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Sunday, 22 April 2012

Morocco: Italian fashion company upsets Muslims with madrassa pictures

Italian fashion designer Fornarina got Muslims upset by their latest advertising shoot in Marrakesh. Fornarina used an abandoned madrassa to advertise their new collection, with their scantily-clad model posing in front of various Koran quotes on the walls. Saudi broadcaster Al Arabiya devoted considerable time to the incident, interviewing Moroccans at home and in Italy, who condemned the company. Fornarina, who say they got all the necessary permits for the shoot from the Moroccan government, say they will remove the offending images.

Thursday, 1 March 2012

Manchester: Soldiers prepare for Afghanistan tour with visit to Bolton mosque

Soldiers preparing to leave for Afghanistan visited a mosque to learn about Islamic life and customs. More than 50 soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh went to the Zakaria Mosque in Bolton, one of the largest in the region. The visit was requested by the Chester-based unit in January and hosted by Bolton Council of Mosques. (source)

Thursday, 9 February 2012

France: Muslims says 'civilizations' debate is finished

Via Europe1 (1, 2), AFP (French):

Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the CFCM (French Council of the Muslim Faith) says the debate on Interior Minister Claude Guéant's comments that 'not all civilizations are equal' is closed. Moussaoui says the controversy serves no-one, and they are not interested in feeding it.

On Monday the CFCM wrote to Guéant asking him to reassure Muslims that his speech was not referring to Muslim civilisation. Moussaoui wrote that many French Muslims felt targeted by these statements and had turned to the CFCM about it.

Guéant answered that he was not speaking about any culture in particular, nor of fellow Muslim citizens who respect and completely adhere to the values of the Republic. Guéant added that he has no doubt that the CFCM shares the same values and the need to denounce, without ambiguity, systems and practices which are contrary to our fundamental principles, which allow each and every one to express themselves and live in freedom, equality and fraternity.

In an earlier interview with France Inter Guéant said he was not speaking of any particular culture, but then went on to bring examples of the full veil and street prayers, which he said bothered a lot of French, as well as the French value of secularism.

Moussaoui says Guéant assured them he was not talking of any particular culture nor of French Muslims.

As for the existence of a cultural hierarchy, the CFCM president says that all civilizations contributed something to the advancement of humanity. It's difficult to to organize them into a hierarchy or rank civilization, each adds it's own special something to humanity.

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Is Europe setting up clash between Muslims and the West?

Is Europe setting up clash between Muslims and the West?

Via CNN:

Europe and the Muslim world seem to be on a collision course that could have major political, economic and ideological ramifications. January 23, 2012, may well come to be remembered as the crucial date when Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis, which many of us believed discredited beyond repair, was reaffirmed.

Political scientist Huntington wrote in 1993 that cultural divisions preclude a defining global civilization, and the West and the Muslim world would never share the same values.

Last month, Europe took two different actions that nonetheless sent the same message to the Muslim world: You are not our equals and are doomed to be judged by standards different from those by which we judge ourselves. Future historians might call January 23 the day when Europe irreversibly alienated not one, but both, pivotal powers -- Iran and Turkey -- that in all probability will dominate the political landscape of the Middle East for several decades.
(source)

France: Not all civilisations equal, minister says

Via AFP:

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who also holds the immigration portfolio, caused political uproar by claiming that not all civilisations are equal, with some more advanced than others.

"Contrary to what the left's relativist ideology says, for us all civilisations are not of equal value," Gueant on Saturday told a conference in the French parliament building, but closed to the media.

"Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not," he argued in his speech at a meeting organised by a right-wing students group.

"Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred," he went on his speech, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
(source)

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