A survey of Muslim women finds many are frustrated by having a Islamic holy month in quarantine. But others say a ‘remote Ramadan’ is nothing new because child care duties often keep them home anyway.
Source: Muslim women observe Ramadan under lockdown – and some say being stuck at home for the holiday is nothing new : The Conversation
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
So opens a Jackanory-style film uploaded to social media this week by one Birmingham mother, featuring her reading aloud from a picture book called Mommy, Mama and Me. It’s a cosy, toddler-friendly bedtime story about two mothers doing what mothers do the world over: pouring juice, tucking children up in bed, playing hide and seek. Your children’s primary school or your local library might well have a copy. Although they might have plumped instead for And Tango Makes Three, the tale of two daddy penguins adopting a chick.
Her point, of course, was to reassure anyone alarmed by wild rumours about primary school sex education that the idea of gay relationships can be introduced in a perfectly age-appropriate way, even to five-year-olds. Watching that film, I thought how far we’ve come since the 1980s, when tabloid scare stories about leftwing councils stocking such books in libraries panicked Margaret Thatcher into introducing section 28 – the ban on local authorities “promoting homosexuality”. Now we have an openly gay schools minister and a generation of kids who thankfully won’t have to grow up heaped with corrosive, lifelong shame. Times have changed. But not so much that we can take them for granted.
The citizens of Ireland voted recently, in a nationwide referendum, to remove a clause from their constitution that had made blasphemy a criminal offence. Ireland’s now-defunct Defamation Act of 2009 prohibited the “publication or utterance of blasphemous matter.”
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There are a few forces in the World today who appear to wish to bring on World War 3, Kim Jong-un, Trump, Israel and the Fundamental Right and all should be countered for WW3 will, if it comes, will be apocalyptic for the majority of the Worlds population and to what end.
The World, today, may not be good place, but it is all our lives at stake and none should be lost due to the actions of the Warmongers, never today, tomorrow or anytime within the future.
And this is exactly what Christian Zionist millennialists like Tim Lahaie want.
Yesterday, Trump announced that he was going to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is what the Israelis have been demanding for years, but previous administrations have not given into them, because they were very much aware that this would set off a powder keg of rage and hostility across the Middle East. Jerusalem was taken from the Palestinians, and still contains a sizable Arab population. The Israeli nationalist right would love it to be the capital of their nation, but it is also claimed by the Palestinians.
There have been mass protests and riots against Trump’s decision all over the Middle East. RT yesterday put up this footage of Israeli squaddies or the police trying to put down protesters or rioters in Bethlehem yesterday.
And politicians from across the political spectrum have condemned…
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Controlling what women wear won’t curtail terrorism.
Source: So few Muslim women wear the burqa in Europe that banning it is a waste of time
This weekend, more than 35,000 Muslims from 100 different countries will meet in Hampshire, England, to denounce violence and promote world peace.
In the wake of terror attacks in London and Manchester earlier this year, the gathering sends a powerful message that Muslims stand with the rest of the world in condemning extremism in all its forms.
Source: Over 35,000 British Muslims Gather in Hampshire to Condemn Terrorism and Promote Peace
Right-wing bloggers and writers are up in arms over recent comments made by Muslim activist Linda Sarsour, saying she called for a “jihad” against the Trump administration.
Her detractors, however, don’t appear to understand what jihad means.
The controversy began on Thursday after news broke that Sarsour, who gained national recognition for helping organizing the Women’s March on Washington, delivered a speech to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) over the weekend. When describing how she plans to resist Donald Trump’s administration and attacks on the Islamic community, she articulated her activist work in religious terms — using the word jihad.
Below is a transcript of the comments in question, provided for full context.
You can count on me every single day to use my voice to stand up, not only to people outside our community who are oppressing our communities, but those inside our community who aid and abet the oppressors outside our community.
There is a man who once asked our beloved prophet … has said to him, “What is the best form of jihad or struggle?”
And our beloved prophet … said to him, “A word of truth in front of a tyrant or leader, that is the best form of jihad.” I hope, that when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts us as a form of jihad, that we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or the other side of the world, but here in the United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reining in the White House.
Sarsour was clearly using the term jihad to promote speaking truth to power. But within hours of the speech, conservative outlets such as Fox News Insider, Conservative Review, and Breitbart began reporting on the speechusing headlines that did not contextualize the term, such as “Linda Sarsour calls for Muslims to wage ‘jihad’ against Trump.” Fox News Insider did explain her use of the term
Source: A Muslim activist referenced jihad and the right freaked out because they don’t know what it means
I’ve spent years conducting research in devout Salafi communities. Theresa May’s focus on ideology as a means of tackling terror could backfire
Oil is the reason for many conflicts, so is the case for the American involvement in the Middle East but not mentioned only are the atrocities.
But atrocities happen in other countries, but there is no American involvement as there is no oil.
Oil the root of all evil.
This is yet another video about the expansion of the American war machine and war propaganda by the Jimmy Dore Show. In this video, he discusses the report that AFRICOM, the part of American High Command responsible for Africa, has decided to put troops back into Somalia after 24 years. The troops are apparently there at the request of the Somalian government, and will be there for training purposes. The article does reveal that American troops have also been deployed several times within that space of 24 years in minor missions, such as scouting for bombing sites.
The US troops are being deployed to help the Somali government against the Islamist group, al-Shabaab. The article states that al-Shabaab, although sharing a similar Islamist ideology with ISIS and al-Qaeda, aren’t actually part of those organisations. Most of the time, they’ve been confined to Somalia. They arose after a long period of…
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Just who is telling the truth, is it propaganda on both sides.
In any conflict it is not just the innocent that suffer, but also the truth.
The innocents should be the prime consideration on all sides of any conflict, not the last, as is shown and proven many times.
As well as appearing on Counterpunch’s website, Theodore A. Postol also appeared on RT, and his analysis of the Sarin gas attack in Syria was also covered by Jimmy Dore. Postol is the emeritus professor of Science, Technology and National Security at MIT. He concluded that, contrary to what the American government and Syrian rebels were saying, the poison gas that killed the people of Khan Shaykhun was not dropped as a bomb from a plane, but was released from an improved ground-based weapon, about 12 cm long. Trump and the American media have claimed that the attack was the responsibility of Assad, and launched an attack by Tomohawk missiles on the air force base, from which the attack was supposedly launched, in reprisal.
In this video, Dore savagely critiques the statements of Trump, Sean Spicer and other members of the White House. He makes the point that the American…
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