religion

(By Juan Cole) Bill O’Reilly maintains that one downside of having a woman president is that Muslims won’t respect her. For Mr. O’Reilly’s information, here are the women leaders of Muslim-majority countries, most of them freely elected by Muslim publics and all of them respected by the latter: Tansu Çiller, elected prime minister of Turkey, […]

India

India’s Elections: Religious Nationalism and the Future of Democracy

Juan Cole

(via The Economist) Elections in India: Carnival of democracy (via The Economist) LET the contest begin. On March 5th India’s electoral commission, at last, set the dates for the largest democratic exercise on Earth. By mid-May, India should have a new government. From April 7th until May 12th, across nine different phases of voting… […]

Israel

Massive Protest by Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox against Conscription

Juan Cole

Israel’s Haredim, an Eastern European branch of Judaism emphasizing strict religious adherence, were a tiny minority at Israel’s founding in 1948 and were given an exemption from conscription. Many Haredim rejected Zionism or modern Jewish nationalism and did not accept that a Jewish state could be established save by the Messiah. Now the Haredim have […]

Islam

Israel Parliament debates incursion into Holy Muslim site in Jerusalem

Juan Cole

(Via AFP) Israel police, protesters clash at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque (via AFP) Israeli police clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians Tuesday in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound of Jerusalem’s Old City, ahead of a parliamentary debate on Jewish access to the site, holy to both faiths. Israel captured the Old City from Jordan during… ——- Related video: […]

Bashar al-Assad

Threatened Syrian Christians taking up Arms, Tackling Extremists

contributors

(By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi) When it comes to news reports on Christians in Syria, the general focus is on the concerns Christian civilians have about their future, if any, in the country. Though such anxieties are not invalid, reports rarely break new ground. Here I intend to explore how Christians play a role on the […]

Islam

Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” video Decried as Blasphemous by Some Muslims

Juan Cole

Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” music video, set in ancient Egypt, has stirred controversy because of a scene where a man is struck down who is wearing a pendant with “God” (Allah) written on it in Arabic. An online petition decries it as blasphemous. Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks points out that in ancient Egypt […]

Domestic Surveillance

Judge: All right for NYPD to spy on Muslim-Americans; not all right for Journalists to reveal it

contributors

(By Sarah Lazare) A federal judge ruled Thursday that the NYPD's secret spying on Muslims in schools, restaurants, and mosques with no evidence of wrongdoing is perfectly legal, and it was the media's exposure of this surveillance that was the real cause of harm. The decision prompted outcry from civil rights and racial justice advocates. […]

Iraq

Iraq: Firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr Lambastes PM as Dictator, Looter & Resigns from Politics (Again)

Juan Cole

(By Mustafa Habib, Baghdad) He ended his ten year-long political campaign in a televised speech lasting around 11 minutes. In that speech Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said a number of disturbing things: that current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a dictator, that Iraq’s Parliament is paralyzed and that the country’s judiciary is too politicized. […]

Arab Spring

Racializing Politics: We don’t say “Slav” Democracy troubled in Ukraine, why Talk about “Arab” Failures?

Juan Cole

The troubles that Ukraine is having (and that Russia and the former Yugoslavia also had) in its post-Soviet politics, with a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy and between a Moscow orientation versus a Brussels one, are very similar to the difficulties that have beset many countries of the Arab world in the past few years. […]