Sunday Posts

Islamic Terrorism has made news and focused minds in the recent weeks. It did not help that a section of the Turkish Military tried a coup against its Government - perhaps in the Secular cause against the Islamic politics of Mr Erdoğan - and it counted as another instance of Islam being violent. The Egyptian government is intent on putting to death more than a hundred Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members - the Government is tacitly backed by the Americans - but it also is counted as Islam being violent. As someone told me recently, "All Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims", as if that proves Islam is a violent religion. I did tell him, after the religious scholar Reza Aslan, that taking one example and generalising it to a whole community is indeed bigotry, but this is unlikely to stop him in the future. Using a term which is now very popular in India, he called me 'psuedo-liberal'. I am fascinated by this term, not least because I g...

From: David Pope

Israel can get away with anything. They can copy other people's passports and send out death squads. They can blockade an area and starve civilians. They can bulldoze unarmed students. They can board a ship with medical aid and food supply and fire on those who had the courage to carry them. They can develop nuclear weapons on their own but have the license to bombard anyone else if there is any hint of a nuclear ambition on the other country's part. They can get away because they are civilizations outpost in a resource-rich region. They are the stooges of old colonialism, mainly British. They are supposed to divide and terrorise the Middle East, and keep it in permanent disarray. They seem to be under permanent seize, even if they are the strongest country in the region. They regularly give the impression that they are some superior race, returned and maintained in their land by God [or by America] and they can kill, maim or rape anyone they wish. The problem is - they can...

Adding a fresh twist to the Sensitivity versus Freedom of Speech debate, the Danish newspaper Politiken , which published the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad with bomb-shaped turban and the like, apologised for any offences it may have caused. In fact, the apology comes after it has reprinted one of the cartoons, originally published in 2006 by another newspaper, after an attempt was made on the life of Kurt Westergaard , the cartoonist. The newspaper which originally printed the cartoons, Jyllands - Posten , criticized Politiken's apology, calling it a 'pathetic prostrating in front of a Saudi Lawyer' which deserves 'the first prize in stupidity'. Kurt Westergaard called it 'a setback for the freedom of speech' and the Danish Union of Journalists called the move 'kneeling before the opponents of the freedom of speech'. Such criticism comes despite the fact that Jyllands - Posten itself apologised for printing the cartoons back in 2006, and the oppo...