NewsTrust - Islam - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

France, Islam and the banlieues: a debate on the place of Islam and class in the suburbs

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Michèle Tribalat, Gérard Mauger - Nov. 01 (Opinion) - In an effort to allay concerns about Islam in France, policymakers and analysts have either tried to play down its importance or sought to blend it into the landscape. Islam is often portrayed as an integral part of French history: its presence simply follows on from ancient history. The basis for this argument is shaky, for it refers to an era when Christendom – not yet referred to as the west – was in retreat, driven back by the force of Islamic arms.

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Sudan split was 'over-simplified' by media

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Ali M Latifi - Jul. 10 (Opinion) - For many directly affected by the world's longest-running civil war, the Sudanese conflict has been over-simplified in the Western press as inter-religious or inter-ethnic strife. "The media tried to make us look like Jafar in Aladdin," says Khalid Albaih, a Sudanese political cartoonist. "Everyone looks alike [in Sudan], the Arabs and the Africans," he adds. John Prendergast, human rights activist and co-founder of the Enough project, told Al Jazeera: "One should not overplay this idea of north versus south or Christian versus Muslim." While Moez Ali, a Sudanese blogger and political commentator, said the conflict was an issue of disenfranchisement of a people "who were never given an agenda in the government" throughout the nation's 55-year history. Since independence in 1956, "a small group of people in power in Khartoum used race and religion to divide and conquer," says Prendergast. This conflict was further exacerbated in 2004 when the Khartoum government, headed by Omar al-Bashir, made a bid to control the oil and water resources of the south, he adds.

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Now that he’s dead, let’s end bin Laden’s grip on us

Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Eugene Robinson - May. 13 (Opinion) - Years from now, I believe, we will look back and say the elimination of Osama bin Laden changed everything. To borrow Churchill’s assessment of the Nazi defeat at El Alamein, “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

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Peter King's modern-day witch hunt

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Eugene Robinson - Mar. 11 (Opinion) - "There is nothing radical or un-American in holding these hearings," Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) claimed Thursday as he launched his McCarthyite probe of American Muslims. He could not have been more wrong. If King is looking for threats to our freedoms and values, a mirror would be the place to start.

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On Libya, too many questions

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By George F. Will - Mar. 09 (Opinion) - In September 1941, Japan's leaders had a question for Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto: Could he cripple the U.S. fleet in Hawaii? Yes, he said. Then he had a question for the leaders: But then what?

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Islamism has lost its monopoly on dissent

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Richard Phelps - Feb. 17 (Opinion) - The uprisings in the Middle East have shown that viable political opposition is no longer the preserve of Islamists alone.

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Food and failed Arab states

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Asia Times - By Spengler - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - Not the destitute, to be sure, but the aspiring and frustrated young, confronted the riot police and army on the streets of Egyptian cities last week. The uprising in Egypt and Tunisia were not food riots; only in Jordan have demonstrators made food the main issue. Rather, the jump in food prices was the wheat-stalk that broke the camel's back. The regime's weakness, in turn, reflects the dysfunctional character of the country. 35% of all Egyptians, and 45% of Egyptian women can't read. Nine out of ten Egyptian women suffer genital mutilation. US President Barack Obama said Jan. 29, "The right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny … are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere." Does Obama think that genital mutilation is a human rights violation? To expect Egypt to leap from the intimate violence of traditional society to the full rights of a modern democracy seems whimsical.

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Why fear the Arab revolutionary spirit?

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Slavoj Žižek - Feb. 01 (Opinion) - The western liberal reaction to the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia frequently shows hypocrisy and cynicism.

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Pakistan's increasing radicalisation: Staring into the abyss

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Economist - Jan. 09 (Editorial) - There is a small space in which a liberal vision of Pakistan hangs on. It shrank a lot further with the murder on January 4th of a notable progressive politician and critic of religious extremism, Salman Taseer. Even before the assassination, the leading liberal-minded political party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which heads the government in Islamabad and counted Mr Taseer as an activist since the 1970s, was in deep trouble. On January 2nd the PPP lost its majority in parliament when the second-biggest party in the government coalition, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), walked out. The PPP has been rocked by Mr Taseer’s murder, which brings back memories of the ghastly assassination by extremists of the party’s leader, Benazir Bhutto, in 2007. Pakistan’s problems, including an economy in a tailspin and a raging Islamist insurgency, are unlikely to get the attention they need while the government struggles for survival.

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Heroic, Female and Muslim

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By NIcholas D. Kristof - Dec. 16 (Opinion) - The greatest religious battles are often not between faiths, but within faiths. The widest gulfs are often not those that divide one religion from the next, but those between extremists and progressives within a single faith. And in this religious season, there’s something that we can all learn from the courage, compassion and tolerance of Dr. Hawa Abdi.

