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Is Free Speech Good for Muslims? - The New York Times

Most Muslims watching this debate would probably sympathize with Mr. Rose, thinking he was defending them. Mr. Rose, however, was merely defending a liberal principle: freedom for all. It was the very principle that led him to publish the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad — cartoons seen by many Muslims, including me, as offensive. This is just one of many manifestations of a paradox Muslims, especially those of us living in the West, face in the modern world: They are threatened by Islamophobic forces against which they need the protections offered by liberalism — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, nondiscrimination. But the same liberalism also brings them realities that most of them find un-Islamic — irreverence toward religion, tolerance of L.G.B.T. people, permissive attitudes on sex. They can’t easily decide, therefore, whether liberalism is good or bad for Muslims. Continue reading the main story Mustafa Akyol Religion and politics in Turkey. What Jesus Can Teach Today’s Muslims FEB 13 Why It’s Not Wrong to Wish Muslims Merry Christmas DEC 23 Turkey’s Populists See an Unlikely Ally NOV 16 The Plot Against America or the Plot by America? OCT 28 The Problem With the Islamic Apocalypse OCT 3 See More » The same paradox can also be seen in the debates over female dress. When illiberal secularists in the West interfere regarding the outfits of conservative Muslim women — with bans on the burqa, the “burkini” or even just the head scarf — the defense is found within liberalism: Women have the right to “dress as they please.” This, of course, is a perfectly legitimate argument in a free society.

Nikki Haley Calls United Nations Human Rights Council ‘So Corrupt’ - The New York Times

UNITED NATIONS — The American envoy to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, described the United States on Wednesday as the “moral conscience” of the world, and she dismissed the United Nations Human Rights Council as “so corrupt” without offering evidence. Ms. Haley said the United States would never close its doors to foreigners who flee persecution, even as she defended the Trump administration’s travel ban, which closed the door to refugees from six war-torn, mainly Muslim nations. She insisted that American taxpayers should get value for the money they contribute to the United Nations. She said nothing about whether the United States would help head off a potential humanitarian disaster from famine that the United Nations has warned is looming over 20 million people abroad. Ms. Haley’s remarks, made at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York early Wednesday morning, were her first as ambassador to an audience of foreign policy experts. She called it “an intimidating crowd.” Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Delicate but Critical Dance for New U.N. Leader and New U.S. Envoy MARCH 16, 2017 UNITED NATIONS MEMO World’s Diplomats, Seeking a Bridge to Trump, Look to Haley FEB. 12, 2017 Nikki Haley’s Path: From Daughter of Immigrants to Trump’s Pick for U.N. NOV. 23, 2016 She briefly channeled her boss, President Trump, by describing the United Nations as “basically a club” that needed to be disrupted. “The fact is, a wave is building throughout the world,” Ms. Haley said. “It’s a wave of populism that is challenging institutions like the United Nations, and shaking them to their foundations.”

AP Investigation: 5 Things to Know About UN Sex Abuse - The New York Times

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Here are key findings on AP's investigation into in the U.N.'s peacekeeping crisis: 1. The AP reviewed 12 years of UN data on sexual misconduct and exploitation, and found an estimated 2,000 allegations against peacekeepers and personnel — signaling the crisis is much larger than previously known. 2. More than 300 of the allegations involved children, AP found, but only a fraction of the alleged perpetrators served jail time. 3. A U.N. investigation report from 2007 obtained by AP shows that 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers sexually exploited and abused at least nine Haitian children. No one was jailed, and Sri Lanka kept participating in U.N. missions in Haiti and elsewhere. 4. Sri Lanka refuses to specify what happened in the investigations into the soldiers who were disciplined for the child sex ring in Haiti and why so few were punished given that the U.N. internal report cited 134 soldiers. 5. In the latest U.N. annual report, Sri Lanka is cited for its "best practices" involving a paternity payment made recently to a Haitian woman. It took Sri Lanka nearly a decade to make the payment.

