C L O S E R

Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| religie_filosofie – islam in duitsland / ’Geloofsafval is vrij maar bloedlink’

Posted on March 7th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Misc. News.

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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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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…)

2 comments.

Tariq Ramadan Twice

Posted on February 4th, 2007 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

Two articles about Tariq Ramadan. One in Dutch (Volkskrant) by Caroline Fourest and one in English in the New York Times Magazine by Ian Buruma. You can read them both here:

(more…)

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2007: Year of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

Posted on January 3rd, 2007 by .
Categories: Arts & culture, Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands.

Unesco has announced that the 800th anniversary of Mevlana Rumi will be celebrated in the Netherlands in 2007 as the Unesco Year of Mevlana Rumi in the Netherlands.
Mevlana Rumi was born in Balkh (now part of Afghanistan) and died in Konya (now Turkey). Rumi’s significance transcends national, ethnic and religious boundaries. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages in various formats. After Rumi’s death, his followers founded the Mevlevi Order, better known as the “Whirling Dervishes“, who believe in performing their worship in the form of dance and music ceremony called the sema.

The general theme of his thoughts is essentially about the concept of Tawheed (unity) and union with his beloved (the primal root) and the longing for reunity which could be achieved throught music, poetry and dancing. The sacred dance of the Whirling Dervishes, Sema / turning, symbolizes a mystical journey where the traveller turns towards the truth and love, abandons hostility, hatred, reaches ‘Perfection’ where true peace and harmony exists and returns as a more mature person. Not difficult to understand why Rumi’s message also attracted Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. For many followers Rumi was a true poet of love:

Love’s nationality is separate from all other religions,
The lover’s religion and nationality is the Beloved (God).

The lover’s cause is separate from all other causes
Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries.

From: The Mysteries of the Universe and Rumi’s Discoveries on the Majestic Path of Love

A question I (since I’m not an expert on his work) have: Does Rumi prefer love as the means to submit oneselves to the divine revelation and what does this mean for the place of reason in his work?

1 comment.

Tariq Ramadan Gasthoogleraar in Rotterdam

Posted on December 16th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands, Young Muslims.

Gemeente Rotterdam subsidieert de leerstoel Identiteit en Burgerschap aan de Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam. Deze wordt ingenomen door Tariq Ramadan, overigens eerder al uitgeroepen tot Europeaan van het jaar.

Hij is nogal omstreden.

(more…)

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Moslim creationisme

Posted on December 15th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

Zomaar een berichtje op het blog van de wetenschapsjournalisten: Salpeter » Blog Archief » Wijsheid uit het oosten (in zeven delen)

Hoe vaak gebeurt het je nog: de postbode ploft een drie kilogram zwaar boek van twintig bij dertig centimeter op je bureau: Atlas of Creation, Volume 1, en verbazing is je enige emotie? Dit is een grap.

Eerst zien dan geloven?Dan toch een hele dure grap. Een auteur met de naam Harun Yahya schreef een onvoorstelbaar lijvig en glossy boek over de leugens van Darwin, het gebrek aan bewijs achter de evolutietheorie en de rest van het gebruikelijke protest, en stuurde dat de afgelopen weken naar redacties, bibliotheken en andere doelwitten.

Nou en, zou je zeggen, we kennen de missionarissen toch? Ze zitten overal: Rome, VS. Maar dat is het opvallende, Yahya komt uit Turkije. Er komen nog zes delen.

Het gaat om dit boek verkrijgbaar op de Harun Yahya website:

Harun Yahya is, voor zover ik weet, een voorvechter van tafsir ilmi, de koranuitleg die spectaculaire natuurverschijnselen en vooral hypermoderne natuurwetenschappelijke kennis in de koran terugleest om vervolgens de goddelijke oorsprong van het heilige boek te bewijzen. Het is het pseudoniem van de Turkse intellectueel (volgens sommigen een obscurantist met een quasi-wetenschappelijk jasje) Adnan Oktor. Nu is er over dit boek nogal wat te doen. Het is in Turkije opgedoken tot groot verdriet van de secularisten.

