Islam: The (Silent) Revolution of Muslim Women - Andrés Ortega

There is much speculation as to whether liberalizing moves, such as the ones undertaken in Saudi Arabia, are for real. To be sure, despite recent, very encouraging signs, the jury is still out on that matter.

But in a broader context, there are definite signs of progress across the Muslim world. Indications are that a veritable revolution is underway among women in such societies.

Of course, it is not an overt revolution, but a profound transformation that has great scope: Since the turn of the century, 50 million women in predominantly-Muslim countries have entered the labor market.

As Saadia Zahidi, a Pakistani member of the World Economic Forum’s Executive Committee and head of its initiative on Education, Gender and Work, argues in her well-researched book packed with concrete examples, Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Transforming the Muslim World, what is happening is a real “tsunami.”

It is true that working women still account for only one quarter of the female population of these societies. But as Saadia Zahidi states, “the increase in their numbers represents an economic and cultural shift of enormous magnitude. Fifteen million women are renegotiating their own and their families’ norms and values.”

To give one example, in Pakistan, only four million women worked out of a population of 107 million 1990. By now, while the population has since doubled, the number of women workers has risen fourfold.

We should also remember that the United States and Europe only managed this transformation half a century ago. Some decades ago, in countries like in Germany, women still needed the consent of their husbands to take up work. Sound familiar?

Research suggests that, once women reach a 30% share in a nation’s labor force, this constitutes a tipping point where things start to change. They now account for 31% of the workforce across the Islamic world.

Clearly, there are major differences among Muslim countries. Only six of them have laws protecting against discrimination on the grounds of sex in employment contracts: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Mauritania, Morocco and Tajikistan.

And very often, although they can now study and work, these freedoms are not accompanied by basic freedoms for women. For example, rates of mobile phone ownership are significantly lower among women than among men in the majority of these societies.

In other words, it is a revolution that is by no means assured. It is “exponential, but not inevitable,” as Saadia Zahidi puts it. The forces of conservatism may push it back – as has already happened in some countries. Armed conflicts may thwart progress as well, as has occurred in Syria.

The type of education these young women are choosing also matters considerably. There are only five countries in the world with a higher proportion of women than men studying science, technology and engineering.

Two of them, Kuwait and Brunei, are predominantly Muslim. Half of the 18 countries where women constitute 40% of such students are Muslim, according to Zahidi.

Recent academic years in Egypt have seen almost 34% of the places in these subjects being taken by women, many of whom go on to pursue careers in the same fields, often as tech and online retailing entrepreneurs.

But if the trend continues, it will change many things. Just recall that in 2004, the sociologists Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris had convincingly argued that the real clash today’s world has to contend with was not one between civilizations, as Samuel Huntington had argued. They cast it as a clash between sexes, because of the often subservient role played by women, especially in the Muslim world.  

Note EU-Digest: Great progress indeed for Muslim women, but unfortunately it also is a matter of the equality of men and women that needs to be addressed. The Koran was never modernized to reflect the equality of women in relation to men. In contrast to what was done during the Reformation for the Christian religion by Martin Luther against the doctrinal and oppressive Catholic Church based in Rome.

For the complete report click here: The (Silent) Revolution of Muslim Women - The Globalist

France: Muslims go to Catholic Masses in Europe to show solidarity - by Milos Krivokapic and Raphael Satter

In a gesture of solidarity after the gruesome killing of a French priest, hundreds of Muslims on Sunday attended Catholic Masses in churches and cathedrals across France and Italy.

More than 100 Muslims gathered at the towering Gothic cathedral in Rouen, near Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where the 85-year-old Rev. Jacques Hamel had his throat slit by two teenage Muslim fanatics Tuesday.

‘‘We are very moved by the presence of our Muslim friends and I believe it is a courageous act that they did by coming to us,’’ Dominique Lebrun, the archbishop of Rouen, said after the service.

Some of the Muslims sat in the front row, across from the altar. Among the parishioners was one of the nuns who was briefly taken hostage at Hamel’s church when he was killed. She joined her fellow Catholics in turning to shake hands or embrace the Muslim churchgoers after the service.

