Catégorie : World People

Linked with Pluralism of gate identities or pluralism of competing identities, and with ASR Association for the Sociology of Religion.

A specialist in the study of Evangelical Protestantism, Sebastien Fath is currently a full-time researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research CNRS. He lectures at Sorbonne University Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes EPHE, and is in charge of a scientific research program on contemporary mutations of religion in Western societies. He is the author of ten books and has recently published Dieu bénisse l’Amérique. La religion de la Maison Blanche (Paris: Seuil, 2004), Militants de la Bible aux Etats-Unis. Evangéliques et fondamentalistes du Sud (Paris: Autrement, 2004. This book was awarded the Chateaubriand History Prize), and Du ghetto au réseau. Le protestantisme évangélique en France 1800-2005 , (Geneva, Labor et Fides, 2005). He is born 1968 in Strasbourg, France … (full text).

He writes: « In describing Christianity in France, History and Sociology have had lasting difficulties escaping from the “sect-church” opposition. The heavy dominance of Catholicism is a probable reason. Contrarily to the American situation, characterized by a competitive religious market in which religions are structured in various “denominations”, the French landscape seems to be defined as religiously “dry”, in a very secularized context. Today, with declining churches, the dominant trend would be the “decomposition” of religion, instead of its restructuration. This process takes two forms : “religious bricolage”, or narrow sectarian belonging. The field of Evangelical Protestantism invites us to question this interpretative scheme » … (full long text).

Barack Obama et le vote religieux, Janvier 4, 2008.

His english blog: FRENCH WINDOWS, Asterix goes Global – Civil Society, Religion & Politics, Evangelicalism.

Sébastien FATH, son Weblog scientifique et citoyen (en français).

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Sebastien Fath – France

His book: Politics and Religion in France and the United States.

Both France and the USA do like to teach the World about values. These two great democracies share a common emphasis on universal rights, and it is no surprise if the world debate about the Iraqi war in 2003 turned around what France and what the US had to say. How to explain that? By going back to History, particularly in studying the relationship between politics and religion in France and the US … (French Windows, scroll down to Dec. 14, 2007.

GSRL Groupe Société, Réligions, Laïcités au EPHE/CNRS.

He writes also: « The White House [has been] taken hostage by a fundamentalist sect » (Mercier 2003:44). This kind of comment, found in the columns of a major, Catholic friendly, weekly magazine is quite revealing of the French perception of religion. The president of the United States is not portrayed as a church member, because the word « church » is too positive a term for what the journalist wishes to say about the American President. Thus, he is shown as being under the influence of a « sect » (or « cult »), which is synonymous with bad religion. The « churchsect » dichotomy is characteristic of the French way of seeing religion. This might partly explain why Ernst Troeltsch’s approach of religion has only been discovered in the 1980s, decades after Max Weber’s sociology (Seguy 1980). While Weber usually favored a dual approach of religious structures (church/sect) familiar to the French, Ernst Troeltsch adopted a more nuanced view: he included the mystic type and the « Free church » model. (full long text).

Religion et Sociologie: 29 articles sur le protestantisme évangélique et 14 articles sur les USA et leur mutation socio.réligieuse.

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Linked with Announcing the Orion Project, with The Orion Project, and with The Disclosure Project.

Steven Macon Greer (June 28, 1955) is an American physician known as a proponent of openness in government, media and corporations when it comes to advanced technologies that he and others believe to have been shelved and hidden from public awareness for reasons of profit and influence. To this end he has founded the Disclosure Project in 1993 and the Advanced Energy Research Organization AERO in 2007. (full long text on wikipedia).

It is said: It is said: He brings a unique combination of scientific knowledge, credibility , vision, humor and inspiration to his lectures. Dr. Greer relies on first hand knowledge of extraterrestrial activity world wide and has direct sources for information regarding covert operations dealing with the subject. Supporters of his world are as diverse as Apollo astronaut, Dr Edgar Mitchell, who walked on the moon in Apollo 14, to benefactor and philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller, to former British Ministry of Defense Head and five star admiral, Lord Hill-Norton, to folk legend, Burl Ives … (full text).

Books written by Steven M. Greer.

