Centre-right parties across Europe are announcing the failure of multiculturalism. We are witnessing a co-ordinated revival of Enoch Powell's idea of the aggressive outsider out to dominate the rest; only now race and immigration are being played out on the terrain of culture and religion
Many commentators have dismissed the French ban on wearing the niqab as a xenophobic reaction, writes Marie Gilbert. Hinging on French understandings about state, religion and women, the debate is in fact more sophisticated. It deserves to be heard rather than caricatured
Orthodox Jewish feminists may seem to outsiders to be a contradiction in terms. But as Cassandra Balchin discovers while talking with Israeli Orthodox Jewish feminist, Dr. Debbie Weissman, Jewish politics in Israel is anything but straightforward.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. Fatin Abbas argues that the uprisings that have erupted across north Africa and the Middle East in recent months attest to the visionary power of Fanon's work and to its enduring relevance.
The question of religion’s place in modern secular societies is intellectually contested and politically divisive. Here, the scholar Tariq Modood argues that European experience and institutional development can favour an accommodative model that respects religion yet goes beyond both toleration a
In India, the existence of deep religious diversity has ensured a conceptual response not only to problems within but also between religions. Without taking it as a blue print, the west must examine the Indian conception and learn from it, regarding peace between communities, community-specific ri
‘Multiculturalism’ entails society offering a full range of prospects, membership, and respect to all its members – regardless of cultural and religious differences –while also creatively accommodating them in a fashion that is both morally persuasive and practically effective for the majority of
Secularism, as a concept, appears to be in danger from both the left and the right. Among feminists, it tends to be only some minority women scrambling for the soul of secularism. It is time for all feminists to muck in, says Rahila Gupta
The emancipatory movements in the Arab world represent an inner shift in the self-understanding of Islam - one that promises to overcome an era of false polarities and dogmas, says Arshin Adib-Moghaddam.
All Arab regimes, regardless of regime type, have essentially behaved like dynasties. This is why the essentially secular, expansive, inclusive, internationally-aware neo-nationalism of the young Arabs in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region offers a revolutionary break from an unending past
The arguments about family law rights in Britain's Muslim communities are bound up with racism and sexism. Those who have a political stake in being seen as the legitimate representatives of an essentialised Muslim community are part of this problem, says Cassandra Balchin
During Zia’s years, liberal forces presented the most radical opposition to the theocracy-military collusion and oppression. Today, we witness a liberal democratic government, with a secular alliance that is paralysed and besieged by its lack of vision and inability to govern, says Afiya Shehrbano
