USA: Vigil for Gaza

U.S. Muslims to Hold White House ‘Vigil for Gaza’

New Year’s Eve event seeks Mideast peace, justice in 2009

(PRNewswire)

On Wednesday, December 31, American Muslims and other people of conscience will gather outside the White House in Washington, D.C., for a “New Year’s Eve Candlelight Vigil for Gaza.” The vigil is sponsored by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of 12 major Islamic organizations. …>

Jordan: Iraqi Refugees, Displaced for the Long Term

No place to go
An impoverished middle class fleeing violence and disorder leaves Iraq disadvantaged and its neighbors overwhelmed

Matthew Hay Brown (Baltimore Sun)

Pakistan: Taliban Committed to the Spread of Ignorance and Polio

It’s fascinating how those who are stupendously ignorant take pride in that quality and treat it as a virtue to be shared.

Taleban threaten to blow up girls’ schools if they refuse to close

Zahid Hussain (London Sunday Times)

The Taleban have ordered the closure of all girls’ schools in the war-ravaged Swat district and warned parents and teachers of dire consequences if the ban is flouted.

In an announcement made in mosques and broadcast on radio, the militant group set a deadline of January 15 for its order to be obeyed or it would blow up school buildings and attack schoolgirls….

…The militants have also prohibited immunisation for children against polio – claiming that the UN-sponsored vaccination drive is aimed at causing sexual impotence – causing a sharp rise in cases of the disease….

USA: Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, Anthropologist Who Studied the Lives of Middle Eastern Women, Has Died

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea was an author who spent two years in an Iraqi harem and studied the roles of Muslim women in the Middle East.

(London Daily Telegraph)

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, who died on December 2 aged 81, lived in an Iraqi harem for two years and subsequently devoted her life to studying the roles of women in the Muslim Middle East and north Africa….

Italy: Right Wingers Object to Mosque in Nativity Scene

Priest puts mosque in Nativity scene
Italy’s Right-wing Northern League have reacted with fury after it emerged that a Roman Catholic priest added a model mosque to his church’s nativity scene.

Nick Pisa (London Daily Telegraph)

Father Bonzani explains his reasoning:

… Father Bonzani said that his nativity scene was designed to send a message of inter-faith harmony. “I included the mosque as a sign that we should have more dialogue with the Muslim faith. I do not have any regrets. At the end of the day the most important thing to focus on here is the Holy Family. I have only one had one complaint from within the parish and that’s it.”

Father Bonzani added that another reason for including the mosque was that it accurately represented today’s Bethlehem. “Someone asked me why I had put one in and I said I wanted it to be a modern Bethlehem….”

USA: Taqwacores, the Movie

Young Muslims Build a Subculture on an Underground Book

Christopher Maas (NY Times)

Five years ago, young Muslims across the United States began reading and passing along a blurry, photocopied novel called “The Taqwacores,” about imaginary punk rock Muslims in Buffalo.

USA: Staten Island Dullards Go on Hate Crime Spree

They badly beat a Muslim teenager on election night AND ran another man over with their car on the same night “because … they thought he was a black man.”

He wasn’t.

Oops.

The teenager continues to have daily headaches, but he is lucky compared to the other guy. The hit-and-run victim has emerged from a coma but suffers from brain damage which might be permanent. He is married and has five children he was supporting.

Probers link Election Night beating of Muslim teen and brutal hit-run in S.I.

JOHN MARZULLI (DAILY NEWS)

UAE: The Secret Life of Flight Attendants

In Booming Gulf, Some Arab Women Find Freedom in the Skies

KATHERINE ZOEPF (New York Times)

… The most successful Arab flight attendants, they say, are often those whose circumstances have already placed them somehow at the margins of their home societies: young immigrant women who are supporting their families after the death of a male breadwinner, for example, and a handful of young widows and divorced women who are eventually permitted to work overseas after their prospects of remarriage have dimmed….

Nigeria: Government Forces Hunted Down Muslims to Slaughter Them

Nigeria Forces Are Implicated in the Killings of Muslims

LYDIA POLGREEN (New York Times)

Government security forces were implicated in the deaths of at least 90 of the hundreds of people killed in religious violence in the central Nigerian city of Jos last month, Human Rights Watch said Saturday. . . .

USA, NY: Meet Miss Pakistan — a New Yorker

Since Pakistan is “not quite ready” for beauty contests, bikini competitions, and such, contestants for the crown reside in the USA, Canada and the UK, and are crowned in Mississauga, Ontario.

Big City
Pakistan May Not Be Ready for Its Beauty Queen

Susan Dominus (New York Times)

Muslims: Hatred, Double Standards and the Law

When Us Means Muslims
Must They Hate Us So?

AYESHA IJAZ KHAN (CounterPunch)

Dec. 11, 2008

… “They hate us;” “you’re either with us or against us!” This is precisely the type of language that fuels the enormous credibility deficit between the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds. There is constant media coverage and vigils held for victims of the Mumbai blasts and 9/11, which is fine. But where are the cameras and the candles when the Christians and the Jews kill, when thousands of innocent civilians die in Sabra and Shatila, when air raids kill countless Iraqis and Afghans, when Hindus in India maim and kill thousands of Muslims (Gujarat 2002) and hundreds of Christians (Orissa 2008). Why is that back page news? Why are there no tears for those unfortunate souls? Those killed by NATO forces are barely mentioned as collateral damage. Is life taken by extremists only worth celebrating if the killer is a Muslim?…

Pakistan: Honor Killings – Burned by the Fire

Tariq Ali writes about the evils of honor killing — and the sad fate of a young cousin, murdered by two brothers while other family members stood by and did nothing.

Diary

Tariq Ali (London Review of Books)

… Traditionalists have always considered love to be something that brings shame on families: patriarchs should be the ones to decide who is to be married to whom, often for reasons to do with property. If you fall in love, the 18th-century Urdu poet Mir Hassan explained (more than once), you will be burned by its fire and perish….

Gaza: Reduced to Eating Grass

Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border

Marie Colvin (London Times)

“We had one meal today – khobbeizeh. Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass…”

USA: All in the Neo-Nazi Family

Poor little Adolf Hitler Campbell. No ShopRite birthday cake for this little tyke when he turns 3. Shoprite just isn’t into that whole neo-Nazi thing.

Read the article. It will have you shaking your head at the latent hatred and overt stupidity of the adults in this family. I feel sorry for this little kid and his similarly named siblings, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

Holland Township man names son after Adolf Hitler

DOUGLAS B. BRILL (The Express-Times)

Adolf Hitler Campbell — it’s indeed the name on his birth certificate — turns 3 today, and the Campbell family believes the boy has been mistreated. A local supermarket refused to make a birthday cake with “Adolf Hitler” on it.

Egypt: interview with First Female Mayor

Egypt’s first woman mayor takes role in her stride

(AFP)

Eva Habil has just become Egypt’s first female mayor but already she seems relaxed in her pioneering role as she strolls around her community clad in jeans and a pink sweater….