I’m reading Martha Nussbaum’s new book The New Religious Intolerance, and finding it as exasperating as I expected.
For one thing, there’s what (or who) is not in the index. She puts much of the focus on Islam and what she uncritically calls “Islamophobia,” but who is missing from the index? Maryam. Irshad Manji. Kenan Malik. Taslima. Tarek Fatah. Deeyah.
She argues that “European nations tend to conceive of nationhood and national belonging in ethno-religious and cultural-linguistic terms” [p 94] and that that makes it hard for immigrants to be seen as belonging.
… Read the restAs we’ve seen, there is another option, realized in a wide range of nations around the world: to define national belonging in terms of political ideals,
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)