /blockquote’Our Culture Is Better’br /Champion of freedom or anti-Islamic provocateur? Both.br /br /By James Tarantobr /br / By his own description, Geert Wilders is not a typical Dutch politician. “We are a country of consensus,” he tells me on a recent Saturday morning at his midtown Manhattan hotel. “I hate consensus. I like confrontation. I am not a consensus politician. . . . This is something that is really very un-Dutch.”br /br /Yet the 45-year-old Mr. Wilders says he is the most famous politician in the Netherlands: “Everybody knows me. . . . There is no other politician — not even the prime minister — who is as well-known. . . . People hate me, or they love me. There’s nothing in between. There is no gray area.”br /br /To his admirers, Mr. Wilders is a champion of Western values on a continent that has lost confidence in them. To his detractors, he is an anti-Islamic provocateur. Both sides have a point.!–more–br /br /In March, Mr. Wilders released a short film called “Fitna,” a harsh treatment of Islam that begins by interspersing inflammatory Quran passages with newspaper and TV clips depicting threats and acts of violent jihad. The second half of the film, titled “The Netherlands Under the Spell of Islam,” warns that Holland’s growing Muslim population — which more than doubled between 1990 and 2004, to 944,000, some 5.8% of the populace — poses a threat to the country’s traditional liberal values. Under the heading, “The Netherlands in the future?!” it shows brutal images from Muslim countries: men being hanged for homosexuality, a beheaded woman, another woman apparently undergoing genital mutilation.br /br /Making such a film, Mr. Wilders knew, was a dangerous act. In November 2004, Theo van Gogh was assassinated on an Amsterdam street in retaliation for directing a film called “Submission” about Islam’s treatment of women. The killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, left a letter on van Gogh’s body threatening Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the film’s writer and narrator.br /br /Ms. Hirsi Ali, born in Somalia, had renounced Islam and been elected to the Dutch Parliament, where she was an ally of Mr. Wilders. Both belonged to the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, known by the Dutch acronym VVD. Both took a hard line on what they saw as an overly accommodationist policy toward the Netherlands’ Muslim minority. They argued that radical imams “should be stripped of their nationality,” that their mosques should be closed, and that “we should be strong in defending the rights of women,” Mr. Wilders tells me.br /br /This made them dissenters within the VVD. “We got into trouble every week,” Mr. Wilders recalls. “We were like children going to their parents if they did something wrong, because every week they hassled us. . . . We really didn’t care what anybody said. If the factional leadership said, ‘Well, you cannot go to this TV program,’ for us it was an incentive to go, not not to go. So we were a little bit of two mavericks, rebels if you like.”br /br /Mr. Wilders finally quit the party over its support for opening negotiations to admit Turkey into the European Union. That was in September 2004. “Two months later, Theo van Gogh was killed, and the whole world changed,” says Mr. Wilders. He and Ms. Hirsi Ali both went into hiding; he still travels with bodyguards. After a VVD rival threatened to strip Ms. Hirsi Ali’s citizenship over misstatements on her 1992 asylum application, she left Parliament and took a fellowship at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Mr. Wilders stayed on and formed the Party for Freedom, or PVV. In 2006 it became Parliament’s fifth-largest party, with nine seats in the 150-member lower chamber.br /br /Having his own party liberates Mr. Wilders to speak his mind. As he sees it, the West suffers from an excess of toleration for those who do not share its tradition of tolerance. “We believe that — ‘we’ means the political elite — that all cultures are equal,” he says. “I believe this is the biggest disease today facing Europe. . . . We should wake up and tell ourselves: You’re not a xenophobe, you’re not a racist, you’re not a crazy guy if you say, ‘My culture is better than yours.’ A culture based on Christianity, Judaism, humanism is better. Look at how we treat women, look at how we treat apostates, look at how we go with the separation of church and state. I can give you 500 examples why our culture is better.”br /br /He acknowledges that “the majority of Muslims in Europe and America are not terrorists or violent people.” But he says “it really doesn’t matter that much, because if you don’t define your own culture as the best, dominant one, and you allow through immigration people from those countries to come in, at the end of the day you will lose your own identity and your own culture, and your society will change. And our freedom will change — all the freedoms we have will change.”br /br /The murder of van Gogh lends credence to this warning, as does the Muhammad cartoon controversy of 2005 in