exploring muslim identities in europe & north america

A research team based at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence has released a report on the English Defence League (EDL) and its European allies . The report provides a rare insight on the EDL and its strategy of linking up with other European islamophobic movements which the authors of the report  refer to collectively as the European Counter-Jihad Movement. According to the report In the last several months  this loose international alliance has begun to exhibit a more developed  operational structure.  Based on fieldwork in Europe and interviews with the  leading figures of the  European Counter-Jihad Movement, the report points out that the latter, u nlike most other far-right organisations, remains  a one-issue movement, and has yet to show an interest in  expanding its scope to cover other popular concerns. The authors suggest that the  European Counter-Jihad Movement  espouses what they call "an assertive cultural  national

Back in August 1997, in the early morning of a warm summer day I was on a ferry, arriving to the beautiful city of Rethymno in the island of Crete. This was the second time in my life I was visiting Crete but, unlike the crowds of backpackers revellling in the ealy morning sunshine on the ship decks, my ultimate destination was not a tourist spot but a grim military camp where I had to report to undergo the compulsory military training that (almost) all conscripts in the Greek army have to go through. Despite my initial sense of impending gloom, these few months I spent in Western Crete gave me the opportuni ty of getting to know, and fall in love with this part of the island. This relationship I established with the place was necessary and perhaps unavoidable in a way, as it provided an antidote to the isolation and desperation that life in a military camp often entails.  But, from the moment I set eyes on the town of Rethymno on that morning, I knew that there was something intriguin

Switzerland has become the first European country to ban the construction of minarets in its constitution . The proposal grew out of the campaign of a number of conservative groups in the normally sleepy Swiss country town of Langenthal against an application to build a minaret next to a mosque.   The proposal was launched by members of the rightwing Swiss People's Party and the ultra conservative Federal Democratic Union. The ultra-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP) has displayed in the past a flair for the dramatic at the expense of migrants who happen to have the wrong colour or to profess the wrong religion. In 2007 it got its largest ever share of the vote after a sleek anti-foreigner campaign that was explicitly racist. Ulrich Schüler, an SVP parliamentarian and leading member of the anti-minaret movement, trying to rationalize his party's position has argued that the minarets are political rather than religious.