Islam-Muslims

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Ghosts in the Armenian genocide

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On Friday, President Barack Obama broke a campaign promise to Armenian voters to declare the 1915 massacre of Armenians an act of “genocide.” As Glenn Kessler noted in a March Washington Post story anticipating that this might happen, Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Joseph Biden for years have not minced words about labeling as “genocide” the deaths of Armenians. They regularly lambasted President George W. Bush for not using the word “genocide.” And Obama’s promise that he would use the word — compared with Sen. John McCain’s position — got him enthusiastic support among the Armenian community.


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Religion and conflict

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Today’s Times of London has a major story on a reconciliation program in Northern Ireland that has brought together Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, including a woman who had prepared to be a suicide bomber. Here is the beginning of the story:


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Lottery tickets and sharia

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Somalia, in the news recently for its pirates, has faced chaos within its border for decades. Militia groups are fighting the government and the government is having trouble getting control. The New York Times ran a story about a recent attempt by the government to get an upper hand:


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A little religion goes a long way

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We’ve remarked before how the media usually tell religious news stories when those stories interact with the true passion of the media: politics. This story, from the New York Times, is no exception. The whole hook is how a small religious sect is working the political system for survival. The Saddam Hussein years were hard for many groups who perished or suffered under his notorious oppression. But the post-Saddam Hussein years have been difficult in particular for non-Muslim groups. It’s an important story that hasn’t been covered as much as should be. So I was glad to see this story about the Yazidi, (who are definitely faring better post-Saddam):


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A dessert topping and a floor wax no more

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Of all the stories written about the defrocking of Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopal priest who converted to Islam, the most widely disseminated seemed to be this one from CNN. That’s unfortunate, since it was remarkably shallow and one-sided. No one from The Episcopal Church, much less the diocese that disciplined her, is quoted:


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The right to criticize beliefs

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Last week, the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution that calls on nation states to limit criticism of religions in general and Islam in particular. Proposed by Pakistan on behalf of other Islamic countries, the resolution passed with the votes of 23 countries on the 47-member council. According to Freedom House, many of the sponsors and supporters of the measure have some of the poorest records of respecting freedom of speech and religion in the world.


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Mate selection and religion

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Houston Chronicle readers were introduced last week to the fact that a first generation Pakistani Muslim woman has values and preferences for a life mate that look an awful lot like a lot of Christian American women. She also faces a lot of the challenges all Americans face in general in finding a suitable life partner.


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