Articles

There was uproar in Egypt last month when a small number of students at al-Azhar University, supporters of the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, wore black uniforms and balaclavas, and performed martial arts exercises, during a protest against the university authorities. The government immediately condemned what they said was evidence that the Ikhwan has a secret military wing.

Fate seems to have thought that US president George W Bush needed more dismal assessments of his handling of Iraq after the debacle that befell the Republican party in the recent congressional elections. The report released by the Iraq Study Group on December 6 gives a catastrophic balance sheet of America’s adventurous military invasion and occupation of Iraq

According to detailed new research by American economists based on 50 years of data, the US uses its aid budget to bribe countries that are on the security council to secure their votes in its favour. The cash on offer increases by almost 60 percent when recipients of US bounty become members of the council

In what may be one of the UN’s most hypocritical moves ever, the Security Council imposed nonmilitary sanctions on Iran on December 23 for its peaceful nuclear-power programme. That the resolution went through several drafts over the course of two months reflected deep divisions among Council members, but its final passage reconfirmed that the UN does not live up to its high-sounding principles or care about the rights of others

Although the recent assassinations of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko have failed to draw international condemnation for Russian prime minister Victor Putin, they ought to draw attention to the continuing war in Chechnya. HAJIRA QURESHI of the SCC looks forward to World Chechnya Day.

Throughout history, Arab rulers have repeatedly betrayed the interests of the Ummah by aligning themselves with the enemies of Islam. Since the division of the Middle East into nation-states by the West at the turn of the last century and the installation of tribal chiefs as rulers, these rulers have done everything to undermine the Ummah. From aligning themselves with Britain to destroy the Uthmaniyyah khilafah to facilitating the implantation of Israel in Palestine, and more recently supporting the Western-backed Iraqi invasion of Islamic Iran (1980) and then joining the West’s onslaught on Iraq in 1991, they have never failed to indulge in treachery

Revolt on the Tigris: The al-Sadr Uprising and the Governing of Iraq by Mark Etherington. Pub: Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2005. Pp: 252. Hbk: $25.00.

Visiting Vietnam last month, US president George Bush tried to put a positive spin on the US’s defeat in Iraq by comparing it with the US experience in that country. The truth, however, is that the US defeat in Iraq surpasses the humiliation it suffered in Vietnamin terms of its political implications.

Malaysia is the favourite Muslim country for many Western Muslims. The reasons were not difficult to see when this writer visited the country last month; Malaysia can perhaps be characterised as Muslim but not too Muslim. You can eat halal food wherever you go, there are suraus (prayer rooms) in malls, hotels and most other public buildings, and virtually all Muslimahs wear hijab. But in terms of their development, modernity, looks and general atmosphere, Kuala Lumpur and surrounding urban areas such as Petaling Jaya feel more like Islamised versions of cities in the West than Muslim cities like Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Karachi or Jakarta.

Just how much more courage and fortitude can the Palestinian people display in their battle against zionis occupation and oppression? Muslims were amazed, and the rest of the world shocked, when the Palestinians last month revealed a new strategy to counter Israeli attacks on them