Year: 2013

Playing Politics With Religion

NY Times: “Civilized society is perpetually threatened with disintegration,” wrote Sigmund Freud in “Civilization and Its Discontents.” So it is with the sectarian violence that tears at the Middle East today. The strife that pits Sunnis against Shiites is a product of sustained internal and external pressures that have manipulated […]

Saudi-backed Jarba to lead Syrian opposition

ISTANBUL/BEIRUT — Syria’s fractious opposition elected a new leader on Saturday but rebel groups were reported to be fighting among themselves in a sign of growing divisions on the ground between factions trying to topple President Bashar Assad. The Syrian National Coalition chose Ahmad Jarba as its president after a […]

Massacre Of Muslims In Myanmar Ignored

Huff Post: by Todd Pitman. MEIKHTILA, Myanmar — Their bones are scattered in blackened patches of earth across a hillside overlooking the wrecked Islamic boarding school they once called home. Smashed fragments of skulls rest atop the dirt. A shattered jaw cradles half a set of teeth. And among the […]

Will Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood survive?

Source: CNN (CNN) — In a stunning reversal of fortunes, Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy was deposed by a military coup just one year after being sworn in as president. The Egyptian protesters who took to the streets by the millions over the past several days to demand Morsy’s resignation were jubilant […]

Islam, Egypt and political theory

Source: The Economist ON the face of things, this week’s events in Egypt have validated a theory about Islam and society that seemed contrarian when it was first floated. In 1992 a French analyst of the Muslim world, Olivier Roy, published a book entitled “L’échec de l’Islam politique“—translated into English […]