Tag: Islam

The ex-UKIP leader is taking over from Catherine Blaiklock, who quit over what he said were "horrible and intolerant" comments on Twitter about Islam. Mr Farage said the party was currently a "virtual" entity but would mobilise at short notice if the UK ended up taking part in European elections. He said Leave voters "betrayed" by the political classes needed a voice. Mr Farage led UKIP three times over the course of 20 years but quit the party earlier this year, accusing its leadership of associating with the far right and condoning Islamophobic views. Mr Farage said he was unaware of Ms Blaiklock's Twitter history when they set up the party together and she was right to stand down for posting "angry, intolerant stuff". "She was never intended to be a long-term leader," he told Radio 4's Today. He said the Brexit Party would field candidates from across the political spectrum in the event that the UK failed to reach a Brexit agreement before the latest deadline and ended up taking part in European elections in May. "It is at the moment a virtual party," Mr Farage said. "It is a website. We haven't even launched... Our trust has been betrayed by politicians and if we fight these elections, it will be a chance to say what we think."

Ukip’s leader, Gerard Batten, has been strongly backed by its national executive. The move will prevent yet another civil war for the party, but possibly hastening the exit of Nigel Farage, who has publicly despaired at the current hard-right stance. Batten, a vehement proponent of anti-Muslim policies, who has described Islam as a “death cult”, has sparked significant internal dissent over the direction he has taken the party and particularly over his decision to appoint the far-right street activist Tommy Robinson as an adviser. However, members “voted overwhelmingly against a motion of no confidence” in the leader, a Ukip tweet said. Third Ukip MEP quits over party's courtship of Tommy Robinson Read more A later statement from the party, however, said the national executive “does not endorse the appointment of Tommy Robinson in any advisory role”, adding that he remained banned from joining Ukip. The march has been condemned by Farage, Ukip’s two-time leader and defining figure, who said on Sunday that the party backing such an event would give the impression of “people who were racists within the party”. Farage said on his LBC radio show: “If this march goes ahead with Gerard Batten as the leader of Ukip, then Ukip becomes the new BNP.” Robinson, who founded the English Defence League street protest group and has been jailed several times, was “somebody who attracts around him a group of thugs,” Farage said. It has emerged that Thomas, who styles himself Danny Thommo, was jailed for two years in 2016 for his part in a bungled kidnap attempt in Hampshire. Thomas was among a gang who tried and failed to pull a man from his home over a supposed robbery debt. They did not wear masks, one lived on the same street as the victim, and another later apologised on Facebook, saying they had targeted the wrong person.

If fight promotions are fiction, then he’s an idiot for taking McGregor seriously. If they’re reality, his actions are more understandable. Fiction works when everyone is able to set aside the fact that it is not reality. In order for Booker to achieve success, the audience first needed to ignore his artificiality. The same is true of gotcha-style politics. But this month we finally reached the limit of treating politics like it’s fiction. However, the right sells fiction too. Yes, social media has turned America into a perpetual mob, but if used correctly we can create practices that reward communication behaviors we want to see in our leaders. In these ways we can stop rewarding Cory Booker-style freakishness and develop systems of communication that incentivize leaders to act like leaders. Let America’s leaders set a standard and then foist the responsibility on us.

Societal norms and laws reflected religious values, and force was often used to punish misbehavior from a religious perspective.” Rabbi Pill, a visiting assistant professor of Islamic, Jewish and American religion and law at the university’s Candler School of Theology, said the two traditions, both closely associated with law and normative systems for individuals, “have largely, historically, rejected the idea that politics should influence religion and vice versa.” “Islam always held that there needs to be a separation between religious authority and politics, allowing each to function as separate power bases in society,” he said. “And because religion has its own valuable place in society, it serves as a valuable check on government excesses and tyranny. When they went too far, the religious elites who were not beholden to the state called the state out on it.” Citing Martin Luther King Jr. as a prime example of a religious figure who confronted his government, Rabbi Pill quoted the civil rights leader as saying, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state and never its tool.” Conversely, politicians and the state were often able to criticize religion and religious excesses, and for this reason it was important for the two to be separate — the basic organizing principle of Catholics, for example. In Islam during its classical period, systems were put in place to ensure that church and state remained independent of each other. “That’s not so much the case anymore. Nowadays, in many parts of the Islamic world, much has changed since the 15th century,” he said. “For those of you who haven’t been living under a rock, in some Islamic republics and states, religion and politics use force to enforce laws; it’s endemic.” As for Judaism, he said, “The independent Jewish communities that lived with the Diaspora during the medieval period, from the 900s up to the modern period, 1600 to 1700s, all of them functioned democratically, with democratic forms of government, recalls and voting rights, with all the basic building blocks you would expect from a democratic society.” In today’s world, Rabbi Pill would like to see more adherence to religious influence. “My personal sense is that in both Islam and Judaism, strangely enough, more religion is needed. I think more religion breeds more humility, and the breadth and depth of the multiple voices with which it speaks, if viewed properly, helps support ideas for pluralism and respect for diverse opinions and respect primarily for process.”

This article is seventh in the series on ‘confronting authoritarian populism and the rural world’, linked to the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI). The Indonesian Fascist Party founded in 1930 was chaired by a Javanese aristocrat. Peasants were depoliticized through one-party domination. The return of authoritarian populism and heightened agrarian conflict Despite populist challengers, such as Prabowo Subianto, Jokowi won the presidential election in 2014, propelled by a majority in the rural areas. The political strategies that have depoliticized rural peasants for the last 40 years have successfully contained rural resistance and protests. The crushing of emancipatory initiatives The combination of right-wing militarism, conservative Islamic populism and the prevailing neoliberal market conditions has resulted in the co-optation and/or destruction of genuine emancipatory rural initiatives. In both these cases, the internal organization of the cooperative is now marked by the patriarchal and authoritarian structures found in the wider society. Neoliberal developmentalism has worsened inequalities and heightened rural resistance and agrarian conflicts. E-mail: white@iss.nl The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) was launched during 2017 as a response to the rise of authoritarian populism in different parts of the world. ERPI small grant holders will present researchThe Samadhya Institute is a community of critical researchers and scholar-activists that aims to develop critical research in service of activism.

. Instead, the nation was waiting to see which of two mainstream political parties would win a crucial parliamentary election in Lahore this past Sunday. The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N and the opposition Pakistan Justice Movement came in first and second, respectively. Until now, though, extreme parties mostly have built support through mosques and religious appeal. He said the group already is making plans to participate in next year’s national elections. “If we win, we will serve the people and struggle to establish Islamic rule in this country, based on Islamic justice for all,” he said. The issue already is raising official hackles and disputes here because of the Trump administration’s accusations that Pakistan is providing sanctuary for anti-Afghan militant groups. Both the anti-blasphemy and pro-Kashmir movements have been unofficially tolerated because of their public popularity, and Pakistan’s intelligence agency has long been reported to abet Lashkar-e-Taiba in its various incarnations. Saeed has been repeatedly placed under house arrest, then allowed to return to his fiery pulpit in Lahore on Fridays. “They cannot win elections and come to power.