Category: Current Affairs

Current Affairs Politics

Problems: Legal, Flying, Media

islamoyankee

New understandings of the law: Not all Americans are equal. Sepia Mutiny has a two articles (1, 2) on how laws are being created ad hoc for Muslims, or how old laws are being re-read to apply in situations that they weren’t meant to. After London, flying has apparently become quite the ordeal. I have missed it so far, but travel season is coming up for me now. Al-Muhajabah Aziz at City of Brass Sepia Mutiny On a slightly lighter note, HijabMan has a wonderful post on how Muslim men do/don’t like a little naked Kate Moss with their prayers.

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Current Affairs

2 for the show

Ghostdog

Two articles worth reading: Haroon Siddiqui has a fair and well-balanced article in the Ideas section of the Sunday, 20 August Toronto Star entitled The Muslim Malaise George Soros’ article in the Wall Street Journal entitled A Self-Defeating War is also worthwhile and is published at the TPM Cafe. Here are some excerpts: “The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies…Unfortunately, the “war on terror” metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder.…

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Current Affairs Intra-faith

Conspiracy Theories

islamoyankee

As I’m writing this, I see someone else had a similar idea. So I’m watching CNN yesterday, Aug. 10, and I hear Christiane Amanpour say that many young Muslims in the West believe that 9/11, 7/7, and now the new attacks on planes were plots by Western governments in order to start a war with Islam. O Muslims in the West, are you stupid? Either: 1. The West has the wherewithal to plot such destructive events against their own people, including American and British Muslims, and the ability to keep it secret, but not so secret that we can’t figure…

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Current Affairs Religion

Writing on Israel and Palestine, and now Lebanon

islamoyankee

Traditionally I have not commented on the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. As you can tell by Who You?’s and Ghost Dog‘s posts, it’s not a site-wide reluctance. My reluctance has stemmed from the belief that the issue is too emotionally charged to have a meaningful conversation on the issue without having to spend a lot of time cleaning the mud off and fighting the fires from flames. I am not personally invested in the issue; to me, as I would argue to most Muslims, the fight is not between Muslims and Jews. It is between Israelis and Palestinians. I am…

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Current Affairs

Flip Mode

Ghostdog

Okay, so I have stated my opposition to the war in Lebanon, but I also want to take another track. I watched with revulsion and anger as parents pulled their children from the rubble of the building hit in Qana. Later when watching the protests as a result of the bombing, it came to me that if the situation was reversed, and a Hizbollah rocket slammed into an Isreali building killing 60 people including women and children, there probably would have been rejoicing around the Arab world. Hizbollah is firing indiscriminately at cities across the border and it is only…

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Current Affairs

Spinoza Redux….

Well it does appear that there are some brave Americans who are going above and beyond the rehtoric and proposing actions that actually make a difference in our world.  Wick Sloane – a columnist at InsideHigherEd is proposing a Katrina like show of support by US univiersities for Lebanese students and faculty. Here is a blurb: Imagine. No interruption of study and research for all students and faculty in the Middle East shut out in this latest war. Lebanon. Israel. Gaza. Iraq. Everyone. Why not? Education is cheaper than war. John Waterbury, president of American University of Beirut, who was…

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Current Affairs

Invoking Spinoza

Cornell West has a brave op-ed piece on the moral disaster that is the Middle East: As we witness another sad chapter in the Middle East — the loss of precious human beings, the presence of deep hatred and revenge, and the absence of Socratic questioning and empathy for all — the spirit of Spinoza haunts us. Where are the courageous thinkers who ask the hard questions that shatter our simplistic and sentimental frameworks of pure Israeli heroes and impure Arab villains (or vice versa) in the conflict? Is it possible for Jews to reject the ugly Israeli subjugation of…

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