Outside the church, a group of Muslims were applauded when they unfurled a banner: ‘‘Love for all. Hate for none.’’

Churchgoer Jacqueline Prevot said the attendance of Muslims was ‘‘a magnificent gesture.’’

‘‘Look at this whole Muslim community that attended Mass,’’ she said. ‘‘I find this very heartwarming. I am confident. I say to myself that this assassination won’t be lost, that it will maybe relaunch us better than politics can do. Maybe we will react in a better way.’’

Read more: Muslims go to Catholic Masses in Europe to show solidarity - The Boston Globe

EU-ISLAM: Leading German politician Volker Kauder suggests mosques should come under state control

Should Mosques in the EU come under state control?

Volker Kauder an influential politician from Angela Merkel’s ruling CDU party suggested all mosques in Germany should be subject to state supervision in light of what he sees as a threat from extreme Muslims.

Volker Kauder, who heads the conservative parliamentary grouping in Germany’s lower house, used his twitter account air his views on controlling mosques and radical imams.

Kauder says that Germany was constituted as a secular state and that sermons delivered in some mosques donot conform with that concept.

The Berliner Zeitung newspaper on Friday quoted him as saying religion does not stand above the state, but rather the state over religion.

Kauder’s remarks came just before a meeting of the right-wing Alternative for Germany(AfD) party, which has drafted an anti-Islamic manifesto.

Some analysts see his remarks as an attempt win back voters from the radical right-wing AfD party.

Germany is home to around four million Muslims.

The foreign-born Muslim population in Germany is primarily made up of Turkish immigrants, but also includes many born in Kosovo, Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Morocco and now also Syrians. The roughly 3 million foreign-born Muslims in France are largely from France’s former colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

A Pew Research study done last year predicts that the  Muslim share of Europe’s total population (EU and non EU states)  has been increasing steadily. In recent decades, the Muslim share of the population throughout Europe grew about 1 percentage point a decade, from 4% in 1990 to 6% in 2010.

This pattern is expected to continue through 2030, when Muslims are projected to make up 8% of Europe’s population.

Research Center survey conducted this spring found that majorities in France, Britain and Germany had favorable views of Muslims. Opinion was on balance favorable in Spain while negative views prevailed in Italy and Poland. Views about Muslims are tied to ideology. While 36% of Germans on the political right give Muslims an unfavorable rating, just 15% on the left do so. The gap between left and right is also roughly 20 percentage points in France and Italy. And significant differences are found in the UK as well.

On January 2015, the total population of the EU was around 508.2 million people of which 14 million were Muslim immigrants.


EU-Digest

Faith: How personal manifestations of Faith can become a source of conflict.

It is always amazing to see how large numbers of people from different religions always feel the need to show, by some outward manifestation, to which religion they belong.

Jews wear the Kippah. Christians often use the Cross around their neck as an ornament, and many Muslim women wear the Burka.

In a sense one can safely say that these public manifestations of Faith have nothing to do with the definition of Faith and as a matter of fact can often  become a source of  conflict.

The definition of Faith is really quite clear: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Or as it is also said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you”.

Maybe something to think about when we talk about Peace on Earth?

EU- Digest

EU-Digest Special Report: "What Borders Mean to Europe" - by George Friedman

The following special report " What Borders Mean to Europe - by Gearge Friedman" was published by EU-Digest. with the permission of the Global Stratford Intelligence Group .

"Europe today is a continent of borders. The second smallest continent in the world has more than 50 distinct, sovereign nation-states. Many of these are part of the European Union. At the core of the EU project is an effort to reduce the power and significance of these borders without actually abolishing them — in theory, an achievable goal. But history is not kind to theoretical solutions.

Today, Europe faces three converging crises that are ultimately about national borders, what they mean and who controls them. These crises appear distinct: Immigration from the Islamic world, the Greek economic crisis and Ukraine would seem to have little to do with each other. But in fact they all derive, in different ways, from the question of what borders mean.

