Today, 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe celebrate Eid al-Fiter, a three-day holiday marking the end of Ramadan, however; one renegade pastor of a church, Rev. Terry Jones, with fewer than 50 members has cast a shadow on their festivities. For the past several weeks, the media has treated us to live theater of the absurd by amplifying a statement made by an unknown preacher from Gainesville, Florida proposing to burn Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.
Jones has garnered worldwide news media attention these past few days and become an overnight influence on American foreign policy and public image abroad, even receiving a call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and many pleas from world leaders and celebrities asking him not to go ahead with his plans. The President of the United States urged him to listen to "those better angels," and military leaders warned that his actions would endanger U.S. troops and give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool.
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Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
The War on Islam Is Over, But...
In a clear break from former president George Bush's two national security strategies issued in 2002 and 2006 which endorsed unilateral military action and spoke of the threat posed by "Islamic extremism," President Obama has unveiled a new national security strategy which calls for more global engagement and aims to downplay fears that the US is "at war" with Islam.
President Obama also expressed his desire to break away from the unilateral military approach of "either you are with us or against us" established in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.
Read more on the Huffington Post
President Obama also expressed his desire to break away from the unilateral military approach of "either you are with us or against us" established in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.
Read more on the Huffington Post
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Mubarak's War on Islamists
On Wednesday, an Egyptian court convicted 26 men of spying for Hezbollah and plotting attacks on Egyptian soil on behalf of the Lebanese militant group.
The men, including Lebanese, Egyptians, Palestinians, and one Sudanese, received sentences ranging from six months to life in prison.
Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has strongly criticized the Egyptian courts for jailing the men accused of working for his organization. He said the judgment by the Security Court in Cairo was "unjust and politicized."
Amnesty International on Thursday called for a retrial of 26 defendants, criticizing the use of an emergency court.
"These men should be retried by an ordinary court which gives them a chance of getting a fair trial," said the London-based rights watchdog.
Hezbollah’s differences with Egypt hit a pinnacle during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Egypt’s decision to keep the Rafah exits from Gaza sealed infuriated Nasrallah, who, on December 28, 2008, called for the Egyptian people to help the besieged Gazans and called on the Egyptian government to open the Rafah border crossing.
"Oh Egyptian official, unless you open the Rafah border crossing, unless you help your brethren in Gaza, you will be accomplices to the crime, accomplices to the killing, accomplices to the siege, and accomplices in generating the Palestinian catastrophe," he said in a televised speech.
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The men, including Lebanese, Egyptians, Palestinians, and one Sudanese, received sentences ranging from six months to life in prison.
Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has strongly criticized the Egyptian courts for jailing the men accused of working for his organization. He said the judgment by the Security Court in Cairo was "unjust and politicized."
Amnesty International on Thursday called for a retrial of 26 defendants, criticizing the use of an emergency court.
"These men should be retried by an ordinary court which gives them a chance of getting a fair trial," said the London-based rights watchdog.
Hezbollah’s differences with Egypt hit a pinnacle during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Egypt’s decision to keep the Rafah exits from Gaza sealed infuriated Nasrallah, who, on December 28, 2008, called for the Egyptian people to help the besieged Gazans and called on the Egyptian government to open the Rafah border crossing.
"Oh Egyptian official, unless you open the Rafah border crossing, unless you help your brethren in Gaza, you will be accomplices to the crime, accomplices to the killing, accomplices to the siege, and accomplices in generating the Palestinian catastrophe," he said in a televised speech.
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Sunday, November 29, 2009
Swiss Islamophobia
Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of mosque minarets. The ban was sponsored by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party or SVP, and unfortunately was approved by 58 percent of the voters today.
“The Federal Council respects this decision,” the government said in a statement.
Earlier, Swiss Islamophobes displayed posters showing a black-veiled figure standing next to a Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets were outlawed in several cities on the grounds that they were discriminatory. Campaigners for the ban argued that minarets are symbols of religious and political power that will pave the way for the eventual introduction of Sharia law in Switzerland. About 5 percent of the country’s 7.8 million people are Muslim.
I’ve decided to ban Swiss chocolate from my diet. I think that you should too!
