from India Insight:
Kashmir: we love you, we don’t love your mini-skirt
Imagine this: some tourists, from India and abroad, fly to Jammu and Kashmir, and are eager to escape the confines of Srinagar airport and to get themselves a lungful of that pristine Himalayan air.
Upon arrival, they are advised to visit the official clothier's outlet of the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Department before they hit the streets. They need to make a stop there so they can shed any "objectionable" attire and don a traditional pheran to respect the "local ethos and culture" of India's northernmost state.
Don't like it? Go home.
It's an impossible scenario in most parts of the world, but this idea -- already the norm in conservative Saudi Arabia -- is something that the Kashmiri religious group Jamaat-e-Islami, would like to import to Jammu and Kashmir.
The Jamaat fears that tourists wearing mini skirts and other objectionable dresses could derail "the [Kashmiri] society from the right track."
Labelling tourists' clothing, which often veers to the casual and the revealing (it's hot out there when you're visiting five monuments a day!) as “cultural aggression against the Kashmiri Muslims,” the group has accused women tourists wearing short dresses, mini-skirts and other skimpy attire from the West as agents of “immorality and immodesty”.
The Jamaat says it doesn't welcome these immoral guests, and has asked the tourism department to tell tourists to “honour the local ethos.”
The Jamaat fears that tourists wearing mini skirts and other objectionable dresses could derail "the [Kashmiri] society from the right track." Join DiscussionVoice of Tunisian spring says injustice prompts Salafi attacks on art
Attacks on art in Tunisia by Salafi Islamists are mainly driven by frustration over the injustices of daily life in the North African country rather than pure religious ideology, a Tunisian revolutionary singer said.
Emel Mathlouthi, whose songs about liberty inspired Tunisian pro-democracy protesters, said economic inequality was one of the main causes of recent violence and that if anything she had experienced more artistic freedom since the revolution.
Secular intellectuals have expressed fears about limits to artistic freedom in Tunisia after Salafi Islamists broke into an art fair in June and destroyed a handful of works they deemed insulting to Islam, then ran riot for days.
“There are things happening but we are not sure that this is purely coming from Islamists or Islamic ideology,” Mathlouthi said after a concert in Baghdad on Tuesday where she was presented as the voice of revolutionary Tunisia.
“It is clear that they are puppets, because the most important thing that is driving people is frustration which stems from a lack of equality, a lack of justice,” she said.
“If everyone had a decent job, somewhere to live, then I do not think there would be this kind of problem.”
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Attacks on art in Tunisia by Salafi Islamists are mainly driven by frustration over the injustices of daily life in the North African country rather than pure religious ideology, a Tunisian revolutionary singer said. Join DiscussionAdvancing radical Islamists lay waste to religious heritage in Muslim world
The grim sacking of Sufi shrines in Timbuktu is the latest chapter in an assault on prized religious heritage across the Muslim world that has picked up over the past decade with the spread of radical Islamism.
The world got a first taste of this iconoclasm in 2001, when Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban blew up two huge 6th-century statues of Buddha despite an international outcry.
Since then, radical Islamists have also struck holy sites of other faiths, especially Christian churches. But their most frequent targets have been mosques and shrines of other Muslims loyal to a version of Islam less puritanical than their own.
This violence has spread through Pakistan, starting near the Afghan border and fanning out to strike famous Sufi shrines as far away as Lahore and southern Punjab.
It broke out in the Middle East last year when, in the wake of the Arab Spring, once-repressed Salafi groups destroyed shrines in Egypt. In Libya, some militants dug up Sufi saints’ graves and dumped their remains on garbage heaps.
Like the radicals’ strict theology, this assault on rival religious heritage goes back to the dawn of Islam and is rigorously enforced in its birthplace, Saudi Arabia.
Sanda Ould Boumama of the Ansar Dine group now reducing Timbuktu’s tombs to rubble told France’s RFI radio: “When the Prophet (Mohammad) entered Mecca, he said all the mausoleums should be destroyed. And that’s what we’re repeating.”
The grim sacking of Sufi shrines in Timbuktu is the latest chapter in an assault on prized religious heritage across the Muslim world that has picked up over the past decade with the spread of radical Islamism. Join DiscussionMy God! Your God! Our God! Any God, cannot and does not look upon this Evil and say this is the way Man is supposed to treat Man. MUDha!MUD was nothing more than a butchering, heartless, pedophile Thug! and while it is good to protest against the destroying of these tombs, the time has come for good Muslims to pick up arms and take the breath of every last extremist, fundamentalist before it is too late. Only then can there be true peace…
Pope backs his deputy Bertone at centre of VatiLeaks furore
Pope Benedict on Wednesday expressed full support for his deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the chief target of leaked documents which the pontiff’s butler has been charged with stealing.
Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested at the end of May and charged with stealing the pope’s private papers. He remains locked up in a Vatican police “safe room”.
The leaked documents allege graft over the awarding of infrastructure projects and a poisonous power struggle between rival groups of cardinals – the princes of the Church.
On Wednesday, the Vatican released a letter from Benedict to Bertone, his secretary of state or prime minister, in which he said: “I wish to express my profound appreciation for your discreet support and your enlightened counsel which I have found of particular help in recent months.”
The pope, who sent the letter before heading to his summer retreat of Castel Gandolfo in the Alban hills outside Rome, added:
“Having noted with regret the unjust criticism raised against you, I want to renew the expression of my personal faith in you … which remains constant.”
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Pope Benedict on Wednesday expressed full support for his deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the chief target of leaked documents which the pontiff's butler has been charged with stealing. Join Discussion“It’s a boson!”: Higgs quest finds what looks like the “God particle”
Scientists at Europe’s CERN research center have found a new subatomic particle, a basic building block of the universe, which appears to be the boson imagined and named half a century ago by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs.
“We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature,” CERN director general Rolf Heuer told a gathering of scientists and the world’s media near Geneva on Wednesday.
“The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle’s properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe.”
Two independent studies of data produced by smashing proton particles together at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider produced a convergent near-certainty on the existence of the new particle. It is unclear whether it is exactly the boson Higgs described.
But addressing scientists assembled in the CERN auditorium, Heuer posed them a question: “As a layman, I would say I think we have it. Would you agree?” A roar of applause said they did.
Higgs, now 83, from Edinburgh University was among six theorists who proposed the existence of a mechanism by which matter in the universe gained mass. Higgs himself argued that if there were an invisible field responsible for the process, it must be made up of particles. The particle is the emissary of the field and proves its existence.
He and others were at CERN to welcome news of what, to the embarrassment of many scientists, some commentators have labeled the “God particle” for its role in turning the Big Bang into a living universe: Clearly overwhelmed, his eyes welling up, Higgs told the symposium of fellow researchers: “It is an incredible thing that it has happened in my lifetime.”
Scientists at Europe's CERN research center have found a new subatomic particle, a basic building block of the universe, which appears to be the boson imagined and named half a century ago by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs. Join DiscussionFactbox-Ansar Dine – black flag over northern Mali
Fighters from Ansar Dine, an al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in northern Mali, have destroyed historic Sufi shrines in the ancient desert city of Timbuktu, triggering international outcry.
Here are some facts about Ansar Dine and its leader, Iyad Ag Ghali:
ANSAR DINE:
* The name means “Defenders of the Faith” and it follows the puritanical form of Islam known as Salafism, which looks to the religion’s 7th-century origins as a guide to conduct.
* Along with Tuareg separatist movement MNLA, Ansar Dine and other Islamists were among rebels who seized northern Mali following a March 22 coup in the capital Bamako, in the south of the country, which paralysed the Western-backed Malian army.
* Diplomats say Ansar Dine – with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), originally from Algeria, and al Qaeda splinter group MUJWA – have hijacked the MNLA’s secular separatist uprising and now control two thirds of Mali’s desert north, territory that includes the regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
* Ansar Dine’s leader, renegade Tuareg chieftain Iyad Ag Ghali, has links with AQIM through a cousin who is a local commander, according to diplomats.
Fighters from Ansar Dine, an al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in northern Mali, have destroyed historic Sufi shrines in the ancient desert city of Timbuktu, triggering international outcry. Join DiscussionTimbuktu tomb destroyers pulverise the history of Islam in Africa
The al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters who have used pick-axes, shovels and hammers to shatter earthen tombs and shrines of local saints in Mali’s fabled desert city of Timbuktu say they are defending the purity of their faith against idol worship.
But historians say their campaign of destruction in the UNESCO-listed city is pulverising part of the history of Islam in Africa, which includes a centuries-old message of tolerance.
“They are striking at the heart of what Timbuktu stands for … Mali and the world are losing a lot,” Souleymane Bachir Diagne, a professor at New York’s Columbia University and an expert on Islamic philosophy in Africa, told Reuters.
Over the last three days, Islamists of the Ansar Dine rebel group which in April seized Mali’s north along with Tuareg separatists destroyed at least eight Timbuktu mausoleums and several tombs, centuries-old shrines reflecting the local Sufi version of Islam in what is known as the “City of 333 Saints”.