Europe's borders have been the foundation both of its political morality and of its historical catastrophes.

The European Enlightenment argued against multi-national monarchies and for sovereign nation-states, which were understood to be the territories in which nations existed. Nations came to be defined as groupings of humans who shared a common history, language, values and religion — in short, a common culture into which they were born. These groups had the right of national self-determination, the authority to determine their style of government and the people who governed. Above all, these nations lived in a place, and that place had clear boundaries.

The right of national self-determination has created many distinct nations in Europe. And, as nations do, they sometimes distrust and fear one other, which occasionally leads to wars. They also have memories of betrayals and victimizations that stretch back for centuries before the nations became states. Some viewed the borders as unjust, because they placed their compatriots under foreign rule, or as insufficient to national need.

The right of self-determination led inevitably to borders, and the question of borders inevitably led to disputes among states. Between 1914 and 1945, Europeans waged a series of wars about national boundaries and about who has the right to live where. This led to one of the greatest slaughters of human history.

The memory of that carnage led to the creation of the European Union. Its founding principle was that this kind of massacre should never happen again. But the union lacked the power to abolish the nation-state — it was too fundamental to the Europeans' sense of identity. And if the nation-state survived, so did the idea of place and borders.

f the nation-state could not be abolished, however, then at least the borders could lose their significance. Thus two principles emerged after World War II: The first, predating the European Union, was that the existing borders of Europe could not be changed.

The hope was that by freezing Europe's borders, Europe could abolish war. The second principle, which came with the mature European Union, was that the bloc's internal borders both existed and did not exist. Borders were to define the boundaries of nation-states and preserved the doctrine of national self-determination, but they were not to exist insofar as the movement of goods, of labor and of capital were concerned. This was not absolute — some states were limited in some of these areas — but it was a general principle and goal. This principle is now under attack in three different ways.

The Movement of Muslims in Europe

The chaos in the Middle East has generated a flow of refugees toward Europe. This is adding to the problem that European nations have had with prior Muslim migrations that were encouraged by Europeans. As Europe recovered from World War II, it needed additional labor at low cost. Like other advanced industrial countries have done, a number of European states sought migrants, many from the Islamic world, to fill that need.

At first, the Europeans thought of the migrants as temporary residents. Over time, the Europeans conceded citizenship but created a doctrine of multiculturalism, which appeared to be a gesture of tolerance and was implicitly by mutual consent, given that some Muslims resisted assimilation. But this doctrine essentially served to exclude Muslims from full participation in the host culture even as they gained legal citizenship. But as I have said, the European idea of the nation was challenged by the notion of integrating different cultures into European societies.

Partly because of a failure to fully integrate migrants and partly because of terrorist attacks, a growing portion of European society began perceiving the Muslims already in Europe as threatening. Some countries had already discussed resurrecting internal European borders to prevent the movement not only of Muslims, but also of other Europeans seeking jobs in difficult economic times. The recent wave of refugees has raised the matter to a new level.

The refugee crisis has forced the Europeans to face a core issue. The humanitarian principles of the European Union demand that refugees be given sanctuary. And yet, another wave of refugees into Europe has threatened to exacerbate existing social and cultural imbalances in some countries; some anticipate the arrival of more Muslims with dread. Moreover, once migrants are allowed to enter Europe by any one country, the rest of the nations are incapable of preventing the refugees' movement.

Who controls Europe's external borders? Does Spain decide who enters Spain, or does the European Union decide? Whoever decides, does the idea of the free movement of labor include the principle of the free movement of refugees? If so, then EU countries have lost the ability to determine who may enter their societies and who may be excluded. For Europe, given its definition of the nation, this question is not an odd, legal one. It goes to the very heart of what a nation is, and whether the nation-state, under the principle of the right of national self-determination, is empowered to both make that decision and enforce it.

This question does not merely concern Muslims. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Ostjuden — the Jews coming into Western Europe as they fled czarist edicts — raised the same challenge, even though they sought more vigorously to assimilate. But at that point, the notion of borders was unambiguous even if the specific decision on how to integrate the Jews was unclear. In many countries, the status of minorities from neighboring nations was a nagging question, but there were tools for handling it.

