In the News, March 23, 2015

March 23, 2015

Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: French Muslims, jihadism in Tunisia, and Buddhism in Russia and China. 
AROUND THE WORLD
French Muslims Caught between Islamophobia and Extremism
by Griff Witte
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/french-muslims-caught-between-rising-islamophobia-and-growing-extremism/2015/03/22/7359329c-c739-11e4-bea5-b893e7ac3fb3_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
For many of France’s 5 million Muslims—the largest Islamic population in Western Europe—the killings have left them feeling trapped in a vortex, battered both by rising Islamophobia and growing radicalism in their own communities. The twin forces feed on each other, building in tandem. Together they represent a lingering and potentially devastating counterpoint to the millions who marched in cities across France on the Sunday after the attacks in a solemn and powerful defense of the nation’s core ideals—liberty, equality and fraternity.

UN Envoy Warns Yemen is on the Brink of ‘Civil War’
by Staff Writer
Al Arabiya News
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/23/Yemen-on-edge-of-civil-war-U-N-envoy.html
The U.N. special envoy for Yemen warned an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday that events appear to be leading the country “to the edge of civil war” and urged all parties to step back from the brink and resolve the conflict peacefully. 

Saudi Justice, Harsh but Able to Spare the Sword
by Ben Hubbard
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/world/middleeast/a-murder-a-death-sentence-and-the-unpredictable-nature-of-saudi-justice.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0
Saudi Arabia’s justice system is regularly condemned by human rights groups for violating due process, lacking transparency and applying punishments like beheading and amputation. But Mr. Yehiya was saved because of checks in the Saudi system on the use of harsh punishments. His case wound its way through a years long odyssey of law and tradition. 

Nigeria’s Internal Struggles
by Tolu Ogunlesi
New York Times op-ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/opinion/nigerias-internal-struggles.html?ref=opinion
Over-emphasizing a North-South, Muslim-Christian divide obscures ethnic, linguistic and class divisions that are at the root of many of the problems in this patchwork nation. It also ignores sectarian divisions within Muslim and Christian groups that mirror rivalries the world over. 

Iraq’s Christians Persecuted by ISIS
by Lara Logan
60 Minutes
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-christians-persecuted-by-isis-60-minutes/
There are few places on earth where Christianity is as old as it is in Iraq. Christians there trace their history to the first century apostles. But today, their existence has been threatened by the terrorist group that calls itself Islamic State. More than 125,000 Christians -- men, women and children -- have been forced from their homes over the last 10 months. 

How the Islamic State is like a Christian Death Cult
by Ishaan Tharoor
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/23/how-the-islamic-state-is-like-a-christian-death-cult/?postshare=9171427110391008
The Islamic State's "obsession with 'purity' and the apocalyptic prophecy it stakes its claim on" may be startling, but it's not unique, writes Eleanor Beevor, a researcher at the Quillam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank based in London, and a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford University. In fact, as Beevor explores, echoes of its creed can be found in a militant group that's decidedly non-Islamic: the Lord's Resistance Army, an outfit formed two-decades ago by the notorious Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. 

The Dam of Self-Restraint Bursts for Pakistan’s Christians
by Pamela Constable
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-dam-of-self-restraint-breaks-for-pakistans-christians/2015/03/20/13f8c7d6-cdb5-11e4-8a46-b1dc9be5a8ff_story.html
For years, Pakistan’s beleaguered Christians, estimated to number between 2 and 3 million, responded to such assaults by turning the other cheek. Their leaders urged them to abjure violence, and their social marginalization left them with few weapons other than faith. Last Sunday, that dam of self-restraint finally burst. 

Muslim Women are Fighting to Redefine Islam as a Religion of Equality
by Carla Power
Time
http://time.com/3751243/muslim-women-redefine-islam-feminism/?xid=tcoshare
While despotic governments and extremists battle for power, Islamic scholars, community activists, and ordinary Muslims are waging a peaceful jihad on male authority, demanding what they say are God-given rights to gender equality and justice. From Cambridge to Cairo to Jakarta, women are going back to Islam’s classical texts and questioning the way men have read them for centuries. 

The Jihadi Factory
by Christine Petre
Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/20/the-jihadi-factory-tunisia-isis-islamic-state-terrorism/
Lacking the heavy-handed security apparatus of an authoritarian state, but not yet strong or prosperous enough to offer its citizens a better life, Tunisia has become fertile territory for extremist recruiters—as demonstrated by this week’s bloody terrorist attack in the center of Tunis, for which IS has claimed responsibility. 

Unearthly Powers
Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/03/buddhism-china-and-russia
The Dalai Lama, who is nearly 80, has been denounced by Chinese officials and media for daring to suggest that he might not be reincarnated after his death. A European-based follower of the Tibetan leader, who knows him well, explains the position thus: "If there is no useful role for him to play spiritually, educationally, culturally, then there is no point in [his] coming back as the 15th Dalai Lama." Such statements have been dismissed as "nonsense" in China, where it is presumably hoped that a manageable successor to the exiled leader will emerge, on Chinese territory. This may be an extreme example, but plenty of similarly surreal situations have arisen in religious history.
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