Denmark. As for “Fitna,” it has not occasioned a violent response, but its foes have made efforts to suppress it. A Dutch Muslim organization went to court seeking to enjoin its release on the ground that, in Mr. Wilders’s words, “it’s not in the interest of Dutch security.” The plaintiffs also charged Mr. Wilders with blasphemy and inciting hatred. Mr. Wilders thought the argument frivolous, but decided to pre-empt it: “The day before the verdict, I broadcasted [‘Fitna’] . . . not because I was not confident in the outcome, but I thought: I’m not taking any chance, I’m doing it. And it was legal, because there was not a verdict yet.” The judge held that the national-security claim was moot and ruled in Mr. Wilders’s favor on the issues of blasphemy and incitement.br /br /Dutch television stations had balked at broadcasting the film, and satellite companies refused to carry it even for a fee. So Mr. Wilders released it online. The British video site LiveLeak.com soon pulled the film, citing “threats to our staff of a very serious nature,” but put it back online a few days later. (“Fitna” is still available on LiveLeak, as well as on other sites such as YouTube and Google Video.)br /br /An organization called The Netherlands Shows Its Colors filed a criminal complaint against Mr. Wilders for “inciting hatred.” In June, Dutch prosecutors declined to pursue the charge, saying in a statement: “That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable.” The group is appealing the prosecutors’ decision.br /br /In July, a Jordanian prosecutor, acting on a complaint from a pressure group there, charged Mr. Wilders with blasphemy and other crimes. The Netherlands has no extradition treaty with Jordan, but Mr. Wilders worries — and the head of the group that filed the complaint has boasted — that the indictment could restrict his ability to travel. Mr. Wilders says he does not visit a foreign country without receiving an assurance that he will not be arrested and extradited.br /br /”The principle is not me — it’s not about Geert Wilders,” he says. “If you look at the press and the rest of the political elite in the Netherlands, nobody cares. Nobody gives a damn. This is the worst thing, maybe. . . . A nondemocratic country cannot use the international or domestic legal system to silence you. . . . If this starts, we can get rid of all parliaments, and we should close down every newspaper, and we should shut up and all pray to Mecca five times a day.”br /br /It is difficult to fault Mr. Wilders’s impassioned defense of free speech. And although the efforts to silence him via legal harassment have proved far from successful, he rightly points out that they could have a chilling effect, deterring others from speaking out.br /br /Mr. Wilders’s views on Islam, though, are problematic. Since 9/11, American political leaders have struggled with the question of how to describe the ideology of the enemy without making enemies of the world’s billion or so Muslims. The various terms they have tried — “Islamic extremism,” “Islamism,” “Islamofascism” — have fallen short of both clarity and melioration. Melioration is not Mr. Wilders’s highest priority, and to him the truth couldn’t be clearer: The problem is Islam itself. “I see Islam more as an ideology than as a religion,” he explains.br /His own view of Islam is a fundamentalist one: “According to the Quran, there are no moderate Muslims. It’s not Geert Wilders who’s saying that, it’s the Quran . . . saying that. It’s many imams in the world who decide that. It’s the people themselves who speak about it and talk about the terrible things — the genital mutilation, the honor killings. This is all not Geert Wilders, but those imams themselves who say this is the best way of Islam.”br /br /Yet he insists that his antagonism toward Islam reflects no antipathy toward Muslims: “I make a distinction between the ideology . . . and the people. . . . There are people who call themselves Muslims and don’t subscribe to the full part of the Quran. And those people, of course, we should invest [in], we should talk to.” He says he would end Muslim immigration to the Netherlands but work to assimilate those already there.br /br /His idea of how to do so, however, seems unlikely to win many converts: “You have to give up this stupid, fascist book” — the Quran. “This is what you have to do. You have to give up that book.”br /br /Mr. Wilders is right to call for a vigilant defense of liberal principles. A society has a right, indeed a duty, to require that religious minorities comply with secular rules of civilized behavior. But to demand that they renounce their religious identity and holy books is itself an affront to liberal principles.br /br /Mr. Taranto, a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, writes the Best of the Web Today column for OpinionJournal.com./blockquote

0 comments.

Protected: Onder antrpologen – Claude Lévi-Strauss

Posted on December 1st, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications.

Enter your password to view comments.

« Previous Page « Newer