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Oh Snap! Pakistan Shows Off Its Style

TresSugar — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

More color and less skin filled the runways yesterday during the first day of Pakistan's Fashion Week, an event that will feature over 30 Pakistani designers. The organizers had to push back the four-day event twice due to security fears, but at last the beautiful show must go on. Check out these gorgeous photos.

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Top Official: Burqa Not Part of France's "National Identity"

TresSugar — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0700

Cheese. Wine. Baguettes. These are all seemingly welcomed signifiers of French identity. Burqas? Not so welcome.

France has been debating a ban on the head-to-toe garment for some time now. Most recently, the country's immigration minister Eric Besson said yesterday that burqas should not be worn on French streets because they are not part of the country's "national identity."

Besson wants the government to reaffirm national pride by having a "great debate" about what it means to be French. With more than five million Muslims living in France (the largest Muslim population in Western Europe), doesn't French identity include Muslim traditions? It sounds like Besson, who was born in Morocco, disagrees. Based on his previous statements, being French means speaking better French if you're an immigrant and having more opportunities to sing the national anthem if you're a kid in school.

Do you think the French government has a right to dictate dress codes under the guise of "maintaining tradition," or should it be more accepting of minority and immigrant group influences? Would you worry if US officials organized a meeting to decide what it means to be American?

Teen Suspended For Telling Muslim-American to Take Off Hijab

TresSugar — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:00:00 -0700

Heather Lawrence, a 16-year-old from Spring Hill, FL, may want to rethink what it means to be a patriotic American.

A junior ROTC member who wants to enlist in the Army next Summer, Lawrence was recently suspended for chastising a fellow student in the halls who was wearing a hijab, saying, “Take that thing off your head and act like you're proud to be an American." She first took offense at the girl when she noticed that she didn’t stand for the pledge of allegiance. Lawrence's parents, outraged that she was suspended for five days, are thinking of taking legal action. (The girl Lawrence confronted didn't complain, but a teacher overheard the remarks and reported her.)

Lawrence’s parents say that it’s Heather’s First Amendment right to “speak her mind,” but Springstead High’s principal sees Heather’s behavior as a of violation the district’s policy against bullying and harassment. According to a school staffer who asked Lawrence why she confronted the student, her harassment seemed to have a prejudicial tinge. "She began to rant,” said the staffer, “that she was enlisting and was going to Iraq and that basically because the girl looks Middle Eastern, that makes her an enemy because all Iraqis are Middle Eastern."

We’ve talked before about how Muslim women wearing hijabs seems to set a lot of people off. As for having to say the pledge of allegiance, last year the US Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a provision in Florida law mandating that people must stand for the pledge.

What do you think of Lawrence’s treatment of the hijab-wearing Muslim-American and her subsequent suspension? When does patriotism go too far?

All In a Name: Obama's Simple Plan to Reach Out to Muslims

LibertySugar — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:30:22 -0800

Just like all presidents before him, the President-elect plans to be sworn in using his full name: Barack Hussein Obama. Although Obama said that by using his full name, he's just doing what every other president did, he also told the Chicago Tribune, that he has a unique opportunity to renovate relations with the Muslim world. He hopes to "create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of goodwill who want their citizens and ours to prosper together."

Obama's Muslim-community outreach won't end on Inauguration Day. The president-elect also plans to deliver a major address in an Islamic capital as president.

The election of the first African-American president with the middle name "Hussein" surely reveals an openness not seen in many other countries. Maybe all those Obama supporters who changed their middle names to Hussein on Facebook actually reduced the stigma, transforming the name from a campaign liability to a tool of US diplomacy.

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China Tries to Rule Out Islam

LibertySugar — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:00:53 -0700

China, an officially atheist government, closely controls the five recognized religions - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Taoism, and Buddhism. China keeps an especially close look at the northwestern Xinjiang region, where Islamic and separatist ties are strong. This weekend's New York Times took a look into how a rising China wants to blunt the rise of Islam.

Some restrictions include:

Sermons at Friday Prayer cannot be longer than a half-hour.
Prayer in public, outside the mosque, is forbidden.
Many residents can only worship in mosques located in their cities.
Government workers and Communist Party members cannot attend services.
Non-official versions of the Koran are illegal.
Only special government school may teach Arabic.
Students and government workers must eat during Ramadan.

China seems more concerned with freedom from religion, than freedom of religion.

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Pakistan's New President Finds Himself in Awkward Trouble

LibertySugar — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:00:00 -0700

When American politicians do something awkward they have to answer to YouTube, but Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, has to answer to religious leaders and feminists. A religious leader issued a fatwa, a nonbinding opinion on Islamic law, condemning Zardari for flirting with Sarah Palin at the UN. The radical prayer leader said Zardari disgraced the whole nation with "indecent gestures, filthy remarks, and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt." He also added: "we are fighting the American war in our country and thousands of our people have been killed just to please Uncle Sam." And as for Pakistan's feminists, some say by calling Palin "gorgeous" Zardari looked at her merely as a woman and not a politician.