The Muslim issue is unique in Europe only to the extent that the European Union has made it unique. The bloc has tried to preserve borders while sapping them of significance, and now there is an upsurge of opposition not only to Muslim immigration, but also to the European Union's understanding of borders and free movement.

The Greek Crisis

The question of borders is also at the heart of the Greek crisis. We see two issues: one small, the other vast. The small one involves capital controls. The European Union is committed to a single European financial market within which capital flows freely. Greeks, fearing the outcome of the current crisis, have been moving large amounts of money out of Greece into foreign banks.

They remember what happened during the Cyprus crisis, when the government, capitulating to German demands in particular, froze and seized money deposited in Cypriot banks. Under EU rules, the transfer of deposits in one country of the bloc, or even outside the bloc, is generally considered legitimate. However, in the case of Cyprus, the free movement of capital across borders was halted. The same could conceivably happen in Greece.

In any event, which is the prior principle: the free movement of capital or the European Union's overarching authority to control that flow? Are Greek citizens personally liable for their government's debt — not merely through austerity policies, but also through controls imposed by the Greek government under European pressure to inhibit the movement of their money? If the answer is the latter, then borders on capital can be created temporarily.

The larger issue is the movement of goods. A significant dimension of this crisis involves free trade. Germany exports more than 50 percent of its gross domestic product. Its prosperity depends on these exports. I have argued that the inability to control the flow of German goods into Southern Europe drove the region into economic decline.

Germany's ability to control the flow of American goods into the country in the 1950s helped drive its economic recovery. The European Union permits limits on the movement of some products, particularly agricultural ones, through subsidies and quotas. In theory, free trade is beneficial to all. In practice, one country's short-term gain can vastly outweigh others' long-term gains. The ability to control the flow of goods is a tool that might slow growth but decrease pain.

The essential principle of the European Union is that of free trade, in the sense that the border cannot become a checkpoint to determine what goods may or may not enter a country and under what tariff rule. The theory is superb, save for its failure to address the synchronization of benefits. And it means that the right to self-determination no longer includes the right to control borders.

Ukraine and the 'Inviolability' of Borders

Finally, there is the Ukraine issue — which is not really about Ukraine, but about a prior principle of Europe: Borders cannot be allowed to change. The core of this rule is that altering borders leads to instability. This rule governed between 1945 and 1992.

Then, the fall of the Soviet Union transformed the internal borders of Europe dramatically, moving the Russian border eastward and northward. The Soviet collapse also created eight newly free nations that were Soviet satellites in Central and Eastern Europe and 15 new independent states — including Russia — from the constituent parts of the Soviet Union. It could be argued that the fall of the Soviet Union did not change the rule on borders, but that claim would be far-fetched. Everything changed.

Then came the "velvet divorce" of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and now there are potential divorces in the United Kingdom, Spain and Belgium.

Perhaps most importantly, the rule broke down in Yugoslavia, where a single entity split into numerous independent nations, and, among other consequences, a war over borders ensued. The conflict concluded with the separation of Kosovo from Serbia and its elevation to the status of an independent nation. Russia has used this last border change to justify redrawing the borders of Georgia and as a precedent supporting its current demand for the autonomy and control of eastern Ukraine. Similarly, the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia shifted dramatically as the result of war. (On a related note, Cyprus, divided between a Turkish-run north and a Greek-run south, was allowed into the European Union in 2004 with its deep border dispute still unsettled.)

Since the end of the Cold War, the principle of the inviolability of borders has been violated repeatedly — through the creation of new borders, through the creation of newly freed nation-states, through peaceful divisions and through violent war. The principle of stable borders held for the most part until 1991 before undergoing a series of radical shifts that sometimes settled the issue and sometimes left it unresolved.

The Europeans welcomed most of these border adjustments, and in one case — Kosovo — Europeans themselves engineered the change.

