islamicate

Between Pope and Prophet

Another provocative, even if old, piece by Faisal Devji on the whole Pope hates Islam thing.

Technorati Tags: Pope

Anti-War March - Press Release

Blog Advisory
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Katie Barge 202-481-8147 / 202-243-8289 kbarge@faithinpubliclife.org

FRIDAY MARCH 16
3,500 Christian Leaders from 48 States to Protest War at National Cathedral, Mass Arrests Expected at White House

(Washington, DC) – Christian Peace Witness for Iraq will begin with a worship service on Friday, March 16 at Washington National Cathedral to be attended by more than 3,500 people of faith from 48 states, followed by a candlelight procession through the center of our nation’s capital, where thousands will surround the White House bearing the light of peace, and 700 will risk arrest by remaining in prayer in front of the White House. The service begins at 7 p.m., and the White House vigil will begin at 10:30 p.m. It will be the largest Christian peace demonstration, as well as the largest single civil disobedience action at the White House, since the beginning of the Iraq war four years ago.

More than 190 Christian and interfaith peace vigils and actions will also be held around the country in conjunction with Christian Peace Witness for Iraq-- including large-scale acts of moral civil disobedience organized by Christian Peace Witness coalition member group the Declaration of Peace .

WHAT: Christian Peace Witness National Cathedral Worship Service, Procession and Action at White House

WHEN: March 16, 2007 at 7pm

WHERE: The National Cathedral
Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues, NW
Washington, D.C. 20016-5098

WHO: Features speakers include:
Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal and author of God’s Politics
Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of America in the King Years and a Presbyterian Elder
Rev. Raphael Warnock, Pastor, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga.
Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, President of the North American Conference of the World Council of Churches.
Rick Ufford Chase, convener of Christian Peace Witness for Iraq’s steering committee and former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
Celeste Zappala, a United Methodist and founding member of Gold Start Families Speak Out, whose son was killed in Iraq in April 2004


SPONSOR ORGANIZATIONS: Adventist Peace Fellowship, American Friends Service Committee, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Brethren Witness, Catholic Peace Fellowship, Christian Alliance for Progress, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Declaration of Peace, Disciples Justice Action Network, Disciples Peace Fellowship, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Every Church a Peace Church, Faith in Public Life; Kairos: A Time to Speak, A Time to Act; Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center, Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Lutheran Peace Fellowship, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA, National Council of Churches, No2Torture, On Earth Peace, Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, Pax Christi USA, Pentecostal Charismatic Peace Fellowship, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Protestants for the Common Good, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

# # # #

Please visit Christian Peace Witness for Iraq for more information

SXSW 2007 - Blogging Where Speech Isn't Free [updated]

Really good panel with:

Jon Lebkowsky Partner, Polycot Consulting LLC
Shahed Amanullah Founder, Halalfire Media LLC
Robert Faris Harvard Law School - Berkman Center
Shava Nerad Exec Dir, The Tor Project
Ethan Zuckerman Co-Founder, Global Voices
Jasmina Tesanovic Blog B92

Good links snagged from panel:

Sept. 11 info. (supplied by Shava at our panel yesterday)
Global Voices
Diary of a Political Idiot
Tor
Freedom House
OpenNet

Great to finally meet both Shahed and Ethan. Went to lunch with the two of them, Rob, Rachel, and John Bracken. Great conversation about the hip-hop, internets, national security, and garlic noodles. Any meal that includes a conversation about food, that isn't a complaint about the food you're eating, is a good meal.

Would love to do a session with Shahed and Ethan about how we can bridge Muslim voices across the world, instead of having Muslim Americans reinventing the wheel on many debates that have happened/are happening already.

Dinner was with a friend of mine from Harvard. Chipotle Salmon. 'nuff said. Talked about our research, family, the usual stuff.

Back to NY tomorrow.

[Update]: Ethan's post on the panel.

