Arquivo da categoria: English Posts

Interview with Syrian Poet Maram al-Massri

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“The president’s family really took Syria like a big chicken, and they eat it alone.”

[Olivia Stransky, Sampsonia Way, June 2, 2011] On Jan. 26, 2011 a man from the Syrian city of Ali-Hasakah, Hasan Ali Akleh, covered himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire in protest of the Syrian government—an act mimicking the self-immolation of a Tunisian man that sparked the “Arab Spring.” A week later, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told The Wall Street Journal that Syria was immune to the kind of social and political upheaval coursing through the Arab world.  But Syrian human rights groups have estimated that, in recent months, security forces have killed 1,200 citizens who oppose Assad’s regime and the emergency rule that, prior to the unrest, had limited civil liberties since 1962.

Poet Maram al-Massri was born in the same year that emergency rule began. She left the country in 1982 after studying at the University of Damascus, and she has published six collections of poetry—two of them, Red Cherry on a White Tile Floor and I Look at You , have been translated into English in the UK and also the US. Though Massri has been living in Paris for the past 28 years, she has been staying in contact with writers in Syria during the unrest, which has devolved into violent clashes between protestors and government forces. Continue lendo →

Ethnic Cleansing of Syrian Christians ~ Frank Crimi

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A Christian woman lights a candle during a mass to celebrate the Orthodox Christmas at Saint Serkis church in Damascus/Khaled al-Hariri

Syrian President Basher Assad isn’t the only target of Syrian rebels as Syria’s Orthodox Christian Church reports “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians” by al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militant groups in the embattled Syrian city of Homs.

[Frank Crimi, frontpagemag.com, Mar 29th, 2012] The report from the Vatican news agency Fides says Brigade Faruq, which has links with elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Islamist mercenaries from Libya, has expelled 90 percent of Christians living in Homs, nearly 50,000 people.

Reportedly, the armed Islamists went door to door in the Christian neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan informing the homeowners that if they did not leave immediately they would be shot. Then pictures of their corpses would be taken and sent to al-Jazeera, along with the message that the Syrian government had killed them. Continue lendo →

‘The future of Egyptian women is in danger’ – Samira Ibrahim speaks out

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Activist Samira Ibrahim reacts after the verdict of a military court, in Cairo, Egypt, 11 March 2012. She now vows to take her case to the international courts Photograph: Str/EPA

The verdict over ‘virginity tests’ was a blow to the feminist struggle in Egypt. Here, the woman who sacrificed everything to bring the case to court, warns that women’s rights are now under threat from two sides – the military and the Islamists.

[Abdel-Rahman Hussein, The Guardian, March 13, 2012] Cairo - Samira Ibrahim is talking tough, but her face looks fraught. The decision by a military court on Sunday to exonerate a former military doctor from conducting “virginity tests” on female protestors in March last year is a setback and a big blow to her personally.

For Ibrahim was the first to speak out about being subjected to this violation along with six other women at a military prison where they were kept overnight, having been arrested in Tahrir Square. It has been a difficult year for Ibrahim, but she is adamant she will not back down. Continue lendo →

In Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, Government Rocket Attacks Sow Fear, Witnesses Say

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The Sudanese military has been relentlessly bombing the Nuba Mountains since June, killing hundreds of civilians, trying to quash a dug-in rebel movement.

[Jeffrey Gettleman, NY Times, March 13, 2012] NAIROBI, Kenya — Ryan Boyette, an American aid worker living in one of the most active war zones in Africa — Sudan’s Nuba Mountains — was in a thatch-roof office on a clear January day when he heard two thunderous blasts.

The explosions were not preceded by the usual growl of aging Antonov aircraft. The Sudanese military has been relentlessly bombing the Nuba Mountains since June, killing hundreds of civilians, trying to quash a dug-in rebel movement. At the faintest sound of approaching aircraft, many Nuban people scramble up the steep, stony mountainsides to take cover in caves. But that day, silence preceded the two loud bangs that jolted Mr. Boyette, giving no time to run.

When Mr. Boyette, 30, dashed out to the blast site, he found his wife, Jazira, stunned, and many children crying.

“Rockets,” the locals told him. “That was the rockets.” Continue lendo →

Will the Good BRICS Please Stand Up? ~ by James Traub

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You can call them respectable democracies, but India, Brazil, and South Africa will be judged by how they act abroad. And on the Syria question, it’s been shameful.

[By James Traub* | Foreign Policy | March 9, 2012] As global power has shifted away from the West, the emerging order has come to be identified with the BRICS — an unofficial geopolitical bloc consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. But the BRICS are equally divided between autocratic and democratic states. The growing reach of powerful autocracies is nothing to celebrate, but the rise of stable and increasingly prosperous democracies in the developing world — India, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, and Indonesia, among others — has been the single most encouraging phenomenon in the world over the last generation. Those first three countries, in fact, have established an informal bloc known as IBSA. This, too, should be a profoundly welcome development. But it hasn’t been, at least in Western capitals. In global affairs, it turns out, emerging democracies often behave a lot like Third World autocracies. And IBSA is turning out to be not so very different from the BRICS. Continue lendo →

‘After-birth abortion’: Can they be serious?

