“I felt as if I had been given my country back”
It was all joy. There had been such muddles over the complex ticketing arrangements, and such hostility from sections of the mass media, and such horrible things said by campaigners…
Is tolerant Islam a myth?
It appears to be a sign that you’re doing something abundantly right when the leaders of major Arab and Muslim groups demand that your conference be monitored by the thought…
A new battler for Britain
Defying dreary weather and drearier protests, the state visit of Benedict XVI to England and Scotland was, by all accounts, a smashing success. Although only about 5 million of 60…
The Rwandan genocide: a revisionist history
Political wars around the history of genocide are most evident in controversies over the Holocaust (see "The Holocaust, genocide studies, and politics", 18 August 2010). But they are also sharpening…
United Nations demands inquiry into mass rapes in Congo
Mass rapes of women and children strongly condemned A United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the mass rapes in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or…
Reaping the whirlwind
“It began on Saturday 7th September 1940 at around tea-time… That Saturday was a warm, sunny Autumn day. In the late afternoon we of the Auxiliary Fire Service, stationed at…
NYC Imam says ‘No Deal’ after Florida Pastor Cancels Burning of Quran
Pastor Terry Jones announced earlier today that he was cancelling the burning of copies of the Quran in response to a decision by the Imam in New York City to…
Hard questions
As Operation Iraqi Freedom morphs into Operation New Dawn, we cannot forget that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died violent deaths. After seven and a half years, the…
Younger working class miss out on jobs, marriage, religion
Younger working class people are drifting further away from middle class America and traditional values because they cannot find work in the changing job market. The social and political implications…
Can you hear us now?
When Melinda Tankard Reist’s latest book, Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls, was published last year, a reviewer described it as a “collective shout against the pornification of culture”.…
Marry, pray, love
In a book of self discovery so popular that it has been made into a movie — Eat, Pray, Love — the American writer Elizabeth Gilbert took herself to India…
Welcome to the Club of Ancient Wrongs
With one war in Afghanistan, another in Iraq, a possible war with Iran, and an environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it seems bizarre that the biggest political issue…