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POPSIslam and Secularism Volkhard Krech, professor for religious studies , has come to the conclusion that some religious traditions, such as Judaism and Protestantism, represent "secularization factors." Other faiths, such as Islam and evangelical churches have a tendency to combine a strong sense of both national and religious identity, mixing politics with religion. The Berlin Islamic scholar Gudrun Krämer made clear that a "massive rejection" of secularism prevails in most Muslim countries. In Islamic discourse, secularization is regarded as a "hostile takeover" of Muslim society. Instead of the notion of the separation of religion and state, the idea of "empowerment" is stressed. Islam calls for believers to actively participate in the power structures of the state. As a mixture of nationalism and Islamism, the so-called "national Jihad" is pushing its way into the political arena and has given birth to the notion of the "Islamic welfare state."
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POPSThe Curse of Arabia - No Democracy in the Arab World Trotz zaghafter Reformen in einigen arabischen Ländern ist die Mehrheit der autoritär regierenden Herrscher nicht bereit, ihre Machtbefugnisse einzuschränken. Wahlen dienen den autokratischen Machthabern in der Region oft nur zur eigenen Herrschaftsakklamation. Autoritäre Herrschaft in der arabischen Welt - Der arabische Fluch Die US-amerikanische Geostrategie verdankt ihren Impetus vor allem den Angriffen vom 11. September 2001 und der gemeinsamen Front in Afghanistan und Irak. Diese Strategie war einer der beiden wichtigsten Pfeiler der amerikanisch-saudischen Achse. Diese Allianz hatte in der islamischen Welt zur Folge, dass eine neue Form transnationaler antiwestlicher Subversion gerechtfertigt erschien - ein Grund dafür, dass die arabischen Ordnungsstrukturen sich verfestigt haben.
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POPSZiauddin Sardar on the Quilliam Foundation for ex-jihadis Sardar, whose writing I am only a little bit familiar with, is highly critical of any "lionizing" of former members of Islamic extremist groups, since it implicitly devalues the commitment to peace and pluralism exhibited by most "ordinary" Muslims.
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POPSThe ‘Useful Idiots’ Of Militant Islam
Saudi-funded publications admonish Muslims in America “to dissociate from infidels, hate them for their religion, never to rely on them for support, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.” The question: how was it that among the estimated five million Muslim Americans with hugely varied institutions, the president’s advisors picked a Saudi Islamofascist ghetto as a venue? A major New York Times Magazine article argued fervently on behalf of “Islamic democrats” singing the praises of a reborn Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. An essay in Foreign Affairs, a weighty establishment publication titled “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood.” Mild Islamism is an oxymoron. Sharia law, which sanctions beating of wives and stoning for adultery, is irreconcilable with human rights. The Muslim Brotherhood founded Hamas, calls suicide bombings a good thing, and is the 21st-century version of the organized fascism of Hitler and Mussolini in the last century.
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POPSBaptism is a hostile act "The whole spectacle... provokes genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the pope's advisers on Islam," Nayed, who is director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, said in a statement."
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POPSState of the world as we end 2007 This is an incredibly powerful paragraph. I wonder if when George Bush looks at the cover of Time Magazine and stares into the eyes of Vladimir Putin, he still says, "ah, those trusting eyes of Vlad." The U.S. is getting completely outplayed at the chess table and its leaders don't have a clue.
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POPSWhereThereIs a Muslim-ThereIsSharia ! FOLLOWING COMMENT FROM BLOGGER peres-fondateurs: --<< "If and when Sharia law and Muslim culture become the law of the land in Germany then that judge will be fully justified in applying the law in the misguided way she did. Up until then as a judge in Germany, that judge is supposed to apply German law as it still is the law of the land. Ethnic culture be damned, murder whether committed by a Christian, a Jew, or a Muslim is simply murder. The culture of the culprit should be meaningless before the law of the land… Yet, some judges while tripping over themselves for the sake of multiculturalism see it differently." >>--
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POPSExtremists and Democracy: Pakistan, Jordan and New Hampshire It's interesting to compare these perspectives from Pakistan, Jordan, and New Hampshire. The use of the word "extremism" is noteworthy. I just got back from a conference on Chinese-Middle-Eastern relations, and the diplomats from Israel, Egypt, Turkey, and Sudan all phrased their ideologies in terms of "moderates" battling "extremists." But doesn't this raise the question: does democracy inherently empower extremism? Consider not just New Hampshire and Iowa, but the general trend in American electoral politics? The party that becomes the most radicalized, the most extreme, normally is the one that succeeds in asserting it's agenda, and the party willing to compromise gets steam-rolled. Think of the Republican Revolution in the 1990s, or the current Democratic surge, or even the New Deal! Is it possible that democracy not only empowers extremists, but needs them in order to work? Is the centrist-democracy a myth?
