While sitting at a cafe in downtown Beirut, the awkward couple on their first date, having met the night before while "not drunk, but really tipsy" were getting to know one another, after each swearing that they don't go on dates with people they just met at bars.
News Roundup
I am back in Washington DC after a relaxing week with family and friends in Colorado where I did nothing but eat good food, drink dark beer, read interesting books and snowboard. It was rather enjoyable.
DC is warm, but rainy. Today I plan on preparing for three interviews I have lined up over the next two days. Wish me luck.
Below is a news roundup of articles, interviews and news that caught my attention.
1. Al Jazeera interview with the cartoonist Joe Sacco on his new book Footnotes in Gaza.
2. Brazil and the United States are positioning for control of humanitarian efforts in Haiti following the recent earthquake.
3. NYT Op-ed column by Maureen Dowd on the human relations and legal efforts behind the challenge to California's Prop. 8. Most accurate quote:
legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president. Before you do it, it seems inconceivable. Once it’s done, you can’t remember what all the fuss was about.4. James Dobson of Focus on the Family is leaving the organization he founded to start a radio program not associated with the religious organization. This will allow him to more clearly express his far right views on politics in the country without worry of having the organization's religious tax exempt status revoked.
I have read several cogent and well-written articles on Switzerland's recent r
And herein lies the real problem underlying the vote. It is not merely about Islam. It is also about the solidification of neo-liberalism economically and conservatism politically across the continent, and ultimately, about globalisation more broadly.
Together, the political, economic and social dynamics are creating a situation in which governments are less able to deliver the high level of services that post-war Europeans have gotten used to, at the moment that ideologically, people areincreasingly unwilling to look out for their fellow citizens' welfare as they did previously - when, of course, they also happened to look, speak and act much more like them.
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But if history is any guide, Europeans will start out blaming the 'inside other' for their problems, but it will not be too long before their anger, and violence, turns on each other.
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Even Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Switzerland's justice minister, admitted that the result "reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies," as if one cannot be Islamic without being fundamentalist.
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Either way, it is clear that Europe is going to become more Muslim in the coming decades. The question is whether in the process it will become more Islamic - that is, publicly religious and impacted by Muslim religious symbols and practices - and which version of Islam will define the emerging European Islam.
Will it be a "Euro-Islam" that respects core liberal values of tolerance, openness and respect for the rule of law, or a "Ghetto Islam" that produces subcultures that are largely isolated and hostile to the European self-image (one which, it must be remembered, largely excludes Muslims in the first place)?
“Let’s cut to the chase. Let’s just do one amendment that deals with gay illegal immigrants who want abortions at Gitmo.”
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