Tic Tac Terror

A toxic legacy
Julian Borger, Guardian
Ever since January 11 2002, when the first 20 prisoners were flown in from Afghanistan in orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has been a hefty burden around the Bush administration’s neck. The defence secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, picked the Cuban enclave as the “least worst place” to hold captives accused of terrorism. But the effort to run a camp outside the reach of US or international law, so that “enemy combatants”…

Study challenges claims of Islamic extremism among students
Anthea Lipsett, guardian.co.uk
British universities are not hotbeds of Islamic radicalism, despite fears about the rise of “campus extremism”, a new study argues. The University of Cambridge research, based partly on in-depth interviews with 26 students at UK universities, found that most young British Muslims are opposed to political Islam and are more likely to join Amnesty International than al-Qaida. This contradicts research published by the Centre for Social Cohesion earlier this year…

Look elsewhere for the enemy within
June Edmunds, Guardian CiF
Britain and other western countries undeniably contain within their boundaries minorities engaged in terrorist activity. However, the extent of this has been unjustifiably exaggerated as the press runs scare stories about British Muslims’ involvement in “madrasas” in Pakistan, (considered to be training camps for terrorists), or imams from overseas supposedly importing radicalism and infecting a suggestible cohort of disaffected youth in British mosques.

Are British universities hotbeds of Islamic radicalism?
Anthony Glees, Guardian CiF
In its press release about Dr June Edmunds’s research, Cambridge University wants us to believe that it proves that British universities are not “hotbeds of Islamic radicalism”. We learn that “detailed interviews” with Muslim students in Cambridge, the LSE and Bradford led her to the happy conclusion there is little evidence of “any threat”. That Cambridge should issue a press release as grandiose as this, trumpeting research so flimsy and uncompelling as Edmunds’s, is curious.

We get by with a little help
Ishtiaq Hussain, Guardian
Just a year ago few could have imagined the problems we are facing today. Amongst other things: high street banks have been nationalised or part nationalised, common financial products have been withdrawn and houses are being repossessed. We are quite possibly facing the worst economic crisis since the depression of the 1930s. As a Muslim, my faith teaches me to have patience through hard times and to help others in need.

When a schism has a schism of its own
Andrew Brown, Guardian CiF
Some time this summer, it became obvious that … there is a full-scale schism under way but by that time almost everyone had got bored and started to talk about other things. So this week the story returns with a twist: will there be a second schism within the schism? In particular will the coalition that has been trying to drive the liberal churches of North America out of the Communion break up; and will the puritan evangelical faction start to break up the Church of England too?

Police and Muslims to swap roles so officers can be more sensitive
Michael Howie, Scotsman
ANTI-TERROR police hope to participate in role-reversal sessions with Muslims in an attempt to ease concerns about the “harassment” of Scottish Asians travelling through Glasgow Airport. The away-days are designed to improve relations between police and the Muslim community and reach a common understanding about the need to question people at the airport.  The move, based on a pilot scheme south of the Border called Operation Nicole…

A late calling to account
Will Hutton, Guardian
A rare silver lining in this recession is that a veil of mystery is being lifted from the longstanding lending practices of British banks. Suddenly they are understood as not necessarily always in the best national economic interest. Mortgage and business borrowers alike are newly empowered by the £37bn bank bail-out … Yesterday the Royal Bank of Scotland, now 58% owned by the taxpayer, promised it would give distressed homeowners six months’ grace before it moved to repossess…

Nigerian city counts its dead after days of Christian-Muslim riots
Xan Rice, Guardian
Officials were counting the dead in a central Nigerian city yesterday after two days of violent clashes between Christian and Muslim gangs. Nearly 400 bodies are reported to have been received at the main mosque in Jos, while there are also expected to be a significant number of Christian casualties. Thousands of people fled their homes in the city after rival mobs burned houses, shops, and several churches and mosques in the worst sectarian violence in the country since 2004.

The world descends on Medina
Halima Ali, Guardian CiF
The old man wobbles as he stands up out of his wheelchair before the reach of his son steadies him. Carefully, he helps his father adjust the ihram – the two pieces of white sheet men are obliged to wear when performing either the hajj itself or the smaller pilgrimage called umrah – which covers his torso. Having seen to his father he moved on to his mother who is also wheelchair-bound, helping her to drink some water and pinning her hijab into place.

Iran’s underground rap artists take to wearing symbol of Islamic revolution
Robert Tait, Guardian
For nearly 30 years its distinctive chequered pattern has been a sacrosanct symbol of Iran’s Islamic revolution and an essential garment for its most committed adherents. But now the chafiyeh, the black-and-white scarf proudly worn by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his loyal followers, has become an unlikely fashion item for young Iranians drawn to the same western pop culture that country’s leaders disdain. The scarf has become a craze among Iran’s emerging crop of underground rap artists…

Racist incidents on the increase in Highlands
Paul Kelbie, Observer
The number of racist incidents reported to Highlands police is on the increase, according to a report by the Northern Constabulary, which shows the majority of cases were directed against English and Polish immigrants. Figures reveal that, since the Highland Council launched a Race Equality Scheme in 2000, the reporting of racist abuse had doubled, with 142 incidents in the past 12 months.

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