Het werk is vooral te zien als een vorm van islamitisch creationisme, de opvatting dat de aarde en de levende wezens daarop zijn geschapen door god. Geen idee hoeveel draagvlak er is voor dit type ideeën onder moslims alhier. Wel is er eerder aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam een debat geweest doordat enkele studenten zich voor een opdracht faliekant tegen de evolutietheorie keerden. (more…)

2 comments.

‘Religion of War, Religion of Peace’ – Arrival Lecture of Abdolkarim Soroush

Posted on November 25th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

On 7 december 2006 Abdolkarim Soroush will deliver his Arrival Lecture as ISIM Visiting Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and ISIM have jointly organized this lecture to mark the start of the cooperation by which they host Abdolkarim Soroush from 15 November 2006 through 15 September 2007.

Abdolkarim Soroush (Tehran, 1945) is a leading philosopher of Islam, a reformer, and a public intellectual.

(more…)

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Qantara.de – Debates on Religion and Democracy in Iran: Abdolkarim Soroush vs. Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Posted on November 16th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

Qantara.de – Debates on Religion and Democracy in Iran – Islamic Reformers Are Meeting Opposition
Islamic Reformers Are Meeting Opposition

A controversy in religious theory between two Muslim scholars, Abdolkarim Sorush and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, throws an interesting light on the divisions between conservative and reformist forces in Islam. Faraj Sarkohi says the two sides are taking increasingly irreconcilable positions

Abdolkarim Soroush has been supporting the idea of Islamic democracy. Nasr, his intellectual opponent, compared him to second-rate Western intellectuals who know neither Islam or the West.
It wasn’t a new topic. The debate has been going on for about a hundred years. The guests were well-known only in intellectual and academic circles, and it was assumed that the seminar would take place without much interest being shown by the public and with little media coverage.

But a fierce dispute between two scholars over a purely theoretical issue on the fringes of the seminar was quickly taken up by the parliament, the mosques, the religious colleges, the media, the universities and those in power in the country.

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Fawaz en het ‘ridiculiseren van God’

Posted on October 31st, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Volkskrant en Parool weet te melden dat imam Fawaz van de As Soennah moskee Hirsi Ali en Van Gogh een dodelijke ziekte heeft toegewenst. De tekst van de preek is HIER terug te vinden en HIER te beluisteren. Het gaat om een preek waarbij Fawaz aan het einde een smeekbede (du’a) doet en daarbij zegt:

(UPDATED)

(more…)

2 comments.

Fawaz en het 'ridiculiseren van God'

Posted on October 31st, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Volkskrant en Parool weet te melden dat imam Fawaz van de As Soennah moskee Hirsi Ali en Van Gogh een dodelijke ziekte heeft toegewenst. De tekst van de preek is HIER terug te vinden en HIER te beluisteren. Het gaat om een preek waarbij Fawaz aan het einde een smeekbede (du’a) doet en daarbij zegt:

(UPDATED)

(more…)

2 comments.

Visualization of Islamic messages: Gossip / Ghibah

Posted on October 30th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

p>One of the most discussed topics among Muslims on the Web is probably the issue of gossip: ghibah. It’s discussed on many fora, MSN- and Yahoogroups and not to forget the countless chatsites and messenger-talks. And now there’s something new, for me anyway. A short film on Youtube that shows the malicious nature of gossip. A universal lesson probably but now in an Islamic frame. You will see only women, which makes gossip the traditional feature of men. Of course we, men, know that we gossip as well but we would like to call that men’s talk or something like that. The women in the film are all very beautiful but with a very mean and horror-like (but then slightly more subtle) nature. These women depict the attractive nature of gossip combined with the sometimes detrimental outcome for individuals and even for society; like the Sirens who seduce us with their calls.

Interesting to follow if this will be a trend; the visualization of islamic messages on the web.