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Steven M. Greer – USA

See the following videos:

• Disclosure Project – Extraterrestrial Contacts, 1 hr 22 min, 25 Apr 2007;
• Dr Steven Greer and Hon. Paul Hellyer Discuss ET/UFO Disclosure, 1 hr 7 min, 9 May 2006;
• The Disclosure Project, the National Press Club Conference of May 9th 2001, 1 hr 55 min, put on the web on 18 Feb 2006.

He says: « The universe is teeming with intelligent life. In fact, the universe itself is intelligent and alive. The multiplicity of life in the universe, while diverse, is essentially a singularity; beyond division, it exists in the unitive state, a marvelous, conscious Oneness. All that there is exists in its true nature as pure, undifferentiated, eternal Mind. And yet from the awareness of that which is relative, we find inner and outer, mind and body, good and evil, oneness and separation. Truth is often born from the contemplation of these paradoxes; both perspectives are true, but are dependent on the level of awareness of the observer. As we ponder the universe and a new cosmology which accounts for the existence of advanced non-human life forms, the lesson of the paradox will visit us over and over again. But if we look intently with the eye of oneness, perhaps the cosmos will offer up a few of its mysteries » … (full long text).

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND IS « PLANET X » APPROACHING? January 1, 2006.

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Linked with WorldPulse Magazine, and with CREAW.

Ann Njogu is the executive director of the Centre for Rights Education and Awareness in Nairobi, Kenya. In recognition of her contribution toward gender equity, Njogu received the International Community Awareness Award given by Rainbow House in Chicago, Illinois. (OSI-Forum).

She asks: … “If indeed the commissioners were in possession of the files, how did they get access to them yet the chairman is on record that they needed a court order to access the documents? When did they obtain the order?” … (full text of Crucial files lost in ECK drama, March 3, 2008).

Listen her on this video on YouTube: Ann Njogu, 2.46 min, February 13, 2008. Same video on AOL-video, same video on e-mule.com.

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Ann Njogu – Kenya

She works as Executive Director of the Centre for Rights Education and Awareness CREAW in Nairobi, Kenya.

Ann Njogu named in Charity Ngilu’s wikipedia-text.

It was an assassination attempt on the life of Mwalimu Mati, Ouma Odera and Okoiti Omtatah. There was also a brutal attack on Ann Njogu and Hon. Charity Ngilu Minister of Health who was roughed up when she went to Ann Njogu’s rescue. All five leaders were removed from central police station without the knowledge of their families, olleagues and friends in an attempt to assassinate them. The police alerted the media that they had released the civil society leaders when in fact they had not … (full text, August 1, 2007).

Female Candidates in Kenya Say They Face Discrimination, Violence, Dec. 24, 2007.

… Sexual abuse on children and young adolescents is also increasing at family level. The World Health Organisation estimates a prevalence of 25 per cent for girls and eight for boys. Mrs Ann Njogu, executive director of the Centre for Rehabilitation and Education of Abused Women (Creaw) decries harassment by police when dealing with rape cases. The harassment, she says, discourages many victims from reporting rape cases. (full text, March 10, 2008).

Women’s Property Rights in Kenya’s Draft Constitution, A Joint Letter to Delegates of Kenya’s National Constitutional Conference, August 2003.

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Linked with Rationality And The Lived World.

She says: ” … Fundamentalisms are to be understood as political projects by certain groups in the different societies aimed at gaining or keeping political and/or economic power. They project a vision of community and more often of a nation, based on a certain identity-related understanding suggesting that only one societal concept is in accordance with the vision of community/nation. Behind these fundamentalist projects we can find special political forces that use religion – be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish or other religions – to impose a certain “holy” concept of society as the only true one. They deny the right to choose between different societal concepts, and present their vision as the only legitimate. They do not leave room for opposition, for alternative ways and for individual rights. They try to silence opposition, put pressure on it and form a homogenised society …  » (full text of her speak at the Panel-discussion: « Feminists versus Fundamentalisms », 09.09.2005).

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Durre Sameen Ahmed – Pakistan

(She) started her academic education at Punjab University in Lahore/Pakistan, from where she received an MA in Clinical Psychology. She continued her education in the USA at Columbia University, where she received her PhD in communication and education after having finished an MA. Currently she is the director of the first research program of its kind in South Asia in communications and cultural studies at the National College of Arts in Lahore, where she has been working as a professor already for many years. Additionally she is a visiting professor at the Catholic University in Mechelen/Belgium and the director in Institutional Development of the Lahore Society for Education and Research. For her academic achievements she was honored with numerous national and international awards. She publishes regularly about gender issues, religion, family, drug addiction, tradition and women. Besides that she has done well reviewed work in Conceptual Art and has been working as an advisor to the Punjab government. (Read on Congress Femme Globale 2005).