Technorati Tags: SXSW 2007

SXSW 2007 - Ghost in the Machine

So, I did my first South by SouthWest this year. Not my last, I hope, but not running back either. Was on a panel called Ghost in the Machine: Spirituality Online. The festival itself has 3 parts, film, music, and interactive, which is where our panel was. Very tech heavy, very interesting, but a bit out of my league. Nonetheless, everyone is very friendly, people wanted to learn and to talk, and overall it was a great experience. On the panel were:

James McNally - moderator - Consolation Champs
Rachel Barenblat - Velveteen Rabbi (SXSW post)
Keven Lawver - UltraNormal (SXSW post)
Gordon Atkinson - Real Live Preacher

Had a great question from the audience, I think it was from Kevin Smokler, that caused me to answer that I blog about religion, not faith. I am an academic. I am activist. I do the work of faith. I talk about faith within my community. I blog about religion, although I think my faith comes through. I think I might have to do a better post on this point.

Prior to the panel, went to lunch with all the panelists and Gordon's wife Jeanene (apologies for misspellings). Great conversation about why and how we blog, some of which we turned to soundbites for the panel, that will eventually get podcasted. Also, discovered through Gordon, the real, deep conversations people are willing to have about faith, not religion, with people they haven't met, because it's safe.

After our panel, went to dinner with the same group and about 20 other people. Talked AOL business, did lots of consulting. Important business dinner. Immediately followed by an ice cream run, where I discovered Mexican Vanilla ice cream. Yummy. Kevin Smokler was with us, and convinced a large number of people to do a bit of performance art in the middle of a rather busy road. I passed. I have two kids and I don't drink. Kevin Lawver was kind enough to post a video of said event.

Out of panel discussions were fantastic, and I suppose that's true for any conference. Religion is clearly not a big thing here, but I think it could be, and I wouldn't mind coming back and doing something else on the topic.

Technorati Tags: SXSW 2007

Women of the Mountains Conference

Of interest because it is being co-sponsored by a Muslim state (Kyrgyz Republic) and the Aga Khan Foundation, amongst others.

Technorati Tags: Kyrgyz Republic, women

Sixth March in Chitral

A Pakistani-Canadian reminisces about the importance of the Sixth of March for Chitral.

Technorati Tags: Chitral, Ismailis, Pakistan

Torture on TV

or why you shouldn't let your black site interrogators watch too much TV unsupervised (they just might imitate it).

The New Yorker says…

Technorati Tags: 24, torture

Muslims and Quasicrystalline Structures

Muslims had it 500 years before the West! Woo hoo!

Story here and here.

So what? It should sadden us that the doors of communication have been closed or filtered for so long that this knowledge wasn't available earlier. It's more a reflection of the mindset we have of each other that a comment on how intelligent Muslims may have once been. (Although that is how the story is framed, which makes me sad that the stereotypes persist and keep us all stupid.)

Technorati Tags: Islamic Architecture, Math

View From a Grain of Sand: A film about Afghan Women

View From A Grain of Sand reveals how Afghani women have had their rights stripped from them over the last 25 years – and their ongoing battle to (re)gain the most basic human rights. Nanji shot the film over a period of three years in the sprawling refugee camps of northwestern Pakistan and in the war-torn city of Kabul. Through a two-year long process of editing, additional shooting and archival research, she worked to locate the personal stories of the women she met within the larger context of international interference and war in the Middle East and the rise of religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan. Going beyond the surface of sensational news to explore the mechanisms of oppression, View from A Grain of Sand is political documentary at its best.

The main characters whose lives are depicted in View From A Grain of Sand are Wajeeha, Roeena and Shapire. Born in the rural province of Farah, Afghanistan, Wajeeha was, like her sisters, prevented from attending school. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, she fled to Iran, where she met her husband – a resistance fighter who was eventually killed in a Soviet ambush in the late 1980s, as Wajeeha was expecting her youngest son. Traveling to Pakistan, she stumbled on a demonstration by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and decided to join them. They taught her how to read and write, and she is now teaching literacy courses to other women, raising awareness and struggling to make women’s rights a reality in Afghanistan.
Roeena was raised in Kabul and worked as a doctor there for three years before fleeing to Pakistan with her family in 1994 after her younger brother was killed by a random rocket attack. She has since worked for the International Medical Corps, aiding thousands in refugee camps. Shapire fled the Taliban in 1998 with her husband and five young children. As a young girl in Afghanistan, she had aspired to be a pilot or a journalist, but her ambitions were thwarted by her arranged marriage at the age of sixteen. Now she works as a teacher in a girls' school founded by refugees in Pakistan.
For more information on RAWA: rawa.org
Contact information about View from a Grain of Sand: viewgrainofsand.com

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, documentary, women