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| dossiers – Özdemir / Het is nuttiger om te zeggen: Laten we samen kijken hoe de islam vrouwvriendelijker kan

Posted on October 24th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| dossiers – Özdemir / Het is nuttiger om te zeggen: Laten we samen kijken hoe de islam vrouwvriendelijker kan

Posted on October 24th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| overigeartikelen – Milli Görüs / ’Ik ben trots op het woord fundamentalist’

Posted on October 24th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands.

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| overigeartikelen – Milli Görüs / ’Ik ben trots op het woord fundamentalist’

Posted on October 24th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Islam in the Netherlands.

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Magharebia.com – Co-producer of “Ramadan Primetime” discusses anti-terrorist television shows during Ramadan (Magharebia.com)

Posted on October 18th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Co-producer of “Ramadan Primetime” discusses anti-terrorist television shows during Ramadan (Magharebia.com)
Co-producer of “Ramadan Primetime” discusses anti-terrorist television shows during Ramadan

13/10/2006

Souheila Al-Jadda, a journalist and producer, talks to Magharebia about Ramadan programming, specifically the emergence of anti-terrorism serials, explaining their role in promoting peace and tolerance.

By Farah Kinani for Magharebia in Washington – 13/10/06

[File] Al-Jadda says Ramadan television series can promote peace and tolerance.

Souheila Al-Jadda co-produced “Ramadan Primetime”, a 30-minute documentary about specially-crafted Ramadan primetime programming shown on dozens of Arabic television channels.

Magharebia: Why is Ramadan starting to be related to anti-terror serials?

Souheila Al-Jadda: I believe that many Arab governments are realising they need to take a more proactive role in warning the public about terrorism. Part of their interest is security-related and another part is about public awareness. These serials reflect reality. Screenwriters are also interested in touching upon the social, political and international issues of today that affect Arabs. There is a desire by governments to fund such programmes, as many are state-funded, and there is also a desire by the media itself to touch upon these issues, which are part of Arab society. (more…)

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Magharebia.com – Moroccan bloggers discuss politics, tolerance and good neighboring (Magharebia.com)

Posted on October 18th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

Moroccan bloggers discuss politics, tolerance and good neighboring (Magharebia.com)
Moroccan bloggers discuss politics, tolerance and good neighboring

11/10/2006

Bloggers talk about the 2007 elections in Morocco, tolerance in Islam and between neighbors.

[File] Cherif would like to see Muslims more open to the “other”

Tolerance was a central theme of bloggers this week.

Moroccan blogger The View from Fes notes David Tolédano, secretary general of the Israeli community in Rabat, spoke about the unique relationship Morocco has with the Jewish community and “praised the kingdom’s efforts to achieve development in various fields” on Yom Kippur (October 1st).

“Our country will always remain an example of co-existence between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and a land of tolerance where the faithful can freely and respectfully worship,” Samir quoted Tolédano as saying.

In his post “L’Islam: Tolérant ou intolérant – Mustapha CHERIF”, Citoyen Hmida advised everybody, particularly radical Muslims, to read the cited book and meditate on its message.

Cherif is an Algerian Islamic scholar and a philosopher who tries “to answer the question of whether Islam is closed or open to the ‘other,” explained the Moroccan blogger, adding “revisiting Muslim thinkers, from Ibn Rochd to … Al Ghazali …, the author proves the openness that characterised Muslim intelligentsia during its period of glory”. (more…)

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Asharq Alawsat – Speak No Evil: Muslim Experts Sound Off Over the Ongoing ‘Tash’ Controversy

Posted on October 15th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

Asharq Alawsat By Huda al Saleh:

Regarding the role of mosques, and the various preachers who participated in rekindling the recent controversy, Muhammad al-Mahmud believes the mosque is controlled through the exploitation of its symbolic holiness and that the power of religious reformation or progressiveness has disappeared. He believes that the mosque has become restricted to the traditional reserved religious discourse, or the provocative one, which exploits the month of Ramadan and other religious occasions by using internet websites and some satellite television channels. This discourse, he said, is only confronted by the official religious discourse (of the official religious institution), which by virtue of its official nature tries to ‘rationalize’, but does not take initiative to put an end to such discourse. Al-Mahmud added that there are points of convergence over some concepts between the two discourses.

