Keep Hope Alive!

Berlusconi and the ‘Mamma the Turks!’ strategy | Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist. As an anthropologist, I find the connection that Berlusconi and his team propose between Muslims and Gypsies very interesting. Italy has been rebuked by the European Union for the intolerable condition in which Gypsies (many of whom have been Italian citizens for centuries) are left, and the lack of religious spaces for minorities in the country, with the paradoxical situation that the Catholic Church supports the construction of mosques. But the similarities end there: Gypsies in Italy tend to be Catholic or are Muslims in they own…

The Boston Globe – along with all local media – is running the story about the first same sex marriage licenses being given out in the People’s Republic of Cambridge. I am really happy to be living in this city and state! Since in Islam – marriage is a civil contract – there should not be issues (ha! ha ha!) with Muslims seeing anything wrong with gay marriage. I am not sure what the Holy Quran says about homosexuality – perhaps someone can drop me the 411. But I think we should let people choose who they want to be…

‘Stealth Jihad’ Conveys Paranoia – Newsweek. Also, simply put, foreign words freak people out. “Jihad” and “Sharia” reinforce the sense among Americans that Muslims in general have an unfathomable world view. During World War II, formerly obscure words like “hara-kiri” and “kamikaze,” which suggested the “warlike ferocity” of the Japanese, became common parlance, Nunberg says. “There was this sense of being confronted with this hostile, alien culture.” The Japanese were “literally demonized,” he says.