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Ed Webb

A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life - New York Times - 0 views

  • 'We were very angered when we heard about the Danish cartoons concerning our prophet; however, these two fatwas are harming our Islamic religion and our prophet more than the cartoons,''
  • The complaint has been the subject of recent conferences as government-appointed arbiters of Islamic standards say the fatwa free-for-all has led to the promotion of extremism and intolerance. The conflict in Egypt served as a difficult reminder of a central challenge facing Islamic communities as they debate the true nature of the faith and how to accommodate modernity. The fatwa is the front line in the theological battle between often opposing worldviews. It is where interpretation meets daily life.
  • In a faith with no central doctrinal authority, there has been an explosion of places offering fatwas, from Web sites that respond to written queries, to satellite television shows that take phone calls, to radical and terrorist organizations that set up their own fatwa committees.
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  • Governments have tried to guide and control the process, but as they struggled with their own legitimacy, they have often undermined the perceived legitimacy of those they appoint as religious leaders.
  • combines the role of social worker, therapist, lawyer and religious adviser.
  • 'We are the conscience of the nation,'' said Abdel Moety Bayoumi, a member of Al Azhar Research Committee, a state-sanctioned body that issues religious opinions and is often behind decisions over which books should be stripped from store shelves and banned. In Egypt, and other Muslim countries, where laws must abide by the Koran, fatwas by government-appointed officials can have the weight of law. ''We have to be clear what is at stake here,'' said Egypt's grand mufti, Sheik Ali Gomaa, in a recent speech in London. ''When each and every person's unqualified opinion is considered a fatwa, we have lost a tool that is of the utmost importance to rein in extremism and preserve the flexibility and balance of Islamic law.''
Ed Webb

UK PM: Multiculturalism has failed - Europe - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • Cameron said it was time to replace Britain's "passive tolerance" with an "active, muscular liberalism" to send a message that life in Britain revolves around certain key values such as freedom of speech, equal rights and the rule of law. "A passively tolerant society ... stands neutral between different values," he said. "A genuinely liberal country does much more. It believes in certain values and actively promotes them."
Ed Webb

YouTube - Riz Khan - Tariq Ramadan and Slavoj Zizek on the future of Egyptian politics - 0 views

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Ed Webb

Tunisian Islamists show strength at chief's return - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • The reception for Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennahda party, at Tunis airport was the biggest showing by the Islamists in two decades, during which thousands of them were jailed or exiled by president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali
  • The Islamists were Tunisia's strongest opposition force at the time Ben Ali cracked down on them in 1989 but are thought not to have played a leading role in the popular revolt.
  • A group of men performed prayers on a grass verge, a scene unthinkable in Tunisia just a few weeks ago
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  • Ennahda likens its ideology to that of Turkey's ruling AK Party, saying it is committed to democracy. Experts on political Islam say its ideas are some of the most moderate among Islamist groups
  • Asked how they had managed to organize so quickly, one activist said: "Our activities were stopped, but you can't disperse an ideology."
  • A handful of secularists turned up at the airport to demonstrate against the party, holding up a placard reading: "No Islamism, no theocracy, no Sharia and no stupidity!" Ennahda and its supporters say they do not seek an Islamic state and want only the right to participate in politics. "We want a democratic state," said Mohammed Habasi, an Ennahda supporter who said he had been jailed four times since 1991 for "belonging to a banned group." "We suffered the most from a lack of democracy," he said
Ed Webb

Robert Fisk: Secular and devout. Rich and poor. They marched together with one goal - R... - 0 views

  • There were several elements about this unprecedented political event that stood out. First was the secularism of the whole affair. Women in chadors and niqabs and scarves walked happily beside girls with long hair flowing over their shoulders, students next to imams and men with beards that would have made Bin Laden jealous. The poor in torn sandals and the rich in business suits, squeezed into this shouting mass, an amalgam of the real Egypt hitherto divided by class and regime-encouraged envy. They had done the impossible – or so they thought – and, in a way, they had already won their social revolution.
  • There I was, back on the intersection behind the Egyptian Museum where only five days ago – it feels like five months – I choked on tear gas as Mubarak's police thugs, the baltigi, the drug addict ex-prisoner cops, were slipped through the lines of state security policemen to beat, bludgeon and smash the heads and faces of the unarmed demonstrators, who eventually threw them all out of Tahrir Square and made it the Egyptian uprising. Back then, we heard no Western support for these brave men and women. Nor did we hear it yesterday.
  • They supported democracy. We supported "stability", "moderation", "restraint", "firm" leadership (Saddam Hussein-lite) soft "reform" and obedient Muslims.
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  • what were the Americans doing? Rumour: US diplomats were on their way to Egypt to negotiate between a future President Suleiman and opposition groups. Rumour: extra Marines were being drafted into Egypt to defend the US embassy from attack. Fact: Obama finally told Mubarak to go. Fact: a further evacuation of US families from the Marriott Hotel in Cairo, escorted by Egyptian troops and cops, heading for the airport, fleeing from a people who could so easily be their friends.
Ed Webb

