Religion Dispatches
…ave more fun repeatedly viewing the trailers and imagining the stuffing in-between tasted at least as good. This of course began to make me mad. I was already upset, and desperately in need of superhero Xanax. International media coverage of Turkey made it seem like the country was falling apart and this deeply upset me; actually being in the country quickly refuted this emergency narrative and made me wonder how such hyperventilation would affect…
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…ers are made real: in blood. I look at Pakistan and I sigh. I wish so much better for it, and its people. But I don’t see where that better will come from. Unless maybe that was Tahrir. I was warmly envious of my Egyptian friends in part for this very reason, as during their uprising it seemed that they had figured out how to move forward. I cheered with them as Mubarak’s regime teetered and the pompous strongman fell; I prayed the uprisings would…
Read More…been a member of NATO longer than Germany or Spain. Many question whether Turkey has now “abandoned” the West; I wonder whether the question itself is more revealing than any presumed answer. Then I’ll head to Bosnia, where America came to the rescue of a Muslim people who resemble puddles left by a receded tide, stranded in a new Europe that has little room in its imagination for them. My journey is deeply personal, and urgently universal. The 1…
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…ese new democracies? And, I might add, the Freedom and Justice Party, like Turkey’s AKP, is a conservative, free-market party; they may, in this climate, simply be best suited to govern, although Egypt—like Turkey—enjoys a far broader social consensus around social welfare and mutual obligation than does the United States (don’t take the economic implications of right-wing too far). Nevertheless, perhaps unexpectedly, it is economic ideology that…
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…e is disastrous. Unbelievably, Caldwell argues that there is no difference between Europeans (read: white Christian Europeans) moving between EU member-states and New Yorkers heading out for California. Except, of course, that New York and California never fielded armies against one another. Then again, if Europe could leave historic animosities behind—and it did—Caldwell’s argument has little weight. Caldwell anxiously digs himself a deeper hole:…
Read More…al acts, while zina violations carry a penalty of 100 lashes. The criminal code also allows Islamic courts to dismiss charges against rape suspects who take an Islamic oath, sumpah dilaknat Allah, asserting their innocence – so long as the court determines there’s a lack of incriminating “other evidence.” Within days of Aceh’s bylaws coming into force, special Sharia police arrested two “suspected lesbians” – women aged 18 and 19 – who were spotte…
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…om scandal. The column concludes with a question: In a way, the difference between France and Germany on this score epitomises the dilemma facing Christian leaders across Europe. Is it better to enjoy historically inherited privileges, and practise political self-restraint for fear of exasperating an already rather sceptical public? Or is it more advantageous to be stripped of almost every privilege, as has happened in France, and be freer to spea…
Read More…that perspective that ELCIN views marriage and will only allow a marriage between a man and a woman and not those between same-sex persons. “There is no procreation in same-sex marriage,” observed the bishop, saying marriage as established by God has the main purpose of ensuring continuation of the human race. Tanzania: Mass arrest follows spike in anti-gay rhetoric from government officials More on the mass arrest in Zanzibar, from DW: Police in…
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…permanent; I’d like to call this error “Kardashianism,” which as an added bonus sounds like confusionism, giving my argument an impressive and solipsistic coherence. (You’re not really surprised, are you? I’ve argued that Jersey Shore, appreciated anthropologically, affords us an unparalleled etiology of the Arab Spring.) Look at this picture, worth 1,000 foreign policy words. It’s Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish Foreign Minister and global thinker, on…
Read More…ut he expressed admiration for Pacquiao’s opposition to marriage equality. Turkey: Call For LGBT Rights Met With Hostile Response LGBTI News Turkey reports that when a member of the opposition party argued before the legislature’s Commission on Equal Opportunity for Women and Men that LGBT people face discrimination and violence and should be protected, a ruling party MP responded: “There is no need to change our commission’s agenda by including a…
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