CNN.com - At least 66 dead in Nigeria's religious violence - Feb 22, 2006

CNN.com - At least 66 dead in Nigeria's religious violence - Feb 22, 2006: "ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Revenge attacks against Muslims killed at least 20 people in the southeastern Nigerian city of Onitsha on Wednesday after days of anti-Christian violence killed dozens in the mainly Muslim north."

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Points

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Points: "James Kurth: America's Christian soldiers

click link above for full story -- may require registration



03:32 PM CST on Sunday, January 29, 2006

President Bush has often spoken of freedom as God's gift to America and to mankind, and of America's calling to bring freedom to all peoples. Moreover, his strongest electoral support has come from evangelical Protestants. These are the people the liberal media call 'the religious right' (although by that logic, the media themselves should be called the 'secular left')."

As it happens, Protestantism has indeed had a major impact on U.S. foreign policy, but this is not primarily due to evangelical Protestantism. It is due to the "Protestant Deformation."It is this peculiar pseudo religion upon which both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush have drawn in their foreign policies to spread American ideas of liberal democracy, free markets, individual freedom and human rights abroad.

Analysts have debated for decades the relative influence of different factors in the shaping of American foreign policy. Although numerous scholars have stressed the importance of realism, idealism, capitalism or liberalism, until recently almost no one has thought that Protestantism itself – the dominant religion in the United States – was worthy of consideration.

In fact, American foreign policy has been and continues to be shaped by the Protestant origins of the United States, but with a twist. That Protestantism has not been the original religion, but a series of successive departures from it down the scale of what might be called the "Protestant declension.

Cartoons as Culture War?

Muslims and the West: A Culture War?

Guest Commentary by John L. Esposito, Gallup Senior Scientist

Opinion and analysis by John L. Esposito, University Professor at Georgetown University and author of What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam and Unholy
War: Terror in the Name of Islam. Esposito is a Gallup Senior Scientist and co-author of the forthcoming Can You Hear Me Now: What a Billion Muslims Are Trying to Tell Us.

Newspaper cartoons of the prophet Mohammad have set off an international row with dangerous consequences, both short and long term. The controversial caricatures first published in Denmark and then in other European newspapers, target Muhammad and Islam and equate them with extremism and terrorism. In response ! to outcries and demonstrations across the Muslim world, the media have justified these cartoons as freedom of _expression; France Soir and Germany's Die Welt asserted a 'right to caricature God' and a 'right to blasphemy,' respectively.

One of the first questions I have been asked about this conflict by media from Europe, the United States, and Latin America has been, 'Is Islam incompatible with Western values?' Are we seeing a culture war? Before jumping to that conclusion, we should ask, whose Western democratic and secular values are we talking about? Is it a Western secularism that privileges no religion in order to provide space for all religions and to protect belief and unbelief alike? Or is it a Western 'secular fundamentalism' that is anti-religious and increasingly, post 9/11, anti-Islam?"

For the full article, see:

http://www.global-college.com/cartoonwar.htm

Message from a former student

Re Muslim anti-Cartoon Riots

From a former grad student. One very bright guy. And a Muslim.

Hi Dr. Eve,

Some scattered thoughts on the issue:

i) There are obvious grievances among the Muslim people around the world. Flushing Quran in toilet (Gitmo), Abu Ghuraib humiliations, attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan under wrong pretexts, American foreign policy of supporting dictatorial regimes (including the ones in the Middle East and Pakistan) - Muslim people, or for that matter, any person who is not under the influence of corporate media, can see the link of animosity toward Islam by the West. Here, I am taking about the the image or perception of America in the mind of people over there. This would be Grievances, Cultural Framing, and New Social Movements related argument. Especially related to the last one, the new social movements, which tend to be more about Identity. These series of actions including the mockery of Prophet are threatening the very ideals and identity of Muslims all over the world, compelling the even the moderate leaning Muslims to support the extremists (involved in violence, which I don't think is the only way to protest).

ii) Part of this global drive has to do with the advancement in technology, media, communication that has more than ever before facilitated the possibility of a global 'Ummah' (which means, a Muslim "community" in abstract sense; not a polity or state). This would be Resource Mobilization Argument (from "Imagined Communities").

iii) Understanding the issue itself can be helpful in understanding the reaction. So some people in the Western media seem to claim that the issue is about depicting Prophet in pictures. I do not think that is the main issue. Depiction of Prophet has been done in the Turkish and Iranian arts for centuries. a) The issue is about the intent behind the design and publication of those malicious cartoons, not the pictures themselves. b) Next, Muslims see it as ethnocentricism of the West to publish these cartoons but deny the publication of Jesus cartoon (presented to the same newspaper three years ago) or Holocaust related stuff. In other words, West is not free of sacred cows either. Now in the Islamic world, Muslims would be similarly outraged by any mockery of Prophet Jesus. So, the point is that many Muslims think that it is an abuse of the "freedom of speech" ideal to target particular communities or groups. This becomes especially important given the history of racism and exploitation of colonial people in the West. This critique could be seen in Said's "Orientalism". Now, supposedly the more civilized people in the West should be more aware of the misrepresentation of the Prophet in Orientalist literature and in the Western Imagery (like Dante's placement of Prophet Mohammad in the lowest level of Hell).

U.S. Church Alliance Denounces Iraq War - Yahoo! News

U.S. Church Alliance Denounces Iraq War - Yahoo! News: "PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the U.S.-led war in
Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of 'raining down terror' and apologizing to other nations for 'the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown.'
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The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the United States was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a 'culture of consumption' and its refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming."

Plugged in: Strange bedfellows - Feb. 8, 2006

Plugged in: Strange bedfellows - Feb. 8, 2006: "NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - An unlikely coalition of evangelical Christians, FORTUNE 500 executives and environmentalists is coming together to press the U.S. government to take action to curb global warming.

The latest example: Evangelical leaders Wednesday announced a 'call to action' asking government and business leaders to agree to 'cost-effective, market-based' regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which are mostly caused by burning fossil fuels."

TomPaine.com - Decoding The Cartoon Crisis

TomPaine.com - Decoding The Cartoon Crisis: "This is no mere clash of cultures. It is a new form of the colonial struggle that defined European-Arab/Asian relations in the 19th century. The difference this time is that the natives in the south are not helpless and quiescent in the face of the West's large guns, disdainful rhetoric or insulting cartoons. Muslims, Arabs, Asians and others today are much more aware of the policies of Western states, concerned about their goals, angry about Western double standards, able to resist through the use of mass media, political and other channels, and willing to stand up, fight back and assert their right to live in freedom and dignity. The message from the Arab-Islamic heartland is that the 19th century has officially ended."

Christianity and the workplace are increasingly intertwined - Feb. 1, 2006

Christianity and the workplace are increasingly intertwined - Feb. 1, 2006: "NEW YORK (FORTUNE Small Business Magazine) - Entrepreneurs, it's been said, are born hungry and alone. And most are quick to seek not just bread but also fellowship. Nowhere is that impulse more evident than in the growing ranks of Christian business owners, who are banding together for mutual support while they seek to express their faith through their companies. They have created at least 30 networking organizations in the U.S., about half of them launched in the past five years."