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Protected: Wereldvrouw Barbie

Posted on September 23rd, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

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The Blessed Balance Between Reason and Religion – part 4: Where are the 'Monsters of Loch Ness' and why are they apparently invisible?

Posted on September 18th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Public Islam, Religion Other.

Meanwhile in the Muslim blogosphere many people have blogged about the Pope–issue and its consequences and also outside. One of the questions that frequently comes up in the debates where I am or at my blog, is where are the moderate Muslims?

The real losers here might be those Muslims who, although they might feel offended, hate the use of violence and prefer the fellow Muslims to tackle other painful and pertitent cases such as Darfur or the Hudud laws or the Andijan massacre.

You mean those Muslims we hear many stories about but who are somehow extremely difficult to capture on film or tape, like the Monster of Loch Ness? THOSE Muslims?

(more…)

11 comments.

The Blessed Balance Between Reason and Religion – part 4: Where are the ‘Monsters of Loch Ness’ and why are they apparently invisible?

Posted on September 18th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Public Islam, Religion Other.

Meanwhile in the Muslim blogosphere many people have blogged about the Pope–issue and its consequences and also outside. One of the questions that frequently comes up in the debates where I am or at my blog, is where are the moderate Muslims?

The real losers here might be those Muslims who, although they might feel offended, hate the use of violence and prefer the fellow Muslims to tackle other painful and pertitent cases such as Darfur or the Hudud laws or the Andijan massacre.

You mean those Muslims we hear many stories about but who are somehow extremely difficult to capture on film or tape, like the Monster of Loch Ness? THOSE Muslims?

(more…)

11 comments.

The Blessed Balance Between Reason and Religion – part 3: Politics of Reason, Rage and Religion

Posted on September 18th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, Public Islam, Religion Other.

By now the Pope, in person, more or less expressed his regrets and the Vatican has tried to explain his comments. The reactions, among Muslim leaders, are mixed some welcoming the statement, others saying it is not enough, and again others are displeased because of his retractions, while others could not care less.
An important issue at stake here is of course the relationship between religion and violence. It would be mistake to think that Islam, or any other religion, is inherently violent. It would be also a mistake to think that Islam, or any other religion, is inherently non-violent. (more…)

9 comments.

C L O S E R – Cruci-Fixion Lane

Posted on September 2nd, 2006 by .
Categories: Arts & culture, Internal Debates, Multiculti Issues.

And in case you find your maker perhaps you’ll plead for us a bit (Procal Harum – Crucifiction Lane)

When I was about thirteen and still lived at my parents farm, we had these people living in our neighbourhood. They also had a farm and their dad was still living there. He was an old nice men, perhaps a little bit forgetting things and telling wonderful stories that were obviously not true such as the one with the giant purple hare with a two by three udder…. He saw this hare in the old farmhouse that was now used as a place for their cows. In this farmhouse above the entrance on the inside their was also a big Crucifix. It was big and old and was hanging there a long time. So long that even the spider webs across the Crucifix were covered not only with dead flies but also with dust. Nevertheless, it was important to him he told me once when I took it off to have a closer look. You never he said what could happen in the future, perhaps he would need Jesus. It was holy for him, it wasn’t a dusty wooden thing covered with fly shit and dead flies, it was a hopefull promis for the afterlife; a life that was real for him since he was 92 at that time.

