GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali

Protesters chant slogans and hold up flags in solidarity with Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs in Istanbul on July 12

Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty Images

On a humid afternoon in a quiet Istanbul suburb, Abdullah, a pint-sized, bright-eyed octogenarian, presides over a chaotic household. Over a dozen Turkish Uighurs have gathered to welcome his distant cousin and family who have fled China’s Xinjiang province after the recent communal violence. Fearing retribution from the Chinese authorities, he insists on using only his first name. The dining room’s table is laden with Uighur specialities — steamed dumplings, sesame-encrusted flatbreads, pastries stuffed with cheese and dates. “This isn’t our homeland,” Abdullah says, leaning on a mahogany cane, “but Turkey is our home. We are comfortable here.” He fumbles for the Turkish ID card he carries in his shirt pocket and points to his place of birth: Xinjiang. Abdullah received Turkish citizenship almost instantly when he first arrived, via Afghanistan, in 1981. (Read “In the Middle East, Little Outcry over China’s Uighurs.”)

Turkey once had an open-door policy toward its Uighur brethren, the Turkic ethnic minority who began arriving in waves from China from the late 1930s. In 1952, for instance, when several thousand Uighurs fled China’s communist regime into Pakistan, the Turkish government stepped in and brought 1,850 people overland to Turkey. The new arrivals were settled in purpose-built housing — called the New Quarter — in the city of Kayseri in central Anatolia, and were given jobs and citizenship. (Read “A Brief History of the Uighurs.”)

Such a welcome, however, is unimaginable today. Read the rest of this entry »

Kosovo dervishes, adepts of Sufism — a mystical form of Islam that preaches tolerance and a search for understanding — meet in a prayer room in the city of Prizren

Armend Nimani / AFP / Getty

In recent years, the dominant image of Islam in the minds of many Westerners has been one loaded with violence and shrouded with fear. The figures commanding global attention — be they al-Qaeda’s leadership or certain mullahs in Tehran — preach an apocalyptic creed to an uncompromising faithful. This may be the Islam of a radical fringe, but in an era of flag burnings and suicide bombings, it is the Islam of the moment.

And that is why some lament the decline of another, older Islam, an Islam of openness and tolerance and, most important, peace. For centuries, many of the world’s Muslims were, in one way or another, practitioners of Sufism, a spiritualism that centers on the mystical connection between the individual and the divine. Sufism’s ethos was egalitarian, charitable and friendly, often propagated by wandering seers and storytellers. It blended with local cultures and cemented Islam’s place from the deserts of North Africa to the bazaars of the Indian subcontinent. (Read “An Islam of Many Paths.”) Read the rest of this entry »

Published on Thursday, July 23, 2009 by The Nation

Photo: Chris Curry/The Virginian-Pilot/ZUMA Press

Blackwater USA Academy recruit Gregory Collier screams to team members during a drill at the Blackwater compound in Moyock, N.C., on Aug. 2, 2006.

Oct. 2, 2007 | WASHINGTON — On Sept. 16, 2007, a convoy ofby Jeremy Scahill

It became common practice during the Iraq occupation for the US State Department to work with private security companies like Blackwater to help facilitate giving what amounted to hush money to the families of Iraqis shot dead by private security contractors. In fact, Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince, discussed this practice when he testified in front of Congress in October 2007 and admitted to paying $20,000 to a Blackwater victim’s family and $5,000 to another.

“We don’t determine that value,” Prince told Congress when asked how his company decides how much an Iraqi life is worth. “That’s kind of an Iraqi-wide policy. We don’t make that one.”

Now, Blackwater (which recently renamed itself “Xe”) is attempting to use other means to silence its victims. On July 20, the company’s high-powered lawyers from Mayer Brown, which boasts that it represents eighty-nine of the Fortune 100 companies and thirty-five of the fifty largest US banks, filed a motion in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to impose a gag order on Iraqi civilians suing the company. The motion also seeks to silence the lawyers representing the families of Iraqis allegedly killed or injured by Blackwater in a series of violent incidents spanning several years. Four cases in the Washington, DC, area were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. After preliminary issues are resolved, each case is slated to be tried individually. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/entertainment/dpgo_jon_stewart_most_trusted_newsman_lwf_072309_2699900

Photo credit: Rubenstein | Creative Commons Licens

By LILY FU

(MYFOX NATIONAL) – Now that legendary newsman Walter Cronkite has passed, America’s most trusted newscaster is “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, according to a new poll conducted by Time magazine .

Among approximately 9,400 voters, 44 percent of people around the country voted Stewart as most trusted. NBC’s Brian Williams came in second with 29 percent of the vote, ABC’s Charlie Gibson got 19 percent and CBS’ Katie Couric got 7 percent. A map of the US breaks down who won by state. The only state in which Stewart finished lower than second place was Vermont. Read the rest of this entry »