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NPR's Schiller Says Juan Williams Was Fired Because of Ethics Guidelines

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Brian Stelter, Vivian Schiller - Oct. 23 (Interview) - The timing might not have been perfect. But firing Juan Williams was the right decision, the NPR chief executive, Vivian Schiller, said in an interview Friday. Mr. Williams’ dual employment at NPR and Fox News Channel had long been a source of tension

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Muslims caught in the middle of debate

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Aziz H. Poonawalla - Oct. 23 (Opinion) - I'm a regular listener of NPR. You might call me an NPR junkie, in fact. One of the few complaints I have ever regularly had about the network was the presence of Juan Williams. By now most readers have a pretty good sense of where I fall on the political spectrum! However, with the news that Juan Williams was fired from NPR, I find myself more troubled than relieved. What triggered Williams' firing were his comments on Bill O'Reilly's show that he had a visceral fear of Muslims dressed in "Muslim garb" on his airplane flights. This was refreshingly honest, in the context of trying to explain to O'Reilly how making broad brush stereotypes can lead to further injustices. Admitting to fear - bigoted fear - is admirable. Explaining why that fear is bigoted is then required, however.

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The Tolerance Canard

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Denver Post - By David Harsanyi - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - Today, even broaching the topic of religious affiliation can send (almost all) the dolts on "The View" scattering for cover. To some folks, any whiff of critical discussion on the religious angle is tantamount to narrow-mindedness. And now, apparently, religious bigotry includes the dissemination of truth.

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Juan Williams: "I was fired for telling the truth."

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By Juan Williams - Oct. 21 (Opinion) - Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims.

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NPR's Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - By Alicia Shepard - Oct. 21 (Comment) - Thursday was a day like none I’ve experienced since coming to NPR in October 2007. Office phone lines rang non-stop like an alarm bell with no off button. We’ve received more than 8,000 emails, a record with nothing a close second.

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First They Came for the Cartoonists . . .

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Richmond Times-Dispatch - By Barton Hinkle - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - Just contrast the reaction to a Florida pastor's proposal to burn a Quran a few weeks ago with this May 2009 headline from CNN: "[U.S.] Military Burns Unsolicited Bibles Sent to Afghanistan." Hear anything about that? Of course you didn't. Fundamentalist Islam represents a far greater threat to the values of Western liberalism than even the most conservative Christians do today.

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'American Taliban' wrapped in the flag

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Markos Moulitsas - Sep. 27 (Opinion) - Conservatives are fond of saying that "liberals want the terrorists to win." In fact, that has been a staple attack line since 9/11. But that has always been a ludicrous notion.

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'This Week' Transcript: Axelrod, McConnell and Queen Rania

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

This Week - By Christiane Amanpour - Sep. 26 (Interview) - MCCONNELL: What most Americans think is extreme is the kind of government we've been running for the last year-and-a-half. We've seen the government taken over banks, insurance companies, car companies, nationalizing the student loan business. We're on a path to double the national debt in five years and triple it in 10.

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Radical Islamism challenges notions of freedom

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Australian - By Michael Nazir-Ali - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - It is often thought the main threat of radical Islamism to the West and, indeed, the world, is terrorism. It is also said to be the isolation of Muslim communities, which allows extremists to recruit people to their cause. Such views are not mistaken but they confuse effects with causes. What the world has to recognise is that we are not simply dealing with faith, but with a political, social and economic ideology.

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The State of Islam in America

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

This Week - By Christiane Amanpour - Sep. 14 (Interview) - Eboo Patel, Irshad Manji and Rev. Richard Cizik discuss Islam in America.

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September 13, 2010 - Ben Affleck

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Sep. 13 (Comedy News) - Terry Jones listens to God, Fox News hears a threat from Imam Rauf, and Ben Affleck applies for a job.

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Op-Ed Contributor: My Nine Years as a Middle-Eastern American

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:08:20 -0700

New York Times - Sep. 11 (Opinion) - Was the Bush era better for U.S. Muslims?

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We're Safer Than We Think

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Fareed Zakaria - Sep. 11 (Opinion) - Special service police officers on duty in Times Square. Are we safer now than we were on 9/11? It sounds like a simple question, amenable to an answer or at least a serious conversation. But we are so polarized in America these days that it almost

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The Parent Company Trap

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Aug. 24 (Opinion) - Fox News is either evil or stupid for not mentioning that Alwaleed bin Talal is News Corp.'s largest shareholder. On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart calls out Fox News on connecting Alwaleed bin Talal, a major shareholder in News Corp., to radical Islam and terrorism. Seriously.

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Extremist Makeover - Homeland Edition

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Aug. 19 (Opinion) - If Fox News wants to play a game of guilt by association with Imam Rauf, Jon can find Rupert Murdoch's questionable ties to terrorism.

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