Charleston , W. V. (Special to Informed Comment) – Donald Trump taught America a great lesson. He showed that this nation has a huge number of racist, sexist, jingoist, gay-hating, Muslim-hating, Hispanic-hating bigots – those Hillary Clinton called a “basket of deplorables.” Trump attracted them by millions through his endless attacks on blacks and other […]
Month
Category
- Africa (146)
- Animals (1)
- Asia (827)
- Australasia (1)
- Australia (5)
- Authoritarianism (170)
- Canada (1)
- Cats (1)
- Culture (417)
- Dehydration (1)
- Democracy (236)
- Dissent (284)
- Economy (708)
- Education (75)
- Elderly (3)
- Energy (1,062)
- Environment (1,469)
- Europe (774)
- Featured (2,624)
- fiction (5)
- Food (8)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Health (433)
- History (238)
- Human Rights (983)
- Immigration (17)
- International (597)
- Islamophobia (303)
- Juan Cole (268)
- Latin America (65)
- Latinos (3)
- leisure (21)
- media (367)
- Middle East (7,193)
- Arab World (4,598)
- Iran (890)
- Israel (698)
- Israel/ Palestine (1,924)
- Israel/Palestine (8)
- Kurds (262)
- Turkey (441)
- military (104)
- Modernism (1)
- nationalism (101)
- NATO (6)
- Natural Disasters (11)
- nuclear weapons (56)
- Patriarchy (2)
- Peace (73)
- Persian mythology (1)
- Popular Culture (23)
- Poverty (11)
- privacy (19)
- racism (342)
- Rape (5)
- religion (827)
- Rights (127)
- robots (1)
- Romance (1)
- science (112)
- Secular (West) (7)
- Secularism (24)
- Sexual Assault (2)
- South Pacific (1)
- Spirituality (21)
- Statelessness (14)
- Surveillance (259)
- Terrorism (1,033)
- Tolerance (4)
- Uncategorized (8,043)
- United Nations (80)
- Urbanization (3)
- US Foreign Policy (567)
- US politics (3,855)
- Anti-War Movement (6)
- Campaign Finance (27)
- Censors (21)
- Central Intelligence Agency (59)
- Civil Rights (82)
- Congress (34)
- Constitution (309)
- crime (5)
- Democratic Party (536)
- Democratic Socialists of America (13)
- Domestic Terrorism (16)
- Drone Warfare (26)
- Espionage (115)
- Ethnicities (278)
- Far Right (186)
- FBI (41)
- Foreign Policy (203)
- Gay Rights (14)
- Guns (64)
- Immigration (190)
- Israel Lobbies (82)
- Marijuana (1)
- Militarization (229)
- National Security State (383)
- Native Americans (22)
- Nuclear arsenal (6)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (357)
- Police (34)
- prison reform (6)
- Private Prisons (1)
- Puerto Rico (25)
- Religious Right (1)
- Reproductive Choice (7)
- Republican Party (2,399)
- Supreme Court (59)
- Voter suppression (19)
- Whistleblowers (4)
- Xenophobia (8)
- Veterans (28)
- Voting Rights (4)
- War (271)
- Western Religion (373)
- White Supremacists (78)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (288)
- workers (144)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (121)
Secularism
Secular Shift: In Iran’s Islamic Republic, do only 40% even Consider themselves Muslims?
By Pooyan Tamimi Arab and Ammar Maleki | – Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution was a defining event that changed how we think about the relationship between religion and modernity. Ayatollah Khomeini’s mass mobilisation of Islam showed that modernisation by no means implies a linear process of religious decline. Reliable large-scale data on Iranians’ post-revolutionary religious […]
Revolutionary, Muslim-Majority Sudan Declares Separation of Religion and State
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) The transitional government of officers and civilian revolutionaries in Sudan has separated religion and state. In an agreement signed Thursday in Addis Ababa with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM–N), Sudan’s prime minister Abdullah Hamdok agreed that Sudan would not establish any particular religion. The agreement included the language, “The state […]
Are Young Arabs Abandoning Religion?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Arab Barometer in partnership with the BBC has interviewed a weighted sample of 25,000 people in the Arab world. One of the survey’s findings is the rapid decline in self-reported religiousness. About 30% of Tunisians say they are “not religious” in 2019, nearly doubling since 2013. The youth are […]
Why Israeli Gov’t May Fall: Like US, Secularists and Fundamentalists are Polarized
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We’ll know later today whether prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu will succeed in forming a government. If not, Israel will have snap elections in September. In parliamentary systems, coalitions are often made after the election. In the US, the two big parties have already made their coalitions before the election. The […]
You’ve Got Veil: Secular Tajikistan Gov’t sends Millions of Texts imposing Hijab Ban
RFE/RL’s Tajik Service | – – DUSHANBE — Private mobile-phone companies in Tajikistan have begun sending out text messages to millions of citizens, reminding them to obey a new law that makes Tajik national clothing obligatory at “traditional” gatherings such as weddings and commemorative ceremonies for the dead. The legislation is widely seen as an […]
Rebuking Fundamentalists, Funeral for Palestinian-Israeli Istanbul Victim draws Thousands
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – One of the thirty-nine victims of the Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) shooting at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Layan Nasser, 19, was buried on Tuesday in her home town, Tira, in central Israel. Roughly a fifth of Israeli citizens are of Palestinian heritage, the majority of them […]
Top 5 things that Make Bangladesh a natural Target for Extremists
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Bangladesh has been plagued by extremist violence for years, but the violence and hostage-taking in Dhaka on Friday and on Saturday morning was a whole new level of disruption. Why Bangladesh? Here are some reasons: 1. Bangladesh is a multicultural state, where some 9 percent of […]
Majorities of Muslim Arabs in N. Africa want a Separation of Religion and State
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – You know those silly anti-sharia laws passed by evangelicals in US state legislatures? They may as well not bother. (Sharia is Muslim law; but it is much more diverse and fluid than fundamentalists of both stripes think it is). It turns out a lot of Muslims […]
© 2020 All Rights Reserved