Climate Change May Be Intensifying China’s Smog Crisis - The New York Times

But new research suggests another factor may be hindering China’s efforts to take control of its devastating smog crisis: climate change. Changing weather patterns linked to rising global temperatures have resulted in a dearth of wind across northern China, according to several recent studies, exacerbating a wave of severe pollution that has been blamed for millions of premature deaths. Wind usually helps blow away smog, but changes in weather patterns in recent decades have left many of China’s most populous cities poorly ventilated, scientists say. The findings, some of the first to link climate change to smog, may escalate pressure on Chinese leaders to move more swiftly to shutter steel factories and coal-fired power plants amid rising public anger over smog caused by soot and gases like sulfur dioxide. The research could also push China to assume an even more forceful role in international efforts to curb climate change by reducing carbon emissions, at a time when the United States, under President Trump, appears to be backing away from the issue.

The Case for Global Optimism | Foreign Affairs

Historians looking back on this age from the vantage point of later generations, however, are likely to be puzzled by the widespread contemporary feelings of gloom and doom. By most objective measures of human well-being, the past three decades have been the best in history. More and more people in more and more places are enjoying better lives than ever before. Nor is this an accident—because despite Samuel Huntington’s foreboding, what has occurred over recent generations is not a clash of civilizations but a fusion of civilizations. To put it simply, the great world civilizations, which used to have detached and separate identities, now have increasingly overlapping areas of commonality. Most people around the world now have the same aspirations as the Western middle classes: they want their children to get good educations, land good jobs, and live happy, productive lives as members of stable, peaceful communities. Instead of feeling depressed, the West should be celebrating its phenomenal success at injecting the key elements of its worldview into other great civilizations.

The Case for Global Optimism | Foreign Affairs

Historians looking back on this age from the vantage point of later generations, however, are likely to be puzzled by the widespread contemporary feelings of gloom and doom. By most objective measures of human well-being, the past three decades have been the best in history. More and more people in more and more places are enjoying better lives than ever before. Nor is this an accident—because despite Samuel Huntington’s foreboding, what has occurred over recent generations is not a clash of civilizations but a fusion of civilizations. To put it simply, the great world civilizations, which used to have detached and separate identities, now have increasingly overlapping areas of commonality. Most people around the world now have the same aspirations as the Western middle classes: they want their children to get good educations, land good jobs, and live happy, productive lives as members of stable, peaceful communities. Instead of feeling depressed, the West should be celebrating its phenomenal success at injecting the key elements of its worldview into other great civilizations.

Shadi Hamid's 'Islamic Exceptionalism' and the Meaningless Politics of Liberal Democracies - The Atlantic

Ben Affleck has become an unlikely spokesman for a view on Islam held by many on the American left. In 2014, the actor made a now-famous stand against Bill Maher and Sam Harris in defense of Muslims, arguing that it’s wrong to make generalizations about the religion based on ideological extremists and terrorists. “How about the more than 1 billion people who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punch women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, and pray five times a day?” he said.  In his new book Islamic Exceptionalism, Shadi Hamid—an Atlantic contributor, a scholar at Brookings, and a self-identified liberal—calls Affleck’s declaration a “well-intentioned … red herring.” Islam really is different from other religions, he says, and many Muslims view politics, theocracy, and violence differently than do Christians, Jews, or non-religious people in Europe and the United States. RELATED STORY Is Islam ‘Exceptional’? Perhaps his most provocative claim is this: History will not necessarily favor the secular, liberal democracies of the West. Hamid does not believe all countries will inevitably follow a path from revolution to rational Enlightenment and non-theocratic government, nor should they. There are some basic arguments for this: Islam is growing, and in some majority-Muslim nations, huge numbers of citizens believe Islamic law should be upheld by the state. But Hamid also thinks there’s something lacking in Western democracies, that there’s a sense of overarching meaninglessness in political and cultural life in these countries that can help explain why a young Muslim who grew up in the U.K. might feel drawn to martyrdom, for example. This is not a dismissal of democracy, nor does it comprehensively explain the phenomenon of jihadism. Rather, it’s a note of skepticism about the promise of secular democracy—and the wisdom of pushing that model on other cultures and regions.  Most Islamists—people who, in his words, “believe Islam or Islamic law should play a central role in political life”—are not terrorists. But the meaning they find in religion, Hamid said, helps explain their vision of governance, and it’s one that can seem incomprehensible to people who live in liberal democracies. I spoke with Hamid recently about Islamism, ISIS, and the “patronizing” assumptions Americans sometimes make about Islam. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.