Politics « Inner Reflections Transcribed

BNP on Question Time: What Nick Griffin Really Meant

October 31, 2009 at 10:37 pm | In Future, Media, Muslims, Non-Muslim, Politics, Race, Society, Television | 1 Comment
Tags: BNP Question time

This is what Nick Griffin really meant to say during his stint on Question Time a fortnight ago:

The BNP is a far right wing party in the UK.

Obama Won

November 5, 2008 at 3:14 pm | In Future, Life, Media, Politics | 11 Comments

The election campaign,

Obama

media coverage, scandals, stories about Obama’s family and dirty laundry of all the candidates, the caricature that is Palin….

…is now over!

HOORAY! About bloody time too.

Immigrant For Life

March 31, 2008 at 7:09 pm | In Culture, Future, Life, Muslims, Non-Muslim, Politics, Society | 10 Comments

When do we stop being referred to as immigrants? When does this association end? The association itself is not a negative portrayal, or at least it never used to be until as of late. However, when does one move from being an immigrant to being a native?

One would’ve thought after being born and bred in a particular country, being familiar with the culture, and mannerisms, speaking their language and obviously “sounding” through your accent as being from that country would render you a fully fledged citizen.

But it obviously doesn’t.

Because despite all this, and despite of how “integrated” or “assimilated” you have become, you will be reminded sometime or another that you infact haven’t. And probably never will.

You are referred to as either a 2nd or 3rd generation immigrant, belonging to the black and minority ethnic group, or a [insert ethnic origin or country of origin here] Scot even if you have never ever ventured to your parents or grandparents homeland and are only familiar with it through Bollywood or when war breaks out. Now of course they insert “Muslim” in so you could be a British-Pakistani-Muslim, or a Scottish-Muslim-Indian.

When does this end? Will our children be referred to as 5th/6th generation immigrants? Will they never be considered British or Irish or Welsh or Scottish, without having to express or add on the country of their descendent’s origins?

When does this brand of categorising come to an end? This medium of alienation and being seen as “not really one of us” simply because due to our colour of skin we appear “different” is a major problem. It is racist.

Then again people complain we use the race card to the point of saturation.

Can’t ever win, can we?

Ghamdi

March 2, 2008 at 3:06 pm | In Discursive, Islam, Learning, Muslims, Politics, Society | 41 Comments

Photo taken from here

For those who have come across and heard of Ghamdi, what do you think of him? I have only ever seen him on TV talk shows, usually on Geo TV where he has his own show, but have not read any of his works. From first glance he seems interesting, I would be keen on reading his works.

Survey on Resisting and Tackling Religious Fundamentalism

August 24, 2007 at 3:49 pm | In Culture, Future, Gender Issues, Learning, Life, Patriarchy, Politics, Research, Society, Women | 9 Comments

Research into religious fundamentalism is taking place by Association for Women’s Rights in Development -AWID

Here is some background information about the research

Religious fundamentalisms are gaining strength in many countries, manifesting themselves in control over women’s sexuality, bodies, family relationships, movement, dress codes, and participation in public, etc. Religious fundamentalist forces are gaining undue influence in setting social norms and architecture; dominating everyday facets of life; defining laws in particular family laws which most impact women; controlling the media; influencing national policy-makers and international institutions; undermining human rights institutions and norms; putting religion at the center of state business; increasing the dominance of religion in public life; and undermining spaces for plurality and dissent.

Women’s rights advocates have done considerable work detailing how religious fundamentalisms impact on women’s rights, such as the demand for regressive reform of family law in Muslim contexts or the rise of the Christian evangelical movement in the United States. There has also been some documentation of strategies to resist and challenge religious fundamentalisms. However, there has yet to be feminist research which synthesizes the broad trends of the impact of religious fundamentalisms on women’s rights and lives, that is cross-comparative across religions and regions which is credible, accessible and widely shared. We also need a greater in-depth and cross-comparative documentation of concrete examples of strategies being used by women to resist and challenge religious fundamentalisms (Source)

The survey can be found here. Closing date is the 9th of September 2007.

Fill it out if you wish! I think its a very interesting piece of research and should no doubt yield some intriguing results.