Articles

The Taliban in Afghanistan reflect the danger of Muslims playing pawns in the hands of others, especially anti-Muslim forces. The product of British and American intrigue, the Taliban have now assumed a life of their own but are still susceptible to manipulation by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two regimes beholden to the US.

Australian politicians and pundits are lining up to express their dismay at the return of racism to public life, urging the electorate not to vote for Ms Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in the snap October 3 election called partly to contain its growing threat to the main political parties.

India has had a rough couple of weeks as far as Kashmir is concerned. First it was president Nelson Mandela of South Africa who in his welcome address to the non-aligned movement (NAM) summit meeting in Durban on September 2, offered international mediation to resolve the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.

When Turkish prime minister Mesut Yilmaz hobnobbed with Israeli leaders on September 7, there were hardly any quizzical eyebrows raised. This is furthur affirmation of the close ties with Tel Aviv which have long been assiduously cultivated by the Turkish secularist political elites and their shoulder-boarded godfathers in the military.

The prosecutors in the trial of 138 Muslim men and women which opened in Paris on September 1 did not even bother to present any evidence of guilt, relying instead on mere innuendo and assertions that the accused had maintained links with ‘terrorist groups’ in Algeria before their arrest in 1994 and 1995.

Muslims in Britain are facing increasing difficulties in their support of the global Islamic movement, and threats to their human rights and civil liberties, after new ‘Anti-Terrorist’ legislation was rushed through Parliament in less that 48 hours early this month.

Steven Barboza’s book, American Jihad, is an inversion of the message of Emerson’s ‘Jihad in America’. Barboza uses the idea of jihad and the life of Malcolm X - a combination guaranteed to get most Americans’ attention - as starting-points for a discussion of the different ways American Muslims practise jihad.

The Zionist occupation forces have imposed a strict curfew on the southern part of the West Bank town of Hebron. The complete blockade of the city is part of the Zionists’ collective punishment to inflict suffering on 400,000 Palestinian residents while the gun-toting Zionist settlers prowl the streets freely.

‘Till death us do part’ may be a Christian marriage expression long out of fashion but it applies most aptly to rulers in the Middle East. Notwithstanding the constitutional monarchies of Europe which as mere show-pieces exercise little or no executive authority...

Dr Amien Rais has been credited with initiating the downfall of president Suharto in Indonesia. Leading the largest Islamic organisation - Muhammadiyah - he is considered a potential successor to B J Habibie in the next elections under the ‘reformasi’.