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POPS Pakistan And President Musharraf Mark Steyn Everyone's an expert :General Musharraf should do this, he shouldn't have done that, the State Department should lean on him to do the other. Furthermore, confident believers in the usual dreary pendulum of Pakistani politics — corrupt democrats, followed by authoritarian generals, followed by corrupt democrats — overlook how profoundly the country's changed. Its political dynamic has a new player: Islamism. Miss Bhutto says, oh, don't worry about that, it's a lot of hooey got up by Musharraf to persuade Washington to prop him up for another half-decade. Pakistan is not Persia. For one thing, it's a country only 60 years old whose slapdash creation was one of the worst disasters of British imperial policy. Yet even those who thought so at the time would be astonished to find that, a mere couple of generations on, a regional afterthought is not only a nuclear power that has dispersed its technology around the planet but also a driving force of the world's first global insurgency.
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POPSThe Foreigner's Gift:The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq Yes, a poisoned Palestinian political culture opted for Hamas in a free election in early 2006. This is what it is: an expression of the malady of Palestinian politics. The larger case for democratic reform is bigger, and nobler, than the state of Palestinian politics. The Bush Doctrine brought about a veritable reversal in the realm of ideas: here was a conservative President asserting that freedom can travel to distant shores, that we can take it to strangers beyond, and here were his liberal critics at home falling back on a surly argument that Iraq, Lebanon, and other Arab and Islamic domains offer insurmountable obstacles to the spread of freedom. Those in the know—and those who pretend to be—have written and spoken about the influence exercised by the Egyptian thinker and pamphleteer Sayyid Qutb (executed by the Nasser regime in 1966) on the course of modern Islamism. This is good as far as it goes. What is needed is a more sustained analysis of the depth of Egyptian radicalism
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POPS Main-Stream-Media Censor Moderate Voices Of Islam? It is interesting that even in the recent April 18 New York Times, Virginia Heffernan appropriately critiques the vacuous nature of Robert McNeil's documentary, "The Muslim Americans". McNeil's documentary which did conveniently make the cut of the Crossroads series, turned out to be a puff-piece for political correctness with no insight into Islamist ideologies and its danger to America. The question remains whether epiphanies like Heffernan's in the Times about McNeil's piece will translate into systemic changes in the approach of the MSM toward Islamists The recent RAND corporation research project highlighting the dire need to Build Moderate Muslim Networks in this new global "long war" against militant Islamism and its ideological siblings will never come to fruition with the current blinded pro-Islamist mainstream media approach. The mainstream media is apparently blind to the real ideology of Islamism and they allow Islamists to hide their theocracy behind minority politics
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POPSGermany Battles Homegrown Terrorism Deutsche Fassung dieses Spiegel-Artikels: Yassin Musharbash: Mit Comics gegen den Dschihadismus Wenn Verfassungsschützer neue Wege gehen: Ein im NRW-Innenministerium geborener Comic-Held hat es mit fiesen Dschihadisten zu tun. Natürlich in Farbe und "jugendgerechter Sprache", Startauflage: 100.000 Hefte.
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POPSM.B. ~ The Project --<< " Western politicians mistakenly believe that negotiation with Islamists is possible, as if these do not have an intransigent agenda, designed to infiltrate or weaken the West. Islamists have failed to influence so-called most "Muslim countries" to accept their ideology, yet the West accepts Islamists' "advice" at its own peril." >>--
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POPS Pakistani Pressure-Cooker The massive throng that turned out to see Bhutto was a perfect target for a suicide bomber, and there were warning in advance. Bhutto has refrained from blaming the Pakistani government, but she has stated that security was inadequate. As I've noted before, considering the general level of competence displayed by the Pakistani government, this is hardly surprising.
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POPSKhamenei Slams ME Conference With no one to negotiate with, there will be no new options. With hamas urged to keep fighting, then the only option is to put them down. And to bring back a phrase from the past, the longer Israel "keeps swatting flies", the closer we get to the day when Iran scuttles of some explosive nukes and makes a REAL statement. If you'd rather see the defeat go to the Israelis you are of course cheering the words of the Ayatollah. (Who the H raised you?)
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POPSBetween Imperialism and Islamism An interesting analysis on the rise of radical Islamism around the world. The original article is recommended. First, as demanded by both Muslims and non- Muslims across the globe, the US needs an attitudinal change. It must repudiate grand imperial designs as well as its claim to being an exception among nations. The notion of total planetary control had guided the Republican administration even before the attacks of 11 September 2001. The Democrats, meanwhile, many of whom have now publicly turned against the Iraq war, limit their criticisms to the strategy and conduct of the war, the lies and disinformation dispensed by the White House, suspicious deals with defence contractors, and the like. But they share with Republicans the belief that the US possesses the right – and adequate might – to mould the world according to its wishes.
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