Keep Hope Alive!

I have always been uncomfortable around Muslim women wearing the full veil or Burqa.  Growing up in Karachi,  I only knew one woman who wore a full veil – "Apaa" my Urdu and Quran teacher.  I just never encountered in my 12 years there many women who wore a veil.  Thus, now, it is so surprising for me to see Muslim women veiled in Western countries. On the one hand – the feminist in me wants to shake them up and say: "Why? Oh Why? are you doing this?" – but then the other feminist says: "Its a free world…

Mohammed the Brit – NYTimes.com. In this context, the readiness of European Muslims, many bearing the Prophet’s name, to stand up for values of free speech assumes bridge-building importance. It reflects the experience of faith as practiced within a modern secular society.

On Burning Qur’ans – avari | haroon moghul. I don’t think the overwhelming majority of Muslims ever cared.  Other than sad, annoying facebook campaigns which are so clueless as to not know that one cannot campaign for a restriction of a constitutional right.  Even now, the pictures of violent protest we see, with crowds of angry demonstrators stupidly retaliating against one fringe pastor’s insensitivities by burning American flags (can hypocrisy become any more absurd?), are restricted to Afghanistan — where we are at war.  Almost nobody in the media is talking through this, at all.  Clearly, the anger at the…