It is in this context that the Ukrainian war must be considered. Europe's contention, supported by America, is that Russia is attempting to change inviolable borders. There are many good arguments to be made against the Russians in Ukraine, which I have laid out in the past. However, the idea that the Russians are doing something unprecedented in trying to redraw Ukraine's borders is difficult to support. Europe's borders have been in flux for some time.

That is indeed a matter of concern; historically, unsettled borders in Europe are precursors to war, as we have seen in Yugoslavia, the Caucasus and now Ukraine. But it is difficult to argue that this particular action by Russia is in itself a dramatically unprecedented event in Europe. The principle of national self-determination depends on a clear understanding of a nation and the unchallenged agreement on its boundaries.

The Europeans themselves have in multiple ways established the precedent that borders are not unchallengeable.

There are two principles competing. The first is the European Union's desire that borders be utterly permeable without the nation-state losing its right to self-determination. It is difficult to see how a lack of control over borders is compatible with national self-determination. The other principle is that existing borders not be challenged. On the one hand, the union wants to diminish the importance of borders. On the other hand, it wants to make them incontestable.

Neither principle is succeeding. Within Europe, more forces are emerging that want to return control over borders to nation-states. In different ways, the Muslim immigrant crisis and the Greek crisis intersect at the question of who controls the borders. Meanwhile, the inviolability of borders has been a dead letter since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The idea of borders being archaic is meaningful only if the nation-state is archaic. There is no evidence that this is true in Europe. On the contrary, all of the pressures we see culturally and economically point to not only the persistence of the idea of nationality, but also to its dramatic increase in Europe. At the same time, there is no evidence that the challenge to borders is abating. In fact, during the past quarter of a century, the number of shifts and changes, freely or under pressure, has only increased. And each challenge of a national border, such as the one occurring in Ukraine, is a challenge to a nation's reality and sense of self.

The European Union has promised peace and prosperity. The prosperity is beyond tattered now. And peace has been intermittently disrupted — not in the European Union, but around it — since the Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992 to create a common economic and monetary union. All of this is linked to the question of what a border represents and how seriously we take it. A border means that this is my country and not yours.

This idea has been a source of anguish in Europe and elsewhere. Nevertheless, it is a reality embedded in the human condition. Borders matter, and they matter in many different ways. The European crisis, taken as a whole, is rooted in borders. Attempting to abolish them is attractive in theory. But theory faces reality across its own border."

The above report was published by EU-Digest with the permission of the Global Stratford Intelligence Group

Islam: Muslims reporting dreams about Jesus

“I was in the desert alone, lost. As far as the horizon, there was nothing in sight but sand. I felt the sand on my bare feet. Then I saw something extraordinary. In the midst of that barrenness, an immense wooden cross emerged from the earth, rising up with sand spilling from it back to earth.”

So begins a dream narrative posted by Bosnian Muslim teenager Emina Emlonic. A dream about Jesus.

It continues: “I felt then a spectator in my own dream, and the sight of the cross gave me neither fear nor joy. But I was a curious and began moving, almost floating, towards it, the most magnificent … thing I’d ever seen or imagined, and as I came closer to the cross, I suddenly saw a man walking toward me: a broad-shouldered, long-striding man, with a dark complexion, long hair, and wearing a white robe.

“And just as suddenly I ceased to be a witness to my dream. I was in it, walking toward the man walking toward me. I knew him immediately. He was Jesus. Without knowing why, I fell to my knees. He stood over me and touched my face with his right hand.”

Posted at the Catholic Thing website, such accounts of encounters with Jesus through dreams and visions increasingly are being reported, according to Pastor Frank Costenbader, founder of Manifold Hope Ministries, publisher of the Isa Dreams website.

EU-Digest

Islam: Muslim population to grow fastest says new study

Mosque in Almere, the Netherlands

Muslim population worldwide is rising rapidly and could be nearly as much as the number of Christians in 2050, a new report called the "Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections 2010-2050" by the Pew Research Center has predicted.

The study, released on April 2, says that the world's religious profile is changing primarily due to differences in fertility rates among various communities and because of people switching faiths. "Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any major religion," the research says.

