Articles

President Islam Karimov, a dictator well-schooled in the old methods of Soviet repression, is intensifying his regime’s crackdown on all forms of dissent, whether Islamic or secular.

Out-going US president Bill Clinton signed the international treaty establishing the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal on December 31, in an unexpected move.

Even the most casual observers of current events will notice a tension between Western civilization and Islam. This tension is often made explicit in Western public discourse about "Islamic fundamentalism" and the "clash of civilizations." Similarly, Muslim public discourse often focuses on the Zionist occupation of Palestine and the destruction of places like Bosnia and Iraq.

Contending Images of World Politics edited by Greg Fry and Jacinta O’Hagan. Pub: Macmillan Press, Basingstoke, UK, and St Martin’s Press, New York, USA, 2000. Pp: 314. Pbk: UK£19.95.

Even as the Palestinians faced some of the worst days of the intifada, however, representatives of Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority began meetings with Israeli and American representatives in Washington to bring the Palestinian ‘peace process’ — also known as the Palestinian sell out — back on track.

Muslims throughout the world celebrated Eid al-Fitr on December 27, coinciding with a less pleasant event that has been virtually forgotten by most of us by now. On this date in 1979, tens of thousands of Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, setting off alarm bells in world capitals, not least Washington, then a leading champion of the ‘cold war’ mentality.

As the Al-Aqsa intifada in Palestine enters its fourth month, ZAFAR BANGASH, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), discusses the nature of the Israeli problem and the challenges facing the Islamic movement in Palestine in seeking to resolve it.

All over the Muslim world, Ramadan is a time of peace, reflection and piety. In Algeria, however, it has become known as an annual peak in the brutal and apparently mindless killings of innocent people that the government blames on Islamic activists, but most ordinary people attribute to forces linked to Algeria’s security agencies.

Hizbullah secretary-general Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah gave renewed hope to the families of prisoners in Israeli jails last month, when he declared that a German mediation over an exchange of prisoners with Israel should cover all Arab detainees in Israel, not just Lebanese prisoners.

The trial of some 300 members of the outlawed Moroccan Islamic Justice and Charity Group (Jama’at al-’Adl wal-Ihsan) started on December 11. They are among some 800 people arrested for taking part in rallies marking the United Nations Human Rights Day held on December 10 by human rights and Islamic groups.