For centuries in Timbuktu, an ancient Saharan trading depot for salt, gold and slaves which developed into a famous seat of Islamic learning and survived occupations by Tuareg, Bambara, Moroccan and French invaders, local people have worshipped at the shrines, seeking the intercession of the holy individuals.
This kind of popular Sufi tradition of worship is anathema to Islamists like the Ansar Dine fighters – Defenders of the Faith – who adhere to Salafism, which is linked to the Wahhabi puritanical branch of Sunni Islam found in Saudi Arabia.
“A Salafi would say that creating a culture of saints is akin to idol-worshipping,” Diagne said. Unlike Christianity, where the clergy formally confers sainthood, the veneration of “saints” in various, non-Wahhabi, strands of Islam largely arises from popular reverence for pious historical figures.
The al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters who have used pick-axes, shovels and hammers to shatter earthen tombs and shrines of local saints in Mali's fabled desert city of Timbuktu say they are defending the purity of their faith against idol worship. Join DiscussionMilitary draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox shakes Israeli coalition
A dispute over military draft exemptions exposed cracks in Israel’s ruling coalition on Monday, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed a panel charged with drafting reforms of the law on the emotive issue.
Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, head of coalition partner Kadima, threatened to end their two-month-old alliance unless Netanyahu pushed for reforms to make more ultra-Orthodox Israelis and Arab citizens eligible for military or national service.
Mofaz’s outburst at a party meeting followed an announcement by Netanyahu earlier in the day that a panel headed by a Kadima member, charged with drafting proposals for conscription reform, had been “for all intents and purposes … disbanded.”
Netanyahu is also under attack from his other coalition partners, ultra-Orthodox parties who have threatened to quit if he does pursue reforms that would make their followers do military service. Netanyahu has cautiously supported the reform.
The row set the stage for a month of heated debate before a deadline next month for a new law to replace the 2002 “Tal Law” that exempts ultra-Orthodox communities from military service.
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A dispute over military draft exemptions exposed cracks in Israel's ruling coalition on Monday, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed a panel charged with drafting reforms of the law on the emotive issue. Join DiscussionChurch of England vote to allow women bishops could be derailed
A vote to allow women bishops in the Church of England looks set to be derailed by its own supporters, who say a last-minute concession to conservative opponents is a step too far.
Pro-women bishop campaigners want a final vote at the church’s General Synod, or parliament, on Monday to be delayed so the amendment can be sent back to the House of Bishops for reconsideration.
Before the amendment, future women bishops would have been obliged under a code of practice yet to be written to find a “suitable” alternative male bishop for dissenting parishes.
The amendment would go further, requiring them to find one who “shares the same theological convictions” as the dissenting parish.
Critics of the amendment say the change suggests a future woman bishop could not be trusted to appoint a suitable alternative male bishop for those parishes who request one.
Rachel Weir, chairwoman of WATCH, a group that campaigns for women bishops, said: “There is something deeply offensive about needing to put in something saying ‘well, we don’t trust you to do this so we’re going to make sure you do’ in the legislation. What that says is quite shocking really.”
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A vote to allow women bishops in the Church of England looks set to be derailed by its own supporters, who say a last-minute concession to conservative opponents is a step too far. Join DiscussionIsrael’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial amends text on Pope Pius XII
Israel’s national Holocaust memorial has amended its account of Pope Pius XII’s actions during World War Two, after the original text upset the Vatican by implying he did too little to try to rescue Jews from the Nazis.
Yad Vashem, the museum and memorial in Jerusalem, said on Sunday its new display acknowledged that the pope’s defenders say his neutrality in the war gave church members more freedom and allowed them to carry out some secret rescue activities.
But it said the text mentioned that critics still saw Pius as guilty of doing too little, calling it a “moral failure”.
The panel in the museum now also quotes from the pope’s Christmas radio address in 1942 in which he refers to “hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or ethnic origin” were killed. But it notes he did not explicitly name the Jews.
A Yad Vashem spokeswoman said the display was amended due to new research findings and that it now “better shows the complexity of the issue”.
The original text at Yad Vashem was a terse chronicle of the opportunities Pius missed to confront or speak out against the Nazis and mentioned his role before becoming pope in 1939 in the church reaching an agreement with the German government. These elements remain in the new text.
The history of the wartime pontiff has long been a point of contention between Catholics and Jews. Defenders of the pope have said he did everything possible to help Jews, while critics have portrayed him as being indifferent and even complicit in the deaths of six million Jews across Europe.
Israel's national Holocaust memorial has amended its account of Pope Pius XII's actions during World War Two, after the original text upset the Vatican by implying he did too little to try to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Join Discussion-
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