June 22, 2014 | Turkey Agenda

Palestinian society and the Apartheid Wall

Through successive periods of intervention by the British, Jordanian and Israeli governments, Palestinians as a society, have been maintained in a predominantly dependent agriculture and agrarian economy. Family, clan and tribe closely identified with agriculture and land ownership has served as a stabilizing factor for the Occupied population. In more than one region in the…

De-Colonial Islamic Politics Palestine

June 14, 2014 | Turkey Agenda

The ethical, moral economy and designing structural inequality

In his short tenure at the helm of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has managed to reshape conversations about wealth, economy and poverty calling on the UN to lead a worldwide “ethical mobilization” in solidarity with the poor.  In a May 16, 2013 address to new Vatican ambassadors, Pope Francis described the current global economic…

De-Colonial

June 9, 2014 | Turkey Agenda

“Islamic Reformation” and the West living in our minds

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt commented in his book, The Future of Islam, that Islam needs to “work out for itself a Reformation,” resembling that which took place in Europe. Blunt points out that in Al-Azhar University (his writing concerning al-Azhar was in 1882, and afterward) the “basis of a social and political reformation has been laid.”…

De-Colonial Islam Islamic Law Muslim History

June 5, 2014 | Turkey Agenda

Islam, Reform and the “Modern” Rational

At the gates of the 20th century, Muslims had already taken an intellectually defensive and at times hostile posture toward the “West” with a hegemonic colonial discourse slowly casting itself in many parts of the Muslim world. Across all regions Muslims found themselves at a military, economic and political disadvantage visa via the “West” and in…

De-Colonial Islam Islamic Politics Muslims in America

June 3, 2014 | Turkey Agenda

US policy in the Middle East: Containment strategy and the “War on Terrorism”

Policy is constructed in social context by elite’s entanglement and contestation of the political, social, economic and religious forces acting on it both internally and externally. The forces shaping US foreign policy is complex and multifaceted but all operate within an existing national consensus on the priorities set forth in post WWII and continue to…

De-Colonial Islam Islamic Politics Race/Racism