Find her and her publications on Google Book-search; and on Google Scholar-search.

Her lifeworld is described in the following book: … Fifteen women of various age-groups, from different cultural, religious, social and geographical backgrounds, were asked to write about the lives of their grandmother, their mother, themselves and their daughters (or, if this was impossible, other women of those generations close to the family) … (full text):

Continuer la lecture de « Durre Sameen Ahmed – Pakistan »

Linked with Council for secular Humanism, and with the Institute for the Secularization of the Islamic Society.

Stephen Gallagher is a philosopher and writer who lives and works in North Carolina. He recently addressed the International Philosophers for Peace conference on the history of religiously based prison discourse in America … (full text).

He says: « Quality is not a thing. It is an event … It is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object…Quality is the event at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible … This means that Quality is not just the result of a collision of subject and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and objects ». (full text).

Stephen J. Gallagher’s favorite links.

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Stephen J. Gallagher – USA

He writes: … At the moment I’m juggling several balls in the air:

• Wrapping up a review of Barry Lynn’s book, « Piety and Politics »,
• Fleshing out an essay tentatively titled « Forgetting Guantanomo »,
• Reworking a short play I wrote into format suitable for a radio play,
• Last but not least, the big kahuna on my list of To Do’s, I’m working on a book tentatively titled « Leaps of Faith: When Mania Meets Modernity ».

Yep, I’m a busy guy … (full text).

He writes also: … Even in a period when the fallibility of the death penalty has been repeatedly exposed, roughly two out of three Americans still support it. In Texas, current United States president George W. Bush personally supervised the executions of 152 people – and he is proud of that fact. That the blood of this slow-motion massacre on the president’s hands is a political asset says everything about current U.S. values. As the civilized world goes in one direction on this question, the United States goes in another. Proudly. If the whole, long, desperate struggle of rational thought is to have any meaning, then I must renounce my all-too-human craving for revenge and blood. We all must. (full text).

His conferences.

Continuer la lecture de « Stephen J. Gallagher – USA »

Linked with terra choice.com.

He is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Professor by Courtesy of Energy Resources Engineering.

The main goal of Jacobson’s research is to understand physical, chemical, and dynamical processes in the atmosphere better in order to address atmospheric problems, such as climate change and urban air pollution, with improved scientific insight and more accurate predictive tools. He also evaluates the atmospheric effects of different solutions to climate change and air pollution problems, supports mapping and analysis of winds for wind energy, and studies issues related to combining renewable energies … (full text stanford 1/2).

He says: « These aerosol particles are having an effect worldwide on the wind speeds over land; there’s a slowing down of the wind, feeding back to the rainfall too », … (full text).

Watch his video: Ethanol may lead to more ozone-related deaths, 3.54 min, April 24, 2007.

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Mark Z. Jacobson – USA

His Blog: Mark Z. Jacobson.

The study found that carbon dioxide increases ozone and particulate matter – unhealthful pollutants in smog – by increasing temperatures and water vapor in the atmosphere. What’s more, it showed that ozone, in particular, increases the most where it is already high. This does not bode well for California, which has six of the 10 most polluted cities in the United States: Los Angeles, Visalia-Porterville, Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced and Sacramento. (full text).

Newest articles with reference to Mark Z. Jacobson:

• Are Florida ethanol plants worth it? By Asjylyn Loder, March 3, 2008.
• Carbon Dioxide Tied To Air Pollution Mortality, Mar. 4, 2008;
• CO2 new member in the ‘killer gases’ group, Febr. 23, 2008.

He says also: « Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution, » said Jacobson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.  »But our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage …  » (full text).

Effects of Ethanol (E85) Versus Gasoline Vehicles on Cancer and Mortality in the United States.

Mark Z. Jacobson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, recently published that « a blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater [environmental health] risk than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage ». His paper, based on computer models, appeared in the online edition of Environmental Science and Technology. The study suggested a net few hundred more people in America might suffer respiratory illnesses if the nation were to switch all vehicles to 100% ethanol. It received mainstream media attention this week, given that ethanol proponents have long maintained that the fuel is substantially less polluting, citing volumes of data … (full text).