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My first thought was, can they be serious? In the cold language of a medical abstract, two Australian academics write an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics titled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?” — and expect it will merely trigger some high-tonedback-and-forth among medical ethicists.

[Mary C. Curtis, Washington Post, Mar 5, 2012] “We claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk,” the article reads. “We propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion,’ rather than ‘infanticide,’ to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.” Continue lendo →

Eastern Christians and the Arab Spring ~ Alain Juppé

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The Eastern Christians are worried. Worried about their survival in a region they have lived in for 2,000 years. Worried about their rights being respected at a time of major upheaval. Worried about heightened religious tensions. I want to tell them that I understand them, that I understand their fears.

For centuries, France has had a special mission with respect to the Eastern Christians. It will not shy from it. That is why in January 2011, President Sarkozy established the framework of our policy, emphasizing that “well beyond the East,” the fate of the Eastern Christians symbolizes “the challenges of the globalized world we have irrevocably entered.” Our vision is clear: There can be no true democratic revolution without the protection of minorities. The Eastern Christians are destined to remain in their region. They are destined to help build their future, as they have always done in the past.

This is not a new issue. It has existed for centuries. But it has become more and more dramatic in recent years. Continue lendo →

Europeans “De-Baptize” In Growing Numbers, Church Officials Worried

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“It’s a sort of honesty toward the church because they have a guy on their register who doesn’t believe in God.”

[Elizabeth Bryant, Huffington Post, jan 18, 2012) A decade ago, Rene Lebouvier requested that his local Catholic church erase his name from the baptismal register. The church noted his demands on the margins of its records and the chapter was closed.

But the clergy abuse scandals rocking Europe, coupled with Pope Benedict XVI’s conservative stances on contraception, hardened Lebouvier’s views. Last October, a court in Normandy ruled in favor of his lawsuit to have his name permanently deleted from church records — making the 71-year-old retiree the first Frenchman to be officially “de-baptized.” Continue lendo →

How Luther went viral: Social media in the 16th Century

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Five centuries before Facebook and the Arab spring, social media helped bring about the Reformation

[The Economist, Dec 17, 2011] IT IS a familiar-sounding tale: after decades of simmering discontent a new form of media gives opponents of an authoritarian regime a way to express their views, register their solidarity and co-ordinate their actions. The protesters’ message spreads virally through social networks, making it impossible to suppress and highlighting the extent of public support for revolution. The combination of improved publishing technology and social networks is a catalyst for social change where previous efforts had failed.

That’s what happened in the Arab spring. It’s also what happened during the Reformation, nearly 500 years ago, when Martin Luther and his allies took the new media of their day—pamphlets, ballads and woodcuts—and circulated them through social networks to promote their message of religious reform. Continue lendo →

Going Godless: Does Secularism Make People More Ethical?

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Non-believers are often more educated, more tolerant and know more about God than the pious. A new wave of research is trying to figure out what goes on in the minds of an ever-growing group of people known as the “Nones”.

[By Hilmar Schmundt, Spiegel Online, aug 11, 2011] Barry Kosmin is a different kind of market researcher. His data focuses on consumers targeted by companies like Lifechurch.tv or World Overcomers Christian Church TM. The sociologist analyzes church-affiliated commercial entities, from souvenir shops to television channels and worship services.

But the most significant target of Kosmin’s research is the consumer group most likely to shy away from such commercial products: secularists. “The non-religious, or Nones, hold the fastest-growing world view in the market,” says Kosmin. “In the past 20 years, their numbers in the United States have doubled to 15 percent.” Continue lendo →

Demonic activity in the UK on the increase

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[BBC Radio 4, aug 5, 2011] Exorcists report rising demand for their services. According to the president of the American Association of Exorcists, “I get thousands of emails from people concerned that they may have been demonically possessed”. A church of England vicar, a former official Diocesan Exorcist, agrees that demonic activity in the UK is on the up: “The word that comes to me is almost despair”.

Why do exorcists and their clients think that demonic possession is on the increase? Exorcists point to an alleged increase in interest in the occult, together with risky behaviour such as practising yoga, reading horoscopes, and an increase in new age forms of spiritualism. One Anglican bishop has said that clues to the presence of an evil spirit include “repeated choice of black, for example in clothing or colour of car”.

It’s a concern that goes across Christian denominations, from evangelical churches to the Roman Catholics. The chief exorcist of Rome has said: “you have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.” To meet the demand, various schools of exorcism have started. In Rome, a Catholic University runs a yearly course on exorcism. “For us it has been incredible,” says Father Caesar Truqui, who runs the course. “We have had phone calls from all over the world from people wanting to attend”.

The American Association of Exorcists runs a correspondence course, and one evangelical pastor based in Britain runs his own distance learning course using the internet. Most exorcists agree however, that there is no substitute for hands on mentoring with an experienced practitioner.

In this programme Jolyon Jenkins investigates this curious world, where witchcraft, levitations, ancestral curses, and demonic possession are matter-of-fact, everyday phenomena. He attends an exorcism in a hotel in Margate, and talks to practicing exorcists and those who are trying to train the next generation of practitioners.

Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.

Click to listen on BBC.