No more Tharoors!

Err, what do you want to say?

[Reply]

My feelings exactly! I am one of those who haven’t read a single Harry Potter, just because I was scared by the phenomenon. The media hoo-haah made me run away…it’s wrong I know.

[Reply]

I am still skeptical to pick that book

[Reply]

Hooo boy!! Talk about buying books that I know will suck but I buy anyway.. Mostly cos they’re part of a series and while the writing was tripe and the story rather flimsy, one still wants to know the happy ending.. Only book I could resist buying was the second Fifty Shades book, I left the first one (downloaded not bought) half way through because “YUCK!!!”.

[Reply]

GPI en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_Progress_Indicator

[Reply]

“High growths don’t pull people out of poverty.”
It can, if some groups do not multiply much faster than others just to create a vote bank!

[Reply]

“High growths don’t pull people out of poverty.”
It can, if some groups do not multiply much faster than others just to create a vote bank!

[Reply]

Actually Zia is saying that a puny ISLAMIC country like Bangladesh beats India in Human development index…never mind genocide on non-muslims especially hindus in Bangladesh.

[Reply]

nice
information. Thank you for sharing it. Thanks Packers Movers

[Reply]

Zia before you extoll the virtues of bangladesh vis a vis ISLAMIC model
would you care to answer the following queries
1. HOW MANY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE THERE IN BANGLADESH
2. HOW MANY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE THERE IN YOUR NATIVE ASSAM
3. HOW MUCH FOREIGN AID HAS BANGLADESH RECEIVED

4. JUST ONE ENGINEERING PRODUCT OR PHARMA EXPORTED FROM BANGLADESH, LEAVING ASIDE SOFTWARE EXPORTS
even bangladesh’s biggest export garments , the fabric is sourced from INDIA
5. HOW MANY YEARS OF PEOPLE’S WILL (read DEMOCRACY) has bangladesh enjoyed

NOW COMING TO INDIA
1. SEND CONgress party packing for good

.2 India needs REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE, fully mechanised agriculture with massive acreage by coalescing pattas , corporate farming, patta holders being share holders
3. COMPULSORY LEGALLY BINDING EDUCATION TILL AGE 18, PARENTS FAILING TO SEND THEIR KIDS TO SCHOOL TO FACE JAIL LIKE IN UK
THE MONEY TO COME FROM TAXATION AND FREEZING TO WAGES FOR TWO YEARS
3.CRONY CAPITALISM A LA AMBANI TYPE BUFFETTED BY ZENOPHOBIA AND PROTECTIONISM NEEDS TO GO

INDIA WILL BE CHANGED FOREVER

2.

[Reply]

Musharraf Returns

share

this
Sino-Pak naval cooperation reiterated

US AND ISLAMOPHOBIA
0 comments

Posted by Ece Koc on Apr 9, 2013 in Interviews | 0 comments

[Translate]

Professor John Esposito

PROF. JOHN ESPOSITO ON U.S. AND ISLAMOPHOBIA

By Ece Koc

Professor John Esposito, the outspoken inter-faith promoter
was recently on A9 TV’s Building Bridges show. Esposito, offered his
views on many subjects including US media’s way handling news about
Islam, the ways to cope radicalism and the notorious Regensburg Speech
of Pope.

Esposito is a figure known for his strong views in favor of
building ties with the Islamic world, especially after 9/11, when many
people thought otherwise. From time to time, he became such a
controversial figure, many people accused him of downplaying the threat
of terrorism. He, however, seems unabated by all this criticism, and is
gaining more and more popularity now. Esposito most recently appeared on
A9 TV of Istanbul, a television channel known for its efforts to
promote peace in the world. So when the hosts asked him about how Islam
is covered in the mainstream US media, Esposito had lots to say:

“…two-thirds of that will be about mainstream Judaism and
Christianity, practices, relations, good news and then maybe one-third
will deal with problems and issues, okay? The reverse is true in
covering Islam and Muslims in general; that is a disproportionate amount
deals with what I would call the explosive headline events, the
conflict events. What you see is this kind of Islamophobic, or bias to
Islam in regard to a religion, has become part of our mainstream
politics; in other words, its mainstream politicians. And then there are
your militant Christian Zionist preachers, many of which have
megachurches or are televangelists who have large TV followings, or are
talking heads in the media and again, politicians and others, so that
not only impacts and affects, if you will, not only Muslims
domestically, but it falso impacts American foreign policy.”

