Religion Dispatches
June 17 dawned many hours ago in Saudi Arabia, and early reports suggest that the day declared “Women 2 Drive” by Saudi women’s rights activists has been a success. Reports are coming in from Saudi journalists and Twitterists: about 20 women have been seen driving in Riyadh. Five or six drove past the capital. Women have also been reported driving in Jeddah. And there have been no arrests. An early morning YouTube video depicted one woman driving…
Read More…know where the money comes from before asserting that it comes from Saudi Arabia) in “residential neighborhoods where there are no Muslims… If you build it they will come.” But building a worship center isn’t a protected religious right, according to Guandolo, “this isn’t about the First Amendment it’s about Article 6 of the Constitution.” Ironically, while Article 6 lays out the sovereignty of the laws of the United States. it is also prohibits…
Read More…hem seem just as perplexed, but additionally faintly alarmed.) Some of the Arabs are young, wide fellows with mighty beards and rust-colored thobes. Others are nouveaux petroleum riche, ambassadors for the Arab Gulf’s second most precious export: unfit men who passionately pursue high-end clothing as ridiculously ugly as it is expensive. Their wives are fully veiled, in black burkas that would be banned in other parts of Europe—like France. The th…
Read More…reference to “suicide vests,” as if by making the Tea Party seem Muslim or Arab, they are therefore easier to disparage. Don’t pin this on Muslims, however subtle you think you are being. The effect of such words is greater than you think. And the refusal to attend to the deeper issue is the real problem. The right thing to do is face this head on, and ask why it has come out of America today, and what it is about America today that leads people t…
Read More
…much of the hearing focused on the inadequacy of both the American and the United Nations’ response to the crisis. Chairman Smith was clearly upset that no one from the State Department was available to testify. And there was a deeper issue. Smith said, apparently referring to elements of the Obama administration. While Phillips’ fresh reports and documentation captured the attention of members of the House from both parties, when he took his info…
Read More
…Corruption campaign as the movement evolves. What some are calling India’s Arab Spring has been more like a summer of discontent, complete with demonstrations and arrests, all in support of this epic fight against government corruption—what Anna Hazare, whose hunger strike made headlines, has named “India’s second freedom struggle.” I was glad to have the chance to interview Bedi when she came to Atlanta a few months ago for a conference. No Prima…
Read More…he concocted rhetoric about a supposed Islamic allergy to freedom. As the United States faces shifting economic and geopolitical patterns, the Muslim-majority world will become increasingly important to the direction the world takes. That also includes the global relevance of democratic institutions, which is good for us, since right now the Western world is economically troubled, and challenged by rising authoritarian powers. Arab and Muslim…
Read More…ate tired stereotypes from the Rudy Valentino era of the savage, barbarous Arab/Muslim. However, there are also authors like G. Willow Wilson. She is known in the comics world for her graphic novel Cairo, her series Air, and for penning several issues of Superman. Unlike Naif al-Mutawa’s wonderful series The 99, her characters were set in fantastical worlds where their religious identification was not ambiguous, but were also not necessarily essen…
Read More…o do to win in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan is once again very important to the United States. As Pakistan becomes a more unwilling ally, and sending supplies through Pakistani access points to Afghanistan becomes a more difficult and dangerous proposition, the Obama administration has been making overtures to Uzbekistan. If it helps things any, think of central Asia as another corner of the Muslim world that resembles the Arab world politically. In a…
Read More
…hern city of Daraa with the phrase being heard in dictatorships across the Arab world, The people want! To topple the regime! For this, fifteen children of Dara, from nine years to fourteen years old, were dragged to prison on March 5. That they were tortured, the fingernails of some reportedly pulled out, would emerge later. This, while in the north in early February crackdowns, five Kurdish children ages fourteen to sixteen were arrested. No lon…
Read More