Turkish ‘Lord of the Rings’ Has God, Guts, Girls, and Glory
Fetih: 1453 may just show us what we have in common.
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The Jersey Shores of Tripoli: MTV and Arab Revolution
Along comes Jersey Shore with its cast of self-described Italians. These are not the magical white folks of world-conquering, democracy-building myth-but they’re still “white”. They behave like the Museum assumes only people of my color behaved. The sum total of their television life is a kind of late-capitalist tragic anthropology: doing laundry to go to parties, in order to have sex. For me, it’s been tremendously liberating to know that people of my color and faith are not the only people who are embarrassing to watch on television.
Read MoreWhat Do Islamophobes Have in Common with the Taliban?
“The Taliban and the Islamophobes have a very similar reading of Islam, and their political fates are in part dependent on this shared understanding of the religion. Those of us in the vast middle between these two extremes can take very concrete steps to end the divide between the West and Islam that exists nowhere more strongly than in the minds of these extremists. I offer three concrete recommendations at the end of Crusade 2.0.”
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Neither Radical Nor Secular: The West Struggles with the New Islamism
What the anxious West has failed to recognize in the Arab Spring is that the political transformations of the Middle East are the coming of age of a new Islamism.
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A Tiny Little Mecca for
the West
Part five of the travelogue, from what was once Europe’s Jerusalem.
Read MoreThe Bleeding Heart of Muslim Europe
What to expect in Sarajevo.
Read MoreTurkey and Egypt: Islam’s Future?
If Egypt’s democracy takes hold it will, along with Turkey, help elbow out the Islamist movements we’re used to hearing about.
Read MoreWill Istanbul Ever Be a Part of the European Union?
How can Turkey, with it’s growing economy, not be accepted by Europe as an equal?
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Updated with Audio: Secular Good, Muslim Bad: Unveiling Tunisia’s Revolution
The assumption that Arab states that aren’t democratic are oppressive Islamist states lazily equates the public practice of Islam with all things undemocratic.
Read MoreWikiLeaks Strikes the Vatican, a Camel in the Pews, and Luke Skywalker Tolerance
RD’s religion roundup only had 6 drinks before meeting Billy Graham.
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