The number of Muslims will be equal to those of Christians by 2050, the report predicts, even though some Christian countries and areas, like Latin America, Brazil, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa, are also growing fast.

Islam will also replace Judaism as the second largest religion in the United States by 2050 and Muslims in Europe will constitute 10 percent of the overall population. India will also have the largest number of Muslims in the world by the mid- 21st century, Pew researchers say.

Read more: Muslim population to grow fastest says new study | Europe | DW.DE | 03.04.2015

The Netherlands - Islam:: "Can’t touch this": Muslim students sue Dutch medical university over physical exam

Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Two Muslim students have filed a case against Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam after a request for an exemption from the physical examination requirement was turned down. The curriculum requires a cross-sex physical exam by course mates.

The two Muslim girls filed a case against Erasmus MC at the Board of Appeal for Higher Education in The Hague, De Volkskrant daily reported Tuesday.
 
All students in the course must go through a physical examination provided by their fellow students.

The exam involves looking at the chest, abdomen, and legs, and must be performed both by a male and female student.

The requirement raised concerns among the Muslim students, who did not want to be examined by a male.

However, they stressed that in the future they would practice without making such distinctions.
 
One of them initially applied for an exemption, but her request was denied. Although the other student has already completed the subject, she decided to support her colleague at the Board of Appeals.

David Drexhage from Erasmus MC says the practical experience student gain during such exams is important for their professional skills. “The students also have to experience how an examination feels for a patient. That promotes understanding.”

Students are aware that this part of the studying process is required during enrollment, he added.

Erasmus MC believes that if the Board of Appeals makes a decision in favor of the students, it will have profound implications for the entire course procedure. The Board of Appeals is expected to make a decision in about six weeks.

Note EU-Digest: Lets hope the  'Board of Appeals' does not cave in to this utterly incomprehensible request by students who have chosen the medical profession, where these procedures are common day practice. 

Reading this you also realize that Islam is in "deep need" of reformers like the Christians had in the 16th century with Martin Luther and John Calvin. They brought religious, political, intellectual and cultural renewal that splintered the radical Catholic Europe of those days, setting in place the political structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era. 

Come on, it's 2015 now and Muslims are still hanging on to medieval customs and rituals. If Muslims  want  the "others" to remove the Islamophobia label they put on them, they should "put their money where their mouth is", or as some would say, "wake-up and smell the roses" - do something about it. Don't blame everyone else but yourselves !

As to the two girls who sued the Erasmus University, the suggestion would be, why don't they go to a University in a Muslim country, or anywhere else for that matter,  if they can't  live with the rules at Erasmus? 

Read more: Can’t touch this: Muslim students sue Dutch medical university over physical exam — RT News

Turkey gets first Christian TV station: by Julia A. Seymour

For the first time, millions of people in Turkey watching government-regulated satellite television will be able to find Christian programming.

Shows created by SAT-7 TÜRK, a satellite TV ministry reaching the Middle East and North Africa, began broadcasting on Turkey’s most-watched satellite, Türksat 4A, in recent weeks, Mission Network News announced. The new channel airs dramas, documentaries, and worship programs, as well as content for women and youth. 

“We are overwhelmed and truly believe it is a miracle that we can finally broadcast on Türksat,” SAT-7 Executive Director Melih Ekener said in a press release. Ekener also said the company had been hoping and praying satellite access since 2006, when it began airing SAT-7 ARABIC.

Note EU-Digest: As Christian TV Comes to Turkey, Martin Luther the great Christian reformer from the 1500's, who modernized Christianity and broke away from the hardline Orthodox Vatican Catholic Church, did away with Latin "only" being spoken from the Pulpit (which no one could understand}, fought for women's rights and abolished celibacy for nuns and priests, comes to mind.

Martin Luther made many profound statements. On what we would today consider freedom of speech he said: "If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” On faith he said::“We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” .

Turkey today is a Muslim Nation, but 100 years ago Turkey’s Christian minority made up 25 to 30 percent of the population, this has now dwindled to between 100,000 and 200,000 believers, mostly from the Syrian, Greek, Russian, and Armenian Orthodox traditions. 

