Democratisation & Human Rights

This article tackles many aspects of the Muslims’ lives in the western countries and their views about religion and freedom. In addition, the author Ibrahim Ramadan discusses how the west views the Muslims and what causes all these preconceptions.

Is it correct to describe the Syrian revolution as “armed” and nothing more? Has the revolution been militarized? What has happened to the revolution’s non-violence? all these questions and more are tackled in this critical analysis.

There has been a lot written on the ‘endgame’ in Syria. In some regards, the situation resembles more “Groundhog Day” than an “Hour Zero”. For 18 months, there has not been a single day during which the Syrian regime has not faced countrywide protests to overthrow it. And there has not been any indication that the President Bashar al-Asad is searching for a solution. Even though President Assad grimly holds on to power, he allows his troops and militias to rampage as if he has already acknowledged that he does not have a chance of staying in power.

As the landmark publication of the highly determinative and influential 1997 report from the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (CBMI) highlighted, Islamophobia was distinctly not a post-9/11 phenomenon. Islamophobia existed as much on the 10 September 2001 as indeed it did on the 12 September 2001.

Muslim reactions to provocations of a religious kind is not only limited to South Asia. In recent memory, spanning three decades, the conflict over Muslim religious values and beliefs has played out on multiple fault lines - religious, political, cultural and economic among others - in the full glare of a global media revolution.

The tragic events of 11 September have reduced Islam to a religion almost without a history of satire or demotic content. The chief agenda of this brief paper is to critique Orientalist generalisations with respect to Islam and Muslims in the 9/11 context.

Why and how did negative feelings about Muslims and Islam in the West in general, and Europe in particular, peak in the last decade of the 20th century and what role did ‘Islamophobia’ play in this?

This paper is a critical review of Anthony Giddens’ book, Sociology, an introductory sociology textbook. It specifically looks at references to the Arab world and Islam within the text showing changes between different editions over time.