Sign Petition to Ban Swiss Chocolate
Friday, November 6, 2009
Don't Ask Me About Hasan
SEVEN messages and counting on my voice mail from different Bay Area reporters, all wanting to know the Muslim community's reaction about the recent heinous killings of Nidal Malik Hasan. All wanting to know what had driven a 39-year-old Muslim to go on a killing rampage, murdering 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas. "He had it all," someone said, "he's an educated man, he's a doctor." Why did he do it?
Apparently, I fit the profile of someone who has these answers: I am a Muslim Palestinian American: I must know what one out of the 1.5 billion Muslims around the globe is thinking at any given time.
"Hey, Jamal...sorry to disturb you so early. But you know the Hasan story is big, and I was wondering if you're willing to come for an interview and talk about how it feels being a Maahzlem (Muslim) and all," a television producer says to me on my cell, while I was driving to work.
"How did you feel being a Christian, with Timothy McVeigh and Adolf Hitler being Christians?" I fired back.
Silence... I probably should not have said that, but there it is.
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Friday, August 21, 2009
How the Grinch Stole Ramadan
The holy month of Ramadan will begin this Saturday in most Muslim countries, a tradition determined by the sighting of the new moon, the exact date of which often divides rival Islamic countries and sects. Muslims celebrate Ramadan by refraining from eating, drinking, sexual conduct, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured, from dawn to dusk.
This year though, Muslims have more to worry about than their differences over the sighting of the new moon.
This year though, Muslims have more to worry about than their differences over the sighting of the new moon.
Read more on the Huffington Post
Friday, July 17, 2009
Europe & Islamophobia
ISLAMOPHOBIA has taken a range of forms in Europe, including the more traditional types of socio-economic discrimination and racist attacks historically suffered by other ethnic minorities. In recent years many high-profile incidents from across Western Europe have exemplified this trend:
-The 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper a cartoon portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist leading to riots across the Muslim world.
- The online release by Dutch right-wing politician of the movie Fitna, which directly links Islam with terrorism.
- The banning in French schools of the Islamic hijab and the debates which are raging throughout Europe over the right to build mosques.
Add to these examples two major new issues I observed on a recent trip I made to France:
The first one:
"The martyr of the hijab" is what Egyptians are now calling Marwa al-Sherbini. The 31-year-old veiled Egyptian who was fatally stabbed in court by a German man identified only as Axel W, who had been prosecuted for calling her a terrorist (among other things) while she was playing with her three-year-old son in a park. When Marwa's body was interred in Cairo, thousands of angry Egyptians attended her wake, some of them chanting: "There is no God but God and the Germans are the enemies of God."
The case has sparked anger in the Arab world and Egypt in particular for its perceived under-reporting in the western media and a belief that the attack, described by German authorities as an isolated one perpetrated by a "lone wolf", is the culmination of consistent nurturing and legitimization of Islamophobia in Europe.
Bloggers and commentators have played the "what if" game, reversing the race and nationality of the victim and attacker in order to highlight the muted response from Germans and Europeans more generally. The murder of Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist in 2004, has been invoked as an example of the unequal value attached to the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims.
The second example is the Burqa Controversy:
Marwa's killing has occurred against the backdrop of President Sarkozy's recent comments on the burqa saying that burqas imprison women and would not be tolerated in France. In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women, the burqa, “is not a sign of religion”, but rather “a sign of subservience.”
Human Rights Watch, and several Muslim groups and clerics have criticized the ban and asked Sarkozy to reconsider his statements citing that the proposal "stigmatized" Islam.
Many French Muslims believe that by framing the wearing of burqas and other body veils under the guise of showing concern for women’s rights, Sarkozy has also found a roundabout way of targeting Muslim women and putting them in the human rights’ defendant’s seat, engendering another religious debate. The number of French Muslim women who wear the burqa is minuscule, and one would have to go out of his way to visit les banlieues (Paris’s poor suburbs) to spot one or two. So why is Sarkozy proposing the ban and stirring all these emotions?
Critics to Sarkozy’s proposal claim that he deliberately initiated a burqa polemic to distract from his low approval rating of 32 percent down from 60 percent for the six months following his election. The burqa is Sarkozy’s nationalistic prop, and its emotional appeal temporally outweighs his unfulfilled promises on such issues as guaranteeing workers five weeks of paid leave annually and the 35-hour workweek which Sarkozy had to get rid of once the economy started to sink. All the while maintaining a flashy lifestyle, which have earned him the title, “le Président Bling-Bling.”