He feels that the way most of the time Islam is portrayed is unfair,
and anyone could have applied the same approach to Judaism and
Christianity, too, if they wanted: “The way you feel about Muslims,
the way you think about Muslims, if you don’t make the kind of
distinctions that I’m talking about the vast majority of Muslims and
Islamists, and Islam as a religion of peace, then you have a problem. It
would be the same, analogously, if you say, “Look, if you look at the
early history and down through the centuries, Christianity was not a
religion of saints but a religion of warriors” and was often used to
spread the religion, from the conquistadors to European imperialism, and
even the logic of a good deal of American neo-colonialism in terms of
Christians see as opening up the Muslim world to greater conversions,
and if you take into consideration pedophilia and see Christianity or
Roman Catholicism and see it through that, you would be seeing it
through a very distorted lens.”

Esposito also feels very strongly against Islamophobia and indeed he
has been very frequently targeted himself by Islamophobists as well: “And
I think the thing that you want to keep in mind too is that the
situation gets ratcheted up exponentially because we have so many
mean-spirited, right-wing Islamophobic websites; so for example, if an
article appears criticizing me, in a matter of days that will be picked
up and appear in a dozen different versions and appear in all these
other websites, and your average American, many of them wind up looking
at these websites. Many of them have titles, it’s not just the websites
like “JihadWatch”, it’s the websites that have titles that seem nice and
innocuous, websites like “American Thinker” “Family Security”, and so I
think that’s what ratchets that up exponentially.”

We are swimming against the tide

Esposito also mentioned that especially after 9/11, the Islamophobists had the opportunity to cash in the fears of people:

“On those websites, it is simply said in general that Muslims are a
problem, that Muslims are a threat to security, that Islam is a
problem. Therefore, if there’s an attack made, other websites pick this
up because they all cross-fertilize themselves and over a ten-year
period, over forty million dollars was given by acceptable foundations
to these kind of websites and their creators and many of these folks are
quoted as the terrorists affect them; the Norwegian terrorist, Breivik,
quoted these folks extensively, and on the other hand, on page 66,
there’s a page attacking me and my center for our work. So that’s where
we’re at. The whole point is that you’re doing, what so many of us do,
is very important because we are swimming against the tide, as it were,
in terms of popular culture and a distorted conventional wisdom.”

When asked about his views on how to combat radicalism, he had one answer: ‘education’. Esposito elaborates: “I
think the first thing, the most important thing frankly is education.
And also it becomes very important to get religious leaders on board.
You know, one of the difficult thing, and here I have to be quite frank,
I admire the way that religion and religious education and Islamic
reform is being done by a number of Turks, both in government and
non-government. The thing is, yes we can get to a point where we get
very senior religious leaders, the real impact comes when those senior
religious leaders make sure that the priests, rabbis and imams are
trained in their religious schools to have that pluralistic, tolerant
outlook because they are the people who impact the local communities.
They impact the families of the people who are going to be parents, they
impact the kids who are going to the mosques, synagogues and churches.
All of this is very important.

[Reply]

Well, Zia has done something which he has never done before. That is NOT whine about Muslims being “victims”. But I am sure he will be back to his old communal game. This is just a respite.

[Reply]

BUT WHY SHOULD U COMPARE US TO BANGLADESH?

THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING THERE

VARIOUS Islamist groups in Bangladesh are demanding that a new anti-blasphemy law be formulated under which the death penalty can be awarded to those who defame Islam and the Prophet (PBUH).

It has been rejected by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Nevertheless, the demand and the scale of the emotion and controversy it has stirred up serve to deepen political polarisation in the country. There is little doubt that the end result will be an intensification of the divide between secularists and Islamists.

In a fresh wave of protests launched by the Islamist group Hefajat-i-Islam (‘protecting Islam’) against bloggers that they consider anti-Islam, hundreds of thousands of people held rallies in Dhaka and other cities and towns across the country.

They criticised the Awami League government for not taking severe action against those who, in the recent past, augmented their purportedly anti-Islam activities through online social networks and blogs.

Islamist groups are adamant in their demand and say that they are committed to sustaining their pressure on the government to formulate laws which can award the death penalty to those found guilty of insulting Islam.

[Reply]