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ISPU Report “Shari’a Law: Coming to a Courthouse Near You?: What Shari’a Really Means to American Muslims” by Julie Macfarlane

Wait, there’s actual evidence of what American Muslims think about shariah? But what will we do with the Islamophobia industry who thinks they know everything about everything? ISPU Report “Shari’a Law: Coming to a Courthouse Near You?: What Shari’a Really Means to American Muslims” by Julie Macfarlane. This is the first empirical study to ask North American Muslims what shari’a means to them in their everyday lives. The study demonstrates that the present “moral panic” over shari’a and its alleged impact on American legal and social culture is wildly overblown. Based on the study, for most American Muslims shari’a represents…

The Long Shadow of Torture (November 4, 2010)

Iranian-American political scientist Darius Rejali is one of the world’s leading experts on torture, and in particular on how democracies change torture and are changed by it. In the wake of Wikileaks revelations about torture in U.S.-occupied Iraq, we explore how his knowledge might deepen our public discourse about such practices and inform our collective reckoning with consequences yet to unfold. [From The Long Shadow of Torture (November 4, 2010)] torture

A Very Small Man

Many people are clearly and understandably incensed by Vice President Cheney’s on-going media campaign advocating state-sponsored torture and his making what appear to be all sorts of false claims about how effective his torture policies were. But though it’s maddening and offensive, I’m more on the side of being heartened or at least glad to see the exposure he’s getting — not so much because it’s politically damaging to the Republicans, which is probably true, but because he’s (as is his puppet daughter) showing and can’t help but show more and more about who he is. [From A Very Small…