May-June 2016
Bombing of Hospitals in War-torn Places By Habib Siddiqui: Death is almost never welcome. And it is simply unacceptable to find out that someone had died in a hospital not because of his or her illness but because of bombing sustained by the facility. It is a major crime to attack a hospital. Unfortunately, that is what has been happening in war ravaged territories from Afghanistan to Israel. Read More
Where is Israel heading to? By Habib Siddiqui: General Ya’ir Golan, the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, delivered a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. He said, "If there is something that frightens me about the memories of the Holocaust, it is the knowledge of the awful processes which happened in Europe in general, and in Germany in particular, 70, 80, 90 years ago, and finding traces of them here in our midst, today, in 2016." Read More
Reflections on the Orlando Massacre by Prof. Abdul Jabbar: From the evidence that has surfaced in bits and pieces so far, it seems that Omar Mateen, the mass murderer in Orlando, Florida, had no ties to any outside terrorist organization. Radicalized by propaganda on the internet, he was acting alone, driven by his hate and possibly fueled by his mental illness. His heinous crime was made possible by our gun ownership laws that allowed him to possess assault weapons that should be limited only to war-time use by soldiers. This horrific tragedy is doubly tragic for Muslims in America because the perpetrator of this crime happened to have a Muslim name, even though he was a Muslim in his name only. No sane and true Muslim or a follower of any faith would do what he did. His action is doubly abhorrent because, firstly, it happened during the month of Ramadan that is holy for Muslims and devoted to spiritualism, kindness, and piety. And, secondly, he targeted the community that has always stood by Muslims against Islamophobia in this country. Read More
American Education System and the Trillion-Dollar Student Loan Wajid Hassan: Students in the United States are over-burdened with college tuition debt. Data from the Federal Reserve of Cleveland reports that “outstanding student loan balances reached $1.2 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2015, making student loans the second largest category of debt after mortgages”. The New York Times reports that “over the past 35 years, college tuition at public universities has nearly quadrupled, to $9,139 in 2014”. This article expounds the current political debate around educationand suggests that the current trillion-dollar loan is actually an obstacle to the country’ economic progress. Read More
|