Fundamentals of Atmospheric Modeling, 16 pdf-pages.

Continuer la lecture de « Mark Z. Jacobson – USA »

Linked with Motrat Qiriazi, and with the Kosova Women’s Network KWN.

She is one of the 2006-Winners of the WWSF Prize.

Her motto: « Go to the people, love them, live with them, learn from them. Start with what they know, build with what they have, and with the best leaders. When the work is done, the people will say: we did this ourselves », (Lao Tzu).

Video in albanian language: 5 – Shtepia e Shqiptarit – AANO dhe AAWO – si mund te ndihmo, 4.47 min, October 12, 2007.

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Marta Prekpalaj – Kosovo

She works for Motrat Qiriazi.

Marta’s whole life is a living illustration of this (Lao Tzu’s) famous statement. Born in 1967 in the village of Zym in the isolated mountainous Has region on the Albanian border, she had to fight to go to secondary school, a two hour walk from her home which girls were not permitted to do.

At 23, she became involved in a literacy campaign and soon after cofounded an association for the education of women, Motrat Qiriazi, becoming in 1995 the first woman school director of her region.

Lao Tzu’s statement became the working motto of Motrat Qiriazi. From the start, all members of the community were invited to the meetings.

However, as in this profoundly patriarchal culture, women did not speak much in the meetings, Marta started by organizing separate meetings for women. When the whole community came together again, women were for the first time capable of not only clearly defining their needs, but defending them too.

Continuer la lecture de « Marta Prekpalaj – Kosovo »

Linked with Russian Blog roundup.

Russia’s latest YouTube sensation sounds like a Balkan Gipsy Kings version of Borat. Why sounds? Because Peter Nalitch, a twentysomething architect whose true love is music was goofing off at his dacha one day with some friends when they decided to film an amateur video set to a remarkably catchy tune and some remarkably silly, utterly hilarious lyrics in intentionally botched English. The song, “Gitar” (the misspelling is intentional), has had nearly one million hits on YouTube and drawn rave reviews in a number of languages, including botched English … (full text).

His YouTube-video making him famous.

His Homepage in russian language.

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Peter Nalitch – Russian Federation

Peter Nalitch’s video Ty plenila menya … , 2.12 min, Dec. 25, 2007.

At last, Russia has a homegrown star to match Borat. Peter Nalitch’s cheesy pop video “Gitar” has taken the newly launched youtube.ru by storm, notching up more than 350,000 views already … So, what next for Nalich? Well, the former architecture student is following in the footsteps of his Bosnian grandfather – an opera singer – and is training as a singer at a Moscow music college. And with a number of other songs ready to go, international fame surely beckons … (full text, inkl his 2.57 min. Hit on the Russian YouTube).

59 videos from Peter Nalitch (from whitch 54 are NOT guitar) on imeem.com.

22 other videos than Gitar from Peter Nalitch on NME.com, (plus many videos with other artists on the following pages).

8 videos on YouTube from and with Peter Nalitch.

Find him and his publications on Google Video-search; on Google Blog-search, nd on Global Voices of November 29, 2007.

Peter Nalitch is Russia’s answer to Manu Chao. His video for the song Guitar is a Borat-like jab at low-budget, post-Soviet awkwardness — absurd English lyrics, Eurotrash earnestness, bad wipes, and cheap subtitles. But its tongue-in-cheekness is quite apparent, and the song is disarmingly catchy and romantic. (lost at e minor).

Continuer la lecture de « Peter Nalitch – Russian Federation »

Update April 27, 2010: Fred Halliday, 1946-2010: a tribute, by David Hayes, 26 April 2010: The death of political analyst and international-relations scholar Fred Halliday extinguishes a voice and a light that have illuminated world politics for more than forty years. David Hayes pays tribute and presents a selection of his work for openDemocracy … (full text).

Linked with Sovereign Wealth Funds: power versus principle.

Fred Halliday is professor of international relations at the LSE, and visiting professor at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies IBEI. His many books include Islam and the Myth of Confrontation (IB Tauris, 2003), 100 Myths About the Middle East (Saqi, 2005), and The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology (Cambridge University Press, 2005) Fred Halliday’s « global politics » column on openDemocracy surveys the national histories, geopolitical currents, and dominant ideas across the world. (OpenDemocracy).

