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2. "Who is the Real Tariq Ramadan?"
- Author:
- Christopher DeVito
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- al Nakhlah
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Anyone following the debate about Islam in Europe over the last decade has undoubtedly heard of Tariq Ramadan. They have also surely heard the question: 'who is the real Tariq Ramadan?' His detractors have described him as 'a wolf in sheep's clothing.' Those who see promise in the project he has undertaken have called him a Muslim Martin Luther. Popular accounts, portray him as either the head of a fifth column intent on transforming Europe into Eurabia, or someone whose effort to establish an authentically European Islam offers the promise of heading off impending cultural strife. In these respects he has become a symbol for people's hopes and fears. He is a bogeyman for those who see Europe's Muslims as a threat to the continent's enlightenment and Christian heritage. To others he is a symbol of hope; a hope that Muslims can one day fully assume their rightful place in European cultural and civic life without watering down their faith. So the question remains: who is Tariq Ramadan? The purpose of what follows will be to explore the thought of Tariq Ramadan, his status as a symbol of both European Islam and Muslims, and how what he represents may fit within a liberal political order. The exploration of political liberalism aligns closely to the conception of political philosopher John Rawls, along with an interpretation of Rawls offered by Andrew F. March as applied to Ramadan and his project.
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- Kenya
3. "Notions of Islam and the West in the US-Libyan Relationship: An Historical Perspective"
- Author:
- Farah Bushashia
- Publication Date:
- 04-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- al Nakhlah
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- “Oh my God, they found me, I don't know how, but they found me,” frantically sputters Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown, the eccentric inventor of the time machine car in Robert Zemeckis' highly successful 1985 film Back to the Future, “[It's] the Libyans!” As Alan Silvestri's background music crescendos, the camera cuts to a Volkswagen bus slowly and sinisterly weaving down a well-manicured, deserted backroad toward the empty Twin Pines Mall parking lot where at 1:15 AM the Doctor and his young protégé Marty tinker with the plutonium-powered time machine. Suddenly the hat-covered head of an unnamed, swarthy, machine-gun-wielding Libyan emerges from the roof of the careening bus as unintelligible, crazed Arabic words vaguely including 'Allah' pass between him and the driver, presumably verifying that the white-haired man in the lab coat and yellow rubber gloves is indeed the same Doc Brown who took their plutonium and provided them with an atomic bomb consisting of little more than pinball machine parts! After an inordinate number of shots, Doc Brown is taken for dead and Marty hops into the time machine car under hot pursuit from the Libyans who cannot manage to eliminate the unarmed witness as they screechingly circle around the JC Penney department store, cursing both the “damn Soviet gun” and the “damn German car.” Finally, Marty achieves the critical speed for time travel and in the bright flash of light the Libyans lose control of the Volkswagen and dramatically crash into a Fox Photo booth promising one-hour photograph development to suburban Californian families.
- Topic:
- Islam
- Political Geography:
- Libya