Many European Muslims believe that Europe is in the grip of an anti-Islamic bias that is becoming institutionalized in the continent’s otherwise ordinary politics. In the UK, a research report published by the Institute of Race Relations argued that Islamophobia is hindering efforts to integrate Muslims into European societies.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
-The 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper a cartoon portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist leading to riots across the Muslim world.
- The online release by Dutch right-wing politician of the movie Fitna, which directly links Islam with terrorism.
- The banning in French schools of the Islamic hijab and the debates which are raging throughout Europe over the right to build mosques.
Add to these examples two major new issues I observed on a recent trip I made to France:
The first one:
"The martyr of the hijab" is what Egyptians are now calling Marwa al-Sherbini. The 31-year-old veiled Egyptian who was fatally stabbed in court by a German man identified only as Axel W, who had been prosecuted for calling her a terrorist (among other things) while she was playing with her three-year-old son in a park. When Marwa's body was interred in Cairo, thousands of angry Egyptians attended her wake, some of them chanting: "There is no God but God and the Germans are the enemies of God."
The case has sparked anger in the Arab world and Egypt in particular for its perceived under-reporting in the western media and a belief that the attack, described by German authorities as an isolated one perpetrated by a "lone wolf", is the culmination of consistent nurturing and legitimization of Islamophobia in Europe.
Bloggers and commentators have played the "what if" game, reversing the race and nationality of the victim and attacker in order to highlight the muted response from Germans and Europeans more generally. The murder of Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist in 2004, has been invoked as an example of the unequal value attached to the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims.
The second example is the Burqa Controversy:
Marwa's killing has occurred against the backdrop of President Sarkozy's recent comments on the burqa saying that burqas imprison women and would not be tolerated in France. In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women, the burqa, “is not a sign of religion”, but rather “a sign of subservience.”
Human Rights Watch, and several Muslim groups and clerics have criticized the ban and asked Sarkozy to reconsider his statements citing that the proposal "stigmatized" Islam.
Many French Muslims believe that by framing the wearing of burqas and other body veils under the guise of showing concern for women’s rights, Sarkozy has also found a roundabout way of targeting Muslim women and putting them in the human rights’ defendant’s seat, engendering another religious debate. The number of French Muslim women who wear the burqa is minuscule, and one would have to go out of his way to visit les banlieues (Paris’s poor suburbs) to spot one or two. So why is Sarkozy proposing the ban and stirring all these emotions?
Critics to Sarkozy’s proposal claim that he deliberately initiated a burqa polemic to distract from his low approval rating of 32 percent down from 60 percent for the six months following his election. The burqa is Sarkozy’s nationalistic prop, and its emotional appeal temporally outweighs his unfulfilled promises on such issues as guaranteeing workers five weeks of paid leave annually and the 35-hour workweek which Sarkozy had to get rid of once the economy started to sink. All the while maintaining a flashy lifestyle, which have earned him the title, “le Président Bling-Bling.”
Many European Muslims believe that Europe is in the grip of an anti-Islamic bias that is becoming institutionalized in the continent’s otherwise ordinary politics. In the UK, a research report published by the Institute of Race Relations argued that Islamophobia is hindering efforts to integrate Muslims into European societies.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sarkozy Hiding Behind the Burqa
PARIS- It's been almost three weeks since French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that burqas imprison women and would not be tolerated in France. In a speech at the Palace of Versailles, Mr. Sarkozy said that the head-to-toe Islamic garment for women, the burqa, "is not a sign of religion", but rather "a sign of subservience."
The burqa is the most concealing of all Islamic veils as it covers the entire face and body, leaving only a mesh screen to see through. It should not be confused with the niqab which is a face veil that sometimes leaves the eyes clear and is sometimes worn with a separate eye veil.
The burqa is the most concealing of all Islamic veils as it covers the entire face and body, leaving only a mesh screen to see through. It should not be confused with the niqab which is a face veil that sometimes leaves the eyes clear and is sometimes worn with a separate eye veil.
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