He says: « When you get Muslim groups in Europe saying in higher education colleges that Muslim women should not train to be engineers or doctors, that is going against Islam. The problem with groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir is that they say ‘this and only this is Islam’. Let’s take the Caliphate. I always tell Hizb ut-Tahrir to get on the plane and go to Tehran on Mecca and start talking about the Caliphate in those places – they wouldn’t come back. Most Muslims do not believe in the Caliphate as applicable to the contemporary world …  » (full long interview).

His official homepage.

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Fred Halliday – Ireland

Sharia Subjects VII: Beattie & Halliday in OpenDemocracy.

Fred Halliday studied at Queen’s College, Oxford, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the London School of Economics. Halliday wrote his PhD on South Yemen, and despite his prolific output it famously took him 17 years to complete and then publish (Sale, 2002). A one-time member of the International Marxist Group and writer for The Black Dwarf newspaper, since 1983 he has been lecturing at the London School of Economics, and he remains one of Britain’s leading experts on Middle Eastern politics. And a consultant to BP on the region.

At the LSE, Halliday is Professor of International Relations, and a member of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights. He is also a former Convener of the Department of International Relations of the LSE, and a former Chairman of the Research Committee of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). He sits on the advisory council of the Foreign Policy Centre. He is also associated with the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), and appears regularly on ABC, BBC and CBC radio and TV broadcasts. He has lectured widely on superpower relations, development issues, the Middle East and international-relations theory. He is the author of numerous books, including The World at 2000, World Politics, and Two Hours That Shook the World. Six of his books have been translated into Arabic … (full long text).

A panel of human rights experts, including Professor Fred Halliday and Marion Haroff-Tavel, came together at LSE on Thursday 16 May (2002) to debate The Law of War in the Age of Terror. (full long text).

At the Kimmel, Salman Rushdie discusses Islam, fiction and the “aesthetic of dirt”.

Continuer la lecture de « Fred Halliday – Ireland »

Linked with In the company of Abu Abdallah Rudaki.

Abdullah Jafar Ibn Mohammad Rudaki, ( … text in farsi … ), also written as Rudagi or Rudhagi, (859-941) was a Persian poet, and the first great literary genius of modern Persian language, who composed poems in the « New Persian » Perso-Arabic alphabet script. Rudaki is considered a founder of Persian classical literature.

He was born in 858 in Rudak (Panjrud), a village in Khorasan, Persia[1][2] , which is now located in Panjakent, Tajikistan. Most of his biographers assert that he was totally blind, but the accurate knowledge of colors shown in his poems makes this very doubtful. He was the court poet to the Samanid ruler Nasr II (914-943) in Bukhara, but he eventually fell out of favour and ended his life in poverty … (full text).

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Abdullah Jafar Ibn Mohammad Rudaki – Persia/Tajikistan (859-941)

TEHRAN, Jan. 22 (Mehr News Agency) — Iran and Tajikistan will jointly celebrate the 1150th birth anniversary of the Persian poet Abu Abdullah Jafar ibn Mohammad Rudaki (858-941) during a series of programs in 2008. (full text, Iran, Tajikistan team up to honor Persian poet Rudaki).

Poet Rudaki.

… Rodaki’s life sets a solid example for the faithfuls to the effect that come what may, it is incumbent upon one to remain firm and unshaken upon one’s own faith, conception and attachment to the Lord of the Age, even at the time of breath taking circumstances, for the Real Life is gained and attained only through the infallible love and attachment to the Lord of the Age. True lover never dies. Rodaki set the just example. Although the enemies of the Imam of the Time deprived him of his eyesight, no tyrant could snatch of him the inner vision derived by his unfailing love and attachment to the progeny of ‘Ahle Bait’ and in spite of the most hardest turmoil he remained inexhaustible in his love for the Imam of the Time and, Inshallah. his name will remain ever shining, for: « Hargiz namiread anki dilash zinda shud bi ishk; Sibt ast bar jaridai aaiam dawam ma. » (full text, Rodaki – Famous Ismaili Poet and Intellectual).

Continuer la lecture de « Abdullah Jafar Ibn Mohammad Rudaki – Persia/Tajikistan (859-941) »