Muslims and Liberals

The Daily Star – LebanonJune 8, 2004 US President George W. Bush gets excited when he says Iraq’s newly installed interim government will finally create a “democratic” country. The new 33-member Cabinet is charged with arranging elections to a Parliament that will draw up a democratic constitution. The United Nations is expected to soon bless...

Middle East PolicySpring 2004 On November 20, 2003, while President George W. Bush was visiting Britain, two Turkish militants bombed the British consulate and a British bank in Istanbul, killing 27 people. Bush’s state visit had been scheduled months earlier to celebrate what had been expected, if a bit presumptuously, to be an unmixed victory in...

The Daily Star – LebanonFeb 19, 2004 In December 1941, when the Japanese bombed US ships at Pearl Harbor, little did they know that the “isolationist” Americans would roar into World War II, occupy Japan and Germany and change the course of history. Could a real “clash of civilizations” over Israel be an unforeseen consequence...

The OklahomanOctober 8, 2003 WASHINGTON – If you fell for the American neoconservative propaganda that democracy doesn’t grow on Muslim soil, visit my native Bangladesh. You’ll know that it’s a lie. Bangladesh’s population is 88 percent Muslim and its coalition government includes the Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami party. Yet Washington extols its decade-old democracy and religious “moderation.”...

St. Louis Post – DispatchOctober 1, 2003 COMMENTARY: A FORUM FOR OTHER VOICES, IDEAS AND OPINIONS Mustafa Malik has worked as an editor and writer for the Washington Times, Hartford Courant and other newspapers, and is researching the evolution of Muslim cultural patterns. POLITICS AND RELIGION If you have fallen for the current jingoistic line...

The Austin American-Statesman2003 A.B. Mohammad Musa was my boss at the Pakistan Observer newspaper in the East Pakistani capital of Dhaka. He almost never prayed, and he recoiled at the word “Islam.” He and many other East Pakistani Muslims carped about West Pakistanis dominating them in the name of Islamic brotherhood. By 1971, East Pakistan...

Middle East PolicyMarch 21, 2003 The Turks are secular Muslims,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For centuries they have “lived in peace with different cultures.” His Justice and Development party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, stood for justice for all Turkish citizens regardless of their creeds or cultures. Erdogan said he appreciated U.S. support for...

Hartford CourantMarch 17, 2003 President George W. Bush announced the other day he would help democratize postwar Iraq, which would spur a drive for “freedom in other nations in the region.” Democracies “desire peace,” and he expected democratic Arab regimes to facilitate peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians. Two days later, the parliament in Turkey...

Middle East PolicyJune 2002 While the United States has yet to bring the masterminds of the September 11, 2001, suicide attacks to justice, its attorney general has issued an indictment against their faith. “Islam is a religion,” said John Ashcroft, “in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is...

San Francisco ChronicleOctober 5, 2001 DURING WORLD WAR II, Winston Churchill told a group of Indian leaders about the Nazi threat to Britain’s “freedom and independence” and asked them to help recruit Indian soldiers for the war. The Indians said they would be glad to help. But could the prime minister just give them his “word of...