Al-Azhar sheikh says protesting forbidden in Islam - Bikya Masr - 0 views

  • Al-Azhar is the most influential Islamic institution in the country, however, in recent years it has become more in line with the government and most Egyptians have ignored fatwas that have been released
Ed Webb

Acknowledging political Islam - Opinion - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • Whatever their pro-democratic rhetoric, when faced with a choice between the ascension of religiously conservative Arab nationalists overtly opposed to US policy in the region on the one hand, and repression on the other, the West was prepared to support repression. My friend from WINEP, no doubt, approved.
  • it seemed to me that the Arab masses, if denied the opportunity for political recourse through democratic means, would turn instead to revolutionary forces who embraced a far more radical and violent conception of Islam.
  • when push comes to shove, the US and other western governments, to the extent they can influence events at all, will opt, in Mr. ElBaradei's words, for the elusive promise of stability.
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  • It is easy to criticise an unlovely regime like that of Hosni Mubarak, and both public and private figures in the US rise enthusiastically to the task. But just let them glimpse a realistic prospect for the Egyptian Muslim Brothers to gain a significant share of power, and their enthusiasm will rapidly wane. I and others who believe as I do remain convinced that this is a significant mistake, and that the prominent current of thinking in the US which refuses to make a significant distinction between groups like the Muslim brothers and the violent Islamists who embrace the banner of Al Qaeda is wrong-headed. Our problem is that we simply cannot find compelling evidence to make our case. Absent new facts, which only the people of the region can provide, we are destined to lose the debate.
Ed Webb

Donor-driven Islam ? | openDemocracy - 0 views

  • Three examples of the policy direction of Anglo-American international development agencies, particularly DFID and USAID, highlight the new directions of ‘donor-driven Islam’ -  development assistance that introduces a creeping theocratization of formerly rights-based approaches to gender.
  • Ulama is a vague umbrella term for an imagined clergy which has no constitutional nor democratic legitimacy.
  • If anything, the widespread practice of contracting the assistance of local religious leaders for distributing contraception and for other gender-related projects has resulted in the empowerment of a traditionally discredited local clergy. In Baluchistan, in an interview with the author, development activists agreed that these amounted to “Rent-A-Maulvi” projects.
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  • There is no internal consensus within Muslim majority countries regarding a singular or even dominant religious or political identity. Muslim women, including feminists, face very different identity issues in the West  when compared to Pakistan. Therefore, the strategies that may work for them within a pluralist, secular state such as the UK have very different implications when transposed to Islamic republics such as Pakistan. Thus when Pakistani feminist researchers become implicated in projects that foreground religion in their home contexts, the secular indigenous possibilities and spaces become more vulnerable, and the results become self-defeating. 
  • The complex realities of the ways in which religious identities play out in Muslim majority countries often bear little resemblance to the findings of the academic exercises mentioned above. Such research needs more rigorous scrutiny not just in terms of its methodology but also of its politics, before it starts informing policy and, more worryingly, starts to shape development interventions.
Ed Webb

New alcohol rules trigger call for sober assessment in Turkey - Hurriyet Daily News and... - 0 views

  • New restrictions on alcohol and drinks advertising have prompted sober damage control by the government following heated debate and confusion about how far new rules would go to curtail sale and consumption of beer, wine and spirits.
  • The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is a strong backer of the new regulations, which also restrict sports teams from using the names of alcoholic drink brands in their squad names. The public has expressed concern that this change may require the closure of the well-known Turkish basketball team Efes Pilsen, which was established by a major brewery firm and uses the name and logo of the company’s most popular brand of beer.
  • The Efes Pilsen Blues Festival, the first and only blues festival in Turkey and a long-running tradition for 20 years, will not be allowed to continue unless its name is changed so as not to contain any elements of the alcohol brand name.
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  • Guest - Kemalist Turk 2011-01-14 09:24:04   The AKP and the likes of the Green Crescent want to tell us what to drink and how to drink. To hell with them and to hell with their desire to turn our beloved Turkiye into an islamic republic. Who do they think they are? They want women to cover up; they want us to stop enjoying wine and raki; they want to ban art...when will it stop? Very soon, they will impose interest-free banking; they will force men to grow beards; they will choose only 'pious' muslims for top posts...very soon, they will impose their islam on us. Very soon, they will brand our country an 'islamic republic'. Why are we sitting down and allowing these fundamentalists to change our country and mould it into their own image? Why? No day passes by where we don't hear this ghastly government make pronouncements with islamic undertones. Everything, and I mean everything, is tainted with their islamic views. This is not my country. God help us all. TURKIYE IS SECULAR AND IT SHALL REMAIN SECULAR!!
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