But that's not where the embarrassment ends. In an interview with Fox News, President Zardari repeated the debunked Internet hoax that Colonel Oliver North installed a home security system in the 1980s because he was scared of Osama bin Laden. To find out how Zardari has done damage control, read more.

North's actual testimony during the Iran-Contra hearings states that the security system was installed because threats were made on his life by terrorist Abu Nidal. Zaradari's spokeswoman explained the mix up to the New York Times saying: "The point President Zardari sought to make was more about how the US ignored the threat posed by al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and less about the Oliver North comment or hoax." Let's hope a few awkward situations don't cause Pakistan to become more unstable.

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Negative Opinions of Jews and Muslims on the Rise in Europe

LibertySugar — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:30:14 -0700

Negative attitudes toward Muslims and Jews are mounting Europe. A new survey found negative views among 46 percent of Spanish, 36 percent of Poles, 34 percent of Russians, 25 percent of Germans, and 20 percent of French. Britain is the only surveyed European country where anti-Semitic views did not rise, as only nine percent rate Jews unfavorably. In the US, seven percent of Americans have negative views toward Jews.

As for unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims, 52 percent in Spain, 50 percent in Germany, 46 percent in Poland and 38 percent in France hold negative views. In Britain the rate is 25 percent, and in the US it is 23 percent.

Not too long ago we heard stories about European extremists ready to capitalize on this hostility. This summer, German authorities uncovered a neo-Nazi children's summer camp, and the French have been investigating Paris clothing shops selling anti-Semitic T-shirts.

Is there a difference between latent unfavorable opinions, and dangerous hatred?

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US Plant Fires Praying Workers, Denmark Stops Fasting Kids

LibertySugar — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:01:01 -0700

An unprecedented conflict has erupted between Muslim workers and management at JBS Swift & Co.'s Colorado meat packing factory, regarding when employees can pray in observance to Ramadan. Over 200 workers walked out during a shift, since management would not give them an official sunset break for prayer. As a result, the company fired half of them.

The union plans to file suit, but hopes the employees will get their jobs back without a court-battle. Right now, many that still have jobs have offered financial help to those who got fired. Sounds like the Swift plant has a different approach to Ramadan than the Tyson plant in Tennessee that agreed to give union workers the end of Ramadan off instead of Labor Day.

Meanwhile in Denmark, a municipal committee in Odense decided to call for principals and parents to stop children who are fasting for Ramadan. City officials say it's not so much politics or religion that prompted the push against fasting, but concerns over student health and ability to lean while hungry.

How should employers and teachers accommodate those observing Ramadan?

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Danish Sitcom Stars Bumbling Terrorists Plotting an Attack

LibertySugar — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:30:17 -0700

The Danes will soon confront terrorism in their front rooms. A new sitcom, The Terror Cell, follows the lives of terrorists conspiring in Denmark. The main characters include:

Osama: a businessman who sees terrorism as a money maker
Abdul: a convert to Islam who acts as if he can't kill enough people
Ali: a Pakistani who won a competition for the honor of avenging the Danish cartoons degrading the Prophet Muhammad

Living in a rundown Copenhagen apartment, these terrorists escape detection because their closest neighbor, an elderly woman, believes World War II has not ended and the men are hiding from the Germans. While pretending to be integrated Muslims, the members of the cell plan an attack in Denmark. Each episodes ends with the incompetent terrorists blowing themselves up, only to be returned to earth by Allah in time for the next episode.

To see how the approach of the show's creator differs from other Danish critics of Islam, read more.

Unlike a Danish politician who recently criticized Islamic extremists by using graphic video and violent verses from the Koran, The Terrorist Cell's creator Omar Marzouk opts for jokes as his vehicle for social commentary. Omar, a Muslim born in Denmark, thinks his country dodges a serious discussion about the its strict immigration policies and sometimes negative role in the Middle East. Do you think satire will help get the conversation started, or should societies never joke about terrorism?

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Union Trades Labor Day For Muslim Holiday at Tyson Factory

LibertySugar — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 06:00:45 -0700

Union workers at a Tennessee Tyson Food poultry factory will not get paid to barbecue chicken this Labor Day. A new five-year contract makes a paid holiday substitution, trading Labor Day for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. Instead of marking the end of summer, the employees will mark the end of Ramadan.

The Tennessee plant has 700 Muslim workers, out of 1,200 total. Tyson says the switch has nothing to do with religion, but is instead a contractual agreement (which only applies to union members) reached because the majority of the workers asked for it. Union leaders and supportive employees think it makes sense to accommodate the Muslim workers, too.

Other workers lament the loss of an "American holiday," and it appears that they are not alone. Some in the community are calling for a boycott of all Tyson products, arguing that immigrants need to adapt to the American way of life.

Should Tyson keep Labor Day no matter what, give employees an option to choose between the two holidays, or simply meet the contractual desires of the majority of workers, who are ready to give up Labor Day?

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