It is not surprising then that the program “God doesn’t exist” (God bestaat niet) was considered a blasphemy for example because of the following picture:
(Yes that is a naked black woman being crucified). This blew over and now we have in the Netherlands a row over the upcoming concert of Madonna, also about a crucifixion scene:

Watch the video with Madonna’s Live to Tell crucifixion scene:

According to Madonna this is a means to appeal to the audience to donate AIDS charities. Nothing wrong with that cause of course. Madonna probably feels the same and said “I don’t think Jesus would be mad at me and the message I’m trying to send,” in New York Daily News. Not everyone is inclined to believe this, such Thomistic:

Let’s face facts: Madonna has built her career mixing pop songs with visual imagery which has promoted sexuality at odds with Chrsitian values. She has posed naked for photographs throughout her career, and many of these pictures have glorified deviant sexual acts. She has a large homosexual following and, although she is not homosexual, she has frequently identified herself with homosexuals and homosexuality. She has, form the beginning of her career, mixed religious imagery with blasphemy [her Like A Prayer video, her movie Truth or Dare (which depicted her Blonde Ambition Tour) and even her recent album “American Life” where she has sung “there is no resurrection”]. Madonna is an apostate Catholic who has serious issues with the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. She has been quoted as saying the following:

“Crucifixes are sexy because there is a naked man on them.”

“Nuns are sexy.”

She has also suggested that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were sexually intimate (and this was in the early 1990’s, long before “The Da Vinci Code”).

Madonna has attempted to portray herself as having become softer and more spiritual, and I have heard many Catholics talk about this with hope that she is experiencing a conversion.

Hopefully, Madonna will come back home to the Faith she has abandoned and openly mocked. However, she will need to publicly retract much of her career and admit that her actions were blasphemous and that many of her works (like her “Sex” book, which she reportedly quietly regrets) which led countless souls into sin and darkness.

Once she has done such things, and renounced her denial of the Divinity of Christ and His Resurrection, I will be more inclined to listen to her speculations about what Jesus would think of her behavior.

This case brings not only to attention the way religion is portrayed in modern culture and mass media, but of course also how it is done and by whom and how people react to that. (more…)

3 comments.

C L O S E R – Back from liminoid

Posted on September 1st, 2006 by .
Categories: Blogosphere, Gouda Issues, Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Joy Category, Morocco, Religious and Political Radicalization, Some personal considerations.

Well, hello there. It’s been a while. I think besides during my stay in Morocco a few years ago, there was never a ‘blog-less’ period that was so long. Holidays (indeed, that was my liminoid phase), writing research applications, writing two chapters of my Ph.D (yes!) and a lot of small things kept me away from here. Not that there wasn’t anything to blog about. Let me give you a small tour of what happened and what would certainly have been part of the blog:

A Romeo and Juliet story

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 08/09/2006 | Love in the time of holy war
Love in the time of holy war
More than distance and prison separate a Muslim extremist and his Jewish girlfriend.

Racialization of Muslims

spiked | Making Muslims into a race apart
Making Muslims into a race apart
In his TV show on British Muslims, Jon Snow was more anthropologist than journalist, trekking to an exotic land to meet apparently peculiar people.

Some things about Israël and Hezbollah

towards God is our journey
Muslim disagreement on the ‘Party of God’

Islamicate: Invoking Spinoza

The Qana Conspiracy Theory – World Opinion Roundup
The Qana Conspiracy Theory

Some things about irritating aircraft passengers a.k.a. terrorists

Mirror.co.uk – News – EXCLUSIVE: MALAGA JET MUTINY PAIR’S SHOCK AT PLANE EJECTION
EXCLUSIVE: MALAGA JET MUTINY PAIR’S SHOCK AT PLANE EJECTION
Sohail Ashraf & Khuram Zeb
We just couldn’t believe they feared we were bombers We’re ordinary Asian lads who only wanted some fun

The Peninsula On-line: Qatar’s leading English Daily
All is well, say Indians in terror scare

Some Dutch stuff

NRC Handelsblad – Digitale Editie – Zaterdag 26 augustus 2006

Strijd in Midden-Oosten bewijst het failliet van de koude oorlog tegen de moslimdemocraten
Saad Eddin Ibrahim

NRC Handelsblad – Digitale Editie – Zaterdag 26 augustus 2006

Ook ik had een martelaar voor Allah kunnen worden
Naema Tahir

Het is, in je hoofd, niet eens zo’n grote stap, martelaar worden voor de islam. Toen schrijfster Naema Tahir als ontheemde puber klem zat tussen Pakistan, Engeland en Nederland, lokte het gastvrije hemelse paradijs heel wat meer dan het verwarrende leven als immigrant.