Christians around the world hope and pray that this first Christian TV station in Turkey will not only reflect truly modern biblical interpretation and teaching, but also inspire their Muslim Brothers and Sisters to follow Martin Luther's footsteps in seeking refreshing non violent ways to also modernize Islam and may God bless them in these efforts.

Read more: WORLD | Turkey gets first Christian TV station | Julia A. Seymour | Feb. 23, 2015

Paris Terrorist Attack – Muslims need to find their own Martin Luther – by RM

Islam needs a Martin Luther

Several observations can be made following the latest Paris terrorist attack. a

a) There is a struggle going on for power in the Islamic community between three major radical groups, including: Al-Qaeda , ISIS, Boco Haram, and these terrorist attacks are now mainly “side shows” by these different factions to demonstrate the capabilities of their organizations around the world. In essence all these factions want to turn back the clock to feudal times where there was Sharia law, women had no rights what-so-ever, and corporal punishment, including beheadings, was the rule of the day

b) Muslims living in Western Communities at large, of which more than 80% have never read the Qur'an, are getting more and more frustrated being labeled Muslim and associated with terrorism, consequently they are leaving the Islam religion in droves.

More and more intellectual and Western educated Muslims are calling for a Muslim version of Martin Luther, whose 16th-century movement in Christianity, known as the Protestant Reformation rejected several teachings and practices of the Catholic Church, which were very similar to present day Muslim Sharia laws.

The Catholic doctrine at that time also called for nations to be Catholic theocracies.

Martin Luther in his writings denounced that the Pope was in fact the de-facto representative of God on earth and also noted that celabacy requirements for priests and nuns were unnatural and even married a nun, Katharina von Bora on June 13, 1525

His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication and condemnation as an an outlaw by the Roman Emperor who put a price on his life – dead or alive.

An interesting side-note about Martin Luther's life is that during the wars between the Ottoman Empire and (Habsburg) later the Austrian Empire Martin Luther was actively urging Emperor Charles V and the German people to fight a secular war against the Turks at the battle of Vienna in 1529. He made clear, however, that the spiritual war against an alien faith was separate, to be waged through prayer and repentance and not by bloodshed.

In 1542, Luther read a Latin translation of the Qur'an He went on to produce several critical pamphlets on Islam, which he called "Mohammedanism" or "the Turk". Though Luther saw the Muslim faith as a tool of the devil, he was indifferent to its practice: "Let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false Christians live." He also opposed banning the publication of the Qur'an, wanting it exposed to scrutiny instead.

Martin Luther died on 18 February 1546 (aged 62) of a stroke in Eisleben, Saxony, the present Germany.

The Catholics are still around, and so is the Pope, but they have lost most of the iron grip they once held over Governments and peoples lives back in the 16^th century. thanks to revolutionary theologians like Martin Luther, and other Protestant Christians.

The Catholic Church. which during the past ten years has been losing members in large numbers recently elected a more “PR” oriented Pope at the helm of their Church.

And it must be said that since coming to power Pope Francis has been doing his best to project a more friendly and benevolent face of the Vatican.

Unfortunately, regardless of all the crowd pleasing statements made by Pope Francis, the Catholic church still remains a closed secret cult, with little transparency and continued global aspirations of power.

D) Concluding, however, one should be optimistic and note that despite the increased violence and unrest around the world - with “fanaticism, religious tensions, terrorism, extremism, corporate greed” - being the headlines of the day, something very positive is happening. One can only call this “united people spiritual power ”. Yes indeed a people's revolution is in the making.

People are not accepting everything and anything they are told at face value anymore, be it from Government, religious leaders, political leaders, pundits, the press. Instead, they are relying on one of our greatest human assets, the inner spiritual soul, which tells us what is right and wrong, and acting on this accordingly, without fear of reprisals.

We can see this movement slowly taking hold at demonstrations around the world. Specially following horrific events involving accidents, acts of terrorism. political and economic unrest and natural calamities.

People, no matter what their color, creed or faith, are coming together as one in expressing grief and best of all solidarity.

