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Keywords: Jihad

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Abbott’s temporary reprieve for hate speech prohibition

    • Moira Rayner
    • 08 August 2014
    4 Comments

    Quite rightly the Section 18C repeal bill was seen to remove all limits on ‘freedom of speech’ without regard to the vulnerability of those targeted. Andrew Bolt was infuriated, Senator Brandis lost face and his new Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson was ‘disturbed’ by the bill being shelved. But the PM is a pragmatist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A case of the Ramadan blues

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 11 July 2014
    12 Comments

    We’re in Ramadan, a time when you’re supposed to be nicer than you normally are. In recent times my mob hasn’t received much niceness from certain quarters. Some of the nasties have been inspired by hysteria related to a proposal to build a mosque in Bendigo. I’m not quite sure what Bendigo’s largely university-based Muslim community did to deserve so much vitriol. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What's eating Syria and Iraq

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 17 June 2014
    11 Comments

    In October 2013, Jesuit Fr Frans van der Lugt wrote about the suffering of the besieged people of Homs in Syria: 'Despite these difficulties, we keep grasping onto hope.' On 7 April 2014 he was executed outside his home. The rout of Iraqi forces in Mosul by the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Levant must be a worry to the Iraqi authorities and the US and Western countries that have invested so much in the new post Saddam Iraq.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Problems with jihadi tourism

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 26 September 2013
    1 Comment

    Jihadi tourism is big business, oiled by a global recruit base from which various diasporas can be tapped. The attackers on the shopping mall in Nairobi were linked to a Somali based outfit calling itself al-Shabaab, a standing affiliate of al-Qaeda operating in the Horn of Africa. But the Somali case is far from unique. The Afghanistan and Iraqi conflicts netted their fair share of foreign recruits in the fight against US-led forces.

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  • RELIGION

    Irrational fear of the Muslim Brotherhood

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 21 August 2013
    9 Comments

    It’s a crude and misleading line of reasoning to declare that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood can’t be committed to democracy because it is an Islamist organisation much like al-Qaida and Hezbollah. On what basis do we label individuals or groups 'Islamist'? Or 'fundamentalist'? Or 'extremist'? How can we have a monolith amongst a set of congregations making up almost one quarter of the world's human population? The history and politics of Islam is just as complex as that of Christianity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Asylum seeker karaoke

    • Barry Gittins
    • 20 August 2013
    5 Comments

    Manus Island's hot, there's no protection for the weak. Though you think you're kind, it's true asylum that I seek. What's the point of difference between the church and state? Why do Salvos validate a policy of hate? History repeats, you Aussies did the same to Jews. Running from the Nazis, with their pleas for help refused.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A tale of two unsuccessful asylum seekers

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 19 June 2013
    6 Comments

    Comparison of these two cases is illuminating. One is the recruit to the Australia A cricket team, Pakistani born Fawad Ahmed. The other is, in Tony Abbott's words, the 'convicted Jihadist terrorist', Egyptian born Sayed Ahmed Abullatif. Ahmed will be the second Pakistani born cricketer in an Australian side that desperately needs a good leg-spinner. Abdullatif has possibly a more difficult road ahead.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    'Naked Jihad' sacrifices feminism to racism

    • Ellena Savage
    • 12 April 2013
    9 Comments

    The phrase 'white men saving brown women from brown men' derides the use of western feminist tropes to further colonial expansion. The anti-Islamic reaction of some feminist activists to the death threats suffered by Tunisian 'naked protestor' Amina Tyler does nothing to promote global solidarity among women.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Post 9-11 demon words too simple for Africa

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 30 January 2013
    3 Comments

    Behind the labels of undifferentiated militancy lie dangerous consequences. When it comes to the disturbances in Algeria and Mali the mistake has been to equate local troubles with international significance. Both al-Qaeda and Western powers are playing on this theme, and in doing so have created enormous suffering.

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  • RELIGION

    Vein hope for Pakistan's minorities

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 21 January 2013
    7 Comments

    If Pakistan is to remain a nation with something resembling life and soul, it must protect its minorities. But instead, as with India, it is quietly eviscerating them. It isn't just extremists engaging in the self-harm, it happens at all levels of society. Before long the nation may find itself bleeding to death.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Militancy trumps education on Pakistan frontier

    • Farooq Yousaf
    • 25 September 2012
    9 Comments

    With militants firmly holding the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the already low literacy rate of 29 per cent has nosedived to 17 per cent in the region. Religious madaris are perceived as places of affordable education by common rural dwellers, while to the outer world, they remain breeding grounds for militancy. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What the Conventions didn't tell us about November's US election

    • Jim McDermott
    • 10 September 2012
    3 Comments

    The US finished Act One of its quadrennial orgiastic political kabuki last week with the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Originally conventions were intended to choose candidates, but today they’re more about motivating the parties’ bases, but really just a total schmozzle.

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