AD.nl – 24 uur per dag actueel nieuws /
Groei islamitische basisschool Gouda zet door

STOPlog
De Vliegeraar
Dit boek geeft je het gevoel de geschiedenis van de laatste 30 jaar in Afghanistan van binnenuit te hebben beleefd. Daarin is schrijver Khaled Hosseini zondermeer geslaagd. De Vliegeraar van Kabul is een verpletterend boek dat je van het begin tot het eind gevangen houdt. Net als een vlieger zal de lezer het verhaal ook daarna niet meer loslaten, zoals dat bij bepaalde boeken het geval is.

Trouw, deVerdieping| letter-geest – Veroordeeld tot verstoting uit de maatschappij
Veroordeeld tot verstoting uit de maatschappij
door Joshua Livestro

Essayist Joshua Livestro signaleert een streven om te willen terugkeren naar vroeger, ’naar de tijd van vóór de polarisering, vóór de kogels, de messteken en de harde woorden over de (radicale) islam’.

Maar ’wat bedoeld is als een herstel van oude verhoudingen, draagt in praktijk vooral bij aan de voortschrijdende islamisering van de Nederlandse samenleving’. Degenen die zich hiertegen verzetten, worden maatschappelijk verstoten.

Van der Horst

Een gevalletje ‘vrijheid van meningsuiting’ van iemand die zich presenteert als de ridder van het vrije woord, maar dat beter niet kan doen (ook al had hij in de kwestie zelf gelijk).

Some interesting research stuff

Pearsall’s Books: Pentecostalism and the Berbers
Pentecostalism and the Berbers

rfmcdpei: [BRIEF NOTE] The Christianization of Kabylia?
The Christianization of Kabylia?

Something about free speech

Raed in the Middle: back from the mideast
One of the two men who approached me first, Inspector Harris, asked for my id card and boarding pass. I gave him my boarding pass and driver’s license. He said “people are feeling offended because of your t-shirt”. I looked at my t-shirt: I was wearing my shirt which states in both Arabic and English “we will not be silent”. You can take a look at it in this picture taken during our Jordan meetings with Iraqi MPs. I said “I am very sorry if I offended anyone, I didnt know that this t-shirt will be offensive”. He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him “why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn’t it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?” The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said “people here in the US don’t understand these things about constitutional rights”. So I answered him “I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt”.

Something strange

There is this funny video I found only recently seems to make clear why we, men, never should be allowed to come close to an iron (which is undoubtedly true of course 😉 ). Funny thing is though that the same video was emailed to me and the video there was called: muslim-of-the-week (moslim-van-de-week). Don’t know how people know if this guy is a Muslim or not and I don’t know what it means this name change (there was no comment in the email), but nevertheless I found it remarkable. Another thing that is remarkable; I do a lot of stupid things every day and luckily no cameras around, while this one is filmed in such a way (angle) that the effect would be clear. So it is probably fake. But still, it is funny, so here watch it yourself:

Totallycrap: Call me on My Mobile

And something funny

Austin Powers in Goldmember – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
* Goldmember: “Hey, everybody! I’m from Holland! Isn’t that vierd?”
* Goldmember: “Look everyvone! My vinky vas a key!” (triumphantly holds up his penis/spare tractor-beam key)

Nigel Powers: “Only a bloody Dutchman!”

* Nigel Powers: “There’s only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures…and the Dutch. ”

So, yes, that means that I’m back from going liminoid, but still without an answer to the most important question in the blogosphere: what’s the use of blogging? And for the people who have noticed that this blog wasn’t online the last few days, religionresearch.org (of which this blog is part of) had exceeded the bandwith limit. Mainly due to my blog but I don’t know why: a hundred and something visitors isn’t enough for that. So is anyone stealing my bandwith?

0 comments.

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