Plutocracy of blood? Afghanistan post-election

How much blood has been spilled in Afghanistan? It is very difficult to say; official estimates speak of an improbable 12,000 to a more probable, but still conservative, 32,000 casualties. Of these deaths, the “insurgents” of various affiliations (so not only the Taliban) would have been responsible, according to very conservative statistics, for almost a sixth. Certainly, as repugnant as they may be, the suicide bombers and road-side bombs as well as the Taliban’s punitive and revenge killings cannot be compared to the 30000lb air-bombs dropped by NATO.  

Official Webpage and Cardiff University Honorary Position

Dear all, I am pleased to inform you that I have now an official webpage at my domain  www.marranci.net. My blog remains here at wordpress.com,  at my webpage you can find a link to it and you can also subscribe to the feed if you wish. The website will be updated regularly, particularly the multimedia section, in which you can find photos, audio and video podcasts, some including presentations at seminars and conferences. In the publications section you can find the links to not only the book or article, but also – when available – to the text or part of it (some of which can be downloaded). Among other things, you can follow my calender of events where I will post events of interest in my field of research and, of course, where I am going to present my research.

Moderate in extremism: Malaysia, the rattan cane, and the Muslim model

While in London in 2000, I met an Afghan man, in full Pasthun Afghan attire, who proudly told me that he was a Taliban. During the cold war, the Taliban were, for the UK and US, the heroic mujahidin who fought the Red Devil, the atheist communist USSR. Some, during the 1980s, were welcomed to the west to escape persecution or recruit volunteers for their training camps, which were US and UK supported.The man in London claimed to be among those who reached the UK in the 1980s. When we met, the Taliban had established their Islamic republic and, following their own version of Shariah, implemented one of the most (albeit contradictory and corrupt) brutal regimes that Muslim countries had ever known.

Coming Back soon

Dear all,

as many of you may have noticed, I have not posted here for a while and I have to say that I am not so happy with an average of one post per month.

Yet, I have been particularly busy during these few months, both conducting research as well as writing and presenting papers.

So,  I am glad to announce that very soon I will publish a new post and I will try to commit myself, despite the many commitments, to at least a post per-week.

meanwhile, if you are in Singapore on the 13th of October, and wish to know more about my current research in Southeast Asia, you are very welcome to attend this event below

Religion, sex and money: the hedonism of scandal

Some of you reading the title of this post may think that I am referring to the most hedonistic prime minister in the world: Silvio Berlusconi and his adventures with teenagers as well as professional, and well paid, escorts. Yet, I am actually referring to another, less known and less publicized, case which has been taking place in Australia since May 2009. A quite unknown filmmaker has decided to sponsor his new ideas through the ever- successful use of blasphemy.

The filmmaker Justin Sisely wishes to produce a ‘documentary’ that will follow two virgins (one male and female) as they auction their virginity to unknown bidders. To succeed in his attempt, he, of course, needs certified virgins. Today, as we know, (at least in the ‘Western’ hemisphere) this is not a simple task, and to find two who are willing to prostitute their first intercourse is probably even harder.

A note on the new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies (University of Western Sydney)

On the 16th of July, UWS launched a new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies as part of its partnership with NCEIS (National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies). I have received emails and queries about my involvement and position with the centre, as well as questions about its program and agenda. Since I have been mentioned as one of the ‘senior academics’ appointed to the new centre, and since some academic colleagues were aware of my intention and efforts for the past two years to start a centre along the same lines, I feel that I need to clarify the current situation and my collaboration on this project with my friend, and co-editor of the book series Muslims in Global Societies, Prof. Bryan Turner.

Between naiveté and intellectual dishonesty: debating Shari‘a in the UK

Recently in the UK the debate, started by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on the so-called Shari‘a Law, has seen a new wave of discussion following the publication of Sharia Law or ‘One Law For All by the controversy-seeking  conservative think tank Civitas. The author of the report, Dr Denis MacEoin, is not new to readers of my blog and also quite well known for his questionable (if not creative) social scientific skills and methodologies in a previous publication byPolicy Exchange.However, Dr Denis MacEoin has this time honestly admitted that his methodology has been based on what I can only call ‘analogical induction’.

Muslims as ‘cultural objects’

More and more we can find examples in which Muslims are reduced to their material culture and religious culture: Muslim women reduced to their hijabs, niqabs, burkas, chadors; Muslim men represented as repressive, violent, fanatic and irrational and so on. Just read some commentaries about Muslim women, or about Muslim life in general, and you will be able to understand why I say that Muslims are reduced to their ‘material culture’.