Yes indeed behind every cloud there is a silver lining and the best is still to come.

EU-Digest editorial

Religion: Muslims have deeper problems than Bill Maher's caustic critique - by David Horsey

If Allah exists, can he possibly approve of the savagery exhibited by the militant Sunni army that has swept down from Syria to capture a third of Iraq? Can he be OK with Boko Haram, the Muslim rebel group in Nigeria that kidnapped hundreds of teenage girls and threatens to sell them into slavery? Could he be approving of the Taliban burning schools in Afghanistan and forcing women back into cultural captivity?

And another question: Can Americans talk about the wickedness of some of those who claim to be doing the will of Allah without slipping into a condemnation of all Muslims or, conversely, shying away from any critique of the dark side of Islamic culture for fear of appearing politically incorrect?

That last question is at the heart of the current media kerfuffle over comedian Bill Maher’s unrestrained criticism of Islam. An ardent atheist, the host of HBO’s “Real Time” slams Islam as the worst belief system of them all. A staunch liberal himself, he scoffs at fellow liberals who condemn abuses of human rights around the world but refuse to admit that, in many parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, “Islam is the problem.”

But Maher is comedian, not a journalist or a diplomat, and his aggressive satire does dig into uncomfortable truths that many would rather avoid. And the truth is that Islam has a deep problem. It is not a problem with the faith as a philosophy of life nor as it is lived out by millions of peaceful Muslims; it is a problem with the way fundamentalist interpretations of the faith have found violent, inhumane and oppressive expression in so many places.

It is the same problem Christianity had for centuries, from the Crusades to the Salem witch trails and through all the blood, battles and burnings in between. During much of that time when Christians were busy killing one another and anyone who was not like them, Islam went through an enlightened period. A pan-national system allowed a relatively tolerant, multiethnic and religiously diverse culture to flourish in the Middle East and North Africa.

Those days are long gone.

Note EU-Digest: This is not only a problem of Islam. Christianity has for centuries, from the Crusades to the "Salem witch trail"s and through all the blood, battles and burnings in between. During much of that time when Christians were busy killing one another and anyone who was not like them, Islam went through an enlightened period. A pan-national system allowed a relatively tolerant, multi-ethnic and religiously diverse culture to flourish in the Middle East and North Africa under the Ottomans. 

So maybe instead of arguing which "religion" has the upper-hand over the other maybe when we go to a Mosque or Church we should try and remember that this does not give us extra points but rather that it reminds us that WE are not the "center" of the universe. Spiritually a most liberating and humbling thought in coming to grips with the fact that we are all basically totally insignificant creatures.

Read more: Muslims have deeper problems than Bill Maher's caustic critique - Los Angeles Times

Netherlands liable for deaths of three Bosnian Muslims killed at Srebrenica: says Dutch supreme court

The Dutch Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Netherlands was liable for the deaths of three Bosnian Muslim men during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, even though its forces there were part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

The decision upheld a 2011 appeals court judgment that was seen as setting a worrying precedent for countries providing troops for United Nations peacekeeping forces, because it held the Dutch state responsible for events that happened during a UN mission.

The case was brought by Hasan Nuhanovic, an interpreter who lost his brother and father, and relatives of Rizo Mustafic, an electrician who was killed. They argued that all three men should have been protected by Dutch peacekeepers. Mustafic and Nuhanovic were actually employed by the Dutch, but Nuhanovic’s father and brother were not.

The victims were among thousands of Muslims who took shelter in the UN compound as Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Gen. Ratko Mladic overran Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. Two days later, the outnumbered Dutch peacekeepers bowed to pressure from Mladic’s troops and forced thousands of Muslim families out of the compound.

Bosnian Serb forces sorted the Muslims by gender, then trucked the males away and began executing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys. Those bodies were plowed into hastily made mass graves in what international courts have ruled was genocide.

The slaying was the worst massacre on European soil since World War II.

Read more: Netherlands liable for deaths of three Bosnian Muslims killed at Srebrenica: supreme court - The Globe and Mail