Books Politics

A Quote from Rushdie

In light of my earlier post: “But members of the new colony have only one real problem, and that problem is white people. British racism, of course, is not our problem. It’s yours. We simply suffer from the effects of your problem.” p. 138 “But it is often argued that those old days, those old ideas are long dead, [racism which resulted in slavery and colonialism] and play no significant parts in the events of contemporary Britain. If only that were true. If only history worked so cleanly, erasing itself as it went forward.” pg. 145 From: “Imaginary Homelands” (Salman…

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Intra-faith Politics

Karen Armstrong Interview

She talks a lot about religion and politics in this particular piece. I think her history of the Sunni-Shi’ah political divide is a bit off. Arguably the first empires fighting about this were in the 11th century (Fatimids and Abbasids), but I would argue the political division goes back to the time of the Prophet. However, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t live well together. Karen Armstrong

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