In the News, May 2, 2016

May 2, 2016

Today's religion and world affairs from the United States and across the globe: London's next election could bring the city its first Muslim mayor, a Bulgarian town bans full-face veils, Bangladesh confronts a recent surge in "hacking" deaths, and beloved pacifist priest Daniel J. Berrigan dies at 94.

BERKLEY CENTER IN THE NEWS
What Do Muslims Think? Same Old, Same Old... Time to Wake Up
by Jocelyne Cesari
openDemocracy
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/jocelyne-cesari/what-do-muslims-think-same-old-same...
In order to effectively assess the religious situation of Muslims in the UK it is crucial to make sure that we do not blow out of proportion so called specificities that are actually shared across religious groups, especially when it comes to family and gender issues. It is also important to not surrender to fear by seeing all manifestations of Islam, including the conservative ones as an indicator of terrorism. In the long term such a suspicion affects religious freedom for all religions.

Muslim-Christian Peacemaking Has a History We Need to Revive
by Drew Christiansen, S.J.
National Catholic Reporter
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/muslim-christian-peacemaking-has-history-we-need-revive
The monks of Tibhirine, Charles de Foucauld, Louis Massignon and Mary Kahil, along with Paolo dall'Oglio and Frans van der Lugt, pioneered Muslim-Christian peacemaking. Their charisms are needed today wherever jihadis sow fear, demagogues stir up hatred and love of Muslim neighbors is in scarce supply.

Postscript: Daniel Berrigan, 1921-2016
​by Paul Elie
New Yorker​
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/postscript-daniel-berrigan-1921-2016
By the time he died, at Fordham’s Jesuit infirmary, on Saturday, at the age of ninety-four, Berrigan’s aura of holiness-and-notoriety had long since yielded to another, greater aura: that of the priest whose consistency of purpose had allowed him to face down immense forces, including this nation’s war machine and celebrity culture.

Blasphemy Laws Don’t Protect Religion, They Hurt It
by Salam Al Marayati
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salam-al-marayati/blasphemy-laws-dont-prote_b_9807116.html
Last Wednesday, I spoke on a panel at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs In DC. The conference, co-hosted by the Center’s Religious Freedom Project and the Center for Islam and Religious Freedom, looked at the historical sources of blasphemy laws and their implementation in countries around the world today.​ ​One panel addressed the correlation between blasphemy and extremism.​ ​American Muslim organizations focus on the way forward for American Muslims- how they can understand blasphemy laws and how such laws are an anathema to the very values we hold dear as people of faith. As Muslims, we can participate in ensuring the removal of these laws in Muslim-majority countries, and removing blasphemy laws will in fact serve to protect religion, not harm it.

AROUND THE WORLD
Catholic Leadership in Bangladesh Condemn Murder of LGBT Activists
Crux
http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/04/30/catholic-leaders-in-bangladesh-condemn-murder-of-lgbt-activ...
Although “the Catholic Church does not approve the way of the LGBT life, it recognizes the rights of all human persons,” said Bishop Gervas Rozario of Rajshahi, president of the Bangladeshi bishops’ Commission for Justice and Peace. “Human persons cannot be killed the way the terrorists did,” Rozario said. “We condemn those who did it.”

Police in Bangladesh Detain 3 in Killing of Hindu Tailor
by Julfikar Ali Manik and Geeta Anand
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/world/asia/police-in-bangladesh-detain-3-in-killing-of-hindu-tailo...
The police detained three men early Sunday in connection with the killing of a Hindu tailor, the latest in a series of hacking deaths in the country. Islamist militants are believed to be responsible for most of the killings.

Villagers Just Protected a Sacred Forest Outside India’s Polluted Capital
by Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/villagers-just-protected-a-sacred-forest-outside-i...
After almost six years of intense battle in courts, government departments and on the streets, citizens have managed to save the 677-acre Mangar Bani sacred grove from builders, even though developers own dozens of acres of forestland. The state government has declared it a no-construction zone.

An Ancient Orthodox Easter Rite Engenders New and Old Passions
Economist ​Erasmus ​Blog
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2016/05/paschal
From the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to the Russian Arctic, millions of Orthodox Christians have been celebrating Easter this weekend, in a passionate cycle of lamentation, anticipation and candle-lit jubilation. And part of the point of those festivities is that they remain exactly the same year after year, century after century. Local practices can vary, of course, but once a custom is established, people never want to change it.

Bulgarian Town Bans Full-Face Veils Worn by Some Roma Muslims
Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2016/04/29/bulgarian-town-bans-full-face-veils-worn-by-some-roma...
The ban, the first of its kind in the Balkan country, was backed from politicians across the political spectrum in the town of some 70,000 people, where wearing full-face veils had become common among some Muslim Roma women.

China Wants to Feed the World’s 1.6 Billion Muslims
by Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian
Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/02/why-china-is-trying-and-failing-to-woo-the-worlds-muslims-with-...
“Mecca is the center of the Muslim world,” Zhang Hongyi, general manager of Jingyitai Halal Food Company based in the northwestern Chinese region of Ningxia, told the state-run Global Times in November 2014. “If we can tap into the market in Mecca, we would become trusted by Muslims all across the world, making it easier to enter other Muslim markets.”

London Is Calling for Its First Muslim Mayor
by Ian Dunt
Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/01/what-happens-when-a-muslim-runs-for-mayor-of-london-sadiq-khan-...
Things are getting ugly in the London election. What should have been a testament to the diversity of London life — a race between the son of a Pakistani bus driver and a wealthy white socialite — is descending into a toxic campaign that has raised doubts about just how tolerant the self-styled “world capital” really is.

DOMESTIC
Daniel J. Berrigan, Pacifist Priest who Led Antiwar Protests, Dies at 94
by Colman McCarthy
Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/daniel-j-berrigan-pacifist-priest-who-led-antiwar-protests-d...
The Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, a writer, teacher and longtime peace activist whose repeated acts of civil disobedience put him at odds with his government and the Roman Catholic Church but made him a major figure in the radical left of the 1960s and 1970s, died April 30 at a Jesuit residence at Fordham University in the Bronx. He was 94.

A Few Miles From San Bernardino, a Muslim Prom Queen Reigns
by Jennifer Medina
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/us/a-few-miles-from-san-bernardino-a-muslim-prom-queen-reigns.html...
“We saw it as a chance to do something good, to represent something good,” said a friend, Sarahi Sanchez, who like Zarifeh is one of a few dozen peer mentors at Summit High School. “This was a way to prove we don’t have problems with bullying or racism.” Zarifeh said her win “proved that not all Muslims are something to worry about.”
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