Islamophobia
A report by Stephen H Jones and Amy Unsworth, University of Birmingham, The Dinner Table Prejudice Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain notes, ” Muslims and Gypsy and Irish Travellers are the two standout groups in our survey because more people evaluate them negatively than positively. This suggests that not only is there discrimination against these two groups but also that there is less public sanction against openly acknowledging one’s dislike This is borne out in the contrasting way these two groups are discussed in public life. . . . {There is] is the absence of censure when public figures ally themselves with individuals with a record of anti-Muslim hatred .” click here.
Ideas & Reflections
Seminal essay: Karim Al-Rawi – A reflection on the way in which Egypt has long been pulled between traditions of Socratic Europe and Islam. click here.
Remember Ferhat Abbas?
The pharmacist who sought conciliation with France in vain, but also broke with the authoritarian FLN during Algeria’s epic war of liberation that ended in 1962. click here.
Biographical Directory
Over 2000 entries compiled by Nauman Khan. Click here.
Defining Events
Bosnia: Operation Screwdriver – more revelations of the disregard for Bosnian suffering during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s – Operation Screwdriver. click here.
Fact files that keep track of told and untold past events – some continue to unfold. click here.
Travels
How the Shahnama of Muhammad Juki ended up with Royal Asiatic Society click here
In memory
Founder-Editor in Chief of Impact International, guide and counsellor for British Muslims. Obituary notice
His lament on Pakistan, ” . . . then, by and by, the opportunists, the mercenaries and the agents took over”. click here.
Dossiers
Afghanistan
Since 2007, an 11-part dossier has been tracking a disastrous, vengeful intervention much lauded at the outset – the late Michael Novak had rationalised it as “morally obligatory” while one British general declared that the bombardment and occupation met ‘Just War’ criteria . In 2021, after irreparable human suffering, the grudging acceptance that it was largely a futile and counter-productive exercise. click here
Revelations of destablising operations in Indonesia in 1965 – role of the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD). click here
Rwanda: “Our Report [the Muse Report] concludes that the Genocide was foreseeable. From its knowledge of massacres of civilians conducted by the government and its allies, to the daily dehumanization of the Tutsi, to the cables and other data arriving from Rwanda, the French government could see that a genocide was coming. The French government was neither blind nor unconscious about the foreseeable genocide . . . The role of the French government must be examined.” click here
British Muslim Civil Society
The Muslim Council of Britain has called for an independent Equality Human Rights Commission investigation into the state of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. The revelation from former minister Nusrat Ghani MP about her experience of Islamophobia as a Muslim woman is the latest example in a string of cases exposed by the Muslim Council of Britain and others. click here.
