Yesterday, The Daily Devil’s Dictionary highlighted the battle that is beginning to shape up in the media and in political circles around whether a return to a real or imaginary pre-pandemic status quo is possible. Most commentators in the West understand that the status quo they refer to...
In an important article published by The New Yorker on one of the most confusing labels used to describe today’s civilization, Indian writer Pankaj Mishra deconstructs and disambiguates the range of meanings associated with the word “liberalism” by delving into the history and cultural...
Muslim-majority societies are crying out for an intellectual revolution. This is the last of a two part series. Read part one here. Perhaps it is time to review priorities, to shift the paradigm; perhaps it is time for political Islam to cease being intrinsically political. After a century of...
Muslim-majority societies are crying out for an intellectual revolution. This is the first of a two part series. Islamism — or “political Islam” — is not dead. Those who have proclaimed its demise, or trumpeted the advent of a “post-Islamist” era, are...
The military coup in Egypt is a historic error that carries big costs and risks. Egypt's liberal forces have aborted the country's nascent and shaky democracy by bringing the army back to power. Their shortsightedness is compounded by shamelessness, as leading liberal figures accepted...
Analysis on Egypt is often marred by a revisionist vision of history. In response to Reza Pankhurst's article in Fair Observer, let me be blunt: “Liberals” do not make up a large percentage of the population in Egypt, no matter what his definition of the term is. In the main...
The political leadership representing pro- and anti-Morsi supporters are not willing or able to meet public demand. Bassem Youssef is the kind of Egyptian that people in the west can relate to. He was feted in western media as a cause celebre for freedom of speech after an arrest warrant was...
Ran Chakrabarti imagines a dispute over freedom of speech of a slightly different sort. Free speech is under attack. Nowhere more so than in India, where draconian laws permit arrests and criminal charges against those who hurt the sentiments of others. Under Section 66A of India’s...
